Hard Habit to Break (5 page)

“You’re about to ‘whip up’ my patience, Matthew Callahan. Get your car out of my driveway.
Now
!”

He shrugged again, but was silently pleased. She was reacting to him with sparks and fire. Unfortunately he had had to light the wrong end of the firecracker to get them. Well, at least the fireworks were started.

“You’re blowing this all out of proportion, Liz. I borrowed your driveway only for a little while. I know it was presumptuous of me, but I didn’t want to leave the ’Vette at the curb. Not with all these trees. The tree sap and the birds would ruin the finish. As a banker, you can understand the importance of upkeep on a property.”

He could see her visibly rein in her temper. She took a noticeable breath and smiled sweetly at him, satisfaction lighting her eyes. Matt suddenly felt as if he’d just walked into a trap.

“Surely, as a bank customer, you can realize
the importance of your banker’s reputation, Matt. How does it look with your car in my driveway, no matter how innocent the reason?”

“But you weren’t home, and—”

“Doesn’t matter. It
looks
as if we’re more than neighbors.”

“Come on, Liz. That kind of thing went out with poodle skirts and D.A.’s. This is the eighties. Nobody cares what two adults are doing.”

Liz threw up her hands in exasperation. “And this isn’t New York. Hopewell has a grapevine that moves faster than the speed of light. That phone call you just had will be all over town before dinnertime.”

“What!”

She gave a wicked laugh, obviously enjoying his consternation. “The phone company must have told you you’re on a temporary party line.”

He frowned in confusion. The telephone installer had mentioned it yesterday when he’d connected the phone line. He’d claimed it was because of the town’s small size that the telephone company didn’t bother with installing private lines until they had to.

“Yes, but …”

“People listen in. In fact, several of the townspeople keep a party line because they love to listen in. Hopewell may not have poodle skirts and the ducks’ rears may be on real ducks, but that old-time mentality is still there.”

“Dammit!” Matt burst out, beginning to pace the room furiously. “I can’t be on a damn party line! My business depends on secrecy!”

“Business?” Liz repeated, grabbing his arm as
he passed by her. He stopped and faced her. “What business? Did you falsify the bank records? I swear I really will let Romeo loose on you.”

“Who’s Romeo?” Matt shouted, forgetting about his problems with the party line. He didn’t even want to consider
why
she’d call a man Romeo.

“A very mean bull. What business, Matt?”

“My investments. Romeo had better be a real bull.”

“Four hooves, swishing tail, and razor-sharp horns,” Liz replied. She rubbed a hand across her forehead. “I think we’re getting off the track here. Just move your car out of my driveway, okay? And don’t put it back there again. Oh! Do me a favor and don’t mow my lawn either. Now that you know the facts, I think you can understand why.”

Matt felt as if he’d been putting together an atom bomb and it had backfired. In his enthusiasm to get together with Liz, he’d never realized how it could come across to observers. Evidently Hopewell had a real network of them. Liz’s recent standoffishness wasn’t internal, but had to do with her very valid concern for maintaining her reputation. No wonder she was so furious to find his car in her driveway. And mowing her lawn had added to the damage. Being nice and neighborly wasn’t turning out exactly as Matt had planned.

But what someone might think didn’t change what he was beginning to feel for Liz. There had to be a way around causing any gossip. Unfortunately it was obvious she wasn’t about to help him.

Matt groaned to himself. He had a feeling a twenty-hour modeling shoot in the heat and stench of Tunisia would be easier on the nerves than winning Liz. Then again, if one fought for something, it always had greater value.

“Matt, please go move your car,” Liz said, breaking into his thoughts.

“In a minute. I want to ask you something.” He stared down at her, wondering exactly how to phrase this. “If we lived somewhere less ‘civilized,’ would you consider mixing business with pleasure?”

“I never mix business with pleasure. It’s bad practice.”

He almost believed her, until he saw her gaze shift away from his for an instant.

“Liar,” he said softly.

“I am not lying,” she protested stiffly, her shoulders straightening.

“In this case you are.”

With one arm he snagged her around the waist and pulled her against him. Despite her petiteness, they fit together perfectly. She was so tiny and so soft. Ignoring her startled exclamation, he bent and fit his mouth to hers, then probed into the sweetness beyond.

At first Liz didn’t respond, but he coaxed her tongue with his own. Suddenly he felt a deep satisfaction as she surrendered to the kiss. Lord, but she felt good, tasted good. And she wanted him. His satisfaction and his yearning doubled at the thought.

He slipped his hand inside her jacket and cupped her breast, feeling the nipple come alive at his
touch. She gave a tiny moan in the back of her throat, pressing even closer against him and curving her arms around his neck. Her breast seemed to grow in his hand, and his fingers delighted in its weight. Her long nails clawed his shoulders, and all the blood in his body instantly poured into his loins.

Matt tore his lips away from her mouth and buried them in the softness of her throat. He ran his hands up and down the sides of her body before letting them sink into the flesh of her derriere. He knew she would be soft everywhere, and he wanted to test himself against that softness, feel it surrounding him like a satin prison.

“You drive a man insane,” he murmured against her ear. “I promise I’ll be more discreet from now on.”

Suddenly he was embracing air. Again.

Immediately straightening, he glared at her. “Dammit, Liz! You do that every time we’re kissing. Are you allergic to kisses, or what?”

Liz straightened her clothes before lifting her head. Her cheeks were flushed to a delicate rose, and her gray eyes were still bright with passion.

“To yours, evidently,” she replied flatly.

He eyed her for a moment, resisting the temptation to paddle her beautiful bottom. “Shall we test that allergy theory?”

“No, thank you. Please remove your car from my drive.”

“Next you’ll be telling me the attraction we feel for each other is all in my head,” he said between clenched teeth.

Her chin rose defiantly. “I don’t intend to fall
into bed with you because of a simple sexual attraction. Instant gratification is meaningless.”

He gave her a look of disbelief. “If you think this is a simple attraction, you’ve got a lot to learn about men and women, sweetheart.”

“Open your ears and—”

“My ears are open. But your body said a lot more. You want what I want: you’re just worried about what someone else might say. They’ll say it anyway, no matter what we do.”

“And we’ll do nothing,” Liz replied angrily.

“We’ll do everything, Elizabeth O’Neal. You can try to fight it all you want, but I’m not a quitter. Eventually I’ll win. But I promise not to hurt your image as a proper banker in the process. Now I’ll go move my car.” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the house.

The damn driveway ought to be dry by now anyway.

“Car trouble, Liz?”

“Hello, Emily,” Liz said, halting her brisk strides down Elm Street, four short blocks from her home on Rodgers Street.

She smiled politely at the big raw-boned woman who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of her house, but wasn’t fooled by the friendly smile the older woman returned. Emily Richards swam the gossip waters with sharklike enthusiasm, and Liz knew she’d have a bite taken out of her if she weren’t careful. Why hadn’t she walked down Markham Road to the common instead of cutting across Elm? Then she could have avoided most of the town’s residences. She unconsciously tightened her grip on her soft oxblood briefcase.

“No car trouble,” she went on. “It’s a beautiful day, so I thought I’d walk to the bank.”

Emily glanced up at the bright sky. “Ayuh. It’s a good day for walking. Hear tell that new neighbor
of yours is a real gardener. He bought eight rose bushes from Stanley’s Garden Supply yesterday, and twenty pounds of fertilizer. No grass seed though. Is he gonna wait till fall to seed his place?”

Liz forced down a caustic reply. Instead, she shrugged. “I don’t know, Emily.”

“Figured you might, havin’ dinner with him and all.”

“Mr. Callahan wanted to discuss some important banking business,” she said, gritting her teeth against her rising anger. She knew this would happen. “I thought it was very nice of him to ask me to dinner, when we’d barely said hello. After all, he’s
very
busy moving in.”

“Guess so. Always takes a lot to get settled in a house.”

In spite of her anger, Liz managed to keep a straight face at Emily’s remark. The woman still lived in the same house she’d been born in over fifty years ago.

“A new house is a good deal of work. Well, I better be getting on to the bank—”

“Marla Givens told me he’s paying the telephone company extra to get him on a private line. They’re coming out today to put it in.” Emily laughed. “Marla’s madder than a wet hen. Says she coulda gotten rich from his phone calls. He’s some sort of fancy stockbroker, ain’t he?”

“Why don’t you ask him,” Liz suggested with a syrupy tone. She silently acknowledged she couldn’t edge around Emily and continue on her way without being impolite. Besides, there was nothing left to edge around; the woman’s bulk took up the width of the sidewalk.

“He doesn’t say much about himself,” Emily went on, “ ’cept he’s retired. Kind of a mystery man.” She pulled a piece of paper from her apron pocket and unfolded it. She held it out to Liz. “Wondered, though, if this could be him.”

Her heart dropping, Liz stared at the magazine ad Emily had shoved under her nose. The beard was nonexistent, but the male model posing in the black bikini briefs was definitely Matt. There was no mistaking his green eyes and wicked smile in the full-color layout. Her gaze roved over the slick page, searching out the little things she knew about Matt’s physique. She found the lock of his hair that always insisted on dipping forward over his forehead, the slight quirk in the left eyebrow, the fine-boned yet strong hands. She also found the hard planes of his chest and thighs that had fitted themselves so tightly to her own.

“There is some resemblance,” she finally replied in a faint voice. She cleared her throat. “But I really don’t know if it’s Matt or not.”

Still gazing at the ad, she didn’t notice the sharp look Emily gave her when she used Matt’s first name. She blinked in confusion, though, as Emily carefully refolded the paper and slipped it back into her apron pocket.

“Just curious if you knew he liked to pose near naked for everyone to see.”

Liz gaped for a moment at the woman’s audacity. How was she supposed to know about Matt’s past, especially a near naked one? Suddenly she was furious. Didn’t anyone in Hopewell have anything better to do than gossip?

“Modeling is a respected business, Emily, and
a profitable one. Whoever the model is for that ad, he has to be extremely good at his craft. Now, if you’ll excuse me, the bank doesn’t open until I’m there.”

Her briefcase banging against her knee, Liz marched onto the grass at the curb, around Emily, and back onto the sidewalk. Her strides ate up the concrete at a furious pace until she turned the corner onto Willow Street. Once out of Emily’s sight, she leaned weakly against a tree and, with shaking hands, pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her briefcase. She quickly lit a cigarette and blew out a soothing curl of smoke.

“Old battle-ax,” she muttered. “At least she didn’t know about his car being in the driveway.”

Liz grimaced at her overly optimistic words. Emily probably knew all about it. She just hadn’t had a chance to bring the topic into the conversation. Damn Matt! This was all his fault in the first place. Why couldn’t he have been a real city person and just ignored his neighbor? Instead, he was the most infuriating man she’d ever met.

Straightening away from the tree and beginning to walk toward the bank again, she took a second puff of the cigarette … and then realized it was her
third
one of the day.

“Dammit!”

Walking to the curb, she tossed the cigarette into the street and ground it out beneath a high-heeled pump. She returned to the sidewalk, cursing under her breath as she continued walking. If she wasn’t breaking cigarettes over Matt, she was smoking more than her self-imposed quota. Yesterday she’d smoked half a pack of the filthy things,
and no matter how much she’d lectured herself for back-sliding, she hadn’t been able to stop.

It was the waiting.

And that was Matt’s fault too. It had been almost a full week since their argument. Six days since he’d declared they’d do “everything.” So far, they’d barely nodded to each other in passing. Otherwise, Matt ignored her.