CLAY YEAGER'S REDEMPTION Page 11

  "Casey, what happened out there was … instinct. It doesn't mean you're back in the muck again, it just means you learned well. You can defend yourself."

  She looked at him, shaking her head in wonder at his gentle understanding, at the way he seemed to know exactly what to say. And her next words were out before she thought, although she wasn't sure she would have stopped them even if she had.

  "I didn't want to defend myself. Not from you."

  He went very still. "Casey…"

  "You're the first man who's made me want to try again, Clay. The first man I've trusted enough to let get close."

  "Casey, don't."

  He'd gone oddly pale, almost as ashen as he'd been when he'd been lying on the ground outside. She wasn't sure what was wrong, or what he was saying, thought maybe he didn't understand. "I've never told anyone here, never even talked about it since I left Chicago."

  He stood up, and when he looked down at her, his eyes were dark with so many emotions that she couldn't begin to name them.

  "Don't, Casey," he said, his voice low and harsh. "Don't trust me. I'll only let you down." And then he was gone, leaving Casey with the memory of an expression on his face that was worse than any of the physical pain she had caused.

  * * *

  I've never told anyone here, never even talked about it.

  The first man I've trusted enough to let get close.

  Clay cowered in the darkest corner he could find, in the small toolroom. He was shaking, and he didn't bother to try to stop, knowing he wouldn't be able to.

  He'd been sickened by Casey's awful story, just as he'd always been sickened by tales of viciousness and cruelty. And he'd been filled with admiration at the way she'd fought back at the trial—and no one knew better than he what that could be like—and the way she'd gone on with her life afterward. He supposed part of it was envy, too; going on was not something he'd managed very well.

  But then, what had happened to Casey hadn't been her fault in any way. What had happened to him had been no one's fault but his own.

  But her words had brought back countless memories, memories of a time he'd so distanced himself from that it sometimes didn't seem real. The only memories that were consistently, constantly real were the ones that haunted his dreams.

  But even those were overpowered right now by the realization that his fears had come true. Casey trusted him. He'd known it, on some level, from the moment she'd begun to tell him what had happened to her. She never would have talked about it if she hadn't; he'd known that, too, before she'd told him.

  He rubbed his hands over his face, pressing his fingers at his temples as hard as he could, even knowing it was hopeless, that nothing would relieve the pounding pressure.

  He'd let things go too far. He'd let Casey get too close, let her come to depend on him. It had started out with minor things, but from there it was only a small step to bigger ones. Like trust.

  She trusted him.

  And he'd already proved resoundingly that he was undeserving of that kind of faith.

  There was only one thing he could do. And he should have done it already, the moment he realized he'd been contemplating staying awhile. That should have been his first clue that things were getting out of control.

  And now it was too late. There was no way to avoid hurting, or at the least disappointing, Casey, a woman who'd had far too much pain in her life already.

  But better now than later. The longer he stayed, the worse it would get. So he would leave.

  Soon. Tomorrow. Early.

  And if he managed to dodge Casey in the process, all the better. The desire to avoid her didn't surprise him; he'd long ago acknowledged that he'd turned into the worst kind of coward.

  And it was past time for this coward to hit the road.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  « ^ »

  Casey suspected it when Mud didn't meet her in the kitchen as he usually did, but she knew for sure the minute that she looked out into the empty yard. She hadn't dreamed that noise at dawn, hadn't imagined the sound of an engine starting. Clay was gone.

  Still, she stood there staring at the empty spot where the green truck had been parked for so many days. The silence seemed deafening, no sound of work going on, no good-morning bark from Mud … and no racing of her own heart.

  In fact, the only thing she felt was a chilly, sinking sensation, followed by a hollowness that was almost an ache somewhere deep inside her.

  Don't trust me. I'll only let you down.

  But she had trusted him. Enough to tell him what she'd never told anyone in River Bend.

  Enough to let him kiss her. Enough to kiss him back.

  Enough to want that kiss to be only the beginning.

  She shivered, despite the fact that it was already warm at this early hour. Had she driven him away with that trust?

  Was he so very fearful of being trusted? Or was it her trust that had sent him running? Or had she overwhelmed him? Had he not wanted to deal with the wounded soul she'd revealed to him?

  Or had he simply been repelled by a woman who'd been raped?

  It couldn't be. She would not believe it was what had happened to her that had made him leave. He just was not the kind of man who would look at a woman who had been assaulted that way with distaste. He couldn't be, not when he had talked to her the way he had, comforted her the way he had, held her the way he had. Whatever his reasons were, she was as sure as she could be that that was not one of them. He might not want to deal with it long-term, but at that moment, he'd given her the most peace she'd ever known when the memories were upon her. Surely he couldn't have done that if he'd been genuinely repulsed by her as a result of what had happened?

  Maybe it had been a combination of things. Including that knack she seemed to have for treading on forbidden territory. Of course, he also seemed to have more forbidden areas than just about anybody she'd ever known. Which was the only thing that had kept her from prying, despite her sheer curiosity about the man who had so quickly become such a part of her life and thoughts.

  Or maybe it was simply that she was a lousy judge of men. She'd thought Jon Nesbit was her friend. And she'd thought Clay Yeager might care, a little.

  But instead, Jon had betrayed her trust in the worst way. And now Clay had decamped without a word, in the middle of the night.

  Maybe it was just as well, she told herself. Maybe she wasn't ready for … whatever might have happened between them. What had almost happened between them last night. Maybe her reaction had been proof of that.

  But all the rationalization, all the maybes, didn't make the empty place inside her go away.

  "You've gotten through worse. Much worse. You just made a mistake, that's all. It won't be the last time."

  As her voice echoed in the kitchen, she realized that she'd gotten into the habit of speaking her thoughts aloud. Not to hear herself, but because usually Mud was somewhere around. And he was, as Clay had said, a good listener.

  God, now she was missing his darn dog.

  She made herself turn away from the window. She wouldn't think about it, she told herself. She'd been getting by just fine before Clay had disrupted her life, and she could do it again. Today she would finish the painting he'd started, then get back to her own work tomorrow. She had a birthday party to do, and she had to plan how she was going to coordinate the three possible jobs she had in the works for Labor Day.

  She would be fine. She knew that. She knew how the process worked. She would eventually forget he'd even been around. She would stop thinking of him every time she looked at the wind vane, or the fence, or opened her screen door, or came in contact with any of the other things he'd fixed.

  And she would even stop expecting to see a flash of black and white and hear a bark of greeting, eventually.

  Eventually.

  The phone rang. She spun around to look at it, and for the first time her midnight caller was not uppermost in her mind.

  Had
Clay not really left? Had he just gone somewhere, and was he calling to tell her now? Had something happened?

  Her breath caught; what if something had happened? Clay had obviously been able to drive, but maybe Mud had gotten ill or hurt. Maybe he'd gone off on one of his hunts and run into something more lethal than a squirrel. She hadn't heard anything like an animal fight, or Mud barking, but maybe—

  A second ring came, jolting her out of her racing thoughts and into motion. She grabbed the receiver and answered hastily.

  "Hello?"

  "That wasn't very nice, Casey, not answering me."

  Oh, God, it was him. Again. In the daylight.

  "You shouldn't do that. I miss our little chats."

  It was too much. On top of everything else, it was just too much, and she was suddenly very angry. She knew she should just hang up, but she couldn't stop herself.

  "I didn't think cowards came out in the daylight," she snapped. "Crawl back under your rock."

  Then she hung up before he could speak again, before he could say something that would overwhelm her anger with the fear she knew he was trying to instill in her.

  "I won't let you win," she said, staring at the telephone as if it were a malevolent beast. "I've dealt with worse than you before."

  And now she had to deal with the fact that in the space of two rings of a phone, she'd almost talked herself out of the truth, that Clay Yeager had simply and silently abandoned the work he'd been doing—and her. His reasons didn't matter, not really. What mattered was that he'd done it.

  And that now she had to get used to it.

  * * *

  The ominous dropping of the needle on the voltmeter seemed like merely the final blow to an escape that had felt cursed from the beginning. First Mud had been strangely uncooperative this morning, until Clay had had to drag the unhappy dog bodily into the front seat of the truck. Then the truck had chosen to be exceptionally noisy when he'd started it at first light, as if it sensed his desire for quiet and wanted to foil it. Then he'd had a flat barely twenty miles from the farm, which meant he had to practically unload the entire camper to get to his jack to change the tire. Mud had taken advantage of the opportunity to take off running, clearly back toward the farm. He'd spent an hour chasing the suddenly disobedient dog, finally catching him and having to trudge back to the truck and close him up in the cab while he finished with the tire.

  After an hour spent on that and reloading the truck, he'd stopped to get the flat repaired, not wanting to risk getting stuck miles from any help without a spare. The only gas station he'd been able to find open had been busy, and he'd had to wait almost three hours until they got to him. Then it was back out onto the narrow country roads, where, eager as he was to put distance behind him, he had to hold it down to a careful speed.

  As a result, it was past one before he'd managed to put even fifty miles between him and the woman who'd scared him into flight by the simple act of trusting him.

  And now there was that ominous reading on his dash, that needle dropping slowly but steadily, telling him he'd left those repairs too long.

  It figures, he thought with a sigh. Apparently fate hadn't liked what he'd been doing. Whether it was his running or that he'd let Casey get too close, he didn't know, and at this point it didn't really matter.

  He began to look for a place to pull over. It was another mile before he saw a level spot conveniently shaded by a large oak. He edged off the road, and just in time. The truck died before he could even reach for the ignition to aim it off. He tried the starter and got nothing but a faint click.

  "Great," he muttered. "Just great."

  It didn't take him long to determine that it was what he suspected, the alternator. He'd probably been running on the battery since he'd left the farm. Not that the diagnosis helped; he certainly didn't have a spare handy. And he had no idea where to get one, even if he could afford it; he hadn't stuck around long enough to get the second week's pay.

  And that was assuming he could get out of here at all; this didn't look like a bustling thoroughfare. Besides, who would pick up an obvious transient like him out here in the middle of nowhere? He would probably have to walk, at least until he could find a phone he could use. Not that he expected anybody to let him use their phone, either. Or had anybody to call.

  He was pondering which way to start walking when a large black flatbed truck slowed to a halt beside him. An older man, dressed in overalls and a battered straw cowboy hat, leaned over and rolled down his passenger window.

  "Gotta problem, do ya?"

  "Alternator," he said. "Is there a garage anywhere around?"

  "Best one's about fifty miles back, in River Bend."

  Now that, Clay thought wryly, really put a capper on his day.

  "Unless maybe you don't need a mechanic," the man said, looking Clay up and down as if trying to gauge his ability to repair the truck himself.

  "I can do it," Clay said. "I just need the alternator."

  "Hmm. Well then, maybe Buck Chapman can help you. He's got a wrecking yard about five miles up the road. Think he's got a coupla trucks like yours, might have what you need."

  Well, five was better than fifty. And anything was better than heading back to River Bend.

  "Thanks a lot," Clay added, meaning it.

  "I'm heading that way, if you want a ride. Pup, too, if you don't want to leave him in the heat. Can't bring you back, though. I'm already late to pick up the wife."

  Clay stared at the man. "I … yes. I'd be very grateful. Thank you."

  Casey had been right about the people around here, he thought. He supposed there were people like this everywhere, willing to help even when it wasn't particularly convenient. Maybe they just got lost amid the masses elsewhere.

  It took him a moment to locate Mud's long-unused leash, but he didn't think he could trust the collie not to take off and head back to Casey, fifty miles or not.

  He thanked the older man profusely when he dropped him at the yard enclosed by a weathered wooden fence. The man just nodded and waved, wishing him good-luck as he drove on.

  Buck Chapman was nearly a twin of the man who'd helped him, and Clay almost asked, but decided he'd best just be thankful and shut up. And he was more thankful when it turned out that Buck indeed had what he needed. And when the man offered him a break on the price of the alternator if he would take it out of the wrecked truck himself, he jumped at it; it would take time, but this was already going to eat up most of his small hoard of cash. He shouldn't have bought those new boots, but his old ones had been literally falling apart, and he'd needed them to keep working. Besides, he'd figured he would be back where he'd been financially by the next week.

  Too bad he hadn't stuck around to get paid.

  He knew by the time he started the walk back to the truck that it was going to be tight, trying to get the job done today. He was going to run out of daylight, and his flashlight, while probably powerful enough, wasn't going to be easy to secure at the right angle.

  Not to mention that, after sleeping restlessly at best last night, he was so tired he would probably screw it up, anyway.

  And hungry.

  He'd gotten spoiled, gotten used to eating regularly and well. And he hadn't done much planning for this, hadn't stopped for food or even water in his rush to get away.

  "Coward," he muttered to himself, his self-disgust getting stronger with every step. And for the first time, he let the thought of going back creep into his mind.

  He rejected the idea immediately, knowing he didn't dare seriously consider it. The sooner he got the repairs done and got back onto the road, the better. And if he had to finish by flashlight, so be it. He would find some way to do it, some way to tie the light to something.

  Some way he could keep running.

  He was suddenly more than disgusted with himself. What had he been thinking, to let it go so far? Sure, Casey was the first woman in five years who had roused even a twinge of interest in him. But that
alone should have been a warning.

  He'd never expected to feel anything like that again in his life, so he'd never really thought about what he would do if it happened.

  He obviously hadn't taken into account finding a woman like Casey. A woman who had every right to be bitter, cynical and mistrustful, yet was kind and generous, and trusted a stranger who had trespassed.

  Sometimes it's the ones who call themselves your friend that you have to watch out for.

  He hadn't understood it when she'd said it. But he understood it now, all too well, after the harrowing story she'd told him. And for a moment an old, once familiar feeling flooded him, a feeling of disgust for being one of a gender that could so brutalize its natural mate. There had been a few times, in that other life, when he'd been amazed women had anything to do with men at all.

  You don't have any right to that feeling anymore, he reminded himself fiercely. What you did was just as bad. In some ways worse. You dishonored a sacred vow. You became one of those that Casey meant, the ones you should be able to trust but who betray you.

  But Casey had trusted him. Enough to hire him when she didn't know the first thing about him. Enough to tell him the ugly story she'd told no one since she'd come home.

  Enough to say she hadn't wanted to stop him.

  Even, he thought wryly, when she'd darn near crippled him.

  He knew it had been totally instinctive, and he understood exactly why she'd panicked. In a weird way, after the pain had begun to fade, he'd been proud of her; she would have stopped anybody who hadn't been armed.

  What scared him was that she probably would have done the same thing even if it had been an armed attacker. Not that she would ever have to face that, not as long as she stayed in River Bend. But still, she was alone out there, and vulnerable.

  "Maybe you should have stayed with her, Mud," he told the collie as they finally neared the broken-down truck, even as he realized that if he'd left the dog behind, he would have little left to convince him to keep going. Especially now.