Homestead

Chapter Four

Clay was the last person Tess expected to see, and for a heartbeat, her head spun and a jumble of thoughts, all of them absurd, raced through her mind. Clay sounded just the same, her voice as smooth and rich as the dark chocolate of her eyes. Her chestnut hair, curling over the collar of her rough-grained black leather jacket, was an inch longer than it had been and still windblown and wild. Of all the things Tess might have recalled, she thought of Clay’s hair and how she’d always liked the way it looked, as if Clay had just climbed off her motorcycle—ruffled and untamed. Just the way Clay had always seemed to her.

Tess folded her arms across her chest. She hadn’t been taken in by appearances in a long time, so she let herself look. Clay stood, her legs sheathed in black leather, straddling the gleaming black bike, her dusty black boots planted firmly on the earth of Tess’s driveway. She still looked like she owned everything around her. Probably assumed she did. Or would. Maybe that’s why Tess had been so taken with her—her utter confidence was magnetic.

Tess pushed aside the tug of appreciation along with something even deeper, something more visceral she couldn’t control but didn’t have to accept—not any longer. That summer she’d been barely seventeen, just off the farm, and she’d never met anyone like Clay before. Handsome and outgoing and so, so charming. She’d been too blinded by Clay’s image to see. If she’d known what a Land Rover was, she would have wondered how a girl had a seventy-thousand-dollar SUV. She’d never realized Clay’s hair hadn’t been cut in the front parlor of a homegrown hairdresser’s roadside rancher the way hers had been, but styled in some expensive salon. She’d never seen Clay’s house. Hadn’t questioned much of anything. When they’d talked—and it seemed they’d talked all the time when they were together—Clay asked about her, made her feel special, and she’d gloried in the attention. Clay’s rough and careless exterior had camouflaged her wealth and privilege to the naïve farm girl who hadn’t known any better. But she knew better now. She’d been taken in then, but she wasn’t innocent now.

“I heard you were coming to town,” Tess said and felt the frost in her tone.

“Did you?” Clay said. “I didn’t know myself until this morning.”

“Well, I guess I should say your company’s reputation precedes you,” Tess said. “NorthAm Fuels, right?”

Clay nodded, her gaze appraising.

“I didn’t know it would be you.”

“Hoped it wouldn’t be?” Clay said.

“Your words, not mine.”

“Tess.” Clay glanced away, drove her hand through her hair. “I don’t know what to say—”

“There’s nothing to say.” Tess turned away, carefully placed the envelopes into the mailbox. She’d forgotten how Clay always made her name sound as if it were a sigh, as if just saying the word was as satisfying as a kiss. And for a second just now, Clay had looked genuinely disturbed. As if the past haunted her too. “No.”

“What?”

Clay’s whisper came to her on the wind the way her image used to come to Tess as she lay awake watching the clouds blow in over the lake, listening to the distant sound of thunder and imagining a motorcycle engine growing louder. Never again. Tess wanted to scream at her to get out of her driveway, out of her mind, out of the places deep inside that still remembered. Taking a breath, stepping out of the past with determination, Tess quietly closed the lid on the mailbox and flipped up the red flag to signal the postman to stop for a pickup in the morning. She pivoted toward the house, glancing at Clay over one shoulder as she walked away. “The time to say something would’ve been years ago. When it mattered.”

Clay gritted her teeth. The anger in Tess’s voice, the disdain in her face, cut deep. She couldn’t give Tess the answers she wanted now, any more than she could have the day she’d left. Too many people’s secrets would be revealed, and for what? She’d brought about the situation herself, and she couldn’t undo the hurt she’d caused. Feeling helpless, she reacted instinctively and totally out of character, calling after her, “Did you ever leave the farm?”

Tess stopped, turned. “No. I never thought of it, not after I gave up the idea of running away with you.”

“Jesus, Tess.” Clay jammed the kickstand down with her heel, vaulted off the bike, and strode to Tess, kicking up small puffs of dirt and stones beneath her boots. “We were practically kids. Dreaming.”

“Oh, I know,” Tess said softly, her eyes like winter. “I know that now. Believe me.”

“So, can we—”

“No,” Tess said. The last thing she wanted was the old memories resurfacing. She knew they’d been young, knew she’d been foolish, and she was as angry at herself as she was with Clay. She’d believed without question, trusted with foolish innocence, and culpability in her pain was what she’d carried forward over the years. She would never go blindly into a relationship again, and though the lesson had been excruciating, it’d been an important one. Maybe she had more to thank Clay for than she’d ever realized. “We’re not friends, Clay.”

“I don’t expect that,” Clay said, surprised at how much she wanted Tess to feel differently. She was used to facing distrust and even dislike when she showed up in a new place to push through NorthAm’s agenda, but she’d always believed Tess had seen the real her. Wanted, needed to believe that. She’d obviously been wrong. “I just thought we could talk.”

Tess shook her head. “Why? We’re strangers, and if what I’m hearing is true, we don’t have anything in common anymore.”

Clay frowned. “What are you talking about? What are you hearing?”

“You’re here to start drilling on the Hansen property, aren’t you?”

Clay rifled through her mental file folder of topographical survey maps, calling up the coordinates of the planned drill sites in eastern New York, superimposing the broken lines denoting property parcels. “Seventy-five acres a quarter mile off 74, mostly fallow fields, second-growth trees on the elevations, a tongue of the Marcellus Shale twenty-five hundred feet down. Is that the one?”

“You make it sound like it’s on the moon.”

“What?”

“Impersonal.”

Clay frowned. “I’m not following.”

Tess waved an impatient hand. “You know, Clay, this land is more than lines on a map and geological surveys. There are people on this land, families who’ve been here for hundreds of years. People, Clay, who are as much a part of the land as what runs through it.”

“I know that.” Clay tried to rein in her frustration. She was playing catch-up on this project, still had paperwork to review—something else that was atypical for her. She always made it a point to be on top of any situation before negotiations began, and she’d planned to spend the night going over all the data regarding local ordinances, community preparedness, and rights agreements. None of that would matter to Tess. “I can’t say for sure exactly where we’ll start, but that might be right. The Hansen place.”

“Well, that happens to be right over that ridge.” Tess pointed to a hill, backlit by the setting sun, behind her house. A dozen deer were silhouetted on the ridge. “And I can’t say that’s something I want to happen.”

“Look, Tess,” Clay said, “this isn’t the way we usually do business. Once I get a look at the site, I’ll be visiting the neighboring farms, explaining what we’ll be doing and why it won’t be a problem.”

Tess smiled thinly. Clay was so adamant, so direct, her gaze never wavering. She would be so easy to believe. The thought was terrifying. Tess wouldn’t be trapped again by the intensity in Clay’s eyes. Couldn’t afford to be, on so many levels. “You mean you’ll be selling the company line?”

“No, I’ll be giving the facts. Something you might want to hear before you form an opinion.”

Tess jammed her hands on her hips. “The facts? Is that anything like the truth, Clay?”

“You don’t know me, Tess—if you’d—”

“You’re right, Clay. Finally we agree. I don’t know you. I never did.” A flush colored Tess’s cheeks and she spun away, striding off down the drive.

“Damn it, Tess!” Clay stalked after her, her longer strides overtaking Tess’s quickly. She grabbed Tess’s arm and Tess whirled around, one hand raised. Clay stared, expecting the blow, feeling as if she’d been expecting it for a long time and not really minding. Maybe she’d feel better if Tess did strike her. She deserved some penance, after all.

Tess backed up a step, an expression of horror draining the color from her face. “I’m sorry.” She looked down at Clay’s hand grasping her wrist. “Please let me go.”

Clay dropped her hand. “Is there any way we can start again?”

“None at all.” Tess’s gaze was shuttered, her voice curiously flat. “If there’s something you need to discuss, please call me first. Don’t drop by.”

Clay looked out over the farm. So much she wanted to ask. To know. “I won’t. I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” Tess said softly. “So am I. About so many things.”

“I’ll call,” Clay said, knowing it had always been too late.

“Good-bye, Clay.”

Clay didn’t move, willing Tess to turn back, willing her to see beyond the shadows to the bright sunlit summer they’d shared. But Tess kept walking, rounded a bend, and disappeared behind a trio of tall pines.

“Idiot,” Clay muttered, heading back to her bike. What had she expected, showing up out of nowhere after all these years—a kiss and, and… She stopped beside the bike, seeing nothing—nothing other than Tess’s face, the heat in her eyes. Once that heat had been desire—Tess had always been so glad to see her, so open, so welcoming. Pulling her in for a kiss, a caress of fingers through her hair. She, not Tess, was supposed to have been the experienced one—she hadn’t been a virgin after all. Not really, not technically. That day in the solarium while everyone celebrated on the patio, Vicky had taken her hand, guided it under her dress, beneath the silk panties, placed it just so. Clay had been drunk on the feel of her, high on the soft gasps of pleasure, too caught up to hear footsteps on the marble tiles as Vicky bit her neck and climaxed in her hand. Nothing about Vicky compared to Tess—to the unself-conscious, unfettered joy Tess had taken in their mutual pleasure. There had been no one like her since. Maybe after the first time, there never could be again. “Idiot.”

Clay jammed on her helmet, threw a leg over the Harley, and stomped on the starter. The engine growled, roared to life, and Clay tore away, throttling too fast, her back wheel skidding on the tight curve in front of Tess’s cow barn. She nearly dropped the bike right there and, heart racing, throttled back and fought the shuddering, bucking machine back into line. Killing herself or someone else was not going to change the way Tess felt about her. She deserved every bit of Tess’s recriminations and should have expected worse. She’d done nothing to change what had happened, hadn’t known how to stand up for herself or for Tess and maybe, somewhere deep in her heart, she hadn’t wanted to. Maybe she’d known all along that those few idyllic months at the lake were pure fantasy, and she’d selfishly allowed them to go on. All because Tess had looked at her as if she could do anything, and when she was with Tess, she’d believed that she could. Tess had had such faith in her, she’d let herself dream—about freedom, happiness, love. Tess had set her free, and she had not cared who might pay the price for that freedom.

And when it all came crashing down, she wasn’t a hero anymore. She’d fallen into line the way she always had, acquiescing to her father’s demands, accepting his rationalization—that her leaving was the only way to protect Tess, that a public scandal would ruin her as well as Clay.

“We can weather anything,” her father said, “but this girl—can she? In a town like that, where the rumors, the speculation, will never end? If you care about her, Clayton…”

If you care about her, he’d said. And Clay had lied, yet again. Under her father’s calculating gaze, she’d said, “It wasn’t anything serious. Whatever you heard is an exaggeration.”

Her father nodded, as if hearing what he’d expected to hear. “Very well. The situation is being handled. Manny will take care of retrieving your belongings and the Defender. You won’t be needing the motorcycle at Stanford. Arrangements have been made for you to arrive early in California. You should see to packing.”

Three weeks early. He wanted her out of the house, out of the state. She’d wanted to drive north again. To see Tess. To explain. As always, he’d read her mind and preempted her desires.

“You understand,” her father said with cool finality, “you cannot see this girl again. For her own good.”

You cannot see this girl again.

Clay took the corner onto Route 74 at forty miles an hour, overshooting the lane and swerving over the centerline. The headlights of an oncoming vehicle momentarily blinded her, and she yanked the bike back by instinct as a cement truck blasted by, horn blaring.

For her own good. Her father had given her the perfect excuse for walking away.