Christmas Star (Contemporary, Romance) (15 page)

The liquor burned a fiery trail down Starr’s throat, but it was really his high-handed manner that choked her.

Clay grabbed for her glass. “Take it easy. Breathe slowly. That’s hundred-proof cognac you’re downing like soda pop.”

At last the burning stopped and Starr found her voice. “I’m doing the job I was trained to do.”

“Not on my horses.”

“Fine. I’ll walk.”

He spread his palms, then clenched his hands and looked away.

“I found a dead bighorn.” Her voice quavered. “A beautiful ram, about as perfect as could be. No obvious reason for his death.” Her eyes filled. “If I don’t find out what’s killing them before spring, we might lose the whole herd.”

Moved by her emotion, Clay knelt and grasped her hands. “That’s a tragedy, and I can see you want to help. But when it snows, the mountain is treacherous. If Harrison really cared about you, I should think he’d insist on keeping you safe.”

Harrison again. Starr studied the amber liquid in her glass. What could she say to make him see that
Harrison
wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with? Unable to think clearly when Clay touched her, she pulled away and set her glass aside. “Would it be all right if I used your phone to call a courier?”

Clay swore mildly as he stood. “Call Harrison, you mean?” he said bitterly. “Courier—is that a code word?” He reached for the phone. “I’ll talk to my brother.”

Starr felt a little like a bird caught in a trap. The number she was to call with her report was a message machine, but it had been set up by Harrison’s secretary. Even if she gave Clay the number, he’d recognize the woman’s voice and assume the worst. Either way, Starr knew she was doomed—and there was nothing she could do about it. These blood samples had to be tested.

C
LAY HAD BARELY
punched out the sequence of numbers to his brother’s San Francisco home when a shuddering cry filled the room.

Starr was shocked to see Vanessa McLeod hovering in the archway. Her eyes were clouded and confused. Tears ran down her pale cheeks.

It had been more than a year since Starr had seen the senator’s wife. She sat in awe of the woman’s flawless beauty. Her light blond hair framed her heart-shaped face like a soft halo. She wore a simple silk dress with just enough frills to make her too-thin frame look feminine. The woman’s most alluring feature, however, were her pansy-soft violet eyes. Widely spaced above a perfect nose and cupid’s-bow mouth, those eyes held a haunting vulnerability. Starr sincerely doubted that there had ever been a more fatal combination of beauty and fragility wrapped in one package.

It was no longer a mystery why both brothers vied for Vanessa’s attention. Nor why this helpless-looking creature turned to her brother-in-law for strength and support. Clay was a very masculine man—if not a touch predatory. Definitely a man to take command.

For one fleeting moment, Starr wished she could be delicate and needy like Vanessa McLeod. Then, as quickly, her independent spirit asserted itself. Wasn’t the power imbalance what she’d disliked most about her parents’ marriage? Indeed, in the film industry in general, there’d been an overabundance of men who misused power to get what they wanted—and even more women who let them.

Clay covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “Vanessa, what do you need? Is your headache worse, hon? Is it time for more medicine?”

Starr couldn’t help noticing how his tone gentled compared to his brusque orders to her only moments ago.

Vanessa glared at Starr. “Why is
she
here?” she asked as she swayed against the wall.

Clay picked up the phone, stretching the cord, as he moved to reach his sister-in-law. Not only was the cord too short, but Harrison chose that moment to answer. Clay sent Starr a silent plea for help.

He needn’t have, she was already on her feet. She led the stricken woman to the leather couch by the fire and urged her to sit.

“Harrison, so you are home?” Clay barked. “No...no, nothing’s wrong here. Why would it be?”

Surprised by his obvious fib, Starr glanced at him curiously. This time the pause while he listened was longer. Then as he caught her watching him, a sardonic curl of his upper lip bared his teeth below his dark mustache.

“Yes, we’re having a storm of sorts. No, your precious Starr is right here in the room with me—safe and sound.” Sarcastically he added, “Vanessa’s here, too, Harrison. In fact, she’s not feeling well. Maybe you’d like a word with your soon-to-be ex-wife.”

“No...no, I can’t. Let her.” Vanessa pointed at Starr. “Or you talk to him, Clay. I...he...we...” She shook her head in unconcealed distress.

Well, Barclay McLeod, you’re a real bastard,
Starr thought. It was evident that Vanessa suffered from the strain of being unfaithful, even if Clay was heartless enough to rub his brother’s nose in it.

Angered by his insensitivity, Starr marched over and jerked the phone from Clay’s hand. She turned away from him and Vanessa before speaking. “Harrison...Starr here. I need a courier ASAP. I took some blood samples today, but I don’t know how good they’ll be. The ram had been dead awhile.”

She felt Clay hovering. “Secrecy is pretty difficult,” she snapped at the man on the line when he asked what his brother knew. “I’m virtually living in their laps, Senator.” Glancing up and into a brass-framed mirror, Starr caught Clay’s scowl. She lowered her voice, murmuring, “Of course you don’t need to pop down here. No, I won’t take unnecessary risks.” Lord, she didn’t even want to
imagine
the family squabble if Harrison showed up.

The mirror showed Clay leading Vanessa from the room. He had one strong arm wrapped lovingly around the woman’s slender waist. When he bent to whisper something in her ear, a sharp ache shot through Starr’s chest. So intent was she on watching the couple she missed what Harrison had said.

“Starr, Starr, can you hear me?” The sharp note in his voice brought Starr crashing back to earth.

“Wh-what did you say?” Her fingers relaxed on the receiver the moment Clay and his partner moved out of sight.

“I said I should have listened to you, Starr. I’ve tried to tell Van that there’s nothing going on between you and me, but she refuses to believe me. Guess I blew it.”

Starr sighed. “A lot of that around here.”

“Clay, huh? Well, it doesn’t surprise me. He can’t accept what a person tells him. He keeps chipping away. It’s the main reason I didn’t want him to know about the sheep. Is he giving you a hard time?”

Inside she cried,
You don’t know the half of it. You should see him fawning over your wife.
Aloud she assured him, “He doesn’t know everything. Not about the test well. Although it might simplify things if he did.”

“No. Have you seen the paper? Two counties are on the verge of bankruptcy. A controversy right now would be ruinous. The ranchers could gum up the works.”

“That’s terrible!” Starr exclaimed. “I wish you were already governor.”

“With a divorce facing me, I may lose my backers,” he said gloomily.

“Don’t worry,” she said, feeling he needed a kind word. “The people of California are more liberal than most. I’m sure they won’t worry about your marital status when they go to the polls.”

She stopped, her eyes drawn by a shadow. The hair on the back of her neck rose. Flashes of heat skittered up her spine as she turned and read something akin to agony in Clay’s eyes.

“I’ll t-talk to you l-later, Senator,” she stammered, then dropped the phone into its cradle. But she was too far away, and it struck the desk with a clatter.

“What’s wrong, Clay?” Starr sucked in her bottom lip. “Is something wrong with Vanessa?” With fumbling fingers, she righted the phone.

“As if you’d give a damn, you conniving little witch.”

“Me?” Starr raised her chin. She was tired of taking the blame for Vanessa’s problems. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t cast stones.”

“I could wring your pretty neck.”

“I’m not the one who called to rub Harrison’s nose in it. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve had a tiring day. All I want is food and a hot shower. You and your brother can fight over the same bone. Leave me out of it, please.”

Clay looked as though he was about to unleash another tirade when Starr beat him to the punch and asked the question that had been nagging at her. “Who was the Mrs. Manning you were on the telephone with when I walked in?”

Her words flashed between them on electrically charged air.

Clay tensed. Damn. She’d caught him off guard. All he could do was avert his eyes and shrug.

An icy hand gripped Starr’s heart. “Wanda. It was Wanda Manning.” Her lungs screamed for air. “Why?” The single word whispered through lips gone numb with fear.

Turning away from her, Clay massaged the back of his neck. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”

“I’m not asking for myself.” She clutched his arm. “Tell me this isn’t about SeLi.”

She stood close enough for Clay to feel her breath on his cheek. And he could smell the faint scent of whatever perfume she’d put on this morning. Floral, he thought. His pulse tripped. He didn’t want to be having this discussion. He wanted to spirit her away and lose himself in her softness. Someplace they’d never be found.

Instead, he shut his eyes and held his breath to break the hold she had on his senses. In the next room were three living, breathing reasons he should run like hell. His brother’s wife, his son and
maybe
his illegitimate daughter. God, what a mess.

“I know Harrison set you up in that apartment,” he said grimly. “You could clear this up, Starr. Is my brother being blackmailed or simply hiding his love child?”

Icy shock waves started at Starr’s toes and worked their way up to her brain. All that registered was the part about Harrison setting her up in the apartment. Preposterous! Harrison hadn’t set her up anywhere. Reacting, not thinking, she grabbed the first solid object her hand came in contact with. It was a ceramic statue of a bucking horse, which sat on Clay’s desk.

“Wait.” He held up a hand. “Don’t throw that! It’s worth a mint. An original by a West Coast artist. My mom’s going to give it to my dad for Christmas.”

The urgency in his voice stopped her. She blinked and felt the weight of the object she held raised above her head. Lord, what was she doing? She who hated scenes? Quickly she set it back and brushed her palms on her thighs. “You’re right. It’s much too nice to waste on a scuzzball like you.”

She took a deep breath. “I was right all along. The first time I saw you I suspected you wanted to use me to discredit the senator. Now I see you want to use SeLi, too. Well, I won’t let you hurt her!” God, how could she have felt anything warm, anything
romantic,
for this jerk?

At the moment Starr thought she hated Barclay McLeod. Thoroughly sick at heart, she turned and ran from the room.

Clay took a moment to return his dad’s gift to the box that sat under his chair. It had come in the mail and he’d just opened it when the Manning woman called. As he set the package aside, he heard Starr talking earnestly to SeLi; that was followed by the slam of the front door. A slam hard enough to rattle the mullioned windows in his den.

Clay lifted the curtain and watched her cross the clearing with long, rapid strides, SeLi trotting to keep up. Damn, he’d botched things for sure. Even now, he didn’t know the truth about SeLi Lederman.

Someone, Morgan probably, turned on the porch light. It outlined two sets of footprints on the new-fallen snow. Ah. Good. At least with this weather, he didn’t have to worry about Starr pulling up stakes and running away.

“Clay!”

He heard the tremor in his sister-in-law’s voice. Poor Van. What would become of her when the media started ripping her family to shreds? And they would. Starr Lederman was dead wrong if she thought the voters of California would ignore Harrison’s indiscretions. Voters liked nothing better than the smell of scandal. And the juicier that scandal, the better.

Clay let the curtain drop. Should he bide his time until Mrs. Manning called again, or hope Starr would reconsider and come clean? If all else failed, he could call Judge Forbes. Except then he’d have to say how sorry he was about Joel. Clay remembered the judge’s distress when he’d called to offer his condolences after he’d heard about the accident; he didn’t want to open any old wounds. “I’d better wait it out,” he muttered as he went to see what his sister-in-law needed.

* * *

T
HE COURIER’S PLANE
had come and gone. Starr sat up long after she’d tucked SeLi into bed. Clay’s words continued to fester. As she’d said before, Harrison was the nicer brother.

Plopping down in the tiny kitchen nook, Starr thumbed absently through SeLi’s math workbook. A photograph fell out, followed by another. She picked up the first—a picture of Morgan McLeod. She smiled. He must have given it to her. Morgan and SeLi. Two more unlikely friends she’d never known. This photo wasn’t current—a year or two old, she’d guess.

She scooped the second picture up from where it had landed facedown, and her breath caught in her throat. Staring at her from the glossy, color print was Clay. The lens extolled the careless denim look he wore so well. The look that made blue jeans high art. He wore gleaming cowboy boots. One rested on the brick hearth, giving the appearance of studied ease. Blue eyes beckoned, although a faintly mocking smile told Starr he was only tolerating the photography session. He needed his hair cut, she noticed.

Starr ran a finger over his broad chest. Some bodies spoke for themselves. The picture slipped through her shaking fingers. Why did SeLi have a picture of Clay? She wasn’t still entertaining any dangerous fantasies about him as her father, was she? Starr certainly hoped not.

What was it Clay had said? Something stupid about blackmail, and... Starr closed her eyes. When she opened them again, it hit her like a meteor racing through a starry night.
Harrison’s love child.
She gasped. Was he implying that SeLi was Senator McLeod’s daughter?

“My God, no!” Jumping up, she carried the picture of Morgan over to the light. What did she actually know about SeLi’s birth mother? Only that she’d been incredibly sick. And small, dark-haired, excruciatingly thin.

Starr switched off the light and stumbled to bed. She welcomed the comfort of darkness. Even huddled under a mound of blankets, she couldn’t seem to get warm. She reminded herself that the senator had only gotten involved in the adoption because she needed someone to vouch for her. Or had he?

She thought back to her own involvement with that situation on the wharf. Her dad had been on his way to film in Japan, and he’d stopped to take her to dinner. Harrison was at the restaurant with a group of friends. At one point he asked Samuel to join their party for an after-dinner drink. Starr would’ve gone home, but her dad insisted on toasting her new job at Fish and Game.

She’d been flattered that after insisting she stay, the senator had asked her to look into a problem with people on the wharf getting sick. He insinuated the Department of Health wasn’t moving fast enough.

It took some time for her to connect the illness to bad water. Not the drinking water, but wharf water—the fish they ate swam in it. The media usually blew things out of proportion, so she found it understandable that the senator and his team wanted the mess cleaned up without a lot of fanfare.

At the time she’d assumed the senator had taken such an interest because a ship from a politically touchy country was involved. Or because it was his district and so many people were getting sick.

Had she been naive? Was his interest, in fact, personal? She sat up and switched on the light. If SeLi was Harrison McLeod’s child, why had he allowed her to live in squalor? Unless he hadn’t known about her until then.

Starr’s head ached. Suddenly a host of doubts assailed her. If the senator was so nice, so considerate, why had his lovely wife sought solace in the arms of his younger brother?