Sorrow Road (Bell Elkins #5) - Julia Keller Page 0,66

into a fierce mutual passion. A passion not just for sex—although that part was, as Bell did not mind conceding, especially delicious—but also for their conversations. She loved Clay’s mind, the way it solved mechanical and mathematical problems with the same creative rigor that her own mind brought to legal and moral ones. She wondered how she had ever thought she could spend her life with another lawyer, much less a lawyer like Sam Elkins. No. She wanted a life with a builder. Not with someone who, like her, just moved words around on a page. Just argued over clauses and sub-clauses.

“You told me,” Clay went on, “that as good as this was, you were afraid you’d do something to screw it up. Sabotage it. Because you really don’t believe that you deserve happiness. Remember?”

“I do. And you said I was just frightened.”

“I think the phrase I used was ‘fraidy cat.’” He smiled.

“And I think I told you to quit psychoanalyzing me—or I’d bust out the headlight of that truck of yours, which everybody knows you love more than you could ever possibly love any woman.” She smiled back at him, a saucy, playful smile.

“Empty threat.”

“Don’t dare me, Clay Meckling. You’ll be sorry.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He had, she realized, gotten her to a better place, a calmer one. He had restored her to herself. He had a knack for that.

“Look,” he said. Serious again. “I want this to work, Belfa. Whatever it takes. No matter how long I have to wait.” She could tell from his eyes that he knew they were not out of the woods yet. They might never be out of the woods—not with her past sharing every damned moment with them.

At some point, she knew, Clay might decide it wasn’t worth it, having to fight back against that past, the past with its torments and its open wounds. And she might decide that it was not worth it, either, watching him try and fail, and try and fail again, to lift her out of the dark place where that past had left her.

But right now, here in this moment, it was worth it. She could see that in his eyes, too. That, and his keen desire for her that provoked an answering vibration in her own soul. And in other places, places that had nothing to do with her soul.

“No excuse for what I did,” he said. “Just wasn’t thinking. It’ll never happen again. My word on that. I was careless and I was stupid and I’d never hurt you or—”

She put a finger on his lips. Then she removed her finger, and kissed him.

“I heard,” he said, “that Carla’s back. Is it okay if—”

“Yes.” Standing so close to him, she could feel the chill that still came off his body. He had been working outside all day. Well, she would warm him up. She unbuttoned the top three buttons of his flannel shirt. She kissed his chest. He moaned. “Just for the record,” she murmured, “this won’t change anything. It can’t. Not for a while. Not until I figure out how to protect myself.”

“From me?” he said. He leaned away from her. He was troubled by that idea, and it showed on his face.

“No. From the memories.” She rose up on tiptoe and kissed him again. Then she turned around to face forward and, still holding his hand, she led him out of the kitchen and through the hallway and slowly up the staircase.

Chapter Nine

Wow, Carla thought. There it was—alive and kicking.

She had not known if the place would still be in business. She would have guessed not. Seven years was an eternity in the world of dive bars. A month was often long enough for a place to open and close. In the back of her mind, she had fully expected to come upon the usual residue of a once-lively, now-moribund nightspot: an abandoned building tattooed with copious graffiti; busted windows; waist-high weeds stalking the place; a faded piece of orange cardboard stapled to the disintegrating door, its words shouting at you in bullying black capitals: CLOSED BY ORDER OF WV ALCOHOL BEVERAGE CONTROL ADMINISTRATION.

But the Driftwood Bar out on Old Route 37 near the Raythune-Muth county line was still a going concern. And this being Friday night, it was hopping. Everything looked roughly the same as it had four years ago: same sign. Same crude white cinder-block building. Same unpaved parking lot, now crusted and rutted with frozen snow. Same crummy cars, mostly compacts and