The Saint (13 page)

Claire couldn't stand it any more. She had to get out of the house. She pulled on her coat and grabbed an umbrella from the hall umbrella stand—which in this mansion was a large royal blue vase with a dragon twining around its neck, eerily beautiful and undoubtedly priceless.

Maybe she'd go say hello to Linda, whom she hadn't seen since the reception. They hadn't exchanged more than ten words even then. Linda had been decidedly cool ever since the disastrous wedding-dress expedition.

Maybe she was offended that she hadn't been invited on the follow-up shopping trip. Or maybe she was just moody. Still, Claire sensed that Linda could use a friend. Well, so could Claire. Mending fences between neighbors was as good a way as any to spend a rainy afternoon.

Linda lived only two houses down, but Claire walked slowly, enjoying breathing fresh air in spite
of the weather, which really was terrible. The rain pummeled the lawns, digging divots even in this healthy green grass and creating puddles around the flower gardens. The gutters gushed as full as fountains and the sidewalks were a mosaic of green leaves and brown twigs.

As she walked, Claire realized that, seen like this, Riverside Park had a special charm. The patina of age took on a subtle glimmer in the damp. The rain brought out lovely, elegant smells, shaking sweetness from the roses, lifting clean cedar musk from the chips of mulch that floated down the overflowing gutters like fairy boats.

It was so different from East Yarrow Street. This neighborhood had nothing to fear from the storm. No one here dreaded the plop of a new leak in an already patched roof. No one wondered if the low ground would saturate and let water creep over the threshold. No one glanced nervously at the dying oak tree out back, wondering if it could win yet another fight with the wind.

No, on this street the neat lines of square stone-and-brick houses met the elements serenely. They stood shoulder to shoulder, solid and unbowed, as if, in their hundred years together, they'd protected the people inside from all this and more.

Although Claire could see Linda's Porsche in the open garage, and Eddie Mackey's white minivan was in the driveway, no one answered the door at the Tremel house, not even the housekeeper.

Now that she looked more carefully, Claire could see that the left half of Linda's lawn was trimmed, but not the right. Eddie probably had tried to get some lawn work done during the brief dry spell this
morning—and found himself caught in the downpour.

Poor kid. He was a hard worker. Kieran used a professional lawn service, but maybe there were odd jobs now and then that he could throw Eddie's way. Claire made a mental note to ask him—next time she was lucky enough to see him.

He'd understand, she was sure of that. He knew that teenagers never had enough money. Claire remembered how hard Steve had worked mowing lawns for his pitiful spending cash. Eddie was probably just about the same age now as Steve had been when he died.

She wandered around the back, tilting her umbrella to ward off the slanting rain. Maybe Eddie would know where Linda was.

She called Linda's name twice, and Eddie's once. But the rain must have smothered the sounds, because the minute she opened the tall wrought-iron gate and turned the corner that led into the backyard, she saw them.

And it was quite clear they thought they were alone.

They sat close together, safely out of the rain, on the shady porch that ran the length of Linda's house. Eddie was perched stiffly on the edge of one of the wicker loungers, his palms on his knees, pressing down on them so tightly the heels of his hands were white.

His face was turned toward Claire, but he had bowed his head and closed his eyes, as if he were in pain. He wore nothing but a pair of red soccer shorts and a pair of muddy cross-trainers.

Linda knelt behind him, leaning over him. She ap
peared to be massaging his back. Though she was facing Claire, too, she was so absorbed she clearly had no idea anyone had arrived.

But at that moment Eddie's eyes opened, and he looked directly at Claire.

“Oh my God.” He jumped up from the lounger, so awkward he looked as if his arms and legs were made of loose springs. “Miss Strickland! I mean, Mrs. McClintock.” He swallowed so hard Claire could see his Adam's apple jutting against his throat. “I mean—”

Claire smiled at him reassuringly. She had no idea exactly what had been going on here, but she knew a teenager in pure misery when she saw one. Eddie Mackey's face was flaming as red as his shorts.

Linda, however, didn't seem at all perturbed. She picked up a small towel from the nearest table and began slowly drying off her fingers, as if they'd been covered in something wet, like a lotion or a sunscreen.

Except that there was no sun at all on this miserable monsoon afternoon.

“Hello, Claire,” she said. She put down the towel. “Eddie cut his leg with the grass whip. I've just been putting on a bandage.”

Claire looked down at Eddie's leg. As if Linda were a puppeteer controlling him with invisible strings, he stuck his leg out so that she could see better. Sure enough, there was a large strip of gauze taped over the center of his shin. Perhaps Linda had even put it there.

But not just now. Her hands had been nowhere near his shin when Claire arrived.

“That's too bad,” Claire said. “Does it hurt?”

“It's okay now.” He was clearly still in agony, but it wasn't physical. He couldn't make eye contact with either of them. “I'd better be getting home, though. With all this rain, my dad will be wondering where I am.”

He reached over and picked up his long, dangerous-looking piece of lawn equipment. The grass whip. He held it in front of him like a defensive weapon.

“I'll finish tomorrow, Mrs. Tremel,” he said, still talking to the ground. “If it's not raining.”

“Okay, Eddie,” Linda said. “Oh, and…happy birthday.”

He mumbled something that probably was meant to be
thanks.
And then, as if he had been released from a chute, he darted into the rain, bolted around the corner and disappeared.

Linda stared at Claire. Her eyes flashed defiantly. “Want a Coke?”

Claire shook her head. She climbed slowly up the small set of stairs, lowering and closing her umbrella as she gained the dry ground of the porch.

“Linda,” she began. The last thing in the world she wanted was to get into a brawl with Linda Tremel. But this was wrong, Linda knew that. And if she didn't, red-faced, mumbling, mortified Eddie Mackey sure did.

“Linda,” she said, trying to sound lighthearted, “that boy is just a kid.”

Linda smiled and bent to pick up a small, clear tumbler. She tilted it back, drained it and pocketed an ice cube between her teeth and her cheek.

“Sweetheart, that boy turned eighteen years old today. That boy is a man.” She waved a hand toward
the table, which was littered with a small bottle of alcohol, a box of gauze strips and tape. “Besides, see? I was just playing Florence Nightingale, not Mrs. Robinson. What's the big deal?”

“It's not a big deal.” Claire chose her words carefully. “It's just that, whatever game you were playing, it was making Eddie uncomfortable.”

Linda began to suck gently on the ice cube, still smiling. “I suspect that nasty six-inch gash on his shin was making him uncomfortable,” she said.

Claire waited.

“And if any of his other body parts were bothering him, well, that's just part of being eighteen.” Linda shrugged. “I can't be held responsible for the existence of testosterone, can I?”

“Linda, you can't pretend to think—”

Suddenly Linda's assumed smile dropped. “You know, I'm not sure why I have to answer to you on this anyhow, Claire. I'm pretty damn sure no one appointed you block captain of the Neighborhood Morality Watch. I mean, you've only lived on this block a week, right? Did you think that because you married St. Kieran you became a saint by proxy?”

“Of course not.” Claire tried to hold on to her temper.

“That's good, because you don't catch sainthood just because you're sleeping with somebody. And you couldn't catch it from Kieran anyhow, because he doesn't have any. All he has is a cute smile and a boatload of money. Around here, no one can tell the difference between that and real virtue.”

Claire couldn't believe how venomous Linda sounded. She remembered the excited young teacher who had helped her set up her classroom that first
year. Linda had always had a sarcastic wit, but back then it had been quirky and clever, never mean.

What had happened to that bright, lively young woman?

Austin must have hurt her terribly. Less than three years later, Linda was barely recognizable. She was a bitter divorcée who resorted to anger, alcohol and adolescent boys to make the pain go away.

Claire knew there was no point in staying. Linda wasn't listening. She was ragged with fury, and things would only spiral out of control. Claire picked up her umbrella and put her finger on the trigger, ready to leave.

At the last minute, though, she paused. She turned back one more time.

“Linda, I honestly think you need to talk to someone. A professional. But in the meantime, if there's anything I can do, please remember I'm here for you.”

Linda laughed. She dug out another ice cube with her tongue and chewed it with short, sharp bites.

“You?” She laughed again. “What do you know? You're so naive it makes me sick. You know what you are, Claire? You're me three years ago.”

Well, at least she had tried. Claire snapped open the umbrella and began to walk carefully down the stairs.

“Yeah, that hurts, doesn't it, Cinderella? You can dish out the truth, but you don't want to hear it.”

Claire turned, as Linda had no doubt known she would.

Linda had followed her to the edge of the porch. She had wrapped her arms around the outer column,
and raindrops pelted her exposed face. It almost looked as if she were crying.

“Just wait until your prince leaves you, sweetheart. Wait until you're all alone, so damn alone you'd pay the devil just to hold your hand at night. Come see me when that happens, Cinderella.
Then
we'll talk.”

S
UNSHINE
!

Claire hadn't put on a bathing suit in years, but after this long gloomy spell she couldn't resist the urge to lie out by Kieran's sun-sequined pool and soak up some of the blissful warmth.

So, after Kieran had left for work that beautiful Monday morning, she rushed out and bought a swimsuit at Greenoaks, the local department store. Aurora would have thrown a fit, insisting that Claire shop at some ridiculously overpriced boutique instead, but Aurora was still housebound and couldn't interfere. And as Linda wasn't yet speaking to Claire, she couldn't lobby for some thong bikini the size of a thumbtack, either.

The suit Claire chose was a cheap, conventional one-piece tank, but it was a pleasant shade of turquoise, and it was exactly what she wanted.

When she got back to the mansion, she ignored the soft chaise lounges and spread a towel down at the edge of the pool, where she could trail her fingers in the sparkling blue water. It was heaven. She didn't have her watch, but she must have lain there on her stomach for almost an hour, dozing in and out of a dreamy contentment.

When her shoulders began to sting, as if they
might be starting to burn, she rolled over, groggily feeling for her sunscreen.

But instead she encountered what felt like soft leather. It felt like…a man's shoe. She shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted up.

“Hi, there,” Kieran said. He was wearing jeans and a polo shirt. Her pupils were too sun-shocked for her to see his face except as a collection of haloed shadows, but she thought he was smiling. “You're getting pretty pink. Want some help with that sunscreen?”

She was peacefully torpid from sun and sleep, and didn't register her usual tension at his appearance.

She yawned around a smile. “Thanks, but I'm okay,” she said. “I was just about to turn over and do the other side anyhow.”

But she was too limp to move gracefully. The towel bunched under her as she tried to reposition herself, and the sunscreen rolled away, falling into the pool with a wet plop.

Kieran leaned over her, momentarily blocking the bright sun. He scooped up the bobbing plastic tube, then held on to the edge of her towel, helping her smooth it out.

“Thanks,” she said again as he handed her the sunscreen. She sat up on the towel, squeezed a small mound of lotion into her hand and began applying it to her leg.

Kieran took the nearest lounger and stretched out with a sigh. His hair looked so blond out here in the sun. It made him appear as young as a teenager. But now that her vision was clearing, she could see that he might be a little tired. He shut his eyes and let the sun beat down on his face.

“I didn't realize you were already home,” she said, lathering the other leg. “Did your deal close early?”

“Yes, thank goodness. We did all the contracts at one sitting. I'm now the proud owner of one hotel, two office buildings and a small horse ranch over near Grupton.”

She raised her eyebrows. This was more detail than he'd ever given her about his work before. “What are you going to do with all that?”

He shrugged, still not opening his eyes. “What I always do. Sell them for a profit immediately if I can. Otherwise I'll just collect the rent until the climate changes, and I
can
make a profit. It's not very glamorous.”

“Don't you ever keep anything?”

He opened his eyes. “Of course,” he said. “My inheritance holdings in Heyday, for instance, will never be liquidated. But these particular properties are pure speculation. Some deals are just moves on a chessboard, merely a way to get from here to there. They aren't ever meant to be permanent.”

A flush began burning a path across her face before her conscious mind had even processed the awkward double meaning of his sentences. She glanced at him and saw that his brows had slanted together, as if he had suddenly heard himself.

“Oh, hell,” he said, brushing his hair out of his eyes roughly. “You know I didn't mean—”

“It's okay.” She poured more sunscreen and concentrated hard on covering her arms. “I know you didn't.”

“I would never intentionally say anything—”

She looked up. “Really, Kieran, it's okay. I'm not that sensitive.”

She focused again on the sunscreen, addressing her collarbone and shoulders. “After all, it's true, our deal is temporary. So why shouldn't either of us say it? If we have to edit every word we speak, it's going to be a very long summer.”

He didn't answer for a minute, but the pause was suddenly tense, a little darker, as if a cloud had drifted over the sun.

She glanced at him again. His posture seemed unnaturally taut. The muscles in his arms were steely hard.

Finally he smiled, but it had a strained quality, too.

“It's going to be a long summer anyhow,” he said. “Especially if you are going to lie out here like this, slippery and half-dressed and sexy as hell.”

“Sexy?” She glanced down at her suit. “You must be joking. I deliberately bought the most hideous thing Greenoaks had for sale.”

He shook his head slowly. “Maybe it was ugly in the store. Out here, on you, it's…” He took a breath. “Not.”

She felt as if she couldn't swallow properly. When he looked at her like that her stomach took a small, shocked lurch, the way it did when you almost dropped something and caught it just in time.

She set down the sunscreen, though her chest was only half-oiled. She realized she was clenching her thigh muscles and consciously tried to relax them.

“Well,” she said with a forced chuckle, “if you want a decidedly unattractive image to change all that, just picture me six months from now, when I'm so pregnant I can't see my feet.”

His fingers tightened on the webbed cushion. He held there a minute, and then, suddenly, he got up and came over to her. He squatted down and put his hands around her upper arms.

“Do you think that helps, Claire?” He was breathing faster, almost as fast as she was. “I don't think you understand. The idea of you like that…pregnant with my baby—”

He seemed to be trying not to finish the sentence, but the words came out anyhow, fierce, hard and strangely thrilling. “It's the most sensual thing I have ever imagined.”

She didn't answer. She had no answer, except in her body, which was responding to that ferocity with a rush of hot, sweeping desire.

She wanted him. She wanted his hands on her skin, his lips on her lips.

And would it be so wrong for them to make love? In the most profound way possible, weren't they already one body? They were always connected, physically joined through the secret life inside her, which was growing even now, a tiny bud that would soon flower for everyone to see.

“Claire—”

His voice sounded angry, but his hands had begun to move, and their message was different. Slick with lotion from her skin, his fingers slid across her collarbone, then up her neck. He pressed against her chin, gently tilting her head back.

She closed her eyes. She was ready…so ready. It was as if she had been out here all morning just for this. To warm herself, oil herself, release all tension from mind and muscle. To prepare herself for him.

“Claire.” His voice was husky now, all trace of
anger gone. He dipped his head to her shoulder, his soft hair tickling her skin. And then, with a groan, he kissed her throat.

Catching her breath, she rocked back onto the heels of her hands. It was like being kissed by the sun itself. His lips were sure and hard, but gentle and so warm…always moving, gliding with slippery ease across every exposed inch. Down to the curve of her breast, stopped only by the edge of her suit. Then up again, tangling in her hair, which curved behind her earlobe.

Her lips began to tingle. Soon…soon he would find his way to her mouth, and he would breathe the hot sunlight into her…

But, before he reached her lips, a shadow fell across their bodies. Kieran lifted his head. Claire opened her eyes, though she had to squint against the stab of bright sunshine.

“I'm sorry, Mr. McClintock.” It was Ilsa, a contrite, half-embarrassed look on her gorgeous face. She was holding one of the cordless phones. “But it is Mr. Woodstock for you. I'm sorry.”

Kieran took a deep breath.

“It's okay,” he said, smiling at Ilsa to assure her he wasn't annoyed. Claire, who still felt slightly liquid and shivery, had to admire how quickly he had recovered his poise.

Or maybe he hadn't ever completely lost it. Not as she had.

“I told him you and Mrs. McClintock were…swimming.” Ilsa blushed as she said it. “But he said it is so important I must come out and get you.”

Kieran laughed. “Mr. Woodstock has printer's ink
in his blood, and it makes people pretty pushy.” He took the phone. “Isn't that right, Arlington? Doesn't printer's ink make people pushy?”

Ilsa was already halfway back to the house, so well trained that she wouldn't have dreamed of listening in to Kieran's conversation. But Claire, still fighting the last shimmers of sexual confusion, was trying to remember who Arlington Woodstock was.

Oh, that's right. Arlington owned the newspaper.

She looked over at Kieran, wondering what kind of newspaper emergency could have been so important. But to her surprise Kieran's teasing attitude had changed. He seemed to be listening intently.

“Yes,” he said after a long pause. His voice was low and expressionless. “Yes.”

He glanced at Claire for the smallest fraction of a second.

And then, “No. Go ahead.”

Claire's instincts were pricked by the careful monotone. Kieran sounded a little like Steve, who used to become completely guarded and monosyllabic whenever she walked in on the middle of one of his telephone conversations.

But Steve had been a typical teenager, embroiled in small peccadilloes, like hiding bad report cards and bending curfews. And she had been his guardian.

Why would Kieran need to hide anything from her?

“When did it arrive?” Kieran stood, walked to the chaise and sat on the edge, no longer quite facing Claire, although he didn't turn his back on her completely, either. She noticed his hand was tight around the telephone. “Read it to me.”

He listened for another minute. As Claire watched,
she realized she was learning to interpret his body language. Whatever he was hearing was not welcome news, not by a long shot.

“That's different.” He rested his elbow on his knee and pressed his fingers against his forehead. “They didn't have those details before.”

Another pause.

“No one, damn it,” he said, finally showing some overt emotion. To Claire's surprise, the emotion seemed to be part irritation, part pure bewilderment. “No one. That's the part I can't figure. No one.”

He raked his hand through his hair. “Yeah. I'll be there. Ten minutes.”

He clicked off and turned to Claire. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm going to have to go.”

“What's wrong?” She stayed on the towel. His face was controlled, but behind the impassive facade something intense was boiling, and she knew the moment of intimacy had passed them by.

“Nothing, really.” He transferred the phone from one hand to the other, then back again. “I just need to go talk to Arlington, straighten a few things out.”

“What things?”

“Oh, just—” He paused. “Someone has been writing anonymous letters about me and sending them to the newspaper.”

“You must be kidding. Anonymous letters? That's—that's terrible.”

“Actually it's not all that unusual. The McClintocks have been high profile around here for decades. That always makes you a target.”

She shook her head. It was difficult to imagine anyone disliking Kieran enough to try to smear him
in the paper. As far as she could tell, everyone in town worshipped him.

“But surely they won't—” She frowned. “I thought Arlington Woodstock was your friend.”

Kieran shrugged. “He is. But he's the editor first, and he can't suppress any real news just because it doesn't make me look good. He doesn't publish anonymous letters, but he still has to follow up and check into the facts.”

“But there are no facts,” she said, feeling suddenly indignant. Who did Arlington Woodstock think he was, “checking into” slanderous, nasty, anonymous letters about Kieran? “There couldn't be.”

To her surprise, Kieran's only response to her comment was a wry smile. “I'd better get over there,” he said, as if she hadn't said a word.

He looked once again as tired as he had when he first came out. She wondered what on earth the letter had said. She wondered if it might be about her. About the baby…

But what difference could all that make to anyone in Heyday? The newspaper was small, but it was respectable. It wasn't a dirty gossip rag.

“Just tell him how absurd it is,” she said. If only she were a real wife, so that she could go down there with him and help to set things straight. “He'll believe you. He must know anonymous letter writers are just cowards and liars.”

Kieran looked back at her, then. His expression was so odd. He was smiling, but it was full of strange and inexpressible things. Sad, bitter things.

“What is it?” she asked, suddenly frightened.

“Nothing,” he said gently. “Just—be careful,
Claire. I wouldn't like to see you start believing in the myth of Saint Kieran McClintock.”

 

O
KAY
,
STOOGE
,
Eddie thought as he hung up the phone.
You've really cooked it now.

Yeah, basically his ass was grass. He'd just told Jeff Metzler that he wasn't going to write an essay on Poe's poetry for him, that he was completely out of the term paper business.

Jeff had not taken it well. Which was to be expected, actually, because, without a term paper, Jeff was going to flunk English big-time. Jeff Metzler's dad might own the local bank, but apparently all that money couldn't buy his kid any brains.