Once inside the truck, he gripped the steering wheel and fixed his gaze on the windshield. “You may have gotten away with these childish pranks with your father,” he said, barely able to control his rage, “but I’ll be damned if I’ll put up with your shenanigans.”
Fiona’s chin jutted out. She refused to let his anger intimidate her. “I needed gas.”
He balled his hand into a fist and slammed it against the steering wheel, making her jump.
“Dammit, Fiona! That’s the stupidest, most selfish excuse I’ve ever heard for breaking the law, and believe me, I’ve heard them all.”
“Well, if you’d given me some money—”
“I gave you money,” he shouted, “and you blew it all in one trip to the spa!”
“Yes, but that was before I knew that Daddy had cut me off.”
Clay ground his teeth, trying to get a grip on his anger. When he was sure he had, he yanked the gearshift into Reverse and backed out of the parking space.
“Are we going home?” she asked.
“No. I’m taking you back to the gas station.”
“The gas station?” she repeated. “But why?”
“So you can pay for the gas you stole.”
“Oh, please,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You don’t really expect me to go back there, do you?”
“I damn sure do.”
She stared at his profile, then gulped, realizing by the determined set of his jaw that he was serious. “But couldn’t you just stop by and pay for it after you drop me by the house?” she suggested hopefully.
“You’re the one who stole. You’re the one who’ll pay.”
Fiona slid down in the seat, squeezing her hands between her knees, and stared at the road ahead, suddenly feeling ill. No one had ever made her do anything like this before. Never. In the past when she’d done something crazy and impulsive, her daddy had always taken care of whatever mess she’d made. She’d never had to deal with the fallout from her pranks. Never!
Clay pulled up in front of the gas station, shoved the gearshift into Park. Through the plate-glass window, she could just make out the shape of the attendant. A low moan slipped past her lips.
Lifting a hip, Clay pulled out his wallet and tossed a twenty to her. She curled her fingers around the bill, swallowed hard, then opened her door.
Once inside, she glanced around and saw several customers milling the aisles. Hoping to pay for the gas and leave before they’d selected their purchases, she approached the counter. The attendant stood on the opposite side, slouched against a cigarette display rack while he thumbed through a Playboy magazine. “Excuse me,” she said.
He turned his head, then jerked upright. “Hey! You’re the lady who skipped without paying for your gas.”
She winced, sure that everyone in the store had heard him and was now aware of her crime. “Yes,” she murmured, feeling the heat crawl up her neck. “I came back to pay for it.”
He braced his hands on the counter and leaned toward her. He had arms like Popeye and a tattoo of a bare-chested hula dancer that stretched from shoulder to wrist. As she stared, he flexed his muscle, and the dancer’s hips swayed provocatively. She shuddered and dropped her gaze.
“Harley catch you?”
She gulped, nodded.
“Bet he slapped you with a pretty hefty fine, didn’t he?”
She nodded again, sure that she felt the gaze of every customer in the store on her back. Desperate to escape the humiliation, she slid the twenty-dollar bill Clay had given her onto the counter. “This ought to cover the cost of the gas.”
He let his gaze drop to her breasts, then looked back up at her and smiled, exposing a gold front tooth. He pushed the bill back across the counter and leaned closer. “How ’bout you work off that debt, instead?” he suggested in a low voice. “I bet a woman like you is hell in bed.”
She snapped her head up, her eyes wide with shock. She felt a hand settle low on her back and turned to see that Clay had entered the store and moved to stand beside her.
“Is there a problem?” he asked the attendant.
Though his tone was friendly, Fiona saw the threat that darkened his eyes.
The attendant lifted his hands from the counter and took a step back. “No. No problem.” He snatched up the twenty, rang up the sale and pitched some change onto the counter.
Clay scraped the coins onto his palm, then stuffed them into his pocket. “Appreciate your understanding,” he said, then tipped his hat and drew Fiona toward the door.
Fiona stood on the front porch, her arms wrapped around her waist, watching Clay drive away. He hadn’t said a word to her after leaving the gas station, had barely given her time to climb down from the truck before he’d taken off again.
She wanted to hate him for not responding as she’d thought he should to her arrest, but she couldn’t seem to work up the venom required for the emotion. She’d thought he would storm into the police station, as her daddy always had, give the officer who’d arrested her a piece of his mind, then tuck her protectively under his arm, take her home and spend the rest of the day coddling her, trying to make up for whatever trauma she had suffered from the experience.
But he hadn’t done any of those things. Oh, he’d stormed, all right. But his anger had been directed at her, not at the arresting officer. He’d made her feel small. Petty. Spoiled. That alone should have made her angry with him. But it didn’t.
But she felt something else, too, besides pettiness. A small bubble of emotion that had lodged itself in her throat at the gas station when she’d felt the reassuring warmth of his hand on her back and looked up to find him at her side.
Gratitude? Yes, definitely. From the moment he’d told her she had to go back and pay for the gas, she’d been terrified at the thought of having to face the attendant alone. She had been grateful for Clay’s presence, especially after the attendant’s crude suggestion. But it was more than gratitude she’d felt. It was…what?
Unable to name the emotion, with a sigh she turned and went inside.
Clay knocked on the door marked Private, then shuffled his feet uneasily while he waited for a response. Hearing a muffled “Come on in,” he eased the door open and peered inside. Flynt sat behind a massive mahogany desk, his back to the door, his gaze on a computer screen in front of him.
Flynt glanced over his shoulder. “Hey, Clay,” he said, smiling. “Give me a sec to shoot off this e-mail and I’ll be right with you.”
Clay dragged off his hat and crossed the room. He sat down in a leather wing chair opposite the desk and hooked his hat over his knee.
Flynt closed the screen, spun around and pulled the chair back to the desk. “Your timing couldn’t be better. I just heard from Tyler. He said to tell you thanks for the lead. Appears that friend of yours in Central America is going to be a big help. Seems the place where Westin’s being held captive is only about a hundred miles from where Tyler landed.”
“Tyler went alone?” Clay asked in surprise. “I thought Ricky Mercado was going to Central America with him.”
“Ricky’s there,” Flynt assured him. “But we’ve all agreed that Ricky should stay at the military base with Luke while Tyler meets with the Spanish interpreter. In case Tyler encounters any trouble along the way,” he explained further.
Clay nodded. “Probably wise. If they stayed together…” He let the comment hang unfinished, but he knew by Flynt’s frown that he understood the warning. If the men remained together and were captured by the terrorists, the rescue mission would fail.
“Yeah,” Flynt agreed. “That’s what we thought, too.” He forced a smile, though Clay knew it was for his benefit. Flynt’s concern for his friends wouldn’t end until his buddies returned to the States with Westin in tow.
Flynt reared back in his chair. “So what brings you to the offices of the Lone Star Country Club? Don’t tell me Fiona has talked you into applying for membership.”
Reminded of his purpose for dro
pping by to see Flynt, Clay blew out a breath. “No. I wanted to talk to you about Fiona.” He related the events of the afternoon, from Fiona’s driving off without paying for her gas to her arrest.
When he finished, Flynt shook his head wearily. “Looks as if she’s up to her old tricks.”
Frowning, Clay leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Why does she continue to pull these stunts? I would’ve thought she’d outgrown these kinds of pranks years ago.”
“Yeah,” Flynt agreed, “most people would have. But you’d have to know Fiona’s childhood to understand what feeds her need for attention.”
Clay sank back in his chair. “Enlighten me.”
“It all goes back to when she and Cara were born,” Flynt began. “They’re identical twins. Mirror twins,” he clarified.
“Yeah. So?”
“There was a problem during the birth. Nothing life-threatening,” he added quickly at Clay’s startled look. “But Cara had some complications. Had to do with her breathing. Fiona was born first and without a problem, but Cara’s delivery was slower.” He lifted a shoulder. “I can’t begin to explain all the medical mumbo jumbo, but the gist of it is, Cara required more medical attention. Mother was allowed to take Fiona home, but Cara had to spend several weeks in the neonatal unit at the hospital. Even after she was allowed to come home, her vitals had to be monitored around the clock.” He shuddered, remembering. “Scared the hell out of my folks. All of us, for that matter, though I was really too young to fully understand what was going on. Fiona was healthy, strong. Cara was weaker and needed more care.” Flynt lifted his hands. “I think you can see the problem.”
“You’re telling me that Fiona’s behavior stems from Cara getting more attention when they were babies?” He shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t buy that.”
Flynt braced his arms on the desk and leaned forward, his gaze intense. “But it didn’t stop when they were babies. Not that my parents favored one over the other,” he said in his parents’ defense. “But everyone was more careful with Cara. She was quieter than Fiona, less energetic, definitely less outgoing. Cara had only to sneeze and everyone was all over her, fussing over her, taking her temperature. You get the picture.”
Clay nodded grimly. “Yeah. I’m afraid I do. Fiona wanted your parents’ attention and discovered that she could get it by acting out.”
Flynt nodded. “Exactly. The crazier and more bizarre the behavior, the more attention she received. It didn’t seem to matter to her that the attention was negative. It was attention, and attention was what she wanted.”
Clay frowned. “It’s hard to believe that a twenty-seven-year-old woman wouldn’t have figured that out by now.”
Flynt lifted a brow, and Clay snorted a laugh. “Sorry. I forgot for a moment that we were talking about Fiona.”
Clay lay on his back in his bed, his hands folded behind his head, staring at the dark ceiling. Though he was exhausted, sleep wouldn’t come. The conversation he’d had with Flynt kept running over and over again through his mind. Though he didn’t approve of Fiona’s behavior, he was beginning to understand what motivated her. Amazingly he even felt a little bit sorry for her.
A soft tap sounded at his door. Startled, he lifted his head. “Yeah?”
The door opened a crack. “Clay? May I come in?”
He yanked the sheet over his legs and sat up, tucking it around his waist. “Yeah. Sure.”
The door opened wider and Fiona stepped inside. Unable to see her in the darkness, he reached over to switch on the bedside lamp, praying she wasn’t wearing the same getup she’d had on that morning. When he turned back, she stood at the foot of his bed, her hands clutched nervously at her waist. Good. She was still dressed in the same outfit she’d had on that afternoon at the police station.
“Is something wrong?”
She shook her head. “No. I…I just wanted to say I was sorry.”
If she’d announced she was pregnant, she couldn’t have surprised him more. He eyed her suspiciously, wondering if this wasn’t another ploy of hers to drive him crazy.
But then he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes, and he realized this was no game.
“Forget it,” he said. “It’s over.”
“You don’t hate me?”
He snorted a laugh and shook his head. “No, I don’t hate you.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief. He thought she’d leave then, but she gripped her hands more tightly together and took a step closer to the bed. “Clay?”
“Yeah?”
She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, then closed it.
“Never mind.” She turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway and looked back over her shoulder. “Clay?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t hate you, either.”
Before he could respond, she stepped quickly out into the hall and closed the door behind her.
Ford accepted the glass of sparkling water from his wife and tried his best to hide his disappointment that it wasn’t the martini he’d requested. “Thank you, dear.”
Settling on the glider next to him, Grace placed a hand on his thigh and joined her gaze with his to look out over their land. “Oh, but it’s good to be home,” she said with a contented sigh.
Smiling, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her against his side. Although he’d enjoyed the freedom to smoke and drink whenever he pleased while she was away, that pleasure had lasted less than a day. “It’s good to have you back. I missed you.”
She looked up at him, her eyes softening as she met the warmth in his. “I missed you, too.”
He leaned over to kiss her, then shifted, snuggling her more comfortably at his side, and turned his gaze back to the sunset.
“Anything exciting happen while I was away?” she asked after a moment.
He tensed at the innocently asked question. He’d put off telling her about Fiona’s arranged marriage for as long as he could, fearing she’d be angry with him.
Forcing the tension from his shoulders, he said, “As a matter of fact, something did.”
She turned to peer at him. “Not another murder, I hope.”
He shook his head. “No, nothing like that.” Frowning, he drew his arm from around her. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, Grace, so I might as well just spit it out and be done with it.”
“What?” she asked, her forehead creasing in concern. “Ford, you’re frightening me.”
He took a deep breath, then said in a rush, “Fiona ran off and got married.”
Her eyes shot wide. “Fiona? To whom?”
“Clay Martin.”
“Clay Martin,” she repeated incredulously, then laughed. “You old scoundrel,” she scolded, and punched him playfully on the arm. “You shouldn’t tease me that way. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“This is no joke, Grace,” he said, his expression grave. “But you haven’t heard the worst of it yet.”
She stared at him, her smile fading. “Oh, Ford,” she murmured. “What have you done?”
Pursing his lips, he averted his gaze. “It was for her own good,” he said defensively. “Clay’s a good man. Honest. Hardworking. And tough enough to handle a fireball like our Fiona.” He turned to frown at Grace. “You know how she is. Flitting from one relationship to another. Spending money like water. The girl is totally irresponsible and wouldn’t know commitment if it knocked her upside the head.”
“Yes,” Grace agreed. “But do you really think marriage is the answer?”
He shook his head and looked away again, staring at the slowly fading sunset, for the first time questioning his part in arranging the marriage. “I hope to God it is. Clay’s a good man,” he said again as if to convince himself. “He’ll make Fiona a fine husband, if she’ll let him.”
“Yes,” Grace said thoughtfully. “I’ve always liked Clay.” She looked at Ford suspiciously. “But Fiona didn’t go along with this willingly. I know my da
ughter better than to believe she would marry a man just because her father told her to.”
“No,” he admitted, feeling a stab of guilt. “It took some conniving. I approached Clay with the idea first and agreed to pay him a hundred thousand dollars if he’d marry Fiona and teach her the meaning of responsibility and commitment. Then I told Fiona that I’d arranged the marriage for her.”
“And she went along without a fight?” she asked, her voice heavy with doubt.
He shook his head. “No. She kicked up a pretty big fuss, but I told her she didn’t have a choice. Told her I was cutting her off. Closing all her bank and credit-card accounts.”
“And did you?” she asked.
He nodded. “Damn right, I did. She’d never have gone along with the marriage otherwise.”
They sat a moment in silence before Ford found the courage to look at his wife again. “Well?” he prodded. “Do you think I was wrong to interfere?”
Grace sighed. “Wrong or not, what’s done is done.” Then she smiled and tucked her arm through his. “But you were right about one thing,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder. “If anyone can handle our Fiona, it’s Clay Martin.”
The next morning Fiona wandered out to the barn, still reeling from the phone conversation she’d just had with her mother. To her amazement—and utter disappointment—her mother had called to offer her congratulations on her and Clay’s marriage.
Clay glanced up from the engine he was working on as Fiona stepped into the barn. When he saw her expression, he straightened in alarm. “What’s wrong?”
She shrugged. “I just talked to Mom.”
“She’s back from her visit with Cara in the Middle East?”
Fiona nodded and climbed onto a sawhorse to sit. “Her flight arrived late yesterday afternoon.”
“Cara’s okay, isn’t she?”
Fiona dropped her elbows to her knees and her chin onto her fists. “Yes. According to Mom, she’s absolutely glowing.”
“Then why the long face?”
“Daddy told Mom about our elopement.”
Clay picked up a rag and slowly wiped the grease from his hands, watching her carefully. “Is she mad?”
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