Clay by Jennifer Blake Page B

Thirty percent in addition to the amount she’d scraped together by selling nearly everything she owned, borrowing from every institution that would lend her a cent and every person that she knew. Voice flat, she said, “I can’t.”
    “I think you can if you try hard enough. You have three days before Anita comes to collect it.”
    “Please,” she said, hating the necessity for begging but driven to it. “I really can’t rake up another penny. There’s just no one left to ask.”
    “Try your male guest,” Dr. Gower recommended with a slight twist of his lips. “I will be surprised if he refuses you.”
    “You don’t know him,” she said tightly, “or the situation.”
    “No, but I know you. In his shoes, I’d find it difficult to say no to anything you wanted from me.”
    She glanced at the doctor, met his dark gaze that was only an inch above her own. Stillness settled between them, and she had the unwelcome impression that he might be waiting for her to make a different, more personal appeal. The idea was disconcerting. Had it always been there or only surfaced because of the presence of a man in her home, her bed? Had shebeen oblivious before in her concentration on Lainey, but was aware now because of the sexual undercurrents between her and Clay? Or was the whole thing a figment of her overwrought imagination?
    “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, turning her gaze toward the darkly glittering lake.
    “Good.” Dr. Gower stepped away from her. “As I said, you’ll be hearing from Anita.”
    He moved off quietly into the night. Janna heard the crunch of his footsteps on the gravel driveway that led to the road. Long seconds ticked past, then from some distance away came the sound of a powerful car engine starting. It purred away into the night and all was quiet again.
    A shiver ran over Janna and she clasped her arms around her waist. Everything was going wrong, or so it seemed. She wasn’t sure where or how it had begun, but there was no apparent end to it.
    Several things today had been odd, as she thought back on them, beginning with Arty’s visit. He hadn’t been his usual, irascibly humorous self. He had avoided her gaze much of the time, and when he couldn’t, she thought she saw condemnation in his watery eyes. He’d visited with Clay far longer than with her or Lainey, and the two men had talked in voices too low to hear. Clay had been silent, almost morose, when the old swamp rat had gone, so that she missed his lazy grin and suggestive banter. On top of that, there had been an unusual amount of activity out on the lake, with the sound of boats zipping up and down the main channel and waves lappingaround the dock like surf. Regardless, Clay had not mentioned the commotion or even seemed to notice it.
    Lifting her head, she stared up through the feathery branches of a big cypress at the quarter moon that floated overhead. God, but what was she going to do? This was a judgment on her; to get so close to being able to save Lainey and then have the chance snatched away.
    Not for the first time, she wondered if it was really for Lainey’s sake that she was so determined to pursue this illegal transplant surgery. Was it actually her daughter she was trying to save, or was it her own selfish need that was so important, the need to hold on to the only thing that made her life worthwhile? In the end, was she only trying to save herself?
    She didn’t know. She really didn’t, and she was too tired from being wrapped up in the day-to-day emergencies of caring for Lainey to work it out. The only thing she knew was that she couldn’t stop. She was in too deep, with too much at stake.
    Janna moved back up onto the screen porch. The raccoon Arty had brought for Lainey was curled up in a ball in the corner of its homemade cage. Janna sat down beside him and stroked his soft fur through an opening between the wooden bars. The little critter had turned out to be as tame and mischievous as a