The Saint (14 page)

Frankly, Eddie was beginning to wonder whether
he
had any brains, either.

He kept telling himself that Binky Potter would stick by him even if things got a little ugly for a while, socially speaking. But he knew better than that. Only two things could glue Binky Potter down. One was a high cash-factor, and the other was a high cool-factor.

Well, he'd just flushed his cool-factor down the toilet with that phone call to Jeff. And his cash-factor was bottoming out, too, with all the rain they'd been having. Not surprisingly, his customers didn't feel he should get paid for work he didn't do.

So what exactly did he think he could use to keep Binky Potter hanging around?

Well…he could join the football team. That was cool.

Coach McClintock had been trying to talk him into it, but he'd been waffling, not sure he could maintain the grades his father expected, mow enough lawns to
keep Binky in jewelry, write extra papers for his “friends” and do well on the team, too.

He'd just about decided to say no for good. Better not to play at all—Coach would go on believing Eddie could have been a star. If he played and turned out to be a dud…

Man, he'd hate that.

But now it looked as if he was going to have a lot of extra time. No papers, no social life, and if he didn't do something quick, probably no Binky, either.

His phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID. It was Binky.
Wow.
Jeff hadn't lost any time pulling out the big guns, had he?

Eddie didn't pick up, and finally the ringing stopped.

She was probably mad. But damn it, he wasn't ready to argue about it. Binky had a way of messing with his mind—and she usually got there by way of his pants. She was especially good at talking dirty on the phone, which of course put her in no risk of having to give out anything but time. If he weren't careful, she'd have him at the computer, typing in the words EDGAR ALLEN POE with one hand and—

His telephone rang again. He leaned his head back, groaning. Binky didn't like “no” as an answer. She'd probably keep calling all night.

He jerked up the receiver. “Look, I can't talk right now, Binky, my dad—”

“Who's Binky?”

The voice on the other end was languid and womanly. A million miles from Binky's choppy, girlish
Valley-talk. Too late, he looked down at the caller ID.

Tremel, Austin,
the letters said.

Oh, man. He felt a prickling along his shoulder blades, right where she had massaged them. And then he felt a prickling some other places, too.

“Hello, Mrs. Tremel,” he said. “I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

“Binky Potter?” She laughed. She had the sexiest laugh he'd ever heard. It sounded as if they shared a secret, something wonderful and a little bit dangerous. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“Ummm—” Eddie didn't quite know how to answer that. When Mrs. Tremel said the word, it sounded lame to have a “girlfriend.” It sounded so high school. It sounded like wrestling in the back seat of a car for the chance to cop a feel and then limping home frustrated as hell.

It sounded, in fact, exactly like what it was.

“Yeah,” he said. “Kind of.”

“That's nice,” she said. She wasn't laughing any more on the outside, but Eddie knew she was still laughing on the inside. He must seem so dumb to her. He flushed, remembering how he had jumped up the other day when Mrs. McClintock had appeared out of nowhere. He had been like some idiot in a slapstick comedy, falling all over himself and then running away like he was being swarmed by killer bees.

But the whole thing with Mrs. Tremel was so sketchy.

He couldn't help liking it when she flirted with him. He'd get home and think about it at night, until
he was sweating buckets and completely unable to sleep.

But even while it turned him on, it also kind of grossed him out. She was like eight years older than he was. And he knew one thing for damn sure. He knew he didn't want Mrs. McClintock going home and telling Coach that she'd seen Eddie Mackey doing things he shouldn't do with Mrs. Tremel.

“So,” Mrs. Tremel said. “I called because I was wondering how your leg is doing.”

He touched the bandage. “It's fine,” he lied. It still hurt like crazy. “Thanks for fixing it up. It's much better.”

“I'm glad,” she said. “You're such a great kid, Eddie. I hate to see you going through bad things.” She paused. “Do you know what I mean?”

He didn't, really. “You mean my leg?”

“Not just that. I mean I don't think you should be having hard times with anything—or anybody.” She paused. “I saw Cullen Overton here the other day. I thought maybe he might be giving you a hard time.”

Oh, God. She
had
seen him pass the Tennyson paper. He knew it.

“It wasn't like that,” Eddie said. He felt out of his depth. He felt trapped. He reached down and picked at the edge of his bandage. He pulled it a little, just to feel the sting as it tore at the hair on his leg. “Cullen—he's kinda, you know… But he's a friend. He wasn't bothering me.”

“I'm not sure,” she said. “I'm worried about you, Eddie. I hope you'll believe that I'm your friend. I want you to let me help you.”

Mrs. Tremel's voice was very soft, and Eddie felt goose bumps go all through him. Her words were
weird, kind of like a promise and a threat at the same time. Like she really did want to help him—but also like she'd be mad if he said no.

“Honestly, Mrs. Tremel. That's really nice, but—”

“I don't want to have to talk to anyone else about it,” she said, softer than ever. “You know what I mean. Like your teachers. Or your father.”

“No,” he said quickly, his upper lip beginning to sweat. He had been holding the phone between his chin and his shoulder, but it started to slip, and he had to grab it with one hand, which also seemed to be sweating. “No, you don't need to do that.”

“I hope not. But you're going to have to let me help you. You're going to have to come by and tell me the truth about what's going on.”

“Yes.” He hardly knew what he was promising. He wasn't even entirely clear what she was asking. But he knew that in order to keep her from telling people about the papers, he was going to have to keep her happy.

“Yes, I'll come by. I was going to come anyhow, to finish your yard.”

“Come tomorrow, then,” she said, and he could tell she was smiling. “Come to the back door. I think we should be alone when we talk, don't you?”

No,
he thought. He didn't think they should
ever
be alone again.

And yet…

He wanted it. He groaned softly and bent over, trying to control how much he wanted it, trying not to think about the way her breasts had felt, pressing into his back while she massaged his shoulders.

His mother and father would hate him if they
found out about this. They'd just think he was a horny little pervert. But they didn't know him anymore. They thought he was still a kid, with nothing on his mind but Nintendo and new sneakers. They had no idea what he went through.

Binky would hate him, too. But she didn't understand, either. From a distance, on the phone, she thought sex was a fun game, a game she always won. In person, when she felt him pushing up against her, she just thought it was disgusting and ugly.

But Mrs. Tremel…

She was a grown woman, a woman who had already been married and wasn't afraid of any part of it. She knew what a man looked like. She wouldn't get angry if he tried to make her touch him. She would like touching him. And she'd know exactly what to do.

“Yes,” he said, shutting his eyes and praying his father wasn't listening in on the extension. “I think we probably should be alone.”

K
IERAN HAD GONE TO BED
early. What else was there to do? Claire always went to bed by ten. Sometimes he stayed up, working in the library or his office, but tonight he didn't feel like being the only person awake in a house full of shadows.

As he might have predicted, though, he couldn't sleep. He lay there for half an hour, his window open so he could enjoy the cool summer breeze. The branches of the sourwood tree danced a black, silhouetted waltz with the moonlight across his bedroom wall, and the mantel clock ticked away the minutes. But still he didn't sleep.

At about ten-thirty, he thought he heard a low knock at his door.

He rose onto one elbow, listening. And it came again, a diffident knock, only marginally louder than the beating of his heart. If he hadn't been awake, he never would have heard it.

It had to be Claire. Immediately he thought she must be sick. Badly sick. He knew she wouldn't come to his bedroom door because of a little nausea. He'd seen her coping with that often enough on her own, apparently never thinking to ask him for help.

He got up and was at the door in a flash, pulling it open. “Claire?”

To his surprise, she was fully dressed and, unless the dim hall light was playing tricks, smiling shyly.

“I hope I didn't wake you up,” she said. She dropped her gaze to his naked chest, his drawstring sweatpants. “Oh, dear. I did, didn't I? I'm sorry.”

“No,” he said. He wished he had thought to pull on a shirt. “I was awake. Is everything okay?”

Her smile broadened. “Everything is fantastic,” she said. She must have caught his skeptical expression, because she laughed softly. “I know this sounds crazy, but I was lying there in bed, and suddenly I realized that I feel fine. Not queasy, not weak, not shaky,
nothing.
For the first time in a couple of months, I feel completely myself again.”

He could feel the waves of relief coming from her whole body. It was his first real hint of how difficult the early stages of her pregnancy must have been.

“That's great,” he said. He started to tell her how beautiful she looked, with that smile, and that air of optimism sparkling all around her. But he stopped himself. This wasn't about him, about how her moods, her looks or her health affected him. It was about her return to strength and normalcy.

“So anyhow,” she said, holding her hands together in front of her with what appeared to be suppressed excitement, “I was wondering. Does that horse farm you said you bought actually have horses?”

“Yes.”

“Do you own the horses, too?”

He smiled. “Of course.” Where was this going?

Her eyes were wide, and her smile deepened, growing wide enough that her neat white teeth caught the gleam of the moonlight. “I know this sounds
kind of crazy, but…will you take me out there? Will you let me ride one?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Now?”

She nodded. “I told you it sounded crazy. It's just such a beautiful night, and I love to ride, we had neighbors with horses, and our girls ride at the academy. And now that I'm not sick anymore, I have all this energy bouncing around inside me.” She drew a breath. “But if it's too la—”

“It doesn't sound crazy at all,” he said quickly, before she could articulate the practical problems, before she could say that it was too late or too dark, or too impulsive. He didn't want the fire to go out on this unexpectedly lovely flare of enthusiasm. “Just give me two minutes to pull on some jeans, and we'll go.”

The ranch was only about half an hour from his house. Heyday was a small town, and even its outlying suburbs, all three of them, gave way to the wide, unspoiled Shenandoah Valley quickly. Within minutes they were on open highway, with nothing but grasslands, oaks and unmarked fencing on either side. A few more minutes, and they reached the exit for the ranch.

He had called Oscar, the ranch caretaker, before they left, to alert him that lights in the stables would not be cause for pulling out his pellet gun. The man took his job seriously, and last week he'd shot at a couple of kids who had come there for a little privacy. He'd missed the girl, but the boy would be sitting on a pillow for a while, or so the gossip went.

Claire had grown more quiet as they drove, though Kieran had kept up a chatter of information about the little ranch, acreage and holdings and assorted odds
and ends about its history. Lazy Gables, it was called, because its main house had been sagging for about eighty years now. Its original owner had died last year, and the heirs had been city kids, eager to sell it off for a song.

“I asked Oscar to get a couple of horses saddled up and ready,” Kieran said as he killed the motor near the entrance to the white stables, which also sagged. “He thinks we're crazy, but he agreed. I told him to pick the most docile ones he had.”

Claire looked at him. “I'm actually a pretty good rider.”

“That's not what I meant. I was thinking about—” He paused. “The baby. If anything happened, if you got thrown…”

She laughed. “I don't think the pregnancy is that fragile. In fact, when I asked the doctor if there was anything I shouldn't do, he said I probably shouldn't go bungee jumping, but not because it was a threat to the baby. Just because it was a damn stupid thing to do.”

“I see.” Kieran was surprised at what a relief that was. He wished he could have talked to the doctor, too. He had so many questions, and nowhere to take them.

With one last smile, he put his hand on the door. “Then let's go for a ride.”

Oscar had tethered their horses to the paddock at the front end of the stable. The two handsome animals waited patiently, moving hardly at all, just an occasional flicker of their ears or light swish of their tails.

The smaller of the two was a pretty Paso Fino trail horse, his glossy brown coat gleaming in the light
from the outdoor stable carriage lamps, and the flash on his forehead as white as the moon itself. The second horse, larger by about three hands, was an elegant gray whose black eyes watched them, liquid and peaceful.

Claire touched both the horses gently, stroking their long, graceful necks, murmuring soothing sounds.

She turned to Kieran. Her brown eyes were shining, just like the horses'. “They're perfect,” she said. “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?”

He couldn't answer right away. He had the oddest hitch in his breathing. “No,” he said finally. “I don't think I have.”

They rode for more than an hour, following the river trail, which was wider and much easier by night than the woodland trails. Occasionally another grassy path would fork off to their left, inviting them into the deep forests of oak and ash and birch. But each time Kieran resisted the shadowy green temptation and chose instead to hug the rim of the river.

This was not the time to go exploring. He had been to this ranch only once before, and he didn't know where its dangers might lurk. He refused to take chances with Claire.

She didn't seem to mind. The river looked enchanted tonight and whispered mysterious things as it tumbled over shining rocks. The nearly full moon rode unusually low in the sky, as if it were tempted to wash its smudged face in the rushing river. Its bright beams turned the water as blue-white as milk.

They didn't talk, but the silence was easy—they might have been old friends. Usually Kieran led, but
often the trail was wide enough for them to ride abreast, and he realized that she'd been telling the truth: she was an excellent rider.

She had a good seat. Her balance, rhythm and posture were all inherently graceful. He knew women who'd been taking lessons since childhood who would never handle a horse this well. Had someone taught her? There was so much, he thought, that he didn't know about his own wife.

He took advantage of this quiet time alone to ask a few of the more impersonal questions he'd been storing up. He learned a little about the neighbor who'd had horses and loaned them to Claire and Steve. He learned about the riding lessons at the snooty school where she taught today.

Nothing earth-shattering. But it was a start.

After a few miles they came upon a particularly lovely spot, where a stand of white birches rose at the river's edge and smooth granite stones formed a flat, broad overlook.

She turned to him with those shining eyes. “Let's stop a minute,” she said. “We could rest the horses.”

The horses accepted being tied to the slim birch trunks as easily as they'd accepted everything else on this unexpected late-night ride. They stood close together, their heads bent to the tall grasses that grew in the spaces between the rocks, and ignored the humans.

Claire and Kieran walked closer to the edge. They stood there for a long minute, staring down at the water, which slid over the rocks softly here, a little out of the way of the current. Just clear cascades, no froth, no chatter, no danger.

They decided, without any words, to sit, propping their backs against the nearest vertical rock as if it were the back of a chair. Behind them, one of the horses whinnied softly, and somewhere in the treetops a night bird lifted off, beating the air with slow, whooshing strokes.

“It's very peaceful, isn't it?” Claire sighed. “I feel as if I'm a million miles away from every problem in the world.”

Kieran wished that were true. He wished he had some way to make her problems disappear. He wished, at the very least, that he weren't personally responsible for so many of them.

He couldn't make her life perfect, of course. No one could manage such a miracle. But there was something he could do—had already done. Maybe this was the right time to let her know about it.

“I've been meaning to tell you,” he said, playing with the grass that tickled at the tips of his fingers. “I asked John Gordon to draw up some documents for me the other day.”

She turned toward him. The moonlight lit one cheek, one lovely eye. The branches of the birch tree cast a shadow on the other side of her face, as if she were wearing a dramatic black-and-white mask.

“About the money?” She didn't look upset. She looked rather as if she'd been expecting it.

He remembered how his father had exploded the night, more than two years ago, when Kieran told him he was taking Claire to dinner. “For God's sake don't get involved with a
Yarrow
girl,” Anderson had roared, as if
Yarrow
had been a contagious disease instead of a neighborhood. “She'll pick you as clean as a buzzard if you let her.”

Kieran wished Anderson had lived long enough to see how wrong he had been. Of course he also wished that Anderson were still alive to learn he was going to have a grandchild.

“Yes, in a way, it is about the money,” Kieran said carefully. “I've come to a decision, and I hope you'll agree it was the right thing to do. I've put some money in a trust for the baby.”

Her face didn't change, exactly. It merely grew unnaturally still.

“Some money?”

This was the sticky part. She wasn't a fool—she'd probably accept a little help, just to ensure that the baby had a safe and confident life. But he could almost predict how she'd react to this number…

“Yes. Five million. Two and a half million in a trust for the baby, for schools and clothes and health care. And another two and a half million for you. To spend however you see fit.”

She surprised him. She didn't turn pale or turn red, or jump up in icy fury. Instead, she smiled. She seemed genuinely amused.

“Very funny. As if there could possibly be any
fit
way to spend two and a half million dollars.”

He touched her cheek with the back of his finger. “It's not a joke, Claire. It's true. And it's already done.”

She frowned. “Then undo it. It's absurd.”

“No, it isn't.” He moved a little closer and took both her hands in his. “Please try to understand, Claire. This is my child, too. He deserves to live the way—” Oh, hell, why couldn't he find the words to put this diplomatically? “I mean…he's a McClintock. Someday everything I own will be his—”

“No, it won't.” She was finally getting angry. “You'll have other—” Her eyes glistened suddenly, filling with liquid moonlight. “Other McClintocks. They are the ones who will inherit your money, your lifestyle, your whole ridiculous
town.
Because they'll be the children you planned for. They'll be the children you want.”

“Claire.” He tightened his hold on her hands. “I want this one.”

She shook her head. “You think so now, maybe. Or you think you
should
think so. But as the months go by, you'll come to see him less and less. You'll care less and less. And then, someday, it'll just be too much trouble. You'll stop coming at—”

“No.” He brought her hand up to his heart and held it there, even though she tried to wrestle it away. When she subsided, he spoke again, quietly.

“That's not me you're describing, Claire. That's your father.”

She stared at him a minute. And then, without a word, she jerked her hand free and clambered to her feet. She went to the very edge of the granite boulder and stared out at the river.

He didn't follow. He knew he'd touched a nerve. It would take a little while for the stinging to ease, and then maybe she could think clearly again.

That was okay. He would give her all the time she needed.

A minute. Three. Then five.

Finally she turned around. She was very pale—but she hadn't shed a single tear. He remembered the shining moonlight in her eyes and wondered how she had willed it to disappear.

He thought, as he watched her stand there, her
back to the cascading river, that perhaps she was the strongest woman he'd ever seen.

“You're right,” she said. “I'm projecting my own experience onto this situation, and that's not fair to any of us. I think I can almost understand how you feel about establishing a trust for the baby. Probably you are expecting Ivy League schools and…all the trappings of a McClintock. I could never give him any of that. So if you really feel that you must set aside such a large sum, I—I won't fight you.”