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“I’d like to speak with Harley,” she said.
“Mr. Taggert’s out right now.”
She checked her watch, but it was past five, and she knew that Harley never stayed late. “When do you expect him?”
“Later. May I tell him you called?”
“No . . . I’ll try again,” she said, and hung up as tears filled her eyes. Harley was with Claire, she could feel it in her bones. Two-timing jerk, that’s what he was.
She flung herself onto the bed in the beach house and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe she was going about this all wrong. Thinking she might be pregnant wasn’t changing his mind, but if she did something drastic and landed in the hospital, maybe even claiming she’d lost the baby . . . but there were probably tests for that sort of thing. Someone at the hospital would figure it out . . . What was she going to do?
The thought of making it with Weston turned her stomach. She hated herself each time he came over. Her skin crawled at his touch. He’d tried, she’d give him that, touching her and kissing her and attempting to turn her on, but she’d resisted and now sometimes he didn’t even take off his clothes, just tore down her panties, opened his fly, and pumped some Taggert sperm into her. When it was over, he always lit a cigarette and smiled down at her lying on the wrinkled sheets, offering her a smoke and making her feel dirtier than ever.
But it would be worth it. If only she’d get pregnant! Well, she’d just have to try harder. Make Weston do it more than once a day.
Bile rose in the back of her throat, but she told herself she could stomach making love with him a little longer. As soon as her period was over. She’d just pretend that he was Harl
ey. And since she was going to make love to Harley, she’d take scented baths, put on her laciest teddy, and light candles in her room. When Weston came by in a few days, she’d kiss and touch him, slowly remove his clothes and seduce him just as she had his younger brother.
Romance was what she needed; not just sex.
But she had to have a backup plan. There was a chance that she couldn’t get pregnant, so she had to think of another way for Harley to see the light, to realize that she was the woman for him and that Claire, the bitch, wasn’t.
She would need help if she was going to make Claire look bad; otherwise, the plan might backfire. She would have to depend upon someone else to do her dirty work. Someone as dedicated to her cause as she. Someone who would do what she asked without questioning her judgment. Someone like Harley’s twerp of a sister. Paige would do anything Kendall wanted.
The day of the funeral dawned hot and sticky. Storm clouds collected on the horizon, but there wasn’t a breath of breeze. Jack’s ashes were cast from the very cliffs from which he’d fallen, dusty cinders strewn over the rocky shoals far below.
Claire felt sick inside as she stood with her sisters and mother. Dutch was away on business, but had sent his condolences—a large horseshoe of lilies and a check made out to Ruby’s family, to do with what they wanted. As if money would help.
Claire had hardly known Jack, but Ruby had worked for their family for years, and she’d been friends with Crystal, who sat, dry-eyed, staring out to sea, pale beneath her coppery skin. Without makeup she looked young and vulnerable as she twisted a red bandanna—the one Jack wore, Claire supposed—in her small hands.
Tessa rolled her eyes as a man from what had once been a thriving coastal tribe spoke. He looked no more Native American than anyone else, with his short-cropped gray hair and weathered skin, but apparently he had some authority and spoke in terms of the tribe and Jack’s position and all young people today. Claire heard nothing but the thunder of the sea and the piercing cries of seagulls whirling and spinning overhead.
It was hard to believe that Jack was dead. Someone so young and vital suddenly gone. She heard the roar of a motorcycle and her pulse leapt. From the corner of her eye, she spied Kane as he parked the bike near a crooked pine tree and stood apart from the crowd, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, his eyes hidden by sunglasses. His jaw was hard and square, his lips a thin determined line, his gaze focused on the horizon. How many days did he have left in Chinook?
I’d like to do anything and everything I could with you. I’d like to kiss you and touch you and sleep with you in my arms until morning. I’d like to run my tongue over your bare skin until you quiver with want, and, more than anything in the world, I’d like to bury myself in you and make love to you for the rest of my life.
She bit her lip and tried not to think about Kane and the last time she’d seen him, the night Jack Songbird’s body had been found.
Believe me, I would never, never treat you like that bastard Taggert does.
Tessa, standing next to Claire, shifted from one foot to the other. “Where are the Taggerts?” she whispered.
“Don’t know,” Claire mouthed back, surprised that she hadn’t missed Harley.
“You’d think they’d be here. Jack worked for their mill.” Tessa’s blue eyes scanned the small crowd gathered on the cliffs.
“Weston fired him that day.”
“I know, I know,” Tessa muttered, frowning and wishing she was anywhere else as her mother slanted her a warning glance and raised a finger to her lips. Tessa glowered back, but Dominique turned away, as if she had some interest in this morbid rite. Funerals were just so depressing. Such downers. Besides, Tessa wanted to see Weston again. She’d thought he would be here and had been disappointed when not one member of the Taggert clan had shown up.
“When’s this gonna be over?” she whispered to Miranda, who, the last few days, had been more preoccupied than ever.
Miranda didn’t answer, and Tessa itched to be anywhere else. Where was Weston? She felt a familiar gnawing in her guts lately and wished she hadn’t started to care about him. Seeing him on the sly had been fun. Daring. She hadn’t cried any tears over losing her virginity to him, but she hadn’t expected to fall for him. He was too old, too worldly, too self-centered, and he didn’t give a damn about her. That’s what was so maddening.
Finally, the chieftain or whatever he was quit talking and the group started a soft chant. Tessa couldn’t believe it. Jack Songbird might have been full-blooded Native American, but she doubted he gave two cents about his so-called tribe and whatever traditions they still embraced. It wasn’t as if he’d run around in beads and feathers and rode a spotted pony.
As the foreign-sounding words faded, the group broke up, and Tessa didn’t waste any time. She hurried along the path to the road where all the cars were parked. Trucks, Jeeps, a few sedans, and a couple of station wagons were wedged near Dominique’s silver Mercedes. Tessa slid into the plush interior while the rest of the family made small talk with Ruby and Crystal.
