Clay (6 page)

“Why? You have medical stuff in your vet’s kit.”

“I’m not a medical doctor!”

“You’ll do in a pinch,” she assured him with all the confidence she could muster.

“You’re crazy.”

She thought he was trying to keep his voice down to avoid waking Lainey, which only made the frustration in his tone more apparent. “Well, there you have it, the explanation for everything.”

He stared at her, his gaze penetrating. “I don’t think so,” he said finally. “I think you’ve got something up your sleeve. I’m not sure what it is, but it seems to me that it has you running scared. You’re jumpy and on edge and ready to hit out at anyone
and everyone who comes too close. Fine, but don’t be surprised if they hit back.”

“I take it that’s a warning?”

“Take it any way you want.”

With a lift of her chin, she said, “If this is your idea of witty conversation to relieve your boredom, I’ll pass. Good night.”

She swung toward the door so quickly that her loosely tied housecoat swirled open. Clutching at it, she bent her head while she sought the ends of the tie that held it together. Behind her, there came a soft, slithering noise. A warning tingle zipped along her nerves. Her head came up.

He was on her before she could move, whipping an arm around her waist, shoving her against the wall beside the open door. Her cheek scraped against the plaster. Her breath was forced from her in a rush. A second later, she was jerked around so her back was to the hard surface. He grabbed her right wrist and pinned it beside the turn of her neck with his left hand while the hard ridge of his right arm, which was bound to it, pressed into the softness of her breasts.

“Now,” he said softly, his warm breath brushing over her cheek and tickling her ear. “Let’s see if this improves my communication skills.”

Janna gave a small moan that had nothing to do with pain or fear, but was from pure chagrin that she’d let herself be lulled into complacency by his quiescence, compassion and handsome grin. It had been stupid of her to go near him. It had also been idiotic to forget that he had slack in the cable that held him, and dumb to think that he wouldn’t attempt
to escape because he’d shown no sign of it. It had been criminally half-witted, as well, to forget that he could react with violence simply because he’d refrained until now.

He drew back a fraction, searching her face with his gaze. What he saw must have satisfied him for the tension in his features relaxed a fraction. “All right, end of game,” he said grim purpose. “Where are the keys to the damn padlocks?”

She swallowed convulsively as she tried to think. That wasn’t an easy task with his hard body flattened against hers. His heat surrounded her. She could feel his heartbeat against her breast. One firm, muscular thigh was jammed between her legs, holding her with insistent pressure that did nothing for her mental processes. With a catch in her voice, she said, “I don’t have it.”

“Wrong answer. Try again.”

“I mean it.” The feel of his weight, the hint of heated maleness against her thigh, unsettled her. Alarm ran along her nerves. Grasping a fistful of his shirt with her free left hand, she tried to push him away. He shifted slightly to increase the rigid pressure of his hold. As the air left her lungs, she was still again.

“I’m not playing games,” he informed her with deadly quiet. “I feel for you and your daughter, but I have better things to do than lie around this camp at your pleasure. Get these damn ropes off me or you’ll regret it.”

The hard edge in his voice was a strong indication that there was more to Clay Benedict than met the
eye. He was capable of being extremely unpleasant if pushed. Regardless, she could not make herself believe that he would hurt her. The man who had let her sit within arm’s reach that afternoon without lifting a finger because he didn’t want to frighten a little girl didn’t fit the profile. That was fortunate since she really didn’t have the keys but had left them in the pocket of the dress she had discarded before taking her shower.

Voice quiet, she said, “Let me go. I can’t help you.”

“I think you can,” he insisted. “Shall we see who’s right?”

He made an abortive movement with his left hand, as if he would lower it, had forgotten that he could not. Cursing impatiently under his breath he gave the wound ropes another irritated jerk that gained a centimeter or two of slack. Then he moved both hands in a lightning swift gesture that skimmed along her side, brushed the fullness of her breast near her armpit on first one side and then the other. Leaning back slightly to allow space between their bodies, he smoothed his palm down to the pocket of her lightweight robe that lay directly over her pubic bone.

She had been frisked in his search for the keys. Clay Benedict had put his hands on her—still had them there—while she stood in stunned disbelief, without protest or resistance. Voice acid with self-disdain, she asked, “Find what you were looking for?”

He didn’t remove his hand. The tensile warmth of his fingers so close to the apex of her body created
an electric charge inside her that increased as he spread his fingers wider. A slow grin tilted his lips before he answered, “Not yet.”

“I told you, I don’t have the keys.”

He shook his head, his eyes bright and faintly mocking as he watched her. “Ah, but there you’re wrong. What you have may be the key to the whole thing.”

She saw it coming. Lifting her hands in swift defense, she tried to push him away. He blocked the effort, snatching her wrist again and using his left elbow to pin her shoulder. Then holding her wide gaze, he lowered his head until his lips touched hers.

She was outraged, of course she was. She despised being overpowered, couldn’t believe it was happening, feared where it might be leading. And yet his lips were tender, the brush of them a light, teasing arousal of long dormant senses. A drugged sensation flowed along her veins. Her heart thudded against her ribs and she felt as if the center of her being was melting like warm caramel.

He flicked the line where their lips joined with his tongue and she tasted his sweetness, his intense, unique flavor. Janna held her breath. She wanted to flow into him and around him, to pull him closer until their bodies merged and he filled the innermost depths of her being, which had been empty for so long, so terribly long.

It came to her, as she stood motionless in his arms, that she had nothing to lose by cooperating. Hadn’t she considered using sex to help her daughter? Yet the feelings he aroused were so startling that they
brought fear in their wake. She couldn’t afford to let anyone get that close to her. She had to step back and think, had to make certain it was the right thing before she got in so deep that she couldn’t get out again.

In sudden fearful decisiveness, she wrenched her mouth from his and brought her knee up hard between his spread legs. He felt the movement, tried to turn away, but didn’t quite make it. Snatching a strangled breath, he bent at the waist. Janna yanked free of his lax grasp and whirled toward the door. Seconds later, she was safe on the other side.

She didn’t stop there, but ran the few short steps to her bedroom, well beyond the reach of the cable that held Clay Benedict. Closing that door behind her, she locked it then leaned against it. She clamped her hands to her mouth as if she could stifle her hard breathing with them or hold her dread and dismay inside.

How badly had she hurt him? Did he need help? Should she risk asking or let it go?

She wasn’t cut out for this sort of excitement. Her heart threatened to bang its way out of her chest and she was shaking all over. She was really afraid that she couldn’t do any of this, wasn’t coldhearted enough or capable of that much deception.

And yet she must be. Somehow, someway, she must.

C
lay was awake long before daylight. He spent some time working at the bonds on his hands since it was clear that nothing short of using Lainey as a hostage was going to force Janna to release him, and that wasn’t an option. Arty had done a good job, but Clay was able to loosen the ropes a bit. He might have done more if he’d been ready to leave the camp—he’d discovered during the night that Janna had failed to take the folding combination tool from his pocket, one he’d carried so long that it was polished from wear. It had a handy item that he’d used to pick locks before. But he wasn’t ready to go just yet. Close contact with Janna last night had put a new light on his confinement. They had unfinished business between them that would be best settled here.

Nonetheless, the forced inactivity was beginning to get to him. He paced up and down at the end of his cable for some minutes, then ran through a series of exercises to limber his stiff muscles. A strong need for a cup of hot coffee plagued him, but he could think of no way to get it short of shouting for Janna. He didn’t want to do that since he was well aware that she’d had another hard night with Lainey. It
struck him as exquisitely funny, this concern with her rest when she was so indifferent to his comfort or convenience, but he couldn’t help it.

He was checking out the file folders on her drawing table, which she also used for a desk, when the door eased open. A small blond head appeared around the edge. Lainey’s gamine grin brightened her features as she saw that he was up. Sliding into the room, she came toward him. She was wearing short pajamas and carrying a piece of paper of some kind in her hand.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing. Wishing I had somebody to talk to or something to do.”

“You can talk to me.” She came to his side and took his hand. “It might be better than touching Mama’s drawing things. She doesn’t like it, and I’m not allowed. Nobody’s allowed.”

“She’ll get mad, huh?” That wasn’t a great worry, though Clay frowned to show he recognized the seriousness of it to the little girl.

“Very mad. It’s how she makes a living for us, you know.”

“Right.”

“Besides, I have something to show you.”

She tugged him back over to the bed as she spoke, and Clay allowed himself to be led since it seemed she was trying to keep him out of trouble. As he sat on the side of the mattress, he asked, “What is it?”

She didn’t answer but only thrust the paper she held toward him. He took it automatically while his gaze remained on her small face. The circles under
her eyes were darker this morning, he thought, and her cheeks a little puffier. He shook his head a little before glancing down at the paper.

Clay lost his breath. He forgot to blink for so long that his eyes began to burn. The grip of his thumb and forefinger tightened until both were numb.

What he held was a photograph. It was one he had taken himself nearly fifteen years before, when he’d first begun to mess around with a camera while in college. The dark-haired young man he’d captured was in the prime of life, staring into the lens with bright sea-blue eyes and a cocksure grin.

“See?” Lainey said as she leaned on his knee to peer at the photo. “I told you that you look like my daddy.”

He did, exactly like him in fact. The man in the picture was Clay’s brother who had been dead for nine impossibly long years. It was his twin Matt whom he still missed every single day of his life.

“Where did you get this?” Clay asked in a voice that sounded hoarse even in his own ears.

“It’s Mama’s. She’s had it a long time, since before I was born.”

“How do you know this is your father?”

“She told me so.” The child looked up at him as if she thought him incredibly dense. “She knows because she’s my mama.”

“Did she tell you anything else?”

“She said he’s dead, that he died before I was born. But I thought…”

Clay glanced at her. “What, punkin?”

She studied him, her wide blue gaze searching his face. “I thought she might be wrong about that part. I thought maybe that’s why we came here, why she got you and tied you up.”

Lainey thought she might be his daughter, regardless of what she’d been told. It was impossible. The photo was proof enough, but more than that if he’d ever made love to Janna, he’d damn well remember it.

Matt, Lainey’s father. Suspicion of it was one thing, but acceptance was something else altogether. Matt had been a happy-go-lucky type who loved women and appreciated the fact that they loved him, but he’d never been irresponsible.

A distant memory flashed through Clay’s mind of his father ranting about women who led men on, then used pregnancy to force them into marriage. The old man had been rabid on the subject since he’d not only been caught that way himself but left with four boys to bring up alone after their mother deserted him. But Clay, who had heard a slightly different version of the tale from their mother, had let the warning go in one ear and out the other. Matt had surely done the same. No, there had to be something more to this story.

“Sorry, sweet pea,” he said, quietly. “Any man would be proud to have you for a daughter, but I’m not your dad.”

“But you look like the man in the picture,” Lainey argued with inescapable logic.

“He was my twin.”

“Does my mama know that?” Her eyes were huge as she waited for his answer.

“I’m sure she does.”

The child sighed, then eased around to sit on the mattress beside him. “I was ’fraid so, because Mama knows a lot. But I thought she might be wrong about you, and it didn’t hurt to ask.”

It did hurt, however, Clay thought. It hurt him to see her disappointment, and also to think of what he might have done to help her and Janna if he’d had the right. It hurt to be forced to turn his mind to the problem of why Janna would keep such a vital piece of information as Lainey’s birth a secret from his family—and also what that might have to do with why she was holding him.

Clay put down the photo then reached for his camera, as he so often did when trying to work something out in his mind. Lifting it, one-handed, from its bag beside the bed, he adjusted the focus then snapped a quick close-up of Lainey. She made a face at him and he caught that, too, as well as the nose-wrinkling grin that followed.

Even as he clicked off the shots, his mind registered the details of the small features he saw through the camera’s viewfinder. By degrees, he realized what it was about her that had seemed so familiar that first morning. Lainey looked like a feminized version of him and his brothers in their childhood pictures. Her wide gaze, broad forehead, high cheekbones and determined chin were the same. Some things were different—the fine, silver-blond hair, small, straight nose
and beautifully shaped mouth had been inherited from her mother. Still, she definitely had the look of a Benedict. The little old ladies of Turn-Coupe who could trace family resemblance through endless generations would have pegged her in a second.

“Lainey, honey, time for breakfast.”

He hadn’t noticed Janna’s arrival in his preoccupation. Lowering the camera, he gave her a narrow, assessing look. A flush rose to her hairline and she lifted her chin while flinging her long, silvery braid over her shoulder in a gesture he was fast coming to anticipate. Her gray eyes held defiance, as if she half expected him to make some snide comment about the night before. He might have, too, if Lainey had not been present, or if he didn’t have other things on his mind. Such as how to make her admit that Lainey shared his bloodline.

He wasn’t ready to confront Janna without giving more thought to the problem, however. With a smooth gesture, he palmed the picture of Matt, then put his arm around Lainey. The girl glanced up at him with wide-eyed consideration that let him know she’d noticed his action. Still, she said nothing, and Clay hugged her briefly, aware again of an odd sense of closeness to the small girl.

“Come along now,” Janna said to Lainey with a quick, imperative gesture. “You need your shower, then we’ll make your favorite buckwheat pancakes.”

Pancakes of any kind would be a treat for a kid in Lainey’s condition, with those made with buckwheat flour more acceptable than the normal variety. It was
a bribe, pure and simple, also a good indicator of how much Janna needed to get her daughter away from him. She was so certain that he’d use Lainey against her, it seemed, was perhaps even more nervous of it after the night before.

“Relax,” he told her. “She’s all right.”

“Is she really?” The tone of her voice was a great deal more belligerent than the look in her eyes.

“I don’t make war on children.”

She was bright and she was quick. “Only on adult women then? I’ll remember that.” Spinning around, she headed for the kitchen without waiting for a reply.

The pancakes, no larger than beverage coasters and served with warm applesauce, were delicious, and so was the hot, spicy sausage that came with them. Lainey insisted on eating hers in Clay’s room, and Janna didn’t argue. Instead she brought her plate to her worktable as if compelled to remain on guard.

It wasn’t a particularly comfortable meal. When they were done, Janna gathered the dishes and took them back to the kitchen. Then she rejoined him and Lainey, working on a series of water bird studies while Clay showed her daughter a few more points about handling a camera.

He was framing a shot of the girl as she sat cross-legged on the bed, squinting through an extra lens so her eye looked as round and bulbous as a frog’s, when a small sound from Janna caught his attention. He glanced over to see her watching them with her
face set and tears making a silver shimmer in her eyes. He paused, while slow anger rose inside him.

“What is it now?” he demanded. “I’m not doing anything to her.”

“No. It’s just that…” She made a helpless gesture from his camera to Lainey, as if her throat was too tight for speech.

Clay stared at her in perplexity. He glanced at his camera, then to Lainey. “What?”

“Photographs are so permanent. I mean, compared to the people in them.”

Clay watched her for a second longer. Then it came to him that while he had been simply fooling around, playing with the girl to pass the time, in Janna’s eyes he was recording images of a child so ill that each day could be her last. He snapped the shot of Lainey with grim concentration. Afterward, he didn’t spare the film. If Janna noticed, however, she made no further comment.

It was some time later that he got to his feet and moved to where he could see what she was doing. Studying the blue heron taking shape under her watercolor brush, he said, “You’re good, darned good.”

“And you would know.” So unimpressed was she by his compliment that she didn’t even look up.

“I grew up with artists. My mother has a studio and gallery down in New Orleans, in the old warehouse district.”

That got her attention. “She paints? Would I have heard of her?”

Clay gave the name, different because his mother
had abandoned Benedict in favor of her maiden name after the divorce. It was marginally amusing to see respect for it rising in Janna’s eyes. “She’s a traditionalist, of course,” he continued with a shrug, “known for her bird studies in pastels as well as watercolors of French Quarter scenes.”

“And you paint with film.”

It was exactly the way he thought of his camera work. He tried not to be gratified that she saw it, but knew he was fighting a losing battle. Purely as cover, he said, “My mom would tell you that your blue heron should have a patch of coral pink at the top of its wings. I have a close-up showing the right color, I think. It’s in my bag if you’d like to see it.”

“I…Yes, that would be good. Thank you.”

He thought it probably pained her to say the words, but he’d seen enough of her work to understand that her professionalism would demand correct details. Rummaging in the side pocket of his bag, he produced several heron studies, as well as a sheaf of prints showing other swamp denizens. It was good for his ego to watch her sort through them with care and attention.

Finally she looked up. “These are for your next book, I suppose?”

He stared at her then tipped his head in ascent. “You know I’ve done one already?”

For an answer, she pulled a copy of the coffee table-size volume with his face on the dust jacket from a shelf under the table. “I’ve been using it as a reference.”

He gave a slow shake of his head. “Amazing.”

“That I bothered or that I know you’re the author?”

“Either one. Or both.”

“I came here partly because of this book.” She looked down at the heavy volume, rubbing her hand across the slick front cover with its depiction of a pair of white cranes with orange tinted wings in flight against a sunset sky.

“Partly?”

She ignored the question as she went on. “I fell in love with the watery world you portrayed. Since I was in need of fresh inspiration, this area seemed to offer good possibilities. Of course it helped that I knew Denise.”

“Of course.” The words held a certain irony since there was nothing at all cut-and-dried about it as far as he could see. “How is that, by the way? She doesn’t lend this old camp to just anybody.”

“School,” she said briefly.

That could mean anything since Denise’s grandfather had moved away from Turn-Coupe during World War II when he’d gone down to Houma to work in the shipyards. Somehow, that branch of the Benedicts had only ever returned for fishing trips to the camp. But it happened that Houma was a jumping-off point for crews heading out to the offshore drilling platforms. Matt had often stayed overnight with Denise and her family when he’d gone in and out on his rotating two-week shift.

“Denise was always talking about the lake and the
swamp and the summer vacations her family took up here to the old camp with long days of fishing and swimming, reading and being lazy, and hanging out with all her cousins. She even invited me to come here with her once.”

“It’s a grand place if you have the eyes to see it,” he answered. “A lot of people think of it as hot, snakey and mosquito-ridden, which it can be, of course. But it’s also still and peaceful, more than a little exotic, and endlessly life giving. It’s the habitat, permanent or migratory, for hundreds of different kinds of fish, bird and animal life, and home to plants as tiny as floating duckweed or big as skyscraping cypress trees.”