He might as well have slapped her. Spring lowered her head so that her hair fell forward to hide her face and walked slowly beside him, back to his car. Her eyes smarted with tears, but she refused to shed them. They'd parted so sweetly during the wee hours of Sunday morning. She hadn't expected such awkwardness and confusion their next time together. Damn you, Clay, why are you punishing me? What have I done, other than fall in love with you?
Neither of them made even a pretense of talking on the drive back to Summer's house. Clay probably would have just walked her to the door and driven away had not Summer and Derek driven up at almost the same time. "We stopped for cherry cheesecake and coffee," Summer explained as the four of them walked toward the front door together. "I didn't think you'd be home until much later," she added to Spring, her eyebrow arching questioningly at their strained expressions.
"Clay has to work tomorrow
," Spring replied, using Clay's own excuse. It sounded just as hollow coming from her, she decided wearily.
"Clay, I forgot to give you the proposal you asked for on doing a theatrical production with the Halloran House kids. I have it ready," Summer told him. "Want to come in and let me get it?"
Though he looked anxious to leave, Clay agreed to come in only long enough for Summer to retrieve the papers. The telephone was ringing when they entered; the call was for Derek, a late business call that he decided to take in his study.
"I was hoping that Tony would take a part in the play," Summer said before going off to look for the proposal for Clay. "He's been so interested in the drama classes we've done at Halloran House. Now I don't know if he'll be able to stay with us."
"Thanks to his parents calling in the cops," Clay muttered, darting an eloquent look at Spring as Summer left the room with a promise to hurry back.
Spring lifted her chin defiantly, still seething at his rejection on the beach and annoyed with his persistence in arguing with her viewpoint about this boy she'd never even met. What does this have to do with us, anyway? she asked herself, even as she felt compelled to respond to his challenge. "If they hadn't called the police, he still wouldn't be in your play," she pointed out coolly. "Who knows where he would be by now?"
"You still think they did the right thing, don't you? Even after I explained my viewpoint."
"Yes, I do," she insisted. "I realize that you are an expert in this field, Dr. McEntire, but even you are not infallible."
Clay stiffened, his eyes kindling with the smoldering anger that had seemed just below the surface all evening. "I never said I was infallible."
"No, just that you're always right, is that it?" Spring snapped. She glared fiercely at the man who'd turned her inside out over the past few days. "It's easy for you to say what parents should do or how they should raise their children. It's always easy for people who don't have children to tell others how to raise them."
"I suppose you know better?" he demanded, almost in a yell. "Hell, you've never even been a child! You were born being the responsible older sister, weren't you, Dr. Reed?"
Spring went cold with fury. How dare this...this perpetual adolescent criticize her? She certainly wasn't the one acting like an unreasonable stranger! "I like to think that I'm a responsible person. When I make promises, I try to keep them. I know, for example, that if I promised to call someone, I would certainly do so." Now talk to me, Clay. Tell me why you didn't call. Why you're angry tonight. Ask me to stay in San Francisco.
"My not calling you has absolutely nothing to do with this!" Clay protested heatedly, though he'd flushed at her pointed accusation. "We're talking about a young man's dignity here."
"And of course you're the expert on dignity." Spring eyed his fluorescent clothing as she voiced the disdainful comment, lashing out at him from the depths of hurt and confusion and heartsick love. She was sorry almost immediately, but something kept her apology inside her. She only stared at him, knowing that she had just destroyed anything that might have remained between them.
Clay's face went white. "Maybe you're right," he replied rather hoarsely. "I'm not the one who tries to live according to everyone else's rules of duty and responsibility and propriety. You've believed from the beginning that I was too much of a nonconformist for you, haven't you? An irresponsible, immature playboy who dresses funny—does that sum up your opinion of me, Dr. Reed? Fine. If that's what you want to believe, go ahead. I'm quite content with my life and the accomplishments I've made and will make in the future. You can go back to your Rogers in their plain ties and suits and socks and see if they can make you happy. Personally, I don't think you will be because you'll never find a man who quite measures up to your idea of mature, responsible perfection!"
And with that final, softly spoken, heart-slashing pronouncement he turned and walked with undeniable dignity out of the room. Even from the den Spring heard the front door slam behind him.
"Spring, what in the world happened? I've never seen Clay look so furious!" With Derek following just behind her, Summer entered the room and rushed to her sister's side, her lovely, expressive face creased with concern.
"I don't want to talk about it, Summer."
"But—"
Spring whirled on her younger sister with barely suppressed violence. "I said I don't want to talk about it!"
Derek stepped in quickly to prevent the sibling confrontation that threatened. "I think it would be best if you let it drop, Summer," he said gently. "Spring can tell you about it when she calms down, if she wants to then."
Feeling numb and clinging desperately to that blessed numbness, Spring forced a smile. "Thank you, Derek. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll turn in."
She felt the anxious eyes of her sister and brother-in-law on her as she left the room, but she kept her shoulders straight, her pace unhurried. And her mind blank.
* * *
Clay stormed into his house, walked to his bar for the second time in two days and, for the first time since he'd been in college, deliberately set out to get drunk. Unfortunately, it didn't work. He kept replaying his fight with Spring and forgetting his drink until finally he set the barely touched tumbler on the bar and began to restlessly pace the room.
He might as well admit that he'd been spoiling for a fight tonight. He just hadn't known it at the time. And, from all appearances, Spring had been just as eager to lash out at him.
Of course, all she'd said was that she would have called the police if it had been her son who'd run away. She couldn't know how Tony must have felt, couldn't understand the kinds of pressures and torments that would make a young man feel compelled to leave the safety of his home and face the streets alone. It was a degrading, humiliating experience being treated like a mindless child, forced to face the problems he'd run away from whether he was ready to do so or not.