Here to Stay (8 page)

“I’m sorry, Paige. As much as I despise your
daddy, I would have never wanted this.” He took the hand she’d been
using to torture the grass. He squeezed and allowed her warmth to
flow through him. His chest ached at the pain in her eyes. How
could Elliott Weston do this to his own daughter? The man was
scum.

“Nathan, I never meant to hurt you,” she said
quickly. “When Mother died, I couldn’t turn my back on my father.
He needed me so much. Maybe for the first time in my life. I
couldn’t walk away and you refused to understand.” Paige shook her
head. “You were so angry and I felt sure there was nothing left
between us—that you didn’t want me anymore after that.” She fell
silent for a while, then visibly steeled herself before she spoke
again. “When Nalin died, I realized what a mistake I’d made.
I—”

“We don’t have to talk about that,” Nathan
cut in. He didn’t want to discuss the night his mother died. That
night had damaged his heart beyond repair. He had loved Paige so
much, consummating that love had ruined him for anyone else. And
then she had walked away like it never happened. Nathan forced back
the anger that wanted to rise. He didn’t want to hate Paige anymore
and he didn’t want her to hate him, either.

“I waited,” Paige went on despite his
protests. “Just like I promised you I would.” Her eyes begged him
to understand. “I never wanted anyone else. You were—”

Nathan sprang to his feet and turned his back
to her. “I don’t want to talk about this.” Pictures, words and
memories tumbled into his mind. “I thought you wanted to go from
here, not rehash the past.” Nathan tried to still the quaking he
felt, but it came from deep inside and he couldn’t prevent it.

“I need you to understand,” Paige insisted.
She got to her feet and moved around to face him.

Too close. He didn’t want her so close. He
almost took a step back, but her eyes held him still.

“I can’t bear all this bitterness any
longer.”

The wind shifted her soft hair over her
shoulders, tempting his fingers. Paige hesitantly touched his arm
and he shrugged away her touch. Nathan didn’t want her to touch
him. Her touch made him feel things he didn’t want to feel and long
for something he couldn’t have.

“Nathan, you don’t understand how much you
hurt me—”

“I hurt you?” His anger flared. It consumed
him, pushed away every other emotion, even the pain. “You just
don’t get it, do you?” He shoved his hands through his hair and
tried to calm himself, before he exploded into a thousand,
screaming pieces. “You walked away from me,” he ground out. “And
never came back. I thought…” He couldn’t say the words.

“Why would I want to come back?” Paige’s voce
rose sharply. “You didn’t need me.”

“I didn’t need you?” he asked, amazed that
she could say such a thing. He suppressed the shudder that
threatened to shake him. “Do you have any idea how—” His breath
jammed in his chest. He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he
needed to say. He let out a defeated little laugh before finally
allowing his gaze to meet hers again. “I even prayed.” He shook his
head. “Prayed for a miracle that never came.”

“You should’ve been praying for your own
two-timing soul, you arrogant idiot!” she shouted.

The woman was crazy! He hadn’t done a damned
thing. She was the one! The one who left. The one who never came
back. “What’d you expect, Paige?” He flung his arms heavenward.
“Did you think I’d come crawling to Memphis and beg you to have
me?” He shook his head and planted his hands firmly on his hips.
“Not in this lifetime, Blondie.” He pointed his finger at her. “We
made love and you never came back.” His words were flat and
bitter.

Paige flattened her palms against his chest
and pushed hard, forcing him to take a step backward. “You
mule-headed jerk! I tried to comfort you and you took advantage of
me.”

“Took advantage of you?” Nathan huffed an
indignant breath. “Nobody twisted your arm. You practically threw
yourself at me.”

“And it meant nothing to you!” She shoved at
him again, propelling him back another step. “You had your fun. But
as soon as I was back in Memphis you married the girlfriend you
failed to mention while you were making love to me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He
grabbed her wrists and prevented her next shove. She wrestled to
free herself, but he held her tighter. “What are you talking about,
Paige?”

She glared at him through a sheen of tears.
Her lips trembled. Nathan had to restrain himself from covering her
lips with his own and soothing them into a sweet oblivion. “Tell me
what you’re talking about,” he demanded, more gently this time. He
loosened his grasp on her wrists when she stopped fighting him.

“A few weeks later…I…I came back.” She
shuddered and tears spilled past her thick lashes. “Robert told me
you’d already married someone else.” Paige pulled herself free of
his relaxed hold. “My father told me I should have expected it…I
shouldn’t have trusted you”

Nathan’s mind whirled. He moved his head from
side to side in denial. She couldn’t believe that. Paige drew in a
sharp breath, drawing his attention back to her confused eyes.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. This just couldn’t be. All these
years.

“Paige, I didn’t even meet her until a month
after you left. I waited, hoped, prayed even that you would come
back. When you didn’t, I lost control and married the first woman
who showed interest. I thought I could forget you.”

“But…” Paige shook her head and backed away a
step. “You weren’t already engaged when we…?” Her questioning gaze
locked on his.

“No,” he answered her unfinished question.
The past that should have been flashed before his eyes as he stood
there looking at Paige. Nathan felt as if a twister had ripped
through him, leaving a gaping hole where his soul used to be. She
was all he ever wanted and his stupid pride had taken her from him.
She had come for him and he had already made the mistake that would
ruin both their lives.

“All this time, I thought you…” Paige’s
expression cluttered with confusion.

Nathan’s whole body grieved. His heart
dropped into his boots. Pride had kept him from calling her or
going to Memphis to get her immediately after she had left. When
she didn’t come back, he had sought revenge. He had ruined their
lives. He took a tentative step toward her. Her eyes filled with
the same pain and regret he felt. Nathan reached out and caressed
her cheek. He tried to tell her with his eyes what he couldn’t find
the words to say. He slid his arms around her and pulled her close.
She fit perfectly against him, as she always had. Her cheek against
his chest, his chin against her soft hair. Her warm body soothed
the deep, dark ache inside him.

Paige clung to Nathan, cried softly into his
shirt. He pressed his lips to her hair. “Shh, don’t cry,” he
whispered. “It’s over now. We can…We can still be friends.” At
least they could have that. Nathan felt Paige tense in his arms.
She tilted her tear-stained face up to his. Her sweet lips entirely
too close…too inviting.

“Do you mean that? We can forget the past and
try to be friends?”

He smiled. She was so beautiful. If she would
still accept his friendship, it was hers. She never had to know the
truth—that he would go to his grave loving her. “Yes. I’d like
that.”

She smiled then. “I’m so glad, Nathan.
There’s so much I need to tell you.”

He pressed her cheek against his chest and
squeezed her tight. “Let’s not talk anymore right now. There will
be time later.” She nodded against him. He couldn’t deal with
anything else right now.

Nathan felt some sense of relief that Paige
seemed so happy, but somehow he didn’t feel happy at all.

~*~

Paige fumbled through the dark, trying to
find her way down the stairs. The storm had knocked the power out.
She shivered. She hated the dark. She wasn’t really afraid. Not
really, she reminded herself. It was just the idea of not being
able to turn the lights on. She had never slept with a nightlight
or anything like that, not even as a child. But she often awoke in
the middle of the night and turned the bedside lamp on just to make
sure she could send away the darkness if she chose to.

Paige felt her way into the kitchen and
opened one drawer at a time, carefully examining and identifying
the contents by touch. There had to be a candle or flashlight
around here someplace. Lightning flashed, temporarily illuminating
the room. A boom of thunder followed a few seconds later. She hated
storms, too.

She had gone to bed over an hour ago, but
couldn’t sleep. Her mind reeled with all that had happened. She and
Nathan were actually going to try to be friends. Paige had been
shocked to discover that he hadn’t made love to her while engaged
to someone else. If she had only known, things would have been so
different. She and Nathan would have been raising Jesse together.
But she couldn’t change the past. She prayed with all her heart
that when she told Nathan about Jesse it wouldn’t undo the progress
they had made today. Just to be sure, she’d give it a few more days
to set before she tested their new friendship.

She had been prepared to tell him today, but
he had seemed talked out. She supposed it was the best to let this
soak in and then take the next step.

Her mind conjured up the memory of Nathan’s
arms around her. How on earth could she ever be just his friend?
She sighed. She loved to look at him, to hear him speak…to smell
his exclusive scent. Just watching him walk sent her heart into an
acrobatic act.

Paige frowned. What would she do when he
actually fell in love with someone else?
Like Celine,
she
thought with disgust. No matter how she had pretended to hate
Nathan, Paige knew deep down inside that she didn’t. But it was too
late. Too much time had passed. And then, of course, there was
Jesse. When Nathan found out she’d kept his son from him, he really
would hate her. She felt certain of that.

Feeling the tremendous weight of her error,
Paige sagged against the kitchen cabinet. She had done this to
herself. Nathan had been right all along. It was all her fault. She
should never have left after that night they spent together or she
should have come back sooner. But she’d wanted him to be the one to
make the move, to ask her to come back. She closed her eyes against
the overwhelming darkness. How she hated not being able to turn the
light on.

A knock at the front door made her jump. She
calmed her runaway heart, then felt her way to the entry hall. She
hadn’t heard a car drive up, which wasn’t surprising, considering
the storm raging outside.

Another knock echoed in the hall as she
neared the door. Why did anyone bother knocking, she wondered?
Nearly everyone in town seemed to have a key. Paige opened the door
hesitantly only an inch or so, and then wider. Nathan stood before
her, his black hat and long duster dripping water on the porch. He
held a kerosene lantern in one hand. A bright flash of lightning
lit up the darkness behind him, silhouetting his tall frame.

“Nathan, what are you doing out in this
storm?” The dim light from the lantern cast a glow over his
features. His dark eyes burned into her soul with a heat that
threatened to devour her right where she stood.

“I remembered that you didn’t like the dark,
so I brought you a lantern,” he said in that low, sensual voice
that sent shivers over her skin.

“Come in.” She held the door open wider. A
flame sprang to life inside her as his gaze flickered over her.

“I’ll just leave the lantern,” he offered
tentatively.

“No, don’t be silly.” Paige took his free
hand and pulled him inside. The feel of his hard, callused palm
sent a wave of heat up her arm. “You don’t want to go back out into
that storm.”

She took the lantern so he could get out of
his wet coat. Nathan hung his hat and coat on the hall tree. He
raked his fingers through his damp hair; muscle bunched and flexed
beneath his shirt as he moved. Paige tried her best not to notice
the way his jeans fit against all that made him male, but it was
impossible not to. Her nipples stood at attention, rubbing against
her pink night shirt.

“Come into the parlor and we’ll have a brandy
to chase away the chill.” She smiled and then led the way. Surely
with the dim light, he couldn’t see the physical response his
presence had caused. She set the lantern on the sofa table and
gestured for Nathan to have a seat. She poured them each a brandy.
Friends would do this.

Paige handed Nathan a snifter and then took a
seat next to him, but not too close. She pulled the hem of her
night shirt over her thighs as she tucked her feet under her
bottom.

“Did you hear from Robert today?” Nathan
asked as if that’s what he’d come through the rain and the storm to
find out.

“Yes. He and Ginny are having a great time.
Vegas may become as annual affair.” Paige laughed softly. “I think
they’re going to be really good together.”

“I think so, too,” Nathan agreed before
taking a sip of his brandy.

“You haven’t said much about how things are
going at your place,” she ventured when he didn’t say anything
else.

“We haven’t really done much talking until
today, now have we?” He smiled a sexy, heart-stopping kind of
smile.

“No, I guess we haven’t. We’ve been too busy
trying to take each other’s heads off.” Paige released a sigh and
drank down the last of the fiery liquid. It left a trail of warmth
as it flowed downward. Where the brandy’s effects left off,
Nathan’s began. She wondered if she had any effect on him
physically. Probably not. His level of sexual sophistication likely
surpassed becoming aroused by the mere sight of a scantily clad
female.