Whispers

by Lisa Jackson

  Miranda opened her mouth, then snapped it closed and shook her head as if she couldn’t fathom how stupid her youngest sister was.

  “The bottom line is that Weston Taggert’s a hunk.” Tessa started up the stairs again.

  “Stay away from him,” Miranda warned, then checked her watch and flew through the front door.

  “What got into her?” Claire asked as she watched Randa dash across the sprinkler heads spraying water over the lawn.

  “Who knows and, frankly, who cares? Randa’s always such a downer.”

  “She’s just serious.”

  “But not today,” Tessa observed from the second-story landing as she stared through the soaring windows of the foyer. Miranda’s spotless Camaro roared down the drive. “She’s been different lately.” Tessa’s lips puckered thoughtfully. “Do you think she’s meeting some secret boyfriend?”

  “Miranda?” Claire tried to picture her older sister in some kind of romantic tryst. “Nah. Probably late to pick up a book at the library.”

  “I don’t think so,” Tessa said, licking her upper lip thoughtfully as the dust settled in the drive. “No one is in that much of a hurry unless a boy’s involved.”

  Claire didn’t believe Tessa, but then that wasn’t so abnormal. Claire discounted anything her younger sister said. While she looked upon Miranda as a fount of knowledge in all things except the male of the species, she thought Tessa was incredibly shallow. Tessa was too self-involved to realize there was more to life than Hollywood gossip, boys, and the small town of Chinook, which had become the center of her universe despite their mother’s insistence that they learn the social graces needed in the right circles of Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco.

  Miranda spent her life gaining knowledge, while Tessa tried desperately to lose any she might have picked up along the smooth path of her fifteen years of life. She never doubted she was born to be rich or spoiled. She believed that the people her father employed, from Ruby Songbird to Dan Riley the caretaker, should be her personal servants. She was royalty, a fairy-tale princess with a defiant streak, though, Claire was certain, Tessa had no idea why she should rebel against a father who gave her everything she wanted.

  While Miranda worried about nuclear disasters, farm price supports, endangered species, and women’s rights, Tessa didn’t know they existed. Claire was somewhere in the middle, as always, caught between her two polarly opposed sisters.

  Still brooding about Tessa’s comments, Claire walked outside and away from the argument. She jogged along the path to the pier. Her father’s motorboat, tied to the pilings, rocked gently. Claire untied the craft and settled behind the wheel. Without so much as a cough, the engine started, and Claire angled the boat’s prow toward the island at the far end of the lake. It wasn’t much of an island really, just a rise of land dotted with a few sparse trees and a sprinkle of beach grass growing between an outcropping of boulders. But it was isolated and uninhabited and sometimes, like today, when her family and Harley were bothering her, it was a place she could go to think.

  Fish jumped and seagulls cried as the boat sliced through the glassy water. The wind teased at her hair and she sighed, smelling the fresh scent of water. Slowing the boat, she guided it into a sandy cove and cut the engine. As she had dozens of times before, she tied up to a twisted tree whose branches spread over the lake. Splashing to the shore, she saw a hawk circling high above, his reflection darting on the lake’s surface. She shielded her eyes for a second to watch the bird before following an overgrown path and kicking dust onto her wet legs.

  As she climbed the trail, she thought about Harley. Ever since she’d started seeing him she battled constant rumors that he was still involved at some level with Kendall. “Hogwash,” she muttered, but she couldn’t shake the little doubt that was drilling deeper into her heart. For all she knew the innuendo could have been started by her father, a man who made no bones about the fact that he wanted her to stop seeing anyone named Taggert. Only her mother seemed to understand.

  “Harley Taggert is handsome and well-off. He’ll always be able to take care of you,” Dominique had said as she’d arranged roses in a tall crystal vase on the dining room table one early summer morning. “A woman could do worse.” Her hands had stopped moving for a second as she’d stared at the wall where some of her paintings graced the aged cedar panels. “It’s not a matter of love so much as survival.”

  “What?”

  “I know, I know. You think you love the Taggert boy.” Dominique’s smile had been sad and world-weary. “Probably for all the wrong reasons. The fact that your father forbids you from seeing him makes the boy all the more attractive.”

  “No, Mom, I love—”

  “Of course you do. But let’s be practical, shall we? If you marry Harley, or a boy of his station, you’ll never have to lift a finger, never have to hold down a job, never worry about where your next meal is coming from. Even if the marriage doesn’t work out, you’ll be fine.”

  “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 ki
tchen.

  “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.