Carrying His Secret

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Who are we killing?” Carson asked, drawn by the sound of their voices and walking into the expansive front room.

  “Nobody,” Whit said firmly.

  At the same time, Landry volunteered, “Elizabeth,” in response to the former marine’s question.

  Carson’s eyes shifted to the newcomer and nodded a greeting. Amusement curved the corners of his sensual mouth. “Any particular reason we’re killing Elizabeth?” he asked, tongue-in-cheek.

  “We’re not killing Elizabeth.” Landry spoke up before Whit did. “But someone else tried to. She had the tires on her car slashed.”

  Carson’s easy smile faded and he looked both concerned and very serious as he asked, “Who did it?”

  “That’s what we’re still trying to find out,” Whit told him.

  Carson’s bright blue eyes—so like his brother’s—shifted to look at Elizabeth. “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  It wasn’t in her to cause concern or play the part of a defenseless victim. She was and always had been in charge of her own life and willing and able to take care of herself. Now was no different.

  “I’m fine,” she automatically assured Carson, even though she secretly had to admit that her nerves felt shot. Though she wouldn’t admit it out loud, staying here with Whit’s family around her did go a long way to making her feel better about the situation.

  “What are the police doing about it?” Carson asked Whit. Knowing his brother—they hadn’t been close for a while now, but some things were just a given—he was fairly certain that Whit had called in the police the second the slashed tires were discovered.

  “What they always do,” Whit said with a note of impatient disgust in his voice. “They took notes and then disappeared into the woodwork.”

  “Where did this happen?” Carson wanted to know, turning to Elizabeth.

  “In Miller’s parking lot,” Whit answered, referring to the family lawyer.

  Carson looked confused. “But we were just there,” he protested.

  “I know,” Whit confirmed. “Obviously whoever did it felt pretty confident they wouldn’t be noticed until it was too late.”

  Carson frowned. There was more than a little truth in that. “In the right setting and with enough distraction, the Hulk wouldn’t be noticed. So what are we doing about it?” he asked Whit.

  “Not much we can do right now.” And he made no secret of the fact that it bothered the hell out of him. “Elizabeth’s going to stay here at the house for a few days, until we hopefully get some answers,” Whit told his brother and sister.

  He studied both of them to see if any objections registered on either of their faces. Neither looked upset or even mildly disturbed at the prospect of having the woman as a houseguest.

  “If you don’t mind,” Elizabeth felt bound to add, looking from Landry to Carson.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was imposing by staying here, despite the size of the house. She hadn’t taken it all in yet, but she was quite certain that she could have easily fit at least five models of her town house into the massive hacienda.

  “The more the merrier,” Carson assured her.

  “It’ll be fun,” was Landry’s response, her eyes all but gleaming brightly.

  “See, I told you nobody would object,” Whit reminded her.

  “Yet,” Elizabeth tagged on, looking at him pointedly. He knew exactly what she was talking about—and whom—Elizabeth thought.

  “You mean Mother?” Carson asked. Reading between the lines wasn’t exactly a challenge in this case. “Don’t worry about her,” he told Elizabeth with a dismissive wave of his hand. “She hardly ever comes out of her lair when it’s just us. Apparently she doesn’t consider us to be in her league or entertaining enough for her to waste time with,” he said, adding, “There has to be someone here she feels is worth the effort before she comes out to spend some time with the rest of us.”

  Did they all feel that way? Elizabeth wondered. She had no family of her own, no siblings to turn to or share things with. She’d been on her own from a very young age, and while that had helped to make her independent and self-sufficient, it had also made her emotionally vacant. She often thought that if she’d had a family, things would have been different—and more than likely better.

  But listening to Carson as well as Whit made her think that perhaps she’d taken too much for granted when it came to familial support.

  Well, either way there was nothing she could do about that, she told herself. No matter how much time she spent thinking about it, it wasn’t going to give her a family of her own.

  She was destined to go on alone and, for the most part, she had resigned herself to that.

  “Don’t pay attention to Carson,” Landry told her with a laugh, taking her off to one side for a moment. “He’s been away for a while and it’s made him forget how things are around here.”

  Carson took the opportunity to corner his brother for a moment. “Listen, Whit, I wanted to talk to you about that little bombshell that Miller dropped on us today,” he began.

  Whit wanted to take Elizabeth upstairs to show her to her room—there were two set aside specifically for guests—but since Landry had buttonholed her for a minute, he decided to hear Carson out. He was curious to see if Carson was having the same kind of thoughts on the matter as he was.

  “You mean that little detail about there being another son nobody ever knew anything about?” There was an edge of sarcasm in Whit’s voice.

  “Yeah, that,” Carson said cryptically. “You know, since I’ve come back I’m kind of at loose ends here, so I thought maybe I’d use my time to see if I can track down this so-called missing older brother Dad forgot to tell us about instead of just hiring some stranger to do it for us.”

  Whit nodded. “I was beginning to think the same thing,” he admitted, rescinding his original thought about hiring a private detective. “You know, now that I think about it, I can see Dad keeping something like this from us,” Whit said.

  While he assumed that his father had cared about his family in some fashion, the man had never demonstrated any notable affection or made any real effort to be a substantial part of their lives.

  “He was never much for sharing or talking,” Whit added.

  Landry looked up, catching the last part of her brother’s sentence.

  “To you,” Landry emphasized. “Dad was never close to either one of you.” She wasn’t bragging. As far as she was concerned, this was just the regrettable way things had been. “But I thought he and I were close. I guess I was wrong,” she concluded sadly. The sparkle temporarily left her eyes as she said, “I guess nobody ever knows anyone as well as they think they do.”

  “Ah, but an air of mystery spices things up a bit, don’t you think?”

  All four people in the room turned toward the source of the somewhat sarcastic comment. Caught up in their conversation, no one had heard Patsy Adair approaching until the shapely platinum blonde was right there in their midst.

  Always looking as if she was dressed to go out on the town, the smirk on Patsy’s lips deepened as her eyes swept critically over the gathering of young people she had walked in on.

  Her attention shifted to the one nonfamily member in the room. Patsy’s eyes narrowed just a touch even though her mouth remained curved in a smile that appeared pasted on at best.

  “Elizabeth, dear. You do seem to turn up in the most unlikely places. Have you brought something for AdAir Corp’s acting president to consider?” she asked, briefly touching Whit’s arm as if to indicate that she was referring to him as she mentioned the position so recently vacated by her late husband.

  Her tone continued to be deceptively light and the smile remained on her lips. But the latter didn’t reach her eyes and in effect was nearly as shallow as her
tone.

  It was very evident that although she was smiling, Patsy was not welcoming the younger woman to her home with open arms.

  If anything, the exact opposite was true.

  “Or have you decided to drop by for dinner?” She turned toward Whit. “Did you neglect to tell me someone was coming to dinner, dear? Or did I just not hear you when you mentioned it?”

  What game was she playing now, Whit wondered, exasperated. It took effort to keep his voice civil. “Elizabeth will be staying here for a few days,” Whit told her. “And I didn’t know you cared enough about these sorts of things to want to be notified.”

  “Why, dear, I care about everything that goes on here at Adair Acres,” Patsy told her oldest son, patting his cheek lightly.

  The condescending movement was lost on no one in the room.

  Elizabeth’s eyes locked with Whit’s, silently telling him I told you.

  She struggled with the strong desire to leave the house. Only the fact that she didn’t want Patsy to feel as if she had chased her away kept Elizabeth standing where she was.

  “Is there a specific reason she’s staying here?” Patsy asked, looking at her older son for an answer while deliberately treating Elizabeth as if she were an inanimate object. “Or did she just arbitrarily decide to slip into your bed because she doesn’t like to sleep alone and your father’s bed isn’t an option for her any longer?”

  Whit slanted a quick look in Elizabeth’s direction, deep regret in his eyes. His apology went without saying. He didn’t want her to endure being belittled by his mother.

  “Mother,” Whit said sharply, conveying both his displeasure and issuing a warning wrapped around the single tersely voiced word.

  Patsy raised a bejeweled hand in the universal surrender sign. “I’ll behave, dear. No need to get all hot under the collar. I was just trying to determine what was prompting Lizzy’s visit.”

  “Elizabeth. Her name is Elizabeth,” Whit told his mother coldly.

  “Of course it is, and I know that,” she said, humoring her firstborn. “But a nickname is so much friendlier, don’t you think?” his mother asked with what might have looked like an innocent expression on anyone else’s face. On Patsy’s face, it appeared strangely malevolent. Turning to give Elizabeth her full attention, Patsy asked, “Will you be dining with us, Elizabeth?”

  “I think the question here is are you going to be dining with us?” Whit countered. “Since you hardly ever do.”

  He couldn’t really remember the last time they’d sat at the dining room table as a family. Now, of course, with his father’s death, that was never going to happen.

  “Why, darling, it would be rude not to,” Patsy said loftily. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She turned her smile up another few watts as she flashed it at Elizabeth. “I’ll see you at dinner, dear. I’ll be counting the minutes.”

  And with that, the woman withdrew from the room, leaving the other four occupants speechless—just as she had clearly intended to do.

  Chapter 10

  Elizabeth was the first one to speak up after Reginald Adair’s widow left the front room. Looking at Whit, she repeated what she had already made known to him previously.

  “This was a bad idea, my staying here.” She looked at the suitcase Whit had parked by the sofa. “I should go.”

  “No, it’s not a bad idea,” Landry insisted before Elizabeth could claim her suitcase and head for the door. “You should stay here with us so you can stay safe. Don’t let Mother chase you away. She doesn’t really mean half the things she says—it’s just her way. I know that deep down she really likes you.”

  Elizabeth didn’t believe it for a moment, but it was obvious that Landry did, and since the younger woman was being so sweet to her, she cut her some slack.

  “Well, then it has to be really deep, deep down,” Elizabeth told her, “because I doubt if your mother is aware of it.”

  “It doesn’t matter if she is or not,” Whit told her with finality. “You’re here because you need a bodyguard watching over you and that is exactly what I intend to be. Your bodyguard.”

  “Don’t you already have enough job titles on your résumé?” Elizabeth pointed out. “You don’t have time to babysit me.”

  His eyes met hers. She didn’t, he noted, look away or back down. He had to admit that he admired someone who couldn’t be cowed into giving up. He liked her style, but then, he already knew that. The hard part was keeping that from showing.

  “I’m acting president of AdAir Corp,” Whit reminded her. “What that means is that I have time for anything I say I have time for.”

  He made it clear that he left no room to contest his position.

  “I guess I can’t argue with you,” Elizabeth said, surrendering—for now.

  “Oh, you can argue,” Whit told her. “You just won’t win. Now let me show you to your room.”

  “And then I get dibs on her,” Landry said, speaking up as her brother and Elizabeth turned toward the winding staircase. “The poor woman needs a break from being browbeaten by you,” she informed Whit. She flashed a smile at Elizabeth and promised, “It’ll be fun.”

  Elizabeth forced a quick, small smile onto her lips. Fun had never been high on her priority list. Reaching goals, getting projects accomplished—those always took precedence over wasting time kicking back and essentially being nonproductive.

  Maybe that was the problem, Elizabeth thought. Maybe she’d been missing out. Maybe, as she’d heard said over and over again, it wasn’t the destination so much as the journey that was really important.

  Maybe she needed to pay a little more attention to that, to the journey, she told herself.

  However, she sincerely had her doubts if she could, because it would take concentrated effort to change at this point and as far as she was concerned, she had finally gotten her act together, and made peace with who she was.

  Well, change is coming, Lizzy, whether you like it or not, a little voice inside her reminded her. That little passenger you’re carrying around will see to that.

  She’d forgotten about that for a moment.

  With effort Elizabeth pushed the thought away for now.

  “That would be nice,” she told Landry just before she followed Whit and her suitcase up the stairs.

  Whit brought her to a room halfway down the hallway on the second floor.

  “This is it,” he told her, opening the door. He gestured inside the room.

  Elizabeth stood in the doorway, momentarily frozen in place, feeling a little like Dorothy Gale lifted out of Kansas and getting her very first view of Oz.

  “This is your guest room?” she asked, disbelief and wonder echoing in her voice.

  “Yes.” Whit couldn’t tell by her tone of voice exactly what she was thinking. Some people, he knew, were turned off by any visible signs of affluence, and Adair Acres wallowed in it. His mother had had a hand in elaborately decorating every square inch of the extensive hacienda.

  “Who was your last guest?” Elizabeth asked in sheer wonder. “The queen of England?”

  Glancing at her, Whit saw the awe in her eyes. “I take it that means you like what you see,” he said with a laugh.

  “Like it?” Elizabeth echoed. “If this room was portable, I’d steal it.” Moving to the center of the bedroom, she looked around very slowly until she had turned a full 360 degrees. “Someone could certainly have one hell of a massive party in here.”

  Whit continued observing her, studying her every move, finding that he was having more and more trouble keeping a viable distance between the two of them. That was especially problematic since he kept finding little things about her that were successfully reeling him in, appealing to his more chivalrous side as well as to the male within him. The latter part had wound up being
so aroused by her that one night they spent together in Nevada.

  He honestly would have given anything for that night not to have taken place—but even so, at the same time all he could think about was having her just one more time. It wasn’t that he felt that he’d be satisfied with that one more time—it would just mean that he’d have that much more of a memory in his brain to activate.

  Whit was well aware of the fact that he was being greedy.

  He knew, too, that one more taste of forbidden fruit—they were, after all, associates—would not begin to satiate his appetite for her, but it would at least give him that much more to savor.

  And he would have to be satisfied with that, he told himself firmly.

  To his dismay, Whit found himself being aroused just by looking at her. “It doesn’t have to be massive to be a party,” he told her quietly.

  “I know,” she agreed just as quietly, her throat suddenly becoming as dry as a desert as she turned to look at Whit. She could feel her adrenaline kicking in, could feel her heart doing a quick two-step. She had to remind herself to breathe. “Sometimes the best parties have only two participants.”

  She realized that somehow, without orchestrating it, they had both moved so they were standing mere inches apart from one another. So close that she could feel his breath skimming along her face.

  Goose bumps of anticipation were forming all up and down her arms and even her own breath had become short—when she breathed at all.

  “You’re right,” he replied, his eyes ever so lightly brushing along the outline of her lips before they returned to her eyes. “All this talk of parties has put me in a party mood.”

  His eyes were holding hers captive and she just couldn’t make herself look away, afraid that if she did, all of this—the moment, the promise, the man—would just fade away and vanish, as if she had imagined all of it.

  Except that she hadn’t.

  “You, too?” Elizabeth asked in a barely audible whisper.

  “Me, too,” he whispered back, his voice deep and husky.

  The momentary silence that followed was all but deafening. Whit framed her face with his hands. The next second, he kissed her. Kissed her like a man who had been aching to kiss her for a long, long time.