Take Me Home (41 page)

He was still talking, as though he needed to get it all out at once. “When Willow is out of the woods, there’s something else I need to tell you. But right now, let me get your dinner order.”

She didn’t want dinner, and she didn’t want to wait to hear what he had to say, but she could tell by the set of his mouth he wouldn’t budge on either topic. She sighed and gave him a wry smile. “Willow needs food worse than I do. She keeps trying to eat the magazines.”

His chuckle was forced. “You can share your french fries with her.”

As he waited for the food delivery, he felt like some sort of online stalker, but he kept glancing at the video stream on his computer. He would finish up a patient chart, then check on Claire and Willow. He had to push himself to go on to the next patient chart. Finally, he ceased pretending to work and pulled the computer screen directly in front of his chair.

Claire sat on the dog bed reading, and Willow dozed with her head drooping so her nose nearly touched Claire’s book. Every couple of minutes, Claire would trail her fingers over the horse’s blaze and the mare would swivel her ears in acknowledgment.

The peaceful scene remained the same for several minutes. He wanted to go sit beside Claire, to brush against her shoulder with his, to ask her about her book, and then to haul her onto
his lap and kiss her until he forgot everything but the feel of her against him.

Sharon was right. He couldn’t give Claire up. It was time to let go of Anais’s secrets. Then he would be the kind of man who could ask this extraordinary woman to leave her hard-won life in the city, the kind of man who could offer her something worthwhile in return.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts he jumped when the stall door rolled open, and one of his vet techs walked in carrying an armful of dog beds and blankets. The vet tech and Claire proceeded to arrange them into a makeshift bed on the floor of the stall.

“Jesus Christ, she’s planning to spend the night in the stall,” Tim muttered, shoving back from his desk. His long stride ate up the corridors between his office and the stall, so Ed was just exiting as Tim walked up.

“I never seen anybody so attached to a horse,” the vet tech said, shaking his head. “She’s going to pull that mare through on sheer willpower.”

“Until she collapses in a heap of exhaustion,” Tim snapped as he went through the door.

Ed swiveled around to stare at his usually even-tempered boss and found the stall door closed in his face.

Tim stood just inside the stall and took a deep breath, trying to make his voice calm and steady. “Claire, you can’t sleep here.”

“Why not?” she said, straightening from where she was smoothing a blanket over her temporary bed. “You’d be amazed at how comfortable dog beds are.”

“It’s not safe.”

She put her hands to the small of her back and did a little arch to stretch it. That brought his attention to her breasts, so his groin tightened.

“You keep saying that,” she said, “but Willow is not exactly going crazy.” She looked pointedly at the horse, who had lifted her head when Tim came in and then gone back to her drowsing, with one hoof cocked on its toe and her head hanging.

Now the desire to yank her T-shirt off so he could touch and taste her breasts ripped through his body. Frustration fueled the guilt-induced anger he was already feeling. “I’m sorry, but I can’t allow it. I’m responsible for your safety.”

She stalked up to him, the set of her shoulders telegraphing her own anger. “Do you think I’m going to sue you if Willow kicks me?”

“Of course not.” At this point, he couldn’t even remember why he was so determined that she leave. He just knew he needed to make it happen.

“Then stop being such an overprotective caveman.” She gave him a little shove on the chest and turned away.

Her touch sent heat searing through his veins. “Claire, this is
my
veterinary hospital, and I insist you go home and get a good night’s rest.”

“No,” she said, settling down on her nest of cushions and picking up her book. “I’m staying until Willow can go home to Sharon’s where the people and surroundings are familiar to her.” She opened her book and stuck her nose in it.

“You know I can make you leave, if necessary.”

She lowered the paperback and tilted her head back to skewer him with her gaze. “Try it.”

Suddenly, all the anger and lust and frustration were swamped by a flood of realization.
He was afraid
. It wasn’t just loyalty to his dead wife’s memory or concern about hurting Claire that held him back. He was terrified of loving someone who would choose to leave him when things got tough. He was trying to protect himself from ever feeling that agony again.

He looked into Claire’s defiant glare and felt the fear dissolve like an April snow. He could toss her over his shoulder and carry her out of this stall without breaking a sweat, but she would not go quietly. She had made a promise to a horse, a creature who couldn’t even understand what she was saying, and she was going to do whatever she needed to honor it.

If Claire ever left him, it would be his fault, not hers. He could work with that.

“Tim? Are you okay?” Claire dropped her book and pushed herself stiffly off the floor. He had a disoriented look on his face, like Willow’s when she came out of the anesthesia. She wondered if she’d made him so mad he was having some sort of heart attack.

Suddenly, he dropped his head in his hands. “I’m such an idiot.”

“What?” She glanced back at Willow, wondering if he’d just discovered some problem with the horse’s condition. The mare stood placidly, her eyes half-closed. “Is it about Willow?”

He just stood there, shaking his head.

“Should I call someone?” she asked, coming close enough to tentatively touch his arm.

He lifted his head so suddenly that she took a step backward. “No, for God’s sake, don’t call anyone. In fact”—he scooped up a blanket from her nest and tossed it over the video camera that was bolted to the wall, then turned back to her—“Claire, I’ve been a coward.”

“In what way?” she asked.

“In every way that counts.”

She was beginning to worry about his mental state. “Um, I think you’re pretty brave. You faced down Frank, and you saved Willow.”

He shook his head again. “Those things didn’t require courage.”

“Hey, Claire, you in there? The video’s on the fritz,” Ed’s voice came from outside the stall.

“Don’t worry. I’m working on it,” Tim called out.

Ed’s steps retreated, and Tim locked his gaze on Claire. “What you did was brave.”

“It was?” She understood now that he was talking about their relationship, but she had no idea where he was going with the conversation. She wasn’t going to help him with this, because it was bad enough to be rejected once.

He came over and took both her hands in his. “You know what I thought when you offered to give up your job and stay here for me? I thought you were reckless, a lunatic, but I was wrong. You were courageous. You were willing to accept the risk of loving me, even with what you knew about my past.”

“I thought you were a good bet,” Claire said, remembering her conversation with Sharon. She was beginning to feel a tiny glimmer of hope, not so much from his words, but from the glow in his eyes when he looked at her.

“I was a losing bet, but I’m working on improving my odds,” he said with a slight smile before his expression turned serious again. “I kept telling myself I couldn’t love anyone again because of the memory of Anais and guilt about her death. But I was using that to hide the truth from myself.”

His grip became almost uncomfortable as darker emotions crossed his face. Claire wanted to kiss away the pain she saw there, but she could tell he needed to keep talking.

“When you sat on that ridiculous pile of dog beds, daring me to physically remove you from this stall, all this fear I wouldn’t even acknowledge just drained away. I didn’t know it was there, and suddenly, it was gone. Because I knew you would never do what Anais had done.”

He looked down at their joined hands. “I finally understood what the real problem was. I was terrified of being left again.”

“Oh, Tim, I’m so sorry.” Claire’s heart was leaping and breaking at the same time. “I can’t even imagine what you went through.”

“You don’t have to. I’m going to tell you the truth. Now.” His voice was ragged but held an undercurrent of resolution.

“Please. You don’t have to do this,” she said, pulling one hand free to try to smooth away the harsh lines etched around his mouth and eyes.

He caught her hand again and kissed it before he tugged her down onto the cushions. He sandwiched her hand between his and leaned back against the wall, staring straight ahead. “Anais shouldn’t have asked me to keep a secret that could do so much damage. I see that now.”

“So that’s why no one ever knew why? Because she asked you to keep it a secret?” Claire tried to understand all the implications.

He nodded, but she could tell he had returned to his past and was only partly aware of her presence. “She was diagnosed with cancer, an aggressive but not incurable type. I took her to the best specialists in the country.” His mouth twisted. “I knew them all since cancer was my research field. She swore all the doctors to secrecy. She said she was worried about what the information would do to her career, but really she couldn’t bear the idea of anyone thinking of her as less than perfect.”

He shifted his shoulders against the wall as though the padding were uncomfortable.

“We worked out a course of treatment, which combined minimally invasive surgery with chemotherapy and radiation. She wanted to do it in Europe, away from the US media. I made all the arrangements.”

“You don’t have to go any further. I understand.”

“I want it out of me,” he said. “It’s been locked away in the dark for too long.”

“Then I’m listening.” She snuggled in against him to offer him comfort.

He shifted and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her even closer. “The night before we were supposed to leave, she asked me to take her to dinner at Sardi’s at six o’clock, when all the theatergoers would be there. I was surprised, but willing to do anything to make her happy.

“She wore a gold satin dress that was much too fancy for the restaurant, but of course, it was intentional. She wanted to attract everyone’s eye. It was her last performance, and she was brilliant, signing autographs on napkins and T-shirts and menus. Her audience loved her.”

Claire had seen photographs of Anais Tremont, so she could picture the glamorous, dark-haired woman holding court in the restaurant while Tim stayed in the background, doing whatever his ailing wife wanted. It made her want to cry.

“When we got home, she was still on a high, glowing the way she did after a particularly fine performance. I was encouraged because she had been depressed ever since her diagnosis.” He had that ugly, rasping note in his voice again. “It turned out she had borrowed the gun five days before.”

“So she never intended to go to Europe?”

“It’s impossible to know with any certainty. The fact is, I never had a clue as to what Anais was really thinking. She was an actress, through and through.”

He went silent for a moment, and she felt him tense.

“The next morning she shot herself on the stage of the Marquis Theatre. She had sent me on a made-up errand so she could get out of the apartment without my knowing. She left the suicide note on top of her suitcase. She had sent another letter to her lawyer to make sure no suspicion was cast on me.”

Claire couldn’t find it in herself to give Anais much credit for that.

“Her note said she couldn’t face what the treatment would do to her body, because it was the instrument of what mattered most to her. It couldn’t be less than perfect because then her performance would be less than perfect, and she couldn’t bear that. She asked me to keep her secret so her memory would be unmarred by the ugliness of the disease.”

“Dear God!” Claire breathed. She wanted to rave about what a hideously selfish person his wife had been, but that would only add to his pain. She curled her hand around his.

“So now you know all of it, all the things I thought I would never tell another soul.”