Whispers (8 page)

Read Whispers Online

Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: Whispers
9.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Oh, thank God.
Now
I'm relieved,” she said, unable to hide the sarcasm that crept into her words. “I'll finally be able to sleep at night.”
“I thought you should know.”
“And I think you should go to hell.”
“Been there.” Scratching his jaw, he eyed her for a long second. “See ya around, Claire. If you decide you want to tell me anything about that night, just give a yell. I'm right across the lake.” Turning on his heel, he jammed his hands into his pockets and sauntered down a path to the boat dock, where tied to one of the bleached moorings was a small motorboat. Kane stepped aboard, cast off, started the engine, and, with a final wave, gunned the motor. The boat made a wide arc, leaving a frothy wake as it curved near the shoreline and headed back to the far side of the lake.
Claire's insides felt as if they were made of jelly. Why was Kane so insistent to dig up the past, why did he move back into the cabin he'd sworn to hate as a kid, and why, for God's sake, why did her traitorous heart beat a little faster just at the sight of him?
As it always had.
Because you're an idiot around men. Always have been, always will be.
Guilt caused her teeth to dig into her lower lip as she watched the wake disappear into the smooth, glassy surface of Lake Arrowhead.
Kane Moran had always been a thorn in her backside, a poor wild kid who'd once had a crush on her, and she'd spent most of her adolescence avoiding him. But it hadn't always been possible, and there had been times when she'd wondered if her devotion to Harley was the result of fear—a gnawing worry that she should cling to good and decent Harley because the Moran boy with his hang-the-law attitude and air of invincible recklessness had appealed to her on a baser, more primitive, level.
Kane Moran was bound by no rules.
He hated authority and spit in its face.
He was the ultimate rebel.
He was bad with a capital B.
And deep in her heart, Claire had found him irresistible. She'd spent nights on her knees praying that this indecent attraction to him, one that caused her blood to heat and her heart to trip-hammer, would pass before anyone—especially Kane himself—noticed. She told herself that when she woke up from dreams where Kane was performing all sorts of wildly delicious ministrations to her body, it was only whimsy, nothing to worry about. She swam lap after lap in the pool, trying to force him from her mind. But late at night, when the moon rose high, its silvery light spangling the black waters of the lake, Claire had sat on the window ledge in her bedroom with the sash thrown wide so she could feel the salt-laden breeze off the Pacific rush through her hair and press her nightgown to her body while she gazed across the dark expanse to the single light burning in the attic window of Kane's house. She had closed her eyes and imagined his hands and tongue caressing her sweat-soaked body. Stirrings deep inside her made her restless, and she knew that despite her vows to herself otherwise, making love to him would be an experience worth any risk on earth, a once-in-a-lifetime chance that would condemn her forever.
Now, years later, she looked across those same shadowy waters and felt long-buried yearnings deep inside, the pulsing want that had, as a girl, kept her from sleeping. She clutched a hand to her throat and hoped history wasn't so foolish as to repeat itself.
Once with Kane Moran was bad enough; twice would surely damn them both.
Part Two
Sixteen Years Earlier
Six
“I don't know what you see in Harley Taggert.” Tessa wound another clump of blond hair around a heated roller. Wearing only a bra and panties, she was sitting at the vanity in her bathroom, her face drawn in concentration as she met Claire's gaze in the mirror. “If you ask me, Weston's the interesting one.”
“And a jerk.” Claire didn't trust the older Taggert boy. Weston was smooth as a perfectly tuned engine and twice as oily.
“Yeah, but you have to admit Harley's kind of a wimp. Damn!” Tessa sucked her breath through her teeth, shook her hand, and dropped the roller. “I always do this.”
Gingerly, Claire picked up the hot roller and dropped it onto a heated spindle in Tessa's case.
Licking her finger, Tessa scowled. “The problem with Harley—”
“There is no problem.”
“Sure there is. He's a dishrag. He'll do anything his old man says.”
“No way.” But Claire felt a smidgen of doubt in her own convictions.
If
Harley had a fault, and that was a pretty big “if,” then it was that he didn't have as strong a will as Claire would have liked.
“Then why hasn't he broken it off with Kendall?” Tessa asked, finely arched eyebrows lifting a fraction higher as she reached for another roller. “You remember her, don't you, Kendall Forsythe from Portland, daughter of one of the biggest real estate moguls or whatever you want to call them in San Francisco before the family moved up here and—”
“I
know
who Kendall is.”
“Harley was engaged to her.”
“It was never official.” Claire hated the feeling that she had to defend him. Harley was good and sweet and kind and so what if he wasn't the athlete or student or ladies' man that Weston had been? Who cared that he sometimes had trouble making up his mind? It was just that he was thoughtful.
“Kendall seemed to think it was official. I talked to Harley's kid sister at the beach yesterday, and she said that Kendall's all broken up and refuses to believe it's over. Paige says that Kendall's been spending as much time as she can at her parents' beach cabin in Manzanita, just so she can be close to him.”
“Paige Taggert is a pain in the backside.” Claire had bent over backward to try and make friends with the only Taggert daughter, but Paige had turned up her recently reshaped nose and wouldn't give her the time of day.
“Well she adores Kendall and thinks that whatever Kendall says or does is the gospel truth.” Furrows sliced across Tessa's smooth forehead as she secured the final roller. “If you ask me, it's kind of sick. Like
she's
got a crush on Kendall or something.”
“You're the one who's sick.”
“I'm tellin' ya, it's weird.” Tessa blotted her face with a tissue. “Harley hasn't called today, has he?”
“No, but—”
“Or yesterday?”
“He's been busy—”
“Or the day before that?”
“I don't keep track.”
“Sure you do. You've been hanging around the house, jumping every time the phone rings, hoping that Harley's on the other end of the line. Why don't you just call him?” Tessa asked as she adjusted the strap of her bra, then reached for a tube of coral lipstick. “That's what I would do.”
“I know it's what
you
would do, but I'm not like you.”
“That's the problem, isn't it? Because there's no way,
no way
I would ever mope around for a boy, not even
Weston
Taggert. It's just not healthy. Believe me. No boy, especially not Harley Taggert, is worth it.”
Claire rolled her eyes and decided the conversation wasn't worth having. Everyone, including Tessa and Randa, disapproved of her seeing Harley. Like he was Judas or something. The atmosphere in the house seemed cloying, and she decided, as she always did when her sisters bugged her, that she'd leave Tessa to her makeup and Randa to her books and go for a ride in the hills. She'd always loved the outdoors and sometimes couldn't stand being cooped up.
Passing by Miranda's doorway she spied her older sister tucked in a corner of the window seat, a book in her hands, but her eyes turned toward the open window, as if she were looking for someone. Lately Miranda had been different, not quite so bossy, and there were times when she disappeared for hours. No one knew where she went, but she always had a book with her and Claire assumed she'd found a secret spot in the woods where she read. The strange thing was that Miranda was still reading the same novel,
The Clan of the Cave Bear,
that she had been reading for weeks. Randa could usually knock off a book in a few days. Something was going on with Miranda, but Claire didn't have the time or inclination to wonder what it was as she hustled down the back stairs.
It was a muggy day, all the windows were flung open, and the strains of some love song from a Broadway musical echoed through the halls. No doubt her mother was at the piano again, adding music to a house that she hated.
Oh, Dominique tried. There were always freshly cut flowers in the foyer and dining room, classical music often wafted from hidden speakers, the silver was polished each week and used, with the crystal and gilt-edged china, at every evening meal. Tutors of French and violin, teachers for ballet and fencing, instructors for riding English style all paraded through the hallowed halls of this old house.
Claire ran her fingers down the smooth stair rail to stop at the bottom step, where the top of the final post had been rounded and worn from the touch of loving fingers. But not Dominique's. She thought everything about the house disgusting; the rock fireplace, charred by years of blazes in the grate rustic; the antler chandeliers barbaric.
Claire loved them all.
Wearing only shorts and a T-shirt, she dashed down the back hallway and through the kitchen. Ruby Songbird was kneading bread with her thick fingers while quietly humming in soft counterpoint to the piano's sorrowful notes. Ruby was a statuesque woman with a smooth flat face, dark flashing eyes, and a rare smile that could light up the room. Her hair, if ever unbound, would probably fall to her knees, but as it was, the gray-streaked black strands were wound in a tight bun at the base of her skull, where, Claire was certain, she had a second set of eyes. Nothing seemed to escape Ruby's detection.
In Claire's opinion, not that anyone else seemed to notice, Ruby had changed a little, and lately seemed preoccupied as she went through her daily tasks of cooking or cleaning or keeping “that miserable caretaker and his stepson” in line. She had help, of course, but Ruby was in charge of seeing that the old lodge was kept the way Dominique demanded.
“Hi,” Claire said, snatching an apple from the fruit basket that had been left on the kitchen island.
“You're going off riding again?” Ruby asked as she slanted a glance over her shoulder, her fingers never losing their rhythm in the soft dough.
“I thought about it.”
“Hmm.”
It was unnerving how the woman could guess her thoughts. Sometimes Claire wondered if she had ESP or something. Ruby claimed to be a descendant of the last shaman or chieftain or some bigwig of her tribe, and maybe she'd inherited some of his magic. Not that Claire really believed in all that stuff.
“Be careful.”
“I'm not going far.”
Ruby clucked her tongue. “But sometimes these woods . . .” Her lower lip protruded and she stopped herself, as if she'd said too much.
“What? What about the woods?” Claire took a bite, and the apple cracked.
“They're haunted.”
“Oh, sure.”
“This was once sacred ground.”
“I'll be fine,” Claire said, refusing to be baited and drawn into an argument. Ruby insisted, and maybe rightfully so, that the Indian tribes around these parts had suffered mightily at the hands of the white man. Claire didn't want to argue the point. She'd read enough history to know that atrocities had been waged against the tribes, but she didn't really feel it was her responsibility to right some age-old wrong, even if her ancestors had been bigoted rednecks. Fortunately Ruby's kids, Crystal and Jack, didn't seem to feel as persecuted as their mother. A pretty girl and free spirit, Crystal didn't wear her Native American heritage as if it were some kind of badge of honor. Neither was it her personal burden. As for Jack—he was a hellion, pure and simple. The color of his skin didn't have a whole lot to do with it.
“Just take care,” Ruby warned over her shoulder again as she deftly rolled the dough and split it into two loaves.
On the porch, Claire stepped into her favorite pair of boots and noticed a mud dauber building a tiny nest under the eaves. The wasp worked feverishly, its shiny black body in constant motion, its jaws chewing endlessly.
What did Tessa know about love, Claire thought, as she tossed the rest of her apple aside, followed a flagstone path to the stables, and slung a bridle over Marty's wide head. Her father had bought the horses already named, and the two geldings—a pinto and a paint—had already been christened Spin and Marty after the heroes of some old TV show that Claire had never seen or even heard of before. The bay mare was Hazel, after an old character from the comics as well as a television show. Dumb names, Claire thought as she clucked her tongue and led Marty out of the stables and through a gate.
She didn't bother with a saddle, just flung herself over Marty's broad back. His ears pricked forward eagerly as they trotted through the stands of old growth Douglas fir. Shafts of sunlight pierced through the canopy of thick boughs, dappling the shadowy hills as they followed an old deer trail that snaked upward along the Illahee cliffs.
The air was thick and breathless, smelling of salt and seaweed and, motionless in the sky overhead, a few gossamer clouds clung to the tops of the coastal hills. Claire tried to shake off Tessa's warnings about Harley, but couldn't. Her sister's observations lingered stubbornly in her mind, echoing her own worries.
Since when did she care what Tessa thought? Chiding herself, she slapped the reins against Marty's shoulder. The horse responded, his legs stretching into a quick gallop that snatched Claire's breath and caused her eyes to tear. With pounding hooves, Marty sprinted through the trees, vaulting fallen logs that had toppled across the path, shying only once when a startled grouse, wings flapping wildly, flew out of a clump of ferns.
Marty stumbled, regained his footing, then lengthened his strides as he raced ever upward. At the summit, Claire pulled on the reins as the gelding snorted and fidgeted, sweat staining his coat. “You're a trouper,” she said, patting his shoulder as she stared across the narrow bridge of land. To the west, the Pacific Ocean stretched in deepening shades of gray. To the east, the serene waters of Lake Arrowhead reflected the sky's dusky blue. Between the two was this forested ridge, a place she often visited when she wanted to be alone.
Clucking her tongue, she urged Marty to the edge of the cliff so that she could catch a glimpse of Stone Illahee, her father's resort that rose from a crescent of sandy beach. Craning her neck, she stared down the steep ridge to the ocean below the jagged rocks. Thunderous waves pounded the shore, crashing wildly against the stony bluffs while shooting frigid white spray high into the air.
Claire sighed. Her worries melted away. Things would work out with Harley. They had to.
A quiet cough broke the stillness.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and, heart hammering, she twisted on Marty's spotted back. This was private land, owned by her father, and no one who valued his life would be trespassing. In the span of a heartbeat she thought of Ruby's warning.
Frantically, she searched the woods until, through a copse of trees she spied the Moran boy, a wild juvenile delinquent who had dropped out of school, worked as a gofer for a local paper owned by one of his relatives, and was always a suspect when any crime was committed near the small town of Chinook. His hair was too long, uncombed, his chin in need of a shave, his jeans nearly white from too many washings and now covered with dust. He was squatting near the remains of a dead campfire, a stick in one hand as he scattered the black embers and ash, but his eyes, the color of the brandy her father sipped after dinner each night, never left her.
Despite his dark reputation, Kane Moran intrigued her a little, teased at her curiosity, and she knew, from the few times that she'd run into him and felt his gaze move slowly up her body, that he found her just as interesting. Maybe more so. He was the kind of boy to avoid, one who would only cause a girl deep emotional pain.
“I didn't know you were here,” she said, as she guided Marty closer to the camp.
“No one does.”
“You know this is my father's property.”
He raised a golden eyebrow. “So?”

Other books

DR10 - Sunset Limited by James Lee Burke
The Sound of Sleigh Bells by Cindy Woodsmall
The Amazon Code by Thacker, Nick
Shhh...Mack's Side by Jettie Woodruff
Wolf's Cross by S. A. Swann
FM by Richard Neer
Villain a Novel (2010) by Yoshida, Shuichi
Manchester House by Kirch, Donald Allen