Born Innocent Read Free

the blinds drawn. Or down at the river sitting on a rock, staring into the current.
    “ When he thinks no one’s paying attention, he acts like a man with something serious on his mind. But then the minute anyone actually talks to him, he pastes on a big smile and suddenly he hasn’t got a care in the world.” Joe paused, looked away, then snared her glance again. “Damn it, Claire. There’s something... not right about the guy.” His frustration was evident in the tightness of his voice. “I just.... I don’t like to see you mixed up with him.” He turned his back on her and went to stare out the window again.
    Claire began to feel ashamed. Even if Joe would never give her his love, he’d meant what he said a few moments ago. He was her friend. Her welfare mattered to him. He must have gone to some trouble to discover whatever there was to learn about Henson. And from the points he’d just made, his suspicions had some merit. She saw now just how petty and mean she’d been to mislead him about herself and a man in whom she had no interest at all.
    She rose, and carefully approached him. “Look, Joe.” She spoke with gentle firmness. “You know how people are in this town. A woman goes to lunch with a man, and they have her married to him by dinnertime. But whatever people are saying, I’m not dating Alan Henson. He’s just a casual acquaintance, and that’s all he’ll ever be. If he’s got problems I don’t know about, well, they don’t concern me because there’s nothing at all between Alan and me.”
    Joe turned from the window. “You’re sure?”
    “ Yes. Honestly. There’s nothing between Alan Henson and me. And there never will be.” How could there be, a desolate inner voice added, when Alan Henson isn’t you?
    Joe looked down at her. She found herself doing what she’d always done when close to him: memorizing him, from the high, fine forehead to the bladelike nose, the thin slash of mouth. His skin was toughened, freckled, from long hours in the sun. His straight black brows had the slightest arch at the outer edges.
    The longing grew, like something warm expanding from the core of her. Just one touch, her heart cried. Only one. Just to reach up and lay her hand softly along the line of that rough cheek—
    Clenching her fists, Claire cut off the treacherous thought. She made herself step back. Joe blinked when she moved. He glanced away, and then back at her.
    She forced herself to say the words, “If that’s all, then I think you’d better go.”
    Joe didn’t reply. He was looking steadily at her once more. For one forbidden moment she allowed herself to again imagine the impossible—that he would reach for her, take her in his arms, and swear he couldn’t live another millisecond without her at his side.
    But then bitter reality returned. “Yeah,” he muttered gruffly. “I’d better go.”
    As always, except for that one taboo night, he was stronger than she was. He turned on his heel and stalked out the way he’d come.
     

Chapter Two
    For Claire, there was one overwhelming desire right then: to chase after him and beg him to give what they might share a chance, to plead with him to let himself love her. But begging for his love had never worked before. She’d done it twice. Once at eighteen, and then again six years ago, when she was twenty-four. Both times he’d turned her down flat. So she knew by hard experience that chasing after Joe Tally would get her nowhere at all.
    Claire sighed and rubbed her eyes. Then, though she despised herself for doing it, she wandered forlornly out to the lobby and peeked through the curtain as Joe started up his truck and drove away. Only the sound of more firecrackers going off—this time a string of loud ones tossed right onto the porch of the cottage—snapped her out of her self-pitying reverie.
    Claire almost flung open the door to chase the errant neighbor boy down the street and yell at him to cut it out.
    But she controlled