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“For the moment, but things change, especially in politics.”
He laughed. “What do you know about politics?”
She swallowed. “Not much, but . . .” He’d always lived across the lake, and though she barely knew him, she considered him a fixture of sorts in the little town of Chinook. People left all the time. Kids graduated from high school and went to college or got jobs. Some married and moved on. But for some reason she didn’t want to examine too closely, Claire had thought, well, hoped, that Kane would always be around. Knowing he lived across the lake was as disturbing as it was comforting.
“Why the army?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked, his smile disappearing as a jet sliced the sky above, leaving a trailing white plume. “To get out of this place.” He squinted against the lowering sun. “I get to see the world, earn money for college, all that bullshit that the recruiter shoved down my throat.”
“What about your dad?” she asked without thinking.
“He’ll get along.” But two deep grooves appeared between his eyebrows and he looked away. “He always manages.” He shoved a pebble with his toe, and it rolled and bounced downhill to plunk into the water. “So where’s lover boy?”
“What?”
“Taggert,” he clarified.
A slow burn climbed up the back of her neck. “I don’t know. Working, I guess.”
“If that’s what you call it.” Kane shook his head and laughed without any mirth. “Everyone else at the Taggert job site or lumber mill works his tail off—hard, physical labor, but Harley and Weston, the sons and heirs-apparent, already have offices with their names written in gold leaf on the windows of their doors.
“Weston is telling fifty-five-year-old supervisors how to do their jobs on the green chain. And Harley—” Kane rubbed his chin and shook his head. “What exactly is it he does for the company?”
“Don’t know,” Claire admitted.
“I bet if you asked Harley, he couldn’t tell you, either.”
“We don’t talk about his work.”
“No?” he asked, one eyebrow lifting as he crossed the sun-spangled space between them and stood toe to toe with her in the shade, his face so near she smelled a faint scent of aftershave mingled with smoke. She couldn’t look away from the hard angle of his jaw and noticed a drip of water running from his hair down his neck. Her stomach squeezed, and she could barely breathe. “So what do you talk about—you and Prince Harley?”
“It’s really none of your business. Harley—”
“I don’t give a rip about Harley.” His breath, warmer than the air, caressed her face. “But you . . .” He reached up and twined a curl of hair around a callused finger. “. . . for some damned reason I can’t explain, I do give one about you.” One side of his mouth lifted as if he were mocking himself. “It’s this special curse I carry around with me.”
She licked her lips, and his eyes caught the movement. With a string of oaths, he dropped his hand and turned away, as if in so doing he could break whatever spell had been cast around them in the shadow of the solitary tree. Tense muscles moved in his back as he walked away.
“Kane—” Oh, God, why did she call out? She wanted nothing to do with him, and yet there was a dark side to him that spoke to her, that reached forward to find a like part of her soul.
He glanced over his shoulder and her heart twisted at the confusion in his gaze. Gone was the arrogant, insulting cocksure hellion and in its place was a puzzled boy who was nearly a man. “Leave it alone, Claire,” he said, and walked to the edge of a cliff, where, in one clean movement, he lifted his tanned arms, sprang from the ledge, and dived twenty feet into the still waters of the lake.
Shading her eyes with one hand, Claire watched as he surfaced and began swimming in steady, sure strokes to the shore where the dingy little cabin and his father waited.
Nine
Harley glanced at his watch, then drummed his fingers on the desk in his office, a room he hated. Located in a single-story building across the road from the actual sawmill, filled with files and cheap, functional furniture, the room was cramped and tight. He tugged at his tie and felt sweat drip down his neck even though the air conditioner located in the window was going full throttle, wheezing and belching cool air through the tiny chamber his father had insisted was his. Damn it all, he still felt out of place, and would have had to have been blind not to notice the men in hard hats continually casting smug looks in his direction as they caught sight of him during the change of shift or on their breaks. They tried to swallow their smiles around thick wads of chewing tobacco, but Harley saw the amusement, and yes, disgust, in their gazes. They knew instinctively that he wasn’t cut out to be their superior.
Once on his way to his car after work he’d caught Jack Songbird, one of the local mill workers, using a pocketknife to try and pry open the lock on the soda machine located behind one of the drying sheds. Harley had met
Jack’s eyes, frowned, then rather than cause a scene, looked in the other direction as the lock gave way.
The machine had been vandalized and robbed of less than twenty dollars and from then on, every time Harley had been forced to face Jack, he’d spied the mockery, laughter, and disdain in Songbird’s dark eyes. He should have fired the bastard right then and there. It would have been over. As it was, Jack’s insolent presence reminded Harley just how weak he was. He couldn’t even keep a small-time employee from penny-ante larceny. So how was he supposed to ride roughshod over the workers, any of whom could pick him up and snap his back like a brittle twig.
No, he wasn’t cut out for this job. He yanked harder at the knot on his tie and slid the Best Lumber file back into a slot in his out basket. He’d spent hours poring over the invoices, staring at the figures on the last three months of shipments of raw lumber to Best’s five outlets around Portland, and he couldn’t figure out why Jerry Best was pulling his account from Taggert Industries. Best had been a customer for years, but, for some unfathomable reason, was determined to take his business elsewhere.
Probably to Dutch Holland. The son of a bitch had probably undercut their prices even though Dutch only owned a few sorry mills near Coos Bay. Hell, what a mess!
Now it was Harley’s job to try and sweet-talk Jerry into staying with Taggert Industries—a name to be trusted. Christ, it was so much horseshit. He fingered the telephone, dialed, connected with Best’s secretary, and felt an overwhelming sense of relief when he was told that Mr. Best wouldn’t be back in the office until Monday. As he set the receiver down he noticed the sweat he’d smeared over the handle.
