CLAY YEAGER'S REDEMPTION

by Justine Davis

  But he didn't ask. He simply took her word for it.

  "Great legal system we've got, isn't it?" His tone was cynical, biting, but it cheered her slightly. "How much did he know about you?"

  "Do you mean how could he have found me here?" she asked. Clay nodded. "I told him about my aunt, and how she raised me, even though it was Uncle Ray who was my dad's brother. Back when I thought…"

  Her voice trailed off, but Clay finished the sentence for her, softly. "When you thought he was your friend?"

  She nodded, wondering if she looked as pitiful as she felt. "I may have even mentioned River Bend to him, and my aunt was the only Scott in town."

  "You said he didn't say anything to make you think it was him before."

  She nodded. "Nothing … until now. This is the first time. Up until now, it could have been … anyone."

  "What changed? Why do you think he let you know now?"

  She frowned, thinking. She'd begun to hang up, then she hadn't answered at all, and then… "I yelled at him," she said at last.

  Clay blinked and drew back, looking at her. Slowly one corner of his mouth curved in a crooked grin. "You did what?"

  "Well, I started just not answering the phone, but then he called in the daytime. Before it had only been at night," she explained. "But he called the afternoon of the day you … left," she finished, unable to meet his eyes.

  There was a pause, but then he said simply, "And?"

  "I got really angry. I called him a coward and told him to crawl back under his rock."

  She heard him chuckle. "Good for you," he said, the approval in his voice warming her. "So he called at night first, giving you no clue who it was, then got peeved and called in the daytime when you quit answering. Then you told him what you thought of him, and he decided it was time to let you know who it was. That about it?"

  She nodded slowly; it made sense, that he'd gotten angry when she'd stopped answering his nightly calls, and that he'd been prodded by her refusal to be cowed into revealing himself.

  "Did he threaten you, Casey? During the trial? Or after?"

  "He called once, to try to get me to drop the charges. He even tried to convince me I was wrong, that it had been … consensual. He told me then that I'd regret it if I went ahead. He was furious that I'd already ruined his life."

  "What about your life?" Clay snapped, holding her so closely that she couldn't help but be comforted. He rubbed a hand up and down her back; she found the rhythmic, warm touch oddly soothing. "What did you tell him?" he asked finally.

  "That the only thing I regretted was thinking he was human."

  Clay startled her with his laugh. "That's my girl," he said, and a little thrill shot through her. "This bozo didn't have any idea who he was picking on, did he? He probably thought you'd never have the guts to take him down."

  "He told me I didn't. It just made me madder. Aunt Fay always taught me that you have to stand up for yourself, and not to expect anybody else to do it for you."

  "She was a very wise woman," he said. "And she raised a wise niece."

  "If I was so wise, why did I fall for his act and believe he was a friend?" It was the question she'd asked herself countless times, wondering how a person who was supposedly relatively intelligent had been so blindly stupid.

  "He's probably had a lot of practice putting on a smooth front, making people think he's a class act."

  "That's how he comes across. He's smart, witty and charming."

  "And," he added, "he probably knew a threat to his future plans when he saw one."

  She looked at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

  "If he's as smart as you say, he probably knew you were his competition. And he wanted to keep an eye on you."

  Her breath caught. "You think that's why he … was so friendly? Pretended to be friends?"

  He shrugged. "People like him are generally always on the lookout for those they think can threaten them. They like to keep an eye on them, so they can try to sabotage them."

  It made a certain warped sense. It had seemed only natural at the time that they talk about work, what projects they had been assigned, how their employee evaluations had gone, what supervisors they got on with, which ones they didn't. But now it seemed entirely possible that there had been an ulterior motive, that instead of carrying on a conversation, he had been subtly pumping her for information.

  Several silent moments passed before Clay said gently, "You need to report this, you know."

  She shivered, and he tightened his arms around her. It was so strange to have someone there, to not be alone to deal with the shaky aftermath of the caller.

  "I don't even know where he is. What can they do?" she said, only realizing when she heard the forlorn sound of her own voice just how much she was reeling. That the caller was now confirmed as Jon made it so much worse. She wasn't sure if she could have dealt with it at all, except that Clay was there, holding her, even as he began to give practical advice.

  "To a convicted rapist who harasses or stalks his victim after his release? A lot," he said grimly. "We'll call the locals. Get a report on file. Call the prosecuting attorney. Make sure he's really out. They'll know where he was paroled to, and who his parole officer is. Call the cops there. He'll have to have been registered as a sex offender."

  Casey took more comfort out of that single "we" than she did out of all his brisk and professional suggestions. She also knew that it meant little more than a caring man trying to comfort an upset woman, and that reading more into it was worse than foolish, it was stupid.

  It was a knowledge she found hard to hang on to as the sun rose and the entire world seemed different to her. The passionate night had brought her back to a sense of herself as whole, no longer among the walking wounded. She wasn't silly enough to think one tender night had healed her; she knew she would forever carry scars from the attack. But she'd been more afraid than she realized that she would never be able to respond normally to a man, and Clay had vanquished that fear.

  Not, she thought wryly, that she thought the way she had responded had been normal. She hadn't known it was possible to need so much, want so much, be so mindless with arousal that nothing else mattered. She hadn't believed it, even before Jon had shattered her very being with his vicious betrayal.

  Now she believed it.

  The morning would have been awkward if it hadn't been for the distraction of doing all the things Clay had suggested. The world had indeed changed, Casey thought ruefully, if dealing with Jon's apparent lingering zeal for revenge was almost welcome, giving her something else to think about other than what would happen now with Clay.

  She thought he might have welcomed the distraction, as well. He'd said nothing about the night that had passed between them, had only hovered until he was sure she had begun the phone calls he'd outlined; then he'd gone out to work. As if it were just another day, like all the days before. But she was unsettled enough herself not to take offense at it; she needed some time to think, and he made her too restless, too edgy, to do that.

  She didn't like having to call the local sheriff's office and amend her original report; they were, as she'd expected, not happy that she'd kept the fact of the rape from them. And now her reasoning, that she'd just wanted it to go away, and that it had been so long and the voice so unfamiliar that she genuinely had thought it had no connection, seemed a bit lame even to her.

  However, she was gratified by the reaction of Michelle Carter, the attorney who had prosecuted Jon. The woman let out a string of obscene names that almost made Casey giggle, so incongruous was the image of the elegant, polished woman using such language. Michelle promised she would find out everything she could, and that before the week was out, Jon Nesbit would know that he had stepped in it in a big way, and she would see his parole violated if he so much as sneezed in Casey's direction again.

  Casey didn't doubt it; Michelle had been a rock, a fiery, righteous presence in the court, and Casey knew she had contributed great
ly to the conviction. She would take care of it all, Michelle said, her anger fairly vibrating in her voice, calling the parole board, the agency where Nesbit had been paroled, all of it.

  "It shouldn't be, but sometimes an official voice has a bit more weight than the victim's. Let me handle it."

  "I will," Casey said gratefully. "And thank you."

  She sat there for a long time after she'd hung up, the memories flitting through her mind in short clips: the awful, painful reporting process; the long, agonizing court process; the nastiness of Jon's attorney's constant attempts to trip her up, to get her to say something, anything, that would lend credence to Jon's claim that it had been consensual. But Michelle had warned her that acquaintance rape was the toughest kind of case to prosecute, had grilled her endlessly in practice sessions, until she'd been primed for every nasty insinuation the shark had tossed at her.

  And she'd done it. She'd gotten through it, and well enough that Michelle had hugged her fiercely after, telling her she'd just won the case for them.

  And none of it had the power to make her shake anymore. None of it made her heart pound or her palms sweat. Not like it once had. Jon's call had rattled her, but she'd recovered fairly quickly. Thanks to Clay. He'd changed it from emotionally charged to a practical thing, given her a course to follow, made her feel there was a way to fight back.

  "You're smiling."

  She turned quickly, barely aware of the smile spreading across her face merely at the thought of him. He was in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, and for a moment she forgot to breathe. She'd always thought him good-looking in that lean, rangy way she liked, but now, knowing the body beneath the worn jeans and shirt intimately, she thought he was beautiful. She even liked the way his shaggy mane of hair fell forward over his forehead, thick and shiny.

  "Yes," she said, trying not to blush as the memory of that silken hair brushing over the skin of her thighs last night came to her in a vivid rush. "I'd forgotten how much I liked Michelle. The prosecuting attorney," she added in explanation. "She's going to handle everything. She was … very angry."

  "Good," Clay said succinctly. "Nothing liked a pissed ADA to get things going. Did you make the call to the locals?"

  A qualm struck her as she suddenly realized he was keeping his distance, not moving from the doorway.

  "Yes," she said. "They weren't happy that I hadn't told them about the assault before, but they took the information. Are you coming in?"

  She hadn't meant to ask it, hadn't meant to comment on it at all, but it had slipped out before she could stop it.

  "No."

  That was blunt enough, Casey thought, wincing inwardly. Then Clay nodded downward, and she realized his new work boots were coated with mud.

  "The outside pump works again now," he said.

  "Oh." Feeling more than a little foolish, she added, "Thanks."

  He shrugged. "Couldn't start the gutters without those nails."

  "Oh! I forgot. I'll go get them right now." She gave him a sideways glance. "Do you want to go into town?"

  He shook his head. "I'll get things ready so I can start as soon as you get back."

  "Okay." She didn't know if she was disappointed or relieved.

  He turned to go, then halted. He seemed to hesitate for a long moment before looking back at her. He started to speak, then stopped. Nervousness skittered through Casey as wild ideas about what he could be trying to say shot through her mind. Was he regretting last night? Was he looking for a way to tell her not to assume anything? To remind her that he would be leaving again, and soon?

  "If we're going to … replay last night," he finally said, "you might want to think about something a little more reliable for birth control."

  "I'll do that," she said softly, blushing a bit herself at the happiness that bubbled up inside her; he wasn't going to run. It seemed her trust hadn't been completely repaired yet, she thought. He'd only been embarrassed, or maybe uncertain how to bring it up.

  She was so relieved at the implications of his words that it was only later, after she'd picked up the nails at the Exchange, that she thought about the actual sense of what he'd said.

  "Birth control," she muttered under her breath as she stood on the sidewalk. She could call her doctor, she supposed, and get a prescription. But if she got it filled at Clark's Drugs, word would be out before the day was over that Casey Scott had a sudden need for the pill. Besides, she wasn't sure it was immediately effective.

  Condoms? she wondered. Same problem—if she bought a box at Clark's, that would get around even faster than the pill news.

  She sighed; there was a price for the intimacy of a small town where everybody knew who you were and the grapevine hummed light-years faster than the corn grew. It wasn't that she was ashamed, or trying to keep Clay a secret, but she wasn't quite ready to run an ad yet, either. He was going to leave, she told herself, and she didn't want to have to explain that. Or why she'd let the relationship go so far even so.

  But she would have a lot more to explain if she got pregnant.

  She quashed the image of a immature version of Clay, a little boy with a shock of dark hair and vivid hazel eyes, and determinedly headed down the street. She would stop at Harvey's Books to see if that vegetable cookbook had arrived; then she would figure out what to do about … the other.

  Jean Harvey was on the phone when she went in, and she waved at Casey rather urgently, which Casey knew meant she had something to tell her. The cookbook must have gotten there, she thought. She wandered around, idly looking. She wondered if she would ever again be able to read the suspense novels that had once been her favorites. She used to curl up in bed, reading by the warm light of Aunt Fay's big brass lamp. But after what had happened to her, the fear the characters felt had become too close, too real, and she could no longer enjoy the scary tales with the comforting knowledge that it would never happen to her.

  Maybe someday. Or maybe not. But at least she had hope now. And even Jon's threats couldn't crush them. Not now, not—

  "Casey, I've been hoping you'd drop in."

  Jean was hustling toward her as fast as her considerable bulk would allow.

  "Hello, Jean. My cookbook came in?"

  For a moment the older woman looked blank. Then, "Oh! Yes, it did, a couple of days ago. I have it set aside for you. But what I wanted to show you was this."

  She handed Casey a hardcover book with a dramatic black-and-red dust jacket. Pack of Jackals, it read, with a subtitle of The Destruction of a Street Gang. Casey looked at Jean curiously.

  "I knew I'd heard of Marina Heights before," the woman said. "I saw it in a publisher's catalog."

  Marina Heights? Casey looked at the book again. She flipped it over to see a portrait of a handsome, muscular black man wearing a black beret at a jaunty angle.

  "That Lang fellow," Jean said, "he went undercover, joined a street gang out there in California. Spent over a year with them. The book's all about that, and how the police out there also had somebody undercover, and how he broke up the gang."

  "The Marina Heights police?" Casey asked, her breath catching slightly.

  "Yes. It's really quite fascinating. But awful. I don't know how those folks live like that out there. Might have better weather, but what good does it do if you can't step outside your house?"

  Casey murmured something as Jean ran on with one of her favorite topics. She opened the book in what she hoped was a casually interested manner, flipping through some pages, quickly scanning a section of photos in the middle, searching the captions. She realized it was silly to expect anything, that Clay had been long gone before any of this had happened, but still she couldn't help it. She even checked the index. And nearly gasped when she found the entry. Yeager, Clay, 350-351.

  It was all she could do not to flip to the page immediately. With an effort, she closed the book and gave Jean a smile. "Interesting. Maybe I'll buy it, to remind me how glad I am to live here and not in earthquake country." />
  It was shameless, the way she played to Jean's pet subject, but it worked. Jean kept chattering, apparently not having noticed anything unusual in Casey's reaction to the book. Or in her decision to buy it.

  She was back out in her car, a few doors down, before she took the book out of the bag and opened it, turning large sections of pages until she got close, then leafing to page 350.

  She read a description of Marina Heights detective Ryan Buckhart, the undercover officer who had himself run with the vicious adult street gang known as the Pack for months, risking his life to gather the evidence necessary to take them down. Curious, she flipped back to the photo section and blinked when she saw the picture of a tall, broad-shouldered, exotically—impossibly—handsome man of Native American heritage.

  All that and guts, too, she murmured to herself.

  Quickly she went back to the text and read on. She gathered from the context that it had been quite an adventure, that neither the writer nor the cop had really known who the other was, yet they had both sensed there was more to the other than met the eye.

  And then she hit Clay's name and forgot the rest. It had been Ryan who had mentioned him, who had told Carny Lang, the writer, that he'd simply learned from the best. And the best, according to Ryan, was Clay Yeager.

  "I was a wild kid, but he pulled me off the street," Ryan was quoted as saying. "He saved me. I would have been a real member of something like the Pack until I got myself killed. But he never gave up on me, and when I became a cop, he was still there for me, taught me what it took to be a good one. Wherever he is, I owe him more than I can ever say."

  Lang had added a footnote to that on the next page: Clay Yeager, it said, was a legend at the department known as Trinity West, and beyond. The three-time Medal of Valor winner had resigned and disappeared after a personal tragedy, but his reputation hadn't faded in the intervening years.

  Casey closed the book and sat holding it for several moments.