Chapter 19
It was a week and a half before Clay was deemed able to withstand the trip. Once he was home he received visits from all the JAG staff except Mac. She didn't feel like he would want to see her. She did however, send a plant with a simple get well soon message.
From the first moment he could speak coherently Clay kept demanding someone contact Shane and tell her what had happened. But his mother knew what it meant to be under cover and had refused while they were still in Italy. When he got home someone from the Agency came by the hospital to debrief him and also ignored Webb's demands to contact his ladylove. Becoming agitated about it only got him sedated, so Clay tried to remain calm, yet at the same time plead with anyone that would listen how important this was to him.
Finally he had worn down someone enough to get them to check on Shane. The report came back that she had quit her job and had moved in with Count Giraldo VaTalli. Clay withdrew into himself at that news, refusing to speak her name and suffering a relapse in his health as well.
His mother had only seen him like this one other time. In that instance he had also met and fallen in love with a woman while on a mission. All he would tell her was that she had died and Porter had been left with only one thing to do. Pray that nothing like that would every happen to her son again. She had thought for a long time he would never recover, but then he'd met Sarah Mackenzie. For a time Porter had thought their relationship might go somewhere until she'd met Sarah. Then she had known Sarah wasn't the woman for her son.
Now here he was mourning the loss of another woman, this time not to death but to another man. Under normal circumstances she knew Clayton would never have allowed that to happen. No matter what the Company policy was, he would have gone after her and found a way to win her away from this other man. But with his health in such a precarious state that was not possible. It would take many weeks, possibly even months, to get back on his feet. However, with his mental state so compromised by this turn of events even the doctors wouldn't attempt to predict what it would mean to his prognosis.
The Company had put him on indefinite medical leave. It took all of five months before he was up to his first outing and even then he wouldn't have gone if his mother hadn't arranged the whole thing. Porter had contacted Sarah Mackenzie, telling her about Clayton's lack of progress and indifference in getting back to any activities. She had pleaded with Sarah to attend the annual Black and White Ball as her son's date.
Mac had protested that she and Clay had broken up long ago and ended with the typical female complaint that she had nothing to wear to an event like that. The next day a box from a famous dress designer arrived at her home and even though she had fully intended to return it, she couldn't help looking in the box. She had instantly fallen in love with the white stain sheath gown covered in hand sewn beads.
Debating with herself for an hour, she lost the battle to try on the gown. It was a perfect fit and looked even better on than she had thought it would. Mac placed the call to Clay still wearing the dress, to give her courage not to change her mind.
She could hear the anger in his voice when he found out what his mother had done. But Mac, armed with his mother's pleas and her own desire to wear the dress, over rode his protests using the many times he 'owed her one' to win the fight.
To be continued…