“Well, well, well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Trevor Grant said, shaking hands with Clayton before he sat down. “This place hasn’t seen the likes of you for months. Where on earth have you been?”
“Busy.” He turned to their hostess. “Just give me the usual.”
The woman nodded. “All right.” A grin then curved her lips. “And by the way, Clayton. Kayla’s been asking about you, but Evelyn hasn’t. In fact, she’s now taken up with Al.”
Clayton gave her a dry look. “I’m happy for her.”
The hostess shook her head and walked off.
Trevor laughed. “Losing your touch, Clayton?”
He gave his friend a grim smile. “Just my interest.”
Trevor lifted a brow. “You not being interested in a woman will be the day they prepare you for burial.”
Clayton smiled and didn’t say anything. Instead he stood and pulled several quarters out of his pocket. Since this was Monday night, there was no live entertainment. Music was being provided by a huge jukebox that sat in the corner of the room. It contained a number of the latest hits, as well as quite a few of the oldies.
“Excuse me for a minute.” He walked over to the jukebox and after depositing his quarters, punched a couple of songs, “The Track of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson and “What Becomes of a Broken Heart” by Jimmy Ruffin. He walked back over to the table and sat down. The songs he had selected were all indicative of how he felt.
Trevor folded his arms and pinned Clayton to his seat with a curious stare. “What’s wrong with you? You’re acting like a lovesick puppy.” Trevor chuckled. “But since I know that can’t be the case, at least not with you anyway, what’s your problem?”
“Don’t have one. And what’s so bad about falling in love?”
Trevor looked up and frowned, not believing Clayton had asked such a question. “What’s wrong with it? Everything’s wrong with it. That’s when a man’s troubles begin, once he falls for a woman.”
Clayton cocked his brow. “And I take it you’ve never fallen in love.”
Trevor shrugged. “Not voluntarily, no.”
“And involuntarily?”
Trevor squirmed slightly in his seat. “I may have had a short moment of madness.” Trevor thought about the woman he had met over a year ago, Corinthians Avery. She was head geologist for Remington Oil. Their initial meeting was anything but normal. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d disliked him on sight and he’d disliked her equally as much…or so he had thought. But the infrequent times he had seen her since their initial meeting, when they’d been thrown together due to work obligations, he had found himself wanting to seek her out and make hot, torrid, passionate love to her. He hadn’t done that, of course. The woman hated his guts. But that hadn’t stopped her from invading his dreams at night, or his thoughts during the day.
“What happened?” Clayton asked.
“Nothing happened. The woman doesn’t like me. Besides, she’s in love with someone else. She’s in love with a married man.”
Clayton arched one eyebrow. “You’re kidding?”
Trevor shook his head. “Wish I was kidding. Can you believe that, especially after what happened with my old man. I almost fell for the same kind of woman who destroyed my parents’ marriage.”
After almost emptying a bottle of hot sauce over his fried chicken then topping it off with ketchup, Trevor tilted back in his chair and eyed his friend. The second song Clayton had selected was now playing. “Are you or are you not going to tell me what’s going on with you?”
Clayton exhaled a deep, drawn-out sigh. “I’ve fallen in love.”
Trevor didn’t say anything for the longest moment. He just stared at Clayton in disbelief. Finally he spoke. “Must be one hell of a woman.”
A smile tilted Clayton’s lips. “She is.”
“Who is she?”
“Don’t ask.”
Trevor rubbed his hand over his jaw, thinking. “Man, she isn’t married, is she?”
Clayton glared at Trevor. “Of course not! You know I don’t do married women.”
Trevor smiled. “I thought you didn’t do falling in love, either, but you did.”
Clayton couldn’t help but return Trevor’s smile. His friend had him there, unfortunately.
“So, what’s the problem? Whoever the woman is I’m sure she’s elated, since you’re the biggest catch in Houston.”
“She doesn’t want me.”
Trevor almost choked on his chicken. He grabbed his water to wash down the piece of meat caught in his throat. “A woman doesn’t want you! Are you serious?”
“Yes, as serious as a heart attack.”
Trevor pursed his lips. “She actually rejected you, man?”
“Yep.”
Trevor shook his head. He then pushed his plate aside and tapped his thumbs together for a few seconds. “Do you have any more quarters?” he suddenly asked Clayton.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I want to play something on the jukebox.”
Clayton stood and pulled out a couple of quarters and handed them to Trevor. He watched him cross the room to the jukebox, deposit the money and select a song. He then came back and sat down.
“I played this song for the both of us.”
Clayton lifted a brow when the jukebox roared to life with Trevor’s selection. He had chosen Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart.”
Senator Lansing looked up in surprise. “Braxter, you’re early. I wasn’t expecting you to come in until around nine.”
“There’s an important matter I need to discuss, sir.”
The senator nodded, noting the seriousness in Braxter’s voice. “Have a seat over there. Is something wrong?”
“That will be for you to decide.”
At the lift of the senator’s brow, Braxter continued. “The woman, the one I’ve been seeing, the one I took to Texas with me and introduced you to…”
“Yes, what about her?”
“She was using me to get information about you.”
The senator sat straight up. “What? How do you know that?”
“Last night I overheard a conversation she was having with someone, a private investigator. Somehow she must have found out about our interest in Syneda Walters and is doing her own investigating into it.”
“Who is she working for?” the senator asked calmly.
“I don’t know. But whoever it is, that person wants to make sure you’re not reelected.”
The senator frowned. He was running against Noel Frazier. He couldn’t believe the man would stoop to something so low. In fact, the two of them had vowed to run a clean campaign. “I want you to find out who’s behind it.”
“Yes, sir, and if you want me to, I’ll turn in my resignation.”
“Why?”
“Because I may have done more harm than good to you now. Because of me, the media may get ahold of something that you prefer kept private.”
The senator smiled weakly. “When you’re an elected official, Braxter, you don’t have any privacy. I would have preferred getting the information on Ms. Walters before anyone else. However, if there’s anything in the report that I need to be concerned with, I’ll deal with it.”
“But I let Celeste Rogers make a fool out of me. I can’t believe I was so stupid, so inexcusably stupid.”
“You weren’t stupid, Braxter. You’re a man who fell in love, and with love automatically comes trust. And the person you trusted betrayed you.”
“So what will you do, sir?”
“Nothing. We’ll just let the person who appears to be in control of things finish whatever game he or she is playing.”
Syneda entered her apartment. She had gotten through the day…now if she could only get through the night. Then she would concentrate on the rest of the week.
The day hadn’t been so bad with the visit from Cassie and Larry Morgan. An hour or so later, she had received notification of a date for the appeals court t
o hear her oral argument.
She had immediately called the Jamisons to give them the news. They had cried over the phone. Barbara and Walter Jamison had been without their little girl for almost six months. They were hoping and praying to win the appeal so little Kasey would be returned to them.
Later that night, when Syneda turned off the lamp and made herself comfortable in bed, she couldn’t help but think of the Morgans and how Clayton had helped to change their lives. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that somehow he had been instrumental in Larry Morgan finding employment with Remington Oil.
Then there was the Jamison case. Although she had come up with the new argument to use with the appeal, it had been Clayton’s expertise and experience as an attorney that had given her food for thought and ideas for different avenues to pursue. Numerous times during his weekend visits, he had brought a law book or two from his own personal law library. She had enjoyed spending time with him researching cases and digging for precedents she could use. A part of her knew if she won the appeal, it would be because of Clayton’s help.
As Syneda shifted in bed, she thought about something else she missed in not being with Clayton—the intimacy they shared. Although she wanted to believe it had only been about sex for them, she knew they had shared a whole lot more. There had been the sharing of emotions and feelings, and that’s what she missed most of all. He had opened emotions in her she hadn’t wanted opened. He had made her feel, he had made her need—regardless of whether she had wanted those things or not. Clayton had made her experience them. And she had experienced them with him. Perhaps in the end that was the main reason why she had fought against it, and why even now she was still fighting against it. She was fighting the love she felt for him.
Syneda knew she had avoided the truth long enough and it was time to be honest with herself. She did love Clayton. She probably had always loved him. But even with that admission, she knew she would continue to fight her love for him. Her survival depended on it. As a child, her heart had not just been broken, it had been crushed. And it couldn’t survive being crushed again. She couldn’t take the chance.
No matter how much she loved him, she couldn’t risk having her heart destroyed. She just couldn’t.
Chapter 19
Justin Madaris pounded on the door a good five minutes before it finally opened.
Clayton scowled at Justin and then at Dex before rubbing a hand across his eyes that were clouded with sleep. “What are the two of you doing here? And what are you doing in Houston, Justin?”
Justin studied his youngest brother with an intensity that came from being the oldest and always having to look out for his younger siblings. He knew immediately that something was wrong. A quick glance at Dex indicated that he had picked up on it, as well. Clayton’s robe looked rumpled and his ungroomed appearance made him look a little rough around the edges. His face had the look of a man who’d had a bad night. In fact, he looked as if he’d had quite a few bad nights. “What are you still doing in bed, Clayton? It’s almost two in the afternoon.”
Swearing, Clayton rubbed the top of his head and stepped aside to let his brothers in. “Maybe I wanted to sleep late.”
“Clayton, you don’t know how to sleep late,” Dex said with a half smile on his lips.
Clayton glared at Dex. “Just what is this? Gang up on Clayton day?”
Dex shrugged as he sat down on the sofa. He glanced around the room. “This place is a mess. I never knew you could be so sloppy.”
“So now you know,” Clayton said, moving through the untidy living room and sitting in a chair. Dex was right. His place was a mess and it wasn’t like him to be sloppy. If anything, he was known to be extremely neat. He hated disorder of any kind. But now he didn’t care. Lately he hadn’t cared much about anything.
Clayton gave Dex a hard glare. “For a man who makes a living playing in dirt, I hardly think you have room to talk. The biggest mistake Mom ever made was buying you that sandbox for your fourth birthday.”
“Kids, behave,” Justin said, chuckling.
Clayton’s response was a grunt. “You never did answer me, Justin. What are you doing in Houston?”
Justin dropped in the chair across from Clayton. “And you never answered me. Why are you still in bed?”
“You go first since you’re the oldest.”
Justin grinned and then conceded. “I drove Lorren down for Caitlin’s baby shower. Did you forget it was this weekend?”
“Yeah, I forgot,” Clayton said, and felt annoyed that he had forgotten. During the past few weeks, his mind had been preoccupied with other things.
“So why are you still in bed?”
Clayton rose and went into the kitchen. Dex and Justin followed him. Ignoring them, he switched on the coffeemaker.
“We’re not going away, Clayton.”
Clayton turned to his brothers. “I can see that,” he said, glaring at them, frowning. “The reason I was still in bed is because I had no reason to rush getting up this morning,” he finally said, simply.
“I’m surprised to hear you say that, considering the fact that Syneda flew in for the baby shower today.”
Clayton’s eyes became hard like volcanic rocks. “That’s all the more reason,” he said coolly. “She’s the last person I want to see.”
Dex looked at his brother, surprised. The last time he had seen Clayton and Syneda together was when the family had been at Whispering Pines. At the time, Syneda had been the only person Clayton had acted like he wanted to see. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her. “I take it there’s trouble in paradise.”
Clayton turned toward him. “There is no paradise. There never was and there never will be. The only paradise was the one that I concocted in my mind. But the lady has set me straight. The only thing she’s interested in is a surrogate family she can claim, and not a man who wants to love her.”
Justin took a good look at his brother, hearing the deep pain in his voice. And there was also a coldness, a hardness within Clayton that had never existed before, and he immediately knew the cause—rejection. Syneda had done something to Clayton no other woman had done. She had rejected him. She had taken the love he had never confessed to another woman and had thrown it back in his face. And from the looks of things, he wasn’t handling it too well.
“And the really funny thing about it,” Clayton continued, “is that I watched the two of you go through your bouts of pain, and I used to think to myself that it could never happen to me. I used to tell myself I was above all that, that there wasn’t a woman anywhere who could infiltrate my mind and my heart like that, and cause me that much pain, that much grief, that much anguish.” With studied calmness, he sat down in the chair at the round oak table. He dropped his forehead to his joined hands, “Boy, was I wrong. I was so very wrong.”
He then held up his head and looked at his brothers. The hurt and pain were evident in his eyes, plain for them to see. “How do you handle telling a woman for the first time in your life that you love her, only to have her tell you that she doesn’t want you nor does she want your love. And that all she wants from you is a good time. And what’s really hilarious is that that’s the same thing I’ve been telling women for years.”
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then reopened them. “I guess it’s payback time. And for me, payback came all nicely packaged in the form and shape of a woman by the name of Syneda Tremain Walters. And she got me just where it hurts the most—straight in the heart. How am I supposed to handle something like that? How am I supposed to handle the hurt and the pain?”
Justin and Dex watched their brother in silence, neither knew what to say but both were familiar with what he was going through. They had been there. Giving advice had always been Clayton’s thing, even when the advice hadn’t been wanted.
Justin shook his head. Clayton had done more than just given advice to him and Dex. He had deliberately undermined and manipulated their love li
fe. He had done what he felt had been necessary to straighten out their problems with the women they loved. Now Clayton’s own love life needed straightening out and Justin knew that his baby brother didn’t have a clue as to how to help himself.
Justin finally spoke. “Give her time, Clayton.”
Clayton’s response was a quiet laugh. “I’ve given her time, Justin. Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve given her too much time.”
“Then try being more patient with her,” Dex put in. “How you and Syneda even got this far without killing each other beats the hell out of me,” he said, shaking his head in amazement. “Both of your analytical and strongly opinionated minds are enough to rattle any relationship. Just chill and be patient. You know how I almost screwed things up with Caitlin by not being patient.”
Clayton took a long, deep breath. “I have been patient, Dex. I’ve been patient for over five months. But now I’m tired of fighting for what I want against what Syneda evidently doesn’t want. You can’t make someone love you, and I’m sick and tired of even trying.”
He stood. “The hurt and the pain aren’t worth it anymore.” He took another deep breath. “The two of you can let yourselves out. I’m going back to bed.”
He then walked out of the kitchen.
Clayton had lain across the bed for nearly an hour and knew from the sounds coming from the living room, Justin and Dex had not left. In fact, with the television blasting and the sound of his refrigerator opening and closing periodically, he could tell they had made themselves at home and were watching a football game and eating up his food.
Why on earth were they still hanging around? Did they think he was going to hang himself or something? He took a quick glance at the box that sat on his dresser. The package had been sent from Syneda and had arrived a couple of days ago. In it were items he’d made a habit of leaving at her place. She had returned all of his things along with the spare key he had given to her with a note that simply said, “It’s better this way.” The thought of it increased his anger. It might be better for her but it certainly wasn’t better for him.
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