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Whispers and Lies
Diane Pershing
A MAN WAS POINTING A GUN AT HER…and he was her father. A man Lou McAndrews hadn't even known existed until a few days ago; a man whose political clout gave him enough incentive to make her disappear. With the shattering discovery that her whole life was a lie, the last thing the beleaguered veterinarian needed was Will Jamison back in town. The six-foot-tall heartbreaker had been the secret love of Lou's young life and now he seemed intrigued by her. As a crusading reporter, Will fought to unlock the secrets of her past…and give her hope for a future neither might live to see….
“I don’t want to break your heart.”
She figured it could have been the champagne; or maybe it was the confidence that came with knowing she was desired by a most desirable man. But whatever the reason, she cocked her head to one side and said, “Have you considered that maybe I might break yours?”
She watched as that crooked grin of his made an appearance. “Touché. A real possibility,” he said, and stepped into the living room.
The minute Will was in her home, something inside Lou underwent a drastic change. Suddenly that romantic bubble in which she’d been submerged burst, and she was in the real world again.
This, tonight, it was real. It was going to happen. She was going to get naked and make love to Will Jamison.
Whispers and Lies
Diane Pershing
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
DIANE PERSHING
For more years than she cares to disclose, Diane Pershing made her living as an actress and singer. She was extremely contented in these professions, except for one problem—there was way too much downtime, and she worried that her brain was atrophying. So she took up pen and paper and began writing, first for television, then as a movie critic, then as a novelist.
Her first novel, Sultry Whispers, following the dictum to “write what you know,” was about a voiceover actress who battled the male-dominated mind-set of advertising agencies. There have been fifteen more sales since. Diane is happy to report that there is no more downtime in her life; indeed, with writing and acting—and teaching classes in both—she now faces the dilemma of not having enough time, which she says is a quality problem indeed. She loves to hear from readers, so please write to her at P.O. Box 67424, Los Angeles, CA 90067 or online at diane@dianepershing.com. You can also visit Diane’s Web site at www.dianepershing.com.
To Dr. Lilli Forbrich, DVM, a woman who is both kind and strong.
You are my hero. The world is a better place for your presence in it.
And to my son, Benjamin Russell Pershing, journalist.
Thanks for all the insider stuff on our country’s capital, not to mention twenty-nine years of joy, since the day of your birth.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Prologue
Today
And I write all this now so if something happens to me, something suspicious, it will serve to set the authorities on the right path. Perhaps I am a coward; still, it is my fondest wish that what I have recounted here will never be seen. There are too many secrets that could harm too many innocent people. But if it is read, I will be gone, and so I leave the living to make their own decisions and to find their own peace.
Rita Conlon
Hot tears streaking her cheeks, Lou read the final sentence several times. Then she closed the diary that contained the answers to so many questions, some she’d had all her life and some she’d never even known to ask until just a few days ago. It also raised some new ones.
She shook her head, murmuring, “My father is a monster.”
The only other living creature in the room, her newly adopted kitten Anthony, raised his head up from her lap and gave her a golden-eyed blink. Absently, Lou scratched around the kitten’s ears and stared into the fireplace. She wished the fire could warm her. Even though an early summer storm raged outside her windows, it wasn’t really cold; still, she was chilled through and through.
What she’d spoken aloud was the truth, and it hurt; her father was, at minimum, an amoral and egocentric human being. It was also possible that he had, quite literally, gotten away with murder.
And now she had to decide just what to do about that.
She reached for her martini glass and took a sip, hoping the clear liquid would make its way down to her stomach and accomplish what the fire didn’t seem to be able to. Oh, how Will would love to get his hands on this diary, Lou thought. He would probably sell his soul for it.
If he had a soul left.
Will.
Just the thought of him brought up another kind of pain, this one tinged with bitterness. Other women didn’t seem to have her rotten luck with the male sex; why did she keep choosing the ones who proved to be untrustworthy?
Cut it out, warned an inner voice, one that had been keeping tabs on her emotional state all her life, it seemed. Lou was dangerously close to self-pity and she hated that quality in anyone. She was alive. She was free from want. She had many blessings—a good career, lots of friends, good health…
A sudden noise snapped her out of her musings. It was faint at first, barely audible over the percussive sound of raindrops beating hard against windows and on the roof shingles above her. It was a whining sound, and it came from the floor below, which housed her veterinary clinic. They were currently boarding five dogs and one of them, Boris, was just recovering from surgery. Alonzo was on overnight duty—he’d begged for the extra hours to help his growing family.
The whining noise came again, louder now, followed by a yelp of pain. Human pain, this time.
Lou stood, slightly off balance from the martini. Her heart rate began to speed up. What was going on? Where was Alonzo? She raced to the hallway, pulled open the door that led to the inside staircase connecting the clinic below and the living quarters upstairs. Dashing down the stairway, she called out, “Alonzo?”
There was no answer. She pushed through the door at the bottom and stopped dead in her tracks. Alonzo lay on the floor, unconscious, blood pouring from a wound on his forehead. Next to him was Mr. Hyde, a Doberman pinscher, lying on one side. Dead or unconscious, she didn’t know.
Standing over them both was a patrician-looking, silver-haired man she’d met for the first time just recently. He was pointing a gun at her, aimed at her chest. The look in his eye was hard and cold.
The man was her father.
And she had no doubts, none at all, that in a matter of minutes, seconds maybe, she would be dead.
Chapter 1
Friday, thirteen days earlier
“Whatever you do, don’t grab her, Martha!” Lou called out to the new trainee. Martha was trying to snatch the yowling, hissing, full-grown feline who, having escaped the exam room, was currently leaping over the high reception counter. “She hasn’t had her shots yet!”
“Come here, you little—” Alonzo, appearing from the hallway behind Lou, muttered something in Spanish that was most probably not a blessing, and, net in hand, lunged at the escaped cat. He missed and had to catch himself on the edge of the desk before he took a header.
In the meantime the cat had leaped from the top of the counter and through the open upper half of the Dutch door to the dog waiting room; now she was desperately flitting from chair to chair, from shelf to shelf, looking for a safe place to perch. Unfortunately, she’d set every canine in the room—and there were several, as the clinic owned and operated by Louise McAndrews, DVM, was the most popular one in Susanville, New York—to howling and barking.
Sheer pandemonium, Lou thought to herself, as she remained calm in the middle of the storm. Just the way she liked it. She leaned her elbows on the half door’s rim and grinned.
“Listen up, everyone,” she said cheerfully to the dogs’ owners, “not to worry. The cat is new to civilization. We just caught her and some of her babies this morning, so she’s much more scared of you than you are of her. Hold tight to those leashes, stay where you are and we’ll get her in no time.”
She turned to the pudgy, brown-skinned, highly irritated man holding the net. “Okay, Alonzo, go around the other way, through the hallway to Room Three and open the door to the waiting room. Teeny,” she called to a huge, bald-headed man dressed in one of the clinic’s puppy-patterned coats, “you go in this way—” she pointed to the half door she was leaning on “—then surround her and force her into Room Three. I’m going to close this upper door now.” She waved. “Everyone else, sit tight and watch the show.”
Less than a minute later, the feral rescue cat had been trapped in the adjoining examination room and the huge net had been thrown over her head; as had been intended, the cat’s subsequent scrambling for freedom had gotten her all tangled up in the netting. Now, imprisoned and unable to fight her human captors, she had no choice but to lie inert, still spitting, while Lou injected her with a combination of sedatives and disease-preventing serums. In no time at all, the poor exhausted thing was snoring away.
Lou thanked her staff, then pulled open the door to the dog waiting room and walked through it toward the reception area, smiling as she did. “Hey, everybody, thanks for the co-operation. You can tell your dogs that the mean, nasty kitty can’t hurt them now. She’s asleep.”
As a few appreciative chuckles greeted her news, her gaze swept the room and lingered briefly on one of the owners, a tall man wearing dark wraparound sunglasses. He seemed vaguely familiar. But she was too busy and way too tired to place him, or to even spend another second on it. Her appointment schedule was booked to overflow capacity and she had to reserve her strength for the hours ahead.
Squaring her narrow shoulders, she smiled at the head receptionist. “Okay, Dorothy, start sending in the troops.”
Three quick-but-thorough appointments later, Lou was in Room Four when the man in the sunglasses was shown in, dragging at the leash of a snorting, highly reluctant pug. From her position on the other side of the examination table, Lou glanced down at the dog, then at the chart and smiled. Of course. Her friend Nancy Jamison’s dog, Oscar.
Now Lou raised her gaze to check out the human holding the leash. Most definitely not Nancy. Wrong height, wrong sex. The man removed his glasses and offered a broad, confident, white-toothed smile, one that tilted up a little more on the right side.
Her heart thudded to a halt. Her eyes widened. “Will?”
He seemed amused by her shock. “Yes, Lou, it’s me. Or are you called Louise now that you’re all grown-up?”
She shook her head slowly. “No, it’s still Lou. Gosh, I thought you looked familiar.”
There went that crooked grin again, and her heart skipped yet one more beat.
“That was quite a show out there,” he said, yanking his thumb in the direction of the waiting room. “I’m impressed. And is the cat really asleep, or is she, you know, euphemistically asleep?”
“We try not to kill our rescue animals,” she said dryly. “She’s had her shots and she’s resting comfortably.”
“Well, good for her.”
Lou couldn’t seem to stop staring at him, at this tall, black-haired, green-eyed man with a face to die for and who had starred in so very many of her dreams so very long ago. He hadn’t shaved yet this morning, and the dark beard stubble only added to his roguish good looks. He wore a dark T-shirt and well-worn jeans that revealed a lean body with defined upper and lower arm muscles, broad shoulders and chest, slim hips and long legs.
If she’d been a Saint Bernard, there would have been drool dripping from the side of her mouth.
Which was not only a singularly unattractive image, but if she didn’t stop gawking at the man, she would make an utter fool of herself, not for the first time where Will Jamison was concerned. “So,” she said brightly, “you must be in town for Nancy’s wedding.”
He made a face. “I was threatened that if I didn’t come, I was out of the family for good.”
“Well, threat or no, it’s good to see you,” she said, then decided to get down to business. “I see you have Oscar today. Lift him up on the table, please, and then tell me what’s his problem.”
If Will had noticed her ogling him or her discomfort, it wasn’t apparent, thank God. He picked up the wheezing animal and set him down in front of Lou. “Nancy says he’s been scratching himself like crazy since yesterday.”
“Ah.” As she donned her rubber gloves, she observed the raised bumps on the animal’s body. “Hives,” she said, then checked Oscar’s eyes and ears, looked into his mouth. “An allergic reaction of some sort. Pugs are prone to this kind of thing, poor babies.”
As she spoke, she was aware that Will was paying attention. Really close attention. And not to the dog. He was staring at her, actually, like she had stared at him moments ago.
After a while, it became unnerving. She looked up, met his green-eyed gaze. “Um, you’re looking at me funny.”
“Huh?”
“It’s like you’re studying me. What’s up?”
He didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed, just smiled enough to make the corners of his emerald-colored eyes crinkle and for that little thudding in her heart to crank up again. “You’ve changed.”
“We all have.”
“Not as much as you.”
A twist of annoyance at this obvious reference to her weight loss made her want to snap back with something cutting and smart-ass. Instead, she chose mildly sardonic diplomacy. “You’re referring to the fact that I used to be, shall we say, a bit heavier?”
“Used to be being the operative phrase.”
“Up until a few months ago, I was still just as chubby as ever, trust me.”
“Oh? Recent diet?”
“Recent death.”
He winced. “Sorry.”
Immediate guilt assailed her. The poor man hadn’t deserved that one. Lou shook her head. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry, Will. I was being flip.” A sudden tightening in her throat made her swallow before she added, “I lost my mom.”
But Will Jamison already knew about Janice McAndrews’s death. It was one of the main reasons he was here at the clinic this morning. A fact of which Dr. Lou was ignorant and, he hoped, would remain so.
Which had nothing to do with the fact that it didn’t sit well with him to pretend he hadn’t heard the news. “Yeah, my condolences. Nancy mentioned it but I just read about it in the Courier.”
“Just? It happened a couple of months ago.”
