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Instead, sometimes she felt like a frightened little girl. “For the love of God, Claire, pull yourself together.” Sighing, she ran her toes through the cool water and tightened the belt of her robe.
Years before, Claire had buried her love for Kane deep in her heart, turned her back on the primal, raw emotions he’d stirred in her because they’d had no future together. Fate, it seemed, had intervened. After Harley’s death, Kane had gone into the army and she had left Chinook as well, running away from all the heartache and pain and meeting Paul St. John, a man she’d never really loved, but one who had promised to take care of her. She’d been seventeen when she’d met him at a local community college, where he’d taught English and she was studying for her GED. He’d found her crying on a bench in the quad and had offered her his handkerchief for her eyes and a steady shoulder to cry on. Claire wasn’t used to the kindness of strangers and wouldn’t have turned to him, but she’d just visited the local clinic and been told that she was pregnant. And alone. Miranda was already in college; Dominique, finally unable to deal with her husband’s lust for other women had threatened divorce, then taken Tessa and flown to Europe. Dutch had never been close to Claire. Harley was dead; Kane in the army. She and her baby were utterly alone in the world. Except for the kindness of Paul St. John.
Stupidly she’d poured her heart out to him. Her meager savings were dwindling and her part-time job waitressing at a restaurant where she’d lied about her age barely paid the rent. Her only hope was to face a formidable father who would probably toss her out and call her a whore for conceiving a Taggert.
Paul, for some unfathomable reason, had been intrigued with her and her plight. Maybe it was her utter helplessness that had appealed to him, or maybe she’d been
just the right age, not yet even eighteen, to interest him, or perhaps he thought that she might inherit some of the Holland wealth. Whatever the reason, he’d courted her, offered to marry her, and helped her finish high school and college. At thirty he’d been older and wise to the ways of the world, and she’d needed desperately to trust someone. Anyone. Even a stranger she barely knew. She had thought him to be a rock and didn’t realize for years how wrong she was about him.
When Sean had been born, Paul had pretended to be the baby’s natural father, and Claire, in order to make everything appear normal, had lied about the date of Sean’s birth, pushing it back three months so that no one, not even her sisters, would suspect that the baby was really Harley Taggert’s son—or so she’d thought. Since no one in her family saw the baby until he was past one, there had been no questions asked. Sean had just appeared bigger, smarter, and a little more coordinated than the other children his age.
Claire had lost her heart to the darling baby and knowing he was a living, breathing part of Harley made him all the more precious. But as he grew, it became obvious that he didn’t have a drop of Taggert blood in his veins.
With a heart-slamming jolt, she realized that her toddler was the spitting image of Kane Moran. If possible, she loved her son all the more. Now she’d always have a part of the hellion she’d come to love and as such was more precious than ever. She would always be close to Kane and someday . . . well maybe someday she’d track him down and tell him about his wonderful, handsome son.
Within three years the lie of Sean’s parentage rolled easily off her tongue and Claire became pregnant with Samantha. If her life wasn’t perfect, at least it was fulfilling and if Paul wasn’t as attentive as he’d once been, Claire decided it was because of the pressures of work. But she’d been wrong. Bitterly so.
During the second trimester of her pregnancy with Samantha Claire first learned of her husband’s infidelities. One of Paul’s colleagues had let it slip that he’d been seeing another woman on the staff. From that point on, the marriage had gone downhill and eventually foundered.
Claire and Paul had split up years before but the divorce hadn’t been final until this past year when Paul, visiting Sean, had met Jessica Stewart, Sean’s girlfriend and had promptly seduced her.
That same sick feeling rolled over Claire again, the nausea that accompanied thoughts of her husband and a girl too young to have been involved in consensual sex.
“Don’t think of it,” she told herself as she turned her attention back to the Moran cottage and wondered again about Kane. Was he there? Her heart skipped a beat, and she closed her eyes. It was useless to think of him. Whatever innocent love or lust they had shared was over a long, long time ago.
He’d quit six years before, but now, staring at the torchlights burning across the lake, Kane wanted a cigarette. And he wanted one badly. Like runway beacons showing a pilot the correct path, those golden torches lured him into unknown and dangerous waters.
Knowing full well that he was making a mistake of the highest order, he unleashed the old motorboat at his dock, shoved off and primed the engine. Grabbing hold of the handle he jerked hard on the pull start. With a crack and a sputter, the twelve-horse Evinrude caught fire and Kane opened her up. The little boat flew across the water, prow slicing the surface, white wake churning behind, wind whistling through his hair as his fingers sweated over the handle.
After interviewing witnesses all afternoon and learning less than he’d hoped, he’d given up his idea of seeing Claire again. He wasn’t ready; there was just too much about her that he found intriguing. He lost his objectivity when he was near her, and instead of the hard-edged, pushy, news-or-nothing reporter he’d always prided himself on being, he reverted back to those hellish teenage years when he was randy as a wild stallion and wanted to make love to Claire Holland every way up from sideways. As a horny kid, he’d spent nights touching himself, imagining his tongue running up and down her body, between her breasts, and down her spine. In his mind’s eye he’d seen himself kiss the dewy thatch of red-brown curls sprouting between her legs before touching her wildly with his tongue as he explored the dark and moist secrets of her womanhood. He imagined stripping her of clothes, of kissing her breasts until they blushed and filled in his hands, of sucking like a newborn babe until she was trembling and filled with the same heart-pounding, hot-blooded lust that coursed through his veins.
Those same old fantasies had reawakened lately and he, always in control, the cool journalist who never let a woman get too close to his heart, was a frustrated, horny teenager again.
“Shit,” he growled. A smoke wouldn’t solve the problem. Neither would a pint of whiskey or another woman. Nothing but bedding Claire Holland St. John would.
The torchlights grew brighter and the scent of citronella wafted in the hazy smoke that curled heavenward from the torches. Claire was seated on the dock, her slim legs dangling into the water, a shiny white wrap surrounding her body.
He cut the engine and the boat drifted slowly to the pier. She was watching him, her eyes luminous in the moonlight, her face scrubbed free of makeup.
He flung the anchor line around a rotting post and hopped onto the dock.
“You’re trespassing,” she said, as she had in the past.
God, she was gorgeous. “Good to see you, too.”
“It seems to be a habit with you.”
He grinned and sat next to her, stretching his legs on the dock, facing away from the water and staring at her face. “One I haven’t been able to break.”
“It’ll get you into trouble.”
“Already has.” Just looking at her heated his blood, and the beginnings of an erection stirred deep in his loins.
“So why’re you here?” Her gaze, silver in the moonlight, drilled into his.
“Couldn’t sleep. Saw the lights.”
Her jaw slid to one side, and her fingers brushed at the deck. “So it’s not because you’re trying to dig up some dirt on my father for your book?”
