Sweet Talk

CHAPTER TWO

CLAIRE DEFLATED like a punctured balloon, leaving Wyatt feeling like the biggest asshole this side of the Rockies. He told himself it was just an act, that she was born to play people and had only gotten better at it as she’d gotten older. For someone who claimed to care so much for her sister, she’d never once shown up here in all the years he’d known Nicole. Not for birthdays or even her sister’s damn wedding. She’d missed Jesse’s high school graduation. She was good at playing the victim, that was all, and he wasn’t going to get sucked in to her game.

Just when he thought she was going to turn around and go away, she straightened. Her shoulders went back, her chin came up and she looked him square in the eye. “My sister called me.”

“So you said.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t care enough to think about it one way or the other.”

She tilted her head so that her long, shimmering blond hair fell over one shoulder. “Nicole has a good friend in you. I hope she appreciates that.”

So she’d moved on to sucking up. Probably an effective plan on anyone who wasn’t clued in to her style.

“Jesse called me,” she continued. “She told me about the surgery. You have to know that much is true, otherwise how would I know? Jesse also told me that Nicole wants me to help out afterward and is happy I’m here. Under the circumstances, I’m more inclined to believe her than you.”

“I can tell you that as of twenty minutes before the surgery, Nicole had no idea you were going to show up. Trust me. She would have mentioned it.”

Claire frowned slightly. “Nothing about this makes sense. Why would Jesse lie? Why would you?”

“I wouldn’t.”

She looked genuinely confused and Wyatt almost believed her. This messed-up situation had Jesse written all over it. The question was, why had the kid done it? To make a bad situation worse or did she really want to help Nicole? With Jesse it wasn’t easy to tell.

“I’m staying,” Claire told him. “Just so you’re clear. I’m staying. I’m going to the hospital and—”

“No.”

“But I—”

“No.”

She looked at him. “You’re very determined.”

“I protect what’s mine.”

Something flickered in her eyes. Something sad and small that he didn’t want to identify.

“Fine. I’ll wait at the house until Nicole is ready to come home,” Claire said at last. “Then she and I can figure out what’s going on.”

“It would be easier if you just went back to New York.”

“I don’t do easy. Never have. Career hazard, I suppose.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. Did she think anyone believed that playing the piano for a bunch of rich people in fancy European cities was hard?

He shrugged. He couldn’t force Nicole’s sister to disappear. As long as she didn’t try to bug Nicole in the hospital, he would stay out of it.

“So Nicole will come home in a couple of days?” Claire asked.

“Something like that.”

She smiled at him. “You’re very determined not to give up any information, Mr. Knight, but as I’m going to be living in the same house it will be difficult to conceal Nicole’s arrival from me.”

“Wyatt. I’m not your boss and you’re not my banker.”

“Your employees call you by your last name?”

“No. I was making a point.”

“My banker calls me Claire.”

“My banker doesn’t.”

Her smile faded. “You don’t like me very much.”

He didn’t bother to answer that.

“You don’t even know me,” she continued. “That hardly seems fair.”

“I know enough.”

She stiffened, as if he’d hit her. Egotistical and sensitive, he thought grimly. Hell of a combination.

Claire turned and walked out of the bakery. Wyatt followed to make sure she really did get into her car and drive away.

He glanced around the parking lot, half expecting to see a stretch limo or a Mercedes. But Claire’s rental was a midsize four-door with luggage piled in the backseat.

“How much crap did you bring?” he asked before he could stop himself. “It wouldn’t even fit in the trunk?”

She came to a stop and looked at him. “No. That’s all I brought.”

“What have you got against the trunk? Afraid you’ll break a nail?”

“I, as you put it so elegantly, play piano. I don’t have long nails.” She straightened again and seemed to brace herself. “As I said before, I live in New York, where I don’t keep a car. I don’t drive much anywhere. I couldn’t figure out how to open the trunk.”

Now he knew why she’d braced herself. She was waiting for him to rip her a new one. It was a pretty sweet setup and he could think of a hundred cheap shots. Who didn’t know how to open the trunk? His eight-year-old could do it.

What stopped him from saying that and more was the fact that she was expecting to be trashed and that, even knowing he didn’t like her, she’d still exposed a vulnerable spot. Wyatt didn’t mind being a mean bastard, but he wouldn’t be a bully.

He moved next to her, took the keys from her hand and pointed to the attached fob. “Ever see one of these before? The little pictures tell you what the buttons do.” He pushed the one that opened the trunk. It popped open.

Claire grinned at him. “Seriously? That’s it?” She walked over and stared down into the space. “It’s huge. I could have brought more luggage. Are there more buttons?”

She was thrilled on a level the key fob didn’t deserve. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

The smile widened. “Even less than you think.”

“Door lock, door unlock, panic button.”

“That is so cool.”

She was like a kid with a new toy. She had to be jerking him around.

“Thank you,” she told him. “Seriously, I felt like such an idiot at the car rental place, standing there not knowing what to do.” She wrinkled her nose. “If only driving were this easy. Do people have to go so fast on the freeway?”

He had no idea what to think of her. Based on Nicole’s infrequent comments about her sister, he knew not to trust her. But while she was as useless as Nicole had claimed, she wasn’t nearly as cold and distant.

Not his problem, he reminded himself.

He handed the keys back to Claire. She reached out and took them. For a second, maybe two, they touched. His fingers on her palm, a brush of skin. Inconsequential. Except for the sudden burst of fire.

Goddamn sonofabitch, he thought grimly, jerking back his hand and stuffing it in his jacket pocket. No way. Not her. Dear God, anyone but her.

Claire was babbling on, probably thanking him. He wasn’t listening. Instead he was wondering why, of all the women in all the world, he’d had to feel that hot, bright, sexual heat with her.

THE CALM-VOICED WOMAN in the GPS system led Claire to the house where she’d spent the first six years of her life. She found a parking space on the narrow street in front. It was by a driveway, so all she had to do was pull forward to claim it. There was no way she would ever be able to parallel park.

She turned off the engine, got out of the car and locked it, using the fob. Feeling foolishly proud of herself, she walked around to the back of the house and found the spare key where Jesse had said it would be. She unlocked the rear door and stepped into the house.

She hadn’t been inside it for years. Nearly twelve, she thought, remembering the single night spent under this roof after her mother had died. one night with Jesse staring at her as though she was a stranger and Nicole glaring with obvious loathing. Not that Nicole had settled on communicating silently. At sixteen she’d been very comfortable speaking her mind.

“You killed her,” she screamed. “You took her away and then you killed her. I’ll never forgive you. I hate you. I hate you.”

Lisa, Claire’s manager, had taken her away then. They’d checked into a suite at the Four Seasons where they’d stayed until after the funeral. From there they’d gone to Paris. Springtime in Paris, Lisa had said. The beauty of the city would heal her.

It hadn’t. Only time had closed the wounds, but the scars were still there. Springtime in Paris. The words always made her think of the song and whenever she heard the song, she thought about her mother’s death and Nicole screaming that she hated her.

Claire shook off the memories and moved into the kitchen. It looked different, more modern and bigger somehow. Apparently Nicole had renovated the place, or at least parts of it. She continued through the downstairs and found several small rooms had been opened up into a larger space. There was a big living room with comfortable furniture, warm colors and a cabinet against one wall that concealed a flat-screen TV and other electronics. The dining room looked the same. The small bedroom on this floor had been converted into a study or den.

The place was dark and cool. She found the thermostat and turned up the heat. A few lamps helped add light, but didn’t make the house any more welcoming. Maybe because the problem wasn’t the house. It was her and the memories that wouldn’t go away.

The last time she’d come to Seattle had been for their father’s funeral. She’d received a terse phone call from a man, probably Wyatt, Claire thought as she sat on the edge of the sofa, saying her father had died. He’d given the date, time and place of the funeral, then had hung up.

Claire had been in shock. She hadn’t even known he was sick. No one had told her.

She knew what they thought—that she couldn’t be bothered with her own family. That she didn’t care. What she’d tried to explain so many times was that she was the one who had been sent away. They’d been allowed to stay here, where it was safe, where they were loved. But Nicole had never seen it that way. She’d always been so angry.

Claire rubbed her hands against the soft fabric on the couch. None of this was familiar. Wyatt had been right—she didn’t belong here. Not that she was leaving. Nicole and Jesse were the only family she had left. They might have ignored her phone calls and letters over the years, but she was here now and she wasn’t leaving until she somehow got through to them. Until they made peace.

Claire stood and went up the stairs. There were three bedrooms on the top floor. She paused by the master suite. Based on the color scheme and items scattered across the dresser, she would guess that Nicole slept there now. At the other end of the hall were the two remaining bedrooms and the bathroom they shared.

One looked like a typical guest room with a too-tidy bed and neutral colors, while the last was done in purple, with posters on the walls and a computer on a desk filling one corner.

Claire walked into that room and looked around. The space smelled of vanilla.

“What have you done?” she asked aloud. “Jesse, did you set me up? Is Nicole really ready to forgive me?”

She desperately wanted to believe her sister, but found herself doubting. Wyatt had been very convincing in his dislike of her.

The unfairness of it, a stranger judging her, made her chest hurt, but she ignored the sensation. Somehow she would get this all fixed.

She returned downstairs and walked toward the front door. On the way, she saw a narrow staircase leading to the basement. She knew what was down there.

Every cell in her body screamed at her not to do it—not to go look—yet she found herself walking toward the opening, then slowly, so slowly, moving down.

The stairs opened into a basement. But what should have been an open space was closed off with a wall and a single door. Nicole hadn’t destroyed it, Claire thought, not sure what to make of that. Did it mean there was hope, or had the project simply been too much trouble?

Claire hesitated, her hand on the doorknob. Did she really want to go in?

When she and Nicole had been three, their parents had taken them to a friend’s house. It was a place neither girl had been before. At first the visit had been unremarkable. A rainy Seattle day with two toddlers trapped inside a house full of adults.

One of the guests had tried to entertain the girls by playing the piano. Nicole had grown bored and wandered away, but Claire had sat on the hard bench, entranced by the keys and the sound they made. After lunch, she’d gone back on her own. She’d been too short to see the white and black keys, but she’d known they were there and she’d carefully reached above her head and started to play one of the songs.

Despite how young she’d been, Claire remembered everything about that afternoon. How her mother had come looking for her and stared at her for the longest time. How she’d been put on her mother’s lap in front of the piano, where she could make the pretty music more easily.

She had never been able to explain how she knew which key produced which sound, how the music had seemed to begin inside of her, bubbling up until it spilled out. It was just one of those things, a quirk of an, until then, unremarkable gene pool.

Nicole had also sat on her mother’s lap, but she’d shown no interest in the piano and when she put her tiny hands down, there was only noise.

That moment had changed everything. Within two days, Claire started lessons. Then the work on the basement began and a soundproof studio was built. For the first time in their lives, the twins weren’t doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. Music, and Claire’s gift, had come between them.

She pushed the door open. She could see the piano that had seemed so beautiful and perfect when she’d been a child. She would guess the cost of it had decimated her parents’ savings account and then some. Claire had played on many of the most famous pianos in the world, but this was the one she remembered most.

She stared at it now, at the dust on the cover. It probably hadn’t been touched in years. It would need tuning.

She had no desire to play. Just the thought of sitting down on the bench made her chest tighten. She forced herself to keep breathing. She didn’t have to play if she didn’t want to. Everything was fine. She didn’t even have to make up excuses to avoid her masters classes. She was a whole continent away from that world.

Panic haunted the edges of her conscious mind. She pushed it away. When it stayed stubbornly in place, she retreated upstairs, to safer ground. Once on the main floor, she could breathe more easily.

She would ignore the piano, she told herself. Pretend it wasn’t here at all. Except for getting it tuned. A lifetime of training wouldn’t allow her to let it sit untended.

With the monster in the basement, if not vanquished at least momentarily glared at, she went out to the car and wrestled in her two suitcases. After dragging them up the stairs and putting them in the guest room, she returned to the kitchen to make herself something to eat.

There wasn’t a lot of food in the house. She found a can of soup and started heating it on the stove. In the meantime, she located a phone book and started calling hospitals until she found one that said her sister had been admitted and offered to connect her to the nurses’ station. Claire declined and hung up.

The good news was the surgery had gone well, since Nicole’s room had been on a regular floor, not in ICU. The bad news was that according to Wyatt, Nicole knew nothing about Claire’s visit and had no interest in seeing her. Had she come all this way for nothing?

She checked her cell phone out of habit and saw she had two messages from Lisa. As her manager couldn’t possibly say anything she wanted to hear, Claire deleted them without bothering to listen.

Standing at the sink, she ate soup out of the pot and stared into the small, fenced backyard.

She knew when things had gone wrong with Nicole. She knew what the problem was. So why couldn’t she fix it?

Did it matter? She was here now. Here and determined to make Nicole and Jesse a part of her life. No matter what they said or did, they weren’t getting rid of her. She was going to make them love her and she was going to love them back. They were her family and that mattered more than anything.

NICOLE DID HER BEST not to move. She hurt. The pain was dulled by the miracles of modern drug therapy, but it was still there, lurking, threatening. She ignored the heat of it and blessed whoever had invented beds that raised and lowered with the push of a button. She would just lie here for the next six or eight years and eventually she would be fine.

Someone walked into her room. She heard the footsteps and braced herself for the inevitable poking and prodding that followed. Instead, there was only silence. She opened her eyes and saw Wyatt standing next to the bed.

She felt like crap and figured she didn’t look a whole lot better. At times like this she was grateful they had only ever been friends.

“It’s going to be a hell of a scar,” he told her.

“Guys are into scars,” she whispered, her mouth dry. “I’ll have to beat them off with a stick. Not that I can ever imagine having the strength to lift a stick. Can I beat them off with a straw? I could handle a straw.”

“I’ll be there to help.”

“Lucky me.”

He touched her cheek, then pulled up a chair and sat down. “How are you feeling?”

She managed a smile. “That falls under the category of really stupid questions. Did you get the whole concept of surgery? I’ve been sliced and diced and I’m thinking of getting hooked on painkillers.”

“You won’t like rehab. You’re too cynical.”

“And crabby. Don’t forget crabby.” She pointed to the plastic cup on the tray beside her bed. “Could you hand me that?”

Wyatt picked it up and passed it to her. She took it and risked a sip. The last one had nearly made her throw up but a very mean-looking nurse had informed her she had to start drinking and peeing. Nicole didn’t see the point, but the nurse had been insistent.

She took a tiny sip and winced as a wave of nausea washed through her. At least it was less intense than the previous one. She sipped again and didn’t feel much of anything. Progress.

She handed him the water and drew in a breath. “You talk. I’ll listen. But please, don’t be funny. I don’t want to laugh. It will hurt too much.”

Wyatt leaned forward and took her fingers in his. “I went by the bakery. Everything is fine.”

“Good. They’ll be okay without me. They know how to handle the business. I don’t have to worry about anything.”

She would worry because it was her nature, but it was nice to know it wasn’t required.

“So, um, I met someone there.”

Despite the pain and the drugs, Nicole opened her eyes. There was something about the way Wyatt wouldn’t look at her. Something almost … guilty.

“A woman?”

He nodded.

She didn’t understand. What was the big deal? He’d met someone. That was a good thing. “So ask her out.”

“What?” He straightened and stared at her. “You’re not—” He leaned toward her again. “I didn’t mean I’d met someone I liked. I met someone I didn’t expect to be there.”

“Maybe it’s the surgery and everything, but you’re not making sense.”

“I met Claire.”

Claire who? But even as the question formed, she already had the answer. Claire, her sister. Claire, the perfect one, the princess. The concert pianist and soloist. World traveler. Rich bitch. Her selfish, narcissistic, shallow, cruel, awful sister.

“Not possible,” she murmured as her eyes closed. Sleep would be good, she told herself. She would sleep now and this would all go away.

“Apparently Jesse called and told her about your surgery and she flew in.”

Nicole’s eyes opened. “What?”

“She’s here to help during your recovery.”

If Nicole hadn’t been so uncomfortable and drugged, she would have laughed. “Help? She wants to help? Where the hell has she been for the past twenty-two years? Where was she while I was stuck here, raising Jesse and working in the bakery? Where was she when our mother went off to be with her and then died? Where was she when Dad died? Does she bother to show up even once? I can’t believe it. She needs to leave right now. She needs to get her designer-wearing ass out of my city and back to her cocktail party circuit or wherever it is she spent her—”

Nicole made the mistake of trying to sit up on her own. Pain ripped through her, stealing her breath and making her moan. She sank back into the bed and closed her eyes. Claire here? Because Nicole’s life wasn’t sucky enough already?

“I hate her.”

“I know.” Wyatt squeezed her fingers. “She thinks she’s helping.”

It was too much, Nicole thought. “I can’t deal with her right now. Just keep her away from me. I mean it, Wyatt. Don’t let her come to the hospital.”

“I won’t,” he promised, then kissed her forehead.

He was a good guy, she thought as sleep beckoned. One of the best. Why hadn’t she been smart enough to fall in love with him? Instead she’d fallen for Drew. Talk about a disaster. All of it. And now Claire? What was next? Locusts?

CLAIRE ARRIVED at the hospital in plenty of time to take Nicole home. The previous day she’d made the drive twice so she was familiar with the route. Driving was a little less scary, as well. As long as she stayed off the freeway, she felt almost competent. She’d also talked to Nicole’s nurse, explaining that they were family and that she, Claire, wanted to pick her up. They had given her the approximate time of release. Now Claire was here and ready to help.

She tried not to think too much about Wyatt’s claim that Nicole knew nothing about her visit and wasn’t going to be happy to see her. Despite repeated calls to Jesse’s cell phone, she’d been unable to catch her, nor had Jesse answered any of her messages. Obviously something was going on, but Claire was confident it was little more than a misunderstanding that could be easily cleared up. At least that’s what she told herself every time her stomach flipped over or her chest started to constrict.

She tightened her grip on her handbag as she exited the elevator and started down the long hallway. The signs pointed to the nurses’ station, but before she got there, she saw Nicole in a wheelchair being pushed by a nurse, with Wyatt bringing up the rear.

Emotions flooded Claire, bringing her to a stop as she just stared at the sister she hadn’t seen in years. Nicole looked good, pale, but that made sense. The woman had just had surgery. She wore a zip-up hoodie over a T-shirt, with her hair pulled back in ponytail. Claire instantly felt overdressed.

“Nicole,” she whispered, fierce joy filling her. They were together again. Finally.

“Oh, crap,” Nicole muttered. “Can I get more drugs?”

“Your sister?” the nurse asked. “You look alike. Almost like twins.”

“Fraternal and don’t make a bad situation worse by talking about it,” Nicole said.

Wyatt put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take care of this.” He walked to Claire. “What are you doing here? I told you not to come.”

She ignored him and Nicole’s snarky comments, instead rushing forward, then crouching in front of her sister. She wanted to hug her, but was afraid of hurting her. She settled on touching her arm and smiling into her eyes.

“You look great. How do you feel?”

Nicole stared at her. “Like I had an organ ripped out. What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“No, you’re not,” Wyatt said. “That’s why I’m here.”

“What are you doing in Seattle?” Nicole asked. “Please tell me it’s a short visit that ends in an hour.”

“I heard about your surgery, so I flew here to take care of you.”

“That’s so sweet,” the nurse said.

“I don’t need your help,” Nicole said. “Go away.”

Claire was doing her best not to react to all the hostility. She told herself that her sister was in pain, that Wyatt didn’t know her and that a lot of time and bad feelings had come between the Keyes sisters. It was going to take more than a day to heal old wounds.

What she wanted to do was stand up, stomp her foot and point out that she was the wronged party here. That Nicole had turned her back on Claire years ago and refused to reconsider her position. That she’d been blamed for things that had hurt her just as much as them. But there was no point in starting there. She was here for a purpose.

She stood. “I’m not going anywhere.You need me.”

Nicole groaned. “I need a lot of things, but you’re not one of them. Wyatt, did I tell you to shoot me before? Did you listen?”

Wyatt put his hand on her shoulder. “I told you I couldn’t do that.”

“All men are useless,” Nicole muttered, then looked back at Claire. “You want to get up so I can get out of here? I hurt, I’m tired and I just want to go home.”

“My car is right out front,” Claire told her. “I know the way. I practiced the drive.”

“We’re all so proud.”

The nurse gave Claire a sympathetic smile, then pushed her patient toward the elevators. Claire trailed after them, not sure what to say or do. She couldn’t force Nicole into her car. Maybe it would be better to let Wyatt deal with getting Nicole to the house and Claire could take over from there.

Still, it hurt to be rejected and ignored. She’d hoped things would be different.

“I’ll change them,” she told herself as they walked out into the cool, spring morning.

There was a large truck parked in front of the entrance. Wyatt opened the passenger door, then lifted Nicole inside and put her on the seat.

Claire watched, aching at the sight of the tenderness and care Wyatt displayed. She wanted a little of that for herself. Not from Wyatt, but from someone. She wanted a man to care about her, worry about her. She wanted friends and family. She wanted a life.

Which was mostly what she’d come home to find.