Another heartbeat, and then Johnny finally followed Jessout the swinging door. Claire just watched, her heart as torn as it had ever been, her head reeling with memories, with allthe leftover emotions from the years they’d struggled together just to make it to this place where the three of themcould be safe.
And in the end, they weren’t safe at all. But only Claireknew that. Claire and the stranger in her kitchen.
“You’re sure it’s okay?” Tony said, bringing Clairesharply to attention.
When she realized that they were the only two left behind with the clock edging its way toward midnight, sheflushed uncomfortably.
He was such a handsome man. He was a man who couldeasily have set her nerve endings to dancing, if she only lethim.
She wouldn’t.
She smiled, but her heart wasn’t anywhere in the vicinityof it. “I’d offer you another beer, but you just had the lastone. Coffee?”
“Coffee’d be great. They’re good kids.”
Coffeepot already in hand, Claire sighed. “We’re used towatching out for each other. It’s a hard habit to break.”
“You shouldn’t have to. You’ve done a good job withthem.”
“Thanks.”
“They know you served.”
The water splashed in the sink. Claire watched that ratherthan face the man leaning against the counter to her right.“Of course.”
“But they don’t know you’ve been having problems.”
Claire shrugged. “It’s nothing I haven’t been able tohandle. I guess you just surprised me.”
“Does anybody know?”
This time Claire didn’t even answer. She just walked overand poured the water into the coffeemaker.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, his voice impossibly gentle.
Claire hesitated no more than a second. A heart-stoppingsecond of anguish that threatened to crush her on the spot.Then, as purposefully as she did anything in her life, sheflipped on the coffee to brew and turned off the water.
“So,” she said, her voice so calm she was proud of herself as she turned back to him, “you say you work in construction. What kind was it again?”
Rigid. Tony took another look around the little roomPeaches had once occupied while his cottage was being finished and came up with the same impression. Whoever hadconstructed it, restored it and begun to decorate it, had doneso with rigid attention to detail. Absolutely precise, with thecounted cross-stitch alphabet sampler perfectly square withthe beveled mirror and the pink-and-green tulip stencilingthat marched across one and a half of the walls so parallelit would have passed scientific measurements.
The house and inn had both struck him that way. Beautifully put together, but assembled so carefully that theybetrayed the extraordinary effort that had gone into everydecision, every move, every result.
The same kind of deliberate attention he’d noticed during the conversation he’d shared with Claire when they’d satdown at the kitchen table for four hours.
He’d spent all night in Claire Henderson’s kitchen wanting to talk about what was terrifying her, and found himself carefully guided into a discussion on housing codes andarchitectural tastes instead. Not that he was surprised. He’dfound himself in more than one marathon in the past fewyears, some he’d initiated, some he’d merely participated in.Long, rambling conversations with no more purpose thanpushing back the dark.
But somehow it seemed a far less acceptable thing onClaire. Maybe because he still heard that voice, soft and insistent and sure, soaking its way right through the pain andconfusion and terror to tell him it was going to be all right. Maybe because he realized now the luminous beauty he’donly imagined before, saw the girl she’d been and thewoman she’d become in the softening in her eyes when sheturned to her children. In the way she adopted strays and made them feel welcome in her home.
Whatever else Claire Henderson was, to him or anyoneelse, she was a good heart. She deserved brighter smiles andthe kind of peace of mind that let her sleep at night.
She deserved better than what she had.
And so, as the sun cleared the old pecans that fronted thehouse, instead of catching up on the sleep he’d missed the night before, Tony found himself making a collect phone call.
“Tony?”
Tony stretched out on the narrow old bed with its candlewickbedspread and closed his eyes, his attention five hundred miles away. “Hey, Andy.Semper fì.”
