Whisper of Love

by Melanie Shawn

  KJ was angry. Ricky was withdrawn. He didn’t need to be a child psychologist to diagnose them.

  “What about you, Ricky? Where do you stand on this controversial subject of frozen dessert?” He tried to lighten the mood and draw Ricky out. Two birds.

  “It’s fine.” The kid’s eyes didn’t leave the pages.

  Ali stood, her spine ramrod-stiff as she picked up her and KJ’s plates. “Go get dressed. We have to leave in ten minutes.”

  “You’re coming right, Uncle Kade?” KJ asked eagerly as he stood.

  Kade glanced at Ali. If she really didn’t want him to go, he’d make up an excuse so it didn’t throw her under the bus. He had a feeling she’d spent enough time getting run over by life and he wasn’t about to add to it.

  Her eyes blinked in a resigned yes.

  “Wouldn’t miss it, bud.”

  KJ rushed upstairs and Kade pushed his chair back and began clearing the table.

  “I don’t need your help.” Ali’s tone left no room for argument but he had no plans to fight with her.

  “You cooked, that means we clean right, Ricky?”

  Without a word, Ricky closed his book and started gathering up the dishes.

  Ricky had always been the quiet one but this was more than that. Kade knew it in his gut. He sliced a look over to Ali and saw the concern brimming in her light brown eyes as she stared at her nephew.

  “We got this.” Kade tried to take the plates from her hands.

  She held on to them with the grip of a spider monkey before finally releasing them. “Fine.”

  She reached out and ruffled Ricky’s hair. “Thanks. You da man.”

  Ricky grinned and took the plates into the kitchen.

  Without even a glance in his direction, Ali turned and headed up the stairs. His eyes locked on the sway of her rounded hips. She was thinner than he was used to seeing her but she still had a world-class ass. An ass he’d been a fan of for far too long.

  She was supposed to be like a sister to him, and she had been up until seven years ago. Patrick had wanted to do something special for his sister’s twenty-first birthday, so he’d asked Kade if he had any Vegas connections since he’d had several fights there, and if he did could he “hook her up.”

  Kade hadn’t given it a second thought. He flew her and three of her friends out first class and put them up in the Sky Villa at the Palms. He hadn’t planned on babysitting them, but he wanted to stop by and make sure that they had everything they needed. So he’d taken a short flight out of LA where he lived, and gone to check on them. Her best friend, Jess, let him into the suite, thanking him profusely for his generosity. He’d asked where the birthday girl was and the next few moments played out in a dream-like sequence…

  Jess pointed to the indoor lap pool. “She’s taking a dip before we go out. There’s a pool in our room!”

  Jess’s squeal faded out as he turned and—in what felt like slow motion—Ali emerged from the water like a goddess. She wore a red string bikini that accented her pinup curves and Kade’s mouth watered so much that when he tried to swallow he choked on his own spit.

  Those life-changing few seconds were branded into his memory and his spank bank. It was a defining moment in his life. The moment his best friend’s little sister, the first person that had made him feel loved and valued, became the only woman that existed in the world to him. Instead of just dropping by he’d ended up spending the entire weekend with Ali and her friends. It had been under the guise of wanting them to have a good time, but the truth was he hadn’t wanted to let Ali out of his sight, and he hadn’t.

  During the forty-eight hours he’d spent with her in Vegas a truth became glaringly obvious. He’d fallen in love with Ali. Head over heels, madly, deeply in love with Allison Walsh.

  It wasn’t just because she’d made him choke when she’d gotten out of the pool. That might’ve sparked the fiery inferno that blazed in him for her, but—even though he had never acknowledged it—there had been a slow burn building in him since the day he’d shown up at her house after he wrecked his motorcycle.

  She was breathtaking, choke-inducing hot, but it was more than that. Ali was brutally honest. She always seemed to have an opinion about how he was living his life and she never held back when she told him what he was doing wrong or how much of an ass she thought he was being. She was fiercely loyal and protective. She was fearless, funny, and his favorite person to hang out with and fight with. He never knew what was going to come out of her pretty mouth but he loved finding out.

  After that weekend, Kade shortened his visits to his hometown because of those feelings for his best friend’s little sister. He’d felt guilty. Patrick and Ali had more than just a brother-sister bond. Patrick had raised her, even before their mom died. And Patrick knew just as much as Kade did, that he wasn’t good enough for Ali. Those two were the only family Kade had and he hadn’t wanted to fuck that up because he happened to be in love with her.

  Seven years later, he was still trying to ignore his feelings for Allison Walsh. It hadn’t worked when he was thousands of miles away from her and he doubted living in the same house with her was going to make it any easier.

  CHAPTER 4

  A motorcycle. Of course he still rode a motorcycle.

  When Ali saw it parked in her driveway, she’d been tempted to kick it over. Before losing Patrick, the worst night of her life had been the one she’d spent thinking that Kade was dead. She’d made him promise never to scare her like that again. But here he was, still riding a bike.

  He sat beside Ali in the passenger seat of her SUV and took up way more space than anyone had a right to take up. Not only his sheer mass, since his athletic, chiseled frame took up plenty of that. But she was referring to his essence. His being. His mannerisms. The way he breathed. The way he rolled his head to stretch his neck. The way he flexed his hands and made the veins on his forearms pop out like sexy homing beacons.

  All of that was conspiring to cause her hormones to override her common sense that dictated she was not happy that Kade was back.

  Ali noticed her hand shaking as she flipped the turn signal. Flexing her fingers around the steering wheel, she was determined not to let anyone see her reaction. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that the twins could not be less interested in anything that was going on in the front seat. KJ was glued to his phone and Ricky had his book.

  She turned her attention back to the road and focused on driving. The past couple of hours felt like she was in a dream she couldn’t wake up from, she just wasn’t sure if it was a nightmare or not…she was leaning toward nightmare.

  Kade, who appeared oblivious to her internal turmoil, turned up the radio and started singing along to Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely”.

  Yep, this was definitely a nightmare.

  Not because he was a bad singer. Ali wished that was the case. But the cold hard truth was, Kade was musically gifted. And even during the years she’d managed to build up a tolerance to him, his voice had been her Achilles heel. He could also play the piano and the guitar, but there was a raspy quality in his singing voice that melted the panties off of any woman in earshot.

  He came by it honestly. From what Ali had heard, his dad was a studio musician in Nashville for years and he’d played with the likes of Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, Loretta Lynn, Kenny Rogers, and Reba McEntire. Kade never pursued music because the very last thing he wanted to be was anything even remotely like his father, and Ali didn’t blame him. Her life goal was to be nothing like her mother.

  Tingles ran down her arm when Kade shifted toward her as he launched into the chorus. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she desperately looked for parking and nabbed the first available spot. It was a few blocks away from the gym, but she didn’t care. She was suffering from arousal claustrophobia in the confined space. Plus, the entirety of downtown Whisper Lake consisted of four blocks of real estate that surrounded the lake. She could park anywhere
and they’d still be in walking distance.

  Before the SUV had even come to a full stop, she shut off the radio and announced in a way-too-cheery voice, “We’re here.”

  KJ mumbled something about her chosen parking spot as the twins both exited the vehicle. She waited for Kade to do the same. Not the grumbling but the leaving. She just needed a minute to herself to attempt to pull it together. When she’d left Kade and Ricky to clean up dinner she’d gone upstairs intending to do just that. Instead she’d changed into jeans and a V-neck shirt. She’d also brushed out her hair and put on mascara and a lip stain that Jess had given her as a gift six months earlier that she hadn’t opened.

  She’d told herself that she was doing it because KJ had finally, begrudgingly agreed to let her sit in on a class, but she called bullshit on herself. She was doing it because of one person and one person only.

  The man that was still sitting beside her.

  So much for a moment alone.

  She sighed and reached for the door at the same time his fingers curled over her right forearm. She sucked in a small breath as the tingles that had started moments ago spread through every square inch of her body.

  Seriously? Did it have to feel so good when he touched her? It was a maddening phenomenon. Why couldn’t she just be immune to him? Why?!

  “Hey, are you okay?” The concern in his voice only irritated her more.

  She couldn’t count the number of times that she’d been asked that exact question since Patrick died and each and every time she wanted to scream, No! No I’m not okay! I’m never going to be okay again!

  But she never had. Not because she cared what anyone thought. Her mother’s antics in this small town had made her immune to gossip from an early age. She hadn’t done it because she didn’t want to give people the satisfaction of seeing her lose it.

  “I’m great!” Her tone dripped with sarcasm as she opened the door since apparently the universe thought that a moment to herself was too much to ask for. “Just hunky fuckin’ dory.”

  “Allison!” he called out her full name as she slammed her door.

  He was hot on her heels as they rounded the corner and had fallen in step beside her when she heard, “Kade McKnight! Is that you?!”

  Looking to her left she saw Betsy Dobrinski’s bouffant hairdo sticking up above the opened trunk of her eighties-model Cadillac.

  Oh great. This day just kept getting better.

  Mrs. D’s stout arms flew in the air, abandoning her husband’s wheelchair that she’d been in the process of collapsing. “I didn’t know you were coming to town!”

  “No one did.” Ali wished she’d known, she would’ve taken the boys on an impromptu getaway. Spring break was the following week, but since that was the rental shops busiest time she could’ve told them it was a pre-spring-break vacation.

  “Hey, Mrs. D.” Kade waved.

  “Ernie! Did you see who’s here?” She rounded to the passenger side of the car and yelled at the top of her lungs to her husband seated inside.

  “Eh?!” His wrinkled face contorted as he leaned toward her.

  “Kade!” Mrs. D grabbed Kade’s wrist and tugged him beside her, then pushed his shoulder down, causing him to bend at the waist.

  Kade waved to Mr. Dobrinski.

  “Oh.” Ernie nodded, looking unimpressed.

  Mr. Dobrinski’s lack of enthusiasm did nothing to squelch Mrs. D’s.

  The apples of her rosy cheeks grew rounder as she smiled from ear to ear. “The girls are going to be so tickled.”

  “The girls” that Mrs. D was referring to were her partners in crime that were eighty-eight and ninety-one respectively. And if you Googled sweet, old ladies Betsy Dobrinski, Pearl Chen, and Doris Weathersby would be the first results. Mrs. D was the spitting image of Mrs. Clause. Mrs. Chen wore shawls, used a cane and probably weighed ninety pounds soaking wet. And Mrs. Weathersby was Whisper Lake’s answer to Betty Crocker, she never showed up anywhere without a basket of delicious baked goods in hand. Their image might be harmless senior citizens but that’s not what they were. They ran this town. They had eyes and ears everywhere as well as time and resources to bend situations and people to their will. They mostly used their powers for good and not evil but get on their bad side and they could make life very uncomfortable for you.

  The boss lady trio hadn’t been huge fans of Patrick’s nor Ali’s when they were growing up, thanks to their mother’s antics. The phrase ‘no home training’ had been uttered often. But after Ali lost Patrick, the ladies’ changed their tune. They’d invited Ali to be a part of their knitting club aptly named The Needlepoint Mafia. Like in The Godfather, it was an offer she couldn’t refuse. No one turned down the mob bosses of Whisper Lake. No one.

  Mrs. D fawned over Kade as he folded up the wheelchair and stowed it in the trunk. Ali figured now would be a good time to sneak away. She made it two steps before she heard Mrs. D say, “Now you wait just a minute, missy.”

  Ali glanced over her shoulder hoping that somehow she wasn’t the “missy” that Mrs. D was referring to. But, unfortunately, lady luck really wasn’t on her side today. A pudgy finger was pointed in her direction as she turned back to face her. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Don’t forget that you’re bringing the snack on Tuesday and Leonora is lactose intolerant, and Beverly has a gluten allergy. Last time you were in charge of snacks the two of them spent three days with the runs.”

  Ali tried to erase that visual from her consciousness. “No dairy. No gluten. Got it. See you Tuesday!”

  She turned again and noticed that Kade was back at her side. A shiver of awareness rolled through her body like a crowd doing the wave at Wrigley Field. Every time Kade was within spitting distance of her, her body went into arousal overdrive. It had to be pheromones. That was the only explanation.

  She needed to Google how to combat her physiological reaction…maybe there was a spray. Like a bug repellant. A Kade repellant.

  They’d barely made it out of Mrs. D’s hearing range when Kade leaned down and whispered, “Are you, Allison Leanna Walsh, a card-carrying member of the Needlepoint Mafia?”

  “Yep.” She kept her answer short and sweet in the hopes that he wouldn’t notice the shakiness in her voice from the tingles that his breath on her neck had caused.

  “Holy shit.” He sounded genuinely shocked, which caused her to grin. “You’re a made woman.”

  “Shut up.” She rolled her eyes as she double-timed it up the block.

  “Whoa.” Kade breathed, as he slid his hand around Ali’s wrist.

  The heat of his large palm warmed her instantly as the roughened pads of his fingers sent a chill through her. The hot-cold combo caused goosebumps to rise on her skin and she tugged her hand away.

  “What?” Her tone sounded more irritated than she actually was.

  Kade didn’t seem to notice her bitchiness as he lifted his chin toward the lake. “Look.”

  Her eyes cut in the direction he was staring and she saw that the sun was setting behind Stone Castle that sat on a bluff overlooking the lake. Oranges, purples, and yellows silhouetted the landmark and danced across the serene water.

  Ali couldn’t remember the last time she’d noticed a sunset, or a sunrise, or flowers blooming, or a clear blue sky. Growing up the only thing she’d liked at all about living in Whisper Lake was the natural beauty that the tiny, tourist trap of a town was surrounded by. No matter how much she hated the dull, small town where everyone knew everyone’s business, she could always find peace by just looking out over the lake or better yet going out to Foster Pond and sitting in the gazebo watching the ducks swim.

  But since Patrick had been gone, even that had lost its appeal. Everything was gray.

  She sensed Kade leaning toward her and she froze when she felt the heat of his breath fan the wispy hairs that fell over her neck.

  “Do you still think it’s haunted?” His tone was taunting.

  Patrick and Kade had always mocked
Ali about her unwavering belief in the urban legend of Stone Castle’s ghost activity. Their teasing hadn’t swayed her when she was ten and it sure as heck wasn’t going to sway her at twenty-eight.

  “Yes.” She turned her head slightly ready to launch into the same spiel she’d given every time her beliefs were called into question, but when she locked eyes with him her ability to speak flew right out the window.

  Forget the sunset, Kade’s eyes were a natural wonder. Their outer rim was a forest green and the center was a translucent emerald shade with gold specks floating in them. His stare was hypnotizing. The rest of the world disappeared and Ali found herself being pulled under a mesmerizing spell.

  “Uncle Kade!” KJ stuck his head out of the door to the gym and waved his arm. “Come on.”

  Ali blinked and the rest of the world came back into focus.

  “Are you okay?” Kade’s brow creased as he gave her wrist a squeeze. “I thought I lost you there for a second.”

  You did. She’d gone full Debbie Gibson Lost in Your Eyes.

  “I’m great.” She tugged her hand away and strode into the gym.

  She needed to stick to her plan of avoiding Kade. No more sunsets and long stares. No more falling under spells.

  As she stepped inside the gym a chill ran through her. She attributed it to the air conditioning and not the person whose breath she could still feel against her neck. But just to be safe she dipped her head and rubbed the back of her neck to try and erase the sensation he’d caused.

  It didn’t work.

  “Hi, Ali.”

  She looked up and saw Keaton Mills, KJ’s coach, standing in front of her wearing a wide smile that revealed a perfect row of white teeth.

  She lifted her hand in a wave. “Hi.”

  He’d moved to town a couple of years earlier and was well-liked. Men liked him because he was a guy’s guy and women liked him because he had ice blue eyes, jet black hair, a body that could easily be featured in a men’s fitness magazine, and an air of mystery that was hard to come by when you grew up in a small town.