The Saint (7 page)

Kieran felt his heart beating too fast, as if he'd been running. “So here's the bottom line. If I absolutely had to choose… I mean, if no matter what I did, I was going to have to break one of my vows to myself. If, no matter what I decided, I was destined to become my father after all.”

He stared at his empty beer bottle. “Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”

Roddy looked as if he'd been hit with a brick. He blinked. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

“Kieran,” he said with a hoarse voice. “Oh, man. I—I'm so sorry.”

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.” Aurora's forceful voice rang out across the pool, and all heads turned in her direction. “It's time to announce the candidates for Ringmaster and Ringmistress Court.”

Kieran looked, too, though he could feel Roddy's horrified stare still boring into him. He had to keep up a calm facade. He had to pretend everything was all right, at least until he could think what to do.

“We'll announce the Ringmaster candidates first. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, that being nomi
nated for Ringmaster is the highest honor Heyday society can bestow on our young men. Our nominees must be local bachelors, at least age thirty, who set the highest possible standards in every area of their lives. Their professional ethics. Their personal behavior. Their civic responsibility.”

A low murmur hummed through the crowd, and several people looked pointedly at Kieran. St. Kieran, they called him, though rarely to his face. But he knew, and in his heart he had liked it. It had made him feel that, in spite of his father's outrageous love life, in spite of the flawed McClintock genes, Kieran could do better.

It had made him believe he could be normal.

But pride went before a fall. Everyone knew that.

Kieran could see that Claire was watching, too, obviously expecting them to call his name any minute. How ironic she must find this whole farce! She of all people knew that he wasn't Saint anything.

He was either a man who would father an illegitimate child, or he was a man who would enter into a doomed marriage, a marriage that would end, as had his father's marriages, in the petty ugliness of divorce court.

These were his only options. His only choice now was to pick the lesser of two evils.

He touched Roddy's shoulder in a wordless goodbye, and he began making his way toward Claire. She had a right to know what he had decided. Her eyes followed his progress somberly.

But before he could make his way around the pool, Aurora began to speak again.

“Our first nominee for Ringmaster is…” The guitar player warbled out a stringy semblance of a drum
roll. Aurora opened an envelope with exaggerated drama.

“Mr. Kieran McClintock!”

The applause was enthusiastic, punctuated by wolf whistles and catcalls from some of the women who had sampled a little too liberally from the well-stocked bar.

Kieran paused as people began to shake his hand and slap his shoulder. Someone grabbed him and kissed him thoroughly. He was only halfway to Claire, but he could still feel her eyes on him. He could feel her exhaustion.

Someone pushed him toward Aurora, who was holding out the microphone. He accepted it numbly, and turned, staring out at the eager, smiling faces.

Well, they had come here for excitement, and he was certainly going to provide it. For sheer entertainment value, you couldn't beat watching a saint tumble off his pedestal.

“First, I'd like to thank the committee for this very special honor,” he said. He felt himself relaxing. Funny, once he got started it was so easy. It was as if he'd written this speech a million years ago and had carried it in his back pocket all his life.

“But unfortunately, I'm going to have to decline.”

“What?” He could hear the whispers. He could see the startled faces turn to one another, eyes asking the question.
Why?
Why would St. Kieran, the man everyone had always known would be this year's Ringmaster, suddenly take himself out of the running?

Even Aurora looked shocked, and a little angry, as if she were a director who had just discovered her leading man hadn't learned his lines.

“You see, I'm afraid I'm not going to be eligible to become your new Ringmaster,” he went on. “Because by the time our parade rolls into town, I will no longer be a bachelor.”

A collective gasp. But now, strangely, there was only one face in the crowd. One pale, oval face with wide, deep brown eyes that were locked on his. She didn't seem to be breathing.

“I hope you'll all join with me in celebrating my great good fortune. Because just tonight, less than an hour ago, Miss Claire Strickland did me the honor of agreeing to become my wife.”

T
HE PARTY WAS FINALLY OVER
,
thank goodness.

Claire's mouth felt stretched to the aching point by all the forced smiling and polite laughter. After his announcement, Kieran had been attentive and thoughtful, but they never had any time to talk alone. Everyone had seemed thrilled—you'd think the whole town had just been waiting for the chance to celebrate Kieran's engagement.

And they had such excellent manners—not one person had even subtly hinted that Kieran's choice of fiancée was a shock.

Still, Claire longed to go somewhere quiet and lie down. She needed to sort through all the changes this strange evening was going to bring to her life.

Unfortunately, at the very last minute one of the power couples in attendance, two taut, fast-talking lawyers named Gordon, realized they had misplaced their eight-year-old daughter.

Kieran checked the pool first, but its glowing sapphire rectangle was undisturbed. That calmed the mother significantly, and she began to get cross, alternately calling “Erica!” loudly and informing the others that the little girl did this kind of thing all the time.

“Ought to keep her on a leash, then,” Aurora retorted, her feather bobbing, “if you can't teach her
common sense. In my day, kids did what they were told, they didn't go wandering around getting lost in other people's—”

“She probably just fell asleep somewhere,” Kieran suggested. “Why don't we divvy up the house and launch a hunt?” He turned to Claire. “I know you must be tired. Would you like to wait for us in the library? The chairs are comfortable there.”

Claire nodded gratefully. She wasn't sure how helpful she could be anyhow. She didn't know the layout of the mansion, and she didn't have any idea where the good hiding places might be.

But the others had been gone only about five minutes when she heard a noise just outside the library door, where the caterers had set up a cloth-covered table. Claire listened, and she heard it again. A scraping sound…something against wood, then metal against glass. Deciding that neither rats nor poltergeists would be audacious enough to invade Aurora York's territory, Claire went to investigate.

She reached the table quietly, and then she bent down and lifted the soft white cloth. Nothing. But then she noticed that the table stood a little crooked in the hall, and that it backed up to a built-in closet, and the door was askew.

She peeked in the door. Sure enough, a little girl sat cross-legged on the floor, sniffling as she ran a spoon along the sides of a custard dish, trying to get the last bits of a crème brûlée.

“Hi,” Claire said. “Are you Erica?”

The little girl looked up, and to Claire's surprise her eyes were red, her cheeks wet with tears. She scowled. “No, I'm the
other
eight-year-old kid who ran away.”

“Oh.” Claire bit back a smile. It had been a dumb question. “Okay.” They looked at each other a moment. Claire had just started to move away when the little girl spoke again.

“Are you going to tell them where I am?” Her voice was no less fierce than before.

Claire hesitated. “Don't you think I should? Your mom and dad seem pretty worried.”

Erica shrugged. “I don't care. If you tell them, I'll just run away again before they get here.”

Well, that wouldn't do. Claire wondered why the little girl had been crying, but she could tell it wouldn't be a welcome question. In fact, she probably could safely assume that eight-year-old girls were a lot like the middle-school girls she taught—full of defensive pride and embarrassed by everything.

Still, she couldn't afford to lose her. And something about her candid spunk appealed to Claire. If the truth were told, there had been plenty of times tonight that she, too, would have liked to hide in a closet.

So if Claire couldn't coax Erica out, she might as well keep an eye on her from the inside. She scanned the area, which was huge. Nothing in this house had stingy proportions, even the closets.

“Got any more of those custards?”

Erica squinted suspiciously. “I'm not supposed to eat too many,” she said without really answering the question. “Or I'll get sick.”

But Claire had already figured out that the little girl's skirt was strangely lumpy. She'd be willing to bet she was hiding at least a couple more desserts. Claire, who had been nauseated through most of the
party and unable to eat, suddenly realized she was ravenous.

“Then maybe it would be a good idea to share.” Claire tilted the table a little farther out into the room—when the others came by, that would be enough to alert them. She joined Erica in the big, empty closet, leaving the door open enough to let in lots of light, and sat on the floor beside her.

As she'd predicted, there was plenty of room. In fact, Kieran and Aurora could have joined them without being cramped. Claire smiled at the thought.

Erica looked surprised, but after a minute she edged her skirt sideways, exposing three more crème brûlées, all uneaten, and a small crystal wineglass that had been snapped at the stem.

Ah. That probably accounted for the crying.

“My mom's gonna kill me about that,” Erica said glumly, staring at the broken glass. “I never, ever watch where I'm going.”

Claire picked it up. “Looks like a clean break. I bet it could be fixed.”

“Really?” Apparently comforted by Claire's nod, Erica picked up one of the crème brûlées and handed it to her. “We'll have to share the spoon.”

After munching a few seconds in silence, Erica gave Claire an appraising look. “Hey, I know who you are. You're that lady who is going to marry Kieran.”

Claire smiled. “Yes. Do you know Kieran?”

“Sure. My dad is his lawyer. He comes over all the time. I like him, even if he does own us. My dad says he's a benevolent despot.”

“Oh.” Claire took another bite, wondering if Erica had any idea what a despot was, benevolent or oth
erwise. She clearly loved to talk, but she was like a little myna bird, repeating sounds without meaning.

“So, tell me,” Erica went on eagerly. “It is really true you have a shotgun?”

Claire swallowed her last bite without chewing. “Of course not. Where did you get such an idea?”

“I heard somebody say you did. I hear all kinds of stuff under here. They said that's how you got Kieran to marry you, with your shotgun. Then somebody else said, yeah, a shotgun named Steve.”

A shotgun named Steve…

Claire was so stunned she couldn't even pretend it didn't matter. She just stared at Erica, feeling herself flushing all over. So that's what they had been saying, in whispers, in corners, when they knew she couldn't hear. When they were finished smiling to her face.

Erica, who was too smart to miss the implications of Claire's shock, rolled her eyes and groaned. “I guess I shouldn't have told you, huh? Was it rude? People say rude things about me, too. Like when Mrs. York said I should have to wear a leash like a dog.”

Claire couldn't think how to respond. She ought to come up with something, just to make Erica less uncomfortable, but apparently Claire didn't have a brain at all, just a head full of anger and shame.

“It's okay,” Claire finally said. “It just surprised me, that's all.”

Suddenly there were footsteps in the hall behind them. And voices.

Kieran was talking. “Aurora, I know you mean well, but Claire and I were thinking just a quiet ceremony, just the two of us at the justice of the peace.”

“Nonsense. Your mother would turn over in her grave if I let that happen, Kieran McClintock, and you know it. If you're really going to marry that girl, and I'm not saying you shouldn't, her brother was a good kid, and I've always thought she had real spunk, ever since she went for your throat at his funeral.”

“Aurora—”

“You owe this to me, Kieran. You owe it to your mother's memory. If you're going to marry that girl, you're not going to do it in the dead of night, like something you're ashamed of. I'm going to give the two of you a proper wedding.”

Aurora paused. “You're
not
ashamed of it, are you, Kieran?”

Oh, God. Claire moved to her knees, rushing to climb out and announce their presence. She didn't want to hear Kieran's answer. She might hear something that would make it even more difficult to do the one thing she knew she absolutely must do: provide a name for her unborn child.

Don't say anything, Kieran,
she prayed silently.
I don't want to know.

It was enough to know that he had hesitated, that he had not been willing—or able—to rush in with a denial.

She began to press on the door.

Erica lay her hand on Claire's arm. “Hey, if we wait,” she whispered, excited, “we might hear some more cool stuff.”

“That,” Claire whispered back, somehow managing to soften it with a smile, “is exactly what I'm afraid of.”

 

O
N
S
UNDAY AFTERNOON
, Eddie went to Morrison's Fine Jewelers and checked out the price tag on Binky's lariat earrings.

Two hundred dollars.

He was too surprised even to blink. While he stood there like a stooge, with his mouth hanging open, Mr. Morrison put the earrings back in the case, returned to his desk and screwed his spooky jeweler's monocle back into his eye.

The dang monocle probably gave him some kind of X-ray vision. Mr. Morrison had probably known from the minute Eddie walked in the shop that he had exactly $27.50 in his pocket.

But damn it. Who paid two hundred dollars for earrings?

Eddie thought of all the things he could buy with two hundred dollars. A used guitar. An Xbox. A stereo for his car. Tickets to the next great concert in Richmond.

Hamburgers at The Big Top for the rest of the
year.

But then he thought of Binky.

He hadn't seen a single frame of the movie last night. While the U.S. Air Force blasted the incoming aliens with great big exploding guns, Binky had fed Eddie popcorn, piece by piece, from her fingertips to his lips.

Then, when he was pretty much ready to explode himself, she had begun to put the pieces on the tip of her tongue, and let him come and get them.

By the time the last alien went up in smoke, Eddie was a wreck. He'd probably never be able to smell butter again without getting turned on and stuttering like a moron.

“Anything else I can show you, son?”

Eddie flushed at Mr. Morrison's tone. The question wasn't serious. Mr. Morrison hadn't moved a muscle. He didn't intend to show dead-broke Eddie Mackey anything at all, except where the door was.

But at that moment the bell over the glass entrance jangled, and in walked Mrs. Tremel, dressed in a tight blue summer dress that just barely covered the important spots.

Eddie wondered if the fates had sent her to him. She had said something the other day about needing a guy to mow her lawn. At the time, he had told her he was completely booked up. He didn't see how he could fit another customer into his weekends.

How stupid had that been? Shoot, he didn't need to sleep late on Saturdays. He could always get up a couple of hours earlier.

If only she hadn't already hired someone else…

“Hi, Mrs. Tremel,” Eddie said, smiling politely. “I'm really glad you came in. I was just about to call you.”

“You were? That's nice.” She smiled at him, her slick red lipstick revealing very large, very straight white teeth. She had a dimple, too, just like Binky, but Mrs. Tremel's hair was big around her face, kind of messed up in a super-expensive way.

She was an awesome-looking woman, considering she had to be at least, what, almost thirty? And she'd already been married and divorced.

Man, what kind of guy divorced a hot woman like that? Her breasts stuck out as round and firm as beach balls, and her ass was exactly the right shape to get the palms of your hand around.

Damn it, Mackey. Chill!
He mentally shook the
image out of his mind and forced his gaze to focus just over her left shoulder. She'd never hire him if she thought he was a little creep.

“Yes, ma'am, I was wondering if you still need someone to do your lawn. I was thinking, if you did, that maybe I could squeeze you in.”

She smiled slowly. He flushed, wondering if she thought he had meant something dirty. But then he remembered that grown-ups didn't do that, didn't read sexual innuendos into every single word.

Must be nice to be a grown-up. Frankly, it would be a lot less stressful to think about something other than sex.

“That's great, Eddie,” she said, grinning. “I would be very happy to be squeezed!” She laughed slightly, as if they had shared a cute joke.

He laughed, too.
Ha ha. Nice one, Mrs. Tremel.

“Let's see,” she said. “I guess now we just need to agree on a price. Exactly what do you offer?” She held out her hands, palms up. “I think I'm going to need everything you've got. I haven't had a service in a very long time.”

Eddie took a deep breath and focused on being a grown-up.
She's not coming on to you, moron.
It was just that last night with Binky had left him all revved up and nowhere to race. His mind was one big cloud of sex fumes.

But he noticed that even Mr. Morrison was listening curiously, forgetting to study his tiny little watch workings. And Mrs. Tremel was still smiling.

Well, okay, maybe she
was
flirting with him a little. She was that type. She was gorgeous, and she liked men. He realized that the idea made him feel kind of cool. He wished Binky were here to see it.

“I can do whatever you want, Mrs. Tremel,” he said. He put on his most professional voice, eager to show her he was practically an adult who took his job seriously. It was true. He'd be eighteen in a couple of weeks. That was an adult, in every way that mattered.