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Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: Whispers
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“It's not like that.”
“No?” Dominique's long fingers plucked a brown leaf from the stem of one of the roses. “Well, good. But it doesn't hurt. Your sisters could take some advice from you, Claire. Miranda—well, she's just plain odd, studying all the time to what end I'll never know, and Tessa, oh Lord, that girl needs Valium, I swear. She's so . . . well, wild and rebellious, doesn't know what she wants in life.” Lines of strain marred her mother's forehead. “I worry about Tessa—about all of you, but at least you seem to have a purpose and understand that marrying well defines a woman.”
“I take it you're not a member of NOW.” Miranda had walked through the room at just this moment, and her jaw was clamped so tight, the bone bleached her chin. Her fingers tightened over the smooth back of one of the Thomasville chairs. “You remember, the National Organization for Women.”
“A pitiful organization made up of whining women who don't know their place.”
“Haven't you ever wanted to be liberated?”
“Heavens no!” Dominique laughed at her eldest daughter. “You'll understand someday, Miranda, that men and women aren't equal.”
“But their rights should be.”
“Not if you ask me. All those women's libbers are doing is stirring up trouble. What happens to me if your father divorces me? Would I get alimony? Not if those screaming feminists have their way.”
“I can't believe this,” Miranda said. “Mom, we aren't living in the Dark Ages, for crying out loud!”
Dominique wasn't convinced. “Women will always need men to provide for them.”
“Save me,” Miranda whispered.
“Women, if they were smart, would give themselves better lives by choosing their partners more carefully.”
“Like you did,” Miranda shot, and Dominique's eyes flashed with a private pain that turned Claire's stomach.
“Yes,” she said, pride in her voice.
“And you're miserable.” Why was Miranda being so blunt and hurtful? “I've heard you crying at night, Mom,” Randa said gently. “I know it hasn't been easy.” Dominique's spine suddenly looked as if someone had just poured starch down it.
“Neither is being poor and having to do anything to survive.” Her lips pursed and she blinked as she turned back to the vase. “If you don't believe me, then think about Alice Moran—you know, the woman who lived with the foul-mouthed cripple across the lake.”
“You know her?” Claire asked, dumbstruck. She didn't think either of her parents were aware of Kane's family.
“I knew
of
her. Her husband—well, I think they're still married even though she abandoned him and their son—any-way, Hampton's forever trying to sue your father because of the accident.
“Alice Moran is just one example of a woman who married poorly and paid the price.”
“And you're an example of someone who married well and paid the price,” Miranda said as she pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen.
“Don't listen to her,” Dominique had warned. “I'm afraid poor Randa is going to have to learn the hard way. You keep seeing Harley Taggert. Things will work out.”
But they hadn't. Nothing seemed to be working. Claire didn't know how long it had been since she'd been with Harley, but it seemed like forever. She'd even seen Kane several times since she and Harley had been together. Kane Moran seemed suddenly to be everywhere she was, and she hated to admit it, but he intrigued her—well, just a little. He was everything Harley wasn't—poor, cocky, born with an I-don't-give-a-good-goddamn attitude and eyes that seemed to see past her facade and search for the real person buried deep inside. It was scary how he made her feel—all jumpy and nervous and defensive. She'd even wondered what it would be like to kiss him, but stopped herself short because of Harley.
The boy she loved, she reminded herself.
The man she was going to marry.
Gritting her teeth, she was determined to push all her wayward thoughts of Kane Moran out of her mind.
But she couldn't.
Because he was there, on the island.
She rounded a corner in the path and directly in front of her, on the highest point on this little rocky piece of ground, was her nemesis, the boy who caused her to question everything she'd ever dreamed of: Kane Moran.
Naked except for a pair of worn cutoffs, his hair still damp from a swim, he was stretched lazily over a smooth boulder.
Her throat closed for a second and she considered running away, but he'd already spied her, his eyes squinting at her as if he'd expected her to appear. She wanted to demand to know what he was doing here. After all, this was still her father's property, but she didn't want to sound petty. Besides, she'd seen him trespassing before. It was as if he felt no need to observe any man-made boundaries.
“If it isn't the princess,” he drawled, and she felt the muscles in her back tighten. Propped on his elbows, sunlight playing across his tanned, taut skin, his eyes the pale hue of ale, he assessed her.
“I told you before I'm not a princess.”
“Yeah, right.” He rolled onto his bare feet.
“What're you doing here?”
“Contemplating my life,” he said seriously, then allowed one side of his mouth to lift in a crooked, off-center grin that she found much too sexy.
“Really,” she persisted, and stood in the shade of a solitary cedar tree. He made her nervous, and she wondered if he was suddenly everywhere she was, pretending interest and making conversation, because he hoped to find out about the latest lawsuit his father had filed against the Holland family.
“To tell the truth, I'm wondering if Uncle Sam really does want me.”
“For the army?” The thought was chilling though she didn't understand why. She rubbed her arms and was aware of the way he was studying her, so intently she wanted to move away from his steady gaze. “You're going to enlist?”
“Why not?” he asked, lifting one muscular shoulder. “It's peacetime.”
“For the moment, but things change, especially in politics.”
He laughed. “What do you know about politics?”
She swallowed. “Not much, but . . .” He'd always lived across the lake, and though she barely knew him, she considered him a fixture of sorts in the little town of Chinook. People left all the time. Kids graduated from high school and went to college or got jobs. Some married and moved on. But for some reason she didn't want to examine too closely, Claire had thought, well, hoped, that Kane would always be around. Knowing he lived across the lake was as disturbing as it was comforting.
“Why the army?”
“Isn't it obvious?” he asked, his smile disappearing as a jet sliced the sky above, leaving a trailing white plume. “To get out of this place.” He squinted against the lowering sun. “I get to see the world, earn money for college, all that bullshit that the recruiter shoved down my throat.”
“What about your dad?” she asked without thinking.
“He'll get along.” But two deep grooves appeared between his eyebrows and he looked away. “He always manages.” He shoved a pebble with his toe, and it rolled and bounced downhill to plunk into the water. “So where's lover boy?”
“What?”
“Taggert,” he clarified.
A slow burn climbed up the back of her neck. “I don't know. Working, I guess.”
“If that's what you call it.” Kane shook his head and laughed without any mirth. “Everyone else at the Taggert job site or lumber mill works his tail off—hard, physical labor, but Harley and Weston, the sons and heirs-apparent, already have offices with their names written in gold leaf on the windows of their doors.
“Weston is telling fifty-five-year-old supervisors how to do their jobs on the green chain. And Harley—” Kane rubbed his chin and shook his head. “What exactly is it he does for the company?”
“Don't know,” Claire admitted.
“I bet if you asked Harley, he couldn't tell you, either.”
“We don't talk about his work.”
“No?” he asked, one eyebrow lifting as he crossed the sun-spangled space between them and stood toe to toe with her in the shade, his face so near she smelled a faint scent of aftershave mingled with smoke. She couldn't look away from the hard angle of his jaw and noticed a drip of water running from his hair down his neck. Her stomach squeezed, and she could barely breathe. “So what do you talk about—you and Prince Harley?”
“It's really none of your business. Harley—”
“I don't give a rip about Harley.” His breath, warmer than the air, caressed her face. “But you . . .” He reached up and twined a curl of hair around a callused finger. “. . . for some damned reason I can't explain, I do give one about you.” One side of his mouth lifted as if he were mocking himself. “It's this special curse I carry around with me.”
She licked her lips, and his eyes caught the movement. With a string of oaths, he dropped his hand and turned away, as if in so doing he could break whatever spell had been cast around them in the shadow of the solitary tree. Tense muscles moved in his back as he walked away.
“Kane—” Oh, God, why did she call out? She wanted nothing to do with him, and yet there was a dark side to him that spoke to her, that reached forward to find a like part of her soul.
He glanced over his shoulder and her heart twisted at the confusion in his gaze. Gone was the arrogant, insulting cocksure hellion and in its place was a puzzled boy who was nearly a man. “Leave it alone, Claire,” he said, and walked to the edge of a cliff, where, in one clean movement, he lifted his tanned arms, sprang from the ledge, and dived twenty feet into the still waters of the lake.
Shading her eyes with one hand, Claire watched as he surfaced and began swimming in steady, sure strokes to the shore where the dingy little cabin and his father waited.
Nine
Harley glanced at his watch, then drummed his fingers on the desk in his office, a room he hated. Located in a single-story building across the road from the actual sawmill, filled with files and cheap, functional furniture, the room was cramped and tight. He tugged at his tie and felt sweat drip down his neck even though the air conditioner located in the window was going full throttle, wheezing and belching cool air through the tiny chamber his father had insisted was his. Damn it all, he still felt out of place, and would have had to have been blind not to notice the men in hard hats continually casting smug looks in his direction as they caught sight of him during the change of shift or on their breaks. They tried to swallow their smiles around thick wads of chewing tobacco, but Harley saw the amusement, and yes, disgust, in their gazes. They
knew
instinctively that he wasn't cut out to be their superior.
Once on his way to his car after work he'd caught Jack Songbird, one of the local mill workers, using a pocketknife to try and pry open the lock on the soda machine located behind one of the drying sheds. Harley had met Jack's eyes, frowned, then rather than cause a scene, looked in the other direction as the lock gave way.
The machine had been vandalized and robbed of less than twenty dollars and from then on, every time Harley had been forced to face Jack, he'd spied the mockery, laughter, and disdain in Songbird's dark eyes. He should have fired the bastard right then and there. It would have been over. As it was, Jack's insolent presence reminded Harley just how weak he was. He couldn't even keep a small-time employee from penny-ante larceny. So how was he supposed to ride roughshod over the workers, any of whom could pick him up and snap his back like a brittle twig.
No, he wasn't cut out for this job. He yanked harder at the knot on his tie and slid the Best Lumber file back into a slot in his out basket. He'd spent hours poring over the invoices, staring at the figures on the last three months of shipments of raw lumber to Best's five outlets around Portland, and he couldn't figure out why Jerry Best was pulling his account from Taggert Industries. Best had been a customer for years, but, for some unfathomable reason, was determined to take his business elsewhere.
Probably to Dutch Holland. The son of a bitch had probably undercut their prices even though Dutch only owned a few sorry mills near Coos Bay. Hell, what a mess!
Now it was Harley's job to try and sweet-talk Jerry into staying with Taggert Industries—a name to be trusted. Christ, it was so much horseshit. He fingered the telephone, dialed, connected with Best's secretary, and felt an overwhelming sense of relief when he was told that Mr. Best wouldn't be back in the office until Monday. As he set the receiver down he noticed the sweat he'd smeared over the handle.
Glancing at his watch again, he wiped his palms on his slacks and thought the hell with it. Weston came and went as he pleased, never seeming to punch in. The old man handled it, but with Harley it was different. Never having shone as much as his older brother, whether it be on the football field, in school, or at the job, Harley was expected to try harder, spend more hours at the desk, kiss more asses.
Too bad. Tonight he was going to see Claire, and he didn't give a damn what his father had to say about it. He was on his feet and had reached for the door when his father's secretary's voice called over the intercom. “Mr. Taggert?”
“Yes.”
“You have a call on line two.” Harley's insides congealed. What if it was Jerry Best? What could he say to the man? How could he save the account? He wasn't a salesman; never would be. “It's Miss Forsythe.”
Harley wanted to climb into a hole and die. This was worse than pretending he cared about the price of milled lumber. Why did Kendall keep chasing him? Didn't she understand that it was over? He snatched up the receiver and barked out a greeting. “Hi.”
“Oh, Harley, I'm so glad I caught you.” He imagined her face—all blue eyes and pink cheeks, pouty lips turned down at the corners.
“What's up?” Not that he cared. He flicked a piece of dirt from under one fingernail.
“It's—it's that I have to see you.”
“Kendall, don't, I already told you—”
“It's important, Harley. I wouldn't have called you at work if it wasn't.”
Holy shit, she was pregnant. Hadn't she said she wanted to be? Harley's knees went weak and he sagged against the desk for support. His stomach cramped so hard he thought he might lose his lunch. “What is it?”
“I don't want to talk over the phone. Meet me at my parents' beach house tonight.”
“I can't.”
A beat. “Please.”
“I have plans.”
Her voice sounded strangled. “Harley, listen, this is a matter of life or death.”
The baby.
She was pregnant and considering the abortion.
“I'll see you at eight.”
“I can't.”
“You really don't have a choice,” she choked out, then slammed the receiver in his ear. For a second he thought he might pass out, the blackness in the corners of his vision threatening to blind him, but slowly he caught his breath. Kendall was right—he had to meet her. With shaking fingers he smoothed his hair from his face and tried to appear calm.
As he left the office he managed to wave to the woman in the steno pool who was assigned to be his secretary. Linda Something-Or-Other. Fair, fat, and forty, but pleasant and efficient enough to make him feel foolish, that her smile was often at him not with him.
Stop it, Taggert, you're the boss.
His Italian loafers crunched on the gravel of the washed-out parking lot. Potholes scarred the dusty asphalt, and no tree dared offer shade in an operation that was meant to reduce forest giants to two-by-fours. The fresh scent of sawdust mingled with the overpowering odor of diesel, and Harley hated every second of it.
His father, like Dutch Holland, was president of a corporation made up of many divisions. This sawmill was only one of the small companies under the umbrella of Taggert Industries. So it seemed ridiculous for Harley to be stuck in the mill when there were resorts and restaurants to operate.
“It'll do ya good,” Neal had explained when he'd told Harley about his summer job. “Mix with the men who are the backbone of this company. Next year you can work at the resort in Seaside.”
An empty promise, Harley thought as he pushed a pair of sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose and Weston's Porsche convertible roared into the parking lot.
Crystal Songbird, Jack's younger sister and a girl Weston dated off and on, was slouched in the passenger seat of the convertible, her fingers tapping the rhythm of Bruce Spring-steen's “Hungry Heart.” Her black hair shimmered blue in the afternoon sunlight. If she saw Harley, she didn't acknowledge him, but Weston was out of the car in an instant and bore down on him as if with a single purpose. Jaw set and hard, fists clenched, he crossed the parking lot.
Got a wife and kid in Baltimore, Jack . . .
Wes looked angry enough to spit nails.
Harley braced himself for what appeared to be a showdown. Weston's lips were white with determination.
“Where's Dad?” he demanded.
“Not here.”
“You're sure?” Weston asked, then muttered under his breath, “Son of a bitch. I called the office in Portland and . . . oh, hell, they said he was here.”
“What's got into you?”
Weston ran the fingers of both hands through his hair, then glanced over his shoulder at Crystal, but she didn't seem to pay him any attention as she studied her reflection in the rearview mirror and applied another layer of glossy lipstick.
Everybody's got a hungry heart . . .
“It's the same damn thing it always is.” Weston swiped the sweat from his brow with his bare hand.
“What thing?”
Weston's eyes narrowed into slits. “The rumor.”
“The wha—oh. That one.” Harley finally understood. “The one about Dad having other kids—illegitimate ones?”
“Just one. A son.”
“If you believe the rumors, yes.” Harley didn't give two cents about the old lie that had been attached to Neal Taggert and his womanizing. Who cared?
“It doesn't bother you?”
“I don't lose any sleep over it.”
“Don't you realize if it's true and this guy—this bastard of a half brother—ever steps forward, he might want a cut of everything?”
“So?”
“Christ, Harley, are you really that much of a moron?”
Harley's blood ran hot. “I just don't let things I can't control bother me. Where'd you hear it this time? From some guy three sheets to the wind at the Westwind Bar and Grill? Or over at Stone Illahee—Dutch Holland is always ready to spread a rumor about Dad? Or maybe from one of the gossips who hang out at the coffee shop?”
“No,” Weston drawled, his lips thin with disdain for his younger brother. “This time I heard it from Mom.”
Harley laughed. “Oh, great. Like she's never trying to get your goat. I don't know what happened between you, but Mom likes nothing better than to irritate the hell out of you and send you off on some wild-goose chase.”
“Jesus, Harl, you're beyond hope!” Weston squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, as if wondering how they could possibly be related.
“And you're jumping at shadows. What were you gonna do if Dad was here? Accuse him of having another little family tucked away?”
“I'd just ask for the truth.”
“A good way to get cut out of the will, Wes, and we all know that no matter what, you'd never do anything to jeopardize getting your rather substantial piece of the Taggert financial pie.”
“At least I don't sit around on my ass doing nothing,
nothing,
and just expect to inherit money.”
“I don't expect anything.”
Weston slid a glance at Harley's Jaguar and the fine layer of sawdust that had settled on the car's sparkling paint job. “Yeah, right. Look, it doesn't matter. I'll catch up with Dad later.”
“Do that. And tell him to say ‘Hi' to our half brother, would ya?”
“Go to hell, Harl.”
Harley chuckled as Weston turned back to his sports car and Crystal. It was so rare that he could get one up on Wes, that watching his older brother's frustration warmed the dark cockles of his heart.
A shrill whistle blew as Weston wheeled his Porsche out of the parking lot. Across the street, behind tall mesh fences boasting signs about worker safety, it was time for the shift to change. Harley hurried to his car. He didn't want to have to make small talk with any of the workers. It wasn't that he was a snob, he told himself. He just didn't have anything in common with them.
Over the scream of saws, shouts of foremen, and rumble of trucks arriving with raw timber or leaving with stacked lumber, men in clean flannel shirts and dungarees put on hard hats and replaced their counterparts who were covered with sawdust and grime.
Harley unlocked the door of his pride and joy—a forest green Jag XKE that could go from zero to sixty in less time than it took to catch your breath. Parked between a beat-up Dodge pickup and a dusty station wagon with the words “Wash me” scribbled on the back window, the Jag sparkled like an emerald cast in gravel. He slid behind the wheel and flicked on the engine.
Packed with horsepower, his car was ready to roar down the road. For the next few minutes as the sleek car's tires sang against the asphalt, Harley would be in control of his destiny, his own man.
Then, damn it, he'd have to meet Kendall.

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