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

by Debra Webb

  The man did it all. And for a mere pittance. During the past week she’d watched him accept everything from vegetables, to dairy products, to promises of clothing repairs. Ultimately, the majority of his customers paid money, but still... Abby found it amazing that he didn’t seem to mind accepting whatever they offered.

  Matthew had to be a card short of a full deck. Normal people didn’t submit themselves to hard physical labor for next to nothing. Especially not someone as intelligent and skilled as Matthew.

  “You’re not hungry?” The concern in his voice irritated her further. The Matthew Stone she’d been subjected to this week had been a harsh taskmaster. The hours he kept were completely unreasonable. She spent long hours at the office herself, but that was behind a desk.

  Who could live like this?

  “Go away,” she told him. The last thing she wanted to do was eat. She’d eaten like a horse all week. Abby had no doubt that she’d gained at least five pounds. How was she to know that such exhausting work would trigger an eating frenzy? She was going to go back to New York as fat as a pig, with bulging biceps and broken nails.

  As weary as she was, she raised her right hand and mourned the deplorable condition of her nails. God, she needed a manicure. And blisters! She had the beginnings of two blisters on her palm. She’d never had a blister in her life that she could recall.

  “I guess that means you don’t want to go out tonight,” he suggested.

  Out? Briefly she wondered what gong out meant in a small town like Salem, but the bottom line was—she didn’t care. She was too tired to care. Too tired to think past the next second.

  “Right,” she said with as much force as her waning strength would allow.

  “Right, meaning you’re not going, or right meaning you are?”

  Abby squeezed her eyes shut and silently called Matthew every vile name in her vocabulary. Before she’d gotten anywhere near the end, he interrupted her mental tirade. “It’s okay if you don’t want to go. I’ve gone alone before. I always end up with somebody. So, don’t wait up.”

  Her eyes snapped open. End up with somebody? As in the opposite sex? Don’t wait up!

  Just where the hell did he intend to go?

  Abby didn’t care.

  She inhaled deeply and cleared her mind. He could go wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted, with whomever he wanted. She absolutely did not care.

  Not in the slightest.

  ~*~

  When Abby descended the staircase, Matthew felt as though he’d been sucker punched. A little black dress hugged her trim figure, and her long, long legs seemed to go on forever. And that hair... she’d bundled it up in some sort of wild stack on top of her head. Untamable, coppery curls fell in feminine wisps around her face and neck. She looked absolutely amazing.

  This is not a date, he reminded himself as an admiring, albeit reluctant, smile spread across his face. Just a night out with the guys, and Abby tagging along to watch. Yeah, right! If he kept telling himself that, he might even begin to believe it.

  She probably wouldn’t have bothered to go if he hadn’t used reverse psychology. The lady could not resist a challenge. But Matthew had to know. He had to know if all this tension between them was the real thing. From the moment he’d first kissed her—that brief brushing of lips in his laundry room—he’d known that something was happening. Something different from anything he’d experienced before. And it felt entirely too real... too deep.

  Matthew chastised himself again for neglecting his social life for far too long. That had to be the answer. He needed a woman—any woman. Tonight he would put this crazy attraction to the test. The place they were going would be loaded with young, attractive, unattached females. By midnight he would have proved his theory. What he needed right now didn’t have a particular cure. It was a generic problem. He was horny. His buddies had made the diagnosis without him even mentioning the symptoms. He hadn’t paid any attention to his social life in so long he didn’t trust his judgment. Maybe this wild attraction was all about proximity and chemistry. Plain old basic, generic human need.

  But there wasn’t a damned thing generic about Abby Wade, he noted as she paused on the bottom step. She was gorgeous.

  “My, my, Miss Wade, you sure do clean up good.”

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Stone.” She lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “After the hellish week I’ve just lived through I’m surprised I’m still walking.”

  Matthew felt a pang of guilt at her words. He had put her through a lot, but it was the only way he could hope to survive. By the time they trudged home each night, he and Abby were too tired to do anything but fall exhausted into bed.

  Alone.

  Thank God.

  It hadn’t taken him long to find out that Abby was not a happy camper when she was pushed beyond her set limitations. She was a true city girl. He smiled to himself. But there was something immensely endearing about her when she was annoyed. He loved the way her lips formed into a perfect pout. He quickly shook off those thoughts. If he dwelled too long on the subject, he knew the next thing he’d be doing. The whole point of tonight was not to do that.

  “Shall we?” Matthew offered his arm.

  Abby wrapped hers around his and accompanied him to the truck. Barney thumped his tail against the wooden porch as they passed. Poor fella. Old Barney had sure gotten the raw end of this deal. He hadn’t been allowed in the house all week. And Matthew had basically ignored him.

  “And where is it we’re going?” Abby asked as she slid into the passenger seat.

  “The Cow Palace.”

  “You’ll love it.”

  ~*~

  “The cow what?”

  Surely she had heard him wrong. He couldn’t have said—

  “The Cow Palace,” he repeated as he pulled out onto the dark, deserted highway.

  Abby felt her face pucker in confusion. “You mean I got all dressed up to go to a...a cow palace? What is it? Some sort of rodeo?”

  “No rodeo,” he said, smiling. The man was thoroughly enjoying this, she could tell. “It’s a nightclub. You know—music and dancing.”

  “You have a nightclub called the Cow Palace in this town?”

  “This ain’t New York City, ma’am,” Matthew teased with an exaggerated southern drawl.

  “You’ve got that right.” Resigned to her fate, Abby relaxed more fully into the seat. Funny, she mused, how she hadn’t thought about home at all in the past few days. Even when she was on her hands and knees brushing white paint onto baseboards—a term she’d learned under Matthew’s watchful guidance. She frowned and pushed rewind on her thinking. She loved New York. She loved her job. How could she have let the whole week pass without so much as a passing thought of her apartment... the office?

  All she’d been able to think about when she wasn’t too exhausted to think was...

  Her gaze drifted to Matthew Stone.

  Don’t even think about it, Abby.

  Okay, she told herself firmly, it was time to get back into professional mode. Tonight would be for fun. She had observed him—a little too closely—in the workplace all week. Tonight she would fill in the thus-far-nonexistent social life part. As she pondered that missing piece in the puzzle that was Matthew Stone, she found herself admiring his handsome profile. Why not torture herself a little more?

  Even with only the dim light from the dash, she could see the way the pale blue of his shirt highlighted his eyes. Each time his gaze connected with hers, Abby felt a kind of tingling that started way down deep and built with such speed that it was frightening. All week she’d worked at avoiding eye contact with him. Now, while his attention was focused on driving, she allowed her gaze to slide down to the body-hugging jeans he wore. His muscular thighs and cute butt were what women’s dreams were made of. She’d caught herself admiring his many physical assets on more than one occasion during the past week.

  That was just about enough of that, she decided and shifted her attention elsewhere
. She had to remember that looking at Matthew Stone for too long at a time could be hazardous to her sense of self-control.

  Her thoughts drifted back to that look he’d given her only a few minutes ago. He’d been standing at the front door, waiting for her to come down the stairs. It was a just look—but it turned her insides to jelly. She’d seen the hunger in his eyes as she neared him. Tension sizzled immediately, every bit as hot and hard to resist as it had been the day he’d kissed her at Jenny’s house.

  Matthew turned onto a side road, and the Cow Palace finally came into view, tucked between a huge stockyard and an auction barn. He parked his truck in the large graveled lot with what appeared to be at least a hundred others of varying sizes and types—but trucks nonetheless. The term honky-tonk came immediately to mind.

  This would surely prove to be a fascinating evening, she decided as she scanned her rustic surroundings. Abby promised herself as she hustled out before Matthew could come around to open her door, that tomorrow she would be more focused and less distracted. Tomorrow was Saturday; she had two days to wrap this baby up. She intended to do just that. No matter what, Abby would keep her attention fixed firmly on her goal. The cover story. For Up Close. She repeated the magazine’s name to herself like a mantra as she walked across the dimly lit parking lot with this hunky hero at her side.

  Country music blasted through the night air each time the door swung open to let someone in or out of the building. A light breeze shifted the humid air, bringing with it a distinctly unpleasant odor.

  Abby wrinkled her nose. “What is that smell?”

  “The stockyard.” He gestured to the right. “It gets a little ripe around here this time of year.”

  She shivered and tried to hold her breath until they got inside—which wasn’t much better. As with all such places the lights were low and the air was smoke-filled. Abby trailed Matthew as he made his way through the crowd, stopping frequently to shake hands with or be hugged by someone he knew. A dozen names or more were shouted in her ear in an attempt at introductions. She nodded and smiled. She also didn’t miss the numerous looks thrown Matthew’s way by the females in the place. He finally stopped at a table where two men, whom Abby immediately recognized as Luke and Roger, were already seated. Both jumped to their feet.

  “Mercy, Abby, don’t you look nice tonight,” Roger commented enthusiastically. She could see the remembered gleam in his eyes. The thought that he had seen her almost naked heated her cheeks. Thank God no one she worked with ever had to know about that little episode.

  She acknowledged Roger’s compliment and greeted Luke as she sat down. Scanning the crowd of dancers moving to the beat of the music, Abby decided there was plenty to look at besides the men at her table—or more specifically, Matthew Stone.

  “What would you like to drink, Abby?”

  She turned to the man who’d asked and her heart stumbled. Instantly her resolve vanished and she started to melt inside just looking into those blue yes. Take deep breaths, Abby. Pretend he’s someone else—anybody but who he is.

  Feigning aloofness, she mentally ticked off what she would not do. She would absolutely not be distracted by his muscular body or his stunningly handsome face. Or his unbelievably sexy eyes... his perfect, kissable lips. A lump rose in her throat as she tried to ignore the tingle that filled her each time she looked at the man.

  This was not a good start to the evening.

  Frustrated, she leaned forward. “A strawberry daiquiri.” As if a place like this would have a blender at the bar much less strawberries.

  He shrugged. “Sorry, beer only.”

  Just as she suspected. Abby sighed. “Fine, I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

  Beer in hand and refusing to feel the emotions clawing at her, she watched the couples on the dance floor. Matthew and his buddies talked about whatever men talked about: hunting, baseball, et cetera. She tried not to listen despite the fact that she was here to watch and listen. Talk about falling down on the job. This was so not like her.

  Carefully weaving between the tables, the waitresses shuffled drinks and change. Bored, Abby wondered how they kept their trays balanced when they bent down to hear the customer’s orders.

  Velcro. That had to be it, she decided impishly.

  The couples on the dance floor were young for the most part. Jeans and cowboy boots seemed to be the height of local fashion. She was probably overdressed, but no one seemed to care.

  Abby couldn’t help but smile as she watched the wandering hands sliding over hips, lower and lower as words were whispered into ears... arms pulled each other close. She hadn’t been to a place like this—well, similar to this—in ages. The last time she’d been held by a man in such an intimate manner seemed all too long ago.

  As if summoned by that thought, her errant gaze came to rest on Matthew who appeared engrossed in a hunting tale as told by Luke. Instantly her heart reacted to a charismatic Stone smile—even if it hadn’t been directed at her. A burst of laughter from the three men jerked Abby out of the erotic fantasy that had begun to form in her obviously deteriorating mind. She quickly shifted her interest back to the congested dance floor.

  Heaven help her, she was losing her focus completely. Heaven would have to help her, because she sure couldn’t seem to help herself.

  Focus, Abby. On anything but Mathew Stone.

  For such a remote location, the place seemed crowded. Maybe it was the only place around here to go. Probably, she decided, mentally mapping out the small town she’d explored in far more detail than she would have preferred. She then occupied herself with counting heads. A constant flow of patrons moved in to fill any vacancies made at the tables or at the bar. Applause and shouts of encouragement kept the band wildly motivated. Those who weren’t dancing were mingling, or sitting at their tables carrying on friendly conversations or attempts at clandestine necking.

  Abby smiled as she watched the unattached men in the club make their way from woman to woman until they found someone interested. It didn’t take long for all the singles to become couples.

  I always end up with somebody, Matthew’s words echoed inside her head.

  She immediately inventoried the available women in the place.

  There certainly appeared to be no shortage of single and searching females. The place was a veritable mix-and-match for the lonely. Matthew said he’d come here alone before. Was he lonely? He certainly wouldn’t be for long around here. Jenny’s warning flitted through Abby’s mind next. Would he find the lifetime commitment he was looking for here?

  Her eyes smarted, from the smoke, she assured herself. The thick haze hanging in the air would challenge anyone’s allergies.

  “How about we shoot some pool?” Roger suggested.

  Luke stood, stretched and yawned as if what he really needed was a nap. “You guys want to play a round?”

  “Would you like to play, Abby?” Matthew asked.

  She frowned, then shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  The guys led the way to the far side of the room where the pool tables claimed a large portion of that end of the building.

  “Now, little lady, this here is a cue stick.” Roger handed Abby the cue stick he held.

  Abby smiled. The man apparently thought she was a moron. Roger would be quite surprised if he knew that he was addressing the sorority house pool champ. Abby hadn’t spent all her time in college studying.

  She supposed she could tell them—NOT.

  She’d just use this bit of subterfuge to show these good ol’ boys a thing or two.

  “I’ll rack the balls.” Luke dropped some change into the coin slot and then racked the balls on the long green table.

  “The object of this game, Abby, is to take your stick and hit the white ball against the pretty colored balls. Like this.” Roger gave her a brief demonstration. When he finished, Luke quickly racked the balls once more.

  “Would you like to try?” Roger motioned Abby in the direction of the ta
ble.

  “I’d love to.” She squeezed past Luke and moved around to the end of the regulation size slate table. “I just knock this little white ball into the pretty colored balls?” she parroted sweetly, then fluttered her lashes.

  “You catch on fast, little lady.” Roger patted her firmly on the back—a little lower than she would have preferred. He left his hand casually positioned on the small of her back, but Abby shot him a warning look. He removed it posthaste.

  Matthew watched, visibly amused. Abby had a sneaking suspicion that he could see right through her little act.

  She posed to make a shot, but abruptly straightened. “Aren’t we supposed to bet on who will win?” she asked innocently. “Isn’t that what they do in the movies?”

  Roger and Luke bantered back and forth over the possibility.

  “Why not? It might make things a little more interesting, gentlemen.” Matthew leaned confidently against his cue stick and smiled knowingly in her direction.

  “Look here, sweetheart, this is just a friendly little game.” Roger swept a decidedly predatory gaze over Abby. “Let’s make it real simple. Whoever wins gets a long, slow dance with you.”

  “And if I win?”

  “Then you can pick your dance partner,” Luke suggested.

  “Either way, looks like I’ll be the real winner.” Abby smiled sexily, then leaned forward and took her shot.

  “That was good, Abby,” Roger encouraged after she dropped one into the center pocket. “Now you have to try and get the rest of those solid colored balls into the pockets. You might try this shot first.” He pointed to the ball closest to the white one. “There’s an awful lot of green in these other shots, they’re called long shots.”

  Abby posed to make one of the easier shots. Pop! The red ball went into the center pocket. Her aching muscles and bone-weary exhaustion was now all but forgotten.

  “Terrific shot, Abby,” Luke cheered. “Be careful not to scratch. That’s when you let the white ball go in and lose your turn.”