Love in Bloom (18 page)

Clay pulled back defensively, as much from the power of her touch as from her comment.  "Why did you bring him here if you don't trust me with him?"

She released his arm.  "I trust you with him.  It's just that I think he's ready to start thinking about the future and he needs guidance, not scolding."

After a brief, taut silence, Clay asked, "And why do you think I can guide him?"

"Because whatever happened to you, whatever you've been through, you survived, you came out strong.  Ben needs to know how to do that."

 Clay didn't feel strong right now.  He felt as if he was perched on the edge of the mountain, ready to tumble over the rim.  "You expect too much."

"No, I think you expect too little."

And with that, Paige headed across the yard.  She stopped and turned.  "If you let Shep out, I'll take him for a walk."

The dog must have been sitting behind the door.  At the sound of his name, he barked.  Clay opened the screen door and Shep came bounding out.

As the dog barreled toward Paige, Clay was afraid he'd jump up and knock her down.  But he merely stopped by her side.  She crouched down, petted and talked to the animal, then stood.

Clay shook his head.  She had a way with people.  She had a way with animals.  She had a way with him.  He thought he'd take some hits about their phone conversation, but she hadn't mentioned it and he felt guilty as hell.

He rubbed the back of his neck and went inside.

Ben had picked up the wildlife book on the coffee table and was paging through it.  When he saw Clay, he closed it and put it back where it belonged.

Clay didn't know how to put the teenager at ease when he was feeling so uneasy himself.  He sat on the sofa and stretched his arm across its back.  "What did you want to talk about?"

"Tell me about your accident."

Clay had thought they'd talk about Ben's future, not Clay's past.  He smiled wryly.  "You want to trade war stories?"

"I want to know how bad it was.  I want to know what you went through, how you felt."

Clay pulled in a deep breath.  "I don't remember the accident per se."

"You don't?  Man, I remember that car getting too close..."  Ben cringed.

"It's not unusual for head...uh, for accident victims to blank out the trauma of the accident.  I remember waking up on the ledge, so filled with pain I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think.  I didn't know where I was.  There were helicopters.  Somehow, the rescue team got me onto a stretcher and into the 'copter.  I don't remember much about the next few days.  The doctors kept me drugged because of the pain."  No one had realized until the drugs had worn off that Clay didn't know his name, or the people around his bed, or his birth date.  And at first, the doctors had believed once he recovered from the concussion, he'd get back to normal.

Ben's eyes were wide with interest.  "So, did you go straight to rehab or home?"

"I started rehabilitation a week after surgery.  But I didn't go to a hospital like you did.  I went to out-patient physical therapy every day."

"They told me the hospital helps you recover faster."

"That's probably true."  But Clay's family had been more concerned about his mental rehabilitation.  His mother and Trish had begun working with him as soon as he was home.  Thank God they hadn't waited for the recovery the doctors had first predicted.

Ben elbowed the throw pillow in back of him to the corner of his chair.  "Did they constantly push you to do more, to do better?"

He remembered not being able to lift his arm to comb his hair.  He remembered not being able to read a written page.  "I pushed myself, Ben.  I wanted a life again even if it didn't include climbing rocks."

"So why didn't you go back to engineering?  You said that's what you studied."

Clay shifted on the sofa.  He didn't want to lie to Ben,  but he wasn't ready to divulge everything.  So he told him the truth as he saw it.  "Anything serious--accidents, the loss of someone you love, anything that shakes up your life--makes you think differently.  I could have died on that ledge.  I could have died during surgery or in intensive care.  Just facing that made me reexamine everything."

Ben clearly didn't understand.  "Like what?"

"What I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  I'd been given a second chance, Ben.  And I could do anything I wanted within my capabilities.  I no longer wanted to spend my life cooped up in an office, only being free to really breathe on weekends.  The rock climbing had been an escape to break out of a life my father had molded for me."  He and Trish had figured that out one of the many times they'd discussed the old Clay.

"You didn't want to be an engineer?"

"I had the ability and the intelligence, and my father wanted me as his partner in his business."

Ben frowned.  "You were railroaded."

Clay smiled at Ben's perception.  "I didn't know it at the time.  I was doing what was expected of me.  I guess at eighteen I didn't think I had a choice.  But you do.  You can do anything you want."

Ben looked at his sneakers and rubbed his toe against the fringe of the rug.  "Except play football."

"Except play football," Clay agreed, realizing Ben was finally letting go of his dream.

Ben rubbed his palm over the knee of his jeans.  "It's so hard, you know?  I've never thought of doing anything else.  Football's all that mattered."

"But you were going to go to college.  What were you going to major in?"

"I wasn't.  I didn't have to declare until I was a junior.  I don't even know if I want to go to college now.  Four more years of school.  What's the point?"

Ben was beginning to change his thinking, but not enough to think of the future.  "The point is you need a good education so you'll have future options."

"I'm having enough trouble with getting through right now, Mr. Reynolds, let alone five years from now.  I could start working somewhere, making money so I can get a car."

"Ben, you have to look ahead."

"I don't want to look ahead.  That's all I did with football was look ahead so I could play pro ball some day."  He paused for a moment.  "Don't you get mad?  So damn mad at what you don't have anymore, what you could have had?"

"Yes, I get mad.  But not as much as I used to.  What good does it do?  Getting angry doesn't change the way things are."

Ben's shoulders hunched.  "I just want to punch something sometimes, or scream until the whole world hears."

Clay knew that feeling all too well.  In fact every time he thought about Paige, he wished...What?  That the accident had never happened?  That his life could be as normal as the next person's?  That he could tell Paige about the amnesia and she wouldn't look at him as if he were some kind of freak?

Ben's voice intruded on the questions.  And added one more.  "Mr. Reynolds, is your life as good now as it was before your accident?"

How could Clay answer that when he couldn't remember life before the accident?  "It's different.  Not better or worse, but different.  You can make your life anything you want it to be."

Ben pulled his left leg into the sofa and eyed it disdainfully.  "I just wish my leg would work better...more."

"Give it time."

"Didn't you get tired of waiting to get better?"

"I didn't wait.  I did everything I could to make it happen."

Shep came bounding into the living room from the kitchen and sat in front of Clay, his tail wagging.  Clay scratched around the dog's ears.

Paige entered the room and the anger Ben had spoken about, the resentment for circumstances that couldn't be changed, barreled through Clay.  And he knew he had to do something physical or explode.  But he wanted to make sure Ben had asked all his questions.

"Is there anything else, Ben?"

The teenager stood.  "No.  I just wondered...would it be all right if I talked to you once in a while?  It's hard for someone who hasn't gone through this to understand."

Clay was beginning to feel more and more boxed in.  But he couldn't say no.  He knew how important understanding could be.  It meant the difference between acceptance and rejection.

"Let me give you my cell number."  He found a notepad and wrote it down.

Paige watched the two of them, and Clay suspected she was sizing up their moods.  He wanted to ask her to come back after she took Ben home.  He wanted to apologize for his harshness the other night, take her in his arms, and kiss her until nothing mattered but the passion between them.  But Paige deserved more than passion.  She deserved a man who could share her dreams.  Clay imagined her married to a doctor, following the road her parents had forged.  Jealousy, hot and thick, rippled through him.  Yet he couldn't envision her staying in Langley anymore than he could envision her accepting his lack of a past.  If his own father couldn't...

Paige asked Ben, "Ready?"

"Yeah."  He followed her to the door, but he said to Clay, "Thanks."

Clay nodded.

Paige's gaze locked to Clay's and once more he wished he could stop wanting her.

****

Paige drove Ben home.  On her way back to Doc's, she couldn't forget the anguished look in Clay's eyes as she and Ben had left.  His words pushed her away, but there was something basic going on between them that had nothing to do with the words.  Paige almost felt he was reaching out to her, yet when she reached back, he withdrew.  Why?  Before she thought better of it, she made a U turn and let her heart lead her back to the man who held the answer to her question.

Ben had told her about his conversation with Clay, and in her opinion, the visit had helped the teenager simply because he felt someone understood.  At this moment, she was more concerned about Clay.  It was obvious he didn't believe anyone could understand.  Understand what, she didn't know.  But the story Clay had related to Ben was the edited version.  She was sure of it.

Clay was holding a secret, something that was eating him up.  And she cared about him too much to let him do that to himself.

She knocked on the front door.  Shep barked, but Clay didn't come.  When she turned the knob, the door opened and she stepped inside.  Shep rubbed his head against her knee.

"Where is he, boy?"

Shep whined and pattered into the kitchen.  She followed.  The back door stood open and she could hear a thudding sound.

When she looked through the screen door, she could see Clay at the back corner of the lot by the woodpile, his shirt off, an ax in his hands.  His shirt lay on the ground by the fence as if it had been tossed there quickly.  Even from a distance, he looked upset.

She didn't know what she was going to say to him.  She just had to go to him.

As she walked toward him, her breath caught in her chest.  His bronze skin glistened in the last rays of light.  He stood against the descending sun, his profile strong and determined and true.  When he raised his arms, his muscles rippled.  He brought down the ax with a sharp, powerful stroke.  Then he brought it down again and again.  The log split and fell.  He let it lay, stooped, hefted another log onto the splitting block, and with the same, sure rhythm, raised the ax and lowered it again.