Hero For the Asking Read online

  Clay certainly was not boring.

  A short time later Spring toyed with the slice of cake her sister had served her, studiously avoiding Clay's gaze, though she could feel him watching her with laughter dancing in his eyes. Whether he was enjoying a private joke with her or simply laughing at her provincial response to his blatant pass, she didn't know. Nor did she attempt to guess. She was much too busy trying to forget the feel of his lips on hers and his arms around her.

  The extension telephone hidden discreetly in a carved wooden box on a glossy end table rang, and Summer, who was closest, answered it. The others in the room lowered their conversation for her benefit, so everyone heard her say, "Frank? What's wrong?"

  She listened for a moment, then exclaimed, "Oh, no! When?"

  Clay straightened abruptly on the love seat beside Spring, his full attention directed to Summer. Spring noticed that her sister's eyes turned immediately in Clay's direction as she listened to the person on the other end of the line. "Yes, he's here," Summer said into the receiver. "I'll tell him. Please call me if you hear anything, Frank."

  Before she'd even replaced the receiver in the box. Clay was up, standing over Summer's chair as he demanded, "What's wrong? What did Frank want?"

  "Thelma Sawyer has run away again," Summer answered with a deep sigh. "She hasn't been home in a week. Her mother just got around to contacting Frank to ask if he's seen her."

  Clay flinched visibly and shoved his hand through his thick golden hair. "Damn. What happened?"

  "Frank said she had another fight with her mother." Summer pushed herself out of her chair and looked up at Clay. "What will happen to her this time, Clay? Will they let her go back to Halloran?"

  "Not likely," Clay answered briefly.

  Spring watched them closely, thinking that Clay looked somehow older than he had only a few minutes earlier. She knew that her sister worked part-time at Halloran House, a home for troubled teenagers, while she attended classes to obtain a degree in education so that she could work with the young people full-time. Spring hadn't known that Clay was in any way involved with the project.

  "Clay," Summer said softly, leaning into Derek's arm as he offered comfort to his obviously distressed wife. "What if she gets into trouble again?"

  Clay exhaled. "I don't know, Summer," he admitted. He straightened abruptly. "I'm going out to look for her."

  "I'll go with you."

  "No." He shook his head at Summer's offer. "You stay here with your guests. I'm going to check with some of Thelma's friends and a few other sources. I'll call you if I find out anything."

  "You'd better." Summer tugged him downward so that she could kiss his cheek. "Good luck."

  "Yeah." Clay bade good-night to the others, then turned to Spring. "Ill see you again, sweet, uh, Spring," he corrected himself with a weak facsimile of his devilish smile.

  "Good night, Clay," Spring answered, surreptitiously eyeing the lines that had suddenly appeared around his eyes. Perhaps he wasn't as shallow as she'd first thought, she decided, watching him leave. The news of Thelma's disappearance had obviously shaken him badly.

  "This is really a shame," Connie said as Spring turned her attention back to the others. "Thelma can be so sweet. That mother of hers ought to be locked up for treating her daughter so badly."

  "Oh, they can't do that," Summer answered bitterly. "Mrs. Sawyer doesn't physically abuse Thelma. The state chooses to ignore verbal abuse. After all, that kind doesn't leave bruises—none that show, anyway."

  "This is rough on poor Clay." Connie twisted a copper-red curl around one scarlet-tipped finger, her expression sympathetic. "Thelma's always been one of his favorites, hasn't she?"

  "Yes."

  "Yours, too," Derek murmured to Summer, his arm tightening around her shoulders. "I'm sorry, darling. Is there anything I can do to help?"

  Summer shook her head. "If anyone can find her, Clay can. I just hope he's not too late."

  "How old is Thelma?" Spring asked.

  "Fifteen," Summer whispered miserably. "She's only fifteen, dammit."

  Spring bit her lower lip. "That's so young. I wonder where she'll go?"

  Summer shrugged. "Who knows? The streets are full of runaways. They develop a talent for not being seen. She may even have left town, though she never has before. It's not the first time she's run away," she explained, "but last time she got into so much trouble that Clay almost couldn't bail her out. He was able to get her readmitted as a resident at Halloran House then, but I don't think he'll be able to now. Halloran House is only for those kids who aren't considered to be truly hard cases. Most of them are there at the insistence of their parents rather than the juvenile courts."

  "What does Clay have to do with Halloran House?" Spring finally asked, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

  "Haven't I mentioned that?" Summer asked, surprised. "Clay was one of the people responsible for getting Halloran House started a few years ago. He's on the board of directors and he spends most of his spare time there, counseling the kids."

  "Counseling?"

  "Yes. He has a Ph.D. in adolescent psychology. He could be making a fortune in private practice, but instead, he's a counselor for a public junior-high school in San Francisco."

  Spring had risen when Clay left. Now she abruptly sat back down. Clay McEntire had a doctorate in psychology? So much for appearances, she told herself wryly.

  The call from Frank—whom Spring discovered to be Frank Rivers, the live-in director of Halloran House—had cast a pall over the evening, so Connie and Joel left not long after Clay departed.

  "You must be tired, Spring. Would you like to turn in now?" Summer asked shortly afterward. It was past ten o'clock—past midnight, Arkansas time—and Spring was tired.

  The two sisters chatted contentedly while Spring pulled on a lacy blue gown and brushed out her shoulder-length, silvery blond hair. They mentioned their parents back home in Rose Bud, Arkansas, and chuckled together over their fiery-tempered, ultraliberated sister Autumn. Twenty-four-year-old Autumn lived in Tampa, Florida, where she worked as an electrician, and her sisters always enjoyed swapping stories about her.

  After a few minutes of pleasant conversation. Summer asked with suspicious nonchalance, "Is Connie anything like you'd pictured her?"

  "She's exactly like I imagined she would be," Spring replied with a smile. "I like her."

  "And Joel? Did you like him, too?"

  "Yes, very much." Spring swallowed, knowing what was coming next. She was right.

  "So," Summer went on casually, "what did you think of Clay, once you got past your first impression of him?"

  Spring looked quickly down at the blouse she was folding, allowing her shoulder-length hair to hide her suddenly rosy face. Just the mention of Clay's name had taken her back to that interlude in the hallway. She could almost feel him next to her once more, and the sensation made her pulse react again with a crazy rhythm. "He was very, um..." Her voice trailed off for lack of words.

  "Very 'um'?" Summer demanded quizzically. "What's 'um'? Sexy? Good-looking? Intriguing? Irresistible?"

  "Okay, so he's about the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen off a movie screen," Spring admitted abruptly, glaring at her sister's smug grin. "But I still think he's strange."

  "I tried to fix him up with Autumn. I thought they'd make a terrific couple. They got along great when she was here for my wedding, but unfortunately, there was just no chemistry. He never even made a pass at her," Summer complained.

  "Clay and Autumn?" Spring repeated distastefully, hating the suggestion but refusing to acknowledge why. "What a dumb idea."

  "Oh, you think so?" Summer asked innocently.

  "Yes, I do."

  "Well, then, how about Clay and Spring?"

  "An even dumber idea," Spring muttered, her flush deepening.

  "You know, I would have said the same thing yesterday. Now, well, maybe it's not such a dumb idea, after all," Summer mused with a grin.


  "Good night, Summer," Spring said pointedly, nodding toward the door.

  Summer laughed, then sobered. "I'm glad you're here, Spring," she said again. "I know we haven't had much, in common in the past, but I love you, Sis. Besides, it's so nice to hear an Arkansas accent again—other than mine."

  Spring chuckled, her mild irritation evaporating immediately. "I love you, too, Summer. I'm really looking forward to spending this time with you and Derek."

  "It just might be interesting," Summer commented, then ducked out the door before Spring could ask what she'd meant.

  * * *

  Clay groaned, rolled over and promptly fell onto the floor. Cursing under his breath, he sat up, combing his hair out of his eyes with his fingers, and tried to orient himself. He'd searched for Thelma most of the night, coming home around dawn so exhausted that he hadn't even made it to the bedroom. He'd fallen asleep on the couch, still fully dressed except for his shoes. Pushing himself painfully to his feet, he noted that he looked like an unmade bed and smelled like a horse. A glance at his watch told him that it was close to 11:00 a.m. Tugging off his wrinkled shirt, he headed for the shower.

  Half an hour later he felt somewhat more human. He dressed in loose, double-pleated black slacks, a black-and-white cotton shirt in a bold geometric print and a crisp winter-white blazer, pushing the sleeves up on his forearms as he dug in the closet for shoes. The ones he selected were canvas deck shoes, the uppers printed in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern. He never considered wearing socks.

  He went through the motions of dressing mechanically, hardly conscious of making decisions on what to wear. He was thinking about Spring. He had thought about Spring since the moment his abrupt contact with his living-room floor had awakened him. He hadn't stopped thinking about Spring since he'd looked up the night before and seen her standing in the doorway to Summer's den. Even when he'd walked the sleaziest back streets of San Francisco during the wee hours of the morning, doggedly searching for one frightened, defiant young black girl, he hadn't been able to rid his mind entirely of the beautiful blonde he'd kissed earlier.

  His first impression of her—that she'd been a snob—just might have been wrong. By the end of the evening he'd found himself liking her. A lot. Oh, she was different from Summer; he'd grant that. Quieter, more inhibited, perhaps even a bit shy. Different, too, from the women he usually dated, but in a nice way.

  There hadn't been many women in his life lately, other than friends. In fact, there hadn't been any special woman in his life since he'd stopped seeing Jessica Dixon some four months earlier. Jessica had been amusing, outrageous and beautiful, and he'd enjoyed being with her until she'd finally gotten tired of her undeniably second-place status in his life and had broken off with him in a rather ugly scene when he'd been called away from a party to bail one of his kids out of jail. He'd never made any pretense that their relationship was anything more than casual, nor had he apologized to her for the long hours he'd spent with the students and other young people he counseled. There had been times when he hadn't called her or seen her for days—sometimes for as long as a couple of weeks. He hadn't realized that she'd wanted more. He was rather ashamed to acknowledge that he hadn't really missed her.

  But it couldn't be just an overlong period of celibacy that drew him so strongly to Spring Reed. After all, there had been other women during the past four months he'd found attractive, but he hadn't wanted any of them enough to do anything about it. And certainly none of them had interfered with his concentration while he was dealing with a crisis with one of his kids.

  What was it about her that did this to him? It wasn't just her looks; he'd established that. Not just a need for a woman. So what? The slightly shy, intelligent glimmer in beguilingly uptilted eyes? The low gurgle of laughter that had escaped her so often during that lighthearted pizza dinner? The musical cadence of her Southern-accented voice? The way her rounded chin had firmed and lifted when she'd informed him that she didn't sleep around? Or maybe the way she'd responded so heatedly when he'd kissed her.

  He wanted to see her again, find out more about the woman who'd intrigued him so. But right now he was going to continue his search for Thelma.

  * * *

  "Oh, my God, you've been mall hopping." Derek's voice was resigned as he took in the sizable stack of packages piled on the floor of his den.

  The two sisters, both exhausted, looked up guiltily from their slumped positions in matching easy chairs. "We shopped a little," Summer admitted.

  "A little?" Derek looked again at the tall, colorful mountain of packages. "I thought you were going sightseeing."

  "We did," Spring said with a tired smile. "We saw every shopping sight in San Francisco and Sausalito."

  "I suppose you both have smoking plastic cards in your purses?"

  "Guilty as charged, your honor," Summer quipped. "We went nuts. But I did buy you a new tie, if it makes you feel any better."

  "How very generous of you," Derek murmured, passing the knee-high heap of purchases on his way to the bar.

  "Yes, I thought so," Summer answered complacently. She shoved herself reluctantly out of the chair. "I suppose I really should shower before changing for dinner. You did say you were taking us out tonight, didn't you, darling?"

  "Yes, I think I did say that," Derek replied, splashing ice-cold orange juice into a glass. "Choose someplace cheap, will you? There are still ten full shopping days left of your sister's vacation."

  Spring smiled, watching as Summer kissed her husband lovingly. It was quite obvious that Summer could buy out all of Marin County and Derek wouldn't care in the least. It was also perfectly evident that Summer would never do anything that would truly upset Derek. Not for the first time, Spring had to fight down a surge of envy at her sister's good fortune.

  "How was your racquetball game?" Summer asked her husband, watching as he thirstily downed the orange juice and reached for a refill.

  "Strenuous," Derek answered with a grimace. "But I managed to make a decent showing."

  Summer laughed. "Not bad, considering your propensity to pit yourself against twenty-five-year-old jocks." She kissed him again before she left the room, her limp more pronounced than usual, testimony to the strenuous shopping spree.

  "She's tired," Derek commented, taking a seat close to Spring and stretching out to rest as he finished his juice.

  She, too, had watched Summer limp away. "Yes, I know. I was just feeling guilty."

  "Don't. It would take a bigger person than you to stop her once she decides she wants to go shopping. And she's delighted to have you here. She misses seeing her family."

  Hardly aware of speaking aloud, Spring murmured, "She's changed."

  "In what way?"

  Spring absently pushed her glasses up on her nose and shrugged slightly. "I don't know, exactly. Grown up, I guess. I still can't help looking at her from a big sister's viewpoint."

  "How do you like the way she's turned out?"

  "I like it very much," Spring replied decisively. "She's happy, she has a direction to her life now that she's returned to school and she's learned to share her feelings more."

  "And yet she still knows how to play," Derek added. "That's a special part of her. One that I needed very much."

  Spring cocked her head back against her chair and eyed her brother-in-law. "Summer thinks you and I are a lot alike."

  Derek nodded. "Yes, I know. I suppose she's right, in some ways. We're both organized and ambitious and rather serious, on the whole."

  "Not necessarily admirable qualities from Summer's point of view."

  "Ah, but she loves us both," Derek reminded her.

  "True. You're exactly what she needed in a husband. She probably thinks I need someone exactly like her."

  "Someone like Clay McEntire?" Derek murmured with a half smile. When Spring's eyes narrowed, he explained, "She seemed to find the idea rather intriguing after you went to bed last night."

  "It's ridiculous, of course."


  "Of course." Derek's voice was just a bit too innocuous.

  Spring shot him a suspicious look. "You wouldn't happen to agree with her, would you, Derek?"

  "I make it a practice never to play matchmaker," Derek informed her solemnly, "despite what Summer and Connie refer to as my compulsive habit of offering advice. A hazard of being a business consultant, I suppose."

  "Whatever, I have absolutely no interest in Clay McEntire," Spring stated categorically, even as she wondered whether she was trying to convince Derek or herself.

  "I'm very sorry to hear that," said an already familiar voice from behind her. "Clay McEntire is most definitely interested in you."

  Chapter Three

  Spring started and jerked her head toward the doorway, finding the very person she'd just named lounging there with a look of amusement on his much-too-handsome face. She realized that her sister must have let him in. She could think of absolutely nothing to say.

  Taking pity on her, Derek spoke. "What's up, Clay? Heard anything about Thelma?"

  "Not a thing," Clay answered, suddenly grim. "If anyone knows where she is, they're not talking."

  Spring lifted her eyes from his unusual black-and-white ensemble to note that he looked tired. Tired and rather despondent. She was startled to find herself wanting to cheer him up. She missed his easy smile. "Can't you file a missing-persons report on her?" she asked curiously.

  "Her mother did that last week. Thelma's run away before, though, and there are so many other missing-persons reports filed each week that the cops tend to give them low priority unless they have a real lead. I'm not too crazy about having the cops haul a kid back home, anyway, unless there is no other alternative."

  "Can I get you something to drink, Clay?" Derek asked.

  "No, thanks, Derek. I just wanted to tell Summer that I haven't been able to find Thelma."

  Derek lifted one eyebrow but refrained from pointing out that Clay hadn't needed to drive into Sausalito when a telephone call would have sufficed. Spring frowned, well aware of that herself.