Confession (18 page)

“Freud theorized that phobias result from past traumas. I suspect your dream symbolizes your rage toward Sister Bernadette because of the horrible way she treated you in school.”

He moved closer, listening intently.

“Once you uncover those feelings, bring them to the surface and face them, the fear dissipates, and the phobia goes away. I must say I don't subscribe to Freudian theory in its entirety, but in this instance, it's ringing true.”

“You think I'm cured.”

“I think we've uncovered the root of your hemophobia. Your fear of blood is tied to your religious upbringing, to your beliefs about heaven and hell, and even more importantly to this woman who tortured you as a boy.”

“
Tortured
seems a harsh word.” He ducked his head so she couldn't see his eyes again.

Classic ambivalence. He hated the Sister, but he depended on her, too, because he'd had no one else to care for him. Time to let her go. “She beat you with a flashlight and shamed you in front of all the other boys.”

“She made me feel small.” He laughed until his shoulders shook.

Faith felt a sense of relief. He was releasing tension through laughter, a safe enough means of coping with the harsh truths of his life.

“I mean even smaller than I am in real life.” As his laughter subsided, he gave one last snort. “Sister and her talk of the blood of the lamb unmanned me so to speak. Who's afraid of a bloody lamb, for Chrissake?”

He seemed to have recovered his composure enough to wind things up for the day—­and they'd gone overtime. Faith's muscles ached from the tight control she'd maintained for the past hour, so she could only imagine how Scourge felt. She looked at her watch. “Time's about up.”

“Yes.” He looked directly at her, and his eyes sparked. “
Time's up.
”

“I'll see you next week then, or we can schedule something sooner if you feel like you need to talk more about what happened here today.”

“No.” His expression was almost giddy. “You've been a big help, but I can take it from here.”

His phobia had been the tip of a much larger problem. He still needed therapy. “We've had a breakthrough regarding your fear of blood, yes. But there's still a lot of work to do to on other issues.”

“Other issues? Oh, you think I want to become a stable, well-­adjusted individual. But you see, Dr. Clancy, that isn't what I want at all. I just want to be me. I have no desire for personal growth. I only needed to get rid of that awful hemophobia so I could get back to my old life. I have a lot of work left to do, and now, thanks to you, I can finish what I started.” He stroked the leather back of the chair, then turned and walked out her door.

 

TWENTY-­THREE

Thursday, August 15, 8:00
A.M.

A
fter hurrying outside, Faith saw that Luke had already arrived. They were headed to Amarillo today, in the hopes of locating and interviewing Jeremy Jacobs, a potential witness in the Saint case. When Luke shot her a cocky grin, she dropped her briefcase. The tripod that'd been tucked under her arm followed, and as she bent to gather the consent forms that had flown out of the case, her purse slipped off her shoulder, landing in her sprinkler-­dampened front lawn.

Luke raised one amused eyebrow, crossed his arms, and leaned back against the hood of the coolest car Faith had ever seen, his pecs rippling beneath a white cotton T-­shirt that barely contained his biceps. His Wranglers were cowboy tight and buckled with an ornate silver medallion that read
PRC
A
N
A
T
I
O
N
A
L
F
I
N
A
L
S
2
0
10 SADDLE BRONC RIDING
.

Not that she'd been staring.

He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and crossed his tan ostrich skin boots at the ankles. “What?” He drawled the word into two syllables.

Her mouth snapped shut. Like he didn't know he could give a girl a heart attack showing up looking like he'd just climbed off a bucking bronco ready to claim the award for bluest-­eyed cowboy.

“Nothing.” She chased down the rest of her forms, locked everything up neat and tidy in her leather briefcase, and stuck her hands on her hips. “Just didn't know you were a rodeo champion is all.” She cleared her throat. “Or that you'd be picking me up in that old thing.”

“Now I know you're teasing, darlin', because no woman in her right mind can resist a sweet little ride like this.” He winked. “My 1977 Delft blue Triumph Spitfire and I are at your ser­vice. I'm dressed in my everyday ranch gear because Amarillo's cowboy country, and I figure I'll get more cooperation from the witness like this than I would suited up.”

That's how he dressed every day on the ranch. She swallowed hard and tried not to imagine what his butt looked like mounting a quarter horse. “Makes sense. I-­I just assumed we'd be taking the limo.”

“Nice stammer.” He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm. “Sorry to disappoint you, but you made it clear this trip would be strictly business, and I'm afraid I just can't trust myself with you in a limo.” He swept his arm across the tiny two-­seater convertible. “This'll be safer . . . for you.”

Truthfully, she'd been expecting a campaign to mix pleasure with business, but now she saw he wasn't going to put up any argument. She heaved a sigh, and her chest deflated.

“If you've changed your mind, I can always call my driver. We can take the limo and fool around on the way.” His it'd-­be-­my-­pleasure-­ma'am grin set her heart palpitating.

For heaven's sake.

“No thank you.” She stuck her chin up. “I'm just wondering how we're going to fit the two of us and my camera equipment in that car.”

He popped the tiny trunk and scratched his head. “Don't you have a smaller tripod?”

Half an hour later, they were on their way with a smaller tripod, the bare minimum of camera equipment, and one consolidated overnight bag. Top down, headed for Amarillo, with Hank Williams on the stereo. The buzz of the engine and the flapping of the wind made chatter difficult, so she just gathered her hair into a ponytail, leaned back, and soaked up the day.

They might not spend the night in Amarillo—­that depended on the witness. But they'd agreed to stay over if necessary. Luke kept his hand on hers whenever he wasn't shifting. The wind and sun felt so good, so pleasantly invigorating, and the hand-­holding seemed so innocent, she magnanimously decided not to protest. An hour later, they were still holding hands when it started to drizzle.

Luke pulled over at the first gas station to put up the top and take a comfort break. When he climbed back in the car and gunned the engine, she could tell his mood had shifted. They headed back to the highway, but this time he kept both hands on the wheel. With the top up and the noise down, there was plenty of room for conversation, but none seemed forthcoming.

She let it go about ten minutes, then asked, “Is something wrong?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You picked up on that, huh?”

“I am a psychiatrist.” She kept her tone playful.

“So I hear.”

More silence. She pulled the band out of her hair and let it fall freely to her shoulders. If he thought she was going to pick up a crowbar and pry whatever the hell was on his mind out of him, he was mistaken. No room in this car for a crowbar. Looking out her window, she hummed tunelessly.

“What the hell?” he said at last. “Are you tone-­deaf?”

“Just passing the time.”

“If I tell you what's on my mind, do you promise not to hum anymore?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether I think you're being honest or not.”

“I told you already, Clancy. I don't play games.”

“Seems like you're playing one right now. You haven't said a word since we left the gas station.”

“That's only because I'm not sure you're ready to hear what I have to say.” He turned his eyes on her, and the intensity of his gaze made her throat tighten.

She might be in over her head, but it was too late to unask the question. “Fire away.” She tried to infuse her voice with confidence.

“Like I said before, I'm not nearly as noble as you make me out. You give me too much credit. I can see it in the way you look at me.”

“Let me get this straight. You've been holding my hand for the past hour, but now you're not talking to me because you think I like you too much.” She turned her eyes back to the road so he wouldn't see the sting of his words burning up her cheeks. “I've already told you I'm not interested in taking whatever this is into relationship territory, so just relax and enjoy the ride.”

“You're missing the point. I've been thinking a lot about you lately . . . about us . . . and holding your hand like that, it hit me. I'm feeling something . . .
big.
It's important to me that once you fall in love with me, it's with the real me. Not some trumped-­up dreamboat you've got floating around in your fantasy life. That's all I'm going to say.”

“I don't fantasize about you.”

“Yes, you do.” His voice came out low and gravelly.

“You've obviously got me confused with some buckle bunny, but I'm afraid that cowboy stuff just doesn't work for me.” Her voice carried a little too much bravado. She knew she was trying too hard to pretend his declaration from a moment ago hadn't affected her.

He'd said he wanted her to fall in love with him—­the real him.

And she was sharp enough to read the subtext. The only time a man wanted a woman to fall in love with him was when he was falling in love with her. But that was impossible. They barely knew one another. She clutched the door handle.

“What, now you wanna jump out of the car? I said you might not be ready for this.”

“Luke, I'm
never
going to be ready for this. I think
you've
got the wrong idea about
me.
Maybe I'm the ignoble one, and you're the one who needs to take off his rose-­colored glasses. Ever think of that?”

“Nope. But if you want to air your dirty laundry, fine by me. I like the dirty laundry, those little everyday flaws that make you who you are. To me, that's the good stuff.”

“You already had your PI check me out, so what's there to air?”

“My guess it has to do with your sister, Grace.”

He might as well have punched her in the stomach as brought her sister up. But if there was even a slight chance Luke Jericho was actually falling in love with her, he deserved to know the truth. Blinking away the pressure behind her eyes she turned to him. “I'm sure you know from your background check that my sister took her own life. Postpartum depression. She needed me, and I wasn't there for her.”

“You're too smart for that Faith. You can't take the blame for another person's choices.”

“But I can take the blame for my own choices, and I made some doozies.” She sucked in a big breath and let it out slowly. Folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. The words she wanted to say stuck in her throat—­maybe because she'd never said them aloud. Ever. “I was in love with my sister's husband. Or at least I thought I was at the time.”

“The detective, Danny Benson? Didn't see that one coming.”

“Of course you didn't. He was my sister's husband. So there you go, now you see I have a legitimate reason to feel guilty, not to mention heartbroken.”

“You still into the guy?”

She shook her head. “No. What I mean is, I'm heartbroken about Grace. I missed out on so much time with her. All the while I was mooning over her husband, wishing I had her life, her family, I was losing the last little bit of time I could've had with her.
She
was my family. She practically raised me, and somehow I let myself get resentful and jealous. I lost sight of how special she was. Now she's gone, and I can never get that time back. I didn't lose it. I tossed it away for nothing. Grace needed me, and I wasn't there, but the truth is I needed her, too.”

“Say that last part again.”

This time she couldn't keep her voice from cracking. “I needed her, too.”

“Think about that. Your sister had a new baby, a new husband, and she was depressed on top of everything. It seems natural you might've felt she'd abandoned you. Maybe you were looking to your brother-­in-­law for the attention you weren't getting from your sister.”

“God, no. I mean, yes. But you make it sound like that makes it okay, when it's not. Grace took care of me after our parents died. She was there for me, then, even though she was little more than a young girl herself. After she married Danny, I was so jealous of Grace I never even noticed that
she needed me.
I never saw
her
pain because I was too busy being a selfish brat.”

“You were just a teenager, though. Right?”

“I was as old as my sister was when our parents died. I was old enough to know better. Old enough to
do
something.”

“Like what?”

She didn't need Luke to make excuses for her. She'd been blind to Grace's pain, period. “Like get my sister professional help.”

“Seems like that'd be her husband's job.”

“Yes, but he didn't realize . . .” She ran out of steam halfway through that thought. Didn't want to finish it. “Grace's death wasn't Danny's fault. And now you're the one missing the point.”

“Okay. So you're a bad girl. You coveted your sister's husband. How does that translate into your pushing me away?”

She didn't have the answer. She only knew she couldn't let herself get sucked into that situation again. She never wanted to be in that head-­over-­heels place again. That place where nothing else matters but the man you
think
you love, because it's not real . . . and the price is far too high. “I'm fine with sex, Luke. But that's it for us.”

He pumped the brake and swerved onto the shoulder of the highway, killed the engine, and grabbed her by the shoulders. “That's just not enough for me, Clancy.” His eyes searched her face. “You and your brother-­in-­law ever actually fool around?”

“Oh God, no. He's my sister's husband, and it was all on my part. Anyway, two years ago, he finally remarried. He's a newlywed now, and trust me—­he doesn't have a clue how I felt back then—­and he never will.”

“I wouldn't be too sure about that last part, the not knowing, I mean.”

Luke sounded angry, and she wasn't sure why. “Sorry you don't understand. I never should've told you to begin with, it's just that I didn't want you to think I don't care for you, or that you'd done something wrong. This is all on me. I simply don't want to be in a relationship . . . with anyone.”

His voice rose, and his grip on her shoulders tightened. “You wanted Danny, though, so why didn't you go after him when you had the chance?”

“Are you listening at all? My. Sister's. Husband.”

“Which brings us full circle.” The edge in his voice smoothed out. “You did nothing wrong. You were a kid who'd lost her parents. You saw your sister moving on with her life, with a new family, and you wanted that for yourself. You never acted on any of your feelings because you would never do anything to hurt your sister. Not intentionally.” Releasing her shoulders, he pushed a lock of hair off her forehead. “Listen to me, Clancy. Lusting in your heart doesn't make you a bad person. Remember Jimmy Carter?”

“President Jimmy Carter? Of course, but I don't see—­”

“Jimmy Carter admitted in an interview with
Playboy
magazine that he lusted in his heart after women who were not his wife. He still got elected president, and he even won a Nobel Peace Prize.”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. There really were no words to express how convoluted she found Luke's reasoning.

His face was less serious now, his lips rising at the edges. A full-­blown grin soon followed, and her own mouth started to twitch. When he cocked his brow and spread his hands in an I-­rest-­my-­case, something inside her altered. From deep within, a rumble of laughter germinated, gathered speed, and eventually erupted from her mouth.