Hard Habit to Break

by Linda Cajio

  “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.

  Four

  “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 backsliding, 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.

  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 be
tween 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.