Whispers (9 page)

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Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: Whispers
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“There are no trespassing signs posted.”
His smile was wicked as he rocked back on his heels to stare up at her. “Oh, I get it. You're part of the Stone Illahee police department. It's your job to go around”—he motioned widely with his charred stick—“and throw people off.”
“No, but—”
“Just me?”
“I'm not throwing you off.”
He snorted. “I wasn't leaving anyway, Princess.”
The endearment—if that's what you'd call it—irritated her. “My name's Claire.”
“I know. Everybody around Chinook knows.”
“What're you doing here?”
“Getting away from it all,” he said, his eyes glinting a bit. “Couldn't afford the rates down at your father's resort, so I thought I'd spend some time here.”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”
“Nah.” He shook his head as he stretched to his feet and she realized how tall and rawboned he was. “I don't really care what you think.”
She eyed his camp—old sleeping bag, expensive camera, knapsack, and empty bottle of sour mash whiskey. Nearby, glinting behind a clump of brush, was a motorcycle, a huge chrome-and-black machine that he used to speed down the highway or squirrel around town. But what was odd—or vaguely appealing to Claire—was that he'd spent the night out here alone, near the fire, staring up at the stars and listening to the never-ending roar of the ocean. Not what she would have expected from a small-time hoodlum.
“So, now it's your turn,” he said, striding to Marty's side and touching the animal's soft nose. “What are you running from?”
“I'm not running from anything.”
His eyes accused her of lying. “Whatever you say.”
“I just wanted to get out of the house.”
“Your old man give you trouble?” He bristled a bit, the corners of his mouth twisting downward.
“What? No. No, everything's fine . . . Sometimes I need to get away from the same old four walls.”
“So where's Taggert?”
“What?” The question surprised her. Though she and Harley had been dating for a couple of months, she didn't think it was common knowledge or anyone's business, especially not someone's who really didn't know her.
“Your boyfriend, Princess. Remember? Where is he?” He reached into his shirt pocket and found a pack of cigarettes. Shaking out a couple, he offered one to her, and when she declined with a shake of her head, one side of his mouth twitched, as if she somehow had amused him. With a click of his lighter, he lit up and inhaled deeply.
“What do you care?”
“I don't,” he said in a cloud of smoke. “Just making polite conversation.”
He was mocking her, she just knew it, but she couldn't help rising to the bait, like a salmon to a fisherman's lure. “Impolite conversation.”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Look, I don't like discussing my private life with strangers.”
“I'm not a stranger, Claire. Lived across the lake from you all my life.”
“You know what I mean—”
“I sure do, darlin'.” He took another drag on his cigarette and shot smoke from the side of his mouth. “I sure do.” He didn't elaborate, just patted Marty on the shoulder near her bare leg and turned. Without another word he gathered up his things, such as they were, swung the strap of his camera over his neck, rolled the rest of his belongings into his sleeping bag, and hooked it by elastic cords to the back of his motorcycle.
“Want a ride?” he asked, and again she shook her head.
“Got one.” She motioned to Marty.
To her surprise Kane lifted his camera, took several shots of her astride the horse, then snapped the thirty-five millimeter back into its case, tossed his cigarette butt into the cold ashes of the fire, and started the big bike's engine. Marty reared as the cycle sparked to life, but Claire clung on. Then Kane Moran was gone, vanishing into a plume of blue exhaust that chased after him as he raced his bike along the rocky trails.
Claire was left with a vague feeling of disappointment and a welling sense of despair. Why this was she didn't understand, but it definitely had something to do with Kane Moran.
“For the love of Jesus, son, stay away from Claire Holland!” Neal Taggert tossed a file onto the corner of his desk in disgust. Papers flew, scattering like a flock of startled birds to land in disarray on the plush carpet. Neal didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn't care.
Harley wanted to run away and hide. His father's tantrums had always been a source of fear to him, but he held his ground, standing in front of the polished mahogany desk, spine stiff as a drill sergeant's, back unbending, as he stood in the den. Let the old man rant and rave. This time, Harley wasn't backing down. “I'm in love with her.”
“Holy Christ.
Love?
” Neal let out a stream of oaths that brought warmth to the tops of Harley's ears. “There is no such thing as love and let me tell you”—he pointed a fleshy finger at Harley's nose as he stood and glared at his second-born son—“the very notion of love is overrated.”
“I'm not going to stop seeing her.”
“Like hell.” The old man swept around the desk more quickly than Harley had expected. Five-nine and topping two hundred pounds, Neal was amazingly agile. “Listen to me, kid. You'll lose interest in that girl fast”—he snapped his fingers—“or you'll be cut out of my will, ya hear that?”
Harley's heart stood still for just a second, and in an instant he saw his life, his and Claire's, flash before his eyes. They would be strapped, no money, no frills, living in a tenement of an apartment over a garage or cheap Italian restaurant where the sounds of patrons and loud cooks rattling pans and barking orders filtered through the floorboards, along with the stench of too much garlic and heavily spiced tomato sauce. He'd have to give up his Jag. His fists clenched, and the back of his jaw ached from the clamp of his teeth.
As if reading his mind, Neal grinned, showing off one gold-capped tooth. “Ain't a pretty picture, is it?”
“Doesn't matter. I'm not giving her up.”
Neal sighed and ran a hand through the sparse strands of hair covering his balding pate. “Shit, son, you don't have to pretend with me. Oh, sure you'd like to think you were noble and romantic and all that crap, but the truth of the matter is you're no better than me or Weston. You like the good life more than you love”—again he snorted—“any woman.”
“But Claire—”
“Is a Holland. Just like her old man.” He rested a hip on the corner of the desk and sighed as if from his soul. If he had one. The jury was still out when it came to matters of Neal's conscience or spirit. “I tried to cozy up to old Dutch, y'know. When I came here, I suggested that we form . . . well, an alliance if not a partnership, but Benedict Holland is nothing if not territorial, and he couldn't see how much money could be made if we worked together instead of in competition with each other. Ever since your mother and I moved here, Dutch has been chewing on his tail, trying to think of ways to get rid of me, your mother, and anything to do with Taggert Industries. If you ask me—and I know you didn't—Dutch is probably paying his daughter to make eyes at you just to get back at me.”
“You're incredible,” Harley said, his voice a low whisper. “You're so damned self-centered that you think everything is about you. This is different, and I'm going to see Claire whether you approve or not.”
“Then you'd better be ready to move out and forget about going back to Berkeley in the fall. And the car . . . it's only leased, you know, so I'll be expecting you to turn over the keys.”
Harley swallowed the fear that crept through him, the fear that he'd fought ever since he was a kid, the fear that somehow he wasn't good enough. For years he'd lived in Weston's shadow. Weston, the tall and athletic god of the football field as well as the backseat. Weston, who breezed through high school and entered Stanford on a goddamned scholarship. Weston the great, the king, the pain in the ass. “You can't bully me, Dad,” Harley insisted and felt his damned Adam's apple bob.
“Sure I can, son.” Neal seemed relaxed, his hands clasped, as if he were
savoring
this little power play. “How long do you think you'd last in the real world, with a two-bit job and a pile of bills? Claire Holland has expensive tastes, just as you do. She wouldn't be happy ‘living on love' or whatever the hell you want to call it. Neither would you.”
“Kendall's here!” Paige, Harley's dip of a sister, didn't bother knocking, just threw open the door and swung into the room.
Heart sinking, he glanced out the front window of the den and spied Kendall's little red Triumph skid to a stop near the garage. She alighted, a frail-looking girl with pale skin, paler hair, and wide blue eyes that had the habit of accusing him of betrayal, deceit, and all manner of sin.
Harley's day went from bad to worse.
“I hope you can explain this better to her than you did to me,” Neal said, straightening as Harley walked through double doors to the foyer and the front door that Paige was flinging open.
“I thought you were in Portland,” Paige said, beaming at the older, prettier girl. Paige adored Kendall the way that she'd revered the girls who had made the cheerleading squad or who were elected homecoming princess or queen of the prom or some other juvenile fluff—the same way she'd paid homage to her stupid Barbie dolls when she'd been a few years younger with an overblown, exaggerated, and downright obsessive passion.
Kendall had the decency to blush a little. “I, um, came to see Harley.” She glanced at him with sorrowful eyes that made him cringe inside.
“Oh.” Paige's face fell, and the smile that was wired with braces disappeared.
“But I'll stop by and see you before I go.” Kendall added a smile to her promise, and Harley braced himself.
“Kendall!” Neal boomed with a grin any Cheshire cat would envy. “How are you and your folks?”
“Fine.”
“Your old man's golf game?”
“As bad as ever if you believe him.”
“That sandbagger? No way.” With a hearty chuckle, Neal gave her a fatherly clap on the shoulder, ignored his own daughter, and glared at Harley without saying a word. The message was clear:
This, son, is the woman for you.
Harley knew differently. While his father returned to the den, and Paige reluctantly made herself scarce, Harley and Kendall walked through the house. “I don't know what you're doing here,” he said, as he opened the heavy sliding door. He held the door open for Kendall, then followed her onto a wraparound cedar deck that was poised high above a canyon. Far below the Chinook River sliced through the ravine on its furious path to the sea. The uppermost branches of fir trees offered shade from the summer sun, and the sound of the swift current muffled their voices.
Taking in a deep breath, Kendall said simply, “I love you.”
“We've been over this.”
“I want to marry you.” Kendall seemed haunted, her white skin even more translucent.
“You don't.”
“For God's sake, Harley, you know I do.” She stepped closer to him so that the fragrance of her perfume competed with the dank scent of the encroaching forest. “We made love. Right here on this deck. In your car. In your bed. I was a virgin, and you . . . you told me you loved me then . . .”
His jaw clenched and his fingers curled over the rail as the first tears rained from her eyes.
“What if . . . what if I got pregnant?” she said, and Harley's heart stopped for a second before beginning to beat again.
Pregnant? Kendall?
The world pitched beneath his feet. There was no way she was knocked up. They'd been careful.
He'd
been careful.

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