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  Another attraction in Neptune’s Landing had been nettling a high-nosed girl with a mile-wide attitude. Hellbent for her career, Rachel had an attitude that just made a man want to strip it away, to see what she looked like when she was needing him…to see what happened when she didn’t know what to do next, because Rachel always was in control.

  She had a way of lifting her head quickly and meeting a man’s eyes straight on, of locking onto him as if she were seeing into what made him tick. She didn’t have to speak. With a look, she could cut a man down to the bone, if he stepped on her wrong side. On the other hand, she could look him up and down as if he were insignificant.

  Too tough. Maybe. But all the sweet female package was there, in unguarded, soft bubbling laughter, or in a movement of her hand, the looks of love she gave her family.

  On the surface, she seemed self-sufficient, strong, single-minded, a career-bound woman who wasn’t getting caught in the same trap as her mother—married young, a mother too soon and promptly deserted.

  But through Jada, Kyle had an insight into a woman who as a child had moved through that survival struggle with her mother and who deeply loved her family. An older child, Rachel had never forgotten those difficult early years, and Trina had been firm about her daughters being self-sufficient and supporting themselves.

  Rachel was definitely that, and though Kyle didn’t reveal his fascination with her through the years, she revved him every time he saw her. Her dimple was a killer, Kyle decided savagely, just one tiny little mesmerizing thing set into her smooth cheek. A man wanted to make her smile just to watch it appear; but then, a man wanted to do a lot of things with Rachel Everly…like make those brown eyes darken until she went inside herself…like feasting on that soft mouth, tasting her….

  That fierce face with high-winged eyebrows, those knife-edge cheekbones and firm jaw said she’d come to fight. Kyle had developed a fine respect for her sharp mind and control that he just had to nudge.

  She wasn’t a quitter, going after what she wanted. He respected that too, her strength and dedication—if it didn’t nick him, but tonight he was in no gentle mood. He’d miss Mallory, the warm, loving girl she could be, trapped inside a darkness that rarely lifted….

  The sisters weren’t alike: Mallory didn’t have a temper and avoided confrontation, but Rachel could hold her own, blending brains with fury. Tonight Kyle didn’t trust himself with Rachel Everly; she could get to him too easily. But then most women did, he admitted; they reached inside him to the protector someone should have been for him, a kid left to fend for himself most of the time.

  He liked his life private and just maybe he enjoyed Rachel thinking the worst of him, her flashing brown eyes telling him where to go when they first met.

  And maybe he just liked Rachel thinking about him at all….

  At the funeral, her eyes had been puffy, her nose red, and she looked all soft like a little kitten that needed holding. He couldn’t imagine cuddling Rachel Everly—his hands would be too busy getting what he wanted.

  As a man who appreciated women, Kyle sensed just how that five-foot-seven curved body would fit against his, how she’d feel close and tight.

  Now, all flushed with anger, her smooth, shoulder-length hair mussed by the wind, tendrils clinging damply to her cheek, Rachel Everly was all passion and heat—the kind that made a man think of sliding into her, of enjoying bringing her to the edge and then maybe, just maybe because she had tormented him for years, making her wait, maybe asking for it—as if that was likely.

  Kyle inhaled roughly. Once inside Rachel, it wasn’t likely he could wait. The sight of the damp cloth over her nipples was enough to harden him instantly, but then he was riding an emotional edge tonight—because he hadn’t been able to help Mallory; she wouldn’t let him and something had finally driven her over that fine edge into death.

  He hadn’t thought that seeing Rachel again, all muddy and her clothing torn, her hair flying around her in the wind, would get to him. But it had. He should have been laughing at Miss Perfect, as Mallory had called her, but when he saw Rachel rolling off the top of his Hummer and landing on the pile of trash bags, he’d been terrified at first, almost running to her.

  She’d been winded and had pulled herself together instantly. But when Pup had licked her face, she’d panicked, arms and legs flailing wildly. She’d been terrified, her eyes huge in her pale face, her mouth opened for a scream that hadn’t come.

  She’d always been so poised and strong, so complete, but that momentary terror had reached out to grab her, tearing away her shields. What the hell had happened to her?

  Her accusation that he’d bled Mallory of money and emotions until nothing was left had left him raw and angry. Everyone knew that Mallory kept lovers who paid for her services, because Nine Balls wasn’t exactly a profitable gold mine. He’d helped Mallory financially a few times, but when her drug and alcohol use escalated and she wouldn’t seek help—or let him help—he didn’t want to invest in her habits.

  With Rachel Everly ready to take him down, Kyle wasn’t exactly certain of what had happened outside—when she’d looked at him, the awareness of a woman close to a man. He hadn’t missed her quickened breath when he touched her, the way her eyes had glanced at his chest, the telling blush on her cheeks….

  Her first sexual awareness of him had stunned and hardened him.

  But then, it was like Rachel to be right on target and find him at his weakest. Tonight, with emotions riding each of them, she just could validate her lowest opinion of him.

  “Okay, Rachel. Say what you have to say. Let it all out.”

  Three

  IN THE LIGHT FROM A BALD OVERHEAD BULB, KYLE MOVED TO a battered, massive rolltop desk. Papers seemed to drip from the rows of pigeonholes, cluttering the desk surface below. A stack of folded men’s jeans rested on a new air filter box near a computer screen plastered with yellow sticky notes. Various auto parts topped the clothing stacks, and a hefty, evil-looking semi-automatic lay on top of a stack of thick catalogs. Kyle followed her eyes to the gun, lifted it with the familiarity of someone who knew how to use it, and briskly tucked it into a drawer. “I haven’t robbed anything lately.”

  He didn’t close the drawer, but removed a lacy bra from a chair as old as the desk; he tossed the bra into a filled laundry basket on the floor. Kyle sat on the chair, pushed back on its rollers, and raised both feet to rest on the drawer. His moccasins were almost worn through, a leather cord unraveled at the toe.

  Rachel avoided looking at that broad chest with a dark V of hair in the center. Kyle knew exactly how rude he was, taunting her. “I’m not leaving, if that’s what you think. Crude comments won’t work.”

  “Take your time. I’ve been waiting for this…Miss Perfect coming to call. Imagine that, you—here with me. Coming after me, so to speak. Needing me.” Kyle reached lazily for a rumpled T-shirt lying on top of the desk’s rolltop. He tugged it over his head; the shirt was grimy with oil and torn in several places. “Does that make you more comfortable, honey?” he asked in a rich, sultry drawl that caused the hair on her nape to lift.

  “Trying to be your usual disgusting self isn’t going to change this, Scanlon,” she stated curtly as she looked around the small littered room. She wanted to remember every detail of where she had demolished Kyle.

  A dented apartment-size refrigerator hummed beside the desk, adding to the sound of the rain beating the metal roof. A stack of new tires took up one corner near a school bus bench; the upholstery was ripped, the exposed stuffing dirty. Beside it, the cigarette butts that filled a three-pound coffee can overflowed onto the unswept concrete floor. The three-legged boxer was sitting on a rumpled, tattered rug, a big oil-drip pan serving as his water bowl. He studied Rachel with a curious tilt of his head, then seemed to fall into a small mountain of wrinkled brown fur. With relish, he started gnawing loudly on a big knotted rawhide bone.

  Out-of-date girly calendars ran around one wall, curled and yel
low with age. A girl’s mountain bike with pink handlebar grips and missing the front wheel, stood below, propped up on a box marked Auto Parts.

  When lightning flashed at the windows, the dog’s head raised with one pointed ear straight up; his chestnut brown fur seemed to ripple over his powerful body. His growl was low and dangerous. Kyle spoke softly, almost gently, “It’s okay, boy. It’s all right.”

  The dog returned to gnawing noisily and Kyle turned to study Rachel. “Are you ready yet? Or are you just going to stand there, holding your jacket together with both hands and trying to forget that I saw your nipples? You look like you’re going to explode, Rachel. You know, I’ve never seen you really messed up. Gosh, I must be special. You came all this way out here—walking through mud, maybe rolling in it from the looks of it. Did you want me to come take that Caddie off your hands? Be happy to. It’s not doing anyone good, parked in your mother’s garage.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she managed tightly.

  “You always could peg me right, sweetheart,” he drawled easily. “That jacket must have cost plenty. Sorry about the shoes…and the blouse,” he added, but his tone said he didn’t really care.

  “You need to be sorry. Sorry about Mallory.”

  “I am,” he agreed too solemnly.

  “You should have done something.”

  He nodded, apparently accepting that, and Rachel found the words rolling out of her: “You ruined her life. You were her lover, she said so. You and whoever else she was seeing. People said that you were over at Nine Balls more often at the end. There’s probably a paper somewhere that says you’d get Nine Balls if anything happened to her. Think about it, Kyle. Mom’s boyfriend, Bob Winters, financed Mallory’s start at Nine Balls. They’re saying that you just might collect on her hard work…that at the end, she wasn’t in shape to resist any notions put into her head. You’re probably the new owner of Nine Balls, Scanlon.”

  Those steel blue eyes narrowed and a cord in Kyle’s jaw worked rhythmically. “If that’s what they say.”

  Rachel began pacing between the stack of tires and the front door. “She was not only my sister…Mallory was my friend. But in the last few years, I couldn’t reach her. She blocked me off. She put in whatever appearances at Mom’s that she had to for the holidays or special occasions, but she wasn’t sharing her life with us…she was sharing it with you.”

  She turned to face Kyle, her hands balled into fists. “You could have stopped her. Correction: you should have stopped her.”

  His silence echoed in the shabby, cluttered office, punctuated by the abrupt roll of thunder. He reached lazily to one of the desk’s pigeonholes and drew out a bottle of whiskey. He splashed some of the amber liquid into a pint jar with a handle—the same kind that was filled with apple butter and sold during Neptune’s Landing’s Oktoberfest, and lifted it to Rachel. When she shook her head, Kyle lifted the glass and drank deeply, his strong throat working. He sat the glass down with a quiet thud.

  “You’re turning me on, honey.” But the words weren’t an invitation, they were hard and cutting. He turned the empty jar, studying it, running his thumb over the raised glass logo.

  He continued slowly turning it when Rachel bit out the words, “You killed her, Scanlon. When she was eighteen, you started Mallory into what she had become and then you bled her.”

  “Is that what you really think?” Then the cold blue eyes slowly lifted to her and the room seemed too still, his deep smooth rumble warning her that Kyle wasn’t taking her accusations lightly. “Who are you really mad at? Me? Or you?”

  The impact took her breath away. “Go to hell, Scanlon.”

  He smiled tightly at that and stood, resting hip shot against the desk. He patted his thigh and the boxer stood to his three paws. “Is that the best that you can do? Oh, that’s right. You work in a fancy New York insurance office, HR for human resources department, wasn’t it? All nice and clean and sweet in an executive’s office, away from the gutter? You were living with some upscale hot-shot when Mallory flew off to see you three years ago—so you should be getting married, raising kids, focusing on that and leaving me the hell alone.”

  Kyle didn’t like someone else telling him what he already knew, that he’d failed Mallory. He’d tried to fight her battles for her, tried to protect her, but in the last two years, she was straight on the road to self-destruction and nothing could stop her. And now, when she’d barely spoken to him in years, Rachel wasn’t soft about laying the blame. “What do you want me to do, say I’m sorry? I am. Goddamn sorry. There. Do you have what you need? An apology from me? Now that does Mallory a hell of a lot of good, doesn’t it? Just maybe you should have taken more time with her. That’s what’s really going on in there, isn’t it? That you should have taken more time with your sister?”

  Before she could recover from the searing truth that he’d again pinpointed, Kyle added, “Why don’t you go on home now, little girl? Flying back to New York in the morning, are you? Back to nice clean offices and a clean conscience? You can buy yourself a pricey new jacket and shoes and forget all about Mallory there, can’t you?”

  Rachel moved across that short distance before she knew it. He looked down at the fist she’d wrapped in his T-shirt and the dog growled softly, warningly. “It’s all right, Pup. Sit.”

  Pup plopped his butt down, sitting close to Kyle’s thigh, but he edged just slightly, protectively, between his master and Rachel. His chocolate-colored eyes stared at her, one of his scarred ears stood up, the other folded over. A long thread of drool escaped his mouth and dropped on Rachel’s foot, sliding warmly inside her shoe.

  She had a choice: to let Kyle escape, or to find something and wipe the drool from her foot.

  “You’re going to owe me the time it takes to fix that dent in the Hummer,” Kyle stated quietly, watching her as she debated. “Or you could deduct it from the price of the Caddie when you sell it to me.”

  “I do not think I dented that rooftop, and if it is dented, it happened before I fell on it. I truly do think I need to hit you,” she stated, feeling it was fair to give him warning.

  “‘Truly’?” he mocked. “Such an old-fashioned word for an uptown girl like you.”

  Then a slurping noise drew her attention down to the dog. Another long spindle of Pup’s drool slid into her shoe and she shuddered.

  Above her head, Kyle breathed heavily and murmured a husky, “Any time you want to ‘truly’ hit me, think about the consequences.”

  Disgusting and warm, the drool won over any physical or verbal battle with Kyle. “Wait right there.”

  Rachel hopped to the desk and grabbed something from a folded white stack. She sat in the desk chair and gingerly lifted her foot from the shoe sticky with Pup’s drool. “Eww,” fit the situation, but she wasn’t giving Kyle the pleasure.

  She grimly peeled away her black silk kneehigh, dropped it on top of an overflowing trash basket, and mopped her foot with the soft white cloth, taking care to go between her toes. On an afterthought, she lifted her other foot out of the muddy shoe and sat crunched on the chair, with her feet above the floor, wiping desperately.

  Rachel didn’t like the curve of Kyle’s lips as he sprawled across the school bus seat, propping his arms behind him. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she asked as she used a new cloth from the stack to wipe out her shoes. She bent, desperately scrubbing at her shoes.

  The air was too still and she glanced at Kyle. That long sprawled body had definitely hardened and Kyle’s expression had changed, those narrowed steel blue eyes locked to her breasts. One glance down her chest said that he had plenty to see, the open cleavage of her blouse had slipped to reveal the lace of her beige bra. She straightened, tugged her jacket closely around her and stood. “This isn’t an X-rated video, you know.”

  “Ever watched one?” Kyle asked curiously in that low husky drawl.

  Her quick comeback, “Have you?” drew a smug smile. Kyle Scanlon pro
bably filmed his own, as the star.

  “You’re disgusting,” she snapped as the desk’s telephone began to ring. It continued without the aid of a message machine answering the call. “What kind of business doesn’t have an answering machine? Aren’t you going to pick it up?”

  Pup, sitting beside the bench, issued a low growl.

  “He doesn’t like it when people use that tone to me. You might want to soften it a little.” The telephone stopped ringing as Kyle said, “I’m having too much fun right now with you all looking mussed and hot. It’s a good look on you, like you’ve just been rolled on the sheets…. I guess I’ll have to throw those shorts away now—you just used my underwear. If it makes you feel any better, you can take whatever you want. As a remembrance of tonight.”

  He stood slowly, walking toward her. She moved back a step and Kyle’s expression said he’d enjoy pushing her. He reached to smooth her hair behind her ear, his finger sliding to trace the pearl stud in her ear before she thrust his hand away. “Don’t…don’t ever touch me.”

  “Are you finished telling me off?” he asked quietly as he stuck his hands in his jeans back pockets. “Or is there more?”

  “I just wanted you to know that I know exactly what you are—a lowlife who caused my sister’s death—or at least someone who got her started on a wrong road and who didn’t help her when she needed it. If you didn’t hand her those pills and champagne, you helped Mallory commit suicide. It’s the same as murder and you know it.”