Page 43 of Whispers

Why not? For all she knew Harley was with Kendall or some other girl. She swallowed back the quick “no” that leapt to her lips. “Okay,” she finally said, tossing her hair over her shoulders.

His smile was dangerous. He grabbed her hand. “Come on.”

Out the door, across the parking lot, and onto the chrome-and-black motorcycle. All the way Claire second-guessed herself. What if someone saw them, what if they were in an accident, what if Kane took her somewhere and refused to return her by ten-thirty? What did she know about him anyway? That he was a part-time hood, a suspect in most of the crimes around town, a boy who was burdened with a crippled father and a burning desire to shake the dust of Chinook from his leather boots. And the gut feeling that he wasn’t as bad as he’d been painted.

Ignoring her thoughts, she wrapped her arms around his waist as he kick-started the bike. With a sputter and a roar the big machine caught fire. “Hang on,” he yelled over his shoulder, and she buried her face between his shoulder blades. The smells of leather and smoke assailed her. Gravel sprayed from beneath the cycle’s back wheel.

Within seconds they were across the parking lot and into the thin stream of traffic flowing through town. Neon lights of vacant motels and bars flashed by as the headlights of oncoming cars bore down on them only to pass by in an eye-stinging blur. The sound of the bike whining through its gears reverberated in her head, low at first and then screaming higher until he shifted. In a flash the town was behind them and they flew down the road, tears filling Claire’s eyes only to be whipped away by the wind that pressed against her face and tangled her hair.

This is insane! she thought, realizing that she had to have been out of her mind to agree to taking this mad moonlit ride. And yet she felt lighthearted and free as they cruised past the rock and wrought-iron gates of Stone Illahee, her father’s resort. Her guilt for being with another boy dissipated as she leaned against Kane’s back. Poor and rebellious, headstrong and sarcastic, he was as far removed from Harley Taggert as any boy could be.

Defying the law, they sped along the beach, then back to the road and upward through the dark forest. Pale light from a moon not quite full was blocked by a canopy of branches. The only illumination was the steady beam from the bike’s single headlight as it bounced against the road, which began to narrow. He shifted down as asphalt gave way to gravel that spun beneath the bike’s wheels.

“Where are we going?” Claire asked, her voice caught on the wind. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a good idea.

“You’ll see.”

Maneuvering the cycle around the rusting posts of a gate to an abandoned logging road, Kane headed high into the mountains, the bike speeding up one of the twin ruts of a rock and dirt trail that cut through fields of white, rotting stumps that stood like ghostly sentinels on the once-forested ridges. Old growth timber had been stripped bare, clear-cut to leave scarred and naked hillsides. Claire’s heart pounded and she felt a sense of dread steal through her blood. Agreeing to go with him, hopping on the motorcycle had been a mistake.

The bike screamed up the hill to a peak where a single stand of fir, somehow saved from the lumberjack’s blade, remained intact. Kane slowed and cut the engine.

“Know where we are?” he asked as he took her hand and led her to a wide rock ledge with a view in all directions. Far below they saw the winking lights of Chinook and to the west a few campfires on the beach near the black, rolling waves of the ocean.

“The woods. An abandoned logging camp—”

“Your father’s.”

“Oh.” Why did his voice sound like the knell of death?

“Over there.” He wrapped one arm around her waist, rested his chin on her shoulder and pointed with his free hand across a small valley to a hill scraped clean of fir trees. “That’s where my old man had his accident.”

Claire’s stomach turned over. Despite the warm, starlit night and the closeness of his body, she felt a chill slide down her backbone. “You brought me here to show me the place where your father got hurt?”

He didn’t respond, just released her and settled onto the ledge. Rummaging in his jacket for a new pack of cigarettes, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, as if to clear his mind. “I come up here to think sometimes.” He rammed a Camel into his mouth, struck a match across the boulder, and, in a sizzle of phosphorus, lit up. The match’s small flame tossed gold shadows against his rugged features for a second and he drew in a deep lungful of smoke.

“What do you think about?” she hardly dared ask.

Waving out the match, he grinned, his teeth a slash of white, the tip of his cigarette a single red coal glowing in the dark. “You, sometimes.”

She swallowed hard. “Me?”

“Once in a while,” he admitted, his eyes finding hers despite the night. “Don’t you ever think about me?”

Standing near the bike, she rubbed the tips of her fingers with her thumbs. “I, uh, I try not to.”

“But you do.”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, and felt like a traitor.

“I joined the army.”

“What?” Her heart nearly stopped. His words seemed to echo off the surrounding mountains. “You did what?”

“Signed up. Yesterday.”

“Why?” A little part of her seemed to wither and die—a part she didn’t want to examine too closely. He would be leaving, not that she really cared, she told herself, but the town would somehow be emptier, less vital without him.

“It was time.”