by Nora Roberts
“Clare?”
“Alice.” She gripped her friend's hand and fought to steady herself. “Looks like half the town turned out.”
“For Mrs. Stokey.” Her gaze flicked over faces. “And for the entertainment.” She was feeling awkward herself in her waitress's uniform, but she had only managed to steal twenty minutes away. Besides, the closest thing she had to funeral gear was a black sweatshirt. “They're going to start in a minute.”
“I'm just going to sit in the back.” Clare had no intention of marching up to the coffin and peeking in.
Hey, Biff, haven't seen you for years. Sorry you're dead.
The thought of it had her choking back a nervous laugh, then fighting off a wave of hot tears. What was she doing here? What the hell was she doing here? She was here for Cam, Clare reminded herself. And she was here to prove that she could sit in this little overheated room and get through a ritual like a responsible adult.
“You all right?” Alice whispered.
“Yes.” She took a long, cleansing breath. “We'd better sit down.”
As she and Alice took a seat, Clare scanned the room for Cam. She spotted Min Atherton in navy polyester, her face in solemn lines, her bright eyes gleeful. The mayor was beside her, his head bowed as if in prayer.
Farmers and merchants and mechanics stood in their Sunday suits and discussed business and the weather. Mrs. Stokey was flanked by townswomen. Cam stood to the side, a set, unapproachable look on his face as he watched his mother.
Chuck Griffith walked to the front of the room, turned, and waited. With murmurs and shuffles, people filed to the folding chairs.
Silence.
“Friends,” he began, and Clare remembered.
The room had been packed both evenings during the viewing. There hadn't been a man, woman, or child in Emmitsboro who hadn't known Jack Kimball. All of them had come. The words they had spoken had blurred in her head, leaving only their meaning behind. Sorrow and regret. But no one, no one had known the depth of her own grief.
The church had been packed for the service, and the line of cars heading out to the cemetery at Quiet Knolls had stretched for blocks.
Some of the same people were here today. Older, with more flesh and less hair. They took their seats and held their silence and thought their thoughts.
Rosemary Kimball had been surrounded by towns-women, just as Jane Stokey was. They had stood by her, a unified line of support, filled with sympathy for her loss, filled with relief that their own widowhood was somewhere down the road of a murky future.
They had brought food to the house-ham, potato salad, chicken-to feed the grieving. The food had meant nothing, but the kindness helped fill some of the empty spaces.
Days later-only days-the scandal had hit. Jack Kimball, well-loved member of the community, was now an opportunist charged with kickbacks, bribery, falsified documents. While her grief was still blood-fresh, she'd been told to accept the fact that her father had been a liar and a cheat.
But she had never accepted it. Nor had she accepted his suicide.
Cam saw her. He was surprised she was there and less than pleased when he noted that her face was too pale, her eyes too wide. She had a hand gripped in Alice's as she stared straight ahead. He wondered what it was she saw, what it was she heard. He was certain she wasn't listening to Chuck Griffith's words about eternal life and forgiveness any more than he was.
But others listened. With their faces blank and their hands still, they listened. And they feared. A warning had been given. When one of their number broke the Law, he would be plucked out, without mercy. The wrath of the few was no less than the wrath of the Dark Lord. So they listened, and they remembered. And behind their somber eyes and bent heads, they were afraid.
“I have to get back.” Alice squeezed Clare's hand. “I have to get back,” she repeated. “Clare?”
“What?” She blinked. People were shuffling to their feet and filing out. “Oh.”
“I could only get time off to come for the service. Are you driving out to the cemetery?”
“Yes.” Clare had her own grave to visit. “I'll be driving out.”
A half dozen cars slid into position in the back lot of Griffith's. There were farms to run and shops to open, and the fact was there weren't too many people willing to take the time to see Biff Stokey get plopped in the ground. Clare pulled in at the rear and settled into the short, stately drive. Ten miles out of town, the grim parade drove through the open iron gates.
Clare's fingers were clammy when she turned off the ignition. She waited in the car. The pallbearers hefted their burden. She saw the mayor, Doc Crampton, Oscar Roody, Less Gladhill, Bob Meese, and Bud Hewitt. Cam walked beside his mother. They didn't touch.
Clare got out of her car and, turning away, walked up the slope of the hill. Birds were singing as birds do on warm May mornings. The grass smelled strong and sweet. Here and there among the stones and plaques were plastic flowers or wreaths. They wouldn't fade. Clare wondered if the people who had placed them there realized how much sadder their bright artificial colors were than drooping carnations or dying daisies.
There was family here. Her mother's mother and father, great-aunts and uncles, a young cousin who had died of polio long before Clare had been born. She walked among them while the sun stung her eyes and warmed her face.
She didn't kneel at her father's grave. She hadn't brought flowers. She didn't weep. Instead she stood, reading his headstone over and over, trying to find some sense of him there. But there was nothing but granite and grass.
As he stood beside his mother, Cam watched Clare. The sun turned her hair to copper. Bright and brilliant. Alive. His fingers flexed as he realized just how much he needed to touch life. Each time he put a hand on his mother's arm, her shoulder, her back, he was met with a cold wall. She had nothing for him, not even need.
Yet he couldn't leave her, couldn't turn away as he wanted to and go to Clare, put a hand on that bright, brilliant hair, absorb that life, that need.
He hated cemeteries, he thought, and remembered staring down into the empty grave of a child.
When Clare walked away, returned to her car, drove away, he knew what it was to be utterly alone.
* * *
Clare worked furiously for the rest of the day. Driven. Her second metal sculpture was almost done. When it was time to let the steel cool, she would turn off her torch, strip off her skullcap, and take up the clay model of Ernie's arm.
She couldn't bear to rest.
With knives and hands and wooden pallets, she carved and smoothed and formed. She could feel the defiance as she shaped the fist. The restlessness as she detailed the taut muscles of the forearm. Patiently, she carved away minute scraps of clay with thin wire, then smoothed and textured with a damp brush.
The music blared on her radio-the edgiest, grittiest rock she could find on the dial. Sparked with energy, she washed the clay from her hands, but she didn't rest. Couldn't. At another worktable sat a slab of cherry wood with much of its center already carved away. She took up her tools, mallet, chisels, calipers, and poured that nervous energy into her work.
She stopped only when the sun lowered enough to force her to switch on lights, then to turn the music from rock to classical, just as passionate, just as driving. Cars cruised by unheard. The phone rang, but she ignored it.
Her other projects faded completely from her mind. She was part of the wood now, part of its possibilities. And the wood absorbed her emotions. Cleansed them. She had no sketch, no model. Only memories and needs.
For the fine carving, her fingers were deft and sure. Her eyes burned, but she rubbed the back of her wrist over them and kept going. The fire in her, rather than banking, grew and grew.
Stars came out. The moon started its rise.
Cam saw her bent over her work, a wood file flashing in her hand. Overhead the bright, naked bulbs burned, drawing pale, wide-winged moths to their death dance. Music soared, all slashing string
s and crashing bass.
There was a glow of triumph on her face, in her eyes. Every few moments, she would stroke her fingers over the curve of wood in a form of communication he recognized but couldn't understand.
There was something raw and powerful in the shape. It swept down, forming an open profile. As he stepped inside the garage, he could see that it was a face, eerily masculine, a head lifted back and up as if toward the sun.
He didn't speak and lost track of the time as he watched her. But he could feel the passion trembling out of her. It reached him and clashed almost painfully with his own.
Clare set the tools aside. Slowly, she slid from the stool to step back. Her breath was coming fast, so fast she instinctively pressed a hand to her heart. Pain mixed with pleasure as she studied what she had been driven to create.
Her father. As she remembered him. As she had loved him. Dynamic, energized, loving. Alive. Most of all alive. Tonight, finally, she had found a way to celebrate his life.
She turned and looked at Cam.
She didn't stop to wonder why she wasn't surprised to see him there. She didn't pause to ask herself if this new surge of excitement was dangerous or if she was ready for the needs she read in his eyes.
He reached up to pull the garage door down. Metal banged against concrete. She didn't move, didn't speak, but waited with every nerve in her body humming taut.
He crossed to her. The music was trapped with them, blasting from walls, ceiling, floor.
Then his hands were on her face, his rough palms shaping her, his thumbs rubbing across her lips, then her cheekbones, before his fingers dug into her hair. Her breath caught as he dragged her head back, as his body slammed into hers. But it wasn't fear that made her shudder. And the sound in her throat as his lips crushed to hers was one of triumph.
He'd never needed anyone more than he needed her at that moment. All the misery, all the pain, all the bitterness he had carried with him that day faded at the first hot taste of her. She was pure energy in his arms, snapping and pulsing with life. Starving, he dived deeper into her mouth while her heart pounded against his.
His hands moved down to grip her hips, then her thighs. If it had been possible, he would have pulled her inside him, so great was his need to possess. On an oath, he dragged her with him, stumbling blindly into the kitchen.
He thought of bed, of sinking with her onto the mattress. Of sinking into her.
Impatient, he tugged at her shirt, yanking it over her head and letting it fly. They rammed into a wall as he filled his hands with her breasts.
She laughed and reached for him, but could only moan when he bent low and suckled. Fisting her hands in his hair, she held on.
He seemed to be feasting on her. There was a wildness in him, a greed, a violence that staggered her. Her body arched, offering more. Straining for more. The prick of his teeth against her sensitive skin had her blood beating hotter. She could feel it, almost hear it, the primitive drumbeat rhythm just under her skin. She'd forgotten that she could feel passion like this for a man. This hunger that could only be sated by rough and frenzied joining. She wanted him to take her now, as they stood. Quickly, even viciously.
Then he was pulling her jeans down over her hips, and his clever, dangerous mouth was roaming lower.
He slid his tongue over the quivering skin of her torso. Her nails dug into his shoulders as her body rocked. She was naked beneath the denim, and his groan of pleasure shivered against her flesh. He could hear her quick, breathy murmurs but didn't know what she was asking. Didn't care. He caught her hips when her legs buckled, and his hands were rough. His mouth was demanding and greedy as it closed over her.
She was dying. She had to be dying. She couldn't be alive and feel so much. Her body was bombarded by sensation after sensation. His hands, those long, urgent fingers. And his mouth. God, his mouth. Lights seemed to dance behind her eyes. With each gasping breath, she gulped in hot, thick air until her system was too full and fighting for release. She cried out, dragging at him, pulling him back up to her, unable to bear what was happening to her. Frantic for more.
His breath was as ragged as hers as he hit the light switch beside her head. His hands were on her face again, holding her back against the wall.
“Look at me.” He would have sworn the floor swayed under his feet. “Damn it, I want you to look at me.”
She opened her eyes and stared into his. She was trapped there, she thought with a flash of panic. Imprisoned in him. Her lips trembled open, but there were no words, nothing that could describe what she was feeling.
“I want to watch you.” His mouth came down on hers again, devouring. “I want to see you.”
She was falling. Endlessly. Helplessly. And he was there, his body shockingly hot over hers, the tiles icy cold against her own heated back.
Driven by her own needs, she pulled at his shirt, popping buttons in her rush to feel his flesh against hers. Out of control, she thought. She was out of control and glorying in it. As desperate as he, she ran her hands over his damp skin and fought to strip off the rest of the barrier.
He fought with her boots, cursing until she began to laugh. Rearing up, she hooked her arms around him, taking little nibbling bites along his throat and chest.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, was all she could think as they pulled and tugged and yanked.
Then they were rolling over the kitchen floor, the music crashing around them. He kicked clothing aside and sent a chair toppling. Her mouth was fused to his as they reversed positions once more. As she lay on top of him, he gripped her hips, lifting her up.
Now, she thought. Thank God. Now.
Arching back, she took him into her. Her body shuddered, shuddered, as he filled her, as she opened herself and took more of him.
With her head flung back, her long, slender body curved, she began to rock. Slowly, then faster, still faster, driving him past reason with an ever quickening rhythm. He gripped her hands with his as he watched her ride above him.
Fearless. It was the only word his frantic mind found for her. She looked fearless, rising above him, joined to him, filled with him.
He felt her tighten around him as she reached her peak. His own release left him gasping.
She slid down to him, soft, boneless, and damp. His hand stroked lazily down her back as they caught their breath. He'd been waiting for this, he realized as he turned his head to kiss her hair, for a long time.
“I came by to ask you if you wanted a beer,” he murmured.
She sighed, yawned, then settled. “No, thanks.” “You look so damn sexy when you're working.” She smiled. “Yeah?”
“Christ, yeah. I could have eaten you alive.” “I thought you had.” She drummed up enough energy to brace a palm on the floor and look down at him. “I liked it.”
“That's good because I've been wanting to get your clothes off ever since you tackled me in the upstairs hallway.” He reached up to cup her breast, his thumb cruising over the nipple that was still pebble-hard and damp. “You sure grew up nice, Slim.” He shifted so that he was sitting up with her across his lap. “You've still got a sock on.”
She looked down and flexed her feet, one bare and the other covered with a thick purple sock. There might have been a moment in her life when she had felt better, but she couldn't remember it.
“Next time, maybe we should take off the boots before we get started.” She leaned her head against his shoulder and thought, with some regret, that they would have to move eventually. “I guess the floor's getting hard.”
“It started out hard.” But he didn't feel like getting up just yet. She felt exactly right in his arms-something he'd hoped for but hadn't expected. “I saw you at the funeral. You looked tired.”
“I need a bed.”
“Mine's available.”
She laughed but wondered if they were moving a bit too quickly. “How much do you want for it?”
He put a hand under her chin and turned her head. “I want you to c
ome home with me, Clare.”
“Cam-”
He shook his head and took a firmer grip. “I'd better make myself clear straight off. I don't share.”
She felt the same skip of panic as she had when she'd looked in his eyes and saw her image trapped there. “It's not as if there's someone else-” she began.
“Good.”
“But I don't want to take such a big jump that I end up on my face. What happened just now was-”
“What?”
When she looked into his eyes, she could see that he was smiling again. It made it easy to smile back. “Great. Absolutely great.”