Whispers

by Lisa Jackson

  He lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

  Without thinking, she reached forward, dug her fingers into the leather sleeves of his jacket, and felt his muscles stiffen. Slowly, he glanced at her hands, then let his gaze move deliberately up to her face, where the depth of his eyes made breathing impossible. Perspiration clung to her skin.

  “You’re playing with fire, here, Princess,” he warned, his gaze dark with forbidden promise as he inched closer to her.

  She licked her lips nervously and he groaned.

  “I’m going to regret this in about two minutes,” he said, his face so close to hers she could smell the smoke lingering on his breath, see the doubts clouding his eyes. “But since I’m leaving town anyway, I guess it’s time to own up to the truth.”

  She was shaking inside. Afraid of what he might say, desperate to hear it.

  With both strong hands he took hold of her shoulders, his hot fingers clutching her desperately. “I’ll never say this again, never admit it to anyone else, you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “The hell of it is, I love you, Claire Holland,” he said flatly. “God knows I don’t want to. Truth of the matter is, I loathe myself for it, but there it is.”

  She couldn’t speak, was afraid to move, and felt like a frightened doe caught in headlights. Her heart hammered and she stole a glance at his lips, wondering if he was going to kiss her or if she should be the one to press her eager lips to his.

  “There’s something else you should know. If you were mine, I wouldn’t keep you waiting. Harley Taggert’s a fool, and you’re an even bigger one to let him treat you this way. The reason I call you Princess? It’s because that’s the way you should be treated. Like goddamned royalty.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, her perfect world shattered. He loved her? Kane Moran loved her?

  “My sentiments exactly. Helluva mess, isn’t it?” He let go then and she, too, dropped her hands. “Come on, Claire, I’ll take you back to your car.” His jaw was hard as granite. “We wouldn’t want to keep Harley waiting, now, would we?”

  He was on his feet in an instant and striding to the bike.

  “Kane—”

  He stopped dead in his tracks, glanced over his shoulder.

  She swallowed hard. “I, uh, I don’t know what to say—”

  “Nothing. No lies. No excuses. Just say nothing.” He swung one long leg over the bike, switched on the ignition, and threw his weight into the kick-start. The big machine’s engine fired and growled, the noise ricocheting off the surrounding hills. “We’re both better off if you don’t say anything.”

  But she wasn’t sure.

  Throat as dry as dust, she walked on legs that didn’t seem to touch the ground and settled behind him on the bike. It felt natural—so right—to wrap her arms around his waist. Over the roar of the engine, she thought he muttered, “Let’s just forget this night ever existed.” But she couldn’t be sure. In her heart, she knew, she would treasure these past few hours forever.

  Eleven

  Dropping the mainsail and securing the boom, Weston felt the cooling spray of the ocean upon his face. There were times when he enjoyed sailing, being alone on the vast expanse of water, challenging the elements while feeling the pitch and roll of the sea. But not tonight.

  Lights from the marina reflected on the dark, ever moving water. Using the power of the motor, he guided the sleek sailboat across the bay and into her berth. He tied up by rote, thought for a second about Crystal, then discarded the idea of seeing her again. She was warm and willing, a girl who would do anything to please him, and she bored him senseless. He needed a new conquest, a challenge.

  The dismal part of it was, he knew that he’d never be satisfied, not with some new innocent conquest, not with an easy score, not even with Kendall if she accepted his offer. Christ, what a bastard he’d been to her—offering to screw her and impregnate her as if he were being noble. The truth of the matter was he’d just like a taste of Forsythe pussy. Besides, the thought of siring a child and having Harley raise it appealed to the perverse side of his nature. Not only would Kendall be forever in his debt, but he’d have one over on his stupid ass of a brother.

  He locked the cabin and realized that even more than Kendall, he wanted one of the Holland girls.

  Why? Because they’d been thrown in his face for nearly twenty years, described by his father as off-limits, the enemy, Dutch Holland’s evil, if beautiful, spawn.

  Which made them all the more interesting. And now that Harley had the balls to date Claire openly, Weston saw no good reason not to act on his male impulses. Oh, he talked a good story with all that bullshit to Harley about being cut out of the will, but the old man would never be so rash, and Weston would never do anything to upset his place as primary heir. He’d worked too many years sucking up to his father, playing Neal’s games, shining at everything he did to blow it now. Neal Taggert made no bones about the fact that Weston was his favorite and as such would inherit the lion’s share of the family fortune. Weston would never blow it and lose out.

  But what if that son steps forward, the other one, the one no one acknowledges—the bastard?

  When Weston had mentioned that the old rumor was rearing its ugly head again, Neal had sworn and blamed Dutch Holland for spreading lies. For some unknown reason Dutch hated Neal and would stop at nothing to ruin him.

  Weston had been placated, at least for the time being, and had even stolen a copy of his father’s will from the old man’s office in Portland. Neal had just altered the document, but he hadn’t lied. When his father kicked off, Weston was set for life.

  If he didn’t screw up. He wouldn’t. He was too farsighted to mess up something important, but oh, he had an itch in his pants for Miranda Holland. What he wouldn’t give for one night to show that icy, sharp-tongued woman what hot-blooded, snarling, pure animal lust was all about. He was a good lover and he could show her things that would leave her sweating, heart pounding, and begging for more.

  That thought brought a smile to his lips. Every time he’d so much as smiled at her, she’d looked down her nose at him, and the thought of her pleading with him, her hair wet with perspiration, her face flushed, her supple fingers reaching for his zipper brought his cock to attention.

  “Someday,” he said under his breath. Someday she’d find out what a real man could reduce her to. Smiling, he adjusted his pants, and left the sailboat and the pier behind him as he walked under the arched neon Illahee Yacht Club sign and paused to light a cigarette. Another vision of Miranda Holland stole through his mind, as it had while he was out in the ocean and about a dozen times a day. For Christ’s sake, he was getting as bad as Harley, except, unlike Claire, who was apparently willing to warm his younger brother’s bed, Miranda would rather spit on him than talk to him.

  Climbing into his convertible he imagined again what it would be like to make it with Miranda. Tall, long-legged, with eyes as cool as blue ice, she’d disdained most boys’ advances, burying her straight, nearly perfect nose in a book more often than not, but Weston sensed that beneath her frosty composure was a hot-blooded woman who could be an animal in bed.

  Sharp-witted and rapier-tongued, an unapproachable woman who had her entire future mapped out for herself, she would like the world to believe that she had no time for any attention from the opposite sex.

  But she was handing out false advertising.

  Weston remembered following Miranda in her black Camaro just last week. A guy had been with her, Hunter Riley, the stepson of Dutch Holland’s caretaker. In Weston’s estimation, Riley was a big-time loser. Miranda and Hunt had probably known each other for years, of course, and she could have been giving him a ride into town, but there was something a little too familiar in the way she had turned and smiled at him, or the casual toss of his arm around her shoulders, his fingers gently rubbing the back of her neck.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, suddenly furious with Riley. Who was he? A nobody who w
orked for Weston’s old man’s logging company setting chokers part-time and for the Hollands tending the garden with his old man. A zero. Hunter Riley had barely scraped together enough credits to get through high school and was now struggling through classes at a local community college.

  So what did sophisticated Miranda see in the roughneck?

  Women, he thought as he took a corner a little too fast and the tires squealed, he’d give an inch off his dick just to understand them.

  With the top of his Porsche down, he sped toward Stone Illahee, the resort his father disdained. He needed a lay and a good one. So he was on the prowl. Again. Itching to score. The hard heat between his legs a driving force. He didn’t know if it was his incredible sex drive that egged him on or if it was his sharply honed competitive streak that urged him into sometimes poor choices of partners. Not that it mattered.

  “Miranda,” he muttered. She would be the one, although Claire was more woman than he’d first imagined. He’d once thought her dull as a church mouse, but as she’d grown and matured, he’d seen a tougher side to her. She was the most athletic of Dutch’s daughters, forever on a horse or boat, swimming or rock climbing, a shy girl who’d turned into a daredevil of sorts. Probably why she was dating Harley.

  Harley! What a pathetic excuse for a man he was. Always whining. Weston could hardly believe they were brothers. Harley was too sensitive, too easily manipulated ever to become a real man. Shifting down at the entrance of Stone Illahee, he grinned to himself and, on impulse, drove through the massive gates guarding the exclusive resort. Past the golf course and tennis courts, around a fenced area of dense, flowering shrubbery that screened the pool from the main parking lot. It wasn’t quite ten, but he’d heard that old man Holland was out of town for the weekend and wouldn’t be hanging around the resort. None of Dutch’s workers, if they noticed a Taggert in their midst, would dare try and throw him off the property.

  He was safe.

  So why did he feel the touch of worry? Why did he sense that coming here was a mistake of immeasurable and irrefutable proportions?

  He rounded a corner, and the smooth gray stone and dark timbers of the main lodge came into view. Splashed by hidden spotlights, five stories of irregular stone, glass, and cedar rose upward along the rocky ledge near the beach. Near the front door, an illuminated waterfall rushed and tumbled noisily through stands of contorted pine and rhododendron.

  Feeling like an interloper, Weston parked his car, pocketed his keys, and headed inside. Music from the bar was flowing through open windows, calling to him like a siren’s song. He didn’t expect to see any of Dutch’s daughters tonight, but there might be some willing female hanging out in the bar. His conscience pricked a bit as he remembered Crystal. They’d made love in the sailboat earlier in the afternoon before he’d dropped her off so that she could go to work. She was beautiful with her smooth golden skin, dark eyes, and incredible black hair, but she was too willing, too easy, a sex slave to him. Anything he wanted from her, she’d give. Anything. She acted as if he was her lord and master and sometimes he played the role to the hilt, but she was beginning to bore him with her acquiescence. He needed more of a challenge, a woman with a little more fire. One who would fight him for a while before lying down for him and finally spreading her legs.

  He wanted Miranda Holland.

  “You’re as much a fool as Harley,” he muttered under his breath as he pushed open the oak and glass door and headed into the bar. Down a short hallway he followed the scent of cigarette smoke and the tease of throbbing music.

  A Portland band with a female lead singer in a tight leather minidress was playing some jazzy number he didn’t recognize—one with too much saxophone and not enough bass. Weston settled into a booth as far from the stage as possible. Drumming his fingers nervously on the table, he stared at the cedar walls covered with fishing nets, Japanese floats, stuffed and mounted fish from all over the world as well as the weapons used to kill them. Harpoons, spears, poles, and tackle boxes were interspersed between the glassy-eyed salmon, marlin, and sharks.

  A waitress in a black skirt, white blouse, and red tie floated over to him. He ordered a beer and grinned when she asked him to show his ID, proving that he was twenty-one.

  “Weston Taggert,” she said, her lips curving into a wider smile as she recognized his name. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Several women caught his attention and smiled, but he wasn’t interested. They were too easy and, from the looks of the desperation in their eyes, had played the barhopping game too long.

  No, he wanted something different tonight. The ache in his groin wouldn’t settle for an easy lay.

  “There ya go, hon,” the waitress said as she deposited a glass of light malt on the table.

  The beer was cold, but didn’t do much to cool his blood, and Weston drained his glass quickly, realizing that dropping by on Dutch Holland’s sacred property wasn’t all that much of a thrill. He left a five-dollar bill on the table and was walking across the lot to his car when he saw her—the youngest of Dutch’s daughters, her blond hair shimmering silver under the lights of the parking lot. Tessa. Dressed in a pair of ragged cutoffs, a skimpy T-shirt, and a short-cropped leather vest decorated with rhinestones that sparkled under the security lamps, Tessa looked far from one of the richest girls in this stretch of country.

  Rumor had it that she was a hot pants, always strutting through town in tight shorts and tiny sweaters that showed off her incredible breasts and slipped up to reveal the taut skin of her tanned abdomen. Oftentimes she flung a leather jacket carelessly over her back, but she never zipped it up, never gave up a chance for anyone to catch a glimpse of her incredible figure. Like now.

  She was sitting on the ledge surrounding the waterfall, smoking a cigarette and staring at the fountain with disinterested eyes.

  She wasn’t the woman he wanted. She wasn’t Miranda.

  But she was here, and Weston was horny.

  “You know, I was just thinking about you and your sisters and here you are,” he said, shoving up the sleeves of his jacket and playing with the truth just a bit.

  She glanced up sharply, startled, to stare at him hard for the span of a heartbeat, then turned her attention back to the swirling water. “Does that line ever work?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Right. And I’m the queen of England.”

  “I don’t think so. Rumor has it she’s a little older than you.”

  Tessa rolled her eyes and took another drag. “What’re you doing here? I thought this place was off-limits to the Taggerts. Anyone with your last name who drives through the gates takes the chance of being drawn and quartered.”

  Weston laughed. At least she wasn’t dumb as a stone. “Maybe it’s time one of us checked out the competition.”

  Again she looked at him with those incredible blue eyes, then lifted a shoulder as if she didn’t really give a damn what he or any of his family did. “Suit yourself.”

  “Waiting for someone?” He sat next to her on the ledge and expected her to move a little, to put some distance between her body and his, but she didn’t. Instead, she sucked hard on her cigarette, then shot smoke from the corner of her mouth.

  “I guess.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “That’s right. I don’t know.” Defiance hoisted her chin upward a notch, and he saw beyond the false bravado and pride to a younger and more vulnerable girl, an instant of insight into what made Tessa Holland tick. She blinked, and her hard shell was back in place, an armor in which there was a tiny chink.

  “Is someone coming for you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you need a ride?”

  She smiled and flicked her cigarette into the lit pool. The butt sizzled, bounced in the foamy swirls, and disappeared beneath the waterfall. “I might.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  She hesitated a second, then arched perfectly shaped blond brows. “Maybe I don�
�t care.”

  His mouth twitched into a smile. She actually had the balls to defy him. “Maybe you should.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Her voice was low and intimate. She was playing with him, and he loved the game. It was one he understood, one he performed well, one in which he was always the victor.

  “That depends on you.”

  “Does it?” She stood suddenly and hauled a fringed black bag over her shoulder. With a final glance of disdain at her father’s resort, she said. “Okay, then let’s go. You can give me a ride up to Seaside.”

  “What’s there?” he asked and her smile brightened the night.

  “What isn’t?”

  Harley was late. Claire, pacing on the dock where his father’s sailboat was moored, was just about to give up on him, not just for the night, but possibly forever. That thought caused a chill in her heart and raised goose bumps on her arms.

  “Oh, Harley,” she whispered, feeling like the fool her sisters had accused her of being.

  Sweet, perfect Harley had changed. He’d become distracted lately, willing to call and change their plans. When they’d first started dating, he couldn’t get enough of her, and nothing, nothing had been able to stop him from being with her. His father’s ranting, when Neal had found out, had fallen upon deaf ears; his older brother’s warnings had only made him bolder; and his sister Paige’s whining complaints had seemed to add fuel to the fire of his passion.

  Claire, too, would have done anything to be with him in those first few mind-spinning weeks. He was kind, sweet, charming, and he adored her. He’d given up everything, his old girlfriend included, and suffered his father’s wrath and his brother’s taunts because, he’d vowed, he loved her. And she had believed him with all her young, naive heart.

  But things had changed, she thought now, as she leaned against the rail of the pier and looked into the dark water where the string of lights suspended overhead was reflected in bright bobbing pinpoints on the inky surface. She felt it in the air, that change, like the turn of the wind, a quiet alteration in his need to be with her.