Whisper Falls by Toni Blake Page A

finally asked.
    “Mike said to tell you to stay away from him,” Rachel announced. “Mike said he’s dangerous.”
    Tessa sat up a little straighter, ready to defend herself. “Wait a minute. Mike doesn’t know anything about him now. So Mike only thinks he’s dangerous. And—” She stopped, a sudden off-topic thought striking her. “What’s with you calling him Mike lately anyway? What happened to Romo? And Romeo?” Rachel had been in the habit of calling Mike by his last name more often than his first, along with a few other choice nicknames that had come to seem like a weird mating call between them.
    Rachel sighed. “It was making him mad.”
    And Amy made a face. “It’s always made him mad and that never stopped you before.”
    “Yeah, but I’m marrying him now, you know?” She tilted her head, shrugged. “If I’m gonna spend the next fifty years with him, I really have to start being nicer.” Then she narrowed her gaze on Tessa. “Now quit trying to change the subject. Back to you working for Lucky. Seriously, what are you thinking ?”
    Tessa felt it was fairly obvious. “Um, that I need the money? And that he’s the first person to offer me work in my field of expertise since I came home?”
    “What have I missed here?” Rachel asked. “A couple of days ago you were smart enough to be nervous about him. Why aren’t you still nervous?”
    Tessa let out a breath and was honest. “Look, even if I’m a little nervous, I’ve been struggling to get this business off the ground, and now someone has offered me a job. I don’t see how I can pass it up.” The part she left out was: And I like the way he makes me feel. When he looks at me. When he says those flirtatious little things. Scary or not , I’m weirdly drawn to him.
    “I don’t like it,” Rachel said staunchly.
    In response, Tessa just crossed her arms and flashed a pointed look. “You’re becoming the female version of Mike.” As Rachel gasped, her blue eyes blazing, Tessa went on. “And I’m sure this will be fine—and maybe it’ll even give me a chance to . . . learn more about him. For Mike,” she added. Even though she was completely curious on her own behalf, too. “Speaking of which, is Mike going to . . . go see him or anything?”
    “He’s not sure.” Rachel sounded a little down again. “I mean, Lucky just disappearing the way he did, after them losing their sister, left Mike an only child and devastated his family all the more. He doesn’t seem inclined to forgive him.”
    Tessa nodded. It was a complex situation.
    “And he’s wondering what Lucky’s doing here,” Rachel continued, “if he didn’t come home to reconnect with his family. And . . .” Suddenly looking perplexed, she went silent and squinted at Tessa over her mug. “Stop. Wait. Lucky Romo needs an interior decorator ?”
    Tessa could only hold out her hands, palms up, and shrug. “Yeah—I didn’t see that coming, either.”
    But no matter what Mike thought about Lucky, she wasn’t changing her decision. Because, as she’d told Amy yesterday, she needed to do something. Anything . And sure, getting a peek into Lucky Romo’s life probably wouldn’t sound that exciting to most people, but for her, right now, it was a little exciting. And who knew? Maybe feeling a little fearful of him even made it more appealing. Yet she’d never been the kind of girl to go after the bad boy—this wasn’t about that. This was about having lost so much time on illness and defeat that now she simply wanted to feel something else. Even a little danger, if that’s what it took.
    T essa stepped out the back door of her cabin, sketch tablet and pencil in hand, and looked up at Lucky’s house. Simple white clapboard, black shutters, evergreen shrubbery around the front—no flowers. Clean, simple lines. Neat and tidy without being homey. Taking a deep breath, she started up the hill.
    At a glance, no one would ever know a big, bad biker lived