Born Innocent (2 page)

A sharp pain pierced her, and it took every ounce of will she possessed to keep her brow smooth, her expression serene. She had told herself she wouldn’t hope. But hope was a weed of an emotion—it sprung up again no matter what you did to kill it. She lifted her chin. “Then why are you here?”

He turned away from the window to face her more directly. Now the light was behind him, creating a faint nimbus around his dark brown hair. “It’s about Alan Henson.”

Claire almost murmured “Who?,” but somehow she held the word back. She felt her cheeks warm slightly at how
close she’d come to embarrassing herself, when all she had left now was her pride. Of course she knew who Alan was. But with Joe near, she had trouble remembering anyone else existed.

“
What about Alan?” She was proud of her voice. It was cool and steady, the exact opposite of how she felt inside.

“
I hear you’ve been seeing him.”

“
So? What if I have?”

Joe’s response was flat and final. “I don’t like it, that’s what. I want it to stop.”

Something sharp and fiery arrowed through her veins then. Anger. What was his problem?
He
didn’t want her, but he didn’t want anyone else to have her, either?

The anger made her reckless. She spoke with flagrant challenge. “Excuse me, but who exactly do you think you are?”

He took one step toward her, and no more. Then, very deliberately, he looked her up and down. Her skin burned in the wake of his glance.

“
I’m your
friend.
I only want to help,” he said with quiet emphasis.

Claire couldn’t suppress her slight gasp. They were her own words of that night nearly six weeks ago, her own exact words, given back.

Joe went on, with some irony, “And part of what I do for a living is knowing a suspicious character when I see one.”

Staring at him, grimly doing her best to push back images of that unforgettable night, Claire tried to absorb what he was saying about Alan. But it just didn’t make sense. Alan Henson, with his soft brown eyes and quiet ways, was just about the most harmless individual Claire had ever met. She shook her head. “Come on, Joe. There is nothing suspicious about Alan Henson.”

“
There isn’t?”

“
No.”

“
Then why the hell is he hanging around this town all alone, doing nothing week after week?”

She remembered what Alan had explained to her that first morning she’d run into him over at Mandy’s Cafe. “He’s... getting away from it all.”

“
That’s what he’s told you?”

“
Yes.”

“
What else has he said—about himself, about his life?” “What do you mean?”

He gave her a look so patient it was condescending. “I mean, who is this guy? What do you know about him? Where does he come from? Who are his people? And what the hell is he ‘getting away from’?”

Claire sank to the straight chair by the hall entrance. Now that she really thought about it, Alan actually hadn’t told her much about himself. She recalled, a little defensively, “He’s a businessman. From San Francisco.”

“
What business?” Joe demanded. “And how do you know he’s really from San Francisco?”

Claire held back a moan of frustration.
Who cares about Alan Henson?
she thought. He was a guest. He’d been renting the back bungalow for the past four weeks. She’d shared a few “dutch” lunches with him at Mandy’s Cafe, and once he’d bought her a drink over at O’Donovan’s Tavern. To Claire, he seemed a nice enough man, and that was about all.

Alan Henson was no problem for her. She had
real
problems to worry over, problems that she was trying her best not to let Joe suspect.

“
Claire, look at me. This is important. You’re too damn trusting, and you know it.”

She forced herself once again to meet Joe’s eyes. “You’re making a big issue out of nothing. Just let it go.”

“
No, Claire. I won’t let it go. I don’t like what I’ve heard about this guy. He shows up in town out of nowhere and
spreads the word around that he’s looking for vacation property—and then he’s vague and unenthusiastic when Bob Buntley calls him.” Bob was the local real estate agent. “He also spends a hell of a lot of time in his room, with the blinds drawn. Or down at the river sitting on a rock, staring into the current.

“
When he thinks no one’s paying attention, he acts like a man with something serious on his mind. But then the minute anyone actually talks to him, he pastes on a big smile and suddenly he hasn’t got a care in the world.” Joe paused, looked away, then snared her glance again. “Damn it, Claire. There’s something... not right about the guy.” His frustration was evident in the tightness of his voice. “I just.... I don’t like to see you mixed up with him.” He turned his back on her and went to stare out the window again.

Claire began to feel ashamed. Even if Joe would never give her his love, he’d meant what he said a few moments ago. He
was
her friend. Her welfare mattered to him. He must have gone to some trouble to discover whatever there was to learn about Henson. And from the points he’d just made, his suspicions had some merit. She saw now just how petty and mean she’d been to mislead him about herself and a man in whom she had no interest at all.

She rose, and carefully approached him. “Look, Joe.” She spoke with gentle firmness. “You know how people are in this town. A woman goes to lunch with a man, and they have her married to him by dinnertime. But whatever people are saying, I’m not dating Alan Henson. He’s just a casual acquaintance, and that’s all he’ll ever be. If he’s got problems I don’t know about, well, they don’t concern me because there’s nothing at all between Alan and me.”

Joe turned from the window. “You’re sure?”

“
Yes. Honestly. There’s nothing between Alan Henson and me. And there never will be.” How could there be, a desolate inner voice added, when Alan Henson isn’t you?

Joe looked down at her. She found herself doing what she’d always done when close to him: memorizing him, from the high, fine forehead to the bladelike nose, the thin slash of mouth. His skin was toughened, freckled, from long hours in the sun. His straight black brows had the slightest arch at the outer edges.

The longing grew, like something warm expanding from the core of her. Just one touch, her heart cried. Only one. Just to reach up and lay her hand softly along the line of that rough cheek—

Clenching her fists, Claire cut off the treacherous thought. She made herself step back. Joe blinked when she moved. He glanced away, and then back at her.

She forced herself to say the words, “If that’s all, then I think you’d better go.”

Joe didn’t reply. He was looking steadily at her once more. For one forbidden moment she allowed herself to again imagine the impossible—that he would reach for her, take her in his arms, and swear he couldn’t live another millisecond without her at his side.

But then bitter reality returned. “Yeah,” he muttered gruffly. “I’d better go.”

As always, except for that one taboo night, he was stronger than she was. He turned on his heel and stalked out the way he’d come.

For Claire, there was one overwhelming desire right then: to chase after him and beg him to give what they might share a chance, to plead with him to let himself love her. But begging for his love had never worked before. She’d done it twice. Once at eighteen, and then again six years ago, when she was twenty-four. Both times he’d turned her down flat. So she knew by hard experience that chasing after Joe Tally would get her nowhere at all.

Claire sighed and rubbed her eyes. Then, though she despised herself for doing it, she wandered forlornly out to the lobby and peeked through the curtain as Joe started up his truck and drove away. Only the sound of more firecrackers going off—this time a string of loud ones tossed right onto the porch of the cottage—snapped her out of her self-pitying reverie.

Claire almost flung open the door to chase the errant neighbor boy down the street and yell at him to cut it out.

But she controlled herself, and finally smiled. It was only a prank, after all. And it was high time she stopped mooning over a man who would never allow himself to return her love.

Right now, she’d do better to cheer up and get on with her day. She forced a smile, but it wavered when she recalled the pregnancy test that was waiting on her bedside table in its plain brown bag.

She knew she probably ought to take it and be done with it. Within three minutes, she’d have the results. But there were hours of dealing with the public still ahead of her—not to mention the barbecue tonight at her mother’s house, which she’d promised to attend.

No, if the result was positive, she’d rather find out at the end of the day, when she would be guaranteed a block of time alone, time to absorb the fact that she was carrying Joe’s baby.

She would wait a little longer. Until tonight. And then, no matter what, she’d get it over with.

Over at the desk, the outside line rang.

Life goes on, Claire thought, as she marched across the room to answer the call.

After turning the desk over to Verna again at five-thirty, Claire walked to her mother’s house. It was a pleasant half-mile stroll. She crossed the bridge that spanned the Yuba River, which flowed through the center of town. Then she walked through the commercial area of town and on up the street to where Main became North Main and the stores gave way to houses.

Ella Snow no longer lived in the big house on Serpentine Street where Claire had grown up. Instead, when Claire’s father had died ten years ago, Ella sold the big house and bought a smaller place on North Main, a place with only two bedrooms and no yard to worry about.

The white-trimmed blue house perched on the river side of the street, right below where Cemetery Road branched off. The entry porch could be reached by ascending a flight of stairs. In back, the house was supported on stilts to keep it dry during high water. Claire went through the front screen door to the kitchen, which faced the street.

At the squeak of the door, her mother turned from the sink where she was busily slicing summer squash. “There you are. About time.” Ella held out her cheek to be kissed. “Where’s the German potato salad?”

Claire extended the casserole dish she’d carried with her from the motel. “Right here.”

“
Good. Just set it down. No, not there.” Ella pointed farther down the counter. “Over there.”

From the other side of the kitchen peninsula, at the big, round oak table, Ella’s other guests, two couples she played Bingo with on Thursday nights and her best friend, Dinah Richter, called greetings. Claire smiled at them and gave a wave. “Hi, everybody.” She turned back to her mother. “What can I do?”

Ella shot her a swift, sneaky glance. Claire should probably have known instantly that her mother was up to something. “Why don’t you go out on the deck and see if you can be of some help with the barbecue?”

Claire frowned. Ella had said she was inviting her Bingo friends and Dinah, so everyone was inside. “Help who?”

Her mother’s fatuous smile told it all. “Why, Alan Henson, of course. Didn’t I mention I’d asked him to join us?”

Twenty minutes later, Claire slid around the door of her mother’s bedroom and closed it softly behind her.

Ella, who’d excused herself “to freshen up,” was standing in front of her dresser mirror and carefully blotting her lipstick with a folded tissue.

“
Mother, you have got to stop interfering in my life.”

Ella gave a little gasp of surprise as she realized she’d been trapped in her own bedroom. “What is the matter with you, Claire? We have guests.” Ella grimaced at herself in the mirror; the lipstick had smeared. “Now is hardly the time to—”

“
You
have guests, Mother,” Claire pointed out. “This isn’t my house. As a matter of fact, I’m a guest, too.”

“
Oh, stop pouting.” Ella scrubbed at her lips with a fresh tissue and prepared to begin again. “You know what I mean. You’re my daughter, the substitute hostess in my absence. We shouldn’t both be back here at once.”

Claire decided to drop the relatively unimportant question of her responsibility toward her mother’s guests. She went straight to the real issue. “Why did you invite Alan Henson tonight?”

Ella reapplied the lipstick and blotted it with great care. “I thought you liked Alan. After all, you
are
dating the man.”

“
I am not dating him.” Claire watched her mother as she smoothed the gray wings of her hair. “He’s a casual acquaintance, that’s all.”

“
So
you
say. But everyone in town says...”

Claire gritted her teeth. She’d had about enough of people jumping to conclusions about herself and a man she hardly knew. “Who cares what everyone in town says, Mother? If you want to know who I’m dating, the best person to ask is me.”