Clay

by Jennifer Blake

  “You did it!” Janna cried.

  As he straightened, she put out her hand to clutch his arm. Under her palm, his skin, warm until that moment, pebbled with chill bumps. He grinned down at her. “No sweat. Literally.”

  His face was open, without shadows or guile, in the flashlight’s glow. For an instant, it seemed she could see inside him to the wide, fearless reaches of his soul, could feel the gentleness beneath the force of his personality, the caring that tempered his strength. He was wet and chilled, but didn’t care. He’d been drugged, bound, denied his freedom for days, but had responded to her need, and Lainey’s, instead of leaving them stranded.

  It was devastating to see him in that light, but there was a problem with it. She had no way to tell whether what she saw was the actuality or only her imagination, if her view of him was true or only as she would like him to be.

  His eyes darkened. “Janna.”

  Fear that she was wrong feathered over her with coldness more painful than the rain that plastered her clothes to her. She retreated a step, then pushed the flashlight at him. “Here,” she said in breathless haste. “I have to see about Lainey again.”

  He made no reply, but stood staring after her as she slammed back into the house. By the time she reached the hallway outside Lainey’s bedroom, he had switched the power over to the generator so the light came on overhead to show her the way.

  Her daughter was restless, twitching and moaning in her sleep, while her skin was flushed with heat. Janna stood beside the bed, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. It would be some time yet before Nurse Fenton arrived. Janna hated this waiting. Something inside her shrilled that it was dangerous to delay, that she should be taking action. It was possible she was overwrought, as the nurse had suggested on the phone, but it felt like educated instinct.

  She reached to smooth the backs of her fingers over Lainey’s tender and puffy little cheek. The skin was hot, so hot. How much of it was fever, how much from the warm night, she couldn’t tell. The heat was increasing in the house in spite of the rain. The generator could power the basics, but wasn’t designed to run the air conditioners. At least she could open a few windows for air, even if rainwater did splatter inside.

  Clay was ahead of her. He’d already shoved up enough window sashes for a decent cross draft by the time she reached the kitchen area, and was opening more. The kettle sat on the gas range as well, and the smell of fresh coffee hanging in the air told her he’d put grounds in the drip pot.

  He hadn’t changed, she saw. His wet jeans clung to his body like indigo skin. A wet streak trailed down the small of his back to disappear under his waistband, and raindrops spangled the tops of his shoulders. Every step he made left a wet track on the floor in the shape of a bare foot. Regardless, he appeared incredibly competent, healthy and sexy, particularly since she suspected he was naked under his one piece of clothing. If he was conscious of it in any way, he gave no sign.

  “Lainey all right?” he asked over his shoulder as he pulled up a blind to keep it out of the way of the sash he’d just raised.

  Lightning flared, outlining him at the window in a silver glow. She turned quickly from the sight, moving to the dish cabinet. As she took down two cups, she answered, “I wish I knew.”

  “But you really don’t think so.”

  “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the whole thing is getting to me.”

  “Can she wait for the nurse?”

  His question carried a knife-edge of doubt. She answered the tone as much as the question. “She’ll have to, won’t she?”

  “Not if you take her out of here.”

  Janna pressed her lips together without answering. Turning to the table, she set down the cups she held, then pulled out a chair and slid onto it. Behind her, the kettle began to whistle. Clay padded over to fill the coffeepot, then brought it with him as he joined her at the table. For long moments, the only sounds were the trickling coffee, the rain overhead and the thunder that boomed now and then, echoing back from the tree-fringed lake beyond the open back door.

  There was tension in the quiet between them, but little real strain; they had moved past that at some time during the last few hours. Janna could feel weariness trying to sneak up on her. She put an elbow on the table and propped her head on the heel of her hand.

  “Get some rest,” Clay said, his voice abrupt. “I’ll keep watch.”

  “No, no, it’s okay.” She sat up straight again with an effort.

  “Drink this then.”

  She hadn’t seen him pour the coffee, hadn’t known that it had finished dripping. Her brain felt as if someone had filled her skull with foam packing peanuts. As she reached for the cup he offered, he wrapped her fingers carefully around it before he took his own away.

  The brew was hot and strong, and slid down her throat like the elixir of life. Its jolt was welcome, but not as reviving as she expected.

  She risked a quick look at Clay. He lounged back in his chair with his coffee cup resting on his thigh and his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. The heat building in the house gave his bronze skin a perspiration sheen to go with the raindrops still glinting like silver beads among his chest hair. His air of relaxation was less than total, however, since he was completely motionless and his gaze was fixed on her chest.

  A single downward glance showed Janna that she was attired like a candidate in a wet T-shirt contest. The soft, damp material draped over the curves of her breasts with perfect fidelity, including the tightening of her nipples under the intensity of his gaze.

  Deliberately she stared at him until he looked up and his gaze locked with hers. A slow tide of dark color invaded his face and he shifted in his chair in a telltale movement before turning his attention to his coffee.

  He wanted her, that much was clear. The question was why. She was bedraggled and exhausted, a hollow-eyed harridan without makeup or even the pretense of civility. The only answer she saw made her feel a little sick inside, especially after her earlier moment of trust.

  Revenge.

  That was it, she thought, though not revenge of a simple, physical kind. He had no use for crude retaliation, not Clay Benedict. In return for taking his freedom, he meant to have nothing less than her self-respect. He’d joked about being her sex slave, but in reality that was what he was intent on making her.

  The pain of that suspicion was so great that she could hardly think, had difficulty drawing air into her lungs. She stood up in a single fast move that sloshed coffee from her cup in a steaming wave. “I think I’ll change and lie down with Lainey, after all.”

  He didn’t try to stop her as she moved in the direction of the bedroom. When she paused at the door a second to look back, he was sitting as she’d left him, watching her with the blank look of incomprehension in his eyes. Doubt touched her with cool fingers. She hesitated, said in a tremulous request, “Call me? When the nurse gets here, I mean.”

  He gave a short nod, but that was all. As irrational as it might be under the circumstances, she missed his smile.

  Janna came awake to a touch. Clay stood over her with his hand on her shoulder. The instant she opened her eyes, he released her and stepped back.

  “Car coming,” he said quietly.

  She was so groggy with sleep that it was hard to focus, still she could see that he’d changed clothes. The rakish, half-naked satyr who had sat in her kitchen was gone. In his place was a neat and somber Southern gentleman in a black T-shirt and jeans, one who looked more alert and purposeful than any man should. Nothing in his face or manner even hinted that he had any designs on her body or her psyche. Why then did she feel as if she had slept unmolested only by grace of his forbearance and self-control?

  “Thank you,” she said through dry lips.

  “No problem.” He paused, as if he expected some comment that didn’t come, then went on. “The rain has stopped. I’ll wait outside for this nurse.”

  She nodded her understanding. As he left the room, s
he resisted the impulse to watch him.

  By the time Anita Fenton stepped inside the screened porch ahead of Clay, Janna had brushed her hair, splashed cool water on her face and straightened the dress made of hand-dyed fabric in a crazy quilt patchwork design that she’d changed into from her wet clothes. She felt marginally more collected, but was still uncomfortably warm since the power remained out. At least the generator still hummed steadily on the porch.

  Anita Fenton, wearing a polyester shirt and slacks set and carrying a molded metal case, glanced at their makeshift power source. An expression of incredulous scorn crossed her face. For a second, Janna was aware of the uncertain grip she held on her temper as she waited at the screen door. Reminding herself to have a care, she said as pleasantly as possible, “Come inside, please. I’m really sorry to get you out on such a bad night.”

  “Never mind. I’m here now. Where is Lainey?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Really.” The sarcasm in the woman’s tone suggested this was proof she had come on a fool’s errand.

  Janna, catching Clay’s gaze, saw his face tighten with irritation. That helped her feelings for some reason. “This way,” she said to the nurse over her shoulder as she led the way toward the bedroom.

  At the open doorway, Nurse Fenton pushed past Janna and strode to the bed. Putting out a red-nailed hand, she shook the sleeping child awake with a quick, almost rough, movement.

  Lainey raised her lashes. Her face blanched, and she gave a small scream. Eyes wide and fever-bright, she sprang up, then scooted away in the bed until her back was against the headboard. Her retreat disturbed Ringo who had somehow found his way into the bed with her. He leaped in the air from where he had been snuggled between the pillows. Coming down on all fours with his tail straight up, he hissed like an angry cat as he faced the source of danger.

  “Shit!” Nurse Fenton jerked back her hand, then swung toward Janna. With an angry flush mottling her face like a rash, she demanded, “What is this?”

  “You startled her,” Janna said sharply. “And Ringo.”

  “I have no time for coddling a silly little girl,” the nurse snapped. “And I certainly didn’t come all this way to be attacked by a wild animal! I’d have thought you’d know better than to allow so unsanitary a creature near your daughter.”

  From the corners of her eyes, Janna saw Clay step to the foot of the bed, his face grim and eyes narrowed. To the nurse she said, “Ringo is perfectly clean, and he helps calm Lainey.”

  “Oh, yes? He doesn’t seem to be doing such a fine job right now. Are you going to control your child so I can examine her?”

  Janna didn’t trust herself to answer. Leaning toward Lainey, she held out her hand. “Come on, honey,” she said in cajoling tones. “Nurse Fenton needs to take a look at you.”

  “No sticks,” Lainey said in a high, near-frantic whine, even as she cringed away. “No sticks.”

  “No sticks, I promise,” Janna murmured in reassurance.

  “I may as well do the presurgical blood test, as long as I’ve come all this way,” Nurse Fenton said in hard contradiction. Setting her case on the bedside table, she opened it and took out a packaged hypodermic syringe.

  The result was entirely predictable. Lainey went into hysterics. Screaming and kicking, she scuttled away to the fullest extent of the tubing attached to her stomach catheter. Janna put a knee on the mattress and stretched a hand out toward her, intending to draw her into her arms to soothe her. A small, flying heel caught her in the mouth, so she fell back, tasting blood. Clay, with a frown between his brows and concern darkening his eyes, stepped quickly around to the far side of the bed.

  “For heaven’s sake,” the nurse said in angry contempt. “Get me a sheet. I’ll wrap the little brat up so tight she can’t move a toenail.” As she spoke, she ripped open the syringe, then pulled out a length of latex ribbon of the kind normally used for constricting the arm to raise the blood vessels.

  “I don’t think…” Clay began, his voice hard.

  “I can handle it,” Janna interrupted.

  The nurse turned a hard stare on Clay as if just taking note of his presence. “Who is this man, and what’s he doing here anyway? Dr. Gower will not be pleased that you aren’t following instructions.”

  “The doctor knows all about Clay,” Janna said shortly. She reached for Lainey again and almost had her, but the panicky child made a dive in Clay’s direction. She might have tumbled over the side of the bed if he hadn’t caught her by her elbow, then sat down quickly on the mattress so she fell into his arms. Ringo, scampering after her, wasn’t quite so lucky. He slid over the edge where he clung to a corner of the sheet with his sharp claws for a second, then dropped to the floor.

  “Well, finally, someone who can actually hold down the little wretch. Get her arm, will you, while I find a vein.” Nurse Fenton, without the raccoon to contend with, pushed Janna to one side and climbed onto the bed. She crept forward on her knees.

  Lainey shrieked. Babbling and pleading, she grabbed Clay’s neck in a stranglehold, then wrapped herself around him. Her clear plastic dialysis tubing snapped tight across the rumpled sheets.

  “I’ve had enough of this!” Nurse Fenton’s eyes flared and her lips clamped in a hard line as she grabbed the stretched plastic tube in a hard fist. “Come here right now, brat, or I’ll make you one sorry little girl.”

  Janna cried out as she saw that the nurse meant to drag Lainey toward her by the tubing attached to the shunt in her stomach incision. The woman was between Janna and her daughter. She was going to be too late to stop her.

  Clay shot out his hand like a striking rattlesnake, the movement so fast it was little more than a blur. His hard fist closed over the nurse’s wrist in a grasp tight enough to whiten his knuckles. “Drop it,” he said in slicing menace. “Do it now, or I’ll break your bones like so many toothpicks.”

  The color drained from Nurse Fenton’s face. She crumpled to one side with her mouth open in a gasping cry. Slowly, one by one, she opened her fingers and let go of the tube.

  “Back up. Get off the bed.” Clay flung the red-haired woman’s wrist toward her face.

  She followed his orders, even as she threw an accusing look at Lainey. The girl was quiet, though it was impossible to be sure whether her shocked silence was because of Clay’s violence or the novelty of having someone protect her from medical personnel. She huddled in his lap as he circled her with a protective arm.

  With the space of the mattress between her and Clay, the nurse curled her lips in a malevolent sneer. “You’ll regret this,” she informed him. “Lainey’s kidney will go to someone else. I’ll see to it.”

  “Get out,” Clay told her without expression. “And don’t come back.”

  Janna, caught between fierce gladness and horror, drew breath to protest. The look of blazing contempt that he turned on her stopped the words in her throat. He had no more use for one who would condone frightening and hurting a child, she saw, than for the person who would do it.

  Voice a little shaky, she said, “But Lainey needs—”

  “She doesn’t need this.”

  There was no shadow of compromise in his voice. And he was right; she saw that clearly. It hurt that he’d recognized it before Lainey’s mother who should have been the protector of her welfare. “No,” she said quietly. “No, she doesn’t.”

  Clay’s smile was like a reward. It curved his lips in approval, shone with a brilliant and unearthly blue sheen in his eyes, and beatified the small room. It was a loss when he turned back to Nurse Fenton. In entirely different tones, he said, “You heard the lady.”

  The woman gave Janna a last narrow-eyed stare. Then she gathered her belongings and stalked from the room. Seconds later, the screen door of the porch banged shut behind her.

  Janna let out the breath she’d been holding without noticing. Then she crawled across the bed and shifted closer to Lainey and Clay. She reached for her daughter, and Lainey put out
her arm, leaning near enough to crook her elbow around her mother’s neck. She didn’t release Clay, however, so that Janna was pulled into a tight, three-person hug. After a second, she felt Clay ease over to reduce the tension on Lainey’s tubing, then the warm strength of his arm enclosed her in his hold along with her daughter.

  It felt so good, so right, that a hard knot formed in Janna’s chest and she swallowed salt tears. Protected, she felt protected, and something else that swelled her heart and filled her with such heat that it radiated from her very pores.

  He was quite a guy, Clay Benedict. Whatever he might have done or intended to do, she owed him. In her gratitude to him, she was willing to give him anything he wanted, at least for now. No matter what the form or what it might cost her, she would allow him his recompense. Or even his revenge.

  13

  A sharp pain in his groin snatched Clay from sleep. Sheer instinct made him try to roll away, but he came up short. He was pinned to the bed. Lainey lay with her back to him and her head and shoulders resting across his outflung arm. She was jerking as if in the grip of some nightmare. It was her sharp little heel that had gouged him as she kicked out in her sleep.

  On the other side of the girl, Janna was curled toward him with one foot tangled between his ankles. As he blinked awake, he saw her lashes lift as well. She focused on her daughter who was turned toward her. Fear and comprehension invaded the silver-spangled gray depths of her eyes.

  Before he could form a word, she shoved to a sitting position on the mattress and reached for Lainey. She dragged her daughter across her lap. Leaning backward, she plucked a child’s hairbrush from the nightstand then thrust the slender, blunt-ended handle into Lainey’s mouth. Deftly she extracted her swallowed tongue.

  Lainey was having a convulsion.

  It wasn’t the way Clay had dreamed of waking up when he’d gone to sleep in Janna’s bed.

  With a wrenching contraction of stiff muscles, he surged to his feet. He stared down at the arched, shuddering body of the little girl whose eyes were rolled back into her head so only the whites were visible. As he watched, she went limp, barely breathing. Janna had been right in her mother’s intuition. The situation was bad.