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Weston remembered following Miranda in her black Camaro just last week. A guy had been with her, Hunter Riley, the stepson of Dutch Holland’s caretaker. In Weston’s estimation, Riley was a big-time loser. Miranda and Hunt had probably known each other for years, of course, and she could have been giving him a ride into town, but there was something a little too familiar in the way she had turned and smiled at him, or the casual toss of his arm around her shoulders, his fingers gently rubbing the back of her neck.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, suddenly furious with Riley. Who was he? A nobody who w
orked for Weston’s old man’s logging company setting chokers part-time and for the Hollands tending the garden with his old man. A zero. Hunter Riley had barely scraped together enough credits to get through high school and was now struggling through classes at a local community college.
So what did sophisticated Miranda see in the roughneck?
Women, he thought as he took a corner a little too fast and the tires squealed, he’d give an inch off his dick just to understand them.
With the top of his Porsche down, he sped toward Stone Illahee, the resort his father disdained. He needed a lay and a good one. So he was on the prowl. Again. Itching to score. The hard heat between his legs a driving force. He didn’t know if it was his incredible sex drive that egged him on or if it was his sharply honed competitive streak that urged him into sometimes poor choices of partners. Not that it mattered.
“Miranda,” he muttered. She would be the one, although Claire was more woman than he’d first imagined. He’d once thought her dull as a church mouse, but as she’d grown and matured, he’d seen a tougher side to her. She was the most athletic of Dutch’s daughters, forever on a horse or boat, swimming or rock climbing, a shy girl who’d turned into a daredevil of sorts. Probably why she was dating Harley.
Harley! What a pathetic excuse for a man he was. Always whining. Weston could hardly believe they were brothers. Harley was too sensitive, too easily manipulated ever to become a real man. Shifting down at the entrance of Stone Illahee, he grinned to himself and, on impulse, drove through the massive gates guarding the exclusive resort. Past the golf course and tennis courts, around a fenced area of dense, flowering shrubbery that screened the pool from the main parking lot. It wasn’t quite ten, but he’d heard that old man Holland was out of town for the weekend and wouldn’t be hanging around the resort. None of Dutch’s workers, if they noticed a Taggert in their midst, would dare try and throw him off the property.
He was safe.
So why did he feel the touch of worry? Why did he sense that coming here was a mistake of immeasurable and irrefutable proportions?
He rounded a corner, and the smooth gray stone and dark timbers of the main lodge came into view. Splashed by hidden spotlights, five stories of irregular stone, glass, and cedar rose upward along the rocky ledge near the beach. Near the front door, an illuminated waterfall rushed and tumbled noisily through stands of contorted pine and rhododendron.
Feeling like an interloper, Weston parked his car, pocketed his keys, and headed inside. Music from the bar was flowing through open windows, calling to him like a siren’s song. He didn’t expect to see any of Dutch’s daughters tonight, but there might be some willing female hanging out in the bar. His conscience pricked a bit as he remembered Crystal. They’d made love in the sailboat earlier in the afternoon before he’d dropped her off so that she could go to work. She was beautiful with her smooth golden skin, dark eyes, and incredible black hair, but she was too willing, too easy, a sex slave to him. Anything he wanted from her, she’d give. Anything. She acted as if he was her lord and master and sometimes he played the role to the hilt, but she was beginning to bore him with her acquiescence. He needed more of a challenge, a woman with a little more fire. One who would fight him for a while before lying down for him and finally spreading her legs.
He wanted Miranda Holland.
“You’re as much a fool as Harley,” he muttered under his breath as he pushed open the oak and glass door and headed into the bar. Down a short hallway he followed the scent of cigarette smoke and the tease of throbbing music.
A Portland band with a female lead singer in a tight leather minidress was playing some jazzy number he didn’t recognize—one with too much saxophone and not enough bass. Weston settled into a booth as far from the stage as possible. Drumming his fingers nervously on the table, he stared at the cedar walls covered with fishing nets, Japanese floats, stuffed and mounted fish from all over the world as well as the weapons used to kill them. Harpoons, spears, poles, and tackle boxes were interspersed between the glassy-eyed salmon, marlin, and sharks.
A waitress in a black skirt, white blouse, and red tie floated over to him. He ordered a beer and grinned when she asked him to show his ID, proving that he was twenty-one.
“Weston Taggert,” she said, her lips curving into a wider smile as she recognized his name. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Several women caught his attention and smiled, but he wasn’t interested. They were too easy and, from the looks of the desperation in their eyes, had played the barhopping game too long.
No, he wanted something different tonight. The ache in his groin wouldn’t settle for an easy lay.
“There ya go, hon,” the waitress said as she deposited a glass of light malt on the table.
The beer was cold, but didn’t do much to cool his blood, and Weston drained his glass quickly, realizing that dropping by on Dutch Holland’s sacred property wasn’t all that much of a thrill. He left a five-dollar bill on the table and was walking across the lot to his car when he saw her—the youngest of Dutch’s daughters, her blond hair shimmering silver under the lights of the parking lot. Tessa. Dressed in a pair of ragged cutoffs, a skimpy T-shirt, and a short-cropped leather vest decorated with rhinestones that sparkled under the security lamps, Tessa looked far from one of the richest girls in this stretch of country.
Rumor had it that she was a hot pants, always strutting through town in tight shorts and tiny sweaters that showed off her incredible breasts and slipped up to reveal the taut skin of her tanned abdomen. Oftentimes she flung a leather jacket carelessly over her back, but she never zipped it up, never gave up a chance for anyone to catch a glimpse of her incredible figure. Like now.
She was sitting on the ledge surrounding the waterfall, smoking a cigarette and staring at the fountain with disinterested eyes.
She wasn’t the woman he wanted. She wasn’t Miranda.
But she was here, and Weston was horny.
“You know, I was just thinking about you and your sisters and here you are,” he said, shoving up the sleeves of his jacket and playing with the truth just a bit.
She glanced up sharply, startled, to stare at him hard for the span of a heartbeat, then turned her attention back to the swirling water. “Does that line ever work?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Right. And I’m the queen of England.”
“I don’t think so. Rumor has it she’s a little older than you.”
