Whispers

  He eyed her up and down and then, muttering an oath under his breath, grabbed her. Hungry lips crashed down on hers, big hands spread over her back, and she melted against him, her body molding to his as she kissed him with the same urgency and fire that seemed to consume him. She opened her mouth eagerly, accepting his tongue and sagging against him, hungry for the touch and feel of him.

  Waves pounded the beach, sand brushed up against her legs, the sun warmed her back and she felt as if they were the only two people in the universe.

  “This . . . this is what you want?” he asked, pushing a strand of hair from her cheek.

  I want you to love me! she thought wildly. “Yes.”

  “And this?” he kissed her again, and one hand reached under her blouse to touch her breast.

  “Y-yes.”

  Hard fingers delved into the plain white cotton cup and brushed against her nipple.

  Her breath died as he teased her breast, and she began to ache from the inside out. “More?” he asked, the single word ragged.

  “Yes—no. Oooooh.” Leaning against the car, he shifted, spreading his legs and dragging her between them. Her shorts were pressed into that intimate V of his crotch, the denim of his fly raised and stiff as he kissed her and unhooked her bra. Her breasts swung free and his hands, his rough, hot hands, were everywhere—touching, caressing, fondling.

  “This could be trouble,” he said, as he toyed with the zipper of her shorts.

  “For you?”

  “For you.”

  “Oh.” She kissed him with the eager anticipation of a virgin flirting with her first real attempt at lovemaking.

  “There’s a point where I can’t stop.”

  “Then don’t stop. Ever—”

  “Oh, Randa.” He kissed her again, his lips demanding, his fingers touching her abdomen, and then as suddenly as he’d pulled her to him, he pushed her away. “No,” he growled to himself. “No, no no. This is no good.”

  “Wh-what? Of course it’s good.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” He shook his head and ran stiff, frustrated fingers through his hair. “You and I—we’re worlds apart, Miranda, and there’s nothing, not one damned thing, we can do about it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will,” he said, squinting fiercely at the horizon.

  She’d refused to be put off and had called him boldly, brazenly, becoming one of those girls she detested, the ones who chased after boys. And it had worked. He’d agreed to keep seeing her, but only on the condition that they keep their relationship a secret.

  “I don’t want to deal with all the fallout and shit that might come down if your old man finds out,” he’d said when they were alone by the stream. “Let him have a coronary over Taggert and your sister, but keep my name out of it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just too damned complicated, okay? Trust me on this one.”

  And she had. No one knew that they were seeing each other, their meetings were secret rendezvous that added to the mystique and romance of it all. As she drove to the cottage on the north side of the property where they’d agreed to meet, she knew that they would probably make love. They’d come close before, but he’d always held back, and she’d begun to trust him with her heart. Tonight, with a spattering of stars flung over the dark heavens, she expected that they might not be able to restrain themselves, and, damn it, she didn’t care.

  She turned into the overgrown lane that led to the cottage and heard the sound of dry weeds scrape the underside of her car. Grass as tall as the windows of the Camaro waved in the wind and ancient, untended roses gave off their sweet fragrance as they tangled in long vines along with the berries that grew wild in this part of Oregon.

  No one used the cottage any longer. It had been built before the lodge, around the turn of the century, and had been long forgotten. Berry vines climbed over the porch rails, several bricks had fallen from the chimney, but inside it was warm and dry and tonight, though the temperature was hovering near sixty-five, a fire glowed through the windows.

  Hunter was waiting.

  Miranda’s heart knocked wildly as she hurried up the front steps and pressed on the door.

  “You’re late.” His voice surprised her for she hadn’t heard him on the porch. She jumped, startled, then felt his strong arms wrap possessively around her.

  “You’re early.”

  “Couldn’t wait.”

  “No?” She laughed as he swept her up into his arms and kicked open the door. Like a groom carrying his new bride over the threshold, he kissed her as he walked inside. Her head swam as he laid her on an old iron bed covered with quilts and pillows that he’d brought. The fire crackled in the grate, mossy logs being devoured by eager flames, and Miranda looked up at the man she’d come to love.

  Never predictable, he could be cruel one minute, kind the next. He’d shown her how to shoot a bow and arrow, how to make a stone skip on the surface of the water, confided that boys at fourteen would rather eat than do anything and at sixteen wanted to screw anything that moved. He didn’t suffer fools and refused to date her openly. “No reason to get tongues wagging,” he’d said. “Believe me, you don’t want to be the topic of conversation.”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” she’d argued, but he’d hear none of it, and the argument was their one source of friction.

  Now, as she lay in his arms, staring up at his strong jaw and eyes dark with passion, she wondered if she’d marry him someday. For the first time she saw beyond their stations in life—the privileged daughter of a millionaire and the poor stepson of the caretaker. What did it matter?

  He kissed her and her blood raced. The old mattress sagged. Miranda wrapped her arms around his neck as he began to stroke her, touch her, cause her skin to come to life. Never had she felt so alive, so wanted.

  Desire uncoiled deep inside her, stretching and yawning, clawing her gently in the deepest, most feminine part of her body.

  “Hunter,” Miranda whispered, her voice a rasp, her blood hot and wild. He was kissing her, lowering her bra strap, touching his wet tongue to skin that had never seen the light of day. The stubble of his beard was rough, his breath hot, his flesh, like hers, on fire.

  Her fingers curled into his thick hair and she gasped with want as firelight flickered and danced in coppery shadows on his skin.

  He unhooked her bra and let it drop to the floor, watching in silent fascination as her breasts, so tightly bound, fell free. “You’re so damned beautiful,” he finally said, his breath fanning her skin. “It should be a sin.” He touched her nipple and it hardened expectantly before he slid lower and began to suck.

  “Oh . . . oh . . .” His hands were in her shorts, skimming them off her buttocks, touching her suddenly moist curls, sliding intimately on the inside of her thighs, rubbing up against her, probing into the most secret of her places.

  She couldn’t help herself. She, who had always been cool and aloof, who, some boys had said, had ice water running through her veins, arched against him, silently begging for more. She was in a tiny room in a dilapidated cottage, on a bed that had cradled lovers for nearly a hundred years, and she was kissing a man she barely knew, a man who refused to be seen in public with her, a man who was about to become her first and only lover.

  Afterward, in the sheen of afterglow, he held her close and stroked her face. His ring reflected the flickering flames of the fire. She touched the black stone. “Is this significant?” she asked.

  “It’s the only thing I’m wearing.”

  Chuckling softly she smiled up at him. “I know. I just wondered if it was significant.” She twisted a finger in the coarse hairs of his chest. “You know, did some girl give it to you?”

  He snorted. “Hardly.” He took off the circle of gold and stared through its center. “This is all that I have of my natural father—the guy without a face who impregnated my mother and took a long hike. I should throw it away, I suppose, but I keep it to remin
d me that the bastard didn’t want me, didn’t want my ma, and I was lucky enough to have Dan Riley as a stepfather.”

  “What was his name?”

  “My real father?” He sighed. “Don’t know. No one ever said, and there’s no name listed on my birth certificate.”

  “Don’t you want to know?”

  “Nah.” Sliding the ring back on his finger, he pulled her closer and she nestled against the hard muscles of his naked shoulder. “It doesn’t matter.” Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he added, “Right now, all that matters is you and me.”

  “Forever?” she asked.

  “Forever is a long time, but maybe. Yeah, maybe.”

  Miranda tilted her head upward, waiting for the kiss she knew would come. She’d finally found a little bit of heaven right here on earth.

  “You were with Weston Taggert last night?” Miranda whispered, feeling her face turn pale as she poured water into the Mr. Coffee machine and heard the first gurgling sounds as the coffeemaker began to heat. Her sister’s surprise announcement ricocheted off the walls of her mind as she was still coming to terms with the fact that she and Hunter had made love. The soreness between her legs this morning was a constant reminder of last night. She cleared her throat and tried to concentrate on the problem at hand. The problem, as always, was Tessa. “For God’s sake, Tessa, why?”

  Tessa lifted an insolent I-don’t-give-a-damn-what-you-think shoulder as she strolled to the table and stifled a yawn. “Why not?”

  “You know why not, the guy’s bad news.”

  “Because he’s a Taggert? Ah, ah, ah, Randa, you’re starting to sound like Dad.”

  “Give me a break, this has nothing to do with him being a Taggert and you know it. The guy’s got a reputation.” And what about Hunter? Why won’t he let anyone know that you’re a couple? Is he ashamed of you, trying to protect you, or, like Weston, just plain bad news?

  The radio was playing and an ancient Kenny Rogers song wafted through the room.

  “Ruby . . . don’t take your love to town . . .”

  Before she could hear any more of the song, Miranda snapped off the radio.

  Tessa kicked out one of the café chairs and sank into it. Holding her chin in one hand, she offered Miranda a smile that was patently coy. “Weston’s considered the most eligible bachelor in Chinook.”

  “Listen to you! What are you talking about—eligible bachelors?” Miranda opened a loaf of bread and slapped two slices into the toaster. “You’re only fifteen, for crying out loud. Fifteen! A baby! It’s not like you need to find a husband!”

  Petulance thrust out Tessa’s lower lip. She rubbed her eyes and last night’s mascara discolored her cheeks. “Well I don’t plan on being a wrinkled old maid.”

  “Is that a jab at me?”

  “Take it any way you want it.” Tessa was playing with the salt and pepper shakers, staring at the ceramic strawberries as if they held all the secrets of the universe.

  The toast popped up and Miranda threw in another couple of slices before buttering the first two with a vengeance that nearly tore holes in the bread. “I’m not planning on being an old maid, but neither am I going to be some rich boy’s toy. Weston Taggert is a user.” She used the butter knife to punctuate her words by wagging it in Tessa’s direction. “He takes what he can get from girls. Then, when he’s bored, he throws them away like empty beer cans.”

  “Says who?”

  “Anybody with any brains!”

  Tessa slumped lower in her chair and ignored the plate of toast Miranda set on the table beside her.

  “Look, he’s been coming on to me for years,” Miranda admitted.

  Tessa laughed. “You?” She eyed her straight arrow of a sister. “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not buying it. We got anything to drink around here? Juice?”

  “In the fridge.” Miranda would be damned if she’d pour Tessa a glass of anything. The toast was good enough.

  She wanted to warn Tessa about Weston again, but it would only be an exercise in frustration. There was just no arguing with her. What a disaster! Tessa and Weston. Dutch would have a heart attack. Miranda only hoped that this thing with Weston was a one-night stand.

  “Where’s Ruby?” Tessa asked as she reached for a piece of toast and began peeling off the crust.

  Miranda checked her watch. Nearly ten o’clock and Ruby Songbird still hadn’t shown up. Miranda couldn’t remember a day when Ruby hadn’t been in the house before eight, washing windows, scrubbing floors, baking bread, and stoically giving orders that she expected to be unquestioned and obeyed. Miranda disregarded any thought that something might be wrong and focused her attention on her youngest sister. Tessa had a way of getting into trouble. Big life-altering trouble. “Look, I don’t know what you’re thinking, Tess, but getting involved with Weston is all wrong, believe me.”

  “Just like Harley and Claire are all wrong?” Tessa asked, her gaze skating to the doorway as Claire walked in, taking in the tail end of the conversation.

  “It’s different.” Miranda felt trapped, cornered by her cunning fox of a sister.

  “How?” Tessa demanded.

  Miranda silently counted to ten and gazed directly at Claire. “Harley and Claire think they’re in love. They’ve dated a while, seem committed to each other and—”

  “What about Kendall Forsythe?”

  Claire turned as pale as winter sunlight, and her fingers coiled tightly. “What?”

  “Harley can’t seem to really break it off with her.” Tessa scraped back her chair and if she was conscious of the pain in Claire’s eyes, she didn’t show it.

  “That’s a lie,” Claire said firmly. “He and Kendall are history.”

  “I don’t think so.” Tessa swung open the refrigerator door and rummaged inside until she came up with a jar of Ruby’s homemade raspberry jam and a pitcher of orange juice.

  Ruby? Where in the world was she? Miranda walked to the windows and stared at the path to the driveway, the one that curved around the back of the garage and cut between the lake and swimming pool, the one Ruby used each morning.

  “You shouldn’t believe anything Weston tells you.” Claire, finding some steel for her spine, strode across the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee even though the pot wasn’t finished filling. Hot drops sizzled on the warming plate before she placed the glass pot back in its spot. To her credit, her hands barely shook.

  Tessa was unconcerned. “Why not?” She grabbed a teaspoon from the drawer and plunged it into the jam.

  “He’s . . . he’s not trustworthy.”

  “And Harley is?” Tessa arched a disbelieving brow as she dipped a spoon into the jam and leaned a hip against the cupboards.

  “Yes!”

  “Look, Tess, there’s no reason to argue, just be careful, okay?” Miranda suggested.

  “Like you are?” Tessa’s smile, like that of a cat who’d swallowed the pet canary, didn’t falter as she licked the spoon clean. “You know, when you’re with Hunter.”

  “Hunter? Hunter Riley?” Claire asked, a crease forming between her eyebrows as she turned to her older sister.

  “According to Weston, Randa’s been seeing Hunter on the sly.”

  “We’re friends,” Miranda said. That much wasn’t a lie.

  “And so much more.”

  “Really?” Claire, always the romantic, seemed intrigued.

  Damn Weston Taggert and his big mouth.

  “What’s it they say about people who live in glass houses?” Tessa asked as she plopped down in her chair again and spread a thick layer of jam onto her toast. “Something about not throwing stones?”

  “You and Hunt?” Claire was still digesting the information and Miranda was certain her face, suddenly hot, had betrayed her. “For real?”

  “It’s not that big of a deal.”

  Tessa rolled her eyes.

  “You are seeing him!” Claire’
s lips twitched into a small smile. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t. It’s nothing.” Now, that was a lie. Her feelings for Hunter were important, a very big deal, the single most meaningful relationship in her life.

  Tessa made a disparaging sound in the back of her throat. “What would Daddy say, hmm? His oldest daughter, the serious, good girl, the one who plans on going to—where is it?—oh, yeah, either Radcliffe or Yale or Stanford, right?”

  “Willamette.”

  Tessa rolled her eyes. “Such lofty ideals, when really she’s out doing God only knows what with the caretaker’s son.” Clucking her tongue, Tessa wagged her head dramatically from side to side. “And Mama, oh, Randa, think what she’d say about dating someone beneath your station.”

  “He’s not beneath—” Miranda snapped her mouth shut. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

  “You started it.”

  “And I’m ending it right now!” She glanced at her watch again. “Where is Ruby? She’s never late.”

  “Cut her a break, will ya? Mom and Dad are in Portland. She’s probably just sleeping in. You know what they say. When the cat’s away . . .” Tessa licked the corner of her lip.

  “You’re just full of old-time sayings, aren’t you?”

  “If the shoe fits—”

  “Oh, stop it!” Claire took a long swallow of her coffee. “I think you two should be the first to know.”

  “Know what?” Miranda felt a niggle of fear climb up her spine.

  “Uh-oh.” Tessa’s grin faded.

  “I’ve made a big decision.” Claire took a deep breath.

  “About?” Miranda prodded.

  Tessa shook her head as if she’d already guessed.

  Claire set down her cup, managed a rather weak-looking smile, and held out her left hand. On her ring finger a diamond winked proudly in the morning light. “It’s official,” she said, her voice trembling a bit, uncertainty written all over her even features. “We don’t care what anyone else thinks. Harley and I are getting married.”

  Thirteen

  Kendall’s tears were real and bitter. They rained from her porcelain blue eyes and drizzled down her chin. “You can’t,” she whispered, her fists balling in his shirt, her body limp with grief. “You can’t marry her.”