Carrying His Secret

by Marie Ferrarella

  Kissed her like a man who knew about the precious, wonderfully sweet taste of her lips that lay waiting for him.

  Half an eternity later, he dropped his hands from her face and wrapped his arms around her instead. He held her to him as he kissed her deeply and with feeling.

  Her head was spinning and her heart was racing from the kiss when she heard him promise, “I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear,” he added after a beat, as if sealing his promise.

  Had he done that to convince her that he was serious? “You don’t have to add that,” she told Whit. “I believe you.”

  Could he feel it, she wondered. Could he feel that he had her heart racing so fast she could hardly catch her breath? He was stealing it away from her just as he had stolen her heart.

  This was not supposed to be happening, she silently insisted. And yet it was.

  She couldn’t contain the burst of sunshine exploding within her.

  “I’m sorry about my mother,” he told her. He’d drawn back his lips from hers, but he was still holding her in his arms.

  She supposed, in an offbeat sort of way, she could understand what Patsy Adair was trying to do. “She’s only trying to keep her family safe, same as you,” Elizabeth told him.

  Elizabeth, he decided, was an incredibly kind, forgiving person.

  “She’s only trying to keep herself safe,” he contradicted. “Listen, if you’d rather go out somewhere for dinner instead of possibly having to endure her snide remarks—”

  For all he knew, his mother might just change her mind and not join them for dinner. He never knew until the last moment what his mother was up to. Sometimes not even then.

  She couldn’t ask him to go out to dinner. “You’ve already put yourself out for me far more than you needed to. I’ll be fine eating right here in your dining room.” Her mouth quirked in a philosophical smile. “Your mother’s just sharpening her tongue on me. I’ve endured worse,” she confided.

  “From who?” he wanted to know, fairly confident that she was just saying that so he wouldn’t feel bad about the way his mother was behaving.

  For a moment, Elizabeth debated saying anything at all about the subject. This wasn’t exactly something she liked to share, or even something she did share. It was a page out of her life that she had done her best to bury, placing it in a very dark corner of her mind and shutting the door.

  But he was putting himself out for her when he didn’t have to. She owed him.

  “My mother,” Elizabeth finally said, thinking that sharing this bit of information with a man who had, perhaps, gone through the same exact sort of thing in his adolescence might help her deal with the way she felt—or couldn’t feel, as the case might be.

  There was sympathy in his strikingly blue eyes. “What did she do?” he asked.

  “Things I’d rather not talk about,” Elizabeth answered, adding, “Not all women should have children. Some are just not equipped with enough patience to put up with the rigors of raising a child.”

  Whit read between the lines. “Did she hurt you?” he asked.

  She saw the anger in his eyes. For a moment, that was all she saw.

  She’d never had a white knight before. She’d never even had a knight of any kind before, she thought in amusement. This was a whole new sensation and it required some adjustment on her part. The largest adjustment had to do with trust. As a rule, she didn’t trust—not when it came to personal things. But she owed it to Whit to try her best.

  “There are scars,” she answered vaguely. And there were, both on her body and more importantly, on her soul. Those were the ones that wouldn’t heal. “But they’re all in the past. There’s no point in revisiting any of them now.”

  Her shrug was vaguely dismissive of the power those scars had over her.

  “They’ve made me stronger,” she told him. “In a weird way, my mother taking her frustrations out on me helped make me the person I am today. I’m able to withstand almost anything.”

  She needed to change the subject. Revisiting a section of her childhood stirred up feelings she’d thought to be dead long ago. Obviously, they either hadn’t died or they just refused to stay dead.

  Either way, she needed to rebury them, which in turn meant she had to think of something else and put as much distance between herself and her painful past as she could.

  “I think this house should come with maps handed out at the front door.” And then she laughed softly. “This room should come with a map. I think I’ve seen pictures of palaces that were smaller than this place,” Elizabeth confessed. “What do you do with all this room?” she wanted to know.

  “Mainly collect dust,” he told her, then whimsically added, “And stash away guests.”

  “In other words, don’t open any closets unless otherwise instructed?”

  He grinned. “You’re catching on.”

  His grin, Elizabeth noted, was disarming. She needed to get back to where the other members of his family were. She just couldn’t trust the reactions she was having to Whit.

  And they were getting stronger...

  The quick rap on the partially open door interrupted anything further that Elizabeth might have said to Whit.

  Thank God, she thought. The cavalry had arrived.

  There was no need to ask who was knocking because the next moment, Landry popped into the room. “So, do you like it?” she asked Whit’s houseguest, indicating the room.

  “It’s magnificent,” Elizabeth told her honestly.

  Landry looked around, as if seeing the room for the first time through the eyes of a stranger—a wealthy stranger, since she had no other frame of reference.

  “It’s a little small,” Landry said, “but it has a cozy appeal.”

  “Cozy?” Elizabeth echoed in somewhat amused disbelief. “In comparison to this, the Grand Canyon is cozy.” This, she couldn’t help thinking, gave new meaning to the phrase living large.

  “The Grand Canyon, huh?” Landry echoed, seriously turning the comparison over in her mind. “I never thought of it that way,” she confessed.

  The next second, she was back on track of her original mission: to extract her late father’s executive assistant from her workaholic brother’s clutches. Knowing Whit, he would probably get Elizabeth to work on some contract with him that was due before the week was out. For the past few years, that was all her older brother ever did: work.

  “Anyway, you’ve monopolized Elizabeth long enough, big brother,” Landry declared, placing herself between him and Elizabeth. “It’s my turn now to spend some time with her.”

  “Okay.” A flicker of concern entered his brilliant blue eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Landry spending time with Elizabeth—it was just that he had always thought of her as being somewhat young for her age. Maybe it was because she was the baby of the family, but whatever the reason, he worried about his sister’s ability to be aware of her surroundings. “But if something seems off to you, I want you to come find me.”

  “What if it’s you that seems off to me?” Landry asked, struggling to keep a straight face.

  He hardly heard her. Whit didn’t believe in taking unnecessary chances. “Maybe I should stick around,” he decided.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” Landry countered. “Elizabeth and I want to spend a little quality girl time together.” She spared the smaller woman a nod, as if they had already conferred about this. “And in case you haven’t made the connection, girl time requires girls. Strictly girls. So unless there’s something you haven’t been telling me, that disqualifies you from hanging around. Now shoo,” Landry ordered, fanning Whit away with her hands as if she was fending off some undesirable animal that was crossing her path.

  He supposed that maybe he worried too much. After all, Landry and Elizabeth were going to be n
ot just on the grounds, but inside the house. If they weren’t safe here, then they wouldn’t be safe anywhere.

  “I’ll see you later,” he told Elizabeth, then turned his attention one last time to his sister. “Remember, call me if you think anything’s wrong or out of sync.”

  Landry elaborately crossed her heart as if she were swearing a sacred oath.

  Rolling his eyes heavenward, Whit murmured something unintelligible under his breath and withdrew.

  “Honestly,” Landry said, closing the door behind her departing brother, “I thought we’d never get rid of him. I mean, I love Whit and all, I really do, but he worries too much and he’s too straitlaced. There are times when I think he just kind of sucks all the air up in the room.”

  “He means well.” Elizabeth was quick to come to Whit’s defense. Her pulse had yet to settle down to normal after that kiss in the guest room. Granted, he did come on strong, but his father had been murdered and her tires had been slashed while she was parked in Adair’s lawyer’s parking lot. Offhand, she would have said that Whit had a good reason for being as overprotective as he was.

  “Yes, I know he means well,” Landry agreed. “But he definitely needs work,” she insisted. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m crazy about him, I really am, but I also know that he’s got flaws.”

  That came as no surprise, Elizabeth thought. “Most people do.”

  “Yes, but most people aren’t part of my family. Whit is. Mind you, I can’t blame him for being so uptight and removed at the same time. That’s his way of coping with his childhood—our childhood,” Landry amended. “None of us exactly have sterling examples of what love and marriage—a good marriage—are supposed to be like. Our boilerplate for marriage involved shouting, breaking glass and slamming doors—and that was just the warm-up.” She shook her head sadly. “My parents should never have gotten married.”

  “But if they hadn’t, then none of you would have ever been born,” Elizabeth pointed out with a soft smile. There was something about the younger woman that spoke to her. She’d felt a bond forming between them the first time she’d laid eyes on Landry. The girl belonged to a cluster of people who were just instantly likable. “And the world would have missed out on that.”

  Landry hooked her arm through hers. “Knew I liked you for a reason,” she declared, grinning broadly. “C’mon, let’s go to my room. It’s got way more stuff than this room.”

  And obviously, Elizabeth thought, Landry set a high premium on stuff. The younger woman’s enthusiasm amused her. Elizabeth saw no reason not to go along and indulge her.

  After showing her her room, Landry decided that a proper tour of the grounds might be in order. The first place she brought her to was the barn.

  “That’s right, you have horses, don’t you?” Elizabeth recalled as she followed behind Whit’s sister.

  “No, we don’t have horses,” Landry replied. “We have magnificent examples of horseflesh. Each is a champion in his or her own right.”

  As if to prove her point, Landry brought her over to their prize stallion.

  Elizabeth was attracted to the stallion almost instantly. “He’s beautiful,” she whispered, crossing to the horse.

  “Boy horses don’t like being called beautiful,” Landry informed her, then winked. “But he is, isn’t he?” she agreed like a fellow conspirator. “Thunder, this is Elizabeth. Elizabeth, meet Thunder.” The horse rubbed his muzzle against her, as if asking to be petted. “Hey, he seems to like you. A lot. I think I’m jealous,” Landry teased. “Thunder likes you better than he likes me. And I’ve even got sugar cubes in my pocket.” She dug into her pocket. “Here,” she said, handing Elizabeth one. “Put it in the center of your palm and offer it to him.”

  Elizabeth did as she was told and laughed softly as Thunder gently separated the cube from her hand.

  “Ah, if only two-legged men were as easy to control and have eating out of your hand,” Landry said with a wistful sigh.

  “I’ll settle for this,” Elizabeth replied, stroking Thunder’s muzzle. At least a horse couldn’t break your heart, she thought.

  Chapter 11

  She made a habit of having the ringer on her cell phone turned off, setting her cell phone to vibrate instead. She didn’t want to disturb anyone with her phone, but she didn’t want to miss a call either. There was the off chance that it might be the police calling, or one of Adair’s associates or friends. Then, of course, it could always be Whit, needing her help with something.

  Elizabeth made it a point never to miss any of the calls. Which was why she found herself on the receiving end of calls coming from phone numbers that were intentionally blocked. Whenever she picked up one of those, she would hear someone quickly hanging up on the other end. It didn’t matter if she answered on the first ring or the tenth. Whoever was calling always hung up as soon as she said hello. Why? Was it a cruel game meant to drive her crazy? Or what?

  Elizabeth kept telling herself that it was all in her head. That it was just a product of her overactive imagination, something she hadn’t realized that she possessed until all this murder-and-slashed-tires business had started.

  But these calls, as well as other things, were getting to her, making her feel steadily more uneasy. It made Elizabeth wonder if she could really trust her own judgment.

  She knew that Whit had noticed that she was ill at ease. He thought it was because his mother seemed to be around more than she usually was, and Elizabeth supposed that in part, Patsy Adair was the problem. She didn’t like being where she wasn’t wanted and whatever Landry maintained to the contrary, Elizabeth was certain that Whit’s mother did not like her or want her staying there at the ranch.

  As a matter of fact, whenever Patsy smiled at her, it made her blood run cold, as if she had just stared into the face of death. A very attractive death—because Patsy was that—but nonetheless, a very final death.

  “You’re acting jumpier,” Whit commented after noting the subtle shift in her behavior during the week that she had been here at the ranch.

  “Maybe it’s because I have nothing to do but think,” Elizabeth replied, grasping at the first excuse she could come up with. She didn’t want him to think she was ungrateful to him, nor did she want him to think she was a whiner. But the truth of it was she was going stir-crazy. “If I had something concrete to do, if I had less time on my hands to do nothing but think and breathe, I wouldn’t have time to be jumpy.”

  She was making sense, Whit thought. In her position, he’d be exactly the same way. “I guess this vacation isn’t exactly turning out to be one, is it?”

  Elizabeth hesitated, then shook her head. “No—not that I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do,” she was quick to add. The last thing she wanted to do was offend him.

  He wasn’t looking for her appreciation. “What I am trying to do, Elizabeth, is to keep you alive.”

  They were standing in the front room, near the large bay window that had a spectacular view of the front of the family acreage. Elizabeth sighed and looked off to the horizon, watching a formation of birds making their way across the sky.

  “I know that and I am grateful,” she told him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to complain. I’m afraid you just caught me off guard.”

  There was just a hint of a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. “So you had no prepared statement ready for me?”

  Elizabeth started to protest, then realized it would be better all around if she just went along with what he was assuming.

  “You got me,” she told him, raising her hands slightly like a cornered suspect who had been found guilty.

  He thought a moment, intent on rectifying her restless feeling. And then he thought he had come up with an answer. “We’re going to be looking into starting a new advertising campaign to launch the new cell phones that’ll be a
vailable with our service this summer. Why don’t I have the information sent from the office to your personal laptop tomorrow? You can start work on that. Would that make you feel better?” he asked.

  Better? She could have thrown her arms around him and kissed him—again—but that would only start another line of trouble.

  “Infinitely!” she cried eagerly.

  Whit inclined his head, as if making it happen right there on the spot.

  “Consider it done. I’ll just make a few calls,” he told her. “And Elizabeth,” he began just before he began to walk away.

  She still hadn’t moved and she looked at him now, wondering if he was going to say he’d changed his mind. “Yes?”

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said, making a silent promise to her at the same time.

  “Absolutely,” Elizabeth replied with wholehearted enthusiasm.

  Whit paused in the far doorway for a moment, one eyebrow raised a little higher than the other as he scrutinized her. She hadn’t exactly convinced him. “You’re just humoring me, aren’t you?”

  The smile lit up her eyes first. “Absolutely,” she repeated.

  “Why wait? I’ll get on having that information forwarded right away,” he told her as he left the room.

  That was just what she needed, Elizabeth thought as she went upstairs to the opulent suite that was her bedroom. She needed work. Something to get her mind off both this supposed threat against her—a threat that was causing her to imagine accidents waiting to happen around every corner, hiding in every shadow—and the accident that had already happened. Namely the baby she was carrying—and concealing.

  Entering her temporary quarters, Elizabeth stopped to look herself over in the floor-to-ceiling mirror near one of the closets in the room. Specifically, she was looking intently and critically at her profile—her lower profile—in the mirror.