I Shall Not Want

He snorted. 'That's probably the origin of half the traditions you Episcopalians are so gung-ho about. Just copying what the last guy did.'

'Mm-hmm. Which doesn't sound like much until you try to do something differently. How many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb?'

'Uh. I don't know. How many?'

'What? Change the lightbulb?'

He laughed, which she appreciated, since it was a very old joke. 'I didn't find anything,' she went on. 'We've got some odds and ends in the nursery. Do you want me to look there?'

'I guess.' He replaced the heavy old leather-bound book and then the fifty-cent spiral- bound version. He took the same care with each one.

'You guess?'

He made a noise in the back of his throat. 'I don't want to rule anything out. But let's face it, sticking a list of dealers where any three-year-old might turn it into an art project isn't likely.' He stepped back to size up the office bookcase again, almost knocking into her. He turned and grabbed her shoulders, steadying her. 'Our best bet was right here. More loose bits and pieces. It woulda been easy for him to slide something in. If you or your secretary accidentally pulled it from its hiding place, you would have just put it back again as soon as you saw it wasn't what you were looking for.'

He was right. She could picture Amado, vacuuming in here, maybe wiping the shelves and the woodwork with a dusting cloth. Reaching into his pocket and slipping something between the papers. Hidden in plain sight. She poked her hair into place. Tried to get her mouth around the unpalatable truth. 'It's not looking good for Amado, is it? I mean, if he was hiding something important from whoever snatched him.'

He looked at her. 'No. It isn't.'

She rubbed her arm. Once in a while, she wished Russ would sugar-coat things for her. 'Why wouldn't he just come to the police, if he had seen something illegal? Or come to me? I would have helped him.' She looked at her hands. Folded them up tight. 'I could have helped him.'

Russ smiled a little. 'You did everything you could, darlin'. You gave him a job and a place to live and you beat the crap out of the Christies when they tried to attack him.'

'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 naive.

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 Heloise.'

'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!'