Here to Stay (9 page)

She waited for Nathan to speak again, but he
didn’t. She supposed that maybe he was waiting for her, but she
didn’t know what else to say. She had spoken last. The silence in
the room seemed deafening. The rain whipped around the exterior of
the house with the same force as her body temperature appeared
determined to rise. She felt warm and moist in places that had
nothing to do with the climate.

He smelled good, like leather and rain.
Reluctantly, she surrendered and allowed her gaze to wander over
his profile while he stared into his brandy. Every feature spoke of
strength and beauty. She had never met another man like Nathan
Blackrope. And no one else had ever made her feel the way just
looking at him did. Everything about him appealed to her senses.
The way his clothes fit his lean, sinewy body. His long, silky
black hair. The heat in his eyes that spoke of passion and fire.
She sighed. But it was not to be.

“I should go,” Nathan muttered then stood. He
walked to the bar and set down his glass.

Disappointed that he was leaving so soon, she
deposited her glass on the table and followed him to the front
door, the trusty lantern in her right hand. “Thank you. It was very
sweet of you to bring me a light.”

He shrugged into his duster and took his hat
in his hands. He offered a strained smile. “It was just one of
those spontaneous things, you know…” His voice tailed off as his
gaze dropped to her mouth and then jerked back up to her eyes.

Paige’s heart leapt in her chest when she
recognized the hunger in his eyes. Need radiated from his entire
body. She could almost feel the vibrations. The realization rattled
her. She felt breathless.
Nathan wanted her
.

He settled the hat on his dark head. “Good
night.”

Before Paige could catch her breath, he had
opened the door and walked across the porch. She stood, rooted in
the doorway.

“Good night, Nathan,” she called to his
retreating back. He paused on the bottom step and turned around.
The way he looked at her had her feeling weak and suddenly too far
away. Rain dripped from the edge of his Stetson, but still he stood
there…looking at her like no one else had ever looked at her, with
a need and a hunger that dwarfed everything else into utter
insignificance. Rivulets of water slipped down his rain-slicked
duster. She wanted to run to him, but she couldn’t move. She prayed
he would run back to her, but he remained perfectly
still—motionless in the falling rain.

A blaze of lightning flashed through the dark
sky, and Paige saw in his eyes, for just the briefest fraction of a
second, the love that had once bound her to him. Before her heart
took another beat she sensed that that bond was as strong and
powerful as if it had never been broken. But suddenly the spell
shattered. Nathan turned and strode to his truck. Mute with regret,
she watched him drive away.

Could he—no ,no he couldn’t. Don’t build
yourself up for this kind of letdown, girl. It was just physical. A
man and a woman with a past getting a little too close for comfort.
That’s all it could be
.

Paige shivered as the cool spring night swept
away the warmth he had elicited. She closed her eyes and inhaled
the last of his lingering scent. Her body echoed with need. She
wanted him so much she felt like crying. Could she have had Nathan
tonight? Just one last time. Before she told him the things that
would forever change his feelings toward her. Now she would never
know. Why couldn’t she—just this once—take what she wanted and to
heck with the consequences? Live for today and forget about
tomorrow.

She grasped the lantern, sucked in a breath
and hit the darkness and rain in a dead run. With no neighbors for
as far as the eye could see and no traffic on the long stretch of
country road, Paige dashed through the night with no worry of being
seen in the now rain-soaked nightshirt. She didn’t slow down…didn’t
look back. She ran through the wet grass and across the blacktop,
all the way to his house.

Paige shivered when she at last stopped at
the bottom of the steps that led to his porch. She took a moment to
catch her breath. The rain had decreased to a slow drizzle. A car
she didn’t recognize sat next to Nathan’s truck. Maybe it belonged
to one of his ranch hands. She shrugged and bound up the porch
steps two at a time. Light poured from the windows. The power was
back on. She glanced back at Robert’s house. Two rectangles of
light glowed from her bedroom windows. She smiled. She could chase
away the darkness now.

Paige set the lantern down and swiped at the
water running down her face. Before she reached Nathan’s door, she
came to an abrupt halt. Through the window she saw Celine, her long
arms draped around Nathan’s neck. His duster had been tossed on the
floor and Celine was unbuttoning his shirt. Anger and bitterness
welling inside her, Paige swallowed back the tears she would not
allow to fall and turned away. What had she expected? The hunger
she had seen in his eyes wasn’t exclusively for her—any warm body
would do. Just like before. Paige had gone back to Memphis and
Nathan had quickly replaced her. She had been a fool to believe
anything else.

Silently, she slipped back into the
darkness.

~*~

“Celine, you are going home,” Nathan insisted
for the third time. “This isn’t going to happen.” He pulled her
exploring hands from his chest and urged her toward the door.

“I don’t get it, Nathan,” she whined
breathlessly. “I thought we would be good together.”

“Just go home, Celine. I don’t appreciate you
showing up uninvited like this.” He was quickly losing patience
with the pushy female. Asking her out had proven to be a big
mistake. Now she wouldn’t leave him alone.

“Fine,” she huffed. “Obviously you’ve got big
problems, Nathan.” She jerked on her translucent raincoat and
pinned him with a loathsome glare.

“Bigger than you know, Celine,” he agreed as
he ushered her out the door.

“Don’t expect me to come back the next time
you get lonesome,” she called back over her shoulder as she stamped
down the steps.

Nathan shook his head. The gentleman in him
wouldn’t let him close the door until he had seen her safely in her
car. Celine spun away in a spray of gravel and mud. Nathan flipped
off his porch light and started to close the door. It was then that
he noticed the lantern.

The air rushed from his lungs.

His gut wrenched when he realized what must
have happened.
Paige
. He sagged against the door frame and
closed his eyes with a frustrated groan.

Paige had followed him home.

Chapter Six

Paige paced the length of sidewalk in front
of Calvin’s house once more. She ignored the stares bestowed upon
her by Calvin’s neighbors. She looked as out of place in this
neighborhood as Calvin would look on her father’s front lawn in
Central Gardens. Looks of curiosity and disapproval stopped
bothering her long ago. Between her father’s condemning glances and
other people’s curiosity about Jesse’s heritage, Paige had received
more than her share of stares.

She replayed the telephone conversation she
had gotten from Myers over and over in her head. Why would Calvin
take off with two known felons? It didn’t make sense. The kid had
kept his nose clean until this drug possession incident and Paige
still thought the whole incident smelled a little fishy. Calvin
didn’t do drugs. Her instincts couldn’t be that wrong.

Pacing in the other direction, she shook her
head. Someone wanted to get Calvin in trouble. Someone who stood to
gain by putting him between a rock and a hard place. Paige knew
Myers was working double time to bring down one of the biggest drug
dealers in Memphis. There had to be a connection. Myers seemed to
think one existed. And he was too smart to waste his time chasing
dead ends.

She still couldn’t believe that Myers
actually had one of Calvin’s neighbors keeping an eye on him.
Winning his case would mean a tremendous career boost for the
newest addition to the DA’s office. Obviously the man intended to
cover all the bases to ensure a victory.

The breeze shifted and Paige shivered. The
image of Nathan standing in the drizzling rain distracted her
concentration. She hadn’t left the lantern on his porch as a
message, but its presence had obviously alerted him that she had
been there. He had called a dozen times and when it finally became
clear to him that she had no intention of answering, he had driven
over to pound on her door. Nathan had called her name over and
over. She closed her eyes and fought the memory. She had huddled in
her darkened room, staring out the open window and crying tears she
had sworn she would never again shed.

Before Nathan had gotten back in his truck,
he had stood there—in the rain—staring up at her window. He
couldn’t possibly see her in the darkness, but she could see him.
Every flash of lightning had revealed a clear picture of rain
pelting down against him.

The roar of a car’s engine jerked Paige from
her tortured thoughts. A cherry-red Mustang skidded to a stop on
the street in front of Calvin’s house. Darkly tinted windows
concealed the vehicle’s occupants. The powerful engine purred and
then revved as the passenger-side door opened. Loud, thumping music
vibrated, filling the entire neighborhood with its beat.

Paige watched with growing apprehension as a
pair of high-top sneaker-clad feet settled to the ground before the
owner of those feet raised himself from the car’s interior. Even
with the mirrored sunglasses and the baseball cap pulled down low,
Paige recognized Calvin. She released an unsteady breath and held
her ground at the bottom of the steps leading to his front door. He
ambled up the sidewalk in her direction. The Mustang sped away in a
squeal of tires and a scream of fuel-injected horsepower.

Calvin jerked off his sunglasses and glared
at her. “Miss P., what are you doing here?” He shot an anxious look
right to left.

“I’m checking up on you, Calvin,” she told
him bluntly. She crossed her arms over her chest and fixed the six
foot, eighteen-year-old with a firm look. Calvin towered over her
in his baggy, low-slung jeans and black T-shirt that displayed a
large ghostlike X, but Paige felt nothing that resembled fear.
Right now the only thing coursing through her veins was
irritation.

“Why you checking up on me? I ain’t done
nothing.” He clipped his sunglasses on the neck of his shirt and
then propped his hands on his slim hips.

“Calvin, you promised me that I could count
on you.” She matched his defiant stance.

“I told you I ain’t done nothing wrong, just
took a ride that’s all.” He defended himself with typical
adolescent arrogance.

“Who’d you take a ride with?” She looked him
straight in the eye. If he lied she would know it. Calvin wasn’t
very good at hiding his true feelings.

He dropped his gaze to the cracked sidewalk.
“You don’t want to know,” he mumbled, defeated.

“Calvin, if you need help, I’m your attorney.
I’m the person to ask,” she spoke firmly, gently.

“You don’t want no part of this, Miss Paige.”
He shook his bowed head in defeat. “I don’t want no part of it
either, but I ain’t got no choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Calvin.”

Calvin lifted his gaze back to hers. “They
gonna hurt me bad if I talk. But if I don’t talk the DA won’t drop
the charges against me.” Hopelessness registered in his eyes, his
voice, even in his posture.

“Myers made you an offer?” Paige asked in
disbelief.

Calvin nodded.

She expelled a hot curse under her breath. If
the charges stood against Calvin, he would lose the athletic
scholarship he had been awarded for college. If he talked to Myers
he would lose something much more personal, maybe his life. “Do you
know something that important?”

Calvin glanced nervously from side to side
again. “Somebody seems to think so.”

“Those two guys who gave you a ride, did they
threaten you?” Paige held her breath as she waited for his
response.

Calvin slowly nodded.

She thought about her options, only one
seemed feasible at the moment. “Next week is spring break, right?”
Calvin nodded again. “Okay. I want you to pack up a few things,
you’re taking a little vacation. Call your boss at Pizza Hut and
tell him you’ve got the flu.”

Calvin frowned. “I ain’t sick.”

“Do it, Calvin,” she ordered. He reluctantly
obeyed. While Calvin packed what he would need for a few days,
Paige called his grandmother. Twenty minutes later, they were on
their way to Trinity.

Steam practically billowed from her ears as
she considered that Myers had made her client an offer behind her
back. He would regret that move. Not only had he behaved in an
unethical manner, he had endangered her client’s life—a boy barely
old enough to be treated as an adult in the eyes of the law.
Somehow Paige had to keep Calvin safe until they could sort all of
this out.

~*~

Once Paige had gotten Calvin settled into
Robert’s guest room, there had been plenty of time to take a long,
relaxing ride. Calvin had never been on a horse, and the kid had
thoroughly enjoyed himself. With dusk beginning to settle, they
still had time to groom the horses before dinner.

“One of the things you always do for your
horse after a ride is give her a good brushing and rubdown,” Paige
told Calvin. He watched closely as she smoothed the brush over
Ariel’s broad back.

“I do the same on Moonbeam?”

“That’s right,” she said with a smile. The
excitement in his eyes reaffirmed the decision she had made in
bringing Calvin to her uncle’s ranch.

Calvin took a brush and stroked the horse’s
velvety white back. “Like this?” he asked, looking to Paige for
approval. He brushed with long, smooth strokes just as she’d shown
him.