by Anne Stuart
Her hands were shaking as she shoved the key into the ignition, and at first try it wouldn’t start. She almost burst into tears. If worse came to worst she would stay locked inside her car until they all went away or she died of starvation, which, considering the breakfast she’d just wolfed down, would be quite a while. The food should have made her sick, especially given the shock that had followed it, but for some reason it had settled nicely into the pit of her stomach, warming her.
The car roared to life, a sudden blessing, and she pulled into traffic, narrowly missing an oncoming truck.
It was far too easy to find her way out of the neighborhood, onto Sepulveda. It would be simple to find her way back. She turned the radio on, loud, only to switch it off immediately when Ricky Martin started singing in Spanish. She didn’t want to think about Spanish and sex, and with Ricky Martin the two were inextricably entwined.
She was overreacting, she told herself, as she drove through the morning traffic back toward Sunset. There was no way she could even begin to remember everyone she’d slept with. It probably wasn’t the first time she’d ended up back in bed with someone she’d tried earlier. She’d never been one to learn from her mistakes.
Except that Richard…Rico…hadn’t been a mistake. He’d been young and strong and passionate and deeply devoted to her, and she’d loved him. For a while, at least.
Hell, she couldn’t even remember what had broken them up. They’d had to sneak around, of course. Consuelo and Jaime had been completely disapproving. They’d loved her, but they’d wanted a good, Catholic virgin for their only child. Rachel-Ann had been nominally Catholic, but she’d lost both her virgin and good status a long time ago.
Grandmère wouldn’t have noticed, and Jilly was childishly thrilled to be an accomplice to Rachel-Ann’s midnight rendezvous. Had she just lost interest, gone on to someone new and broken his heart? What had happened?
With a sudden chill it came back to her. Something she hadn’t wanted to remember, and her stomach twisted for a moment, rebelling against both the memory and the huevos rancheros.
It had been Jackson, of course. She had no idea how he found out, when even the people living at La Casa, Jaime and Consuelo and Grandmère, hadn’t the faintest idea. She used to think he hired people to spy on her. She knew Jilly wouldn’t have betrayed her, and Dean was away at military school and hadn’t the faintest idea what kind of trouble his sister was getting into.
But Jackson had found out, and his icy rage had been horrifying. He’d summoned her to his office—he wouldn’t come to La Casa, claiming the place depressed him. He’d been very calm, very detached as he’d detailed the times she’d met with Rico, the things they’d done. He’d rattled off the particulars in his cool, clipped voice, and she’d sat there, mortified at the words he used. She was being taken away from La Casa—from then on she would live with him in his town house. She wouldn’t see or talk to her sister or brother, she wouldn’t go anywhere without her father guarding her.
She’d run away once, hitchhiking to La Casa late one night. The gates had been locked, but she’d always known where she could scale the walls, and she’d gotten in without trouble. Only to find that Consuelo and Jaime had been fired months before, without warning. That they’d disappeared, with their son.
She used to wonder if Jackson had ordered them killed. She had no doubt he was capable of it—unlike her siblings she had no illusions about how ruthless Jackson really was.
She wasn’t fool enough to ask. She wasn’t fool enough to care. Ever again.
And now the earth had turned again, and he was suddenly there. Richard. No, Rico, with his beautiful hands and his gentle voice.
She’d learned her lesson, long ago. But he’d tricked her—if she’d known who he was she would have kept far away from him. She’d always known the AA meetings would be nothing but trouble. She should have listened to her instincts.
Except, hadn’t it been her instincts that had sent her out with him last night? Something deep inside that she thought she’d managed to destroy?
She wouldn’t let it surface again. She didn’t like that kind of pain—life was too short to put up with it. She liked forgetfulness. Oblivion. Peace.
She turned into the overgrown drive leading up to La Casa. If she wanted peace, La Casa de Sombras was the last place she’d find it.
But then, she’d come to realize, there was no place on this earth that would give her the kind of peace she craved.
No place at all.
14
Zachariah Redemption Coltrane was feeling like shit. He’d never had many illusions about his own nobility. Neither did he tend to feel sorry for himself. Sure, he had a few strikes against him from the start, in particular his family, though come to think of it, he’d take his long-vanished family over Jilly’s all too present dependents. And his entire family hadn’t vanished. He was still having a hell of a time coming to terms with the truth about Rachel-Ann.
He had a sister. He was torn between a sentimental streak and annoyance. This new-found knowledge had thrown a monkey wrench into his plans, and once they were skewed, Jilly Meyer had managed to get under his skin, complicating matters even more.
He’d planned to leave. He’d decided earlier that night, when he couldn’t sleep and found his way downstairs to the abandoned living room. Meyer was already set up for a fall, the Justice Department was ready to make its move, and there was nothing more to be gained by staying there. Nothing was going to bring his mother back, and there was no guarantee he would ever find out the truth about her death. Maybe it was time to get back to his own life.
It seemed an obvious answer to a difficult situation. He couldn’t seduce Rachel-Ann, and Jilly had no particular value in the scheme of things. He should just walk away.
If he were a decent human being that’s just what he’d do, but he had no illusions about himself. He was a cold-blooded bastard, through and through, and he couldn’t walk away from revenge, even for his fragile sister’s sake. Word had it that she and her father were devoted. If he brought Meyer down then it might put Rachel-Ann over the edge.
He didn’t want to be the one to destroy his own. He didn’t particularly want to hurt Jilly, either, though why he should care one way or the other mystified him. Some latent decency that needed to be squashed, fast. Jackson Dean Meyer fought dirty, and there was no way Coltrane could bring him down if he played by the rules.
And he had to bring him down. If Jilly and Rachel-Ann were hurt, well, that was just their bad luck. He wasn’t about to let latent, unnatural stirrings of decency get in the way.
He’d managed to get the shower working in his bathroom, and by the time he came downstairs it was after eight. He expected Jilly wouldn’t appear until she absolutely had to, and if she could manage it she’d keep out of his way for days. She wasn’t going to manage it. He kept seeing that horrified expression on her face as she tumbled off him onto the floor, soaked and messy and dazed. He kept remembering the tight urgency in her body, the sound she made when she came. And he kept wanting to go upstairs and finish what they started.
She’d probably locked and barricaded the door, and he’d been sorely tempted to follow her upstairs, kick it open and finish things. She couldn’t lock out what frightened her. It wouldn’t do any good. He wasn’t the one who’d horrified her. It was her own reaction, voluptuous, sensual, completely unexpected.
He’d never expected it to go that far. She was calling his bluff when she climbed on top of him, but he hadn’t been bluffing. He’d intended just to take her for a little ride, get her hot and bothered and leave it at that. But things had spiraled out of control so quickly he hadn’t been able to stop. Hadn’t wanted to.
He found himself grinning wryly in the shadowy kitchen. He needed to learn not to underestimate Jilly Meyer. Even more particularly, not to underestimate the effect she had on him.
He was on his second cup of coffee, sitting in the peaceful stillness of the kitchen, wh
en Rachel-Ann walked in, looking a hell of a lot livelier than he’d ever seen her. She halted in the doorway when she saw him sitting there, and he suspected that if she’d known he was there she would have gone in the opposite direction.
“There’s coffee,” he said.
“I’ve already had two cups.” She stayed in the doorway, frozen.
“Have another.”
“It’ll make me too nervous.”
Good point, he thought. She was already a visible bundle of nerves. “Suit yourself,” he said.
It was the first time he’d ever been alone with her, and it was oddly unsettling.
“Nervous has its uses,” she said, coming into the room and pouring herself a mug of coffee. She sat down opposite him and he watched in fascination as she emptied huge amounts of sugar into the mug so that it must have been a thick, sweet sludge. “Anyway, I wanted to talk to you.”
“Okay.” He leaned back in the kitchen chair, waiting.
“What did you do to my sister?”
It was the last thing he expected her to ask. “What do you mean?”
“I saw her driving away from here when I came home this morning and she didn’t even see me. She had Roofus with her and she was crying.”
“When was this? I thought she was still asleep.”
“Not more than five minutes ago. What did you do to her?”
“Not a damned thing,” he said, unblinking. He wasn’t about to tell his little sister what he’d been up to on the living room sofa. “Besides, do you really think she needs you looking out after her? She’s an adult—she can make her own choices.”
“She’s not as invulnerable as she likes to think she is. She’s strong, but she can be wounded. Probably because she makes the mistake of caring too much about people.”
“Maybe you should have taken that into account before you slept with her husband,” he drawled.
Not the way to endear himself to his long-lost sister, he thought belatedly as her green eyes turned hard with anger. “I forgot,” she said, “you’re privy to everyone’s little escapades, aren’t you?”
“Is that what you call it? An escapade?”
“She already knows all about it. She’s forgiven me.”
“Of course she has. Didn’t you just define her problem? She cares too much. It doesn’t matter that you betrayed her on one of the most elemental levels—she still loves you and wants to protect you. Even when you’re intent on killing yourself as speedily as possible and there’s not a damned thing she can do to save you.” His voice was surprisingly bitter, and he picked up his coffee cup, waiting for her inevitable explosion.
She didn’t explode. In fact, the anger seemed to have left her, and she was staring at him in a kind of wonder. “Interesting,” she murmured. “Who would have thought it?”
“Who would have thought what?” He was sounding more and more irritated, and he didn’t care. Jilly irritated him, with her bleeding heart and her vulnerability. Rachel-Ann irritated him with her death wish.
And most of all, he irritated himself for even giving a damn what happened to either of them.
“You care about her,” Rachel-Ann said. “Better not let Jackson know. He wouldn’t like having his chief henchman having feelings about Jilly. He considers his children completely expendable.”
“I’m his legal advisor, not his henchman.”
“Same thing,” she interrupted airily.
“And I don’t care about her any more than I care about her damned dog. I just don’t like to see people betrayed by people they care about. And, for that matter, I’ve been around your father long enough to know that he certainly doesn’t consider you expendable.”
An odd expression darkened her eyes for a moment. “No, he doesn’t,” she said in a lifeless voice. “But then, you probably know he isn’t really my father. So any…attachment he might feel isn’t necessarily, legally paternal.”
The words were so simply, evenly spoken that it took him a moment to realize what she was saying. Before he could do more than stare at her she rose, taking the unfinished mug of coffee to the sink and draining it. Then she turned and smiled at him, and he realized with shock that her smile wasn’t terribly different from the one he’d seen in a Christmas photograph from almost thirty years ago, on his very own face.
He didn’t smile like that any more. And she looked far too cheerful for his peace of mind.
“Anyway, I’m glad we’ve had this little talk,” she said breezily. “I’m feeling much better about the whole thing.”
“What whole thing?”
“You and Jilly.”
“There is no me and Jilly,” he said in a perfect drawl. “Anymore than there’s a me and Roofus.”
Rachel-Ann raised an eyebrow. “I think the three of you will be very happy,” she murmured and floated away before he could protest.
She had a few more defenses than anyone gave her credit for, he thought belatedly, tipping the chair back and putting his feet on the scarred worktable. And she was more observant than anyone realized. She sensed that Meyer’s affection for her crossed the paternal line, and Coltrane didn’t think she liked it.
She really wouldn’t like it if she knew just how taboo that paternal affection was.
Meyer knew. There was no way he couldn’t. Rachel-Ann didn’t just show up on his doorstep—he’d gone out of his way to get her, to bring her home and pass her off as a foundling. The old man was an even bigger bastard than Coltrane had even begun to imagine. Bad enough that he murdered Coltrane’s mother. His sins were reaching the next generation and he had to be stopped.
“There you are, Coltrane!” Dean lounged in the door, deliberately languid as ever. “Whatever has gotten into my sisters? First Jilly goes driving away from the house like a bat out of hell, then Rachel-Ann ignores me and goes upstairs singing. Singing, for God’s sake!”
“I can’t imagine.”
Dean shrugged his shoulders. “Not that it matters. Any sign of cheer is encouraging. I just wanted to tell you I’m throwing a little dinner party tonight, and I’m counting on you to be there. Don’t disappoint me.”
“Why me?”
“It’ll be just the family, I promise. I decided that since the four of us are such a motley crew, a group dinner might help us learn to get along. I’ve already been in touch with the caterers—no one has to do a thing but show up. You drink Scotch, don’t you?”
Sitting down to a cozy dinner with the three Meyers was just about the last thing he wanted to do. Jilly would probably flat out refuse to attend if she knew he was coming. “I’ve got other plans.”
“Cancel them.” He followed the order with what he obviously thought was a winning smile. “You won’t be sorry.”
Coltrane resisted the impulse to snort in disbelief. “How are you coming on the Wentworth project?”
Dean held a silencing finger up to his mouth. “I’m learning all sorts of fascinating things, and not just about Wentworth. My father has unexpected depths. Amazing what kind of information you can dig up when you use a little imagination and a passing knowledge of computers.”
Coltrane’s eyes narrowed. He’d buried the Sanderson stuff in a file that Dean would never be able to access, no matter how adept he was at computers. But Dean still looked far too smug for Coltrane’s peace of mind.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked casually.
“Not now. I’m still busy gathering information. You’ll know when I’m ready to deal.”
Coltrane stared at him, suddenly edgy. “I wouldn’t underestimate your father if I were you. I don’t know if he’d let family loyalties get in his way if he’s feeling threatened.”
Dean laughed. “Believe it or not, I know just what my father is capable of. And he’d be smart not to underestimate me. I’ve got the same ruthless genes. Too bad Jilly and Rachel-Ann didn’t inherit them—it could have made their lives easier.”
“How could Rachel-Ann inherit your father’s genes? I though
t she was adopted.”
Dean’s smile was like the Cheshire cat’s famous grin, smug and secretive. “So she is. Sometimes I forget. Dinner tonight, Coltrane. I promise you an entertaining time.”
Dean knew, Coltrane thought, staring at him. Knew about Rachel-Ann, at least. The question was, did he realize Coltrane’s connection?
“Looking forward to it,” he said idly. “Do you know where Jilly went?”
Dean shrugged. “Could be anywhere. It’s Saturday, and she doesn’t have to work. If I know her she went to the ocean. That’s what she does when she wants to think. Why do you care? She’s not your type. I thought you were hot after Rachel-Ann.”
So he didn’t know everything. “I’m not hot after anyone, Dean,” he said lazily. “Just curious.”
“Sure you are, Coltrane. What are you going to do with your day off? Or does Jackson have plans for you?”
“I’m planning to do a little plumbing.”
Dean looked as if he’d said he was planning a mass murder. “Plumbing?” he echoed in tones of deepest horror.
“One of the many talents I’ve picked up over the years. I don’t touch electricity, though—at least plumbing can’t kill you. As long as I’m here it would be nice to have a working sink and shower.”
“I told you you could use mine. Doing your own plumbing seems a little extreme.” He shuddered.
“It’ll keep me busy for the day. You’d be surprised at some of my talents, Dean.”
“I imagine I would. I wonder what other surprises you have in store for us,” he said softly.
It was there between them, solid distrust over-laid with a veneer of charm.
“You never can tell,” Coltrane replied.
Jilly always loved this stretch of beach, almost as much as Roofus did. He was racing down the deserted sand, leaping in the air and chasing seagulls, in doggy ecstasy, and for a moment Jilly was able to smile. It was a chilly day at the ocean—the wind was whipping up the surf, and the few hardy surfers didn’t look as if they were having that good a time.
