by Gina Wilkins
Was Saturday night your idea of a favor, Clay? Were you just going along with Summer's brilliant idea of providing some excitement for her bored older sister? She uncurled her fingers from his and clenched her hands in her lap. Don't do me any more favors, Clay.
The catalyst for seething emotion came after the movie, when the three couples were talking over nightcaps before breaking up for the evening. The talk had turned, as it so often did, to Halloran House and its residents. Summer had spent part of the afternoon there and was telling the others about something that had happened to upset some of the young people. It seemed that a fourteen-year-old friend of theirs had run away from home after a quarrel with his parents. The parents had sent the police after him. They'd found him in a bus station, preparing to leave town.
"The kids were really upset because the police made a very public thing out of dragging Tony out of the bus station. It was all terribly humiliating for him," Summer added.
Clay scowled. "I hadn't heard about that." Great. He'd been so wrapped up in Spring that he hadn't even known that one of his kids had been in trouble. Thanks a lot, Spring.
"The kids are all furious with Tony's parents," Summer told him, fluffing her long bangs, a habitual gesture.
Spring shifted in her seat. "What else could the parents have done? It wasn't their fault that the police were overly enthusiastic in carrying out their jobs."
"They could have gone after their son themselves, rather than sending the cops," Clay answered, standing and looking down at her as if she weren't very bright, she thought resentfully. "Or they could have called Frank or me. We could have found him."
"I only know that if my son had run away, I'd do exactly what Tony's parents did. After all, if the police had been able to find Thelma earlier, she wouldn't have been so close to death by the time you got to her."
"And if her mother had called me sooner, I'd have found her earlier," Clay argued. "The cops never would have found her at all, the way they were going. It was probably just an accident that they found Tony."
"You mean everyone in San Francisco should call you when their kids run away?" Was he really so arrogant?
He flushed at the derision in her tone, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Not everyone, of course. But if I happen to know the kids and work with them, as I have with Thelma and Tony, it would seem only logical to give me a chance to help. Hell, I didn't even know Tony had run away until just now." His tone clearly implied that it was Spring's fault that he hadn't known—quite unfairly, she thought, piqued.
"Maybe they decided to try something new, if you've been working with him and he still ran away." Oops, wrong choice of words. I might as well have come right out and accused Clay of failing with Tony, she realized when his face hardened. She opened her mouth to clarify the statement, but Summer jumped in hastily to change the subject, obviously hoping to avoid the confrontation that was building between Spring and Clay.
"It's getting late," Clay said abruptly, still glaring at Spring. "Are you ready to go?"
She nodded. "Yes. I'm ready."
Spring was rather surprised when Clay told Derek and Summer that he'd take her home later. After their near quarrel she expected him to take her straight back to Sausalito. Instead, she found herself walking on a beach with him about half an hour after leaving the others, huddling into the windbreaker she'd worn with her slacks and sweater as the damp, cool, salted breeze tossed her hair and reddened her cheeks.
Clay kicked at a broken shell, then bent to pick it up and toss it into the waves breaking nearby. "Tonight wasn't much fun for you, was it?"
She took a deep breath and stopped walking, turning to face him squarely. "You didn't seem to be enjoying yourself, either."
"No, I guess I wasn't." His face was deeply shadowed in the fog-diffused moonlight. "I'm sorry."
Her chest hurt. She thought it might be because her heart was being thoroughly pummeled. "What's wrong, Clay?" she finally found the courage to ask. Please talk to me.
"What's wrong?" He shoved his fingers through his windblown hair, staring impassively at her as he appeared to debate his reply. When he finally spoke, his voice was raw. "I'm going to miss you, Spring. Ill miss you very much."
She let her head drop forward. "I'll miss you, too, Clay," she whispered. But he hadn't asked her to stay, nor would she be the one to suggest it. How could she, when she wasn't at all sure that she wanted to stay in San Francisco? As much as she'd enjoyed her visit, she was already homesick. As much as she dreaded leaving Clay, she still rather looked forward to getting back to work on Monday. God, what a mess she'd made of everything! "Oh, Clay."
He caught her in his arms and held her tightly. "Dammit, Spring. Don't you know that you've disrupted my entire life? I haven't been able to think about anything but you since you arrived. My kids, my job, my friends—I forget them all when you're around. That's never happened to me before."
"I haven't tried to come between you and your work," she murmured, clinging tightly to him.
"I know that. I haven't forgotten that I practically had to kidnap you to go out with me." Even that was said with resentment. Spring blinked back tears.
"Clay, what do you want from me?" she asked at last, tilting her head back to look up at him. "I don't know what you want me to do or say."
"No." And this time his voice was sad. "You don't know me, do you? You don't even know how much I—" he stopped, swallowed, then went on a little too smoothly "—how much I care for you."
She didn't know what to say, so she remained quiet, clinging to him. His turquoise leather jacket was damp and smooth beneath her cheek, his arms hard and strong around her. And despite his current moodiness making him almost a stranger to her, she loved him.
Clay pressed his mouth to her temple. "Kiss me, Spring.""
She lifted her head, her hands going up to pull his mouth down to hers. It seemed like so long since he'd kissed her. He brushed his lips lingeringly across hers, then deepened the kiss. He groaned thickly when her lips parted to invite him inside, his hands tightening to lift her against him. "Spring," he muttered into the depths of her mouth. "Oh, God, Spring, I...I want you so much."
"Then what are we doing on this beach?" she asked huskily, straining to press closer—a physical impossibility with the barrier of clothing between them.
He shuddered when she arched her lower body suggestively into his, then set her firmly away from him. "It's late," he said, his voice hoarse. "I'd better take you home."
She blinked in dismay at the abrupt end of the caress. She'd thought the kiss was leading to something further, that he'd take her back to his house and make love to her again. Why wasn't he? Not because he didn't want her—they'd been in much too close proximity for him to hide his desire for her. She'd never been the instigator of lovemaking, but she wanted Clay so much. She had so little time left with him. "I hope you mean your home," she blurted out bravely.
"No. I mean your sister's home." He half turned away from her, his hands going into the pockets of his neon-yellow jumpsuit. "It is getting late, and I have to work tomorrow."
He might as well have slapped her. Spring lowered her head so that her hair fell forward to hide her face and walked slowly beside him, back to his car. Her eyes smarted with tears, but she refused to shed them. They'd parted so sweetly during the wee hours of Sunday morning. She hadn't expected such awkwardness and confusion their next time together. Damn you, Clay, why are you punishing me? What have I done, other than fall in love with you?
Neither of them made even a pretense of talking on the drive back to Summer's house. Clay probably would have just walked her to the door and driven away had not Summer and Derek driven up at almost the same time. "We stopped for cherry cheesecake and coffee," Summer explained as the four of them walked toward the front door together. "I didn't think you'd be home until much later," she added to Spring, her eyebrow arching questioningly at their strained expressions.
"Clay has to work tomorrow
," Spring replied, using Clay's own excuse. It sounded just as hollow coming from her, she decided wearily.
"Clay, I forgot to give you the proposal you asked for on doing a theatrical production with the Halloran House kids. I have it ready," Summer told him. "Want to come in and let me get it?"
Though he looked anxious to leave, Clay agreed to come in only long enough for Summer to retrieve the papers. The telephone was ringing when they entered; the call was for Derek, a late business call that he decided to take in his study.
"I was hoping that Tony would take a part in the play," Summer said before going off to look for the proposal for Clay. "He's been so interested in the drama classes we've done at Halloran House. Now I don't know if he'll be able to stay with us."
"Thanks to his parents calling in the cops," Clay muttered, darting an eloquent look at Spring as Summer left the room with a promise to hurry back.
Spring lifted her chin defiantly, still seething at his rejection on the beach and annoyed with his persistence in arguing with her viewpoint about this boy she'd never even met. What does this have to do with us, anyway? she asked herself, even as she felt compelled to respond to his challenge. "If they hadn't called the police, he still wouldn't be in your play," she pointed out coolly. "Who knows where he would be by now?"
"You still think they did the right thing, don't you? Even after I explained my viewpoint."
"Yes, I do," she insisted. "I realize that you are an expert in this field, Dr. McEntire, but even you are not infallible."
Clay stiffened, his eyes kindling with the smoldering anger that had seemed just below the surface all evening. "I never said I was infallible."
"No, just that you're always right, is that it?" Spring snapped. She glared fiercely at the man who'd turned her inside out over the past few days. "It's easy for you to say what parents should do or how they should raise their children. It's always easy for people who don't have children to tell others how to raise them."
"I suppose you know better?" he demanded, almost in a yell. "Hell, you've never even been a child! You were born being the responsible older sister, weren't you, Dr. Reed?"
Spring went cold with fury. How dare this...this perpetual adolescent criticize her? She certainly wasn't the one acting like an unreasonable stranger! "I like to think that I'm a responsible person. When I make promises, I try to keep them. I know, for example, that if I promised to call someone, I would certainly do so." Now talk to me, Clay. Tell me why you didn't call. Why you're angry tonight. Ask me to stay in San Francisco.
"My not calling you has absolutely nothing to do with this!" Clay protested heatedly, though he'd flushed at her pointed accusation. "We're talking about a young man's dignity here."
"And of course you're the expert on dignity." Spring eyed his fluorescent clothing as she voiced the disdainful comment, lashing out at him from the depths of hurt and confusion and heartsick love. She was sorry almost immediately, but something kept her apology inside her. She only stared at him, knowing that she had just destroyed anything that might have remained between them.
Clay's face went white. "Maybe you're right," he replied rather hoarsely. "I'm not the one who tries to live according to everyone else's rules of duty and responsibility and propriety. You've believed from the beginning that I was too much of a nonconformist for you, haven't you? An irresponsible, immature playboy who dresses funny—does that sum up your opinion of me, Dr. Reed? Fine. If that's what you want to believe, go ahead. I'm quite content with my life and the accomplishments I've made and will make in the future. You can go back to your Rogers in their plain ties and suits and socks and see if they can make you happy. Personally, I don't think you will be because you'll never find a man who quite measures up to your idea of mature, responsible perfection!"
And with that final, softly spoken, heart-slashing pronouncement he turned and walked with undeniable dignity out of the room. Even from the den Spring heard the front door slam behind him.
"Spring, what in the world happened? I've never seen Clay look so furious!" With Derek following just behind her, Summer entered the room and rushed to her sister's side, her lovely, expressive face creased with concern.
"I don't want to talk about it, Summer."
"But—"
Spring whirled on her younger sister with barely suppressed violence. "I said I don't want to talk about it!"
Derek stepped in quickly to prevent the sibling confrontation that threatened. "I think it would be best if you let it drop, Summer," he said gently. "Spring can tell you about it when she calms down, if she wants to then."
Feeling numb and clinging desperately to that blessed numbness, Spring forced a smile. "Thank you, Derek. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll turn in."
She felt the anxious eyes of her sister and brother-in-law on her as she left the room, but she kept her shoulders straight, her pace unhurried. And her mind blank.
* * *
Clay stormed into his house, walked to his bar for the second time in two days and, for the first time since he'd been in college, deliberately set out to get drunk. Unfortunately, it didn't work. He kept replaying his fight with Spring and forgetting his drink until finally he set the barely touched tumbler on the bar and began to restlessly pace the room.
He might as well admit that he'd been spoiling for a fight tonight. He just hadn't known it at the time. And, from all appearances, Spring had been just as eager to lash out at him.
Of course, all she'd said was that she would have called the police if it had been her son who'd run away. She couldn't know how Tony must have felt, couldn't understand the kinds of pressures and torments that would make a young man feel compelled to leave the safety of his home and face the streets alone. It was a degrading, humiliating experience being treated like a mindless child, forced to face the problems he'd run away from whether he was ready to do so or not.
But, dammit, how dare she argue with him about one of his kids? Couldn't she at least have given him credit to know his own field? He had a goddamned doctorate in adolescent psychology, he thought bleakly, and she had accused him of knowing nothing about kids simply because he hadn't fathered any!
Maybe it was best just to let it end this way. He hoped that his friendship with Summer wouldn't be affected after Spring left. He was going to need that friendship now more than he ever had before.
Yes, best to let it end. Before they hurt each other even more than they already had.
He dropped his chin to his chest. Oh, God, Spring. Don't leave me.
* * *
Spring folded the last item of clothing and placed it neatly in her suitcase, then closed the lid and firmly snapped the locks. Another suitcase sat at her feet and beside it a third, borrowed from Summer. She was taking home quite a bit more than she'd arrived with, thanks to those pleasant shopping trips she and her sister had made during her visit. She only wished she'd spent more time with her sister and less time with the man who'd managed to break her heart, she thought sorrowfully, then immediately called herself a liar. No matter how deep the pain of her loss, and it was agonizingly deep, she couldn't bring herself to regret one moment of the time she'd spent with Clay.
"I have one more thing for you to take home with you," Summer announced from the doorway, entering the room with her oddly graceful limp. In her arms she bore a large, battered Winnie the Pooh.
Spring smiled in surprise. "Pooh Bear! Gosh, I haven't seen him in years."
"Still looks great, doesn't he?" Summer asked, fondly eyeing the badly bedraggled stuffed toy. "Considering that he was yours, then mine, then Autumn's, it's a miracle that he's still in one piece. Well, mostly in one piece."
"Yes, he's still missing an ear, thanks to our fiery-tempered baby sister. How did he end up in California?"
"Autumn gave him back to me when I left Arkansas. She didn't want me to be lonely. Now I want you to take him back to Arkansas for the same reason. He's a great friend."
Spring had determined r
ight after her quarrel with Clay that she wouldn't cry in front of her sister, but she found herself forcing back tears at Summer's gesture. "All right, I'll take him," she said softly. "Thanks."
Summer nodded. "Derek's ready to leave for the airport anytime you are. Sure you don't want me to go along?"
"No, you have your class late this afternoon, and there's no need for you to miss it. You've skipped enough classes while I've been here."
"None that really mattered."
"Still, it's better this way. I hate airport goodbyes."
"Me, too," Summer confessed. "You'll call?"
"I'll call. And write."
"You'd better." Summer reached out and hugged her sister fiercely. "I love you, Sis. I'm so glad you came."
"Me, too." Spring returned the hug with equal vehemence. "Your husband is a terrific guy. Summer Anderson. I'm very happy for you both."
"Spring..." Summer hesitated, then spoke bravely. "Why don't you call him?"
Spring immediately shook her head. "No."
"Are you still that angry with him?"
"No." It was true; she wasn't. She knew how deeply he cared about his kids. She still thought she'd been entitled to her own opinion, but she saw Clay's point, too. And, she added sadly, if he'd wanted to talk to her, he would have called. "No, I'm not angry. But it's better this way."
And it was, she tried to convince herself on the way to the airport. The relationship between her and Clay had been ill-fated from the beginning. She'd known from her first glance at him that, though he was attractive and fascinating, he wasn't for her. But, God, it hurt.
"You're really going to hold that bear all the way to Little Rock?" Derek asked doubtfully as Spring prepared to board her plane. She'd checked her other luggage, but she clung to Pooh with gentle determination.
"Yes. We'll be fine, Derek."
"Sure?" His raw, deep voice was gentle, as were his searching pewter-gray eyes.