CLAY YEAGER'S REDEMPTION

by Justine Davis

  It figured, she thought as she got out of bed and headed for the bathroom for a shower. She couldn't be attracted to someone straightforward and simple, like Mrs. Wilson's nephew, or even Amos Tutweiler's grandson, who was a professor over at the state university, much to his grandfather's pride. She'd even gone out with Aaron; he taught history, made it come alive for his students, and she admired that. But there was no spark, and they both knew it.

  She'd been almost relieved that there was never any question of anything beyond friendship between them.

  But no, she had to be attracted to someone like Clay, a man who was more mystery than not, who seemed haunted by demons, who was withdrawn and had more sore spots than she could seem to avoid hitting.

  He seemed driven by a pain that in an odd way reminded her of her own. For a while she'd wondered if that was it, if it was a simple case of two wounded souls connecting, but as time passed she knew it was more than that. And she didn't know if she dreaded the knowledge or welcomed it.

  Not that it mattered, she thought as she pulled on jeans and a sleeveless blouse, glad she didn't have to put her business persona together today. Not when the kiss that had sent her reeling had sent him running.

  Her gut had reacted to that hasty, urgent departure instinctively, out of the old pain, wondering if she had disgusted him, if somehow he had guessed, had known and was repulsed. But an instant later all the work of the past four years had kicked in, and she'd fought her way back to rationality. Whatever had sent Clay running, it hadn't been her. It hadn't been disgust or repulsion in his eyes when he'd broken the kiss and looked down at her.

  It had been alarm.

  And she had wondered in that moment if he had been as shocked as she by the unexpected power of a simple kiss. Had it burned through his defenses as it had hers? Had he run because he was reeling, too?

  That question didn't make it any easier for her to contemplate seeing him this morning. Would it be awkward, or would he, as he had before, act as if nothing at all had happened?

  "It'll be ready to paint by this afternoon," was what greeted her when she stepped outside, and she guessed she had her answer.

  "All right," she said, with what she hoped was unruffled calm. "I'll go into town this morning and get the paint."

  He seemed to hesitate, then asked, "Is there an auto parts store in town? Or a repair garage?"

  "Alf Taylor runs a garage at his gas station on Third," she said. "He has a lot of parts and can get what he doesn't have fairly quickly."

  She hesitated, knowing she was about to open herself up to a storm of gossip. But it hardly seemed fair to expect him to stay isolated here on the farm all the time, seeing no one but her. So she asked, "Do you want to ride in with me? There must be things you need."

  He hesitated even longer than she had. Since he could hardly be embarrassed by gossip among people he didn't know, he had to have some other reason. Was he reluctant to spend that much time with her after last night? Or did he have some other reason to not want to go into town?

  Right, maybe he's an ax murderer on the run, she chided herself. He had as much right to privacy as she did, and she certainly wasn't pouring out her sorry past to him. He was one of the hardest workers she'd ever seen, and he didn't owe her anything but an answer to her question.

  And if he needed time to think about it, she wasn't going to read anything into that.

  "I'll leave right after breakfast," she said. "You can decide by then if you want to go."

  She left it at that, half-expecting him not to accept her offer. But after they'd finished the fruit, toast and coffee she'd fixed, he washed up and presented himself at her car. Mud eyed them both suspiciously and barked to let them know he wasn't about to be left behind.

  Casey looked at Clay.

  "He's good at waiting," he said. "He won't hurt the car."

  "I wasn't worried about that. You don't think he'll be bored?"

  "He'd rather go along and be bored."

  Casey's mouth quirked. "Why do I get the feeling that if we didn't take him, he'd follow us?"

  For the first time that morning, Clay smiled. "Because he would."

  "I thought so. Okay, Mud, in you go."

  The little collie scrambled into the back seat of the small station wagon; she'd bought it for the business and had racks built to safely hold her pans and dishes for transport. It had her logo and Casey's Catering painted on each front door; she felt as if she were driving a billboard sometimes, but it had netted her a customer or two, so she guessed it was worth it.

  Once inside, Clay lapsed into silence, and they were halfway to River Bend proper before she finally broke it. "Something wrong with your truck?"

  "It's just tired," he said.

  "It's not that old, is it?"

  "Eight years. But a lot of miles."

  "Older than Mud, then," she quipped.

  She was watching the road, not him, but still she sensed his sudden stillness.

  "Yes," he said, his voice calm enough that she wondered if she'd been wrong.

  Well, at least he wasn't running this time, she thought. But then, they were in a moving car. In keeping with her resolution not to pry, she turned the conversation slightly.

  "I've been thinking about getting a dog myself," she said. "Security and all."

  He shifted in his seat to look at her. "You feel like you need that, out here?"

  Ouch, she thought.

  Now it was her turn to back off. She wasn't really sure why she hadn't told him about the calls, except that it was such a personal thing, and he seemed to shy away from anything like that. Not to mention that he'd absolutely refused to share any information about himself, which didn't exactly encourage her to open up. And besides, she didn't want to admit that a few silly phone calls had her so rattled; it might lead to questions she truly didn't want to answer.

  "No, not really," she amended quickly. "But a dog would be company, too."

  "They are great listeners."

  He said it deadpan, and she risked a quick glance. He wasn't smiling, and something in his face told her he meant exactly what he'd said. She could only imagine what discussions he and Mud had had on the road. The dog no doubt knew all there was to know about this man.

  Which was probably more than could be said for any person on the planet, she thought.

  She parked in front of the small bookstore, midway between Alf Taylor's station and the Exchange. Clay headed off for the garage after they agreed to meet at the Exchange in an hour, to get the paint.

  Casey didn't really have anything specific she needed beyond the paint, but she could always pass an hour in Jean's bookstore. Jean had very eclectic taste, and in addition to a rather varied selection of magazines, you were as likely to find a book on true crime as one on farming, a thriller or the latest romance as a book on local history. It was the only bookstore in River Bend and served other smaller towns farther out, as well, especially for those who didn't want to drive into Ames and wade through all the bookstores and the books they stocked for the Iowa State students.

  Which also meant that Jean knew the reading tastes and interests of virtually everyone in town who read anything that didn't come in the mail; she was very observant. If Phyllis Harrington was the town broadcaster, Jean was the source. When Mrs. Tutweiler had purchased a baby name book, the up-until-then secret of her daughter's pregnancy was out. When Mabel Clark ordered a crochet pattern book, the buzz was on about which afghan would be her county fair entry that year. And when Jim Wilson had ordered a book on UFOs, everybody in town wondered if he'd spent one too many hot days out in the fields, until it turned out to be for Matt's school project. Sometimes Casey thought Jean stocked horror novels just to find out who read them.

  The bell over the door rang as she went in, which usually got Jean's attention. But as she glanced toward the counter, she saw that Jean was already headed toward her and realized with a qualm that she must have seen Clay and her arrive. Together.
/>   Jean was also not one for niceties when she was on the scent of news.

  "Who was that scruffy-looking man, Casey? Surely you're not picking up hitchhikers!"

  Scruffy? Clay? She thought for a moment and supposed she could understand Jean's observation; she'd thought it herself when she'd first seen him. But she'd grown used to his looks, never thought anymore about the worn condition of his clothes. As for his hair, it was no longer than that of many of the kids of River Bend. And she rather liked it, for all that it could use some trimming and shaping.

  But Jean was waiting for an answer. She should have thought this through, Casey realized, or at least discussed with Clay what she should—or should not—say. She didn't really think he was hiding anything criminal, but others in town might not be so generous.

  At last she decided on the truth, or at least enough of it to placate Jean.

  "His truck broke down near my place."

  "But he's not from around here," Jean said positively.

  "No. He's from Southern California."

  "Oh."

  Jean lifted a brow until it disappeared beneath her rather determinedly black bangs. Casey supposed that, in Jean's mind, Clay being from California explained it all.

  "I suppose he's some Hollywood type, with all that hair."

  "Actually, he's from some place called Marina Heights." Ah, that was something she could do, find an atlas and look that up.

  "Marina Heights, Marina Heights," Jean muttered. "I've heard of that somewhere."

  "You have?" Casey asked, surprised.

  "I can't remember where, though."

  Casey left her trying to recall and moments later was looking at a road atlas. California was on two pages; sometimes she forgot just how big the state was, and how long. But she found Marina Heights, a small—by California standards—town just inland from Marina del Mar, which was right on the coast. She wondered what it was like to live that close to the ocean. Did you go to the beach every day you could, or did you fall victim to a sense of complacency, never going because it was always there and you always could?

  She reshelved the book before Jean could notice and wonder, took a quick step to the left and began to scan the fiction titles. She hadn't been doing much fiction reading lately. Perhaps she should buy something engrossing; maybe it would help distract her.

  By the time she'd selected a couple of westerns—she'd developed a taste for them and their generally clear-cut good and evil—and been lured by a picture book on the seasons of the Mississippi, her hour was almost up. She went to the register and found Jean still worrying about where she'd heard of Marina Heights before. Casey was glad enough that she was preoccupied; it kept her from asking any more questions. Although as she walked toward the Exchange after dropping her package off in the car, she found herself wondering as well why a bookseller in the middle of Iowa had heard of a small place in Southern California.

  As long as it isn't famous for ax murders, she thought wryly.

  As she crossed the street, she saw Clay waiting outside the front door of the Exchange. He was leaning against the post, out of the way of the few passing pedestrians, who almost universally looked at him curiously as they passed. He appeared not to notice at all, but Casey had the feeling he didn't miss much. That he didn't ever miss much.

  She could see why they looked; even if he hadn't been a stranger, Clay Yeager was the kind of man who got noticed. There was just something about his long, rangy body, his stance, that edgy alertness, that made him stand out.

  And made her pulse pick up so noticeably that she almost blushed. She slowed her pace until she had herself in hand.

  He went still, and then his head came around, his eyes looking for her long before she would have thought he'd been aware of her. His gaze never left her as she closed the distance between them, and she nearly shivered under its intensity.

  When she'd been young and foolish, she'd dreamed of a man looking at her like that; she'd never realized that the fantasy had worked because in her mind she'd known what the man was thinking. She had no idea what Clay Yeager was thinking, and that made the look as unnerving as it was electrifying.

  "Did Alf have what you needed?" she managed to ask.

  He shook his head. "No, but he ordered it. Should be here in two or three days." He paused, then added, "I had to tell him where to reach me. He started to get a little … wary when I tried to tell him I'd just come back to pick it up."

  She smiled ruefully. "Alf would. And don't worry about it. Jean in the bookstore saw us arrive, so your cover's blown, anyway."

  He gave her a look so sharp it was all she could do not to take a step back.

  "What did you buy?" she asked instead, trying to sound as if she hadn't noticed as she eyed the bag at his feet.

  "Boots."

  The short answer, after that look, irked her. She was getting mightily tired of bouncing off his sore spots, and it drove her to say breezily, "Funny thing, Jean in the bookstore says she's heard of Marina Heights somewhere. She couldn't remember where, though."

  He went even more still. "You … told her?"

  Well, she'd guessed right that time; he'd reacted about as she'd expected. "She asked. People around here do, you know. I didn't realize it was a secret."

  Something in his face changed then, and suddenly she didn't feel quite so breezy. He went almost pale, and she saw him swallow tightly. His eyes closed for a moment, and his rangy body seemed to slump.

  Casey felt a rush of guilt, as if she'd somehow betrayed a trust she hadn't even realized she'd been given.

  She was still wrestling with her feelings later that night, when Clay finally called a halt to the painting because it had become too dark to continue. He'd been pushing hard; she sensed he had some goal in mind beyond simply finishing the painting of the house.

  She'd helped where she could, since she had the time just now, but he was much quicker than she was. She had urged him to quit when the light first began to fade, but he'd kept on for another hour, until she warned him there were going to be moths permanently imbedded in the fresh paint if he didn't stop. So he'd stopped, with only the bottom few feet of the entire side of the house to go.

  As he sealed up the paint cans, she gathered up the brushes and carried them into the laundry-room sink to be cleaned. She'd just gotten them started when she realized she'd forgotten the big roller and went back for it.

  She heard him before she rounded the corner of the house.

  "I don't know how long I can keep going, buddy."

  It was a good thing she'd insisted they stop, then, Casey thought. She'd known he'd been pushing too hard.

  She heard Mud whine. She smiled; the little collie sounded almost worried. He had insisted on supervising the job, and now the black parts of his coat were splattered with white paint. She should take him in and clean him along with the brushes, she thought with a grin.

  "She likes you, you know. And she's been thinking about a dog, anyway. She'd take good care of you."

  Casey stopped midstride, halting just before she would have turned the corner into his field of vision. Mud whined. Still worried.

  And suddenly Casey was worried, too.

  The allusion in those soft words, the thing he wasn't saying, rang in her mind as if he'd spoken the words. A vivid image shot through her mind of the first day she'd seen Clay. Of the flat deadness of his eyes. Then they'd convinced her she shouldn't be afraid of him.

  Now she was afraid for him.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  « ^ »

  He knew the moment he saw her face that she'd heard him. And Clay's instincts, rusty but still working, told him that she'd read the intent behind his words and there was no use trying to convince her she was misinterpreting.

  The bluntness of her words proved him right.

  "Whatever it is, it's not worth that."

  He tried to ignore her, to simply not answer. But she wasn't having any of that.

&nbs
p; "No matter how black it seems, it passes, Clay. Eventually it passes."

  He turned on her then, unable to help himself. "That's exactly what I don't want."

  She blinked. "You don't want it to pass?"

  "No. If it passes, then I'll start to … forget."

  "You never forget," she said. "Not completely."

  "Forgetting any of it isn't an option."

  She drew back slightly. "Remembering every detail won't change anything. And it won't bring you any peace."

  He laughed harshly. "I don't deserve peace."

  "You're a harsh judge, then. Everyone deserves peace."

  "I'm sure the murderers on death row everywhere would be grateful for your best wishes."

  She flushed. "You know that's not what I meant."

  Yes, he knew. He knew that she'd only meant to tell him that he deserved peace. And he knew that if he told her the truth about who and what he was, she would have to agree that he deserved nothing of the kind.

  But she kept her head up and faced him down. Whatever her own past had been, whatever it was that had put that occasional look of world-weary wisdom in her eyes, it had also given her courage. And if there was anything left in this world he admired, it was that. Perhaps because so many people thought he had it himself, and more than most … but he knew better.

  "Yes, I know that's not what you meant," he said softly, sorry now he'd struck back in that way.

  "What nerve did I hit that time?" she asked, then immediately added, "No, don't bother, I know you won't answer. But whatever it is that … haunts you, Clay, it's not worth giving up."

  For a moment, standing there and looking into her eyes, into those eyes that made the blue of the summer sky seem pallid, he thought she just might really understand, that she, too, had walked this barren ground where the only salvation seemed to be ending the journey. That she had faced her own demons, battled her own nightmares, her own fears, her own memories. That what she said wasn't just platitudes, but hard-won, bitterly learned lessons she was trying to pass on.