Free Whispers by Lisa Jackson

on her feet. “Look, I don’t really have time for this. I’ve got kids waiting for me. Miranda told you the truth, I don’t have anything else to add.”
    â€œOh, hell, Claire,” Dutch growled. “Tell the man about Taggert. You ran around here mooning over the guy and had just announced that you were going to marry him. You’ve got a helluva lot more to say.” He handed a drink to Tessa, who, a stubborn set to her jaw, walked to the window and rested her head against the glass.
    Claire’s stomach clenched. “It’s true. I had hoped to marry Harley, though . . . it . . . it wasn’t working out.” She rubbed the back of one of her hands with the thumb of the other. “Everyone was against it because of a feud that existed between our families.”
    â€œHe knows about the damned feud.” Frowning darkly, Dutch fell into his chair again, raised the leg support, and took a sip from his glass.
    Claire felt a chill even though it was still warm. Through the open door she noticed the sun was beginning to set, fiery pink-and-orange beams fractured against the underbelly of a few high clouds. She knew that Miranda had spoken first to remind her younger sisters of the lie they’d concocted, the altering of the facts to protect them all, but suddenly it seemed that their secret, woven tightly by each woman’s determination to put that dark, ugly night behind them, was beginning to unravel and fray. “When I first met Harley, I mean, I’d known him all my life, but when I realized I was attracted to him, it was at the lake. He was going with another girl, Kendall Forsythe, at the time.”
    â€œThe bitch,” Tessa interjected, and received a harsh, warning glare from Miranda.
    â€œKendall—as in Weston Taggert’s wife.”
    â€œYes.” Claire nodded. She wasn’t going to let anyone, either her father or her older sister, dictate how she felt or what she said. Things had changed over the last decade and a half, and if she’d learned anything, it was that she had to speak up for herself and rely on her own judgment. For too many years she’d trusted other people—first her mother, then Harley, eventually Miranda, and finally Paul. “Dad might have told you that he thought the Taggerts had moved here with the express purpose of running him out of business, but that wasn’t true.”
    Her father snorted. “Neal should have stuck to shipping up in Seattle.”
    â€œThey moved down here in the fifties, I think,” Claire continued, glancing from Miranda to Styles.
    â€œNineteen fifty-six.” Dutch opened a glass humidor and fingered a cigar.
    â€œAnyway, Dad took it as a personal insult that he’d have some competition.”
    â€œI knew it, that Harley brainwashed you!”
    â€œJesus, Dad,” Tessa said, as Dutch bit off the end of his cigar and spit it into the fireplace. “You called us all up, insisted that we show up here and spill our guts, then when Claire tries, you start insulting her. I’m outta here.” She tossed back her drink, snagged her purse, and headed for the door.
    â€œNo, wait—” Dutch shoved himself out of the recliner and wincing as he put weight on his bad knee, hurried after his youngest, bullheaded, daughter. But Tessa wasn’t about to stay and be insulted. Within seconds an engine fired to life. Tessa’s Mustang roared away.
    â€œGo ahead,” Styles said to Claire. His hands were forced into the pockets of his beat-up jacket, and he seemed less stiff and unbending than he had when he’d first entered. “What about the Taggerts?”
    â€œThey’re originally from Seattle. As Dad mentioned, the family had some kind of shipping operation up there started by his great-grandfather, I think.”
    â€œOld Evan Taggert, Neal’s grandfather,” Dutch said, puffing on his cigar as he strode into the room