Hard Habit to Break (6 page)

Liz wasn’t sure whether she was grateful or disappointed. She knew only she was sick of being on Matt’s seesaw. She wanted off, and she wanted off now.

Glaring at the sidewalk, she perversely wondered if he’d decided not to bother with her. Maybe he’d realized it was only a simple physical attraction after all. Maybe her bitchy attitude had turned him off.

“Maybe you’d better stop thinking about it, girl,” she scolded herself aloud. “The only seesaw you’re on is one you made yourself.”

Joe Malack had gone out on a limb for her by recommending her for his job after his retirement. He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t had confidence in her abilities to handle every aspect of the job. And that meant keeping Matt at a distance.

It certainly looked as if she’d achieved that objective.

Liz forced away a sudden wave of vague disappointment and instead acknowledged she was being foolish even to speculate on why Matt wasn’t interested in her any longer. She should be happy he wasn’t. She
was
happy he wasn’t, she firmly told herself. She’d only bruised his libido, and
that was why he’d spouted those typical male threats. In fact, if she hadn’t been so overwhelmed by him in the beginning, he probably would have exhibited only a passing interest in her. If he’d had any interest at all in her as more than a neighbor. But she had been the one to kiss first.…

Liz touched her lips with a finger, then dropped her hand to her side and mentally shook herself for remembering something better left forgotten.

As she’d told him: One kiss does not a relationship make. And it didn’t. Everything was back to normal now, at least. Matt was just another Hopewell resident, her image would survive a few minor sideswipes, and she had even been recommended for a promotion. No one had ever supported her as Joe had, not even her parents. And she vowed not to let him down.

A frown touching her brow, she decided life was just peachy keen again. She only wished she felt peachy keen too.

She pushed aside her disturbing thoughts and was mildly surprised to discover herself at the bank’s back door. She chuckled dryly and fished in her briefcase for her keys, knowing she must have walked the rest of the way by rote. Maybe there were such things as guardian angels.

“But, Matt, corn futures are at an all-time low right now. I think you should buy.”

“I don’t know,” Matt slowly replied into the telephone receiver and leaned back against the sofa. Barry Stevens, his broker, was really pushing for
an investment, but other factors indicated a possible poor risk in corn futures. “It would be tempting, except for the advance weather forecasts. They’re predicting a hot summer for the Midwest. If it is, the corn will love it, and bushel prices will drop even more from oversupply.”

“Okay, Matt. I just thought I’d let all my clients know corn futures are looking very good … but you’re the one with the money.”

Matt grinned at Barry’s “you’ll be sorry” tone. He knew better than to trust it. Barry had had the same attitude on orange juice futures, until a mild winter caused an overabundance of oranges and rock-bottom prices on the market. A careful buyer was always aware his broker could be wrong on occasion. And Matt considered himself a very careful buyer.

Propping his feet on the glass coffee table, he said, “I’ve been talking to some old friends, and they tell me mohair is coming back into fashion this winter. The price is pretty low right now.…”

“How many shares do you want?” Barry asked excitedly.

Matt gave a short laugh and named a figure. Barry rushed him off the phone, and as he hung up Matt knew corn futures were about to give way to mohair futures. Mohair was definitely a better investment at this point anyway.

“Well, one thing’s going right,” he muttered, frowning slightly. He patted the phone before shifting it off his lap. “And one problem solved.”

He’d had to pay the telephone company a huge fee to have a private line installed, but it had been worth it. Now he didn’t have to worry about being
overheard by anyone. Thank heavens Liz had told him about eavesdroppers.

Liz.

Matt groaned, finally admitting he had no idea how to go about winning Liz short of breaking down her door and carrying her off to a secluded spot to make love. While the idea was very satisfying, the method was hardly discreet. But after days of almost no contact, he was desperate.

If only he hadn’t made it sound like a game he would win. Then he might have been able to salvage something of a friendship with her and build from there. Liz was a deadly serious business to him, yet he’d made her sound like the kewpie doll prize at a shooting gallery. Winner take all. No wonder she wasn’t speaking to him.

He was using excuses, and he knew it. Sure, he could blame himself for sounding heavy-handed and macho, and he had. But Liz was also using excuses for not acknowledging the spark of attraction between them. They were equally to blame for the present stalemate.

Matt chuckled. At least they had some kind of equality between them. He’d always thought of women as his equal, and was now thinking of Liz as a very special equal partner. But she seemed beyond his reach at the moment. After seeing a few townspeople in action, he couldn’t help but admit she was right on the subject of discretion. In three trips to the common, where the bank and the shops were located, he’d been told by several local males about Stanley Gruber’s love affair with the whiskey bottle, Marla Givens’s hidden library of Harold Robbins novels, and that Bert Cuthbert
cheated on his wife whenever he went into Swanton. It boggled his mind to consider what he might hear on his next trip.

Matt shuddered at the thought of putting Liz and himself under Hopewell’s microscope. Somehow, though, he’d find a circumspect way to pursue her. Her resistance was only as strong as her desire to maintain her image as an upstanding citizen. She’d practically admitted that herself. All he had to do was pull a trick rabbit out of his hat, and she’d crumble.

Maybe.

Scowling, Matt told himself not to be stupid. Liz had already physically expressed her feelings. She’d all but pulled him inside out when she had! The problem, though, was finding that damn rabbit.

Hours later Matt grinned broadly as he watched the late night movie. On the screen Errol Flynn, as Don Juan, glanced around a fake seventeenth-century garden before climbing over the balcony of his latest conquest. So far the guy had all the women wondering who would be the next lucky lady to receive his attentions.

If it was good enough for Don Juan, then it was good enough for him.

Matt shoved himself off the sofa and hurried over to the side window that faced Liz’s house. Pushing aside the heavy cream-colored curtains, he gazed across the yard. Her lights were out. She must be in bed, and if she weren’t asleep yet, she soon would be.

“Perfect,” Matt said.

* * *

In the deep shadows of the night Matt approached Liz’s back door. Dressed completely in black to camouflage himself against prying eyes, he grasped the doorknob with a gloved hand and tested it. The door was locked, but there was only one lock and it was an old one. Piece of cake.

He slid a credit card from the back pocket of his jeans and began wiggling it between the doorjamb and the door while jiggling the door handle. The door wouldn’t budge.

“Open sesame, dammit,” he cursed in a bare whisper.

Continuing to wiggle and jiggle, he could feel beads of perspiration already forming on his forehead. This always worked in the movies, he thought. He pressed the credit card harder into the narrow gap.

The door opened suddenly with a loud click.

For an instant he stared at it, shocked that the lock had actually given. Then he slipped inside and let his eyes adjust to the darker shapes of the kitchen. The table and chairs were against the window to his left, leaving a clear path into the next room. He tucked the card back into his pocket.

“Don’t leave home without it,” he said with a quiet chuckle.

Moving swiftly and quietly through the house and up the stairs, he listened carefully for any noise that indicated Liz might have awakened. He heard nothing.

On the second floor he headed straight for the
third door on the right, knowing that room was the master bedroom. He’d wistfully observed those lights going out at eleven-thirty every night, until he’d felt like a fantasizing schoolboy. This, though, was a much better fantasy, he decided.

At the door of Liz’s bedroom he stopped and leaned one arm on the jamb. A slow smile touched his lips as he gazed longingly at the slender form outlined under the bedclothes. Then he walked to the double bed, his sneakers soundless on the plush carpet. Liz was sleeping on her side, facing him. Her hands were tucked under her chin, and her hair was a pale, tousled halo surrounding her delicate features.

She could almost be a child, Matt thought as an odd tenderness washed over him. But the curve of her derriere was all woman, and the sight of it provoked a very male response. It tempted him to forget his good intentions and join her in the double bed, but with a struggle he finally forced the thought away.

For a lingering moment more he savored Liz’s peaceful face. Then, pulling a single red rose out of the waistband of his jeans, Matt laid it near the outer edge of the second pillow. Giving in to one small temptation, he braced his hand on the old-fashioned maple bedpost and leaned farther over the bed.

The touch of his lips was feather-light on her brow.

Smiling down at her, he straightened. As he crept out of the room he decided he could have given lessons on romance to Errol Flynn.

Hell, he could have given lessons to Don Juan too.

Liz’s sleep was penetrated by a familiar and annoying buzzing. Her fogged brain automatically commanded a hand to stretch across the pillow to shut off the noise. But then that hand encountered something she knew shouldn’t be there. Something sticklike and hard attached to a velvety-soft ball. With a monumental effort she opened one eye.

There was a rose on her pillow.

For a long moment Liz gazed at it, wondering why she had brought a rose to bed with her. It really was the oddest thing to do, she told herself sleepily and rolled over onto her back.

Suddenly her second eyelid snapped open, and she shot up into a sitting position. Whipping her head to her left, she stared in disbelief at the red rose lying in solitary splendor on her pillow.

“Ohmigod,” she whispered in a hoarse voice as shivers of terror ran down her spine. Some perverted
nut had broken into her house during the night, watched her sleeping, and left a rose on her pillow. Someone in nice little Hopewell had to be crazy. Some insane …

She suddenly realized
who
in Hopewell was crazy. And that—that maniac lived right next door to her. But Matt Callahan wasn’t crazy at all. He was showing her how easy it was to be in her bed. And how she’d spread her own petals and bloom under his touch, just like the rose. That damn rose didn’t mean anything more than her expected, unconditional surrender to him.

A red haze of fury clouding her vision, Liz snatched up the rose and scrambled off the bed. She stopped only to throw on her blue terry robe before racing down the stairs and unlocking the front door.

“I’ll show him that he can’t play mind games with me,” she muttered, clutching the rose in her right hand like a baseball bat. “Break into my house … leave a rose like some stud lover … see me asleep. See me asleep? That lowlife watched me sleep! The hell with showing him, I’ll kill him!”

She slammed the door behind her, marched across the adjoining lawns, and up the steps of Matt’s porch. She banged her fist against the brightly painted red door, shattering the early morning quiet. When the door didn’t open instantly, she banged on it again. And kept banging.

The door finally swung open, and a dark-velour-robed Matt stood glaring at her, like a harsh and omnipotent god, the impact of his presence momentarily
overwhelming. Then his green eyes softened and his big body relaxed.

“Liz!” he exclaimed before she could speak. He reached out and quickly pulled her inside. “I’m so glad you’ve finally decided to give up this farce. But this is hardly discreet, honey. It looks like I’ll have to arrange our meetings from now on.”

He shut the door, and it was another shocking moment before Liz finally found her voice. More angry than ever, she slashed the air in front of him with the rose. “What the hell do you think this is, Matt Callahan?”

He tilted his head to examine the flower. “It looks like a rose.”

“Damn right, it’s a rose!” she shouted.

“Do I go to the head of the class? Or do I have to guess what variety it is first?”

“You can tell me how it got on my pillow last night.”

“On your pillow?” he asked in a voice that sounded genuinely surprised.

Liz took a deep breath and firmly told herself not to lose her temper. It didn’t work, and she swatted him with the rose. “You broke into my house last night, came into my bedroom, and left the rose on my pillow. You watched me sleep!”

“If you were sleeping, how do you know it was me?” Matt asked logically.