The Saint (16 page)

“I'm fine,” Claire said evenly. “How about you, Aurora? The cold hasn't come back, has it?”

“Oh, no, I'm as healthy as a dragon. You're the one we need to be thinking about. I've told Kieran to take you home and make sure you put your feet up.”

Claire glanced at Kieran, who gave her a stare of wide-eyed innocence. “I told her you probably wouldn't stand for that,” he said. “I mean, we haven't been on the Twister yet. And you did say something about wanting some fries.”

Claire fought down a twisting sensation of her own and smiled at Kieran. “I could probably be persuaded to call it a night,” she said.

“Yes, you do that, dear,” Aurora interjected. She put her hand on Kieran's arm. “I'll come and see you tomorrow,” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “We'll talk more then. And I'm sorry for what I said. I'm just a batty old lady, you know. I get ridiculous ideas.”

With that cryptic parting statement, Aurora hugged them both and made her way back to the carnival. When Aurora was safely out of earshot, Claire gave Kieran a straight look.

“What exactly was that all about?”

Kieran smiled. “She guessed, that's all. About the baby. Apparently she's suspected all along—you
must have been pretty green around the gills those mornings when you were staying at her house.”

“I was. But she never said a word.” Claire thought it through. “That doesn't account for that last statement, though—that apology for whatever she said earlier.”

Kieran looked momentarily uncomfortable. “Oh, that was nothing. You know how she is.”

Claire knew a dodge when she heard one. “No, I don't. Maybe you should tell me.”

“Oh, it's just the usual nasty gossip, the kind we knew we'd get. She was afraid I didn't know.” He shrugged, as if it were all meaningless…which told Claire that it wasn't meaningless at all. “Apparently someone had told her that you were going to have a baby, but that it was… You know. It wasn't mine.”

Claire stiffened. Aurora, the woman Claire had thought was her one real friend in Heyday, had actually repeated a statement like that?

Claire felt hard, icy bits forming around her heart. She knew exactly why the Heyday elite found that story so easy to believe. All of them, even Aurora, judged a person's character by the size of his stock portfolio. Claire Strickland was poor, ergo Claire Strickland might well be a tramp and a liar.

She lifted her chin. “And what exactly did you tell her?”

He put his hand over his heart. “I told her I was shocked to the tips of my toes. I told her that I had rescued you from a harem, but you had sworn that you were unsullied. I told her that I was so dumb-struck at the prospect of having the Sheik's illegitimate baby foisted on me that I felt quite faint.”

He grinned, and slowly she felt the little chips of
ice inside her begin to melt. He had, of course, said nothing of the kind.

“Right. But what did you
really
say?”

He touched her cheek. “What do you think? I said I was the happiest father-to-be on the face of the earth.”

Of course she knew he hadn't said that, either. But it was sweet of him to pretend. It was his way of telling her that he, at least, didn't judge her by the Snob Standard.

In the end, his opinion was the only one that mattered.

She was suddenly very tired. He seemed to understand that, and began walking toward the car without being prompted. He helped her in, as if she were something very expensive and breakable.

Though the drive was short, she dozed a little as he chauffeured her back to the mansion, away from the blinking colored lights and synthesized music of the tiny carnival.

When they finally arrived, she opened her eyes, sensing groggily that something was different. She stirred, and at that moment she realized exactly what it was.

Even though they were alone, and none of their usual playacting was required, all the way home her husband had been holding her hand.

K
IERAN HATED TO LEAVE
the house so early the next morning. He would have liked to wait until Claire woke up. He would have liked to be sure she felt okay after last night's foolishness at the carnival. He felt responsible. He should never have let her go on those wild rides.

But John Gordon called at 7:30 a.m. with surprising news. Bryce McClintock was in Heyday. He had just made an appointment to stop by Gordon's law firm to pick up some documents pertaining to the inheritance.

Bryce would be there any minute, and he'd made it clear he didn't plan to stick around. If Kieran wanted to see his black-sheep brother, John had said, he'd better get his butt over right now.

Kieran made it in twelve minutes. Bryce might not be keen to see him, but it didn't seem right to let another fourteen years go by without at least trying to extend an olive branch. Surely now that they were both grown men, they could let go of the sibling rivalry that had tormented their youth.

But the minute Bryce, one bold eyebrow cocked quizzically, looked up from the paperwork he was reading, Kieran knew nothing had changed. Bryce had inherited his mother's dark good looks, but he'd inherited Anderson's sardonic arrogance, too. The
combination was lethal, granting Bryce the ability to break female hearts and crush male egos without breaking a sweat.

“Good morning, baby brother,” Bryce said as if they'd seen each other yesterday. He had been alone in the office. John Gordon must be out copying documents or checking files.

“What brings you here?” Bryce lazily held out the legal-size papers he'd been reading. “Want to buy a barn? A pet store? An abandoned fraternity house? I seem suddenly to possess all manner of real estate debris.”

Once, back when Kieran was a vulnerable teenager, that smile, that drawl would have made him flush with a sense of rejected inferiority. But the intervening years had leveled the playing field. The sarcasm that would have wounded the boy bounced harmlessly off the man.

“Hi, Bryce,” Kieran said, determined to be pleasant. John's luxurious office had two leather chairs for clients. Bryce was already in one, so Kieran took the other. “It's good to see you. It's been a very long time.”

Bryce smiled. “Yes,” he agreed. “But it really would have been awkward to come back while the old man was still here. He did say if I ever set foot in Heyday again he'd have me arrested. Or was that drawn and quartered? Something unpleasant, I remember.”

Kieran remembered, too. What a wild summer that had been. “Tarred and feathered, I think,” he corrected. “But you know he didn't mean it. Dad never stayed mad at anyone for long.”

Bryce had returned to studying his document.
“No,” he said musingly. “It was always difficult for Dad to maintain any emotion, wasn't it? Love, for instance, seemed to come and go at a particularly rapid pace.”

For a minute Kieran wondered why the hell he'd bothered coming here. Bryce hated Anderson McClintock—his mother, Sophia, bitter at having been discarded, had seen to that. But Sophia had died five years ago, and now Anderson was gone, too. Surely it was safe to put down the swords and wage peace for a change.

“Bryce, look. Obviously he forgave you. He left you an equal share of everything. And we are brothers, you know, so we might—”

An odd rustling noise emanated from somewhere nearby. Kieran broke off and looked down curiously.

Bryce tilted his head toward the desk. “I think Mr. Gordon may have mice,” he said. “Very big mice.”

At that moment, Erica Gordon popped her head out. She'd been hiding in the kneehole.

“I'm not a mouse,” she said. “I'm a real person.”

“Oh, a
real
person.” Bryce's smile was surprisingly warm. “Nice to meet you, real person. Do you live under the desk?”

Erica stood up, brushing down her crumpled shirt and jeans. “Of course not,” she said. “I just hide there when I want to listen to stuff. You don't need to tell my dad, though.”

Bryce seemed to consider that. “No,” he agreed. “I don't believe I do.”

“Thanks.” Erica studied him curiously. “My mom told me that you didn't look anything like Kieran, even though you're his brother. She was right. She says it's because your father was a tomcat. I
don't think she meant that exactly. I think it's a metaphor. Look up metaphor in the dictionary, you'll see what I mean.”

“A tomcat. Let's see.” Bryce's face was absolutely sober, but his eyes twinkled slightly. “Actually,” he said, “I think it's a euphemism.”

Erica's brows knit together. “I don't know euphemism. I'm only in second grade.”

“Bryce is just kidding you, Erica,” Kieran broke in. “Where's your dad?”

“I don't know.” She frowned at Kieran. “Do you want me to go get him? You're just trying to get rid of me, aren't you? Where's Claire? Is she okay? Dad said she puked her guts up last night. I'll bet that's a hyperbole. Look it up in the dictionary, you'll see—”

“Erica, shut up.” Kieran couldn't help laughing. “Go get your dad, would you?”

Lifting her chin, Erica retreated in an indignant silence.

Shaking his head, Kieran grinned over at Bryce. “Erica,” he said, “is one of a kind. Thank God.”

Bryce chuckled. “I don't know. Spunk can be a valuable asset.” He put down the document suddenly. “So who's Claire?”

Illogically, Kieran felt a sudden sense of discomfort. He could take Bryce's jabs and taunts, but he didn't feel like exposing Claire—or their fragile marriage—to all of that. It was too new, too vulnerable. Too private. And the details were so strange—he realized he did not want to mention the unwanted pregnancy. It was too…

Too like Anderson.

“Claire is my wife.”

Bryce's eyebrow went up again. “Really. That was brave.”

Kieran felt himself stiffening. “What was?”

“Oh, you know. Taking the long, pointless walk to the altar. Making vows that you know you'll never be able to keep.”

God, he went straight for the jugular, didn't he? It was hot in this room. Kieran stood up. “And why wouldn't I be able to keep them?”

Bryce laughed. “You are a McClintock. You did warn the poor bride that you come from tomcat stock, I hope.”

Kieran's jaw was clenched so tightly it ached. “You really are a bastard, aren't you, Bryce? No wonder Dad always said you—”

Just then John came back into the office. He looked from Bryce to Kieran carefully, as if he smelled the tension in the air.

“Hi,” he ventured quietly. “Everything okay?”

Kieran couldn't quite bring himself to answer. He was glad he'd been interrupted. He had been about to say things he'd regret.

Bryce stood, still smiling. He dropped the file he'd been reading onto John's desk.

“Everything's fine,” Bryce said. “But, in fact, I was just leaving. I'll have my lawyer give you a call in a few days to sort out the details.”

“But you
are
a lawyer.” John looked confused. “And you said you wanted to—”

“Well, you know what they say about lawyers who represent themselves.” Bryce shrugged. “Besides, I've got urgent business waiting for me in the Bahamas. I think her name is Leanne.”

He turned to Kieran. “Sorry I haven't got time to
meet your wife,” he said. “But that's okay. I'll drop by again someday, and then I can meet the next one.”

 

C
LAIRE SLEPT WELL AND LONG
. When she woke she knew it was late. Sunshine must have been streaming onto the bed for hours. When she put out her hand, the sheets were as warm as if another living body had been lying next to her.

It was a pleasant sensation, and she shut her eyes, rubbing her hand up and down the soft white linen. But then, just as she was dozing off again, she heard a muted thump and felt a small vibration.

She opened her eyes and looked up. Sunlight had mingled with the crystal prisms in the overhead fixture to create tiny rainbowed bars of light. As the thump sounded again, the rainbows jiggled slightly.

She sat up, staring at the ceiling. Someone was upstairs, in the empty bedroom just above her.

She felt a stir of curiosity. No one used that room. This was Ilsa's day off, and Kieran was usually out of the house by this time. Could he still be here? Had he slept late too?

Claire grabbed her robe and went upstairs to investigate.

The door to the third-floor bedroom was pulled to, but not completely shut. She could easily hear the banging around inside, and the muffled curse as something fell.

“God damn it, what
is
all this crap?”

It was Kieran, all right. Claire opened the door, smiling.

“Everything okay?”

Clearly, it wasn't. Kieran had every drawer in the
room open. Clothes and shoes and purses and books and boxes—and some things even Claire couldn't identify—spilled out from every direction.

“Good heavens,” she said, unconsciously echoing Kieran's cry. “What
is
all this stuff? I thought this room was unused.”

Kieran glared at the mess. “Me, too. I knew Dad kept a few things from the Final Three in here, but I had no idea it was so—” He cast his eye around the room, obviously at a loss for words. “So insane.”

Claire came in, touching some of the cascading fabrics and tumbled accessories as she passed. It definitely was madness, and there seemed to be no method to it. Plastic flip-flops from the drugstore lay on top of exquisite beaded organza gowns. Dog-eared paperbacks appeared to be bookmarked with braided-gold bracelets.

She looked at Kieran quizzically. “Who on earth are the Final Three? A trio of crazed shopaholics?”

He picked up a red-and-black lacy teddy, the kind of undergarment even Linda Tremel would blush to wear. He grimaced and tossed it aside.

“Sort of. The Final Three is what I always called my dad's last three wives. Wendy, Stephanie and Cindy. He went through marriages pretty fast there for a while.”

Claire laughed. “Did he know you called them that?”

“Oh, that was the clean version,” he said, kicking a feather boa out of his way, releasing dozens of fluffy pink dust motes into the air. “Roddy and I had a private name for them, too, based on their initials.”

“And it was?”

“The Witch, The Snitch and The Silicone Bitch.” He wrinkled his nose sheepishly. “I was only fourteen at the time, remember. I thought silicone was spelled with a
c.
”

She couldn't help it. She laughed, even though for a minute she could almost see him, fourteen and defiant, trying to pretend he didn't care, trying to make a joke out of the wreckage of his home life.

“How many wives did your father have all together?”

“Five. He got started late. He didn't marry at all until he was almost forty. But he made up for lost time. Sophia was his first wife. She's Bryce's mother. Bryce is—” He broke off, his face suddenly darker.

The subject of Bryce was clearly still a sore one. Claire didn't know Bryce well, but she had heard about him. Everyone in Heyday, even down in Yarrow Estates, had heard about Bryce McClintock, though he'd visited his father only in the summers.

If Kieran was the family saint, then Bryce McClintock was definitely the sinner.

“And then Dad married my mother,” Kieran went on. “Her name was Colleen. But that didn't last long. She died during an emergency C-section.”

“Yes, I knew—Aurora has been filling me in. How tragic that was! Aurora says Anderson loved your mother very much. She contends that if Colleen had lived, there never would have been any more marriages.”

“That's what my father always said, too. But I guess we'll never know.” Kieran shrugged casually, as if he were tossing off a cobweb that had brushed his shoulder. “Anyhow, after that there were the Final Three.”

She shook her head. “Five wives…”

“Six serious relationships, if you add in Charlotte Balfour,” Kieran said. “He never married her, but apparently he should have. They had a son together. Talk about a bombshell. We'd never even heard of Tyler Balfour until the will was read, and now a third of Heyday belongs to him.”

Claire was silent for a moment, trying to digest it all. She'd heard about Tyler from Aurora, too. An illegitimate son, revealed only after Anderson's death.

No wonder it had shocked Kieran to discover he, too, was about to have an illegitimate child. At first, the news of her pregnancy had sounded to Claire like the snap of a steel lock closing, trapping her, delivering her to her tragic destiny, where she would be forced to relive the sins of the past.

It probably had sounded exactly the same to Kieran.

She picked up a black stole studded with art-deco silver rectangles and pretended to study it. “Do you mind? That a stranger gets a third of everything?”

“No.” Kieran looked at her somberly, and she knew that the answer was true. “The only thing I mind is that he
is
a stranger. I understood that my father was far from perfect, but I never thought he was capable of abandoning one of his own children, however he might have felt about the mother.”

Instantly the awkwardness was back. Everything, it seemed, kept bringing them back to their own uncomfortable situation.

To avoid taking the subject further, she began to sift through the contents of a drawer in a beautiful
maple highboy. It was filled with lace and bits of cloth cut into pieces, but not yet sewn together.

She held up one of the scraps. “Which of your stepmothers liked to sew?”

To her surprise, Kieran came over and looked at the fabric carefully.

“I assume these must have belonged to my mother,” he said. “In fact, that's why I'm in here. I'm hunting for something of hers. Aurora tells me that, before my birth, my mother hand-embroidered a christening gown. I thought that, if we could find it, then maybe when the baby is born—”