Hero For the Asking Read online

  "Don't say it," Spring warned Summer the moment the door had closed behind Clay.

  "You must be hungry, Spring," Derek interceded quickly. "I'll go put some steaks on the grill. How do you like yours?"

  "Medium," she replied, still glaring at her giggling sister.

  Derek made a prudent, hasty escape.

  "If you could have seen your face," Summer murmured, her blue eyes dancing. "You should know Clay well enough by now to realize that he has no regard for spectators."

  "How long have you known that man?" Spring demanded, ignoring Summer's comment.

  "I met him soon after I moved to San Francisco. I'd found a job working as a hostess in an elegant little restaurant near Nob Hill. Not exactly my style, but it paid the rent on the tiny apartment I'd found. I didn't know many people and I was lonely, though I'd started to make a few friends here and there. Then one night Clay came into the restaurant with a date. I couldn't help but watch them. He was so gorgeous—"

  "I've noticed," Spring muttered.

  Summer ignored her. "And his date was drop-dead beautiful. Tall brunette with coal-black eyes and a figure that would make most women want to sob."

  Spring found that she really didn't want to hear Summer's description, but she continued to listen in reluctant fascination.

  "Anyway, the woman bitched from the time she walked into the place. I don't know what her problem was that evening or why Clay was out with her in the first place, but she was a real honey. They had to wait to be seated because Clay had forgotten to make reservations, which didn't exactly go over with his date. I caught his eye a few times and tried to look sympathetic, and then, all of a sudden, he and I started laughing. Once we got started, it was hard to stop. The wicked witch got all huffy and walked out, refusing to let Clay take her home, though to give him credit he tried. So he stayed and had dinner alone, and by the time he left, he and I had a date for the next evening."

  "You went out with him?" Spring frowned, disturbed at the thought. Was Clay still attracted to Summer, despite her being married to someone else?

  "Yes, we went out. By the end of our first date, we were the best of friends and we knew that's all we'd ever be. We've been the best of friends ever since. He's a very special man, Spring."

  Spring looked down at her lap, rubbing at a streak of dirt with one fingertip. "I'm sure he is. He seems very committed to his young people."

  "Oh, he is. He makes a big difference in their lives. He's also a good friend, always willing to offer a shoulder or a hand when he's needed. He hasn't had an easy life, but he never lost his sense of humor."

  "Why wasn't his life easy?" Spring asked curiously.

  "Clay was one of those troubled kids that he works with now. A real hard case. Ran away, got into trouble, came much too close to drugs and other illegal activities. He ended up in a home for incorrigible teenagers, where—fortunately—he was able to turn himself around with help from some very good counselors."

  That explained a lot about the man. Spring frowned as she thought over what Summer had told her. "Didn't his family try to help him?"

  "His family was his problem. Very old-money. Snobs who cared more about having a 'perfect' child than a happy one. He was ignored when he was good, viciously criticized when he wasn't. It's no wonder he rebelled."

  "He was an only child?" Spring asked, her tender heart twisting at the story. She would never have imagined that happy-go-lucky Clay had come from such an unhappy background.

  "Yes. He inherited a near fortune when his parents died a few years ago. Still, he works as a school counselor and lives pretty much on his salary. Other than his weakness for his house and his sports car and his crazy clothes, Clay uses his money mostly to help the less fortunate."

  "As you said, a very special man," Spring murmured.

  Summer shrugged. "He's not perfect, of course, but then, he never wanted to be. He only wants to be accepted for what he is. Now about that kiss—"

  "The steaks are ready," Derek announced from the doorway, much to Spring's relief. "Summer-love, why don't you bring out the salad you made earlier?"

  Spring shot him a grateful smile, her mind full with everything that had happened to her and everything that she had learned that day. She excused herself to change into clean clothes before dinner, and not once did Clay McEntire leave her mind.

  * * *

  After a leisurely breakfast Monday morning, Derek left for his office and Summer for her college class, both encouraging Spring to make herself at home. Summer had only morning classes that day and would be home by lunch, she promised. Derek planned to come home for lunch, as well. Spring waved them off, then indulged in a lazy swim in the temperature-regulated pool. She felt almost decadent enjoying such leisure after the hard pace she'd sustained at home for so long.

  After her swim she took a long, hot shower. Her skin was glowing bright pink by the time she stepped out and reached for a fluffy towel. Her reflection in a mirror caught her eye, and she paused, staring thoughtfully at her nude image. A bit too slim, she thought critically, but not bad on the whole. Would Clay find her appealing if he should see her this way?

  Realizing the direction her thoughts were taking, she snatched up the towel and applied it furiously. Deep within herself she was aware of a faint sense of regret that she wasn't the type who could cheerfully indulge in a teeth-rattling vacation affair and then just walk away. If she were, Clay would definitely be the man she'd choose for her fling. As it was, he was the man she most needed to resist.

  Lunch was a scrumptious seafood salad prepared by Spring. She had the food ready by the time Derek and Summer arrived, and they took their time over the meal, chatting contentedly. They'd just finished eating when the telephone rang. Derek answered, listened for a moment, laughed, then extended the receiver in Spring's direction. "For you," he told her.

  She knew who it was by the glint in her brother-in-law's eyes. Taking a deep breath, she accepted the phone and pressed it to her ear. "Hello, Clay."

  "Hi, sweet Spring. Oh, sorry. I'm not supposed to call you that, am I?"

  "No," she answered sternly. "You're not. Aren't you supposed to be working?"

  "Taking a break. I'm calling from my office."

  "Oh. Have you heard anything about Thelma?"

  "No change," he replied, immediately serious. "She should have been hospitalized days ago. She had to have surgery this morning to remove the fluid that has built up in her lungs. The membranes had become infected. They have her in intensive care now."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Yeah." He paused for a moment, then deliberately lightened his tone. "Actually, I was calling to remind you about our date tonight. You haven't forgotten, have you?"

  "No, Clay, I haven't forgotten."

  "Great. I'm really looking forward to it. How about you?"

  She pressed her tongue firmly against her cheek, then replied with mock gravity, "I'm sure it will be quite pleasant. There's nothing interesting on television tonight, anyway."

  Clay seemed to choke on the other end of the line, then growled, "Talk about damning with faint praise. I owe you for that one, sweet Spring." He tacked on the nickname with deliberate challenge.

  She refused to take him up on it. "Ill see you tonight, Clay."

  "Okay. Oh, and, Spring."

  "Yes?"

  "Dress funky."

  She frowned. "Funky?"

  "Yeah, funky. For you I guess that means leaving the top button of your silk blouse undone. See you tonight."

  Spring stared for a moment at the buzzing receiver in her hand, then slowly replaced it on its cradle. "Your friend," she told her avidly interested sister, "is a lunatic."

  Summer laughed. "Yes, I know."

  "He wants me to dress funky tonight."

  "So what are you going to do about it?" Summer asked, the words a dare.

  Spring grinned and turned her gaze to her bemused brother-in-law. "Derek, dear, how do you feel about loaning out your clo
thes?" she asked blandly.

  Her family would have immediately recognized the look on Spring's pretty face. She didn't often indulge her sly, subtle sense of humor, but when she did, the results were never predictable. Being a new member of the family, Derek wasn't quite sure how to interpret the gleam in Spring's violet eyes. Having twenty-five years of experience behind her, Summer identified it immediately. She suspected that her own wardrobe was about to be raided and that a quick shopping excursion might even be in order. She laughed again and looked forward to the evening, immensely pleased with the unexpected developments taking place during her sister's visit.

  * * *

  Clay stood on the doorstep of the Anderson home and checked his appearance, as anxious as a schoolboy on his first date, he mused ruefully. He thoughtfully twisted one foot in front of him, wondering if the orange high-tops clashed too badly with his tan three-piece suit and brown-on-beige striped dress shirt. He checked the knot in the mottled brown-and-green tie that he'd tucked discreetly into his buttoned vest. He'd worn his favorite tie in Spring's honor.

  He chuckled as he punched the doorbell, wondering if Spring had taken his advice about how to dress. He could almost picture her now in the neat little suit she'd probably chosen to wear like a coat of mail while with him.

  Summer's giggle when she opened the door and eyed his attire tipped him off that something was up. He grinned, eagerly looking for his date. His grin widened when he found her. She had dressed funky.

  He slowly examined her from head to toe. A gray felt fedora sat atop her light hair, which she wore in a glorious frizz to her shoulders. A loose, unstructured charcoal-gray linen jacket that Clay had helped Summer select as a gift for Derek was pushed up to Spring's elbows and hung almost to her knees. Her bright pink blouse was open at the collar so that the man's pink-and-gray spotted silk tie was knotted at about the middle of her chest. Light gray slacks were pleated baggily at her slender waist, narrowing from the knees to tightly grip her ankles. Her feet were tied into heeled black lace-up half-boots. She wore enormous turquoise-and-silver earrings, a chunky matching choker and a thick black leather belt with a gaudy silver-and-turquoise buckle. Facing him with a smile that contained equal parts of shyness and bravado, she looked beautiful.

  "I am in love with this woman," he remarked aloud, almost as if he were commenting on the weather. And he knew his words were the truth. He watched in amusement as her face turned almost as pink as her shirt.

  "I thought you said you were going to dress funky," Spring accused him.

  He frowned down at his suit. "I am dressed funky."

  "Spring, he's wearing a tie," Summer pointed out with a grin. "The only part of his outfit that's not funky, for Clay, is the tennis shoes."

  Spring shook her head, causing her crimped curls to sway around her face. "San Francisco," she muttered, then glared at Clay. "Okay, let's go."

  He couldn't resist throwing an arm around her shoulders and giving her one hard hug. "We're going to have so much fun!" he told her cheerfully.

  "Yeah," she answered with a resigned sigh that he found greatly amusing. "Fun."

  * * *

  The play that Clay took her to turned out to be a junior-high-school production of You Can't Take It With You, which happened to be one of Spring's favorite plays. She didn't tell him so. Nor did she give in to the impulse to tease him when she noticed him squinting a bit as he read the program, though her professional mind made a note to ask him later if he'd had an eye examination recently.

  Instead, she sat back and enjoyed, chuckling at the more-enthusiastic-than-talented performances from the young teenage actors. Or, rather, she appeared to enjoy the play. It wasn't easy with Clay sitting close beside her, taking advantage of every opportunity to touch her. When he wasn't patting her arm, he was squeezing her knee. As the performance went on, the squeezes moved gradually up her thigh until, at the beginning of act three, she was forced to catch his hand and return it firmly to his own lap. She tried very hard to look as if his touches annoyed her, when actually they turned her into Silly Putty.

  With admirably few forgotten or blown lines Alice and Tony pledged their undying love, Grandpa Vanderhof congratulated himself on outsmarting the government, Penelope and Paul Sycamore went on with their happy, eccentric lives and the play ended. Spring applauded warmly as the flushed young actors took their bows.

  "Want to go backstage?" Clay asked, draping a casual arm around Spring's shoulders.

  "You know someone in the cast?" she inquired with interest.

  He nodded noncommittally and led her down the aisle, never breaking physical contact. Though she told herself that she wished he'd stop touching her, Spring was fully aware that she made no effort to pull away from him.

  To say that Clay knew someone in the cast was a monumental understatement. Clay knew everyone in the cast. And they quite obviously idolized him. Forbidden by school policy to call him by his first name—this was the very school where he worked, Spring discovered—they called him Mr. Mac. They teased him about his unusually conservative clothing, glowed with pride when he congratulated them on the success of their performances and competed avidly for his attention. The boys all tried to emulate him. The girls were all in love with him. Watching him with the kids, Spring felt herself slipping into a similar infatuation.

  When Clay introduced her to the cast, Spring was glad she'd dressed so oddly, though she'd chosen her "funky" outfit just to prove to Clay that she wasn't as prim and humorless as he'd teased her about being. The kids seemed to accept her easily as his friend, even showing their implicit approval by teasing her about her Arkansan accent.

  Declaring himself to be near starvation, Clay took her out to eat when they left the school. The tiny Italian restaurant he selected was tucked away in an obscure section of the city, far from the usual tourist paths.

  Lulled by the pleasant evening and marvelous food, Spring found herself chattering easily, more comfortable on a date than she'd been in a long time. Clay stayed on his best behavior, seemingly fascinated with stories of her childhood in Rose Bud and her optometry practice in Little Rock. Conversation turned to mutual interests, and Clay grinned more broadly each time they found something in common—favorite books, movies, music, television programs.

  "It's Kismet," he declared at one point. "Our tastes are so similar. There's absolutely no reason not to have an affair."

  She shook her head reprovingly at him, taking his words as a joke. "What about our taste in clothes?"

  "What about it? You look great tonight."

  "But I don't look like me tonight. I only wore these things to surprise you."

  "I know you did. But I like the way you dress when you're being yourself, too. Your prim little outfits dare a man to rip them off you."

  He laughed when she blushed vividly.

  "The least you could have done," she complained, struggling to keep up with him, "was to dress in your usual outrageous manner after asking me to go funky. You look so...so normal in that suit. And it really wasn't necessary to wear a tie to a junior-high-school play."

  He looked crestfallen, though his eyes twinkled with secret amusement. "Don't you like Morgan?"

  She lifted a questioning eyebrow. "Morgan?"

  "My tie."

  "You named your tie? Clay, people don't name their ties."

  "I do. He's named after the friend who gave him to me."

  She continued to look at him as though he were crazy—which, of course, pretty well summed up her opinion of him. Gorgeous, sexy, mesmerizing, but unquestionably crazy. "Your tie is a him?"

  "Looks like a him to me," he answered reflectively, tugging the end of the tie out of his vest and smoothing it downward so that she could see its full length. "Don't you think so?"

  Spring choked, then burst into laughter. "Oh, my God. Your tie is a fish!" Fully exposed, the mottled browns and greens became scales. The fish-shaped tie was cleverly designed, the end a fish-head profile, complete with
gills, closed mouth and one glassy blue eye. "That's disgusting."

  Her laughter had brought an odd light to his eyes. Smiling at her in a manner that she couldn't begin to interpret—nor did she care to try just then—he reached across the table to take her hand. "I knew you'd appreciate Morgan."

  They talked of his work, both at the school and with the young people he continually referred to as "my kids" at Halloran House. Spring was fascinated by his dedication to the youth, his understanding of them and the way their minds worked.

  "Do many of them run away from home?" she asked, thinking of Thelma.

  "It happens often enough," he answered regretfully. "I'm afraid I was a runaway myself a few times. I know how cold and lonely it can be out on the streets." He had told her a bit about his childhood during dinner, an abbreviated version of what Summer had already told her.

  "I always feel so sorry for the parents. Not to know where their children are, wondering if they're dead or alive, and all usually because of a simple breakdown in communications."

  "It's sad for everyone concerned," Clay agreed. "Sometimes the parents couldn't care less what happens to the kids, but I know that's not always true. Many times the problems can be remedied through family therapy, once they realize that they need help—not that the problems are ever simple."

  Spring thought that perhaps Clay would tend to be biased toward the young people's side in any family encounter, but considering his background and his vocation, she supposed that was understandable. She deliberately turned the conversation to lighter subjects, not wanting Clay to dwell on his career just then.

  She was almost disappointed when he drove her straight back to Summer's house after dinner, though she didn't know exactly where she'd wanted him to take her. She only knew that she wasn't ready to say goodnight to him.

  Clay parked the car in the driveway, snapped off the lights and turned to Spring, one arm over the back of his seat as he smiled at her. "I had fun tonight, Spring. Thanks for going with me."