his sweaty cheek, slowly shifting her weight, feeling him slide out of her, both of them crying out at the sensation.
“Oh God.” Clay threw an arm over his eyes as Erica began to dress, feeling around for her underwear. “What if you get pregnant? Oh no. Oh God. This isn’t happening.”
“I can’t get pregnant,” she assured him, putting on her bra.
He peeked out at her, watching as she pulled her sweatshirt over her head. “You’re a girl, aren’t you? Girls can get pregnant. Trust me, I paid attention in science class, remember?”
“I can’t get pregnant.” Erica tossed his boxers to him, starting to wiggle into her dungarees. “Really, it’s true. I’m not making it up. See this?”
She twisted her hips toward him, zipper still down, and showed him the scar on her belly.
“What is that?”
“I had an operation.” She yanked up her pants, zipping and buttoning them. “I can’t have babies. Ever.”
“Oh. Wow.” Clay sat, pulling on his boxers, looking over at her. He clearly didn’t know what to say. Not that she could blame him. “Oh wow. Erica, I’m so sorry.”
“No sense crying over spilled milk.” She rubbed her hand over the steam on the window, peering outside. “You think the light show is over?”
“Probably.” Clay was dressing, pulling on his jeans, slipping on his t-shirt. “Sorry we missed it?”
“A little.” Erica drew a face on the glass, a round face, two eyes and a sardonic squiggly smile.
Clay scooted closer, putting his arms around her waist. “I’m not.”
“What time is it?”
He sighed, looking at his watch. “Time to take you home. You’re sure no one will notice you snuck out?”
“I told you, my father is oblivious.” Erica grabbed her boots, starting to pull them on. She didn’t want to think about her father-and Leah. She had thought having her best friend back would make things right again, but since Leah had come home from Magdalene House, she had been withdrawn and moody and prone to fits of either anger or tears over the littlest things.
Erica couldn’t really blame her. Even though Leah had gone away to a maternity home to have her baby-most girls who found themselves with a bun in the oven ended up at places like Magdalene House-she’d changed her mind once Grace had been born. Even back when Leah had actually believed her mother’s lie-that Robert Nolan was Leah’s biological father-Leah had decided to run off to New York and start a new life with her baby in tow.
Leah had sworn up and down that she’d been tricked into signing the adoption papers by the social worker, and while Erica’s father had hired a private investigator to find her and had talked to several lawyers, apparently Leah’s signature on the document made things legally tricky. Erica didn’t really know all the details-she just knew she and Father Michael had almost caught the adoption worker taking off in the car that had carried baby Grace away from the hospital where Leah had given birth to her.
If they’d just gotten to her a few minutes sooner!
Erica felt guilty about that. She felt guilty about a lot of things, including not figuring out the mystery of Leah’s disappearance sooner-how had she not connected the dots?
It made sense now, in hindsight of course. The only thing that would have made Leah disappear like that, without a trace or even a word of goodbye, was something as scandalous as an unwed pregnancy. She would have been kicked out of their strict Catholic college the instant she began showing, and Leah’s mother, Patty, wouldn’t have been able to hold her head up in the grocery store once tongues started wagging about “the Wendt girl” who “got herself in trouble.” Funny how it was always “got herself in trouble,” as if no boy was involved in the whole mess.
Of course, in this case, there was no boy. There was a man, and that man was Erica’s father, Robert Nolan.
The revelation that Robert Nolan wasn’t Leah’s father, like Patty Wendt falsely claimed, had come along with the shocking news that Erica wasn’t his daughter either. She’d been adopted, because Robert’s first wife, Susan, hadn’t been able to have children either. Erica shivered, even in the steamy heat of Clay’s backseat, touching her belly at the site of her scar, the same one her mother had.
Erica shoved that train of thought away, derailing it completely by turning to Clay and kissing him deeply, cutting off his words. She hadn’t been listening to him anyway. He gasped in surprise-she rather liked shocking him-but soon caught on to her mood, his hands less reticent now, roaming those places he’d formerly touched so hesitantly.
“What were you saying?” she whispered into his ear, reaching down to cup the growing bulge in his jeans, wondering if they had enough time for one more. It would likely take him longer a second time, and be more fun for her, but it was getting late.
“Ummm…” Clay shook his head to clear it, blinking at her. “I said… it sounds like your father and my mother would get along fabulously.”
She laughed. “We should introduce them.”
“Guess you’re ready to go?” He looked disappointed as she plucked her coat from the floor, shaking it off.
“It’s late.” She kissed him on the cheek, nudging him with her hip. “Have to get home to bed before Santa comes.”
Clay drove home slowly in the falling snow, taking twice as long to get her back home than it had taken them to get out into the country. Erica turned up the radio and sang along as Elvis begged her to be his teddy bear, the lingering scent of sex filling the enclosed vehicle.
“I have an idea,” Erica said as Clay pulled up into the alleyway behind the warehouse she called home. “How about you come to my house tomorrow… well, today. For Christmas dinner.”
She’d hatched her evil plan during the drive home, looking at the way a sort of sly, proud smile kept playing on Clay’s lips every time he glanced her way. Father Michael was supposed to come to Christmas dinner, and having Clay there would suit her purposes nicely. Besides, she really did like Clay. That part hadn’t been a lie.
“What time?” He put the car in park, letting the engine idle. “My mother wants to go to brunch at eleven, after we do gifts.”
“Perfect!” Erica smiled. “We won’t eat until five.”
“Are you sure your family will be okay with it?”
“Let me worry about that. You just come.”
He leaned over and kissed her, his lips soft and warm, and Erica slid her arms around his neck, kissing him back.
“Wow,” he breathed as they parted, looking into her eyes. “And here I thought I was going to show you something tonight.”
“You did.”
“But…” He cleared his throat. “I really didn’t expect… I mean…”
She pressed her lips to his ear, whispering, “Good girls don’t sneak out to meet boys in the middle of the night.”
He laughed. “So you’re a bad girl?”
“When I want to be.” She wiggled her eyebrows and he laughed again, sliding his hands down to her hips, pulling her closer.
“Do you think you might want to be again… soon?”
“Hang around and find out.” Erica smiled, sliding across the seat and opening the passenger side door.
He leaned over and called out, “I intend to!”
“Goodnight, Clay.”
“Night. See you in…” He glanced down at his watch. “About twelve hours…”
She shut the passenger side door, trudging through the snow-there was almost a foot on the ground already-glancing back to see Clay pulling out into the street. He waved to her and she waved back, smiling to herself.
She hadn’t really felt that Christmas spirit yet this year, not when they’d gone shopping for the Christmas tree, not stringing it with lights, not shopping for gifts, not even participating in midnight mass as the immaculate virgin-an irony that wasn’t lost on her. Something had been missing, even with Leah home, and it wasn’t just her
