Somewhere in the far reaches of her mind, she heard a phone ringing—or was that her own ears?
Clay’s breath brushed her lips before he actually touched her. It was tantalizing, prompting her to reach for him. She wanted—
“Mom!”
Clay jerked away so abruptly that Lily jumped backward. She stumbled slightly, then regained her balance.
“Are you out there?” Riley called from an upstairs window.
“Y—” She cleared her throat. “Yes.”
Clay took another step away from her.
“Dad’s on the phone.”
“Okay. Talk to him for a minute. I’ll be right there.”
A distance greater than the space between she and Clay rose in the darkness; she could see it in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders. She realized she couldn’t go back. They would never be those kids again.
He said, “Go on.”
And now she heard that distance in his voice. He was hoarse with arousal, but there was an edge to his tone.
She made herself walk away, her body throbbing with unfulfilled yearning, her heart homesick for what used to be.
Once she heard the creak of the dock, she turned around and asked, “Do you want to tell me what happened with Riley today?”
He stopped, but didn’t turn to face her. After a long moment, he said, “No. It’s between Riley and me.”
As he climbed into the boat, Lily had the oddest feeling that he was protecting Riley.
And that just made no sense at all.
Peter, damn his hide. Betrayal stung as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. The simple ring of a telephone had cracked like a leather whip, laying open old scars.
Clay had left the marina with the conviction to be a better man. Then he’d seen Lily. For the briefest moment, he had thought he could get past it all, reconnect with her. There could be no doubt, the spark was still there, strong enough to ignite an arsenal. But he’d been foolish to play with such a volatile mix. Again.
Peter’s timing couldn’t have been better planned. His phone call had brought reality back into sharp focus.
In that brief moment, Clay realized just how vulnerable he was to her. It wasn’t just the sexual lure. He’d felt the need in his heart, too. And there was where the danger lurked.
In his effort to be a better man, he’d almost offered himself up for sacrifice. There were things that had changed forever, no matter how he wanted it to be otherwise.
He couldn’t fool himself, Riley was an extension of Peter—and Lily. Once that child had been born, there was no way to separate the three. Divorce or no divorce, they were a family. You could break the legal ties, but the emotional connections would always remain. And Clay could no more face that, day in and day out, than he could fly.
So, as he broke all of the rules by speeding along the lake in the darkness, he vowed to strive to judge Riley by his own deeds and to banish all fanciful thoughts about a future with Lily.
The past was over. There was no undoing it.
Clay’s visit left Lily restless in ways she hadn’t experienced in years. A restlessness that she’d nearly forgotten existed. A kind of hollow yearning, like that undefined need when you had begun to explore the opposite sex but had yet to discover lovemaking. You knew you were reaching for something, something fantastic, but had no idea exactly what it was. It was an adolescent longing, something no grown woman with a teenage son should be suffering.
She knew if Riley hadn’t called her to the phone, things could have gotten completely out of hand. A part of her grieved the missed opportunity, while her good sense told her to be thankful she’d been saved from herself.
She didn’t even attempt to go to bed until after her third glass of wine. A lot of good it did—sleep remained unattainable. She read a couple of chapters in a new novel. As soon as she began to feel drowsy, she turned out the light. The instant she settled her head onto her pillow, her eyes popped open, her mind slammed into high gear, teasing her body over lost prospects.
She flipped and flopped under the sheets, stared at the ceiling, went to the bathroom twice, beat her pillow into lumpy submission, and still sleep eluded her. When she finally drifted off, sometime after four, she was startled back awake by what she would have sworn was Peter’s voice calling for help.
It felt like she’d just closed her eyes when her alarm clock went off. After rolling her pillow over her head to shut out the noise, responsibility kicked in and she dragged her weary body out of bed. She stumbled into Riley’s room to wake him, only to find the bed empty. She checked the bathroom. No Riley. When she got to the kitchen, she found a note on the table: Mom, I woke up early and decided to go on to work. I’ll call you when I need a ride home.
Lily looked at the clock. She hadn’t overslept; it was half past six. She looked back at the note. It was definitely Riley’s scratchy handwriting—no forgery left by a crafty kidnapper.
Something was going on. And she had an idea that Clay knew what it was.
Chapter 9
Lily’s quest to discover the new mystery brewing within her child proved to be much more elusive than she’d imagined. For the first few days, Riley had made himself scarce, as if he were waiting for the axe to fall. It was all she could do not to grab him and shake the truth out of him.
On Tuesday morning, she forced herself to approach Clay on the subject. She hadn’t spoken to him since their meeting beside the dock and really didn’t want to face him now. It seemed the longer she went without dealing directly with whatever was going to follow that kiss, the harder it was to face it. But, having steeled herself with an extra cup of coffee and more makeup than normal in her morning routine, she followed Riley into the office.
Clay was quick to realize she wanted to speak to him alone and sent Riley out to the boatyard. Once her son was out the door, Clay said, “Need something?”
There was nothing of the longing she’d heard in his voice the other evening. He seemed as aloof as he’d been when she’d come to the marina that first day.
She avoided looking him in the eye when she said, “I was wondering… Riley… have you noticed anything…” Forcing her gaze to meet his, she finished, “Anything different?” She felt like she was ignoring the pink elephant in the room, but pushed forward with her purpose.
Clay looked as uncomfortable as she felt. He picked up a set of keys from his desk and jangled them in his hand.
“Different good, or different bad?” For a moment, he looked directly at her. It made her even more self-conscious.
She lifted a shoulder and felt utterly stupid. She was asking him to read her son when she hadn’t been able to do it herself. “Not bad, really.” She paused. “He’s been different since last—”
“Boy’s doing his job.”
Apparently, neither of them wanted a reminder of that day—or evening. Should she tell him she knew how wrong that kiss would have been, just get it over with and out in the open? She didn’t want him thinking she had any illusions about the two of them.
Before she could decide, he put the keys in his pocket and stepped from behind the desk. He didn’t move toward the front door, but toward the one that led directly to the boatyard—away from Lily. “That all?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He left her alone in the office listening to the indistinct babble of a morning talk show from Cecil’s old radio on the windowsill.
With his departure, Lily could finally draw a breath without a struggle. But her questions remained like a lingering scent. Was he skittish because of their near-kiss, or because of something that had happened between him and Riley?
She left the marina with no answers, but with a clear sense that whatever had transpired here, Clay and her son had reached some sort of truce.
* * *
Riley surprised her on Wednesday morning by telling her he wanted to walk home from work. She stood there with her mouth open and he quickly added he’d be home before dark. As the sun didn�
��t set until after seven, Lily felt he was giving himself quite a bit of leeway. And he seemed a little too cheerful about it, as if he were looking forward to it. But she decided to allow it. She wanted to be certain that Riley knew she wasn’t blind and stupid. Yet she had to be willing to give him a little bit of rope, if only to see if he would hang himself with it.
For the rest of the day, she tried to figure out a way to check up on him, but the idea of dressing in camouflage and shadowing her own son from the woods was just a little too ridiculous.
He arrived home just as the sun was dipping below the tree line, in the best mood she’d seen him in in months. There weren’t any telltale signs of trouble, no drug-induced glazed look to his eyes, no hint of smoke—cigarette or weed—on his clothes. Lily had almost been ashamed of herself when she hugged him hello just to get a good sniff.
Still, her mother’s intuition said something was going on. There was no easy explanation. He wasn’t behaving badly. On the contrary, he was less volatile than he’d been since she and Peter separated. His complaints of mistreatment at work had diminished to the occasional grumble. Although his rising and heading to work before she’d awakened that first morning was a fluke, he did actually set his own alarm. Instead of playing video games every night, he had taken to closing himself in his room and reading a book that he must have found on Peter’s old bookshelf.
Recalling the boathouse door had been ajar the day he’d arrived home from work early, Lily had turned the contents of the shed upside down, looking for contraband. Whatever was responsible for Riley’s good mood, she felt certain it wasn’t drugs.
Her only break in the constant worry about her son were the hard hours she put in at the Crossing House, helping with the cleanup, making suggestions for the planning of the changes.
On Friday she made her final big push.
“Really, Dad, you’ll more than make up the difference in the first months. If you expand your business, you’ll increase your income, more than offsetting the renovations and increased expenses.”
He rubbed his chin and Lily heard the rasp of early morning whiskers. “I don’t know—I’ve held this place without a loan from the bank for more years than I can remember. To go into debt now—”
“The bank wouldn’t have approved the loan if it wasn’t a sure thing. They see the potential.” She attributed his hesitance to his longtime commitment to old-fashioned values. Which were fine, but when a person ran a business, he had to be forward-thinking.
“Why would the bank care?” Faye mumbled as she worked circles around Benny as he stood in the center of the gutted room with the contractors’ estimates in his hand. “They’ll get their money one way or the other. Either Benny pays, or they take the business.”
Reluctantly, Lily turned her attention to Faye, who insisted on nosing in on every conversation. “That’s ridiculous. The bank doesn’t want to run a pub. They only approve loans when the business is viable.”
“Listen to you!” Faye’s voice mocked. “You’d think you’ve been runnin’ a business yourself.”
“I’m just saying, the bankers—people who know—think it’s a good idea. You have to be willing to take a few risks—”
“There!” She rounded on Lily and stuck a finger in the air. “You said it. Risk—”
“All right!” Benny raised a hand to his temple. “You’re making my head hurt.”
“Dad.” Lily turned her gaze to him. “This town needs more family places. You’ll still have the bar business, your regulars, you’ll just be adding to it.”
“Well, I have to decide today.” He sighed heavily. “The cleanup is nearly done, the contractors can start next week.”
“It’s a good plan.” Lily put an arm around his shoulders and tried to ignore Faye’s snort in the background. They had all worked their fingers raw, now tempers were short. They’d begged and pushed, getting contractors to work overtime to get things back up and running. She didn’t want to go nose to nose with Faye and get her dad off track. “This town needs—”
“Okay,” he said.
Lily blinked. “Really?”
“I’ll call the carpenters this afternoon.” He raised the papers.
“Oh, Dad!” Lily threw her arms around his neck. “This is going to be great! Everybody in town will come. Business will boom! There are so many things to decide. Colors, furniture…”
His thick arms folded around her and he patted her on the back.
Lily closed her eyes, so she didn’t have to see Faye’s pinched disapproving face over her dad’s shoulder.
After doing the final prep work for the contractors on Saturday, they decided to take Sunday completely off to recharge.
Riley went to the Dew Drop with his grandpa for breakfast, then for a guided tour of the town, as Riley hadn’t seen much of it since his arrival. A little male bonding, her dad had called it. Lily had been pleased by her son’s willingness to go. Riley had even asked if he could stay in town for the afternoon; there were activities planned at the park to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend. She’d told him she’d meet him on the playground at the big double slide at four o’clock.
After they left, she took her coffee out onto the dock and watched the early fishermen in their low-slung bass boats. The morning sun was behind her, casting her long shadow upon the still water. A fine vapor mist still clung to the surface of the lake, blurring the edges of her silhouetted form. It was going to be a very humid day.
Which brought her to her next thought: What was she going to do with herself? She considered finishing setting up her potter’s equipment in the boathouse. But that seemed a waste of precious energy, since she wasn’t likely to have time to do any pottery until after the Crossing House was back in business.
Maybe she’d take a walk. She’d been here long enough that curiosity was outweighing reluctance. Had the “old haunts,” as Peter had called them, changed much in the past years? If she didn’t go today, who knew when she’d have the time?
Settling on a course, she went into the house to put on her tennis shoes and grab a bottle of water.
An hour and twelve mosquito bites later she found herself on the trail that led to The Place. When she and Luke had found it, it was just a narrow deer path. She recalled how her brother had pointed out the tracks, explaining how the animals traveled through the woods on their own version of roads. The path was still easily found; maybe the deer still used it.
As she neared the creek, her footsteps slowed until her forward progress stopped altogether.
“Come on, Lily,” she said. “If you can face the fire tower, this should be a piece of cake.”
While the fire tower held the most emotionally explosive moments of her adolescent life, this place had witnessed much broader experiences. Almost all of the memories forged here were good. The few that were painful all wrapped around Clay in one way or another—the accident with the fireworks, and their last conversation before he left, the one that ended everything.
Quieting her thoughts, she started walking again.
There was a sharp curve in the path just before The Place. Lily moved with quiet reverence as she made that curve, as if she were approaching hallowed ground. When the rocky outcropping came into view, she was glad she’d been so silent in her approach.
Clay sat on the ground under the ledge, at the very spot of their last meeting here. He was barefoot, with his shoes sitting beside him. He wore jeans and a white buttoned shirt with the tail untucked and the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His feet were planted flat on the ground, his knees drawn up with his arms resting on them, one hand clasping the opposite wrist. His head was down, his hair falling onto his forehead, shielding his eyes. From this angle, he looked so young, so vulnerable. Nothing like the man at the marina. She could almost believe he was still twenty-one.
Suddenly she was eighteen again, her heart made ethereally light by love. Emotions shot through her like lightning. Emotions she never thought she would feel ag
ain—the wonder, the unquestioning devotion, the demand for touch, the visceral aching need. Her stomach felt like she’d just taken that first drop on a roller coaster. God, just looking at him made her body heat up with remembered passion. This place magically stripped away the years, giving her a chance to recapture a part of her that she’d so purposefully destroyed. The part that loved unconditionally, wholly—blindly.
He appeared unaware of her presence.
She held her breath and watched, feeling like a Peeping Tom, but unable to help herself. What he would do, secluded and unwatched? Would he show a glimmer of the person she remembered—help her forge another link in the fantasy that she really could go back in time?
For a long while, he remained as still as a startled rabbit, motion frozen in time. Lily fought the urge to step into the clearing, to show herself, allow the thoughts and feelings she’d been fighting for the past week to flow unhindered to the surface. It would be so simple to let the past years, the past pain, slide away, here in this place. But would he feel the same? Or would he meet her with hard eyes and harsh words?
It would be easy for her, much too easy, to take that leap back toward youth. That almost-kiss by the dock had proven that. Too easy, and much too big of a risk. He’d rejected her once and it had nearly killed her.
She took one silent step backward.
His head snapped up, his eyes focused on the exact spot where she stood. Now she was the rabbit held immobile, hoping not to be seen by the wolf.
“Lily?” He said it softly, as if spoken to a dream. The sound of it drove straight to her heart.
She knew she should run while she could. Her reaction to his calling her name told her she was too weak, too vulnerable.
The tone of his voice said he was as swept back in time as she. With both of them so defenseless against the past…
Instead of doing the smart thing, the thing she knew to be best, she followed her heart. She drew a steadying breath and stepped into plain sight.
The Road Home Page 14