Here to Stay (4 page)

Paige had always watched the two men until
she was sure they were completely enthralled in the game before
sneaking back to her room. Ever so quietly she had opened her
window to let Nathan inside. For hours they would play games or
tell stories or simply sit quietly and think. Think about their
future together.

Shaking off the haunting memories, she
retraced her steps to the bathroom. Any minute now Nathan would
probably come storming back into her room demanding to know what
was taking so long. With a heavy sigh, she turned on the water in
the tub, then jerked off her clothes and flung them on the
floor.

She grimaced when she saw the blood on her
shirt. She craned her neck to see the cut in the mirror. A small
gash marred her skin. Not too bad. She took a steadying breath and
pushed back the sour taste that rose in her throat.

She slipped into the welcoming warmth of the
water and pressed her back against the cold porcelain tub. The gash
stung for a moment. She sighed as the heat relaxed her tired body.
Maybe if she stayed in here long enough, Nathan would just go
away.

~*~

Nathan heaved a disgusted breath and set the
plate containing the ham sandwich and chips he had prepared on the
kitchen table. The painters had gone, but the place still reeked of
fresh paint. He opened the fridge and removed a can of cola. He
closed the door, braced himself against the cool, white surface and
squeezed his eyes shut. Why did she have to come back? After all
this time, why didn’t she just stay gone?

Seeing her again was like pouring salt in a
wound that had never healed. In spite of everything, Nathan still
wanted her. But he couldn’t have her. Wouldn’t have her. Not after
the way she had hurt him. He’d rather be alone the rest of his life
than take a chance on having his heart broken again by Paige
Weston.

He reached into a cupboard and retrieved the
first aid kit Robert had kept in the same place for as long as he
could remember. A smile tugged at his lips as he thought of all the
skinned knees and elbows he and Paige had patched up on each other
over the years. His heart twisted with the memory of her little
tradition of kissing the hurt and making it all better. He shook of
the thought and the feelings it evoked, then tucked the first aid
kit under his arm. The sooner he stopped dredging up the past, the
better off he’d be.

Nathan trudged up the stairs and down the
long hall that led to her room. He opened the door, stepped into
the room and inhaled the steamy air and the scent of Paige. He
closed his eyes and forced away the need that jolted his soul. He
summoned up the courage he knew it would take to touch her and
stepped closer to the closed bathroom door.

“Are you ready for me to come in, Paige?” he
asked, his voice hoarse with the need he couldn’t will away.

“No, but since I know you won’t leave until
you’ve done what you think you have to do, come in.” She pulled the
door open and stepped back for him to enter the suddenly too-tiny
room.

Nathan moistened his lips and allowed his
hungry eyes to travel over her. Clad in a long pink terry cloth
robe, what little of her skin he could see glistened, dewy and
smooth. She’d brushed her wet hair back from her face. Those big
blue eyes were a definite threat to his belief that he could deal
with her proximity and not lose his sanity. Her face had been
scrubbed clean and looked fresh and much younger than her
years.

The day’s date hit Nathan like a blow to his
midsection. He frowned and lowered his gaze. “I forgot that
yesterday was your birthday.” He felt ashamed that he hadn’t
remembered her thirtieth birthday. But why should he remember? They
were nothing to each other anymore. He was probably less than
nothing to her.

“No big deal. Here.” She turned her back to
him and dropped her robe off her slender shoulders. “Get it over
with.”

Nathan’s body ached as his gaze moved over
the creamy, smooth expanse of her shoulders. He tried to breathe
but it seemed near impossible. He set the first aid kit on the sink
and hesitantly allowed his fingers to trace the outline of the
small, ragged wound. She shifted then settled beneath his touch.
His breath, shallow and uneven, was the only sound in the room.

Nathan dabbed antiseptic on the injury,
eliciting a gasp from her. “Sorry,” he muttered and quickly blew on
the smarting flesh. She shivered. He clutched the sink with his
free hand and squeezed until he felt certain the porcelain would
crack. He willed the rush of need to retreat.

“Better?” he asked. She nodded. He applied
the antibiotic cream and carefully positioned the bandage into
place. “All done.”

“Thank you.” Paige shifted to cover herself
with the robe.

Before his brain could issue the command to
stop, Nathan had caught the fluffy material in his fingers and
slipped it back down. He dropped a light kiss on her shoulder next
to the clean, white bandage. “All better now,” he whispered. Desire
pooled hot and heavy below his belt.

Paige whirled to face him, the robe still
hanging off one delicate shoulder. He’d have happily traded ten
years of his life just to touch that shoulder and allow his hand to
slip beneath the fabric and cup her breast.

Her eyes searched his. He saw the questions.
Saw the hesitation before she reached out and touched his tense
jaw. Nathan closed his eyes and allowed himself this one small,
temporary pleasure. Years of want only she could assuage welled
inside him until he felt ready to explode. He shuddered. Pain he
couldn’t bear to feel again stiffened his already rigid
muscles.

“Nathan, we need to talk.”

Her soft voice made his eyes open. He looked
at her sweet face. The face he’d dreamed of, been haunted by for as
long as he could remember. Reality shot through him like a piercing
arrow. She would never be his. She’d only hurt him again. He
recoiled from her touch. The anger that always hovered just below
the surface erupted. “What do we have to talk about?” he
snarled.

Paige blinked and backed away from him. He
ignored the pain that stabbed at his heart when he watched in the
emotion in her eyes turn to something resembling
disappointment.

“We need to settle this thing between us. The
past.” Her voice sounded small and hesitant, “We need to—”

Nathan snorted in disgust, cutting her off.
“I’ve got better things to do.” He turned away and strode out the
bathroom door and across the bedroom.

“Wait! Nathan, I mean it. We need to talk
about…
things
,” Paige pleaded, right on his heels.

Nathan whipped around to face her. “What do
you want to talk about, Paige? Your father, the big-shot attorney
who thinks his money can buy anything?” His rage had reached a
dangerous level, but he couldn’t slow its ascent. “Or maybe you
want to talk about the way you left and never came back…until…” He
swallowed hard, then forced himself to continue. “Or better yet,
let’s talk about the way you threw yourself at me after my mother’s
funeral. Now there’s a hot topic.”

“I can’t believe you said that.” Her eyes
filled with tears.

“That night meant a great deal to me even if
it meant nothing to you.” Her lips trembled, then tightened.

Nathan laughed, a rude, grating sound. “Why’d
you do it, Paige? Sympathy? Trying to make me feel better because
I’d lost the only family I had in this world?” His words contained
all the bitterness that had consumed him for far too long. “Or
maybe you just wanted to see if you could still have me?”

Nathan caught her wrist before her palm
connected with his jaw. He jerked her close. “I guess you don’t
want to talk after all.”

“I hate you, Nathan Blackrope,” she shouted.
Her shoulders shook with the outrage he saw in her eyes. Tears
brimmed, ready to fall past her thick lashes.

“Good. Don’t you ever forget it, either.”
Dangerously close to making the monumental mistake of kissing her
again and begging her not to hate him, he flung her wrist from his
grasp and stormed out of her room.

Chapter Three

Paige regarded the food that sat before her
with complete disinterest. Silas Dutton sat across the table,
pretending not to notice her somber mood. Paige stabbed a lettuce
leaf and brought the fork to her mouth, but couldn’t bring herself
to eat. Nathan’s words still rang in her ears.
Don’t you ever
forget it, either,
he’d said. He wanted her to hate him. Maybe
that meant he hated her as well. How could she ever hope to make
peace with the man? It seemed an impossible task.

“I’m sorry, Paige. I thought you liked this
place, otherwise I wouldn’t have suggested it.” Silas looked from
the virtually untouched dinner to her. He leaned back in the wide
bench seat of their booth and studied her more closely.

“This place is fine, Silas.” She shrugged and
forced a small smile. “I’m just a little distracted.”

“I can remember Robert having to come here
and pick you up a couple of times when you stayed out past
curfew.”

Paige grinned in spite of herself. “I
remember that all too well.” She surveyed their smoke-filled
surroundings. Dim lights, music, and great food. Bubba’s had been
her favorite haunt in Trinity as a teenager. A kind of
diner-dancehall combination. Though Bubba served alcohol, he kept a
handle on any sign of trouble. Paige had seen the big, burly man
toss more than one excited cowboy out on his ear. What the place
lacked in class it more than made up for in atmosphere and
hospitality. A flashy old jukebox pouring out honkytonk country
music completed the picture.

“Have you told him yet?”

“What?” Paige jerked her gaze to the sixtyish
man seated across from her.

“As Robert’s attorney, I’m privy to his
deepest, darkest secrets.” Silas smiled a kind, reassuring smile.
“He had Jesse included in his will immediately after the child’s
birth.”

Paige set her fork down. “No. I haven’t told
him yet.”

Silas drew in a heavy breath, his expression
suddenly grim. “Robert told me about the other thing as well.”

“Oh.” It was the only thing she knew to
say.

“I’m as sorry as I can be, Paige,” he said,
his words steeped in remorse.

“I know.” She forced herself to meet his
gaze.

“Robert said that a recurrence is
unlikely.”

Paige nodded. “The surgery pretty much
eliminated that possibility.” She swallowed tightly.

Silas clutched her hand in his. “You can’t
have any more children, but you do have Jesse.”

“I know.”

“Telling Nathan the truth is the right thing
to do,” he urged.

Paige cleared her throat. “Well, cancer
certainly forces you to take a look at the bigger picture. I
realized that with Mom gone, I was all Jesse had.” She blinked back
the tears. “What would have happened to him if…” She took a moment
to pull herself together. “At this point, I don’t want my father
near Jesse. And Robert refuses to agree to be Jesse’s guardian in
the even something were to happen to me, unless I tell Nathan the
truth.”

“Why haven’t you told him?” Wise gray eyes
settled on hers.

“It’s not so simple, Silas.” Paige focused
her attention back on the salad for which she had no appetite.
“Nathan’s angry and bitter.” She massaged at the dull ache settling
in her temples. “I think he hates me now.”

Silas shook his head. “Elliott sure did a
number on the two of you.”

“I know my father is a prejudiced,
self-centered man, but this situation is not entirely his fault.”
Paige had never told anyone what a fool she had been and just how
badly Nathan had hurt her. “Nathan married someone else,
remember?”

“Only after you left him behind,” Silas
reminded gently.

“I did what I had to do.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore now,
please.”

“You’ve been tugged in two directions all
your life, Paige. Your daddy pulling you one way and Nathan pulling
you the other.” He squeezed her trembling fingers. “In the end, who
really won?”

Moisture gathered in her eyes.
No one
,
she wanted to say, but didn’t. Trinity and Memphis had been like
two separate worlds. Each beckoning Paige to leave the other
behind, but ultimately her father had prevailed.

“Nathan lost you and so did your daddy.”

Silas was right. Paige hadn’t spoken to her
father in almost a year when she had gotten sick. Elliott Weston
refused to fully accept the grandson sired by the likes of Nathan
Blackrope. Her father was even angrier that Paige had opted not to
stay with his law firm, but instead had become a public defender,
which was less than acceptable in her father’s eyes. She’d
tolerated his tongue-lashings and belittling lectures for as long
as she could before putting an end to the situation. Paige stayed
away from him and he stayed away from her. Then Paige’s cancer had
been diagnosed. Reality had slapped her in the face, and she’d been
forced to make a decision.

“It’s time to put the past behind you. Jesse
needs Nathan. You”—he leveled a gaze steady on her—“need
Nathan.”

Paige tried to respond, but couldn’t. She
didn’t want to cry, not here, not now.

“You shouldn’t have waited this long,” Silas
said sagely. “It shouldn’t have taken all this to bring you back to
Trinity.”

“I had to do what I thought best at the
time.”

Silas nodded, conceding her point. He sipped
his bourbon and then asked, “When are you going to tell him?”

Paige pushed her plate away and folded her
arms over her middle. “I want my son to be happy. I won’t put him
in a situation that’s anything less than it should be. I have to
see for myself if Nathan is…capable of being a father.”