Born Innocent Page 9

  “Honey, we’ve got the car right here,” her mother said softly to her.

  Claire looked down to the foot of the broad steps. Sure enough, her mother’s big Chrysler was parked in the first space beyond the handicapped spot. Being a Snow and on the best of terms with all the officials in the county had its advantages.

  “Thanks, Mother. But a car is ridiculous. It’s just around the corner. I’ll walk.”

  “But, dear. Surely you don’t want to deal with all the responsibilities of the motel right now. Why don't you come home with me for awhile? Joe has volunteered to look after Snow’s Inn for a few days.” Ella actually managed a thankful smile for the man on the other side of her daughter. “Come on, honey. Let me spoil you for a while.”

  Claire shook her head. “Thanks, but no. I just want to go home.”

  They were at the foot of the steps now, beside Ella’s car, beneath a big Japanese plane tree. A few people sat on the benches of the courthouse veranda, and one or two wandered up and down the steps.

  Ella continued to keep her voice scrupulously low; this was family business and certainly no concern of hoi polloi. “Surely you aren’t still angry about that foolish ultimatum I gave you Saturday. I take it back. I truly do. Both you and Joe know I don’t feel he’s...a suitable man for you. But these are special circumstances. If you feel safer having him watch over you, well, he’s welcome to spend the nights at my house, too. Perhaps we can get Verna or Amelia to stay ’round the clock at Snow’s Inn for a while. I’m sure either one of them would—”

  “Thanks, Mother. But no. I want to go home. My own home. And that’s that.”

  Joe said gently, “Claire, maybe you ought to listen to Ella.”

  Claire looked from her mother to Joe. The world had truly turned upside down. Joe Tally now called her mother by her first name and received no reprimand for it. Any other time in the past twenty years, Claire would have been ecstatic to witness such an event.

  But right now it only seemed like more proof that nothing was as it should be, that nightmare was reality.

  She said very levelly, “Thank you both for...everything. But right now I would like to be left alone to live my life, please. I am free for one week, and then all this... garbage starts all over again. For that week, I will live like an adult. I will take care of myself. That’s how I want it, and that’s how it will be.”

  With that, she moved from between the two of them and strode off down the street. She’d turned the corner onto Quartz Lane before she was really positive that neither one of them was going to follow her.

  At the motel, she found Amelia manning the desk. Amelia jumped about a foot when she saw her boss stride in. The fanzine she was reading was whipped behind her back and she swallowed convulsively—ridding herself, no doubt, of a forbidden hunk of bubble gum.

  “Claire! H-how are you?”

  “Fine, Amelia. Thank you for looking after things.”

  “Hey. It’s nothin’. Any time. Er, look...I really feel rotten about having to tell Wayne Leven that you said you’d kicked that Henson guy out the other night.”

  “Forget it,” Claire told her, meaning it. “You told the truth, and that’s all you can do.” Claire bustled behind the counter, hoping this subject was done with.

  But Amelia hadn’t fully expunged her guilty feelings yet. “Well, I didn’t like doing it,” she insisted. “Because, no matter what they try to pin on you, everyone in town knows you’d never...” Amelia’s voice faded as she registered the strained expression on her boss’s face. “So, anyway, what’s happened? In court?”

  “They still think I shot Henson, and I have to go before the grand jury next week. But they let me out on bail until then.”

  “Gee, tough break,” Amelia sympathized. “But at least you’re out, right?”

  “Right. That’s what I keep trying to tell myself. Now what’s the status of the rooms?”

  Amelia puffed up her chest proudly. “I got all but number three and number seven done before Joe Tally had to leave for the courthouse.”

  “Great. What about the back bungalow?”

  “It’s still got the tape barriers around it.”

  Claire made a mental note. Tomorrow she would call the sheriff’s office and demand to know when they’d be through collecting evidence—or whatever they were doing—from the bungalow. She wanted to get in there and clean it up.

  And, yes, damn it, maybe she wanted to look around a little, too, see if she could find anything that the sheriff’s investigators had missed—some tiny clue that might hint at who had stolen her gun and then shot a man with it.

  “Er, should I get on back to work?” Amelia asked. She was looking at Claire nervously.

  Claire knew she was scowling, and schooled herself to a calmer expression. “Yes, go ahead. And, Amelia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks again, for staying late.”

  Amelia’s pretty face bloomed in a grin. “You’re welcome. Really.” She shoved the inevitable wad of gum into her mouth and went on her way.

  Claire moved behind the desk and straightened up her work area. When the phone rang, she answered it pleasantly and took a five-day reservation for the middle bungalow for Thanksgiving week. She didn’t even allow herself to think that by then she might be standing trial for the shooting of Henson—or worse, she might have been convicted, and be an inmate down at Folsom, or wherever it was they sent women who shot men and put them in comas.

  After forty minutes or so, Amelia appeared to say she was done for the day.

  “If you need me, you call me,” Amelia said. Tomorrow was Tuesday, and Verna would be back.

  “With all this... upheaval,” Claire said, “I really might need you.”

  “Just call.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  Claire sent her home and then locked the front door. If anyone came by, they could ring for service.

  She went back to her rooms, and found them reasonably in order after the sheriff’s people had searched them. Here and there, though, she noticed that her things had been moved slightly.

  Her bed had been torn apart and on many of the smooth furniture surfaces there was a thin coating of chalky dust. She pondered the dust for a while, before she figured out that it must be the stuff they used to check for fingerprints. She stuck her finger in it and brought it to her nose to see if it had a smell. It was odorless, but to Claire, it did smell. It smelled of the violation of her home and her life.

  She got out her cleaning bucket and spent two hours wiping away all the dust and putting her things back where they belonged. By then, it was nearly eight o’clock. She found a packaged pizza in the freezer and stuck it in the oven. Then she sat down at her little kitchen table and doggedly ate.

  Just as she was cleaning up the dishes, her mother called. Claire reassured her she was fine and hung up as quickly as she could.

  After that, she went into the living room and watched a little television, getting up when the lobby phone rang or, once, to answer the bell out front. Finally, it was nine-thirty—late enough that she could allow herself to go to bed without having to admit that she would be trying to escape this horrible day through sleep.

  She showered and she put on her summer pajamas and she lay down on her bed. She did a little of her most recent nightly pastime, ceiling-staring. But then she sighed and curled herself into a ball on her side.

  It was there, lying all tucked into herself, that she found the first comfort she’d found all day. She did it by allowing herself to imagine that the tight curl of her body cradled the tiny life within her, as much as it reassured her, its mother.

  As soon as she discovered that imagining the baby brought solace, she let herself go farther, envisioning that tiny being—surely it was no bigger than her thumbnail now—swimming contentedly in its watery world.

  She let her hand stray to her belly and she gently rubbed, pretending the baby could know her touch already, could sense the love sh
e wanted it to feel. Her stomach, she noticed then, was as flat as it had ever been. She marveled about the changes that would come.

  So far, the changes in her body were minimal: a certain sensitivity to her breasts, and a kind of knowing, blooming feeling that had made her sure in her deepest heart that she was pregnant long before she forced herself to take the test. At six weeks, she was experiencing no morning sickness, but maybe that was still to come. And even if she escaped the nausea and other unpleasant symptoms that plagued some women, soon enough her stomach would grow round, her breasts full. There would be no denying her condition.

  And she’d have to tell Joe....

  At that thought, all the warm, relaxing feelings faded away. She turned, fitfully, and tried to get comfortable on her other side.

  Once more, she curled up in a ball and fiercely imagined her unborn child. But it didn’t work. She felt too guilty about Joe, about this baby that she knew he’d feel responsible for, a baby he’d had no say in creating.

  Joe himself was illegitimate. His parents had never married—either each other, or anyone else. Joe knew what it was to be called a bastard and have it be literally true. It was very possible that he was going to consider what Claire had done—foolishly letting herself get pregnant—as the worst kind of betrayal of his trust.

  More than once over the years, he’d told her that he would never have children. He thought he’d make a lousy father, and he wasn’t sure bringing a baby into a world such as this one was a good idea, anyway.

  Claire turned over again. Suddenly it was impossible to find a comfortable place in her bed. And then, just as she was punching her pillow to make it fluffier, the outside bell rang. Groaning, she sat up. She shoved her feet into her slippers and pulled on her light robe and went to answer it.

  She saw that it was Joe soon as she reached the lobby. He was clearly visible through the glass top of the door, gazing off toward the pool, waiting patiently for her to come and let him in.

  But she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to talk to anyone tonight. No one she cared about, anyway. Strangers looking for a room, she could handle. But no one who mattered to her—and certainly not Joe.

  She wanted to be alone to lick her wounds and—yes, all right, it was true—feel sorry for herself. And she would go mad right now if she had to look into eyes she loved and find pity and concern looking back at her.

  Knowing she was being foolish, she ducked behind the desk and backed up until she was safely in her own rooms once more.

  The bell rang again just as she reached the dim sanctuary of her bedroom. She climbed into bed and put her pillow over her head. Still, she heard the third ring. She ignored it.

  After that, everything was quiet.

  Until the small scraping sounds that told her the screen in the open window near her bed was being efficiently removed.

  Claire sat up and gathered the sheet close, as if it might protect her. She watched as the shadowed figure climbed smoothly over the sill.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Whatever it takes,” he muttered wryly, “to make sure you’re all right.” He swung himself fully into her bedroom and stood tall.

  “I’m fine. I want to be alone,” she said.

  “You’ve been alone long enough.”

  She stared at him, wanting to cry and laugh at the same time—but unable to do either. The irony of this situation was not lost on her. Six weeks ago, he’d been the one not answering his door, and she’d had to crawl in a window to get through to him.

  “Go away,” she snapped. Then, feeling hopeless and torn in two—wanting him to go, yet longing for him to stay—she found she couldn’t look at him. She bowed her head and stared at her hands instead.

  He took the two steps to the bed. “It’s bad, huh?”

  She didn’t look up. “Just go. Please.”

  He said nothing. She felt the bed give as he sat on the edge.

  Then he reached out, wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his lean body. She went, resisting a little, but not enough to make him release her.

  He cradled her against his chest and stroked her hair. She moved fitfully against him for a moment, and then she breathed deeply, finding that it felt good to have him hold her. Her body, of its own accord, began to relax. She sighed and allowed herself to listen to the reassuring sound of his heartbeat.

  “Cry,” he suggested softly. “Let yourself go. You’ll feel better if you do.”

  “I can’t, not now,” she told him. “Right now, I just couldn’t let down my guard that much.” She took in a wobbly breath. “It’s all so... wrong, Joe. I just can’t believe that this could happen. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right....”

  He made a low sound in his throat, one of agreement. They sat there, in the warmth of the summer night, their arms wrapped around each other, saying nothing for a while.

  The feel of him against her was better than words. The way he held her said he knew her numbness. The numbness that covered anger that, deeper down, covered fear at the way her own world had betrayed her.

  She’d told him on that night six weeks ago that she was not innocent. But maybe he’d been right. She had been innocent. She’d been trusting, in the way that only a person to whom the world has always been fair can be trusting. She’d lived thirty years secure in her sheltered belief that

  good always won and truth set a person free....

  And now, with a baby growing inside her, she was beginning to wonder if any of what she had so naively assumed was true. Lately the world seemed a cold and shadowed place. And it was into this place that her baby, within mere months, would be born.

  Still, with Joe’s arms around her, she felt a little stronger, a little more able to cope.

  Joe stroked her hair gently. “Feel better?”

  “Yes, Joe, I do.”

  “Good.” He took her face in his hands. “Now listen. I’ve just come from talking to your mother.”

  For the first time in hours, Claire allowed herself a genuine smile. “You and my mother are getting to be real buddies lately.”

  “We both want the same thing,” he told her. “For you to through this without it breaking you.”

  She stiffened a little, thinking of the baby. For the baby’s sake if nothing else, she couldn’t afford to be broken. “It won’t break me.” Her voice was firm and clear.

  “Good.” He dropped his hands away and hitched a leg up onto the bed.

  She bravely went on smiling, letting herself enjoy the humor in the idea of Joe Tally and Ella Snow putting their heads together over the problem of her own mental health. “And what brilliant plan have you and my mother cooked up now?”

  “Well, it wasn’t really your mother’s idea. In fact, she’s not at all thrilled about it.” He looked unsure.

  “What is it?” she demanded. “Joe?”

  “Hell.” He looked away.

  “Joe?” She touched the side of his face to make him turn back to her again.

  His skin felt rough, with a day’s worth of beard. In her midsection, without warning, that familiar blooming sensation began.

  Even now, she thought, with all that’s happened in this miserable day, it’s so easy to want him. So easy to remember that one glorious night...

  He looked into her eyes once more and she saw that the touch had affected him, too. There was heat in his gaze. He wanted her, too.

  In less than an instant, everything had changed. Their easy companionship had become something else. She was painfully aware of what she’d hardly considered before; they were sitting in her darkened bedroom, on her bed, in the middle of the night.

  “Damn it, Claire.” His voice was gruff. “Don’t even think it. It’s not a good idea.”

  She didn’t want to hear him tell her what they shouldn’t do. “Joe...” She touched his face again, tracing a slow trail along his strong jaw to his neck, and lower down, until she clasped his shoulder, felt the stre
ngth in it, through the fabric of his shirt.

  “No,” he said.

  “Please...” She was shameless. She didn’t care. Right then, there might never have been an agreement. It didn’t exist. There was only herself and Joe and the hunger to be close to him, to take him inside her, and to move with him to a place beyond guilt or innocence, where only sensation reigned.

  He clasped the hand that clutched his shoulder and his eyes burned into hers. “It would be a mistake.”

  “No.” She shook her head for emphasis. “It would only be. ..what we both want. It would hurt no one. And it would give me... comfort, when I need it the most. Just like what I gave you six weeks ago. A fair exchange.”

  For a long moment they looked at each other. And then the miracle happened.

  With a low groan, he reached out and pulled her against him. His hard arms encircled her and his mouth closed over her own.

  The kiss went on forever, hot and carnal and weighted with the promise of what might come next. Claire reveled in the taste of him, after these long weeks of hunger and longing. She moaned and her lips parted. His tongue played with hers as she pressed herself against him. She let her hands roam freely over his broad back and shoulders, relearning every hard contour. Her senses swam; she was awash in a sweet and slightly frantic delight.

  But then, out of nowhere, he pulled back.

  She cried softly, “No!”

  But he held her at arm’s distance once more. “Claire.” His tone was rough and husky. “This is not what I came here for.”

  She opened her heavy eyes and looked at him, so he would know this was a conscious choice for her. “It doesn’t matter. It’s what I want.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

  “You’ll regret it. After all this is... worked out.”

  “Never. Not for a moment. As long as I live.”

  He was gripping her shoulders tightly, holding her carefully away. He stared at her so hard she felt as if his eyes seared twin holes in her own.

  Then he said, “All right.”

  Chapter Eight