Page 126 of Whispers

“I’ll be here. At Stone Illahee. Waiting.”

He’d hung up and nearly come in his pants. What kind of game was she playing with him? The last time he’d seen her, she’d wanted to scratch his eyes out and now . . . now, she was acting like she couldn’t wait to get him into bed. He was long through with her, he reminded himself, but his hands began to sweat on the steering wheel. He was an upstanding citizen now, had a reputation to protect, but he couldn’t help remembering how it felt to ride her. A sensation of pure, raw power had surged through him. The knowledge that he was humping a Holland girl, making her beg for mercy—or more—was heady, a rush he’d never had before or since. Even the kinky sex of his youth or the string of mistresses he’d bedded hadn’t given him that savage adrenaline high that Tessa had so willingly lured from him.

And was willing to provide again.

Christ, he was hard.

He braked for a corner, skidded a bit, then the car took hold again and he tried to push Tessa out of his mind. Now wasn’t the time to be distracted by a woman. He had other more important situations that demanded his attention. He topped a hill and caught a glimpse of Stone Illahee. His stomach tightened, and he spied the bulldozers hard at work at the next stage of development of the resort. Scraping topsoil, debris, brush, and small trees, the machines rolled over the ground on their huge cat tracks. Ever digging. Finding things that were better left buried. His cell phone rang and he answered it, eager for a distraction, forcing Tessa and the excavation at Stone Illahee from his mind.

“You know, I think our family’s kind of a sideshow,” Tessa said as she plucked a grape from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter in the house where she’d grown up. Claire poured them each a glass of iced tea. Sam was outside splashing in the pool, and Sean had taken the boat into the lake. It was a lazy afternoon, and Claire had finished filling out some applications for the local school district in the hope of being able to substitute teach in the fall.

“A sideshow?”

“Yep. Dad into his own personal power trip. Governor, for God’s sake. Can you imagine?” She tossed the grape into the air and caught it deftly in her mouth. “Dutch Holland with that much power is a pretty scary thought.”

“He hasn’t been elected yet. Not even by his own party.”

“Good point.” Tessa sat on a bar stool near the counter and twirled on her rear. “You know, I’ve been calling Weston again.”

Claire froze. “Calling him? Why?”

“Oh, you know, just teasing him. Talking dirty, that kind of thing.”

“Are you out of your mind? He’s not the kind of guy you tease and get away with it.”

“Why not? I think he should sweat a little.”

“Sweat a little? For what? I don’t understand.” Blind panic took hold of Claire, though she didn’t really understand why. Weston couldn’t hurt any of them. Or could he?

“Trust me, you don’t need to. But I think Weston needs to be put in his place. He’s had things his way for too long.”

“And you’re going to straighten him out?” Claire laughed, but she felt uneasy, the same kind of sensation that swept over her just before an electrical storm broke and lightning ripped through the sky.

“Weston’s beyond being straightened out. What I’m going to do is bother him.”

Claire shook her head. “Leave him alone. He’s not worth the trouble.”

Tessa’s eyes narrowed, and she looked over Claire’s shoulder to a middle distance that only she could see. Her face twisted in pain and tears, real and fresh, filled her eyes. “Yeah, well, what did he ever do to deserve his perfect little family, huh? He’s not exactly a paragon of virtue.”

“Life’s generally not fair.”

“I know, I know, but it galls me that he’s got this . . . fake side . . . you know the epitome of the American dream—faithful, loving husband to Kendall Forsythe, spoiled-rotten daughter, even one of those yappy purebred toy poodles.” She sniffed and cleared her throat. “It’s enough to make me sick.”

“It’s nothing to you.”

Tessa blinked rapidly, fought the damned tears that came at her in uneven rushes when she least expected them. She drummed her fingers on the counter and decided against arguing with Claire any further. What good would it do? “I suppose you’re right, but it bugs the hell out of me.”

“Let it alone.”

She should. Claire was making sense, but Tessa wanted to throw up to think that Weston was on the city council, that he was considered a pillar of the community, that he was a fucking icon to the men and women who were employed by Taggert Industries. The man was pure evil. Lower than a rattlesnake’s belly. How she’d love to expose that ugly side of Weston Taggert to the world. Besides, though no one but she knew it, Weston Taggert had single-handedly devastated her life.

Maybe now it was time to ruin his.

Claire was lying. Kane could sense it. As he lay with her in the pool house, one hand caressing the cleft of her bare buttocks, the other stroking her spine, he tried to figure out what it was that she was keeping fro

m him.

He knew that her story about the night that Harley Taggert died didn’t hold water, and that scared the living hell out of him. What if she’d accidentally killed Harley? Was he, with his exposé, going to send her to jail? His guts twisted as she sighed sleepily on the old bed where they’d made love. The smell of chlorine from the pool seeped through the open windows, and a breeze sighed through the trees, rustling the fir needles and oak leaves.