CLAY YEAGER'S REDEMPTION

by Justine Davis

  "You should have stayed home and taken care of it," Phyllis said, waggling her finger at Casey.

  She'd learned long ago not to argue with Phyllis Harrington. "You're right," she said, taking the wind out of the woman's sails, and knowing Phyllis had no idea just how right she was. "But I'm trying to catch up now."

  There was little more the woman could say, so she switched tack. "Who's doing your work?"

  She should be glad, Casey supposed, that Clay had shown no inclination to go into town. The sight of any stranger drew attention, and if he was spotted more than once, the pack would be on the hunt, after every detail of who he was, where he was from and what his connection with River Bend was. Or, more important, who his connection was.

  She answered carefully, not wanting to lie outright. '"I'm a big girl, Mrs. Harrington. I can fix things. I can even pound nails."

  "But someone was hammering while you were on the phone with me the other day."

  So much for not lying, Casey muttered to herself. No one could ever accuse Phyllis Harrington of being forgetful, even when it might be more comfortable for others if she was. And Casey knew that if she didn't salve the woman's curiosity somehow, it was entirely likely she would climb in that huge boat of a car of hers and risk the lives and limbs of everybody in town to come out to the farm and find out just what was going on. If they ever named tornadoes as they did hurricanes, her vote for the first one would be Phyllis.

  "Oh," Casey said in what she hoped was a breezy voice, "that was just the screen-door guy, working on my door."

  Phyllis frowned. "Screen-door guy? There's no one in town who—"

  "He came out from Ames," she said quickly, figuring the college town had to have someone who could pass for a "screen-door guy."

  "Humph. Out-of-towners. You should have used someone from River Bend."

  Casey managed not to laugh at the self-contradiction, knowing it would mortally offend the woman.

  "Next time I will," she assured her, knowing that Clay had fixed the screen door so well that she probably wouldn't need it worked on for at least another ten years. Even Phyllis would have forgotten by then.

  She would probably have forgotten all this herself by then. In ten years, she thought as she carried her bag out to her car, Clay Yeager would be just a distant memory. He would be that aloof, reticent man she'd never gotten to know, but who had saved her so much time and, if she was honest, money; she knew what his kind of help cost, and she thought she was getting off easy with meals and fifty dollars a day. Especially for the kind of days he put in, generally working twelve hours or better.

  Which reminded her that after she stopped at Jean Harvey's bookstore to see if she could order that vegetable cookbook she wanted, she needed to stop at the bank; Clay had asked if she could pay him in cash. She'd felt a small qualm at his request, wondering again if he was hiding somehow, afraid of leaving any kind of paper trail.

  But then she'd laughed at her overactive imagination. He probably didn't have a checking account, since he never stayed in one place long enough. Cash was easier. And she didn't mind; it was a small enough favor to ask. Plus, it would only be for a while; they hadn't talked about how long he would stay, and that fact alone hinted to her it wouldn't be long. Something, she told herself, that you'd be well advised to keep in mind.

  She was getting used to him being around, even after only a week. He was never intrusive; sometimes she went for hours never seeing him, only hearing the sounds of his work, but it was oddly comforting. Which surprised her, since the solitude and the associated safety had been the primary attractions the farm held for her, besides the fond memories.

  And she enjoyed the meals they shared, although he insisted on eating his lunch while working and was hardly what you could call a talkative dinner companion. It wasn't totally that he was secretive, reluctant to talk about himself, although there seemed enough of that; it was also that he seemed truly out of practice in conversation.

  A guy who doesn't want to talk about himself, and you're complaining? she thought wryly.

  But it was best that she not get too comfortable with having him around. Not that "comfortable" was the right word to use about Clay Yeager. He would leave, and soon, she suspected. There was just something … restless about him. Something unsettled. Something edgy.

  She looked at the money the teller handed her for a moment before she tucked it away in her purse. She wondered how much cash it would take to send him on his way again.

  And she wondered why the idea left her feeling the tiniest bit bereft.

  * * *

  The week had passed for Clay with an odd combination of speed and slowness. He was up and working early every morning, and he forced himself to concentrate on the job at hand to keep his mind from straying to other, less welcome, things. So the days had passed, for the most part, fairly quickly.

  It was the nights in between and the evenings that seemed painfully endless. It was the meals, at a table shared with a woman who had a mane of red-gold hair super-models would kill for and a curvaceous figure those skinny models would consider excessive, but that he found essentially female. It was the evenings when she came out and sat on the screen porch at the rear of the house, in the rocker he guessed had been her aunt's, and he felt torn between a desire to spend those quiet minutes with her and the urge to put as much distance between them as he could.

  And even hours spent reading by the light in his camper, the cure for most of his restless nights, didn't succeed in putting her out of his mind. And not solely because he'd been borrowing from her own library, with her cheerful blessing.

  He swung the hammer more energetically than necessary and made himself focus on what he was doing. He'd decided to fix the old wrought-iron weather vane that lay useless atop the house, and had started as soon as he'd finished the roof. It was a great old piece. He couldn't guess how old, but old enough. The iron had been bent and shaped into the traditional four-directional wind vane, but the flat, hammered-iron ornament was not the usual horse or chicken or other stock animal, but a dog. A dog who looked for all the world like Mud.

  He supposed it had to be fashioned after Casey's aunt's dog, the Border collie she had told him about. Or perhaps her aunt had simply found the vane and bought it because of the resemblance. But he'd figured he could fire up the old potbellied stove in the toolroom of the barn and make enough of a makeshift forge out of it to straighten the bent spire, and he could fashion a new base for it. Although it would end up a bit shorter, he could at least get it back up and functional, if not make it like new. He hoped she would be happy about it.

  But then, she might think this frivolous when there were so many other things to be done. No, he thought as soon as the idea had formed, that didn't sound like Casey. She'd loved her aunt, and this had been important to her, therefore it would be important to Casey. He was sure of it.

  "Yeah, like you're an expert," he muttered under his breath.

  Truth be known, he had no idea how to deal with Casey Scott. On the surface, she seemed so open and, as he'd accused her, so naive. Or maybe it was just that this mostly rural area where people didn't even lock their doors was so utterly strange to him that it all seemed too innocent to be believed.

  If you'd asked him years ago, he would have said there wasn't a place left on the planet where mankind and innocence could coexist. The former arrived and the latter left. That was just the way things were.

  Or so he'd thought. Yet there was a peace here, a serenity, that seemed almost unreal to him. But he had to admit, unreal or not, it seemed to seep into the bones until you quit thinking about threats from your fellow man and worried more about threats from Mother Nature. Too much rain or not enough. Snow too early. Hail. Tornadoes. These were the things you worried about in River Bend.

  It was a trite phrase, but even he could feel it, that connection to the land. It didn't seem to matter that he'd grown up in suburbia and the closest he'd gotten to nature was the occasion
al camping trip. He'd known the streets, had been able to sense a shift of mood in a crowd in a split second, but this … this was different. As Casey was different.

  As the thought formed in his mind, he nearly hammered his finger instead of the vane. What the hell was he thinking? If Casey Scott was different, it was because she was too damn trusting. She even trusted him, a stranger.

  And if there was anything that struck fear into Clay Yeager's heart, it was the thought of being trusted. Especially by a woman.

  He slammed the hammer down one more time on the heat-softened iron, figured it was as straight as it was going to get, and plunged it into the bucket of water he'd set up for that purpose. He watched the steam rise, trying not to think of anything else. Trying not to think about Casey and the politeness they'd retreated into since he'd railed at her for telling him about her trust fund.

  I was right, he insisted inwardly. She had no business rattling on to me about such things. No business trusting me like that.

  But she could trust him, at least that far. He wasn't going to steal from her. He knew she could trust him with everything she'd told him—her aloneness, her money—so was she foolish if she somehow knew that? Or was she just a good judge of people?

  He pulled the vane out of the bucket and watched it drip, cool now. He hadn't thought of it that way before—that perhaps she wasn't so naive if she knew she could trust him. Maybe if he'd been someone else, she wouldn't have.

  And there was no way he could hang the word naive on that look he'd seen in her eyes. There had been nothing of innocence and everything of world-weariness in that look, There was something else in Casey Scott, some dark, hidden thing that shadowed blue eyes that should be as bright as the Iowa sky on a summer day. He knew it, knew it because he'd become all too sensitive to the undercurrents people hid behind their daily masks.

  He knew it because he hadn't been, once. And it had cost him his world.

  * * *

  Light. Pure, bright California sunlight. Nothing bad could ever happen in a place with such light. The feeling was incomparable. For once things had gone the way they were supposed to. The sun was out, and all was right with the world. He was home early for a change, so maybe even Linda would be happy. He would take her out to dinner, both her and Jenny. They hadn't seen much of him lately, and he had to try to make it up to them. And he would. He'd even made arrangements to take some time off. They would be like they used to be, laughing, having fun, something there had been too little of in recent years. Jenny would love the stuffed elephant he'd bought her to add to her huge collection. She would solemnly name it and drag it around for weeks until it was suitably broken in.

  He was feeling so good he started to whistle as he pulled into the drive and hit the button for the garage-door opener. The door began to lift. Instead of the semi-tidy garage, the door opened on yawning maw of darkness and horror. It seemed to suck away every trace of sunlight, every bit of warmth. It had been daylight, but now the tunnel of light created by the headlights of his truck, lights he hadn't even known were on, was the only illumination. It seemed oddly red. But it still showed all too well what awaited him in that gaping, dark cavern.

  He sat, staring, barely aware that he'd hit the brakes, barely aware that he heard the puppy in there somewhere, whimpering, but fully aware that his world had just shattered. Permanently.

  "No," he whispered, clenching his hands on the steering wheel.

  He'd been to countless scenes as bad as this or worse. His instinct and training had never failed him. But now he couldn't function, couldn't move, couldn't even think. He heard an odd scrambling, an almost metallic sound, but it didn't really register.

  "No. God, no…"

  He heard his own voice as if from a distance. It was a hollow, horrible thing. A chill swept him, making him shiver. He heard Mud whimpering again. The cold increased. He was shuddering now. Small bursts of sound escaped him, helplessly. Mud whimpered. Something icy touched his neck, then his cheek. Mud yipped, worried.

  * * *

  He came awake abruptly. For an instant he had no idea where he was, didn't know if the pale light he saw was morning or evening. Mud nudged him, gently, almost tenderly. The full-grown Mud, not the whimpering pup of the dream.

  The dream.

  It was only the dream, back again. He let out a sound that he was sure sounded about like Mud's whimpering. Maybe even more despairing than the worried dog had sounded.

  God, it had been so long he'd dared to think, to hope, he was free of it. And he had been, for a long time; the dream hadn't come in nearly two years.

  But it hadn't lost any of its vividness in that time, or any of its power. And, most especially, it had lost none of its horror. Or its ability to terrify him. He'd almost forgotten how harrowing the dream was, how it drained him, shook him to the soul.

  But Mud had not forgotten. Nor had he forgotten what to do.

  "Thanks, buddy," he said softly, reaching out to scratch one silky black ear. "Again," he added on a long, compressed, weary breath.

  "Are you all right?"

  He sat up sharply, nearly rapping his head on the shelf over his pillow. He stared toward the back of the truck, where the windowed top half of the shell was propped open. And where Casey was standing in the morning light, looking at him.

  "What are you doing here?" he snapped.

  "I was already awake," she said, brow furrowing at the sharpness of his tone. "Mud and I were on the porch when all of a sudden he took off running for the truck and scrambled in the back here. Then I heard him whimpering, and I thought he might be hurt."

  "Oh."

  He said it flatly, his anger at being caught this way draining away. It would be beyond churlish to be angry at her for that, no matter how hideously he was embarrassed that she'd glimpsed his torment. No matter that all he wanted to do at this moment was run.

  It was bad enough that she'd guessed he'd been practically starving and had probably come up with this temporary handyman job for the sole reason of feeding him, but now she'd witnessed the misery he tried so hard to hide. And he succeeded, most of the time. Just his luck she'd caught him when his guard was down, the one time he couldn't suppress the thoughts, the memories, when he was asleep.

  Now the questions would start. And he couldn't face that. Almost desperately, he tried to shake off the remnants of the dream and think, to calculate; she'd paid him yesterday for this week, so he had plenty to get rolling again. The truck repairs would have to wait; he would just have to hope the thing would hold together and keep running a little longer.

  "Dreams can be so very ugly, can't they?" she said softly, in a rhetorical tone that told him she wasn't expecting an answer. And then she said, in a completely normal voice, "Breakfast will be ready in about twenty minutes. Coffee's ready now."

  She turned and walked away.

  That was it? Clay thought. No questions? No prying? She just said that and then walked away? She was acting as if nightmares that left you shaking and sweating and drained were a normal part of life.

  And then he remembered her eyes, that look that had clouded them. And thought that maybe, to her, they were.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  In the end, he didn't run.

  "It'd be dumb, Mud," he said after she called them in for dinner a couple of days after the dream had returned. "I mean, what better place for a couple of starving nomads to stay than with the best caterer in the state?"

  Mud yipped in assent. The collie had more than taken to Casey; he'd included her in his rounds, checking on her whenever he took off in response to some internal signal Clay had never been able to figure out. Casey had been amused but understanding. Border collies were working dogs, she said; they needed jobs to do. She'd taken to leaving the screen unlatched and the sliding barn door open enough for the dog to get through, saying she wasn't at all averse to a diligent watchdog around.

  This had never happened before; n
o matter how long they'd stayed in any one place, the dog had remained aloof, disdainful of whoever they encountered. But Mud's acceptance of Casey had even survived the switch to regular dog food—although he suspected Casey slipped the dog some treats when he checked in while she was cooking. His first clue had been when he'd seen Mud nose open the screen door and go inside, the second when he inevitably emerged licking his chops.

  Now Clay headed for the shower first, clean clothes in hand. Casey had offered to do his laundry in with hers, but he'd declined. It was silly, he supposed, but there was something … intimate about that, and it made him uncomfortable. So he did his own, which was no great project; he had about enough clothes for a couple of weeks and that was it.

  He finished quickly, stepped out of the small shower and grabbed a towel. He raised it to his hair, rubbing it dry, wondering again if he should spend the money for a haircut. He'd had a short, precision cut for years, and it had taken a while to get used to the strands brushing his shoulders. But the long hair seemed appropriate, and one more thing that set him apart from the man he'd been back then.

  When he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he stopped, the towel now damp in his hands. Gone was the gaunt, hollow look. His ribs were still prominent, but the concave stomach didn't look like it was meeting his backbone anymore. Amazing what ten days of good, regular food could do.