He should have known better than to help Clare Wingate. The last time he’d helped her, he ended up royally screwed.
Sebastian moved to the nightstand, grabbed his Seiko, and looked down at the black face with its compass and mile marker dials and features. He had yet to set the stainless steel watch to reflect the time zone change, and he pulled out the crown. As he moved the hands forward one hour, he thought back to the last time he’d seen Clare. She must have been ten or so, and had followed him to a pond not far from the carriage house where his father lived. He’d had a net to catch frogs and tadpoles, and she stood on the bank beneath a huge cotton tree while he waded in and got busy.
“I know how babies are made,” she’d announced, looking down at him through thick glasses magnifying her light blue eyes. As always, her dark hair had been pulled into tight braids at the back of her head. “The dad kisses the mom and a baby gets into her stomach.”
He had already lived through two stepfathers, as well as his mother’s boyfriends, and he knew exactly how babies got made. “Who told you that?”
“My mother.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” he’d informed her, then proceeded to fill Clare in on what he knew. He told her in technical terms how the sperm and the egg got together in the woman’s body.
Behind her glasses, Clare’s big eyes had filled with horror. “That’s not true!”
“Yeah. It is.” Then he’d added his own observations. “Sex is loud and men and women do it a lot.”
“No way!”
“Yes way. They do it all the time. Even when they don’t want babies.”
“Why?”
He’d shrugged and netted a few tadpoles. “I guess it must feel good.”
“Gross!”
The year before, he’d thought it sounded pretty gross too. But since turning twelve the month before, he’d started to think differently about sex. More curious than disgusted.
He recalled that when Mrs. Wingate had found out about his sex talk with Clare, shit had hit the fan. He’d been packed up and sent back to Washington early. His mother was so angered by his treatment, she refused to send him to Idaho anymore. From then on, his father had been forced to visit him in whichever city they happened to be living. But things between his mother and father deteriorated into full-blown rancor, and there were years in his life when his father had been absent. Large holes where he hadn’t seen Leo at all.
These days, if he had to characterize his relationship with the old man, he would have said it was mostly nonexistent. There had been a time in his life when he’d blamed Clare for that situation.
Sebastian snapped the watch on his wrist and looked around for his wallet. He saw it on the floor and bent to retrieve it. He should have left Clare on a bar stool last night, he told himself. She’d been sitting three stools down, and if he hadn’t overheard her tell the bartender her name, he wouldn’t have recognized her. As a kid, he’d always thought she looked like a cartoon, with big eyes and mouth. Last night she hadn’t been wearing big thick glasses, but once he looked into those light blue eyes, seen those full lips and all that dark hair, he realized it was her. The light and dark coloring that had been contrary and a little freaky in a child, had turned her into a stunning woman. The lips that had been too full on a child now made him wonder what she’d learned to do with that mouth as an adult. She’d grown into a beautiful woman, but the second he’d recognized her, he should have left her all weepy and sad and some other sucker’s problem. Screw it. He didn’t need the headache.
“Just once, you try and do the right thing…” he muttered as he shoved his wallet into his back pocket. He’d walked her up to her hotel room to make sure she made it, and she invited him in. He’d stayed while she bawled some more, and when she passed out, he tucked her in bed. Like a freakin’ saint, he thought. And then he’d made a tactical error.
It was around one-thirty in the morning, and as he’d pulled the sheet over Clare, he realized he’d knocked back a few too many Dos Equis and tequila chasers from her minibar. Instead of risking a night in a Boise jail, he decided he’d stick around and watch some tube while he sobered up. In the past, he had shared a cave with guerrilla leaders and an Abrams tank stuffed with Marines. He’d chased endless stories and been chased across the Arizona desert by pissed-off polygamists. He could handle one passed-out, fully clothed, smelling-like-gin, drunk girl. No problem. None at all.
He’d kicked off his shoes, propped up some pillows, and reached for the remote. These days, he hardly slept, and he’d been wide-awake when she got up and began to wrestle with her dress. Watching her was a hell of a lot more entertaining than the Golden Girls marathon on television, and he’d enjoyed the show as she stripped down to nothing but a pink thong and beige birth control patch. Who would have thought the girl with the thick glasses and terminally tight braids would have grown up to look so good in a stripper thong?
He moved across the room and sat on the couch. His shoes rested on the floor, and he shoved his feet inside without untying the laces. The last time he recalled looking at the clock, it had been five-fifteen. He must have fallen asleep somewhere during the Golden Girls fourth season and woken a few hours later with Clare’s little bare ass against his button fly, her back pressed to his chest, and his hand on her bare breast like they were lovers.
He’d woken up painfully hard and ready to go. But had he violated her? Taken advantage of her? Hell, no! She had a great body and a mouth just made for sin, but he hadn’t laid a hand on her. Well, except for her breast, but that wasn’t his fault. He’d been asleep and having erotic dreams. But once he woke up, he hadn’t touched her. Instead he’d jumped in the shower and let the cold water cool him down. And what did it get him? He was accused of having sex with her anyway. Oh, he could have screwed her every which way till Sunday. But he hadn’t. He wasn’t that kind of guy. He never had been; not even if the woman was begging for it. He preferred his women coherent, and it pissed him off that she accused him of taking advantage of her. He’d purposely let her think it too. He could have set her straight, but flat-out lied just to make her feel worse. And he didn’t feel bad about it. Not even a little.
Sebastian stood and looked around the room one last time. He glanced at the big bed and the rumpled covers. Within the spill of sunlight, sparks of tiny blue and red color caught his eye. He moved to the bed and picked up a diamond stud earring from the center of Clare’s pillow. At least two carats glistened from his palm, and for a moment he wondered if the diamond was real. Then he laughed without humor and slipped it into the small hip pocket of his Levi’s. Of course it was real. Women like Clare Wingate did not wear cubic zirconias. Lord knew, he had dated enough rich women in his life to know they’d rather cut their throats than wear fakes.
He turned off the television, left the room, and walked out of the hotel. He didn’t know how long he’d be in Boise. Hell, he hadn’t even planned on visiting his father until the moment he started packing. One minute he was lining up his notes for a piece on homegrown terrorists he was working on for Newsweek, and the next he was on his feet and reaching for his suitcase.
His black Land Cruiser was parked next to the entrance, where he’d left it the previous night, and he climbed inside. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He’d never had a problem writing a story before. Not at this stage. Not when all his notes were in order and all he had to do was pound the damn thing out. But each time he tried, he ended up writing complete shit and hitting the delete key. For the first time ever, he was afraid he would miss his deadline.