Kristin Hardy - Bad Influence

“We keep it all in the neighborhood, apparently.” She swallowed, consciously trying to settle her pulse.

“Convenient. I guess that means you’re going to be hanging around town after all.”

“I guess so. You?” she asked.

“I was already here for a couple days anyway.”

She’d never liked men with mustaches. What was it about his that it only made her focus on the mouth it framed? A mouth that looked more tempting than a man’s should, ruddy and sardonic and entirely too intriguing. His brows formed dark, straight lines above those black eyes.

When one of those brows rose in question, she brought herself back to the conversation with a jolt. The last thing she needed to be doing was wondering what it would feel like to kiss him.

“So, um, how is your grandmother?” she asked.

“Oh, sore, feisty. I’m having to sit on her to keep her in bed. How’s your grandfather?”

“Bouncing back. I hope I do as well at his age.”

His gaze rested on her, warm and lazy. “I think you do pretty well already.”

Her cheeks heated. “I thought I was a Girl Scout.”

“I always did like those cookies. Melt in your mouth.”

And if he kept talking to her in that warm, husky voice, she’d be the one melting. She needed to concentrate on the matter at hand. Paige cleared her throat. “I was hoping to talk with your grandmother in a couple of days about the museum thing. My grandfather is in kind of a stir about it.”

“Not right now. She needs to focus on getting up and around. Talk to me instead,” he suggested.

“Are you a part of it?”

“While I’m here. Try me.”

Paige hesitated, eyeing him. “Okay, how set on this museum is she?”

“What does it matter? It’s her house, it’s her property. What business is it of anyone else’s?”

“A lot. It’s got the potential to really change the neighborhood. She lives in a community and what she does affects them.”

Zach laughed. “With all the walls and gates that they have? I think the neighborhood will survive.”

“How do you know? You’re not from this area.”

“And you are?”

He was baiting her, Paige realized, biting back the little twinge of annoyance. “I grew up here. People like things to stay the same. They don’t like change, especially changes like this.”

“Changes like what?”

“Changes like your grandmother’s museum.”

Zach shrugged. “The neighborhood already has a slew of museums. The mission’s at our doorstep. You think one more is going to change things?”

“Given the kind of crowd this museum is likely to attract, yes,” she retorted.

Amused, he stuck his hands in his back pockets and rocked back on his heels. “The kind of crowd? Just what kind of crowd is that?”

“People looking for something outrageous, something a little scandalous.”

“Seems to me like you could do with a little something outrageous yourself,” he said.

A car drove by, startling a flock of sparrows, which flew up out of one tree and dived into the branches of another, disappearing instantly from view.

A faint color stained the edges of Paige’s cheekbones. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Zach looked her up and down, studying the tidy outfit she wore. It was the same as the night before, but somehow it looked crisp and smooth again, like she was set for lunch at the country club. Classy, subtle, almost certainly expensive. There was sexuality there, but so carefully packaged you’d almost never see it. Paige Favreau, he sensed, kept everything under control.

He smiled. “Loosen the leash. Have a little fun. That’s all Gloria’s trying to do.”

“It’s fun at everyone else’s expense.”

“Doesn’t have to be. She’s doing it to benefit a charity, but it could be to everybody’s benefit. It could just be that y’all will have a good time with it if you just give it a chance. Come on, don’t you think it would be fun to shake these people up a little?”

Like it would be fun to shake her up a little.

“One of those people happens to be my grandfather.”

“It’d be good for him,” Zach said easily. “It’d be good for you. Live life on the edge.”

“I don’t think I’m ready for your edge, thanks.”

Without thinking about it, he moved closer to her, leaned in close enough to smell the light fragrance of her hair. “Oh, yeah? I think you might like my edge,” he murmured into her ear.

Her breath caught. He heard it. She didn’t move, just stood absolutely still, not making a sound. He heard a thud as her bags hit the ground. Then she began to tremble, so lightly that he’d never have noticed if he hadn’t been practically pressed against her.

And that quickly it stopped being a game for him. The silky spill of her hair brushed against his cheek. Her scent wound round his senses. He could take it further, he could feel it. He could taste her, touch her, take her to a place she’d never been before, and plunge them both into heat and need and madness. But not here.

For a suspended second, all Paige could do was stare at him wordlessly, trying to get her brain working again. They were in a parking lot, she reminded herself, broad daylight, traffic twenty feet away. How was it that she felt as if she’d just come back from somewhere dark and shadowed and intimate? And how was it she felt disappointed?

She swallowed and time began moving again. “It’s simple enough. My grandfather—and the whole neighborhood, I expect—want the museum somewhere else.”

“And my grandmother wants it here.” He smiled. “Looks like we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, wild thing.”

She jerked away from him. “I doubt it.” She picked up her bags and turned to open her car.

Zach just laughed. “See you later,” he called.

He planned to make sure of it.

T HE MAN WAS ABOUT AS irritating as they came, Paige thought as she drove south on Route 101 toward Los Angeles. Zach Reed was cocky, outrageous, egotistical, obstinate and patronizing. I think you’d like my edge, her foot. What she’d like would be to have him gone, him and his grandmother with her wacky ideas. She didn’t need Zach Reed in her life. That she’d woken up thinking about him didn’t put her in any better mood.

Here she was, driving down one of her favorite stretches of highway on a beautiful morning. She ought to be enjoying it, reveling in it. She certainly didn’t need to be getting an ulcer over the headache next door.

No matter how sexy he was.

The highway wound along right next to the water, with nothing between it and the waves but a riprap-covered slope. The narrow beach was deserted at this hour. The sun was only just beginning to peek over the inland coastal bluffs. Bereft of buildings, this stretch was the province only of the wet-suited surfers who bobbed out in the waves, their cars parked in a line on the shoulder. Between Santa Barbara and Ventura, Route 101 was as close as you could get to the edge of the continent without falling off.

And the thought had her snorting in irritation. Live life on the edge, indeed. Zach Reed was one of those guys who considered himself the answer to every woman’s prayer. Well, she didn’t have any prayers for him and she didn’t need any answers. She was perfectly happy with her life as it was—or would be if she could take care of Lyndon’s concerns about the museum.

And that meant dealing with Zach Reed, no matter how little she wanted to do it. She flashed briefly on that moment in the parking lot, that instant he’d been so close she could feel the heat from his body, when she’d seen in his eyes where he could take her.

Paige shivered. She liked nice men. She liked quiet, respectful relationships. Zach Reed wasn’t about any of those. An affair with him would be a wild roller coaster, a thrill ride that would take her breath, her will and very possibly her sanity.