The Saint (17 page)

He broke off. “Of course if it doesn't appeal to you, feel free to say so. I know that, considering that you'll be a McClintock such a short time, you might not want to make a big deal of the McClintock heirlooms.”

She put the pieces back in the drawer and turned to face him squarely. “Of course I'd like to use it,” she said. “It's true, I won't be a McClintock for long. But our child is not a McClintock by marriage. He's one by birth. And he'll be one forever.”

Kieran started to speak, but then he seemed to change his mind. He looked at her a long moment, and then, slowly, he nodded.

They both got focused on the search, then, though they kept the conversation deliberately light, laughing occasionally at some outrageous acquisition from the Final Three, who obviously had been avaricious women with short attention spans. But the christening gown never surfaced. Maybe Anderson had decided it shouldn't even share storage space with all this tasteless greed.

Claire was rummaging in the closet when she
came across a box of things that couldn't have belonged to any of the wives. It had a distinctly manly look—no lace, no pastels, no feathers.

She brought it out. “Look, Kieran—I think it must be some of your old things.”

He gave the box a quick glance. “No kidding,” he said. “Well, maybe you should double-check, just in case the gown somehow found its way in there.”

She put the box on the bed, which, in this unused room, had been stripped down to the bare, quilted satin of the mattress. She unfolded the flaps and began to pull things out.

“Your high-school diploma. Your SAT scores. A plaque that says you were the MVP of the Little League All-Stars. A box of old baseball cards, probably worth a fortune by now.” She cocked a smile in his direction. “Not that you need it.”

“Good grief, why did the old man keep that stuff?”

“Apparently,” she said, “he was more sentimental than you realized.”

She kept digging, fascinated by this glimpse into Kieran's past. The years were all mixed together, giving everything equal weight. The picture of Kieran at ten, in the traditional Little League pose, bat over his shoulder and cap tilted back, must have been just as real, just as alive, to old Anderson McClintock as the picture from last year, when Kieran had been roasted at the annual chamber of commerce banquet.

Finally, at the bottom, she felt something odd. Leathery, slightly squishy, rounded… She extricated it curiously. It was a football.

A football signed by Steve Strickland.

If she had been thinking, she would have guarded herself better. But she hadn't been expecting anything like this, and the small gasp escaped her lips before she could stop it. Kieran put down the armload of baby shirts and sweaters he'd been sorting and looked over at her.

“What is it? Did you find something?”

She would have given anything to be able to whisk the football behind her back or under the bed, or safely into the box. But it was too big to hide, and he had already seen it, anyhow.

Besides, it wasn't hers to hide. It belonged to Kieran. Two years ago, after an exciting 22/21 victory over the Grupton High Bucks, her brother had given it to him.

Kieran crossed the room, and she held the football out numbly, extending it in both hands without a word. What was there to say? The inscription said it all.

He took it from her with one hand, palming it with an unconscious authority, like a man who had tossed, kicked, served, batted and putted all kinds of game balls since infancy. The inscription had rotated toward the bottom, so he flipped it gracefully, just an inch above his fingers, like a master chef tossing an omelet in the pan.

Then he looked at the bold, black letters, written in permanent marker. In her mind, Claire read along. The words came to her clearly, in Steve's light, sassy voice.

To Coach,
it said in Steve's awkward chicken-scratch that passed for cursive. Steve had never mastered the art of graceful handwriting.
With thanks. Because this is just the beginning!

And then the date.

For the longest time, Kieran stood there, staring at it. He must have been reading it over a hundred times, or maybe he wasn't reading it at all. Perhaps he didn't need to. The words might already be burned into his mind, as they now were into Claire's.

This is just the beginning.
No one needed to point out the terrible irony of that phrase. When Steve wrote it, he had only a few days left to live.

But how happy the words looked, with their excited, bold letter-strokes and the naive optimism of that exclamation point. Steve had been happy by nature, but that night had been special. When Steve had come home, still damp from his after-game shower. he had picked Claire up and twirled her around as if she were a rag doll. He had laughed, recounting every play, every risk taken, every yard gained, all the way up to the last-minute two-point conversion that had given them the win.

She looked at the football now, waiting for the usual reaction, waiting to be battered like a buoy at sea by waves of agony and anger. Waiting to be pierced by the lightning-sharp awareness of all that Kieran had taken from her.

But none of that came. Instead she heard, deep in her heart, only this lovely echo of Steve's pure, unadulterated joy.

She raised her eyes from the football and looked at Kieran. She wanted to tell him. But she saw instantly that, though she had been spared this time, Kieran had not. A terrible pain, barely held in check, contorted his features. His breath came at a cost, inhaled in small, ragged increments with an audible struggle.

He placed the football carefully back into the box. And then, without looking at Claire even once, he went to the window. He shoved the sash pane up roughly and leaned his hands on the sill, his forehead against the upper glass. It was as if he couldn't get enough air.

“It's all right,” she said. That wasn't very eloquent, but it was only thing she could think of. Words weren't much good at a moment like this—she had learned that two years ago, when everyone had tried to make her feel better by serving up comforting phrases and earnest, well-intentioned prayers.

No, words wouldn't help at all. She wished, instead, that she could reach inside her mind and touch the memory of Steve's laughing face. She would pluck that memory, like a flower, and hand it to Kieran now. She would rub it across his aching heart like a balm.

“That was a good night,” she said, though her voice sounded rusty, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time. She hadn't spoken of these things, anyhow—not in two lonely years. She suddenly realized she should have. It was like letting a gunshot wound heal over with the bullet still inside. It might look repaired, but the poison just kept building, unseen and unchecked.

She cleared her throat and went on. “He was so excited. I honestly don't think I ever saw Steve any happier than he was that night, when you won that game.”

“I didn't win it. Steve did.” Kieran hadn't turned around. He was still staring out the window. There were long pauses between his sentences.

“He was good, Claire. I know you never wanted him to play, but he was just so damn good.”

She inhaled. “I know.”

“And yet, I'd go back if I could. I'd tell him no. I'd refuse to let him on the team. If it meant he'd be alive today, I'd go back and—”

She couldn't bear to hear him blaming himself. Wasn't that ironic, after how hard she'd tried to force that blame like a hair shirt over his shoulders? For the first time, she realized that bringing Kieran pain didn't lessen her own pain even one ounce. Apparently the pit of grief, once entered, was bottomless.

“Don't you think I would do that, too? I've told myself a thousand times that, if I could just go back to that morning, I would tie him up and lock him in his room and burn his car to ashes before I'd let him get behind that wheel.”

He didn't answer. Slowly, without a deliberate decision, she found herself walking over to the window. When she reached him, she stopped and took a deep breath.

“But we can't go back, Kieran,” she said. “That morning is gone forever.”

“Yes,” he said. “Forever.” On his lips, that word was the blackest, deadest word in the English language.

But somehow she found the courage to ignore the word. She reached out, and, though her fingers hesitated at the last minute, she touched him. She slipped her hands up under his arms, moving in as close as she could, until their bodies were aligned from shoulder to knee.

He stiffened. But she ignored that, too. She lay her
palms against his hard, rippled chest. Under her left hand, his heart was hammering wildly.

She rested her cheek against his upper back and let the warmth of her body seep into his cold, unyielding muscles.

“Don't you see, Kieran?” She turned her head and kissed the curve of his shoulder blade. “For Steve's sake, and for our own, all we can do now is try to find a way forward.”

K
IERAN DIDN'T DARE TO TURN AROUND
.
In his mind he kept seeing the windshield of Steve's car as it was being winched onto the tow truck. The impact had shattered the glass into a million pieces, but some skinlike safety feature still held the crazy, opaque mosaic in place. Not a single shard had spilled onto the muddy ground.

Kieran felt like that now—broken on the inside, but held up, held together, by something he only half understood. So he couldn't look at Claire. He was afraid that, if he did, he might finally fall apart.

“Kieran, talk to me.”

“What is there to say?” He didn't want to be cruel, but it was time to be honest. “Do you want me to say it's all my fault?
It's all my fault.
Do you want me to say I'm sorry?
I'm sorry.
But it still won't bring Steve back, will it?”

“No, it won't.” Her hands tightened. “Don't talk to me, then. Hold me.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Please just turn around and hold me.”

Did she want to comfort him? Did she really believe that he was strong enough to take her comfort—and not take everything else, too? He squeezed shut his eyes, dimly recognizing as a hint of moisture dampened his lower lashes that he must, just moments ago, have been close to tears.

It was unendurable. It was wrong. What kind of man could stand here, simultaneously wracked with grief for a dead boy and tormented with a driving lust for the dead boy's beautiful sister?

“Claire, I can't.” He tried to still her hands. But she slipped out from under his weak grip and continued to move her fingers across his muscles, rubbing. Could she be unaware that she was spreading fire? She traced his rib cage, behind which his heart was alternately pounding and stumbling, then pounding again.

As she found the less-protected vulnerability of his stomach, he gripped the windowsill, breathing so hard he left a circle of condensation on the glass. She lingered there only a second, and then she moved lower, running her hands slowly down, past his belt. And further…

A stab of lightning galvanized him as her fingers connected with the perfect center of his need. He groaned without meaning to, backing up, feeling the warm thrust of her breasts against his shoulder blades.

“Claire.” God help him, she wasn't comforting him anymore. She was seducing him.

And he was already lost. He felt her touch as keenly as if he were naked, as though the denim of his jeans were nothing more than a coat of paint. Deep, unseen muscles began to pulse and burn.

He turned then, with another low groan, and took her face between his hands. She met his gaze with eyes dazed by the same hunger that was tearing him apart.

It was going to happen. After weeks of tortured awareness—weeks of imagining he could hear the
soft beat of her heart as he tried in vain to sleep, weeks of sweating dreams in which she appeared at the edge of his bed, naked and bathed in starlight.

After forcing himself to accept that it was hopeless. After all that, it was finally going to happen.

He didn't hold back. He couldn't. He pulled her up to him, and he kissed her, opening her mouth roughly, staking his claim, posing his demands. Warning her that this time it was going to be different.

The last time they made love, she had been limp, numb inside her cocoon of grief, clearly desiring release but passive, unable to participate. She had been like a wax statue, spread out naked on her carpet, permitting him to use her quiescent beauty to pleasure himself. Because he'd been insane with desire, he had made love to her in spite of all that, and his climax had been shattering and true. But he had been haunted by the prickling half shame of it ever since.

This time, she had come to him. She had deliberately broken through his defenses, and he was not going to settle for a repeat of that one-sided torture. This time they would both be exposed and helpless, both quivering and aching and blind.

But she didn't even try to hold back. She tilted her head, spread her lips and invited him to take as much as he wanted. She was thrillingly alive, sweet-hot with hunger.

Their mouths still locked, their fingers began to fumble against each other, opening buttons, unlocking zippers, removing clothes, gown and jeans and shirt and anything else that stood in their way.

Somehow they remembered, at the last minute, that they still stood in front of the window. They
stumbled toward the bed, unwilling to let go of each other. He reached it first and fell sideways onto the bare mattress, his head pillowed by a stray piece of blue velvet, his arms tangling in black silk scarves, the edge of the mattress catching him behind the knees.

He reached for her, trying to carry her with him, but she murmured a soft denial and wriggled free. Before he could even register what was happening, before he could do more than lift up onto his elbows, she was kneeling beside the bed, her hands splayed on the inside of his thighs, pressing them apart.

“Claire, wait—”

But her face was intent and focused. She didn't even seem to hear him. He watched, helpless, as she slowly absorbed him into the rhythmic heat of her soft, enveloping mouth.

And he couldn't stop watching. Even when his arms began to liquefy and tremble, he couldn't take his gaze away from the sight of her brown hair falling across him.

Only superhuman control made it last even two fiery minutes. He had spent the past month on the edge of torment, only one careless thought, one unguarded dream, away from losing control. And now—

Now nothing stood between him and the release he had longed for. Except his determination that they would know this miracle together.

He reached down and, putting his hands on either side of her head, urged her up toward him, up over him. He slid back, all the way onto the mattress, and took her with him. Their bodies joined with a gentle,
shuddering perfection, and he gritted his teeth, fighting back every instinct he possessed.

Bright sunlight from the window kissed her breast, and then, as she bent over him, he kissed it, too. He tucked her soft hair behind her ear, so that he could see her face more clearly.

“Go slowly,” he said. “I can wait.”

And at first, she did. But she caught up with him quickly, and soon she began to move faster, and still faster, panting softly, her hands clenching and unclenching against his chest.

In the last, intolerable seconds, he simply stopped breathing, and closed his eyes. It was the only way. The fuse had burned down to the bomb, and, if she didn't join him now, there was nothing he could do.

But, just when he thought it was too late, he heard her cry out. He felt her pulse and shudder, and he opened his eyes just in time to see her double over, jerking softly and gasping for air. With a hard groan of grateful release, he surrendered, too, and let the glowing explosion consume him.

When it was over, she lay on top of him, a featherlight weight of slippery skin and ragged breath. He had no sheet to pull over her, so he found the velvet cloak that had been his pillow and draped it across her naked back.

A red stiletto high heel grazed his elbow. He had almost forgotten where they were. But as he glanced around, he saw a dozen strange bits and pieces of forgotten treasures that had tumbled toward them on the bed.

This was never how he had expected it to happen.

But maybe, he thought as he stroked the curve of her back, quieting her breathing slowly, this room
was the perfect setting. It somehow seemed right that, in this place of broken dreams, one dream, at least, had finally come true.

 

W
HEN
C
LAIRE WOKE UP
, the room was very quiet, and the peach-colored sun told her they'd been lying here for several hours. Kieran was still sound asleep. She watched him for as long as she dared, drinking in the beauty of his naked body, the strangely young, innocent elegance of his relaxed face. He was so perfect, physically. She didn't ever want to forget how he looked right now.

She was surprised at how strong the urge was to wake him…to ask him to make love to her again. She wondered if this was part of the hormonal take-over of pregnancy. She could gladly have stayed in this room with him for days, getting to know his body, getting to know her own, discovering all the complicated, breathtaking paths that led to this plateau of physical bliss.

She wondered, too, how much today's decision would hurt her, later on. It seemed reckless to indulge even once in something this addictive. When they parted, less than a month from now, she would have no way to satisfy a craving for his body.

On the other hand, if this month was her only chance to know such joy, it seemed a sin to throw it away.

Suddenly she realized that the utter silence had been broken. She listened, and heard a distant, muffled pounding. It was someone at the front door. She eased down from the bed, careful not to knock over any of the debris that lay cluttered around Kieran's
body. She picked up her gown, pulled it over her head and went to the window.

Aurora stood just outside the portico, glaring up at the house, as if she knew they were in there and didn't much like being ignored.

Aurora, who had a key.

Kieran breathed deeply and turned on his side. The slanting sunlight gilded his lean hip, his small, tight buttock. There were no sheets….

Aurora must not come up here and find them like this.

Claire grabbed her robe and let herself out the bedroom door. She took the stairs swiftly, her hand gliding along the polished banister. She made it to the front door just as Aurora was opening it.

“Hi,” Claire said, trying to hide her breathlessness. “I'm sorry. I was taking a nap, and I didn't hear you knocking.”

Aurora was casually dressed, and her hat was made of straw, but she still had her trademark feather, a long peacock feather this time, with its purple eye quivering with avid curiosity.

“Claire! You're still in your night clothes! Are you all right? It's four in the afternoon. You must have been napping all day, because the courier left me these when he couldn't rouse anyone over here.” She held out two large envelopes and shook them for emphasis.

“I'm fine,” Claire said. “I'm just— Well, I know Kieran told you about the baby, and I—”

“Yes, of course. Women do sleep a lot in the early months, I hear. Although you want to stay as active as you can. I never understood the women in my day, who wanted to be treated like china dolls when they
were pregnant. Having a baby is a perfectly natural phenomenon.”

“Yes,” Claire said meekly. “My doctor said the same thing. He said to carry on normally.”

“That's absolutely correct,” Aurora said, as if the doctor needed her approval before he could give orders. “But where's Kieran? He doesn't have the excuse of being pregnant. Surely he hasn't been lying in bed like a slug all day.”

“And what will you do if you find that he has been?”

At the sound of the low, amused voice, both women turned toward the staircase, where Kieran had just come into view. Claire flushed at the sight of him—that was how far gone she was, God help her. Just the sound of his voice made her heart beat faster, as if it carried the echo of her soft whimpers and moans.

But he showed no signs of having spent the afternoon making love. He was neatly dressed in jeans, unwrinkled broadcloth shirt and sneakers. His hair was brushed, and his face looked fresh and wide-awake.

Aurora frowned, but Claire could tell the older woman's mood had lifted at the sight of him.

“I'll tell him McClintocks don't fritter away perfectly good afternoons, that's what I'll do,” Aurora said. “I'll remind him that he's got to give a speech at the Tri-County Club tonight.”

Kieran patted his pocket with a smile. “It's already written.”

“And I'll tell him he promised to talk to Mallory Rackham, who needs to arrange for some repairs to her building.”

“We have a meeting set for Monday morning.”

Aurora sniffed, and her peacock feather shivered, as if sharing her irritation that they couldn't find anything to legitimately disapprove of.

“Well, then I guess I'd just tell him to answer his door. I don't need to be acting as his personal post-mistress.” She held out the two letters stiffly. Claire, who was standing closer, took them with a polite smile.

Kieran trotted down the rest of the steps. He went over to the door, kissed Claire softly on the cheek and gave Aurora a grin.

“Come on,” he said. He put his arm around the older woman. “You don't care about Mallory Rackham or the Tri-County Club. What's really got your feathers all starched up today?”

She turned her head away, clearly planning to give him the cold shoulder. Claire, who had put her fingers up to trace the lovely after-tingles of Kieran's casual kiss, knew the huff wouldn't last long. Aurora adored Kieran and was, for all her blustering, completely wrapped around his little finger.

“Come on, Aurora,” he said, his voice coaxing and low. Claire bit her lower lip as the tones thrummed against something hidden deep in her midsection. “What's the problem?”

Aurora tilted her chin up. “Well, I don't want to bother you, of course, but you did say that you'd check on my hot water heater. I suppose a busy man like you can't remember little insignificant things like that, but—”

“I was just on my way over,” he said. He picked up a small bag of tools that was sitting on one of the beautiful foyer chairs. “See?”

Aurora looked slightly mollified. “Well, if you're sure—”

“I'm sure.” Kieran smiled over at Claire. “Want to go out and get some dinner when I get back? I have that speech tonight, but we could squeeze in something quick. We've—got a lot to talk about.”

“I'll say you do,” Aurora interjected. “I haven't heard any of the details about all this. I don't know when the baby is due, or what you'll name it, or which room you've picked out for the nursery. That third-floor spare room has a nice sunny feel, and I've always thought it would be perfect for—”