Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

"I defended myself," she said. She brought her fists up, shoulder width, knuckles up and knuckles down, as if she carried an unseen oaken shaft. "I wish I had been there when whoever it was came to my house." She looked up at Russ. "If I had only gone home an hour earlier-half an hour."

She was shocked when he took one of her hands, folding his fingers over hers.

"Thank God you weren't there. Because I know you, and I know you wouldn't have let him go without a fight. And whoever has him, Clare, they're bad people. I don't know if you could've run them off with a cross and a candlestick." He lowered her hand without releasing it. Tugged her closer. "Though if anyone could…"

"What are you doing?" She sounded like a high school girl behind the bleachers, breathless and naïve.

He caught her other hand. Forced her arms behind her back so easily it seemed as if it were her idea, as if she were stretching invisible wings, readying herself to fly. She bumped into his chest.

"What do you think I'm doing?" He bent his head toward her.

"We"-she swallowed-"we haven't decided anything yet. We haven't come to any sort of understanding."

He laughed, a low sound that she had only heard once or twice before. "Clare. We decided everything about three days after we met."

She could smell him, salt and sun and something unique to him. She felt dizzy. You know when you're captured? Hardball Wright asked. When you give up control in your head . "Russ," she got out, "I don't think-"

"Good. Keep on not thinking." He kissed her, kissed her right down to her foundations, kissed her until she was a cathedral burning: lead melting, saints shattering, not a stone left on stone. He lifted his hands, hers, pressed her against the bookcase, interlocking their fingers and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss and the edge of the shelves bit into the back of her hands, hanging there with his sweet weight against her, nailed to the wood by her own reckless desire.

Then his hands were on her face, her jaw, sliding through her hair, plucking out the pins keeping it in place, tracing the edge of her collar. "How does this come off?" he asked, his voice like dusk against her ear.

"Uhn." Thinking was like sweeping through cobwebs. "It buttons. In the back."

The rub of his knuckle, a tug, and her collar came free.

"So it does," he said. His lips slid over her neck and for a moment she couldn't breathe, literally couldn't breathe at the feel of his teeth and tongue. She let her head roll back, exposing her throat, while what passed for her brain wondered if they could make it to the loveseat in her office. The lumpy loveseat. In her office. In her church.

In her church.

She shoved him away. "Stop it," she said. She could barely speak. "We're not doing an Abelard and Héloïse."

"What?" He sounded like her, dazed and winded.

"We're not doing this here." She inhaled. Eyed him where he stood, braced against the desk. Hair askew-had she done that?-eyes hot, his chest heaving as if he had been running the Independence Day 5K.

"Okay," he said. "Your house." He moved toward her again.

"No! Stop!"

"What?" His face creased with frustration, but he stopped all the same. "Not in the church. I got it. It's sacrilegious. But don't tell me there's a problem with your house because it's the rectory."

"The problem's not my house." She rubbed her face. Wished she had some cold water she could splash on. Or dunk her head in. "The problem's you. And me."

"Oh, for-not that again. Look, let me point something out to you, okay? For two and a half, three years now, I never touched you. I didn't kiss you, I didn't"-his hands flexed as if he were grabbing hold of her-"I didn't do anything. And let me tell you, it wasn't for lack of thinking about it! Jesus, I used to go for weeks where I swear the only thing I could think about was having you. But I didn't do anything about it." He stepped closer. "I exercised self-control." He enunciated every word. "Because I was married."

He jammed one hand through his hair, making it stick up even farther.

"Now I can't keep my hands off you. Doesn't that tell you I've"-he cast around for the right word-"I would've never let myself while Linda was alive. Never."

"I know that."

"Then why the hell can't we work with what we have? I love you. I want you. Why can't you trust that to be enough?"

"Because it wasn't enough before!"

He looked dumbfounded. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about last winter. I broke it off with you for the sake of your marriage. Do you have any idea what that felt like? To just give up everything and walk away?"

"Of course I do. You think it was any easier for me?"

"Yes! I do! You had someone you loved to console you. I had nothing! Then, when you found out Linda had been murdered, you came crawling right back-"

"Wait a minute-"

"-looking for help and understanding and sympathy and what all, using me like an emotional life-support system, to hell with whether it was peeling me raw or not-"

" Using you?"

"I gave, and I gave, and I gave, and what did I get in return? When that bitch of a state police investigator accused me of murder, you believed her!"

"I did not!"

"You did so! I was there! I saw you!"

"Christ, Clare, I thought about the possibility for thirty seconds. You're going to hang me up to dry for thirty seconds? I'm sorry I'm not so perfect and all-giving as you are."

"You see? It's all about you. Again. When does it get to be about me, Russ? When does it get to be about what I need?" Her eyes teared up, but the words kept coming, as if she had tapped some vat of acid and now it had to gush out until it ran dry. "I killed for you. I killed a man to save you. And then I had to turn around and let you go again , and you know what? I know your wife died. I know it was the worst moment of your life. But I was having the worst moment of my life, too, and you just turned your back on me. You rejected me, everything I had to give and everything I needed. We always said we were holding on, and you let go . You… let… me… fall." She was crying freely now, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. She opened her mouth and found herself saying, "I hate you for that."

She had reached the bottom of it. Her head felt emptied out, except for the echo of Deacon Aberforth's words, Are you angry with your police chief?

And her reply. Of course not .

Russ was pale beneath his tan. He opened his mouth. Shut it. Scrubbed his hand over his eyes. He turned away from her, then jerked and spun back around, and she knew with a sick certainty that the words you turned your back on me had been driven into his ear like a spike.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said. His voice was hoarse.

His phone rang. He slapped his pocket, stricken. She waved one hand. "Go ahead," she said. He checked the number. Flipped the phone open.

"Van Alstyne"-he coughed-"Van Alstyne here." She watched him as he listened. Who said getting everything out into the open was a good idea? She didn't feel better, or healthier, or more honest. She just felt dirty. And empty.

"Aw, shit," he said. He closed his eyes for a moment. "Where?" He nodded. "I'll be right there." He listened again. "Yeah. That's fine." He glanced at her. "No, I'll tell her."

Fear stirred in her gut.

"Yeah," Russ said again. " 'Bye." He snapped the phone shut. Looked at her. "That was Lyle. Some kids were in the Cossayuharie Muster Field. They found Amado's body."

She followed in her own car. He could see her headlights behind him, bright against the tree-shrouded twilight of the mountain road. While he had been in St. Alban's, getting his intestines handed to him on a steaming platter, the sun had set. That seemed appropriate. On the stereo, Bill Deasy sang Is it my curse , to always make the good things worse? He had bought the CD as a present for himself last Christmas, because the songs made him think of Clare.