Belonging (10 page)

"We're not enemies, you know. In fact, I'd
like to think we're on the same side."

His voice was disarmingly gentle, so much so
that it caught her off guard for a moment. What manner of man was
Matt Richardson—really? The worn, faded jeans that embraced the
taut male thighs, the thin cotton shirt that hugged broad,
muscular shoulders, the harshly carved features that gave him a
tough, rugged look... The image sent an unexpected quiver of
awareness through her stomach. But she knew so little about the man
himself.

She made an attempt at lightness. To her
dismay, she sounded breathless. "I suppose we are, as long as we're
not discussing the city's budget."

Matt suppressed a smile. The budget? It was
the last thing on his mind. "Can we talk for a minute?" He inclined
his head toward the sofa, then held out his hand. "Though not," he
added, "about the budget."

His eyes flickered over her, and there was
both warmth and an undeniable male appreciation in those silver
depths. The glance, as well as his words, should have served as a
warning. Yet strangely, Angie wasn't obliged to listen. It occurred
to her with a sudden flash of humor that, if she couldn't trust the
chief of police, she couldn't trust anyone.

Shyly, rather hesitantly, she accepted the
hand he offered. His skin was warm, the fingertips faintly
callused. His hand fell away the moment they were seated on the
sofa, and Angie wasn't sure if she was relieved or
disappointed.

Matt was silent for a few seconds. "I have a
confession to make, Angie." A smile tugged at the corner of his
mouth. "When we first met, I told myself, Matt, there's a woman
with everything. She's smart, savvy, dresses well, looks even
better. And she drives a Mercedes."

Angie found herself falling in with his mood.
"What happened to the part about being a cliff dweller?"

"That, too," he said smoothly.

Her ponytail had come loose hours ago, and a
heavy wave of hair swung over her shoulder as she laughed, that
carefree sound that never failed to stir him. The light from the
nearby lamp transformed the long silken strands of her mane into
silver and gold. Matt fought the urge to reach out and run his
fingers through her hair, to see if it was as soft as it
looked.

"Well?" She was looking at him expectantly.
"What did you think of this woman who has everything?"

A hand came up to absently finger his jaw.
For the first time he wondered what had possessed him to bring up
the subject. "To tell you the truth, I thought you were just
another wealthy snob who enjoyed looking down her nose at everyone
else."

"Just another wealthy snob," she found
herself teasing. "A species you're familiar with?"

"Thanks to my ex-wife, yes." The words were
emphasized by a lift of his brows. "Not a species I particularly
care for."

Oddly, Angie wasn't offended. Todd had told
her much the same thing once. But the people she cared about and
who cared about her knew differently. And it was somehow important
that Matt know, too.

"I have a confession to make," she told him,
her eyes sparkling humorously. "Contrary to popular opinion, I am
not a wealthy woman. Comfortably well- off, I'll admit, thanks to a
rather timely investment in oil futures—"

"Just as I thought. Bright. Very bright."

"Lucky," she put in dryly. Then the smile on
her lips blossomed further. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial
whisper. "You won't tell anyone my Mercedes is ten years old, will
you? And that I bought it used?"

"Scout's honor," he promised, and held up his
hand.

"What Boy Scout troop did you belong to, Matt
Richardson?" Dubiously she eyed the two fingers so proudly
displayed.

Matt grinned and answered her question with
one of his own. "Has anyone ever told you you'd make a great
detective, Ms Mayor?" He dropped the hand he'd been holding up and
settled it along the back of the couch. His gaze drifted over the
soft curve of her cheek, the fragile line of her throat, then
coasted up to settle on the loose waves that fell over her
shoulder.

"I like your hair down," he said
suddenly.

Her hand automatically reached for the curls
that skimmed her collarbone. "Thank you," she returned
breathlessly. She felt more like a self-conscious teenager than a
thirty-two-year-old woman.

"It makes you look more relaxed. And I don't
feel like you're about to bite my head off—" a slight smile lifted
the corners of his mouth "—the way you did last Monday in your
office. And last night," he added.

Her own smile was hesitant. "I...you put me
on the spot Monday. And I think you were making a pass last
night."

No, he countered silently. He was about to
make one now.

"It wasn't a criminal transgression the last
time I checked." He was teasing her, but this time she didn't
respond. Instead, she lowered her eyes, pretending a fascinated
interest in the knee patch on his jeans.

A gentle finger raised her chin. "I'm glad I
was wrong about you, Angie." Eyes like beaten silver settled with
disturbing accuracy on the curve of her mouth. "Because I'd like to
get to know you. The real you." His voice dropped further. "The
woman no one else sees—warm, vibrant and alive."

There was no denying the underlying
seriousness of his words, whisper soft in the sudden stillness of
the room, just as there was no denying his intent. He wanted to
know her as a man knows a woman. Intimately. And hadn't she sensed
all along that Matt Richardson was not a man who would be easily
dissuaded?

Angie wished with all her soul that she could
summon the icy disdain that he disliked so much. She couldn't risk
letting him exchange their roles for anything that even resembled
a male-female relationship. What he wanted was impossible. She felt
suddenly inadequate. Wholly inadequate in a way she hadn't felt
since Evan was alive.

She didn't realize she had risen and moved
away from him until she felt the coolness of the windowpane beneath
her fingertips.

Outside, the world was still and dark. The
midnight canopy high above displayed a brilliant cluster of stars.
A night breeze sighed through the trees, then fell silent.

On the wall beside the rich wooden frame of
the window, a shadow suddenly loomed. Every muscle in her body
tightened, heightened to an almost painful awareness. Slowly she
turned.

The impressive width of Matt's shoulders
blocked out the light, and she could see nothing of his features,
only a dark, menacing form. There was strength coiled in those
lean, ridged muscles. He seemed so big; the nuance of power and
force was suddenly frightening. She fought the surge of panic that
clawed its way up into her throat when hands, large, strong and so
very, very male, reached for her.

She shook her head and flinched when he would
have touched her. "Don't, Matt. Don't!"

His hands immediately dropped to his sides.
There was a heartbeat of silence while they stared at each other,
one watching, the other waiting.

"Angie?" The voice was low, questioning. The
utter calm of his tone had an inexplicably soothing effect on
her.

"Matt, please." Hair like corn silk whispered
over the fragile bones of her shoulders as Angie took a deep,
steadying breath, a little ashamed of her reaction. "What you're
asking... well, I'm—I'm just not—"

"I know. Not interested." He gave an odd
little smile. His voice was almost unbearably gentle. The flicker
of fear in her heart vanished as quickly as it had come. "I'm going
to have to change that," he added softly, so softly she had to
strain to hear.

She felt a wave of something that might have
been regret. Even if she wanted to, she wasn't sure she could have
accepted what he was offering. Once there was a time she'd had an
unswerving faith in her womanhood. But Evan had managed to kill
even that.

"Don't, Matt." She shook her head resignedly.
Her smile was a little sad. "Please... don't even try."

"Can you give me one good reason why I
shouldn't?"

Angie was silent, her mind filled with a
yawning bleakness. She couldn't have given him many. Instead, she
could think of only one. Evan.

"You sound very sure of yourself," he said
into the silence.

She ignored the question in his tone. Her
marriage had ended in a state that could only be called
nightmarish. She would discuss it with no one. Least of all
another man.

"I am," she said finally. There could be no
mistaking the cold finality of those two simple words.

"Because of Todd?"

She straightened her shoulders. Matt had
moved back a step. She no longer felt trapped. "Todd is the city
manager," she told him clearly. "And we're friends, no more, no
less."

Matt stared at her so long she began to grow
uneasy once more. "Then Todd," he finally said very quietly, "is a
fool."

"Matt, please." She gestured vaguely with one
hand. "Let's just drop it."

"Not until I find out why I don't have more
than a snowball's chance in hell with you."

Angie's lids closed wearily. Stubborn. Lord,
but this man was stubborn!

"Is it because of your ex-husband?"

Angie's eyes snapped open. For one paralyzing
second she was afraid she had given herself away with her stupid
maidenly response to him earlier.

Matt had mistaken her silence for
concurrence. He hesitated, not certain what he could say if she was
still carrying a torch for her ex.

"I'm sorry," he began quietly. "I know how
painful a divorce can be." He paused. "But there's no point in
pining away for—"

Pining away! She had thanked God for the day
that Evan had been removed from her life! And still she hated
herself for it, even while she fought the irrationality of her
feelings.

Drawing herself up to her full height, she
lifted her chin and stared across at him. Her voice cut across his
like the sudden crack of a bullet. "My husband is dead, Matt. I'm a
widow."

The shock of that statement still hadn't worn
off when Matt let himself through the front door of his house less
than fifteen minutes later.

For the second night in a row, he sat alone
in the darkness. Only this time his thoughts lacked the self-
satisfaction of the previous night. And this time there was a tall
glass of amber liquid locked tightly in his hand.

He leaned his head back wearily. All along he
had thought the worst of Angie. Even when his assumptions weren't
borne out, he realized that deep inside he'd suspected she'd been
milking an ex-husband for all he was worth. Her clothes, the
Mercedes, the antiques...

His retreat had been hasty and clumsy. He
didn't doubt that Angie was glad to see him leave. He'd had no idea
what to say or what to do. And it didn't help that Angie had
retreated into cool silence.

The mistake had been an understandable one,
and Angie herself had done nothing that might have avoided it.

"Who are you kidding, old man?" he chided
himself grimly. "She all but told you to mind your own
business."

But if nothing else, he had learned several
important things. It was hard to look at a woman as stun

ning as she was and not think of a word like
seduction. Yet his attraction to her wasn't something fleeting; he
wanted her more than he'd wanted anything in a long, long time. For
a moment, a mere fraction of a second, he'd thought she was afraid
of him. But it was gone so quickly that he decided it was only his
imagination. Still, there was no arguing that she was a woman who
was very—no, extremely—careful around the opposite sex.

Not the type of woman to allow a man many
mistakes.

***

The weekend left Angie feeling strangely
restless. The usual peace she felt when enjoying herself with the
girls had been diminished by a tall, gray-eyed man whose image she
couldn't seem to banish from her mind, no matter how hard she
tried. Sunday seemed to drag endlessly.

Angie wasn't normally a moody person, but she
was unusually short with the girls on Monday morning and she
snapped at Georgia for an oversight in marking her calendar for a
luncheon Friday afternoon. The recommendations that the task force
had put together on the fate of city hall were sitting on her desk,
and after reading them through, she had to schedule a meeting with
Matt sometime that day in order to prepare for that evening's city
council meeting—not a move she relished any more than the council
meeting itself.

Angie's moodiness did not go unnoticed by
Georgia, however. It was almost eleven-thirty when her assistant
breezed into the office, humming softly. Angie frowned. When was
the last time she'd heard the woman humming to herself?

Georgia walked over and peered into her empty
coffee cup. "Looks like you need another morning pick- me-up.
Maybe it'll improve your mood."

"Obviously yours doesn't need improving,"
Angie muttered.

"Can't say that it does," the other woman
agreed. She tossed the morning edition of the Westridge Bulletin
onto Angie's desk. "Have you read that yet?"

"Are you kidding? It took me an hour to wade
through that report on city hall!"

Her assistant laughed. "Why not do it now?"
she suggested. "There's an item in there you might be interested
in."

Angie nodded and began to automatically flip
to the section containing area news. Georgia stopped her with a
shake of her head. "Not there, boss lady. Check out the social
tidbits instead."

"Social tidbits?" An eyebrow arched
mockingly. "I can do without all the local gossip, thank you."

Georgia laughed. "I don't doubt it. But you
might want to read Blair Andrews's column."

Angie's expression turned even more
threatening. "Good Lord," she muttered. "I'm not sure I want to see
this."