Clay

by Jennifer Blake

“Right.”

  “Besides, I have something to show you.”

  She tugged him back over to the bed as she spoke, and Clay allowed himself to be led since it seemed she was trying to keep him out of trouble. As he sat on the side of the mattress, he asked, “What is it?”

  She didn’t answer but only thrust the paper she held toward him. He took it automatically while his gaze remained on her small face. The circles under her eyes were darker this morning, he thought, and her cheeks a little puffier. He shook his head a little before glancing down at the paper.

  Clay lost his breath. He forgot to blink for so long that his eyes began to burn. The grip of his thumb and forefinger tightened until both were numb.

  What he held was a photograph. It was one he had taken himself nearly fifteen years before, when he’d first begun to mess around with a camera while in college. The dark-haired young man he’d captured was in the prime of life, staring into the lens with bright sea-blue eyes and a cocksure grin.

  “See?” Lainey said as she leaned on his knee to peer at the photo. “I told you that you look like my daddy.”

  He did, exactly like him in fact. The man in the picture was Clay’s brother who had been dead for nine impossibly long years. It was his twin Matt whom he still missed every single day of his life.

  “Where did you get this?” Clay asked in a voice that sounded hoarse even in his own ears.

  “It’s Mama’s. She’s had it a long time, since before I was born.”

  “How do you know this is your father?”

  “She told me so.” The child looked up at him as if she thought him incredibly dense. “She knows because she’s my mama.”

  “Did she tell you anything else?”

  “She said he’s dead, that he died before I was born. But I thought…”

  Clay glanced at her. “What, punkin?”

  She studied him, her wide blue gaze searching his face. “I thought she might be wrong about that part. I thought maybe that’s why we came here, why she got you and tied you up.”

  Lainey thought she might be his daughter, regardless of what she’d been told. It was impossible. The photo was proof enough, but more than that if he’d ever made love to Janna, he’d damn well remember it.

  Matt, Lainey’s father. Suspicion of it was one thing, but acceptance was something else altogether. Matt had been a happy-go-lucky type who loved women and appreciated the fact that they loved him, but he’d never been irresponsible.

  A distant memory flashed through Clay’s mind of his father ranting about women who led men on, then used pregnancy to force them into marriage. The old man had been rabid on the subject since he’d not only been caught that way himself but left with four boys to bring up alone after their mother deserted him. But Clay, who had heard a slightly different version of the tale from their mother, had let the warning go in one ear and out the other. Matt had surely done the same. No, there had to be something more to this story.

  “Sorry, sweet pea,” he said, quietly. “Any man would be proud to have you for a daughter, but I’m not your dad.”

  “But you look like the man in the picture,” Lainey argued with inescapable logic.

  “He was my twin.”

  “Does my mama know that?” Her eyes were huge as she waited for his answer.

  “I’m sure she does.”

  The child sighed, then eased around to sit on the mattress beside him. “I was ’fraid so, because Mama knows a lot. But I thought she might be wrong about you, and it didn’t hurt to ask.”

  It did hurt, however, Clay thought. It hurt him to see her disappointment, and also to think of what he might have done to help her and Janna if he’d had the right. It hurt to be forced to turn his mind to the problem of why Janna would keep such a vital piece of information as Lainey’s birth a secret from his family—and also what that might have to do with why she was holding him.

  Clay put down the photo then reached for his camera, as he so often did when trying to work something out in his mind. Lifting it, one-handed, from its bag beside the bed, he adjusted the focus then snapped a quick close-up of Lainey. She made a face at him and he caught that, too, as well as the nose-wrinkling grin that followed.

  Even as he clicked off the shots, his mind registered the details of the small features he saw through the camera’s viewfinder. By degrees, he realized what it was about her that had seemed so familiar that first morning. Lainey looked like a feminized version of him and his brothers in their childhood pictures. Her wide gaze, broad forehead, high cheekbones and determined chin were the same. Some things were different—the fine, silver-blond hair, small, straight nose and beautifully shaped mouth had been inherited from her mother. Still, she definitely had the look of a Benedict. The little old ladies of Turn-Coupe who could trace family resemblance through endless generations would have pegged her in a second.

  “Lainey, honey, time for breakfast.”

  He hadn’t noticed Janna’s arrival in his preoccupation. Lowering the camera, he gave her a narrow, assessing look. A flush rose to her hairline and she lifted her chin while flinging her long, silvery braid over her shoulder in a gesture he was fast coming to anticipate. Her gray eyes held defiance, as if she half expected him to make some snide comment about the night before. He might have, too, if Lainey had not been present, or if he didn’t have other things on his mind. Such as how to make her admit that Lainey shared his bloodline.

  He wasn’t ready to confront Janna without giving more thought to the problem, however. With a smooth gesture, he palmed the picture of Matt, then put his arm around Lainey. The girl glanced up at him with wide-eyed consideration that let him know she’d noticed his action. Still, she said nothing, and Clay hugged her briefly, aware again of an odd sense of closeness to the small girl.

  “Come along now,” Janna said to Lainey with a quick, imperative gesture. “You need your shower, then we’ll make your favorite buckwheat pancakes.”

  Pancakes of any kind would be a treat for a kid in Lainey’s condition, with those made with buckwheat flour more acceptable than the normal variety. It was a bribe, pure and simple, also a good indicator of how much Janna needed to get her daughter away from him. She was so certain that he’d use Lainey against her, it seemed, was perhaps even more nervous of it after the night before.

  “Relax,” he told her. “She’s all right.”

  “Is she really?” The tone of her voice was a great deal more belligerent than the look in her eyes.

  “I don’t make war on children.”

  She was bright and she was quick. “Only on adult women then? I’ll remember that.” Spinning around, she headed for the kitchen without waiting for a reply.

  The pancakes, no larger than beverage coasters and served with warm applesauce, were delicious, and so was the hot, spicy sausage that came with them. Lainey insisted on eating hers in Clay’s room, and Janna didn’t argue. Instead she brought her plate to her worktable as if compelled to remain on guard.

  It wasn’t a particularly comfortable meal. When they were done, Janna gathered the dishes and took them back to the kitchen. Then she rejoined him and Lainey, working on a series of water bird studies while Clay showed her daughter a few more points about handling a camera.

  He was framing a shot of the girl as she sat cross-legged on the bed, squinting through an extra lens so her eye looked as round and bulbous as a frog’s, when a small sound from Janna caught his attention. He glanced over to see her watching them with her face set and tears making a silver shimmer in her eyes. He paused, while slow anger rose inside him.

  “What is it now?” he demanded. “I’m not doing anything to her.”

  “No. It’s just that…” She made a helpless gesture from his camera to Lainey, as if her throat was too tight for speech.

  Clay stared at her in perplexity. He glanced at his camera, then to Lainey. “What?”

  “Photographs are so permanent. I mean, compared to the people in them.”


  Clay watched her for a second longer. Then it came to him that while he had been simply fooling around, playing with the girl to pass the time, in Janna’s eyes he was recording images of a child so ill that each day could be her last. He snapped the shot of Lainey with grim concentration. Afterward, he didn’t spare the film. If Janna noticed, however, she made no further comment.

  It was some time later that he got to his feet and moved to where he could see what she was doing. Studying the blue heron taking shape under her watercolor brush, he said, “You’re good, darned good.”

  “And you would know.” So unimpressed was she by his compliment that she didn’t even look up.

  “I grew up with artists. My mother has a studio and gallery down in New Orleans, in the old warehouse district.”

  That got her attention. “She paints? Would I have heard of her?”

  Clay gave the name, different because his mother had abandoned Benedict in favor of her maiden name after the divorce. It was marginally amusing to see respect for it rising in Janna’s eyes. “She’s a traditionalist, of course,” he continued with a shrug, “known for her bird studies in pastels as well as watercolors of French Quarter scenes.”

  “And you paint with film.”

  It was exactly the way he thought of his camera work. He tried not to be gratified that she saw it, but knew he was fighting a losing battle. Purely as cover, he said, “My mom would tell you that your blue heron should have a patch of coral pink at the top of its wings. I have a close-up showing the right color, I think. It’s in my bag if you’d like to see it.”

  “I…Yes, that would be good. Thank you.”

  He thought it probably pained her to say the words, but he’d seen enough of her work to understand that her professionalism would demand correct details. Rummaging in the side pocket of his bag, he produced several heron studies, as well as a sheaf of prints showing other swamp denizens. It was good for his ego to watch her sort through them with care and attention.

  Finally she looked up. “These are for your next book, I suppose?”

  He stared at her then tipped his head in ascent. “You know I’ve done one already?”

  For an answer, she pulled a copy of the coffee table-size volume with his face on the dust jacket from a shelf under the table. “I’ve been using it as a reference.”

  He gave a slow shake of his head. “Amazing.”

  “That I bothered or that I know you’re the author?”

  “Either one. Or both.”

  “I came here partly because of this book.” She looked down at the heavy volume, rubbing her hand across the slick front cover with its depiction of a pair of white cranes with orange tinted wings in flight against a sunset sky.

  “Partly?”

  She ignored the question as she went on. “I fell in love with the watery world you portrayed. Since I was in need of fresh inspiration, this area seemed to offer good possibilities. Of course it helped that I knew Denise.”

  “Of course.” The words held a certain irony since there was nothing at all cut-and-dried about it as far as he could see. “How is that, by the way? She doesn’t lend this old camp to just anybody.”

  “School,” she said briefly.

  That could mean anything since Denise’s grandfather had moved away from Turn-Coupe during World War II when he’d gone down to Houma to work in the shipyards. Somehow, that branch of the Benedicts had only ever returned for fishing trips to the camp. But it happened that Houma was a jumping-off point for crews heading out to the offshore drilling platforms. Matt had often stayed overnight with Denise and her family when he’d gone in and out on his rotating two-week shift.

  “Denise was always talking about the lake and the swamp and the summer vacations her family took up here to the old camp with long days of fishing and swimming, reading and being lazy, and hanging out with all her cousins. She even invited me to come here with her once.”

  “It’s a grand place if you have the eyes to see it,” he answered. “A lot of people think of it as hot, snakey and mosquito-ridden, which it can be, of course. But it’s also still and peaceful, more than a little exotic, and endlessly life giving. It’s the habitat, permanent or migratory, for hundreds of different kinds of fish, bird and animal life, and home to plants as tiny as floating duckweed or big as skyscraping cypress trees.”

  “You love it,” she said in quiet discovery.

  He lifted a shoulder. “Crazy, but there you are.”

  “I don’t think it’s crazy at all.” She paused, veiling her expression with her lashes. Finally she asked, “I don’t suppose you’d know anything about dye plants for blue color that might grow here?”

  “Dye plants?”

  “I make hand-dyed fabrics with native materials on commission for a specialty house, as well as designing. Natural dyes are never the same because so many variables go into making them, including degrees of color material within the plant matter itself. Fabrics dyed by hand with natural dye stuffs are one of a kind, always unique.”

  “And more expensive because of it?”

  Her smile was cool. “As you say, but also a lot of work to produce.”

  “Why do these plants have to make blue dye?”

  “It’s the rarest of all colors from natural dyes. You can find material to create infinite shades of green, yellow, brown or even red, but only a handful of plants give a truly blue hue.”

  “Such as false indigo or maybe black elderberries?”

  She stared at him a long moment. “You know something about it.”

  “A bit. I tried tanning and decorating my own leather as a teenager, like a Native American.”

  “I have indigo and elderberries, at least in their dried state. I was hoping for something better, or more rare.”

  “You asked Arty, I suppose?”

  Her smile was almost whimsical. “Critters are more his thing than plants, to hear him tell it. He said that the man I needed was you.”

  At that auspicious turn of phrase, Clay swung his head around to meet her gray gaze. And suddenly he was awash in the same heated craving that he had battled for half the night: the need to feel her softness and warmth against him once more, the urge to free her hair and spread it out around and over her like a shimmering veil. The primal inclination to bury himself in her and be lost in soft, velvet wonder.

  For the barest portion of a second, he wondered if he was being wooed, if possibly she had decided that she required a bed partner, if not a sex slave, after all. She seemed that approachable, that sweetly vulnerable.

  Then reality kicked in and he had to question where she could be headed with such a come-on. Also what she would ask of him once she had him where she wanted him.

  He needed a distraction and needed it badly, for himself if not for her. Deliberately, he asked, “Ever hear of a plant called Aphrodite’s Cup?”

  Her gaze was open, receptive. “I’ve come across it once or twice in old books. Extinct, isn’t it?”

  “Not quite. The color it makes is almost indescribable, not a true blue but rather an aqua. The color is darker than that, however, more blue than teal, but more green than turquoise, and with just a smidgen of purple in it.”

  “It sounds breathtaking.”

  “The French were wild about it during Louisiana’s colonial days, in the early 1700s, because it blended so well with all the soft grays and corals that were fashionable then. That’s a major reason why it’s almost nonexistent now. The old French settlers called the dye they made from it couleur de l’amour, the Color of Love.”

  She stared at him a long moment, her gaze searching his, before she asked, “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Would I do that?”

  “With pleasure, I’m sure.”

  She had him there. Turning away from her, he said over his shoulder, “Fine. Then I guess you don’t want to hear any more.”

  “You’re saying you can really take me to this plant?”

  “Maybe.”
r />   “If I’ll let you go, I suppose.” Her tone was jaundiced.

  “It’s going to be hard doing it while shut up in here. Turn me loose and I’ll take you anywhere you want.”

  She opened her mouth to answer but was forestalled by the slamming of a door.

  “Janna? Janna, gal! You home?”

  Saved by good old Arty, Clay thought. Saved from doing or saying something fatally stupid, or stupidly fatal, like telling Janna Kerr that he’d take her any way he could get her. He had been that close to forgetting where he was and how he had come to be there. Not to mention what he was beginning to fear that she wanted from him.

  It was possible Janna felt the same relief, for she got to her feet and moved swiftly from the room on her way to the back door. “Here, Arty,” she called. “Come on in!”

  She didn’t return. Clay could hear that old reprobate, Alligator Arty, jawing with her in the kitchen. From the little he could catch, it appeared that Arty had come around to check on Janna and Lainey, and also to bring a meal of live crawfish for the raccoon that he’d given Lainey. The crustaceans were a favorite of this friendly little critter that he’d found wandering around lost, or so he claimed. Clay didn’t doubt the food preference a bit, though he suspected that the animal had actually been caught in one of Arty’s traps.

  The old humbug also hinted broadly that it was getting on toward lunchtime and he wouldn’t say no to an invitation. So familiar with Janna and Lainey’s routine was he that it was obvious he’d been making himself at home at the camp. Knowing Arty, Clay was sure that he’d helped out around the place by way of thanks; he was of a generation that didn’t believe in taking without giving in return.

  At the same time, the idea of Arty hanging around made Clay a little uneasy. The old guy was a salt-of-the-earth type, but even his best friend couldn’t call him more than half housebroken. Hearing him ask how the prisoner was holding up, so he was forced to realize that Arty still had no intention of helping him, did nothing for his misgivings. That was the problem with small places like the camp house; it was too easy to overhear more than was comfortable.

  “It’s about time you showed your ugly face in here,” he said when Arty finally stopped gossiping and stepped back to the bedroom to pay his respects.