Whirlwind (2 page)

“Grandfather,” he repeated, and something dawned in his hooded, black eyes—something akin to recognition as he looked into her face for the first time. His eyes were very dark and full of shadows, quirking at the corners as he studied her standing there in the first break of sunlight.

“I see,” he said, dropping the cigarette onto the gravel and grinding it out with the heel of his boot. “I suppose you're Liza.”

That surprised the heck out of her, but Liza put up a brave front just the same. “How do you know my name?”

“Educated guess,” he replied, meeting her gaze again with a penetrating, sidelong look. “Your grandfather talks about you. Liza's the reckless one. The black sheep. The pain in the ass with the smart mouth.”

“Well,” she said tartly, “it's nice to know I'm remembered kindly in my old hometown. What else do you know about me?”

He seemed for a moment on the verge of telling her, but something held him back. He leaned his fishing rod against the passenger door of the T-bird and dug into his jeans
pocket for a handkerchief. Handing it to her, he said instead, “Your lip's bleeding.”

He was very tall, Liza realized in that instant. Several inches more than six feet, and his body was whip thin beneath his loose jacket. His clothes were worn, and his boots were caked with trail mud. His hands, she noticed as she accepted the frayed handkerchief, were also dirty. From fishing, probably.

Watching her dab her lip, he said, “I also know you've made a lot of people miserable in this town.”

“Me? Do I look like the kind of girl who would make anyone miserable?”

He took the question as an invitation to examine Liza more carefully. With a glance that wasn't especially flattering, he studied her stretchy minidress—skintight and black, her bare legs and the fuchsia-colored spike heels she wore just to make a statement. It was the kind of outfit that made Liza feel good in the city—sexy and exciting. She was a young woman on her way up—a woman with style and ambition. At the moment, though, she was damn cold. She could feel goose bumps on her arms, and if that weren't enough to cast her in a vulnerable state, she realized her nipples were rock hard.

“You look like a tramp,” he said when he'd finished his inspection.

“What are you? The local fashion expert?”

He shrugged. “It looks like you're going to a costume party, that's all.”

“At this time of day?”

He gave her a thin, unamused grin. “From what I hear, you'd go to a party at the drop of a hat. That getup is sure to win first prize, if you ask me.”

“Well, I didn't ask, buster. Just who the hell are you, anyway? What gives you the right to—”

“I'm Cliff Forrester,” he said. “The lodge caretaker.”

“Obviously, you've been doing a great job,” she
cracked, indicating the time-damaged facade of the lodge with an exasperated wave of his handkerchief. “Besides the fish, exactly what are you supposed to be taking care of?”

“That's between me and your grandfather,” he retorted, dropping his voice into the rumbling register again. “Are you hurt?” he asked then. “Besides the lip, I mean?”

Liza examined his handkerchief and saw a dime-sized splotch of dark blood staining the frayed linen. “I'm okay, I guess. Except for this. Am I going to need stitches, do you think?”

With one hand, he reached out and roughly grasped Liza's chin. As if catching himself, he was gentler as he slid his fingertips along her jaw and tilted her head higher, stepping close to have a look.

At that instant, a feeble ray of sunshine pierced the tree branches overhead, and Liza closed her eyes against the sharpness of the light. In a heartbeat, a funny feeling stole over her. Standing there with his callused hand cupping her face, she realized she could hear Cliff Forrester breathing, and the warmth of his lithe body seemed to pull her like a magnet. Though a whole world pulsed around them, Liza felt as if the universe had narrowed to only two people.

She peeped one eye open to look at him again. For an older guy, he wasn't bad to look at. Just too damn serious. In her mind's eye, she tried to conjure up a mental image of how he might appear with a genuine smile on his face. Or how his laugh might sound. But Cliff Forrester didn't seem the kind of man who did a lot of laughing. A tightness in his face told Liza he hadn't lived an amusing life. The years had been hard on him. Maybe harder than Liza could imagine.

He could dish out abuse, though, and Liza almost smiled at the thought. She wasn't afraid of him, of course. Liza Baron wasn't afraid of anything. But she felt uneasy in his presence just the same. As if unworthy.

“Nope,” he said, releasing her as casually as he'd touched her. “No stitches. At least, I don't think so. What's wrong? Are you cold?”

She had begun to shiver. Liza told herself it was her abbreviated dress that wasn't up to the challenge of a Wisconsin morning, but another thought flitted through her mind: perhaps Cliff Forrester had the power to make her shiver, too.

Abruptly, she said, “Nothing's the matter. I'm leaving, anyway, and the car heater's still working. Could I trouble you to help me with the car? Or must you hurry back to your caretaking duties?”

“I have a few minutes,” he said, ignoring the taunt in her question.

“What's this tree doing here in the first place? Isn't it your job to clear it away? Somebody could get hurt running into it.”

“Nobody ever comes up here.”

“What am I? Chopped liver?”

He tied his string of fish on a nearby branch and sauntered back to the car, stripping off his jacket as he came. “You could have been chopped liver if you'd been driving any faster. What was the rush, anyway? I heard the car from the lake and got to the boathouse in time to see you ram this tree like you wanted to push it into the next county.”

“I always drive like that.”

“Like an idiot, you mean?”

“Look, Forrester, why don't you go jump—”

“Put this on,” he commanded, dropping his jacket across her shoulders, “before you freeze. Why a grown woman would wear a dress like that—”

“There's nothing wrong with my dress!”

“You must have left half of it at home, that's all.”

“If you don't like it,” Liza said, fed up at last, “I'll take it off.”

Cliff had heard a lot about Liza Baron in the ten years he'd lived in Tyler. She'd hightailed it out of town after high school and returned only a couple of times before a conflict with her mother drove her away, leaving behind a long litany of stories that celebrated her wild ways.

She was as beautiful as everyone said, he'd admit. As beautiful as her legendary grandmother. Nearly six feet tall in her heels and lean as a greyhound, she had the look of a cover girl right down to the damn-you gleam in her eye. Her platinum hair was an astonishing tangle, and her face had an oddly asymmetrical quality he couldn't seem to take his eyes off. Her cold blue gaze challenged his, her patrician nose seemed perpetually upturned in a cocksure attitude and her slightly off-center mouth, a flaw that was accentuated by the ragged little cut on her lower lip, was...well, mesmerizing. She moved constantly, too—tapping her toe, swinging the mane of her hair over her shoulders or flipping it back from her forehead with an impatient hand.

Her earrings caught the morning light and glittered. From one ear dangled a golden angel with a glinting glass eye, but from the other ear swung a larger figure—that of a devil carved out of onyx. Oh, Liza was devilish, all right. But she seemed to be trying awfully hard to keep that bad-girl facade in place.

So Cliff wasn't surprised when she let his jacket slip off her shoulders and started to peel off her dress.

He stopped her by grabbing one slender wrist just as she began to yank the dress. She looked up, feigning surprise.

“Take it easy,” he said, determined not to let the vixen ruffle him. “If you die of exposure, it'll be me who has to answer a bunch of questions.”

Her gaze burned into him with the power of a hot laser. “I'd hate to trouble you.”

“Then keep your clothes on.” He released her wrist and turned away. “Let's see what's wrong with the car.”

A moment later she followed him around the convertible, quite composed and haughty. “You must be a pretty handy fellow to have around, if my grandfather hired you.”

“I do what I can.” He kicked some branches away from the hood of the convertible and bent over the mess to check on damage.

“Do you see him often? Granddad, I mean?”

“Now and then.” Cliff examined the damage to the car's grille and headlights.

“Does he come out here?” she asked, standing behind him on the gravel. Her voice sounded casual. Maybe too casual.

Cliff glanced up at her. “Nope.”

She quickly mastered her expression, endeavoring to look unconcerned. “Does he look well? I mean...is he healthy?”

“What is this? Twenty questions? He's your family, not mine.”

She flushed. “I haven't seen him for a while, that's all.”

“Three years, right?”

Her pouty mouth popped open, then snapped shut quickly as she covered her surprise. Her glacial eyes narrowed. “Exactly how do you know so much about me, Forrester?”

“I wish I could say that I get around a lot, but stories about the infamous Liza Baron are repeated all the time.” Cliff crouched by the front tire and pushed back the tree branches to get a better look under the car. “Even I've heard the one about how you spiked the punch at the homecoming dance. People still can't figure out how you did it—and got crowned homecoming queen in the same hour.”

She shrugged. “I hid the bottle in my underpants until the time was right.”

“Hmm,” said Cliff, guessing that she'd said that just to see his reaction. He chose to ignore the lie and said, “The
fender's bent pretty badly. It'll cut the tire if you try to move the car.”

She leaned over his shoulder. “Can't you yank the fender out a little? I've got a tire iron in the trunk, I think.”

“It'll ruin the fender.”

“Do it anyway,” she said blithely, bending over the closed door to tug the keys out of the ignition. Cliff couldn't stop a glance down the amazing length of her bare legs, but she pretended to be unaware of his scrutiny. She straightened and led the way to the trunk with a taunting sashay, saying, “It's good to know people still think of me now and then. My mother hasn't poisoned everyone against me.”

Suddenly on guard, Cliff said, “Why would your mother do that?”

“We're estranged. That's a polite word for hating each other.”

“I know what it means.”

“We don't communicate. Haven't spoken for years.”

“And you're proud of that?”

Liza snapped open the convertible's trunk. “It's a fact of life in our family. My mother despises me.”

“Alyssa Baron couldn't despise anybody.”

Liza looked up from rummaging in the trunk and skewered him with those clear blue eyes of hers. “You know my mother?”

“We're acquainted.”

“You talk about me with her?”

“Any mention of your name,” Cliff said, “causes her pain.” He took the tire iron from her hand, and with care added, “And I wouldn't hurt Alyssa for anything.”

“Alyssa, is it?” Liza asked, her beautiful face suddenly stiffening with a frozen sort of smile. “My, my. You're a little young, aren't you?”

“For what?”

“For squiring her around town these days. I mean, she's almost fifty—”

“My relationship with Alyssa is completely pure, I assure you, Miss Baron. We're friends, that's all.”

Cliff didn't owe anyone an explanation for his tie to Alyssa Baron, the one person in the world he could stand to spend any time with these days. Alyssa's quiet acceptance, her unspoken support, her— Well, there were many qualities in Alyssa Baron that Cliff appreciated deeply. Qualities he didn't see in Liza at all.

Liza eyed him with one brow raised coldly. “You don't strike me as the Garden Club type. And I bet you don't sit on her precious hospital board, either. Which one of her bleeding-heart causes do you have in common, I wonder?”

“We're friends,” he repeated.

“Oh, that doesn't surprise me. She's been very friendly with all kinds of men since my father died.”

“I don't think I like your implication, Miss Baron.”

“Truth hurts?”

He laughed shortly and turned away. “I can see that everything I've heard about you is true. You find a weak spot and attack, don't you?”

“Have I found your weak spot, Forrester?”

He chose not to answer that and returned to the front fender. “‘Liza's always looking to make people uncomfortable'—that's what your mother says, at least. Is that your way of getting attention, I wonder?”

She gave an unladylike snort. “In my family you have to practically die to get some attention. You must know my brother and sister, right? Both bright, shining examples of wonderfulness?”

“They're well respected, I hear. And you're not. So? Do you get your share of the family limelight by acting like a spoiled starlet?”

“Boy, who put the chip on your shoulder?”

He yanked the twisted fender with the tire iron. “Just
don't try muscling me the way you muscle the rest of your family, okay? I don't give a damn if you go away and never come back—unlike your mother.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Expect maybe you'll find she's glad you've come home.”

“I haven't come home,” she said quickly. “I'm just passing through. I may not even stop at the house. I don't want to see them.”

He heard a new note in her voice and glanced up to see Liza frowning. “Scared?”