Debra Webb - In His Touch Box Set (Here To Stay, Up Close, Tempting Trace, Basic Instincts) (6 page)

She fastened her gaze back on his and folded her arms solemnly under her breasts. “You took advantage of me and you know it. How could you...” She hesitated and moistened her lips before she began again. “How could you have...?”

“Made love to you?” he offered. She flinched. Anger swirled, replacing the queasy feeling in Nathan’s stomach. She was as cool as ever. Paige, the reasonable... the attorney at law. Daddy’s little girl. Using her legal mind to dodge questions. “I was out of my mind with grief. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
And I was still in love with you
.

“Well, at least you got the ‘not thinking clearly’ part right.”

“Let’s drop it, okay?” Nathan took a deep, steadying breath. His brain throbbed inside his skull. He wasn’t in any condition to be getting ticked off right now.

“No. I won’t drop it.” Her hands went to her hips. “When are you going to admit you’re as much to blame in all this as me—maybe more? After all, you’re the one who got married.”

Nathan cocked an eyebrow. She was angry—good. He had never liked being angry alone. And she was definitely propelling him in that direction. “You left me, Paige. You were too busy listening to daddy to care about me.”

“My father is not the issue.”

Nathan smirked. “You don’t get it, do you, Blondie—”

“Don’t call me that,” she ordered. Her blue eyes blazed with indignation.

“Your daddy has always been the issue. If you didn’t live under his thumb, you could see it. Dear old dad is the one who ensured that you went away to that fancy school. His sole motivation was to keep you away from me.” The same old bitterness he always felt when he thought about Paige’s father reared its ugly head. Why couldn’t he have a reasonable conversation with the woman? Hell, he couldn’t even have a reasonable thought about her! “And look how well it worked.”

“As I told you before, you don’t know anything about me now. You have no idea where I work or live. Nothing. You know nothing!”

“I know that you chose your daddy over me. I know that.”

Paige shook her head. “You really believe all of this is my fault and you’re the innocent victim.”

“Close enough,” he told her, his jaw clenched. Damn, his head hurt.

“I guess we don’t have anything else to discuss, then.” Her eyes remained on his for a moment before she pivoted and headed toward the door.

Every ounce of his anger and bitterness suddenly drained away, leaving Nathan weak and hurting. The guarded expression he had seen in her eyes before she turned away worried him. Was she ready to give up? Go back to Memphis and never come back? Isn’t that what he wanted? No matter how much she had hurt him, Nathan couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again. These past five years had been pure hell.

“Is that how you really want to leave it?” At least the question had stopped her departure. He had no idea what he’d say next. In his present condition, he was lucky his brain even worked at all.

She turned to face him. The pain he saw in her eyes tugged at his battle-scarred heart. “No, Nathan, it’s not. I wanted us to be friends... to work all this out.”

Her choice of words resurrected the pain and bitterness a hundredfold. “Friends,” he muttered, stepping toward her. “Like it used to be.”

She nodded, her features drawn in wary anticipation. He saw her ready herself to make a dash for the door. Paige knew better than to be afraid of him, yet, somehow, she seemed to be.

“You want me to forget the dreams we shared... forget what we meant to each other? Can you pretend it never happened?”

“Nathan.” The muscles of her neck worked as she swallowed tightly. “Why can’t we just get past all that and go from here? Be friends.”

“I can do without friends like you,” he snapped.

She wavered under his angry glare. “I have to go,” she whispered. When she got to the door, she stopped, reached down and picked up something. Nathan frowned and then groaned inwardly. Even frowning hurt.

Paige considered the necklace she had picked up, the black pearls clicking together. Nathan stopped breathing. She lifted her gaze to his. Disgusted, she flung the necklace at him. The pearls hit him square in the chest, then fell to the floor.

“Why would you need friends like me when you have friends like Celine?” Paige glared at him for the space of a heartbeat before she stormed out of the room.

Nathan closed his eyes and tried to think. If he could only turn off the jackhammer in his head. He didn’t answer to Paige. Why would she care what he did? What did she want from him? Better still, what did he want from her? He had no idea. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t want to hurt her. And he’d done a bang-up job so far. Maybe they could be friends. Too much time had gone by for anything else. Being friends might just work. Right now Nathan had to get some caffeine in his bloodstream before he died from his hellacious hangover.

Chapter Four

“Your Honor, my client has no prior record and holds down a part time job. He’s an honor roll student. Refusal of bail could prove devastating to him academically as well as financially,” Paige countered the DA’s request to withhold bail for her client.

“Your Honor, the State has reason to believe Mr. Jefferson might flee,” urged the young, handsome deputy district attorney.

Paige turned and swept a measuring gaze over her adversary. “Perhaps, Mr. Myers would like to share with this court his compelling reason to make such a request?”

“That’s my line, counselor,” the judge chided Paige.

“Sorry, your Honor. Just thinking out loud.” She smiled apologetically.

“Perhaps you’d like to share with this court your compelling reason for making such a request, Mr. Myers?”

Paige bowed her head and tried to hide her grin. Judge Mattson had always been her favorite judge. He was one of the few who still had a sense of humor.

“Your Honor, the State has learned that Mr. Jefferson has made statements to several of his friends that he intends to avoid testifying.”

“Are these witnesses present this morning?”

“No, your Honor, they are not.”

“Request to withhold bail is denied. Bail is set at one thousand dollars.” Judge Mattson banged his gavel.

“Court is adjourned.”

“All rise,” the bailiff called.

Paige smiled at Calvin Jefferson, who proceeded to give her a big hug. Beatrice, his grandmother, reached over the bench and pulled Paige against her bosom.

“Thank you so much, honey,” she whispered, tears threatening.

“Everything is going to be fine, Beatrice.” Paige drew back and smiled reassuringly at the older woman dressed in her Sunday-go-to-the-meeting clothes. Beatrice had been like a mother to Paige since her own mother’s death, and she had been more than happy to take care of Jesse as well... at least when Elliott Weston was away.

“Thank you, Miss Paige.” Calvin grinned widely.

Paige gave her eighteen-year-old client a speculative look. “Myers better not know what he’s talking about, Calvin.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Paige, I won’t let you down.”

“I’ll make sure of that,” Beatrice put in firmly.

“You can make the bail?” Paige asked Beatrice.

Beatrice smiled and patted her hand. “Don’t worry none about that. Your daddy has always paid me fairly. I got the money to take care of my boy.”

“Okay, see you in two weeks then,” Paige told them.

Calvin nodded before disappearing with the guard; Beatrice followed to post the bail. Paige packed up her briefcase and steeled herself for the wrath of her opponent. Myers was new and ambitious. His political aspirations gave her the willies.

Myers met her in the center aisle, a statement in taste from his styled blond hair to his Armani suit and handmade Italian shoes. “You’re making a mistake, you know.”

“You really think Calvin will run?” she asked, wondering how he could be so sure of himself about her client. Especially since Paige knew her client personally.

“Yes, I do.”

She nodded and suppressed the smile that yearned to make its presence known. “I’ll guess we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we, counselor?”

“We will indeed, Miss Weston.” Myers gave her a curt nod and started to walk away.

“I plan to push for change to youthful offender status,” Paige called after him. She’d get one last jab before he got away.

Myers turned back to her and raised one aristocratic eyebrow. “Don’t waste your time, Paige. I won’t go for it.” With that said, he strode away.

Paige sighed and shook her head. She wanted to shake him and tell him that Calvin Jefferson was a good kid. His grandmother had served as both mother and father while holding down a full time job. For as far back as Paige could remember, Mrs. Jefferson had worked as the cook and head housekeeper in the Weston home. Though she’d never met Calvin until his unfortunate run-in with the law, Paige knew he was innocent. His grandmother’s word and Paige’s own instincts couldn’t be that far off the mark. Calvin deserved a break. Somehow she had to make Myers see that.

Paige started toward the exit. The silent presence on the last bench, near the courtroom door brought her up short. She blinked twice to make sure she hadn’t imagined Nathan Blackrope. He stood and walked in her direction.
Nope
. No figment of her imagination could move like that.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, surprised as much as annoyed. The image of black pearls ricocheted through her mind.

“I’ve never seen you in the courtroom, I was curious.” He rotated his black hat in his hands. “Pretty impressive.”

Paige acknowledged the compliment with a slight dip of her head. “Windborne?”

“She’s terrific and so’s her little filly.” He smiled, which melted some of the ice between them.

Paige breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll call Robert.”

“I already did,” he said. Nathan’s gaze settled heavily on hers. “Look, I thought we could have lunch. Maybe try and actually act civilized around each other.”

“Civilized?” Paige bristled. “The only person acting uncivilized is you,” she told him tersely. “First you break into Robert’s house in the middle of the night and—”

“I did not break in. I had a key,” he reminded calmly.

Paige shook her head. “Whatever. You say all kinds of hurtful things to me and then you flaunt your girlfriend in my face.”
Good gravy!
She hadn’t actually meant to say that last part, but anger had overruled her better judgment.

Nathan shrugged. “Trinity’s a small place. There aren’t that many places to go out. Can I help it that I took my date to the same place you took yours?”

“Silas Dutton is a friend, not a date.” She clamped her mouth shut. Paige would not say another word on the subject. She didn’t care if Nathan Blackrope had ten thousand dates! And she wasn’t about to give him the impression that she did.

“I had no idea you were so concerned about my social life.” He grinned.

Too late, the impression had been made. “I couldn’t care less what you do, Nathan Blackrope.”

“Is that a fact? Then what’s all the fuss about?”

Paige willed herself to stay calm. “I hope you enjoyed the show, but I have places to go and people to see.”

“I guess that means you don’t want to have lunch with me?” Disappointment shadowed his handsome face.

“It was nice of you to come, Nathan, but I really have to run now. I have another appointment and then I have all those chores back at the ranch.”

“You don’t have to worry about the chores, I sent over a couple of my hands to do them.”

“I told you I didn’t need your help with the chores.” When would he learn that no meant no?

“You did need my help, you just wouldn’t own up to it. Since James will be back tomorrow, it’s a dead issue.”

“I’m glad James is better.” Paige would never admit it to Nathan, but her aching muscles rejoiced at the idea of having James back. “I really do have to go.”

“Paige, I’m sorry about yesterday, last night and this morning. I never meant to hurt you.”

He looked so sincere, and she desperately wished she could believe him. But he’d let her down before. The image of how he had looked that morning, nude and sprawled across the unmade bed flitted through her mind. Her eyes had reveled in rippling muscle and glistening skin. The memory made her knees weak. She would never forget the way all that hair looked spread across his pillow. No man should look that good. Especially not this man.

“Why don’t we forget the whole thing happened?” she offered. She had to get him out of here. Besides, why should she be angry that he had a beautiful woman spend the night with him? He was single, unattached. She fought back the gigantic wave of hot, green jealousy that rose instantly at the thought of the redhead.

He shifted and raked a hand through his hair. “That’s a little too easy, don’t you think?”

“Honestly, Nathan, I don’t know what I think,” she said finally. One minute they were screaming at each other and the next she wanted... she wanted... never mind. “I just know that we can’t go on like this.”

Nathan nodded. “I agree. Now, how do we fix it?”

“Let’s think on it for a while and we can get together later and discuss it. How’s that?” She smiled, a little stiffly.

“All right. You’ll be back in Trinity tonight?”

“Ye-es,” she answered slowly.

“I’ll call you tonight then.”

“Fine.” Paige took his arm and ushered him from the deserted courtroom. Her nerves jangled as much from touching him as from the mounting anxiety.

“One more thing,” he said, pulling her to a stop.

Oh, Lord. “Yes?”

“About Celine—”

“Really, Nathan, you don’t have to explain. It’s none of my business. You have every right to date whomever you choose. It doesn’t matter to me what you do.”
Liar
, her subconscious chided.

“Nothing happened,” he said flatly.

“What do you mean nothing happened?” Paige forgot all about convincing herself that she didn’t care. She wanted to hear this. She
really
wanted to hear this. “That was Celine’s necklace.”

“It could have happened. She wanted... I asked her to leave,” he admitted hesitantly.