Her First Vacation (26 page)

A few hours later
Colin,
handed
Garret off to the army of federal officers that were waiting for them when the
ship docked. He hadn’t heard a word about Claire and knew better than to ask.
The last thing either of them needed was for him to make it public knowledge
that they’d had an affair that had led to him falling head over heels in love
with her. His superiors would pick at it until they were certain it couldn’t
possibly jeopardize their case in any way. Then they’d give him a long-winded
speech about the foolishness of getting emotionally attached to the assets he
was working. Of course he’d cut that speech short when he told them to go to
hell and take their job with them. But still, he didn’t want to put Claire in
that position. She deserved more than to be thought of as some gullible woman
who’d been taken in not just by Garret, but by the man she’d thought she was in
love with. So when the time came to file his report, Colin gave the barest of
facts. He didn’t omit the fact that he and Claire had become intimate. No doubt
Garret would gleefully spill that bit of information himself. Colin simply
stated it in the most basic terms, making sure it was an almost off-handed bit
of info so no one would think anything of it. He implied that it had been
nothing more than two consenting adults working off a little steam and left it
at that. Claire, if asked, wouldn’t dispute it. It was amazing how easily he
could turn the most profound event in his life into something apparently
trivial. More proof, if he’d needed it, of how ingrained his ability to lie had
become.

It was late that afternoon when someone finally mentioned
Claire’s condition. They did so in passing, mostly showing relief that their
witness wasn’t going to drop dead rather than with any real relief that a
beautiful, intelligent, vibrant woman would survive to share herself with the
world a little longer. Of course, Claire was just a witness to them. They
didn’t know her. Didn’t understand how unique she was. They’d never looked into
her magnificent gray eyes and seen the depth of her love for the children she
taught or the fire of uncontrolled passion that she did such a good job of
hiding. They couldn’t know that being anywhere near Claire was like a gift from
God. She was just a witness, nothing more. It ate at Colin to see her relegated
to the station of a tool to be used,
then
discarded
once its purpose had been served. But there wasn’t anything he could do to
change that. She wasn’t his concern any longer, no matter how much he wished
she were.

Claire stared up at the generic white ceiling in the
typically bland hospital room. There was a guard stationed outside her door, as
if she was something too precious to be left unprotected. Over the past ten
hours, there had been countless federal agents and officials in and out of her
hospital room. All of them had bowed and scraped and flattered until she was
ready to throw the pitcher of ice water sitting beside her bed at them. They
were so grateful for her willingness to testify against Garret Palmer. They
practically drooled all over her when she gave her statement and informed them
that Garret had actually confessed to having killed someone by throwing them
off the ship. She caught enough of the snippets of conversation between the
agents themselves to figure out that the man he’d killed had been another
federal agent. Like Colin. Colin who, according to more than one of the agents
she’d met, was the best undercover man they’d ever known.

They talked amongst themselves a lot, apparently not
realizing or not caring that she might overhear them. They talked about how
many others had tried to get close to Garret and failed. They laughed as they
imagined the expression on Garret’s face when he realized he’d been had. They
discussed how proficient Colin was at becoming whoever or whatever he needed to
be to get close to his mark. And through all of it, not one of them so much as
guessed that she was falling apart inside. Maybe, if they’d had the slightest
inkling of what was going on inside her, they’d have been just as impressed
with her ability to lie as they were with Colin’s.

She closed her eyes as a fresh wave of pain ripped through
her. Tears began to gather in her eyes, but she resolutely shoved them away.
She wouldn’t cry. Not here, not now. There was too much a chance that another
agent might walk in the door suddenly and catch her off guard. They’d been
nothing but sympathetic and considerate, but she was smart enough to know it
was nothing more than an act. They wanted something from her and meant to keep
her happy until they got it. Tomorrow, she would give a formal statement. Then,
she’d go back to her life, and if they needed her to testify, she’d be
contacted. She imagined that once they had her statement to use as leverage
against Garret, he’d give them whatever they wanted from him, and she would
cease to be of importance. And as quickly as it had begun, the circus she was
now immersed in would dissipate, leaving just her in its wake.
Alone.
Just as she’d always been.

Of course, now she wasn’t simply alone. Now she was alone
with a broken heart and shattered trust. She’d been willing to accept that
Colin was a womanizer who was incapable of loving her or any other woman. She’d
been certain she could live with the fact that he’d wanted her body and nothing
more. But now she was forced to face the truth. He hadn’t wanted anything from
her. She was simply another part of his cover.
An easy mark
for him to manipulate and use however it suited him.
Oh, he’d saved her
life in the end. There’d been no emotion involved in it, though. He was doing
his job, protecting his witness. That’s all she would ever be to him. Within a
few weeks he’d be on another assignment, and she wouldn’t even be a memory.

The grief and humiliation wouldn’t have been so bad if she
wasn’t furious as well.
Furious with Colin and with herself.
He’d lied to her and manipulated her, but she was the one who’d allowed it. She
could barely believe she’d been so naïve. She’d spent her life with two of the
most manipulative people in the world. Her mother and sister could get anything
they wanted from anyone. They knew exactly what buttons to push and how to do
it so that their prey didn’t even realize they were being controlled. Claire
had long since learned to see it and not be taken in. But she hadn’t seen the
truth about Colin. And now she was left with nothing. Not even the memory of
the passion she’d thought was real.
Because if he’d lied
about everything else, he’d surely lied about that as well.

She forced herself to release the breath she was
unconsciously holding. What was
done,
was done. There
was no going back, no changing her mistakes. She’d become Colin’s lover because
she wanted to and ultimately, she couldn’t blame him for taking advantage of
her gullibility. She could always have said no.
Which meant
that there was no point in dwelling on what might have been.
He was
gone. She’d never see him again. There was no way she could tell him what she
thought about him, even if she got the chance. The humiliation of what she’d
done, what he’d encouraged her to do, would make facing him almost impossible
anyway. So she told herself to just let it go. She had other things to worry
about, anyway. Like the fact that she wasn’t simply going home to face her
mother and sister tomorrow, but she was going to have to explain at least some
of what had happened on the ship. She’d had to call them and let them know she
wouldn’t be home tonight. She gave them only the briefest of explanations. She
told them she’d hit her head and been put in the hospital for observation. Her
mother had bemoaned her lack of grace while Diane laughed in the background.
Neither of them had even mentioned coming to the hospital to be with her. Not
that she wanted them to. She could just imagine the commotion her mother and sister
would stir. They’d have every man in the hospital genuflecting at their feet
within an hour. Claire knew she wasn’t in any mood to witness that. So she just
told them she’d see them tomorrow evening. If they saw anything on the news
about Garret’s arrest, she doubted that they’d connect it with her.
If Garret’s arrest had even been on the news.
She had her
doubts that it was any sort of common knowledge. That, she suspected, was the
real reason for the guard at her door. They didn’t want her talking about what
had happened. That was fine with her. As soon as she was released, she intended
to put the whole thing behind her and never think about it again.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

The following evening, Claire stepped out of her car and
paused on the sidewalk in front of the house she’d lived in her entire life.
The lights were on, which didn’t mean anything at all. Her family didn’t
exactly make any real effort to conserve electricity. There had been many times
that Claire had come home to find the house empty and all the lights burning
bright. It was a Sunday night. Typically, this wasn’t a big night for her
mother or sister. Almost any other night they could be expected to be out with
friends or on dates. Tonight, they’d most likely be home, though. Claire found
herself sincerely hoping they would be. She’d been psyching herself up for this
for days, knowing it wasn’t going to be easy. Now that the time was finally
here, she was anxious. But she also hoped to get it over with all at once. She
wasn’t sure she could stand to face down her mother or Diane alone, only to be
forced to go through the ordeal with the other one again sometime later.

She reached out and rested a hand on the roof of her car.
Her gaze went to her hand, to the immaculate manicure and the fingernails that
were so well done they looked perfectly natural. She backed away from the car
and focused on her reflection in the driver’s window. Her hair was loose,
hanging around her shoulders in a thick cloud. She wore the blue top and the
fringed scarf. Looking at herself, she realized suddenly how profoundly
different she was from the woman she’d been only three weeks ago. She was
anxious, yes, but she wasn’t shaking. Her shoulders were squared, her head held
high. Sometime over the past days she’d learned to be at ease with
who
she was, both the old and the new. She was still Claire
Abernathy, elementary school teacher. She was still in love with her job and
the children she taught. She was still looking forward to getting back into the
classroom when school began in a few weeks. And she was still the quiet sibling
of Diane and daughter of Margaret. They were still two of the most beautiful
women in the world. None of that was going to ever change. But how she allowed
herself to relate to her mother and sister and how she allowed them to treat
her was never going to be the same again after tonight. She was done being
their maid and accountant and mother and object of ridicule. It was long past
time she stood up for herself, and as she met her gaze in the window’s
reflection, she finally realized that she was more than capable of saying all
the things that needed to be said.

She drew a slow breath, then opened the trunk of her car
and pulled out her luggage. She carried it to the house and let herself in. On
the table in the hall was a stack of mail that she instantly knew had been
gathering there since she’d left three weeks ago. She flipped through it and
picked up a number of bills, mostly credit cards belonging to her mother and
sister. She knew more than one of them would be past due by the time a check
reached them. She felt anger grip her, but forced it to stay down. She sorted
the mail, then lifted her luggage and carried it upstairs to her bedroom. She
deposited the suitcases on the bed, then turned around and walked back
downstairs, pausing in the foyer to gather the bills she’d set aside before
going in search of her mother and sister.

She passed through the kitchen and felt her annoyance climb
another notch as she caught sight of the dirty dishes piled up in the sink. Of
course they wouldn’t do the dishes. Not when they knew she’d be home to do them
tonight. There was laundry in the utility room and a sack of garbage they’d
obviously been too lazy to carry out to the curb for pickup. By the time she
found her mother and sister in the living room, she was more than over the
anxiety she’d felt outside. They were sitting on the couch, watching a
nighttime drama while they sipped wine and painted each other’s toenails. Claire
stood in the doorway, watching the pair of blonde heads as they bent toward
each other. As always, she felt the impact of their beauty, but this time she
felt no envy. They were beautiful, yes, but they were also cold and calculating
and wholly self-absorbed. They’d been given too much by too many. She was as
much to blame for what they were as her father had been. They’d both been awed
by the pair of lovely women. They’d both catered to their every whim. Claire
took a breath and stepped into the room. It was past time things began to
change.

“I’m home.”

Her sister’s head lifted first. She
turned,
an expression on her face that Claire knew meant there was a snide comment on
the tip of her tongue. It never found voice, though. The moment her gaze found
Claire, her eyes widened and her mouth actually dropped open. She stared in
open shock as her eyes traveled from Claire’s head to her pink tipped toes and
back up again. Her mother began speaking without so much as glancing in her
direction.

“Claire, could you be a dear and go make us one of your
chocolate tortes? I’ve been positively dying for one for days!”

Claire felt her jaw clench.
A torte.
She’d been gone three weeks, been nearly raped and killed and spent twenty-four
hours in a hospital and then another eight in an office giving a statement
about every word Garret Palmer had ever said to her, and now her mother wanted
her to make a torte.
After she cleaned up the kitchen, of
course.
And did the laundry.
And paid the bills
and God only knew what else. She narrowed her gaze as she forced her jaw to
unclench.