Whispers

by Lisa Jackson

  It was hard to believe that Jack was dead. Someone so young and vital suddenly gone. She heard the roar of a motorcycle and her pulse leapt. From the corner of her eye, she spied Kane as he parked the bike near a crooked pine tree and stood apart from the crowd, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, his eyes hidden by sunglasses. His jaw was hard and square, his lips a thin determined line, his gaze focused on the horizon. How many days did he have left in Chinook?

  I’d like to do anything and everything I could with you. I’d like to kiss you and touch you and sleep with you in my arms until morning. I’d like to run my tongue over your bare skin until you quiver with want, and, more than anything in the world, I’d like to bury myself in you and make love to you for the rest of my life.

  She bit her lip and tried not to think about Kane and the last time she’d seen him, the night Jack Songbird’s body had been found.

  Believe me, I would never, never treat you like that bastard Taggert does.

  Tessa, standing next to Claire, shifted from one foot to the other. “Where are the Taggerts?” she whispered.

  “Don’t know,” Claire mouthed back, surprised that she hadn’t missed Harley.

  “You’d think they’d be here. Jack worked for their mill.” Tessa’s blue eyes scanned the small crowd gathered on the cliffs.

  “Weston fired him that day.”

  “I know, I know,” Tessa muttered, frowning and wishing she was anywhere else as her mother slanted her a warning glance and raised a finger to her lips. Tessa glowered back, but Dominique turned away, as if she had some interest in this morbid rite. Funerals were just so depressing. Such downers. Besides, Tessa wanted to see Weston again. She’d thought he would be here and had been disappointed when not one member of the Taggert clan had shown up.

  “When’s this gonna be over?” she whispered to Miranda, who, the last few days, had been more preoccupied than ever.

  Miranda didn’t answer, and Tessa itched to be anywhere else. Where was Weston? She felt a familiar gnawing in her guts lately and wished she hadn’t started to care about him. Seeing him on the sly had been fun. Daring. She hadn’t cried any tears over losing her virginity to him, but she hadn’t expected to fall for him. He was too old, too worldly, too self-centered, and he didn’t give a damn about her. That’s what was so maddening.

  Finally, the chieftain or whatever he was quit talking and the group started a soft chant. Tessa couldn’t believe it. Jack Songbird might have been full-blooded Native American, but she doubted he gave two cents about his so-called tribe and whatever traditions they still embraced. It wasn’t as if he’d run around in beads and feathers and rode a spotted pony.

  As the foreign-sounding words faded, the group broke up, and Tessa didn’t waste any time. She hurried along the path to the road where all the cars were parked. Trucks, Jeeps, a few sedans, and a couple of station wagons were wedged near Dominique’s silver Mercedes. Tessa slid into the plush interior while the rest of the family made small talk with Ruby and Crystal.

  Tessa wasn’t interested in trying to be friendly. What could she say? Of course she was sorry Jack died. His death had to have been horrible. She shivered, imagining that terrifying tumble off the ridge. But there was nothing she could do, no words she could speak, that would change things. On top of all that, she didn’t know what to say to Crystal. She slumped lower in the seat, hoping Jack’s sister wouldn’t see her. The interior of the car was muggy. Breathless. Tessa began to sweat as she stole a glance at Crystal. Jack’s sister was staring at her—through her—with an intensity that was downright scary. Christ, Crystal could give a person the willies. Nervously, Tessa reached for the cigarettes she had hidden in her purse. No, that wouldn’t do. Her mother didn’t know she smoked.

  Couldn’t they just leave? Ever since Tessa had first started seeing Weston, she’d felt the daggers in Crystal’s dark gaze slice into her heart as she’d glared at Tessa, knew the Native American girl despised her, but that was just too bad. Crystal didn’t have any claim on Weston.

  The trouble was, no one did.

  The doors of the Mercedes opened again. Dominique slid behind the steering wheel next to Tessa. Miranda and Claire took their spots in the backseat. “I know this is a terrible loss for Ruby,” Dominique said as she dabbed her eyes with a twisted handkerchief, then found her keys in her purse. “Losing a child . . . well, there’s nothing worse.” Engines started and cars rolled past as Dominique turned the key in the ignition. “But, even though you’ve suffered a great loss, this is no time to make changes you might regret.” She nosed the Mercedes onto the narrow gravel road.

  “What kind of changes?” Claire asked, and Tessa rolled her eyes. Who cared?

  “Ruby quit,” Miranda said, and Dominique’s lips tightened.

  “Quit?” Claire echoed.

  “Well, I’m sure she’ll change her mind.” Dominique glanced in her rearview mirror. “She’s just upset right now. In a few weeks, when she’s dealt with her grief, she’ll realize that she needs the stability of working for us.” Sighing, Dominique adjusted the air-conditioning. “I was going to offer her a raise anyway; maybe that’ll change her mind.”

  “I don’t think this is about money,” Claire ventured.

  “Of course it isn’t. Not now, anyway, but once life settles down for the Songbirds, Ruby will have too much time on her hands. She’s still got a daughter to think about, and Crystal wants to go to college. That’s not cheap, you know.” She flipped on a blinker as they approached the highway. “Ruby will be back.”

  Tessa didn’t really give a rip. Ruby was a pain in the neck, always bossing everyone around. Even though it was her job, it bugged Tessa that one of their employees, a servant, thought she could tell her what to do. In Tessa’s opinion, the family was better off without Ruby Songbird and her dark, condemning eyes. It was too bad about Jack, he seemed like an okay kind of guy, but Tessa’s life wasn’t going to alter just because he’d died.

  “Oh, Lord. What now?” Dominique whispered, slamming on the brakes as a motorcycle whipped by. In a blur of black and silver, the bike and its rider sped onto the asphalt, ignoring the blast from a logging truck that was barreling south.

  “Oh, God!” Claire cried, her hands flying to her face. “Kane—”

  “Was that the Moran boy?” Dominique asked, a hand still over her heart. “I thought he had more sense than that, but then, why would he?”

  “Meaning?” Claire asked, her eyes round.

  Tessa watched their mother.

  “No breeding in that hellion. His father’s a drunk, and his mother left him.” She checked the road again as she eased off the brake. “If he doesn’t watch out, he won’t live to see twenty.”

  “Don’t even say that!” Claire stared after the disappearing motorcycle.

  “Why do you care?” Tessa asked, her interest piqued.

  “I don’t. I just know that he was a good friend of Jack Songbird.”

  “Yeah? How do you know that?”

  “I saw them hanging out together and . . .” Claire hesitated a second. “And he told me.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You know him?” Tessa asked, incredulous. She twisted around in the front seat to stare into Claire’s pale face. What was going on here?

  “Yeah.”

  “How well?”

  Claire locked gazes with her younger sister. “Well enough,” she said, and turned to look out the window again. “Well enough.”

  Three days after Jack’s funeral, Miranda stared at the calendar. Something had to be wrong. She couldn’t be late. Couldn’t. She’d been careful. So had Hunter. Rarely had they made love without the use of a condom. But as she counted the days on the flat pages of the calendar and realized she wasn’t three days late with her period, but ten, she felt the truth hit her square in the gut: She was pregnant.

  On trembling legs she sat in her desk chair. This couldn’t be happen
ing, not to her, not to the girl who had her life planned so carefully. She clenched her fists and thought about a baby . . . a baby, for the love of God. It wasn’t just the shame of being pregnant, it was the rest of it as well, that she would bear a child. Hunter’s child. She rested her head in her hands and it felt incredibly heavy. “Help me,” she whispered.

  What would that mean for college? Graduate school? Her dreams of becoming a lawyer?

  Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to cry. This was a new person she was thinking about, a part of her and a part of Hunter. A tiny human being growing deep inside her. A baby! Unclenching her fists, she rubbed her flat abdomen, and, through the tears that she couldn’t fight, she gave way to romantic fantasies of marrying Hunter, having the baby, and still going to school. So she’d have to work and Hunter, his dreams of owning his own ranch would be put on hold, but just because they were having a child, didn’t mean it was the end of the world.

  No, in fact, it might just be the beginning.

  Still, she was scared to death. She would take an in-home pregnancy test, then if it showed positive, make an appointment at the local county hospital, find out for certain if this was a false alarm, then give the news to Hunter. How would he take it, she wondered, knowing how he felt about his own father—well, stepfather really.

  Hunter Riley wasn’t Dan’s biological son as everyone seemed to think. No, Dan Riley had married Hunter’s mother when Hunter was barely two years old. He remembered no other man in his life nor had Dan treated him any differently than if he’d been his own flesh and blood.

  Hunter had confessed to Miranda that he didn’t think he had another father, that no man could take the place of Dan Riley; therefore, he’d never try to find out who had sired him. That secret had been kept by his mother to her dying day, when Hunter was nearing his twelfth birthday and ovarian cancer had claimed her. At her funeral in the small Presbyterian church just outside of town, he’d half-expected some middle-aged guy to step up to him and claim that he was Hunter’s natural father, but it hadn’t happened, and, apparently, Hunter’s biological dad didn’t know he existed or just didn’t give a damn. Either way, Hunter, didn’t really care.

  Miranda stood, walked to the window and opened it wide enough to let in the breeze. The smell of roses and honeysuckle mingled to drift up to her.

  What if Hunter didn’t want to marry her? What if his dreams were more important than she was, more important than having a child of his own? What if he insisted upon an abortion? Holding on to the window casing for support, she swallowed hard and realized that she knew so little about him, much too little to think of marriage.

  And yet she loved him. Things would work out; they always did. She rubbed her belly and smiled. Corny as it sounded, maybe a baby was just what they needed.

  “What’s this?” Paige asked, her eyes bright as Kendall handed her a foil box with a big pink ribbon.

  “A surprise.”

  “But it’s not my birthday or Christmas or anything.”

  “I know,” Kendall said, taking a seat on the desk chair and linking her fingers over one knee. “I just saw something I thought you’d like. Go ahead. Open it.” Paige’s smile was pathetic, just like this cloying room with its canopied bed and matching dresser, vanity, and desk. White with gold trim, pink rosebuds and gingham, lace trim on everything. For what? This oddball of a girl.

  Smiling widely, Paige tore open the box, tossing aside the ribbon and tissue paper until she found the prize deep inside—a silver charm bracelet with a single charm—a cat with a curled tail—dangling from the tiny links. “Oh, my,” she whispered, holding the damned thing to her eyes and watching as the kitten swayed rhythmically in front of her nose. For a second Kendall thought the pathetic girl might hypnotize herself. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Oh, no, Kendall,” Paige said, clutching the bracelet as if it were made of huge diamonds and holding it over her heart. “It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

  “It’s just a bracelet.”

  Paige shook her head and swallowed hard. She blinked as tears filled her eyes. “It’s much more than that. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me, just be happy with it,” Kendall said, but she was really thinking the kid’s reaction was all wrong. Hadn’t anyone ever been kind to her? This rich child of Neal Taggert, the only daughter who wore gawd-awful braces and had endured rhinoplasty to ensure her beauty had to have been spoiled rotten. Surely Paige had received tons of gifts over the years.

  “This is special because you gave it to me,” Paige explained as she placed the links over her thick wrist and locked the clasp. “Not because you had to, but because you wanted to.”

  Kendall felt worse than ever. She had hoped to find a way to secure Paige’s loyalty, of course, but she didn’t want to be in a position of breaking the girl’s heart. Guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  Paige’s eyes were filled with adoration. “I wish you were going to be my sister-in-law instead of that stupid Holland girl,” she said, as if she’d read Kendall’s mind. Perhaps the kid was sharper than she looked.

  “Me, too, but there’s not much I can do. Harley wants her.”

  “Harley’s stupid.”

  “You know I love him.”

  “Oh, I know.” Paige nodded her head sagely, lank strands of hair moving against her shoulders. “And she doesn’t. Not the way you love him.”

  “She couldn’t.” Kendall ran a finger over the edge of Paige’s desk, along the gold trim. “If I could convince him, I would, but, believe me, I’ve tried everything.”

  “He just needs to spend more time with you and less with her.” Paige walked over to the mirror and studied her wrist in the reflection, watching the silver cat dance in the sunlight. “I wish she would leave.”

  “That won’t happen.” Kendall sighed longingly.

  “Then I wish she had the same kind of accident that Jack had.”

  “Jack Songbird?” A chill as cold as death itself climbed up Kendall’s spine. Sometimes Harley’s little sister was downright creepy.

  “Yeah.” Paige lifted her eyes to meet Kendall’s horrified gaze in the mirror. “He died.”

  “I know.”

  “So he won’t bother anybody anymore.”

  “I didn’t think . . . I mean I don’t think he bothered anyone.”

  “He stole from the mill.”

  “What?” Kendall’s throat was suddenly tight. She had hoped to steer the conversation to Claire and suggest that Paige do a little spying on her or talking with that nitwit of a younger sister of Claire’s to dig up some dirt. No one could be as lily-white as Claire Holland pretended to be, but somehow the discussion had taken a new and decidedly dangerous turn. Anxiously, she licked her lips and wondered how she could make a quick exit. Paige wasn’t just weird, she was borderline psychotic.

  “So God punished Jack for taking money from Daddy.”

  “Surely you don’t believe that.” Kendall was horrified.

  “Why not? It’s what they teach in Sunday school and everybody dies someday anyway.” Paige tilted her head and studied the ceiling. “Yeah, I think it would be a good idea if Claire died.”

  “She’s not going to die. She’s seventeen, for crying out loud. People don’t just keel over at that age.”

  “Jack did,” Paige said philosophically as she stretched and reached for her favorite stuffed animal, a huge panda bear with sad eyes. “Well, he was a little older, but not much.” She looked at the shiny cat with eyes that made Kendall shiver as Paige stroked the bear’s wide head. “Claire could die, too, you know.” She nodded to herself. “You just have to want it bad enough and pray real hard.”

  Seventeen

  With a click of his lighter, Weston lit a cigarette and wondered why he’d agreed to meet Tessa here, only a stone’s throw away from her house, in the middle of the night. It was almost as if she love
d tempting fate, becoming bolder with each of their clandestine meetings. He should break it off with her, she was a little too offbeat for him, but he liked the idea of screwing one of Dutch’s daughters—even if it was the wrong one.

  He paced along the shore of the lake, screened only by a hedge of arborvitae that ran from one end of the garage to the dock, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, as if he was being watched by unseen eyes.

  Gossamer clouds drifted over the moon, allowing only a weak light, but still he could see the outline of the lodge nestled in the trees, the garage, gardens, and stone paths and steps leading in different directions through the fir and pine. The lake was smooth, and mirror-dark. Overhead he heard the rustle of bats’ wings. He checked his watch. She was late. Christ, this was a mistake.

  Just then he heard light, hurried footsteps and squashed his cigarette. Peering through the lacy branches of the arborvitae, he watched as a woman ran toward him, her bare feet skimming the stones. He nearly called out, only to open his mouth and remain silent. It wasn’t Tessa who was racing through the night but her older sister Miranda.

  Long dark hair caught by a white ribbon streamed behind and she was breathing heavily.

  Weston’s heart pounded and his mouth felt as if it had turned to cotton. She was wearing a gauzy white dress, maybe her nightgown, that billowed and showed off her slim legs.

  A low whistle caused her steps to falter, and then she sped down a path toward the lake.

  Weston couldn’t help himself. He followed. Darting between the trees, watching her gauzy dress flash in the darkness, he kept a short distance behind her and tried to quiet the desire that thudded in his temples. God, she was beautiful. She paused at the beach, moonlight playing upon her face.

  Weston stopped behind a Douglas fir and swallowed hard as a man appeared—a tall muscular man, who, without a word, took Miranda into his arms and kissed her long and hard. She moaned, and Weston’s blood thundered.

  He recognized the guy. Hunter Riley. Son of the goddamned caretaker. Wearing only low-slung jeans, he kissed Miranda until her knees gave way and they tumbled into the sand. “Randa,” Riley growled, his fingers plucking at the buttons on the front of her dress. “My beautiful Miranda.” As the dress parted, exposing her lush, bare breasts, Weston felt his erection stiffen, and it was all he could do not to touch himself.