by Lisa Jackson
“But—”
“So enough of this Kat stuff, okay? Sure, you remind me of her and that’s more of a problem than you know. I’d rather forget her forever, but I’m not going to lie to you just to make you feel good. Yes, you look like her. Near enough to be her damned twin. But the resemblance is only on the outside. Believe me, you are nothing—no-damned-thing—like her! Got it?”
She didn’t answer and he shook her wrist.
“Got it, Adria?”
“I guess.” But she didn’t sound convinced.
“You know. What happened here—between us—isn’t about Kat. Never was. Never will be.”
“All right, all right,” she said, and pulled her arm from his grasp. “You’ve made your point, Danvers.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” she admitted. “I don’t even know what I want to believe. You and me…what’s happening?”
“I know.” He glanced up at the heavens. How in the world had he let it go this far? And now that it had, could he ever break it off? When it came to this woman, he couldn’t think straight and he had the unsettling feeling that he would never get enough of her. Maybe she was more like Kat than he’d admitted. Christ, what a mess. When he glanced back at her, she was smiling, as if finding the vexation that had to be evident on his features amusing.
“Funny, is it?” He shook his head.
“More like impossible.”
“I’ll buy that.”
“Of all the things I thought would happen when I came to Portland, I never considered that I’d get involved with one of the Danvers family. I mean, I knew there would be resentment and distrust and a lot of pressure for me to back off, but this…what’s happening between us…believe me, it never crossed my mind until I saw you.”
“And then?”
“Yeah…and then.” She nodded and let out a long breath.
Zach felt a smile crack his lips as he let go of her.
“Yeah, and what is funny, or maybe egocentric is the better word, is that you’re accusing me of chasing you down. Seems just the opposite.”
“Me?”
“Mmm.” She nodded, her dark hair moving against her skin. “I might have chased you but it was, after all, those long, smoky stares you sent my way. After all the times you nearly kissed me, but didn’t. After you drove me up to the Clackamas River with the intention of seducing me, then backed out, I think, just to make me want you more.” She picked up a blade of grass and twirled it in her fingers. “Now I’m the bad guy?” She winked at him and he felt his blood stir again. “I don’t think so.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
He took both her hands in his and regret softened the harsh planes of his face. “That this has gotten way out of control. Way out of control. We both know it.”
“And how’re we going to get back in control, hmm?” she asked as, once again, he reached for his jeans. “By acting like this…attraction doesn’t exist?”
“Maybe.”
“It won’t work”
“Then we’ll find whatever it is that does,” he said gruffly. He started to dress, quickly. He didn’t have time for this. He needed answers and he needed them fast. When he turned, he was surprised that she, too, had thrown on her clothes, though her hair was mussed with pine needles and her face had the glow of a woman satisfied after weeks of deprivation.
She swung lithely onto the back of her little mare, sent a dazzling smile his way, and said, “Race ya,” as he was still yanking on his boots. With a holler that resounded through the trees, she kicked the black and galloped away, her laughter trailing after her. As if she didn’t have a care in the world. As if she wasn’t nursing wounds from an attack. As if no maniac was stalking her. As if she wasn’t involved with a man who could be her half-brother.
“Damn that woman,” he muttered, but he was up for the dare and hoisted himself onto the back of his buckskin. Within seconds he was chasing her, the trees and river flashing by in his peripheral vision, his objective, a woman with streaming black hair, in his sights.
Right or wrong, he was going to catch her, and when he did, he was damned sure the earth would move again.
The last thing Adria expected was for Zach to change his mind, and so quickly. But after she’d talked for hours with reporters and they were virtually assured that her face and story would be in the news yet again, he grew restless and told her that they’d leave and head back to Portland as she’d wanted. First thing in the morning.
Her feelings were ambivalent. She’d love to close off the rest of the world, to stay here with Zach and pretend that nothing else mattered, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t about to give up now.
While Zach was outside, cutting firewood, Adria poured herself a glass of wine and strolled into the den. Cedar walls and a river-rock fireplace surrounded a room filled with worn furniture, baskets of old magazines, and Indian blankets used as throws. Watercolors of horses and cattle and peaceful ranching scenes adorned the rough-cut walls. It was a cozy, well-used room that smelled faintly of ashes and burnt wood. She imagined Zachary spending his evenings here, his boots kicked off, the bottoms of his stockinged feet propped on the timeworn ottoman. A cozy vision, a warm thought, something she could envision herself being a part of. But that was crazy. Just because they’d made love, she was already fantasizing that they had a future together.
Stupid.
She ran her fingers along the spines of the books in the bookcase and found, tucked in a corner of one shelf, an old album with pictures of the family.
“I didn’t know I still had that,” Zach said, glaring at the album as he entered the room with an armload of firewood. The wind swept in with him and she smelled the scents of pine and musk mingling with the smoke as he struck a match on the stone hearth and lit the dry kindling. Flames crackled and sparked and she curled in a corner of the couch.
“I poured you a glass,” she said, nodding toward her wine. “In the kitchen.”
He returned with a bottle of beer as well as the glass of wine and set the stemmed glass on the coffee table for her. Then he lowered himself into a chair opposite her, twisted off the cap of his beer, and watched her as she sipped her chardonnay and slowly turned page after page.
“You won’t find much in there.” He drank slowly, and she felt his eyes upon her. Restless eyes.
“Is that right?” She didn’t stop gazing at the flat images. The pictures in the album were old and a little faded, some of the color washed out. Though there were none of Eunice, some spaces pointedly blank, a page yellowed around an empty spot where a snapshot had been removed, there were a few of Zachary, never smiling, always sullen, glaring at the camera as if it were his enemy.
There were shots of Katherine, too, playful poses where she smiled and flirted with the lens, a natural tease in front of the camera. Adria bit her lip as she studied the pictures and her heart twisted at a photograph of Katherine carrying a dark-haired toddler on her hip.
Zach took a long pull on his bottle, then bent over the fire again, tossing in two chunks of mossy maple.
“You never really told me about her,” Adria said, as Zach dusted his hands and stared at the hungry yellow flames licking the new wood. “You just dance around the issue.”
“I thought we already had this discussion.”
“As I said, ‘danced around’ the issue.”
“There wasn’t much to tell. She accused me of helping kidnap London and then later, when I tried to console her, one thing led to another and we ended up in the sack. Witt found out and threw me out. End of story.”
“Except that you fell in love with her.”
He snorted. “Don’t try to put any romantic spin on it, okay? I was a horny kid and she was a desperate woman who was hurting. I should never have…oh, hell, what does it matter? It was years ago. And she’s dead.” A muscle worked in his jaw and he took a long swallow from his
beer.
“And you blame yourself?”
“No? Yes? Oh, who knows. She committed suicide because she never got over London’s disappearance, I guess.” He gazed at the fire. “Maybe I played a part in it. Who knows?” He glanced back at her. “But it was odd—the suicide. Katherine…well, she was one of those people who took a big bite out of life, and sure, she was destroyed when her baby disappeared and I guess she was despondent, but she never struck me as the type of person who would actually take her own life.” He shook his head and took a long pull from his bottle. “It always bothered me.”
“Because you loved her.”
“Stop it, Adria. I didn’t love her. Ever. It was just a physical thing that happened.” He turned and glared at her. “If you want to know if it would have continued if Witt hadn’t caught us, who knows? Maybe. Depended on a lot of things. I didn’t want to start something with her, I knew it was trouble, but I was young, randy, and the opportunity presented itself. Every day I wish I’d been a whole lot smarter about it, but, considering what happened today, it looks like I’m still not.”
She gritted her teeth. “Low blow, Danvers.”
“It’s been a day for ’em. And don’t go into this holier-than-thou routine, okay? ’Cuz it just won’t wash. You’re sitting there half condemning me for being with my stepmother and yet you could be my half-sister and it didn’t stop you, did it?”
The album dropped to the floor. “I don’t think we should go there.”
“Not a pretty picture, is it?” He took a swig from his bottle and gnashed his teeth.
Adria felt as if she’d been slapped. She struggled to her feet and backed away from him. “I’m not—”
He moved swiftly, pushing her back onto the couch, placing his hand on either side of her, imprisoning her in the old cushions. His head was so close to hers she could see the pores on his face, smell the beer on his breath. “Isn’t that why you’re here, London? Isn’t that all part of the plan? To prove that you’re my baby sister and—”
“No!” she cried, unwilling to believe what he insisted was the truth. She sprang from the couch and he caught her in arms as strong as steel bands.
“I warned you—”
“You made vague insinuations. But not this. Never this! You could have told me that you…you—”
“That I what?” he said, holding her gaze with his. “That I made love to the woman who could be your mother?”
“That you fell in love with her!” The words cracked through the room like the sharp unleashing of a whip.
“I was not ‘in love’ with her. I already told you. “She was hot, Adria. And I was a horny kid. I don’t have any excuses. It was wrong.”
“So that’s why Witt cut you out of his will.”
His smile was hard. “One of the reasons.”
“Oh, God. How did you ever look him in the eye again?” she asked.
“When she began sleeping with Jason, the old man kind of forgave me. It took a while, but we struck a deal. I got the ranch and he got his old hotel restored like he wanted it.” His fingers cut into her flesh. “You asked why Kat killed herself,” he said. “Because of me. Because of Jason. Because of London and Witt. Because of the curse of being a Danvers—the curse you’re so ready to embrace!”
She shoved away from him, dragging in ragged gulps of air, her eyes as dark as midnight. “Don’t make this any worse than it already is,” she spat and watched as a muscle worked in his jaw. For a minute she thought he might kiss her again and a part of her still wanted to hold him, to kiss him, to make love to him…
“I don’t think it could be,” he said and stormed out of the room and decided to get drunk. No, not just drunk, but stinking, shit-faced, falling-down drunk. He grabbed his coat and strode outside. The temperature had dropped and a few light flakes of snow were beginning to fall. He’d find a woman. A woman without any strings attached. A woman looking for a one-night stand. A woman who wouldn’t even ask him his name.
He slammed the door behind him, rattling the windows.
Manny, despite the cold, was seated in a rocking chair on the porch of a small cabin at one end of the parking lot. A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth and he was whittling as he listened to the transistor radio in the window. He looked up as Zach passed him on the way to his Jeep. “You leaving?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like you could spit nails.”
“For starters.”
“When you comin’ back?”
“Don’t know.” He cocked his head toward the main house. “Watch her, will ya?”
“I’m a Paiute, Danvers, not a friggin’ jailer.”
“Just make sure she stays put, and no one shows up here and tries to get to her. I won’t be gone long.”
“Woman trouble,” Manny said, his expression unchanging. He drew on the cigarette and smoke shot from his nostrils. “The worst kind.”
“Amen.” Climbing into his Jeep, Zach stabbed the key into the ignition, fired the engine and roared away from the ranch house. What the hell was it with him? First Kat, now a woman who looked so much like her it was eerie—damned eerie.
Somehow, some way, he had to get away from her and break free of this circle of sin that kept spinning around him, trapping him in its dangerous, life-crushing, but oh-so-erotic coils.
They left the ranch the next evening and didn’t say a word on the way back to Portland. That suited Zach just fine. His head was pounding from his intimate relationship with Jack Daniel’s the night before, his only relationship. He’d never gotten past a brief nod of his head toward the blonde who’d shown him so much interest last night. Her easy smile and freckles had been cute, her full breasts obviously restrained by a tight yellow T-shirt, but he couldn’t drown memories of Adria with any amount of liquor. He’d turned down the blonde and she’d found another, more willing cowboy. Zach had nearly drowned himself in whiskey. Manny had sent a ranch hand to town to collect him.
And today he was paying. Shit, was he paying.
He slid a pair of sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose to break the glare of sunlight off the road, but truth to tell, the sun was hidden behind a heavy bank of clouds and his eyes ached from too much whiskey, the sting of smoke, and lack of sleep.
He flipped on the radio, listened to the tinny sound of country music and wished he knew what the hell he was going to do with Adria when he got to Portland. He’d called the police but so far there were no significant leads, at least none they would confide to him. Or Adria.
Adria.
So far she hadn’t told him her plans but he suspected she intended to ditch him. Hell, he couldn’t blame her—he’d been cruel to her last night, but it was the only way he could get away from her, and he had to get away. For both of them. And yet he had to protect her from whoever it was who was stalking her.
As they drove into the city, he said, “I booked a room for you.”
“Let me guess—it’s not at the Orion,” she said sarcastically. She didn’t even glance in his direction.
“You’ll be safe at the hotel.”
Turning hostile eyes in his direction, she silently accused him “Safe? Are you crazy? Safe from whom?” A dark, skeptical eyebrow rose imperiously over her eyes. “The Danvers family? The person who attacked me? You? I don’t think so.” She saw the vexation in his eyes and told herself she didn’t care. “Isn’t staying at the Hotel Danvers like taking a suite in a lion’s den?”
“Not when I have control of the situation.”
“Oh great, you have control,” she mocked.
“All right. You name it then.”
“I don’t know. Just take me to my car and I’ll—”
“Your car isn’t fixed yet.”
“Not fixed? But it was running just fine—”
He snorted. The mechanic had called this morning. “I don’t know what you call fine in Podunk, Montana, but according to a man who knows his way around a Chevy, you need new brakes, shocks
, spark plugs, fan belt, the list goes on and on—”
“Fabulous! Don’t tell me. You authorized him to do it!” She couldn’t begin to imagine how she could afford to get the little Nova out of hock.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you a car. One that’s dependable.”
“I don’t want your help, Zach—”
“But—”
“Or your pity.”
“You need a car.”
“Or your stubborn streak. Okay? Just take me to the airport. I’ll rent one there,” she said crisply. Everything was spinning out of control and she had to get a grip on her life, find out the truth, and then decide what she was going to do.
He shot her a glance. “You should stay with me.”
“Oh, where it’s safe?” she threw back, unable and unwilling to hide her sarcasm.
“Yes.”
“Forget it.”
He sliced her a look, then drove on, past the turnoff to the airport and headed straight into the heart of the city. He didn’t stop the Jeep until he was in the parking lot of the Hotel Danvers.
So furious she could barely see straight, she said, “I’ll just call a cab,” as he hauled her bag out of the back.
“Fine.”
“Being here is a big waste of time.”
“Whatever you say.” He punched the button for the elevator with his elbow and waited, holding her suitcase in one big hand, the toe of his boot tapping in irritation. The car arrived, he waited for her to step in, and they sped upward to the lobby. At the front desk, he pulled the manager aside. Gray stare drilling into the shorter man’s eyes, he ordered, “Ms. Nash needs a private suite with only one key. No one, save Ms. Nash, is to have access to the room. And that includes any of the staff, or any of my family—is that understood?”
“Absolutely.” The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
“And I want round-the-clock security by her door, a man posted—”
“No. Zach, this is ridiculous,” she interjected.
“—twenty-four hours a day. When she’s in the room and when she isn’t, a guard will be there. Got it?”
“Of course, Mr. Danvers.”