Her Sister's Secret (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance)

by Linda Style

  Whitney Sheffield was a replica of his ex and most of the other women in his former life. But that infatuation was over. He recognized the feeling for what it was. He’d always wanted what he couldn’t have, and they only wanted to play with fire—for a while. After that they expected him to change, become one of them. With Stephanie, he’d even been fool enough to try.

  No way was he ever going down that road again.

  But damn. When he’d looked into Whitney Sheffield’s eyes, he’d felt that same primal reaction.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE EMERALD JUNIPERS and red rock of the canyon blurred into one long multicolored streak as Whitney stomped on the accelerator, her thoughts focused on today’s meeting with Gannon. Last night she’d easily found the inn, registered, and then gone directly to her room to work out her plan of action.

  But now, as she rounded the corner into Estrade, the same doubts she’d had the night before plagued her. What if Gannon wouldn’t cooperate? What then? What if he didn’t come back?

  She really needed a plan B, but without more information, she couldn’t do much. Until Albert’s PI work produced something new, it would be one step at a time.

  Since her original plan to photograph him dealing drugs hadn’t worked out, she decided to follow through with her on-the-spot book idea. He’d seemed intrigued with the idea and if he’d agree to spend some time with her talking about motorcycles, she still might have the opportunity to get what she needed. At the very least, she hoped to find out where he was keeping SaraJane.

  If he wasn’t on board right away, she could offer to pay him…because it would take time to collect all the information she needed. She smiled, liking the idea. And once she’d persuaded him to trust her, she’d try to get an interview at his home, where the baby might be. But most important was to get photos. Proof to get custody of the child. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea

  She had no idea where would a man like Gannon live. How would he care for a three-year-old child? According to Morgan, he lived hand-to-mouth, making money by selling drugs, pimping and theft. She’d warned that although he could charm the socks off most women, he was evil, dangerous, and potentially violent.

  Whitney inhaled deeply at the thought, but somehow couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. The altitude. That was it. Estrade was more than a mile high. Still, she had other reasons for feeling breathless.

  She steered the car into a parking space in front of the store. For the first time, she noticed the name on the sign above the front window—Journey. Appropriate, since it was a place that catered to road people. She glanced at her watch. If Gannon had specified a time, she wouldn’t have had to come early and wait. Now she could sit here all day and he might never show.

  It wasn’t quite nine, yet a dark-green Jeep was parked a few feet away on her right, and on the other side, a motorcycle that looked like something out of the old iconic movie Easy Rider. A chopper, she remembered. Other than the two vehicles, the street was as vacant as the night before. And dead quiet.

  Whitney saw movement inside the store and decided it must be open. After locking her car, she entered the place and glanced toward the back, where two men were talking. One, a paunchy older man, had his back to her and the other, a bespectacled business type, moved around behind him.

  Unable to believe that Gannon would actually show up, she fingered the price tag on a black studded jacket hanging next to her. The pervasive scent of leather saturated the air.

  Her dad’s cars had always smelled like that, except for the Rolls that had been in the family for years. The one with a bar in it. A knot formed in her stomach…and just as quickly as the thought had formed, she shook off the painful memory.

  Several Harley-Davidson motorcycles were lined up for display near the front windows, while the rest of the interior housed racks of accessories, motorcycle parts, leather jackets, chaps, caps, vests, gloves, books and even videos. All good reasons for bikers to gather here.

  But in Gannon’s case, the shop was, no doubt, a place for drug contacts. Which made his offer to meet her here very strange. She’d been asking all kinds of questions, so wouldn’t he think he might jeopardize his cover? He was either overly eager to be part of a magazine article, or he was stupid. She doubted it was the latter. The other option was that he was suspicious about her motives and wanted to find out more to see if she was telling the truth about who she was.

  Her spirits sagged as she glanced at her watch. He wasn’t going to show. She’d been naive to think he would. What made her think someone like him could be counted on for anything?

  She trailed a finger across the satiny lacquered tank of the Harley next to her. The sun glinted off the sleek chrome and steel, making the smooth surface warm to the touch.

  Instinctively she framed photos in her mind. A close-up, a tire angle, the contoured black seat with a man astride—or a man and a woman. Like yesterday.

  Her muscles tensed. Don’t even think it!

  She made a rectangle with her fingers and squinted through the opening, visualizing the subject as she sometimes did before she took a photograph.

  When she turned, she saw the men at the back still deep in discussion, so she pictured the older guy on the bike. He wore heavy engineer’s boots and floppy black leather chaps over blue jeans. An oversize black leather jacket completed the ensemble. She suppressed a chuckle at the image of this man on the powerful bike.

  Then she visualized the man behind him straddling the Harley. Her senses jarred at the way he stood and the way his broad shoulders tapered into a narrow waist and hips, the way his dark hair curled slightly over the collar of his white polo shirt.

  Recognition hit just as he removed his glasses.

  Gannon.

  She caught her breath, and in that same moment, he looked directly at her. At a distance, without the motorcycle, without the jacket and helmet, he didn’t even look like the same man, and he certainly seemed less threatening. She waved a greeting.

  He nodded back, gesturing he’d be right with her. Her stomach lurched as if she’d just descended in an elevator at rocket speed.

  Morgan had told her Rhys Gannon was a chameleon, changing his persona to suit his purpose as often as he’d changed his address. On the very day Morgan had died, she’d said he was so convincing that no one would doubt his sincerity. Morgan had trusted him because she’d been in love.

  But Whitney wasn’t Morgan. And she’d stopped believing in love a long time ago. She squared her shoulders. A change of clothes didn’t change the person.

  “Good morning,” Rhys said from across the room after the other man left. Leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb to what looked like an office, he didn’t come forward to greet her. Instead, he watched her, his heavy-lidded gaze sweeping over her, dark lashes at half-mast. A smoldering look he made no attempt to disguise.

  “Good morning.” She walked toward him, vowing not to be unnerved by him or by her reluctance to tear her eyes from his near-perfect physique. For the first time since college, she thought about shooting a nude series.

  For the first time in her adult life, she wasn’t sure she could maintain her professional manner, her controlled reserve. It was one thing to act confident regardless of the situation, but to do it while lying through her teeth was a different story.

  But then, the only thing she really had to lie about was why she was there. After all, she was a photographer, and she was going to photograph motorcycles.

  “You found your way back to the inn?” he asked.

  He looked older than she’d expected and she couldn’t tell from his expression whether he liked the fact that she’d returned today or considered her an intrusion.

  “I did. The owners weren’t there, but a very nice woman who said she was filling in for the night gave me a room.”

  “Sleep well?”

  Whitney nodded. “Uh-huh.” She’d been so tired she’d crashed within seconds after she’d hi
t the bed. This morning she’d gotten up early, dressed and left without seeing a soul.

  “I didn’t know if you’d come—or when.” She extended her hand. “As I said last night, my name is Whitney Sheffield.”

  “Rhys. Rhys Gannon.” He clasped her hand in a firm handshake, his earlier provocative look replaced by an engaging smile that dimpled his right cheek.

  As he released her hand, she cast about for something to say. Something that wouldn’t sound as though she was probing for personal information.

  “Rhys. Yes, I saw the name on your license plate. Welsh, isn’t it?”

  He arched a dark eyebrow and laughed. His deep voice held a note of playfulness. “Yeah. Which was tough in school since no one knew it was pronounced Reese.”

  “A family name?

  “It is. My father has the same name.”

  She stepped forward, next to a display rack and pulled out a book titled Touring Arizona on Your Harley. She riffled the pages, then glanced casually at the blurb on the back cover, wondering where the heck the store owner was. And why did Gannon look as if he was running the place?

  “Well, it’s a nice name. I like it.” She lifted her gaze to meet his. “I suppose you’ll pass the name on to your children, too.” Gah! How lame was that? She put the book back where she’d found it, cringing at the pathetic segue.

  Somehow she had to get him to talk about SaraJane. “Or not. I guess it wouldn’t be a very good name for a girl, would it?” She drummed up a coy smile.

  His back went ramrod-straight. “You said you’re photographing motorcycles.” His tone was suddenly sharp.”

  She must’ve hit a nerve.

  “How can I help?” He folded bronzed arms over his broad chest, signaling the end of any small talk.

  Whitney noticed how the short sleeves of his shirt revealed well-defined biceps, reminding her how rock-hard his stomach muscles had felt under her fingers.

  Heat rose to her cheeks.

  She cleared her throat.

  “Well, like I said, I’m doing a book—a coffee-table book on motorcycles. Mostly photographs.” Her voice sounded weak and uncertain to her ears. Where the hell was her usual barrel-ahead confidence? It all sounded reasonable last night when she’d planned what to say, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  He nodded for her to continue.

  “Because I haven’t delved into the research end of it yet, I really don’t know much about them.” She paused. “Not that I need to know a whole lot to take photographs, but I always find the more I know about my subject, the more interesting the photos are. And last night, as I mulled it over, the possibilities seemed endless.”

  She pushed a loose strand of hair from her face. When he didn’t respond, she continued telling him about her ideas, ideas she’d used before on other books. And amazingly, while she talked, her own interest took flight.

  She paced a few steps in one direction, then back again, hands waving in tandem with her words.

  “I could go with a historical perspective or maybe concentrate on one particular kind of motorcycle—or include the old with the new! I could do the people who ride, who they are, where they ride, what kind of groups they belong to, the clothing they wear—”

  She came to an abrupt halt when she noticed his amused look. “Well, there are several options,” she concluded.

  “Guess you don’t have it all worked out yet. Who did you say this book is for?”

  “Uh, actually, it’s still in the beginning stages. That’s why I’m not entirely clear on the focus. I proposed the book to my editor and now I’m starting the research,” she lied. “And I came here because I’d heard in Phoenix that Estrade is a popular stop for bikers.”

  She shrugged, raising her hands palms up. That part was sort of true, although it was the guy at the gas station outside town who’d told her. “Coming here was rather a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

  “So you’ve done other books?”

  She nodded. “Four. One on the children of Belfast, another about the rooftops of Paris, and—” She stopped. It was obvious he didn’t recognize her name. No big surprise. She’d been shown in major galleries in New York and abroad, her work regularly featured in a couple of national magazines, but her name wasn’t exactly a household word. Her fifteen minutes of fame had come several years ago when People magazine had done an article about her.

  Certainly no one in Estrade, Arizona, would’ve heard of her or her work. “But nothing you’d know about.”

  Rhys’s dark eyebrows snapped together. “Yeah? Guess we’re too primitive out here in the boonies, huh? We couldn’t know all those important things that go on in the big world out there.”

  She winced at the sarcasm in his voice. She’d obviously insulted his intelligence, and it was rapidly becoming apparent that intelligence wasn’t one of his deficits. In fact, she was taken aback by his whole manner. Today he didn’t seem at all like the creep Morgan had described.

  She studied the faint lines on his face. She’d done enough portraits to be a pretty good judge of age. Even if he’d done a lot of hard living and looked older than his chronological age, he had to have at least fifteen years on Morgan. Which would make him somewhere around thirty-five…minimum.

  And now, with his quick self-protective response, she sensed a chink in his armor. He didn’t like it when anyone inferred he wasn’t smart. Which wasn’t her intent, because so far, he’d been really nice. Yesterday he’d even helped her find a place to stay. Perhaps he wasn’t as devious as Morgan had said.

  On instinct, Whitney reached out, her fingertips grazing his forearm. “I only meant that the books may not have been distributed so far from New York.”

  Rhys looked at the hand still touching his arm; his eyes slowly moved upward until they locked with hers.

  “So you’re a famous author?”

  A smidgen of pride surfaced. She smiled up at him. “No. But I am known in some areas for my photography.” She dug in her leather backpack, found a business card and handed it to him.

  He eyed the card. “Another Annie Leibovitz?”

  “No—the only Whitney Sheffield,” she shot back, raising her chin in mock self-aggrandizement, hiding her surprise at his knowledge. Her name wasn’t as recognizable as her peer, but she did have her own unique style, which some people liked equally well, maybe even preferred.

  “Well, what can I do to help you, the only Whitney Sheffield?” He gave a dazzling white smile, and they laughed together, a guarded rapport settling between them as he resumed his stance leaning against the doorjamb. His gaze drifted beyond her to the front of the store.

  Whitney glanced in the same direction and saw two people dismounting a motorcycle. Rats! Just when she had him talking. Not wanting their conversation to be interrupted, she asked, “Can we go somewhere to talk?”

  “Sure,” he said, and before she knew it, he’d guided her by the arm through the office door. “Make yourself comfortable. This shouldn’t take long.” Exiting, he pulled the door, leaving it slightly ajar.

  She whirled around, looking from the large picture window opposite the door to a gold-framed poster from an art gallery in Chicago on her right, then to a similar poster on her left. A battered oak desk took up most of the tiny room.

  What the hell? Did he work here? Manage the store? Own the place? There was no one else around, so maybe the business was his front for selling drugs, just as she’d first suspected. But then why would he jeopardize his cover by bringing a stranger here?

  Or was he that sure of himself now because, with Morgan gone, there was no longer a threat? Morgan had said she’d never told Gannon much about her family, but Whitney just wished Morgan had given her more information about him.

  A knot of pain tightened in her chest. Did he even know Morgan was dead? Would he even care?

  Tears welled in her eyes. She blinked and quickly blotted out the thought. Good grief, what if he came in when she was all blubbery. If she didn’t get a grip
, she’d never accomplish what she came here to do.

  She listened for voices, but the hum of conversation was too far away, so she edged closer to the desk. She craned her neck to read the upside-down writing on the papers—to no avail.

  Spotting a small bronze picture frame on her left, she reached for it, her stomach fluttering nervously. Just as her fingers touched metal, the door flew open. She yanked her hand back, nerves snapping like rubber bands.

  Rhys stood in the doorway.

  “Okay, that’s done,” he said as he barreled past her and rounded the desk. He motioned for her to sit, then dropped into a pockmarked brown leather office chair. His masculine presence loomed large in the room.

  “Have a seat,” he urged, then leaned back, obviously comfortable in his surroundings.

  Confused, she searched for words as she sat on the oak chair across from him. “What? What’s done?”

  “The customer. But with luck there’ll be more. Now what can I do for you?”

  Whitney focused on Rhys. “You work here?” she asked, stupid as the question was.

  Rhys gave an easy hearty laugh. When the even white smile faded, he lifted his arms and laced his fingers behind his head, his biceps flexing with the movement.

  “Yes. What did you think? That I was one of the bikers here yesterday?”

  Heat rushed to her cheeks.

  When she didn’t respond right away, a slow grin spread across his face. He bent forward, pulled a slim brown cigarette from his shirt pocket, tamped it against the desk, but didn’t light it. He leaned back in the chair again and waved a tanned hand in her direction.

  “It’s my shop, so unless another customer comes in, my time is yours.”

  Whoa. She felt a tiny bit like Alice tumbling into the rabbit hole and finding everything skewed. She was here under false pretenses, and Gannon was ready and willing to help her. He was a drug addict who looked nothing like one—and on top of that, he was the owner of the store.