Whispers

by Lisa Jackson

  Do you? Do you really? “Harley—?”

  “What?”

  Was there the hint of irritation in his voice? She was going to tell him that she loved him, but thought better of it. He was too distracted—too distant. “Nothing.”

  “Good. Look, we should go sailing—at night.”

  “I’d . . . I’d like that.”

  “Meet me at the yacht club at ten—no ten-thirty. You know which berth.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m sorry that I can’t see you sooner. I . . . I love you. You know that.”

  “I love you, too,” she said, but the words sounded hollow and false, said on cue because they were expected.

  Fighting a headache, she stared out the window and watched as the sun sank behind the western ridge of mountains. Where had Harley been when he’d called? Who was with him? Why had he canceled again?

  He doesn’t love you, not really. That thought was a bitter pill to swallow, one that would take gallons of self-esteem to wash down. She poured herself a glass of lemonade and pressed the cool tumbler to her forehead.

  The house was hot and empty. With summer temperatures soaring and Dutch’s steadfast refusal to add air-conditioning to the old lodge, the kitchen had collected a week of ninety-plus days’ heat and trapped it. Even with the windows open it was hard to breathe.

  Aside from the ticking of the grandfather clock in the front hall, the gentle hum of the refrigerator, and an occasional creak of ancient timbers, the rooms were silent. Miranda had left earlier without an explanation, as she often did these days. Dominique had insisted that Dutch spend the weekend with her in Portland, catching up with old friends, taking in a play, and enjoying the city. Tessa had escaped earlier with some friends who claimed they were going to see a movie, but it was probably all just a lie—everything was these days.

  Shadows of the oncoming night stretched through the windows. Claire walked outside to sit in an old rocker that swayed on the back porch. As the sunset gave way to the purple of twilight, a few bats skimmed the lake’s surface and fish jumped noisily in the water. One at a time the stars began to reveal themselves, and Claire wondered again what Harley was doing and with whom. His excuses were far too many and she was beginning to think that he was involved with another girl—probably Kendall Forsythe.

  “Idiot,” she muttered, loathing her romantic tendencies as she pushed against the floorboards with her toe. Hadn’t everyone told her she was being stupid? Hadn’t her father and sisters warned her not to get mixed up with Harley? But she’d been stubborn and intended to prove them all wrong.

  She’d been played for a fool.

  The old rocker creaked as it moved. Left alone, she might be maudlin enough to cry and feel sorry for herself, but she wasn’t in the mood for tears and didn’t like the scene it painted in her mind. She loved Harley, she was sure of it, but she wasn’t going to be his—or any boy’s—doormat.

  She climbed out of the chair, walked through the kitchen to the hook by the back door where the keys were kept, and found the extra ring. Her father owned a bevy of vehicles, so she chose a Jeep painted army green, climbed inside, and headed into Chinook. It was a small town, hardly more than a stoplight, two taverns, a couple of restaurants, a few motels, and a grocery store, but it was more interesting than sitting around home and moping about a boy who couldn’t seem to make any time for her.

  Pushing the speed limit, she drove past the Methodist church—the only one in town with a spire—and discovered a group of kids hanging out at the local pizza parlor. Motorcycles and old pickup trucks were scattered throughout the parking lot, and, as she pocketed her keys and walked into the establishment, the scents of baking bread, garlic, tomato sauce, and cigarette smoke greeted her.

  Families were clustered around tables, groups of teenagers claimed spots near the fake fireplace, but the first person her gaze landed upon was Kane Moran. Seated in the corner, long jean-clad legs stretched in front of him, torn black T-shirt stretched across his shoulders, he rested on the small of his back and studied the door. As if he’d been expecting her.

  Great! The one guy she wanted to avoid. To her horror, her pulse quickened.

  Self-conscious, she ordered a Coke at the bar, then, gathering her rapidly shredding bravado, walked up to him.

  Within a day’s growth of beard, his lips curved into a dark, dangerously welcoming smile. A half-drunk glass of cola sweated on the table and a cigarette, as if forgotten, burned in a tin ashtray. “If it isn’t the princess,” he drawled, nudging out a chair with the toe of a battle-scarred boot. “Slumming?”

  “That’s me. Princess Claire.” She took the seat he offered and eyed him over the rim of her glass, hoping the cola would wet her suddenly parched throat. Leaning across the table, she asked, “But no, I’m not slumming any more than you are.”

  “This is my crowd.”

  “Is it?” she countered. “The way I hear it you run with the local hoodlums and thugs.”

  His sexy grin stretched a little. “Touché, Ms. Holland.” With a wink, he added, “But I think it’s the other way around, they run with me.”

  At least he had some kind of twisted sense of humor. “So why do you seem to think it’s your personal mission to try and bother me?”

  “Is that what I do?” He took a drag from his cigarette and washed it down with a swallow from his drink. “Bother you?” His gaze drilled into hers and she felt as if the room had suddenly shrunk, the air sucked out, and she was alone with him though the restaurant was filled with patrons and employees. The way he was looking at her—as if she were the last woman on earth and he’d been forced into celibacy for years. A trickle of sweat slid between her breasts.

  “I, uh, just dropped by for a drink.”

  “Alone?”

  She lifted a shoulder and fought a wave of embarrassment.

  “Where’s your better half?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Coulda fooled me.” He drained his glass, and she wiped the beads of moisture from the outside of hers. If only he’d quit staring at her with those narrowed golden eyes. “Anyway, it’s just a matter of time.”

  “How would you know?”

  “You’ve made up your mind—right or wrong.”

  She rolled her lips over her teeth. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Is that right?” Snorting in amusement, he rubbed the whiskers on his chin. “I know more than you think, Princess. Probably more than I should.” It was his turn to lean closer to her, to pin her in his gaze as he studied every inch of her face. “You’re the kind of woman who makes up her mind and does what she wants. Loyal and true-blue to a fault, you won’t believe a bad word about anyone you care about even if it’s as obvious as the nose on your face that you’re being used.”

  She wanted to slap him. “I’m not—”

  “Wake up, Claire. You’re way too clever for this.” Quick as a tiger pouncing, he reached across the table and his fingers curled over her wrists—warm, possessive manacles surrounding her skin. “So where is he?”

  “Who? Harley? Working late.” The excuse sounded so trite.

  “Taggert hasn’t done an honest day’s labor in his life. Try again.”

  “He’s . . . he’s doing something for his father. Business.”

  “Harley Taggert involved in some big business deal? You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

  Her chin lifted a bit. “He wouldn’t lie.”

  “Of course he would, Claire,” Kane said, his fingertips warm against the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist. His face, so near, was etched by far more years than he’d lived. “Any man would.”

  “He called me and—” Why did she have to justify herself to Kane Moran? He wasn’t even her friend, not really. He was just a near-grown man with a chip the size of Stone Illahee permanently attached to his shoulder.

  “And he canceled.”

  “I’m meeting him later.”

&
nbsp; A flicker of emotion flared in his eyes for a heartbeat, only to fade so quickly she was certain she’d only imagined that tiny glimpse of raw pain and suffering. Moran was hard as nails, tough as rawhide, impervious to any emotional scarring, a mixed-up kid destined to become a criminal. Or so she’d heard from her father and some of the other men who gathered in the den for poker every Tuesday night. But this boy seated on the other side of the table, the one clamping her wrists in his warm, callused hands, the would-be man who knew so much about her, was no more a bad seed than she. Her heart clutched as she wondered what it would be like to kiss lips that were blade-thin and forever cynical. Slowly, embarrassed at the wayward turn of her thoughts, she withdrew her hands.

  “I think I’d better go.” She was too aware of him, too darkly fascinated.

  “Pizza to go for Brown,” a server called over the mike. The cash register dinged, conversation buzzed, and beneath it all the strains of an old Buddy Holly classic poured from hidden speakers attached to the jukebox and struggled to be heard over the din, yet Claire barely heard anything but the erratic beat of her own stupid heart.

  He stood, took a final drag from his cigarette, and stubbed it out in the tray. “Want to go for a ride?” he asked in a cloud of smoke and unspoken innuendo.

  “No, I should leave—”

  “And go where? Wait by the phone for Taggert to call?”

  “No, but—”

  “It’s just a ride, Claire.”

  “I know.”

  His eyes, beneath thick brows, flickered with a challenge.

  “I don’t think—”

  “It’s up to you.” He slid his arms through the sleeves of his leather jacket and turned up the collar. “What’s it gonna be?”

  Why not? For all she knew Harley was with Kendall or some other girl. She swallowed back the quick “no” that leapt to her lips. “Okay,” she finally said, tossing her hair over her shoulders.

  His smile was dangerous. He grabbed her hand. “Come on.”

  Out the door, across the parking lot, and onto the chrome-and-black motorcycle. All the way Claire second-guessed herself. What if someone saw them, what if they were in an accident, what if Kane took her somewhere and refused to return her by ten-thirty? What did she know about him anyway? That he was a part-time hood, a suspect in most of the crimes around town, a boy who was burdened with a crippled father and a burning desire to shake the dust of Chinook from his leather boots. And the gut feeling that he wasn’t as bad as he’d been painted.

  Ignoring her thoughts, she wrapped her arms around his waist as he kick-started the bike. With a sputter and a roar the big machine caught fire. “Hang on,” he yelled over his shoulder, and she buried her face between his shoulder blades. The smells of leather and smoke assailed her. Gravel sprayed from beneath the cycle’s back wheel.

  Within seconds they were across the parking lot and into the thin stream of traffic flowing through town. Neon lights of vacant motels and bars flashed by as the headlights of oncoming cars bore down on them only to pass by in an eye-stinging blur. The sound of the bike whining through its gears reverberated in her head, low at first and then screaming higher until he shifted. In a flash the town was behind them and they flew down the road, tears filling Claire’s eyes only to be whipped away by the wind that pressed against her face and tangled her hair.

  This is insane! she thought, realizing that she had to have been out of her mind to agree to taking this mad moonlit ride. And yet she felt lighthearted and free as they cruised past the rock and wrought-iron gates of Stone Illahee, her father’s resort. Her guilt for being with another boy dissipated as she leaned against Kane’s back. Poor and rebellious, headstrong and sarcastic, he was as far removed from Harley Taggert as any boy could be.

  Defying the law, they sped along the beach, then back to the road and upward through the dark forest. Pale light from a moon not quite full was blocked by a canopy of branches. The only illumination was the steady beam from the bike’s single headlight as it bounced against the road, which began to narrow. He shifted down as asphalt gave way to gravel that spun beneath the bike’s wheels.

  “Where are we going?” Claire asked, her voice caught on the wind. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a good idea.

  “You’ll see.”

  Maneuvering the cycle around the rusting posts of a gate to an abandoned logging road, Kane headed high into the mountains, the bike speeding up one of the twin ruts of a rock and dirt trail that cut through fields of white, rotting stumps that stood like ghostly sentinels on the once-forested ridges. Old growth timber had been stripped bare, clear-cut to leave scarred and naked hillsides. Claire’s heart pounded and she felt a sense of dread steal through her blood. Agreeing to go with him, hopping on the motorcycle had been a mistake.

  The bike screamed up the hill to a peak where a single stand of fir, somehow saved from the lumberjack’s blade, remained intact. Kane slowed and cut the engine.

  “Know where we are?” he asked as he took her hand and led her to a wide rock ledge with a view in all directions. Far below they saw the winking lights of Chinook and to the west a few campfires on the beach near the black, rolling waves of the ocean.

  “The woods. An abandoned logging camp—”

  “Your father’s.”

  “Oh.” Why did his voice sound like the knell of death?

  “Over there.” He wrapped one arm around her waist, rested his chin on her shoulder and pointed with his free hand across a small valley to a hill scraped clean of fir trees. “That’s where my old man had his accident.”

  Claire’s stomach turned over. Despite the warm, starlit night and the closeness of his body, she felt a chill slide down her backbone. “You brought me here to show me the place where your father got hurt?”

  He didn’t respond, just released her and settled onto the ledge. Rummaging in his jacket for a new pack of cigarettes, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, as if to clear his mind. “I come up here to think sometimes.” He rammed a Camel into his mouth, struck a match across the boulder, and, in a sizzle of phosphorus, lit up. The match’s small flame tossed gold shadows against his rugged features for a second and he drew in a deep lungful of smoke.

  “What do you think about?” she hardly dared ask.

  Waving out the match, he grinned, his teeth a slash of white, the tip of his cigarette a single red coal glowing in the dark. “You, sometimes.”

  She swallowed hard. “Me?”

  “Once in a while,” he admitted, his eyes finding hers despite the night. “Don’t you ever think about me?”

  Standing near the bike, she rubbed the tips of her fingers with her thumbs. “I, uh, I try not to.”

  “But you do.”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, and felt like a traitor.

  “I joined the army.”

  “What?” Her heart nearly stopped. His words seemed to echo off the surrounding mountains. “You did what?”

  “Signed up. Yesterday.”

  “Why?” A little part of her seemed to wither and die—a part she didn’t want to examine too closely. He would be leaving, not that she really cared, she told herself, but the town would somehow be emptier, less vital without him.

  “It was time.”

  She bit her lip. “When—when do you leave?”

  He lifted a shoulder and drew hard on his Camel. “A few weeks.” An arm thrown around his raised knee, he stared to the west. “Sit down,” he said without a smile. “I don’t bite—well, not on a first date.”

  “This—this isn’t a date.”

  He didn’t comment, but she knew he was silently calling her a liar as he smoked.

  “You think I’m afraid of you,” she ventured.

  “I think you should be.”

  “Why?” Nervous as a frightened colt and just as ready to bolt, she walked to the ledge and sat next to him.

  “I’ve got a bad reputation, or so people tell me.” His thoughtful gaze centered on her
mouth and her lungs stopped taking in air. “You don’t, Claire. At least not yet.” He ground his cigarette out in the dirt.

  “I don’t think being with you alone this once is going to change that.” Sitting so near to him, Claire told herself she could hold her own, that she wasn’t nervous, that her palms were sweating because the night was sticky and humid, that her heart had a tendency to sometimes beat irregularly when she least expected it.

  “You have more faith in me than you should.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He didn’t respond, just stared at her with an intensity that heated her blood. A breeze, soft as the night, caressed her face and ruffled his hair. She couldn’t help wonder what it would be like to kiss this hellion, to feel his arms around her, to close her eyes and lose herself in him. But she would never. She loved another boy. “Why did you bring me up here?” Her voice sounded so low and breathy it scared her.

  Frowning, not touching her, he studied her face for a long heart-stopping second. “It was a mistake.”

  “Why?”

  With a sigh, he leaned back on his elbows and cocked his head to look at her. For the first time since she’d met him, his hard-edged mask slipped, his face was raw with an unnamed pain. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  His jaw clamped tight.

  She wasn’t about to be shut out. “You started this, Kane,” she reminded him. “You talked me into coming here with you—”

  “It didn’t take much persuading, now, did it? I didn’t exactly twist your arm.”

  He leaned closer to her, and she swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “Admit it, Claire, you wanted to find out just what it is that makes me tick. You’re bored with your predictable and dull life, tired of always doing what’s expected, that’s why you took up with Taggert, to get your old man’s goat. But Harley Taggert doesn’t exactly make your blood pump, does he?”

  “Leave Harley out of this.” Her heart knocked crazily against the confines of her ribs.

  “Why? Afraid he’ll find out that you think he’s dull?”

  “He’s not—” She bit her tongue. Defending Harley wouldn’t change anything. Besides, Kane was twisting her words around, manipulating the course of the conversation. “You brought me up here, Kane, and, without trying to psychoanalyze my reasons for coming, I want to know why.”