Tess Gerritsen - Bloodstream

By now the fire was fully ablaze, throwing its bright circle of light against the gloom. Claire took a seat on the couch and turned off the lamp burning beside her. The fire gave off light enough; it was in shadow she sought refuge.

Lincoln sat down beside her, a comfortable space apart, a statement of neutrality that did not distinguish between friend, lover, or mere acquaintance.

“How is Noah doing?” he finally asked, neutrality maintained even in conversation.

“He went to bed angry. In some ways, he wants to be a victim, he wants to feel like the world’s against him. There’s nothing I can do to change his mind.” She sighed and dropped her head against her hand. “For nine months he’s made me the villain for forcing him to move here. This afternoon, when I told him I was thinking of moving back to Baltimore, he blew up. Said I wasn’t thinking of his needs, what he wanted. No matter what I do, I can’t win. I can’t please him.”

“Then all you can do is please yourself.”

“It feels selfish.”

“Does it?”

“It feels as if I’m not being the best mother I could be.”

“I see you trying so hard, Claire. As hard as any parent could.” He paused, and sighed as well. “And now I suppose I’m throwing another complication into your life, at a time when you least need it. But Claire, there is no other time for me. I had to say it before you made a decision. Before you left Tranquility.” He added softly: “Before it’s too late for me to say anything at all.”

At last she looked at him. He was sitting with his gaze downcast, his head tilted wearily against his hand.

“Not that I blame you for wanting to leave,” he said. “This town is slow to warm up to strangers, slow to trust them. There are a few who are just plain mean.

But for the most part, they’re like people everywhere else. Some of them are unbelievably generous. The best folks you could ever hope to find…“ His voice faded to silence, as though he’d run out of things to say.

A moment passed between them.

“Are you speaking on behalf of the whole town again, Lincoln? Or yourself?”

He shook his head. “It’s not coming out right. I came to say something, and here I am, beating around the bush. I think about you a lot, Claire. The fact is, I think about you all the time. I’m not sure what to make of this, because it’s a new experience for me. Walking around with my head in the clouds.”

She smiled. For so long she had thought of him as the stoic Yankee, plain-spoken and practical. A man whose boots were planted too firmly on earth to ever lose his head to the clouds.

He rose to his feet and stood, unsure of himself, by the fire. “That’s all I came to tell you. I know there are complications. Doreen, mainly. And I know I don’t have any experience being a father. But I have all the patience in the world when it comes to things I really care about.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll let myself out.”

He had already gone to the closet door and was reaching for his jacket when she caught up to him in the front hall. She put her hand on his shoulder, and he turned to look at her. His jacket slipped from the hanger and fell, unnoticed, to the floor.

“Come back and sit with me.” That whispered request, the smile on her lips, was all the invitation he needed. He touched her face, caressed her cheek. She had forgotten what it felt like, the touch of a man’s hand against her flesh. It awakened a longing that was deep and unexpected and so powerful that she gave a sigh and closed her eyes. Gave another sigh as he kissed her, as their bodies folded into each other.

They kissed all the way to the front parlor and were still kissing as they sank onto the couch. In the hearth a log tipped over, and a shower of sparks and flames leapt up with startling brilliance. Seasoned wood makes the hottest fire.

The heat of their own fire was consuming her now, reducing to ashes any resistance. They lay on the couch, bodies pressed together, hands exploring, discovering. She pulled his shirt loose and slid her hand across the breadth of his back. His skin there felt startlingly cool, as if all the heat he possessed was radiating toward her, in the kisses he pressed to her face, her throat. She unbuttoned his shirt, inhaling his scent. Those all-too-brief whiffs she’d had of him over the weeks had somehow been branded into her memory, and now the smell of him was both familiar and intoxicating.

“If we’re going to stop,” he murmured, “we’d better stop now.”

“I don’t want to stop.”

“I’m not ready-I mean, I didn’t come prepared-”

“It’s all right. It’s all right,” she heard herself saying, without knowing or caring if it was all right, so hungry was she for the touch of him.

“Noah,” he said. “What if Noah wakes up.

At that she opened her eyes and found herself looking directly into his. It was a view of him she’d never seen before, his face lit by the fire’s glow, his gaze stark with need.

“Upstairs,” she said. “My bedroom.”

Slowly he smiled. “Is there a lock on the door?”

They made love three times that night. The first was a mindless collision of bodies, limbs tangled together, then the shuddering explosion deep within. The second time was the slower coupling of lovers, gazes locked, the touch and scent of each other now familiar.

The third time they made love, it was to say good-bye.

They’d awakened in the hours before dawn, and knowingly reached for each other in the darkness. They spoke no words, their bodies joining of their own accord, two halves gliding together into one whole. When, in silence, he emptied himself into her, it was as though he was spilling tears of both joy and sorrow. The joy of having found her. The sorrow of what they would now have to face. Doreen’s wrath. Noah’s resistance. A town that might never accept her.

He did not want Noah to find them in bed together when morning came; neither he nor Claire was ready to deal with the repercussions. It was still dark when Lincoln got dressed and left the house.

From her bedroom window she watched his truck drive away. She heard the loud crackle of ice under his wheels and knew that the night had turned even colder, that this morning, to merely draw in a breath would be painful. For a long time, even after the taillights had vanished, she remained at the window, staring out through moonlit-silvered icicles. Already she felt his absence. And she felt something else, both unexpected and troubling: a mother’s guilt that she was selfishly pursuing her own needs, her own passions.

She walked down the hall to Noah’s door. There was silence within; knowing how deeply he slept, she felt certain he’d heard nothing of what had gone on in her bedroom last night. She stepped inside and crossed the darkness to kneel beside his bed.

When he was still a child, Claire had often lingered over her sleeping son, stroking his hair, inhaling the scent of warm linen and soap. He allowed so little contact between them now; she had almost forgotten what it was like to touch him and not have him automatically pull away. If only I could have you back again. She leaned over and kissed him on the eyebrow. He gave a moan and rolled over, turning his back to her. Even in his sleep, she thought, he pulls away from me.

She was about to rise to her feet when she suddenly froze, her gaze fixed on his pillow. On the streak of phosphorescent green where Noah’s face had rested against the linen.

In disbelief she touched the streak and felt moistness there, like the warm leavings of tears. She stared at the tips of her fingers.

They glimmered with spectral light in the darkness.

I need to know what’s growing in that lake, Max. And I need to know today.”