Treasures aka See How She Dies

by Lisa Jackson

  He’d even given in once, opened the door and looked in, watching as she lay sleeping. Moonlight had spilled through the window and she’d sighed, her lips parting gently as she rolled over. Her eyelids had fluttered for a second and he’d stood still as death, but she hadn’t awakened and he’d somehow found the strength to turn away from her. He’d gritted his teeth, slept little, and spent more time taking cold showers than he wanted to admit.

  So far, it seemed, no one knew where she was staying. He hadn’t told a soul and unless she opened her gorgeous mouth, she should be safe. She had talked about more permanent quarters, but he’d managed to convince her that mobility was important should her personal nutcase find her and force her to leave in a hurry.

  Now, as he stared across the table of the little out-of-the-way tavern where he hoped neither of them would be recognized, she was smiling up at him with a wicked little glint in her eye.

  “You’re paranoid,” she accused over clam chowder.

  Men in work clothes bellied up to the bar, where peanuts, pretzels, and popcorn were offered for free and the television was tuned in to a basketball game. From the sounds of the crowd, the Portland Trail Blazers were ahead.

  “Family trait.” He pushed his platter aside. “Guess you can’t be part of the Danvers clan if you don’t have it.”

  “Guess not,” she said with a teasing smile that caught on the strings of his heart. Hell, but he was becoming a fool over her.

  She looked suddenly guilty, as if she’d been keeping something from him. “I got a phone call,” she admitted. He waited for the rest of it and guessed that she’d spent hours, maybe days, deliberating on whether or not she should confide in him.

  “Who called?” he asked as his patience gave out. He felt the brackets near the corners of his mouth deepening.

  “Mario Polidori.”

  “He knows you’re here?” Zach’s smile faded and his entire countenance turned to stone.

  “Probably a lot of people do,” she pointed out as she waved the end of her spoon at him. “Your family’s having me followed, I’m sure of it. And they’re probably not the only ones. With all the interest in the media…”

  “Christ!” He rubbed the back of his neck in agitation and his gut wrenched-a sure sign that he expected trouble. He didn’t often foresee it and find out that somehow trouble had managed to slip him by. Why hadn’t she told him earlier? They could have moved to another spot somewhere farther up in the hills-or toward the beach. Somewhere safe. “Anyone else call?”

  She shook her head and her wild hair brushed across her shoulders. “Just Polidori.”

  “What does he want?”

  “To talk to me, obviously.” She let her spoon clatter back in her empty bowl. Should she tell Zach about the Polidoris’s offer? She considered it, but decided to hold her tongue. What good would it do? Knowing that the Italian family was looking for ways to buy chunks of Danvers International would only serve to make him more angry and suspicious than he already was. And she didn’t need to be on the receiving end of his particularly bad temper. Since she, if she did prove to be London, had no intention of selling the hotel or any part of the vast businesses to Polidori or anyone else, it seemed a moot point.

  “Stay away from him,” Zach advised.

  “Why?”

  “There’s bad blood.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that old feud thing.” Someone turned on the jukebox and the notes of a country ballad drifted through a cloud of smoke.

  “It exists, Adria. I’ve got the scars to prove it.” Her gaze shifted to the fine line cleaving along the side of his face. It was barely visible, but seemed to serve as a constant reminder to him. No doubt he was still convinced that his attack at the Orion had been orchestrated by the Polidori family.

  Near the bar, there was a roar of approval from the patrons watching the basketball game. Hoots and hollers filled the room, obscuring the announcer’s voice and drowning out the music. The Blazers must have found the bucket again.

  “Why don’t you fill me in on the details of the feud,” she suggested once the din died down and some drunk offered to buy the house a round. “Then I’ll decide if I want to meet Mario.”

  “The feud,” he said, obviously reluctant to talk about it.

  “I know some of the story already.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Come on, Zach. Tell me about it.”

  Gazing at her thoughtfully, he rolled his long-necked bottle of Henry’s between his palms. He frowned silently, then shrugged.

  “Okay, why not? You probably know most of the gory details anyway. It’s always been there-ever since I was a kid-This…intense hatred of a family I’d never even met. You’ve probably read about most of it,” he said, and she nodded, deciding it best not to mention talking to Maria Santiago.

  The waitress came with a fresh bottle of beer for Zach and after she’d swept away the empty bottle and glasses, cleared the platters and bowls, slapped a bill on the table, and left balancing her precarious load, Zach told the story of the Polidoris and Danverses. His version was about the same as she’d heard before.

  Zach scowled. “It’s all such a waste.” He downed part of his beer, left the rest and paid the bill. They walked outside. The night was cool but clear and a million stars glittered in a soft ebony sky. Fir trees loomed like ancient sentinels around the old tavern and the sounds of a creek splashing over smooth stones cut through the still night.

  Her defenses were down as she climbed into the Jeep. It seemed right to be with Zach and she wondered at the fact that she’d met him only a short while ago-or had she? A part of her felt as if she’d known him all her life.

  He drove her into the foothills of the mountains on a zigzagging course that followed the Clackamas River. At a wide spot in the road he parked and helped her down a seldom-used trail that led to the water’s edge. Even in the darkness, she smelled the clear water mixed with the scents of damp earth and fir trees, and felt the force of the river as it roared and surged through the cliffs.

  A cool breeze sped down the canyon as if riding on the back of the river and Adria felt its breath upon her face. She shivered, rubbed her arms, and Zach slipped out of his denim jacket, then tossed it over her shoulders, his fingers never touching her. “I thought you might like to see this,” he said, as if he needed a reason to explain himself. “Whenever things are cloudy or unfocused for me, I usually spend some time where the power of nature is the strongest. Sometimes it clears things up. If I’m near the coast, I walk on the beach and stare at the breakers. If I’m on the ranch, I ride into the mountains to the creeks that feed into the Deschutes River, and if I’m in the city, well, I usually drive up here.”

  “Alone?” she asked and his smile slashed in the night.

  “Always.”

  A night bird cried plaintively and the forest with its ancient trees seemed to close around them, separating the rest of the world from this little stretch of water. “You were telling me about the feud,” she prodded and she saw the tension return to his hard features.

  “It just goes on and on, doesn’t it? Good old Witt-the great man you hope to prove is your father-was as tough and single-minded as his old man. Witt was willing to do whatever he had to in order to preserve the Danvers fortune and name.

  “You didn’t like him.”

  “Never,” Zach admitted.

  “But you respected him?”

  “I hated the son of a bitch.” Zach stared at the river and in the pale moonlight, Adria could see his features, stark and harsh, set without a trace of remorse.

  “What about your mother?”

  He snorted, his lips thinning thoughtfully. “Eunice…she’s something. Complex,” he said as if weighing his words. “She says one thing and does another.”

  Adria had heard the story of Eunice Patricia Prescott Danvers Smythe. As a young woman, Eunice had been the socially correct choice as a bride for Witt Danvers. Only child of rich parents, she h
ad her own money, a quick wit, and regal bearing, though it was reported she had been cursed with a mind of her own. Some people had thought her spoiled and disdainful and a woman scorned. There were sketchy references to other women in Witt’s life, especially when he was younger, and Maria, the maid, had admitted that Witt’s affairs had been whispered about around town as well as into Eunice’s ear. Though she’d borne him two children, a son and a daughter, Witt hadn’t been satisfied with his willful wife and had spent many nights out.

  Maria had mentioned that she’d overheard an argument in which Eunice had accused Witt of impotence, but it had to have been just the vindictive words of a bitter woman for it hadn’t proved true. Eunice had given Witt two more children, Zachary and Nelson.

  From the beginning, there had been speculation about Zachary’s paternity. Zachary was still staring across the dark, angry river.

  “Your mother seems to care about all of you,” Adria said tentatively.

  “My mother left us.”

  “Because she had no choice.”

  His jaw worked. “That’s what she claimed.” He bent down, gathered up a rock, and hurled it over the river with all the pent-up fury in his muscles.

  “You expected her to stay with your father?”

  “No,” Zach said, his lips compressing in the darkness as he reached for another stone and flung it over the canyon. Then, as if sensing the futility of his actions, he walked to the base of an ancient fir tree and leaned against its rough trunk. “I expected her to take us with her.”

  “But she couldn’t-”

  “She wouldn’t, you mean. Back then, divorce courts and judges usually favored the mother, even if the father was as powerful a man as Witt Danvers. But Eunice was too scared to go public, too interested in saving face and getting as much money from Witt as her attorney could wangle. She had a lifestyle to maintain. The truth of it is, even when we kids were young, Eunice spent more time at the MAC club working out and socializing than she did with us. And then, once my father decided to divorce her, she didn’t want her reputation ruined by the fact that father was a womanizer and she’d had an affair with Polidori-” He cast a hard glance in Adria’s direction, assessing her reaction. “You didn’t really think I was naive enough not to know what people thought or deaf enough not to have heard the talk.” His smile was as cold as the bottom of the river. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard people conjecture that I was Polidori’s son. It’s just not true.”

  She moved closer to him and stood beneath the drooping boughs of the massive tree. The smells of damp earth and spring water mingled in the air and carried with them the underlying scent of musk, unadulterated and male. The night was seductive as it folded, like a gentle black cloak, around them. “Even then there were blood tests. You could have proved that you were-”

  “Are you kidding? Witt Danvers go to a doctor to prove that he had fathered his own son?” His voice was harsh, barely audible over the rush of water cutting through the trees. “You don’t have any idea what kind of man he was. A mean bastard who thought nothing of slapping his wife around, or controlling his kids with a belt, or buying up smaller businesses on the verge of bankruptcy for a song. He clear-cut forests, stripping the land bare, never once thinking about reforestation or erosion or anything but how the chain saw could bring him more money. Without batting an eye, he closed sawmills and logging camps, putting families out of work and never gave a damn, not if the bottom line told him there was a chance to make more money elsewhere. He was unbending and ruthless and proud of his power. He would never, never have submitted to paternity tests. You have to understand, Adria, that he didn’t care about anyone or anything except himself, the bottom line, his own damned pride, and London-hell, yes, he cared about London.” He turned and the moonlight caught in his furious eyes.

  “You didn’t like her.”

  “She was just a kid,” he said, staring at Adria’s face, his eyes moving slightly as if he were trying to find a flaw in her features, looking for certain proof that she couldn’t be the little girl he remembered. Adria’s heart kicked into double time and she found it suddenly hard to breathe. One of Zach’s fingers touched the side of her face, stroking her cheek as he stared at her. “London was precocious, stubborn, and smart as a whip. She had Witt wrapped around her little finger and she knew it. She followed me around like a damned puppy. I didn’t need it, but I wouldn’t say I didn’t like her. In fact I thought it was kind of funny the way the old man made a fool of himself over her.” He reached up and captured a strand of Adria’s hair. Her throat, suddenly scorched, closed in on itself. “I don’t know if you’re London,” he said slowly, his teeth flashing white in the darkness, “but if you are, it’s gonna make things a helluva lot more complicated.” He paused for a heartbeat, his eyes locking with hers. She swallowed hard and her pulse pounded in her throat.

  In that forever instant she knew he was going to kiss her.

  She gave a small sound of protest as he slowly lowered his head, but she didn’t stop him. His lips found hers in the darkness. Warm, anxious, burning, they molded over her mouth with a possession that was frightening.

  Her heart drummed in her ears as his arms closed around her, dragging her close, forcing her to feel the heat of his blood, the fire in his loins.

  Hot and hard, his body pressed hers and his tongue slid between her parted lips.

  A pool of desire began to swirl deep within her.

  She wound her arms around his neck, feeling the brush of the hair over his collar on the back of her hand, tasting the salt on his skin, smelling his musky scent, feeling the bulge in his jeans where he held himself so intimately against her.

  He reached beneath her sweater, touching her abdomen before scaling her ribs with hard, work-roughened fingers.

  “God, you feel good,” he moaned as he slipped his hand beneath the flimsy lace. She groaned, wanting more, knowing being with him was a mistake.

  “Adria,” he ground out as the tip of one finger brushed against her taut, waiting nipple. He kissed her again, harder still. He shoved the jacket off her shoulders and pulled her sweater over her head.

  Cool air swept up her abdomen. His mouth moved slowly and sensuously along her jaw and her neck, his tongue licking a hot path to the circle of bones at the base of her throat where her pulse hammered impatiently.

  Adria sagged against the tree.

  When he lifted his head and stared into her eyes, her bones turned to water. “I want you,” he whispered, his voice as tortured as the wind racing through the trees.

  “I know.”

  “We can’t do this.”

  “I know.”

  His hand cupped a breast and she closed her eyes and threw back her head, telling herself that she wouldn’t, couldn’t make love to him, but as his mouth surrounded her nipple, her will vanished as quickly as if it had been ripped from her by the angry wind before being carried far away. His supple tongue and lips suckled through the wet lace of her bra and her knees gave way. They tumbled to the ground, disturbing the thick carpet of needles beneath the tree. The river rushed at a furious, wintry pace, and Adria cradled his head closer, her fingers twining in the thick strands of his hair.

  Dangerous thoughts mingled with reckless abandon. Why not make love to him? You don’t know if he’s your brother…you don’t know if he thinks of you as Kat.

  “Adria, for the love of God,” he said hoarsely and buried his face in her abdomen. His breath was a tempting desert wind, trickling past the waistband of her jeans, touching the most feminine part of her. She kissed his crown.

  He drew in a long, shaky gulp of air, then rolled away from her.

  “Zach-”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “But-”

  “For Christ’s sake, get dressed,” he ordered, not even looking over his shoulder.

  “It’s all right.”

  “It’s not all right. Put your damned clothes on and pretend this didn’t happen.�
�� He jumped to his feet, kicked the flashlight toward her, and started hiking up the path in the darkness.

  Damn the man! He could be so maddening! Scrambling into her clothes, she refused to feel an ounce of remorse. She hadn’t tried to seduce him and what had been simmering between them for over a week was just starting to ignite. She knew she had to tread carefully, and that deep down, he was right. She couldn’t make love to a man who could be her half-brother, but she’d be condemned to hell before she accepted sole responsibility for the desire that sizzled between them. Grabbing the flashlight, she marched up the path, muttering under her breath as the small beam bobbed ahead of her and the rush of the river faded into the distance.

  As she rounded a final bend in the trail, she spied the Jeep, headlights splashing twin beams on the grizzled bark of a huge trunk. Someone had carved initials into the rough bark, surrounding their art with an imperfect heart. How ironic.

  As she climbed into the passenger’s side of the Cherokee, she shot a furious glare in his direction.

  “That was a mistake,” he said.

  “You’ll get no arguments from me.”

  “Good.”

  “Just don’t act as if I started it.”

  “It just happened, okay? It won’t happen again.” But even as the words passed his lips, he knew they were a lie. There was no way in hell he could keep his hands off her.

  Later, Adria saw no reason to tell Zach she was going to meet Mario Polidori. Zach had been furious when she’d mentioned that Mario had called. She decided she’d had enough with his overprotective attitude. Half the time he acted like her older brother, the other half he seemed as if he wanted to be her lover.