Cassie motioned Clair to one of the barstools, and then went to the refrigerator.
“It’s hard for you to be here again with your dad gone, isn’t it?” Cassie said when her brother was out of sight and earshot, letting Clair know that that was what her friend attributed the tension to.
“A little,” Clair admitted because that was also a factor in her stress.
“Will you be okay alone in the cottage? I really wish you could stay at my place, but with my roommate’s brother sleeping on our couch right now I know you wouldn’t be comfortable. My offer is still good, though, to come out here and stay with you, if you want.”
It was a tempting offer—not only because then Cassie would provide a constant diversion from Ben, but because Clair would have liked to spend time with her friend.
But she had a purpose other than helping Ben Walker get the school started and that purpose would only be served without a diversion.
So Clair said, “I’ll be okay. You don’t have to babysit me.”
“It wouldn’t be baby-sitting,” Cassie assured. “And I don’t mind if you need me.”
“Thanks, but, no. Really. I’m fine.”
Cassie accepted that, brought Clair the glass of lemonade and then pointed to the wall clock. “I hate to rush off the minute you get here but I have to.”
“It’s okay,” Clair lied.
“I’ll be back tomorrow, and Ben will take good care of you in the meantime—won’t you?”
Clair hadn’t heard him come back and since she was facing away from the sliding door she had to look over her shoulder to make sure that’s who Cassie was talking to.
“Uh-huh,” he answered.
But apparently it was answer enough for Cassie because it prompted her to say, “All right then, I better go. I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
Clair and Ben responded with goodbyes of their own and then all of a sudden they were alone. In a silence Clair thought was heavy enough to be tangible.
But she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know whether to launch into an explanation of what had gone through her mind at the reunion and the next morning. Or to make excuses for herself. Or to try to convince him that her actions that night were unusual in the extreme—which they were.
Or maybe she should just act as if nothing had happened at all….
“Long drive from Denver,” he said then, interrupting the silence and her racing thoughts as he went to stand on the opposite side of the island. He stretched his arms wide and grabbed hold of the edges of the countertop.
“It is a long drive,” Clair agreed. “But I got a really early start this morning and it was a nice day for traveling. Sunny but not too hot.”
She couldn’t believe she was actually talking about the weather. Still, she just couldn’t bring herself to delve into anything deeper.
And then he did.
He said, “She doesn’t know—Cassie, that is—about what happened at the reunion. Between you and me. Nobody does.” He paused, made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, and added, “Including me in a lot of respects.”
“I’m not all that clear myself. Even about the parts I remember,” Clair admitted, staring at the beads of water on the outside of her lemonade glass because she couldn’t look him in the eye.
“We did have a lot to drink that night,” he allowed, making it easier for her. At least up to a point. “But the next morning…I was sobered up by then, you must have been, too.”
“In more ways than one,” she said half under her breath.
“What does that mean?” he asked anyway.
Whether she wanted to explain or not, apparently she was going to have to so Clair didn’t see any reason to fight it and merely gave in.
“That’s just not something I do—or have ever done— spending the night with someone like that,” she said haltingly because what she’d done was so foreign to her that she didn’t even know how to refer to her behavior. “I…” She had to clear her throat. “Before that I’d only…been…with Rob.”
“Rob?”
“Cabot. Rob Cabot? My husband—ex-husband?”
Ben shook his head and shrugged. “Am I supposed to know him?”
“We all went to high school together. He was there, at the reunion. With his new wife. He wasn’t supposed to be. He said he wasn’t going. It was the first time I’d seen him since our divorce, and the whole thing is still so strange to me and it just hit home and… Well, that’s why Cassie asked you to keep me company,” Clair said, looking for any kind of light to dawn in him.
But it never did. “All I know is that I was having a lousy time that night and never should have let my sister talk me into going. I was like a fish out of water that last semester of school and I was just as much a fish out of water that night. But when I told her I was leaving she said you were having a rotten time, too, and asked if I would sit with you until she could get back to you.”
Which Cassie hadn’t been able to do.
“So you didn’t know—” Clair cut herself off, not wanting to get into the subject of Rob and that night in the middle of the rest of this. “And it wasn’t just a pity—”
She couldn’t believe that train of thought had found voice. Her voice.
But it made him smile. A slow, lopsided, private-joke-kind of smile that somehow managed to instantly dissipate a lot of the tension in the room.
“You thought that whole night was a…out of pity?”
“I thought it was possible,” she confessed quietly.
Now he was trying to keep from grinning and in the struggle his eyebrows arched up over the bridge of his nose in a way that made him look innocent and devilish all at once. “I didn’t know anything was going on that I should pity you for,” he said.
“Good.”
“But I have to admit you have me curious now.”
“Too bad,” she said, her tone making it clear she had no intention of satisfying that curiosity.
For some reason that made him laugh. Which, in turn, helped even more of the tension evaporate.
“Okay,” he said, his stance relaxing, too, as he let his weight shift to one hip and stood up straighter to cross his arms over his chest. “So is that why you disappeared the next morning? Because you thought I’d only been there out of pity?”
“No, I was just… Well, I was crazy that next morning. I couldn’t believe I’d actually done what I’d done. I just…ran.”
He didn’t respond immediately. In fact he didn’t respond for so long that Clair hazarded a glance up at him.
He was watching her. Studying her. As if he were trying to decide whether or not to accept what she was telling him.
Finally he said, “I didn’t appreciate it.”
Nothing like being blunt.
But Clair knew she had it coming.
“I’m sorry. I know it was probably bad etiquette or something. I just didn’t know what to do or say or how to act or…anything. All I could think to do was to go home.”
That sounded lame. But it was the truth.
He either realized that or opted for letting her off the hook, though, because after another moment of studying her he said, “How about we forget the reunion ever happened and