Clay

by Jennifer Blake

  Down in Louisiana, they live the Southern way. Family is everything, and women are strong when they need to be and soft when they should be. And the best men are gentlemen….

  Meet Jennifer Blake’s LOUISIANA GENTLEMEN—all cousins in the Benedict clan.

  First there was KANE, also known as Sugar Kane—’cause he’s sweet as sin…with all the consequences.

  Then there was LUKE, who never met a damsel in distress he didn’t stop to help—whether she wanted him to or not.

  Even if he weren’t sheriff, ROAN would be the man to call whenever there was trouble.

  Now there’s CLAY—the Benedict who’s always ready for anything. Good thing, too, since Janna Kerr and her daughter are about to make Clay’s life very interesting….

  Also available from MIRA Books and

  JENNIFER BLAKE

  GARDEN OF SCANDAL

  KANE

  SOUTHERN GENTLEMEN

  (with Emilie Richards)

  LUKE

  ROAN

  CLAY is the fourth book in the Louisiana Gentlemen series by Jennifer Blake. The stories feature Turn-Coupe’s Benedict clan—a family whose history dates back to the earliest days of the Sugar State. Using what Jennifer Blake—herself a seventh-generation Louisianan—calls “the rich blend of cultures that is so vital an aspect of modern Louisiana,” these stories superbly capture the magic that is the lush and steamy state.

  Watch for the newest novel from

  JENNIFER BLAKE

  WADE

  JENNIFER BLAKE

  CLAY

  For Kathryn Seidick, aka romance author Kasey Michaels,

  with warm appreciation for sharing the trials

  and the triumph of her son Michael’s fight

  against renal disease as told in her incredibly moving

  story “Or You Can Let Him Go.” And for all signers

  of organ donor cards, wherever in the world they may

  be, for they are the truest of heroes.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  1

  Clay Benedict was out cold, his large frame sprawled in boneless grace on the worn linoleum of the old camp’s kitchen. Janna Kerr stared down at him with her hand pressed to her mouth while one part of her brain exalted in her success and the other stood appalled by it. She had him, had Clay Benedict, the one man in the whole world that was of any use to her. The thing was done. She had turned a possible disaster into certain triumph.

  It seemed too easy. So few things in her life had been easy in recent years that it made her extremely nervous.

  He appeared dead, but that wasn’t possible. Surely it wasn’t? She’d had no time for careful measurements, however, little time for anything except finding a way to prevent him from leaving. The sedative had taken forever to kick in, so long that she’d begun to think feverishly of more desperate measures. There had been no need, after all. One moment he’d been sitting at the cheap wooden table, toying with his empty coffee cup, and the next he was toppling from his chair.

  His head had hit the floor as he fell. Janna hadn’t counted on that. Moving with slow care, she knelt at his side and put out her hand as if to touch him. Then she drew it back again, closing her fist so tightly that her short, neat nails dug into her palm.

  What if he was playacting? What if his eyes snapped open and he grabbed her? She was strong from years of lifting and caring for her daughter Lainey, also from wringing out yards of water-soaked dye cloth and searching the woods and fields for dye plant specimens. Still, she didn’t much care for her chances in a wrestling match with the man on the floor.

  He was a superior specimen of the male animal if she’d ever seen one, with whipcord muscles and the deeply tanned skin of an outdoorsman. His chest, under the blue T-shirt that matched his faded jeans, was broad and deep before it tapered into a flat waist and lean hips. Power marked his chiseled features and the firm line of his lips, though the impression was softened by the length of his lashes and the smile lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes. Even in a stupor, he appeared self-contained, invincible in his assurance of exactly who and what he was inside.

  He was a Benedict. A Benedict of Turn-Coupe, Louisiana, with all the assurance verging on arrogance that went with the name.

  Annoyance at the idea steeled Janna’s nerves, and she reached out again to feel for the pulse in the side of his neck. The warmth of his skin was startling against her chilled fingers, and she could sense the faint prickle of his dark beard underneath it. It had been a long time since she’d actually touched a man. The act felt so intimate that it was a second before she could concentrate on the vigorous and steady beat of his jugular. She counted it for a moment, then let out a sigh and sat back on her heels.

  She had Clay Benedict, all right. But what in the name of heaven was she going to do with him now that she had him?

  She wouldn’t need to hold him long, a week, two at the outside. She had done so much already, made all the contacts, raised the money, moved Lainey and herself into this fishing camp in the back of the beyond. Getting hold of Clay Benedict had been a last, totally unexpected boon, the spun sugar icing on the cake. It was possible that it would make the whole thing perfect.

  Absolutely everything was in place now. Soon it would be over, all over.

  She’d had to improvise when Clay had arrived so unexpectedly at the camp an hour ago. Denise had asked him to check on Janna and her daughter, he’d said. It made sense when she remembered how close-knit the Benedict clan was, how they looked after each other and everything else in what they considered their ordained corner of the world, the Benedict community on Horseshoe Lake and its swamp. Then had come the bad moment when he’d shown too much interest in the photos of Lainey scattered over the table where Janna had been putting them into an album. She couldn’t allow that, so had been forced to act on her half-formed impulse. Now it was beginning to seem that it was meant to be.

  He lay so still. The rise and fall of his chest was deep, his breathing soundless. His cleanly molded lips were parted a fraction, his hands, with their scattering of nicks and pale scars, were open and the fingers lax. It gave her an odd feeling around her heart to see him so defenseless.

  She could still back out; it wasn’t too late. Some excuse could be found for why Clay had passed out in her kitchen. She could let him sleep off the sedative then send him on his way. Dr. Gower might not be too happy with this substitution in the plan, after all. With so much lead-time, Clay Benedict might also figure out what was going on. Suppose he got away and moved to stop her? Buying and selling a human organ was illegal, after all, and the penalty for it wasn’t light. If she actually stole one, they’d probably put her under the jailhouse instead of inside it.

  That Clay would turn the key himself if he were able, Janna didn’t doubt. She knew all about the strict ethics of the Benedicts—she’d heard enough about them nine years ago. They came down firmly on the side of law and order and strict moral conduct. The Benedicts, male and female, would never allow someone to be deliberately injured for their benefit, not even if it meant losing the person they loved most in the world.

  Janna wasn’t made that way, at least not when her daughter’s life was at stake. She ha
d Clay Benedict and she was going to keep him as long as he was useful to her.

  A low groan came from the man beside her knee. He might not be quite so far gone as she’d thought. She had to make a move, and fast, if she meant to hold him.

  The fishing camp had only three rooms, an L-shaped living room, dining room and kitchen combination, and two bedrooms. Space for a bathroom had been carved out of one of these, so that the other, the one facing the lake, was larger. Janna and Lainey slept in the big bedroom, since sharing a bed made it easier for Janna to get up at night with her daughter and to check on the medical equipment. The other bedroom had been turned into a workspace by pushing the ancient iron bedstead into a corner. Her workroom would be the best place, Janna thought. Anyway, it was closer. Dragging Clay Benedict that short distance should be possible if she used her leg muscles. The problem would be getting him onto the bed. She wasn’t exactly petite, but heaving his hard-muscled mass around was beyond her.

  His airboat also had to be considered. It was sitting in plain sight at the camp’s boat dock, next to the old aluminum skiff that had come with the camp. It would be a dead giveaway if anyone came looking for its owner. What on earth was she going to do with it?

  Pushing to her feet, Janna leaned over to grab first one of Clay’s wrists and then the other, drawing his arms straight above his head. She flung the long, silver-blond rope of her hair behind her back, then gritted her teeth and dragged him backward, inch by slow inch out of the kitchen and down the hall. Thank God Lainey was taking her afternoon nap, she thought as she maneuvered him through the open doorway of the smaller bedroom. Not that she could keep the man hidden from such an inquisitive child, but at least Lainey needn’t be upset by seeing him so obviously comatose. To satisfy her daughter, Janna was going to have to come up with some good reason for keeping him in this extreme form of time-out. Everything was black and white, wrong or right to Lainey. Janna was sometimes forced to wonder if moral codes weren’t a genetic trait.

  She stopped for a moment to lean on the bathroom doorjamb and pant for breath, then struggled on until she had Clay lying in the middle of the small bedroom. That was as far as she could go.

  Her back muscles were on fire, her jaws ached from clenching them, and she had strain-induced spots dancing in front of her eyes. She cursed silently as she collapsed on the floor beside Clay Benedict. Leaning her back against the bed frame, she rested her head against the mattress and closed her eyes. She would think of some way to get him tied up and onto the bed in a minute. Surely she could. And would, as soon as she caught her breath.

  “Janna! Janna, gal, you home?”

  That call was followed immediately by the bang of the lightweight screen door that led onto the camp’s back porch, also screened, then the shuffle of footsteps. Both were easily recognizable. Alligator Arty had come to visit.

  She’d known her capture of Clay Benedict was too easy.

  Janna put her hands over her face and pressed hard. Of course the old coot, the only person within miles of the place, would come today, now, this minute. Why not? The way her luck usually ran, he probably had the sheriff of Tunica Parish, Clay Benedict’s cousin, with him as well.

  “Janna? You decent? I’m comin’ in.”

  “Be right with you,” she called.

  Scrambling to her feet, she moved quickly from the bedroom, closing the door behind her. The old latch didn’t quite catch, for she heard the hinge creak as it swung wide again, still she didn’t stop. Arty was a law unto himself, single-minded in pursuit of his own aims, with few manners, zero pretension and zilch in the way of inhibition. She wouldn’t put it past him to barge in on her even if she were in the bathroom.

  He stood waiting just inside the back door that opened from the screen porch into the kitchen, a wiry and tough scarecrow of a man from whom all spare flesh had been burned away by many decades of hot Southern sun. His straggly beard tickled the bib of his clean but ragged overalls, and his intent eyes were like swamp water, sometimes clear, sometimes murky, and of an odd color not blue, brown nor green but a mixture of all three. He grinned at her with appreciation while close to his chest he held his lucky fishing hat, a fedora so tattered and stained with age that it could easily date back to the forties and the last heyday of dress hats for men.

  “Howdy, Janna, ma’am,” he said, ducking his head in a truncated bow. “I seen Clay’s Jenny as I was paddling by, and thought as how I’d come find out what was keeping him.”

  “You saw what?” Her brain made little sense of his words, perhaps because her nerves were jangled by the hint that he knew Clay was being detained.

  “His boat. Name’s Jenny, though why the devil Clay ever—but never mind that. Where’s he at?”

  “I really don’t know what to tell you.” That was the simple truth, if ever she’d spoken it.

  The old man opened his eyes wide. “Tarnation, woman, he’s got to be here someplace. I mean, there ain’t nothing but lake and Louisiana swampland for God knows how many miles.”

  “Please keep your voice down. Lainey is asleep,” Janna said. “All right, Clay Benedict stopped by for a second, but—”

  “Why the heck would he do that, I ask you?” Arty demanded, lowering his tone a mere half decibel as he stepped toward her so she had to back up a quick pace. “He was supposed to come see about Beulah. I’ve been waitin’ for hours but he ain’t come, and Clay’s a man of his word. So I set out to see if he’d run into trouble and there was his Jenny at your dock, pretty as you please. Which don’t surprise me none since Clay’s always had him a fine eye for a pretty lady, but I ain’t got time to wait around while he sweet-talks. My Beulah’s bad sick, bellowing fit to raise the dead, and he’s the only one who can dose her. So where’s he hid out?”

  Janna lifted a brow. “Are you suggesting something is going on that shouldn’t be?”

  A pained look crossed his face. “I don’t give a flying—uh, fig what’s going on. I just want Clay to come out here and talk to me.”

  “I told you he isn’t here.”

  “So I heard.” He advanced so she was forced to back up again. “But he’s not a man to go off and leave his Jenny. I know for a fact that he loves that boat.”

  “Now wait a minute,” she began.

  Arty stalked on, bearing down on her so she had to give way or get run over. “And Clay said as how he’d be by to see Beulah today. He gave his word so I know he means to, come hell or high water. Nothing can stop him, well, nothing except maybe a fine-looking—Gawd almighty!”

  He’d reached the narrow hallway and a position that would allow him to see into the spare bedroom. Janna closed her eyes that were unexpectedly filled with tears. Then she turned slowly to face the old man.

  He stood in the doorway, staring from Clay Benedict stretched full-length on the floor to Janna, and then back again. The silence stretched. From the bedroom down the hall came the sound of the bedsprings as Lainey turned over. Her daughter whimpered in her sleep, perhaps at the memory of pain, in a sound that never failed to pierce Janna’s heart.

  Alligator Arty’s face turned a mottled red. Jerking his head toward Clay, he asked, “What’s the matter with him?”

  What was the point in lying? She might have handled one man, but what could she do against two? With a tight shrug, Janna said, “Doped with the barbiturates the doctor gave me so I could rest. As if I’d dare take them without someone to look after Lainey while I was out of it.”

  “Yeah.” He stood ruminating a moment, his old eyes shrewd as they rested on her face with its tear streaks. “I see.”

  Possibly he did. He’d been in and out often in the ten days or so that she and Lainey had been at the camp. The old swamp rat was lonesome, she thought. He’d taken a liking to Lainey, and why not? She was sweet and loving, a precocious kid who seldom saw a stranger. Her temporary home fascinated her, especially its backwater lore, which the old man dredged up to entertain her. Janna didn’t mind; she’d even encouraged Ar
ty’s visits by feeding him and offering to trim his hair. She was glad of anything that kept her daughter from dwelling on the reason they were hiding out and what was going to happen to her when they left the swamp for Dr. Gower’s medical center.

  Arty said now, “You’re afraid for the little gal, that it?”

  Janna nodded. That was it, all right, and in so many ways.

  “This operation you said she’s gonna have ain’t exactly what you’d call normal, is it?”

  “Not exactly.” The old man was shrewder than she had imagined. He was also accurate. Lainey had no close family member who could provide a match for a kidney donation—even Janna’s tissue had proved unsuitable. Her daughter had been on the list for a cadaver kidney for more than two years, but her blood type was O, the least likely of all for a match. Still, the call for a possible donation had come twice during the intervening months. Each time, Janna had been wild with hope. Each time, Lainey’s blood and lymphocyte samples had shown antibody reactions to the organs, positive indication for rejection. The disappointment, in both cases, had been devastating.

  Who knew when another suitable kidney might become available? It was even possible that there would never be a cadaver match, that she had some genetic predisposition toward antibody reaction to all except the tissue of a near relative. In the meantime, her incidents of BUN and creatinine imbalance, acute peritonitis and blood pressure surges were growing more frequent. The next one could kill her. The inherent dangers were so many and severe that life expectancy for a child on dialysis was a mere sixteen years. Ten kidney patients died every day while waiting for a transplant.

  The wonders of genetic engineering promised that patients like Lainey would be able to regenerate their defective kidneys one day, actually growing new, healthy ones from implanted tissue. But the technique wasn’t yet perfected, and the date when it might be available was too far in the future to offer hope.