The Lancaster Men (10 page)

“I had a sandwich at the hospital so I’m not very hungry,” she warned the elderly man at the head of the table.

Lancaster tradition dictated that the head of the table dish out the portions. He nodded a silent acknowledgment and continued ladling the peanut soup from its tureen into individual cups.

“How was Mom today?” Rory asked.

“Very good.” Shari took the cup of soup Whit passed to her and noticed it was only half-full. “Doctor Ellis was in this afternoon and said if she kept it up, she could come home on Monday.”

Throughout the meal, it seemed to Shari that everyone was determined to avoid any subject that might be controversial. Even Rory managed to revert to his old teasing ways. It was the most pleasant dinner she had enjoyed at Gold Leaf in a long time.

When Mrs. Youngblood carried in a tray with individual servings of peach cobbler, Shari folded her napkin and laid it beside her place setting. “None for me, thank you,” she refused and glanced at her watch. “I need to call Beth and let her know not to expect me on Sunday.”

“That isn’t necessary,” Granddad Lancaster spoke up. “I have already contacted the college and your sorority to inform them that you wouldn’t be returning until the fall.”

Shari was stunned, an anger building. “And who gave you the right to do that?” she demanded.

“It’s done, Shari.” Whit attempted to calm her down with a quiet word and a silencing look.

“It’s done.” She angrily taunted him with his own phrase. “And I’m supposed to accept it.”

“There’s very little you can do about it now,” he pointed out.

“That’s what Granddad counted on,” she retorted and flashed a rebellious look at the instigator of the scene. “You think you can run everybody’s life, don’t you?” Shari challenged. “Well, you’re not running mine!”

“I was merely saving you the trouble—” Frederick Lancaster began.

“No you weren’t! You were making trouble! You always make trouble!” she raged and abruptly stood up, nearly knocking her chair over.

She wanted to throw something at him but she knew that was wrong. Pivoting away from the table, Shari walked quickly from the room and headed directly for the staircase. She seethed in a low fury as she climbed the stairs to seek the privacy of her room.

Angered that she had ever agreed to stay, Shari swept into her room and obeyed the impulse to lock her door. With her hands clenched into fists, she walked to the second-story window and stared through the glass panes at the sheds and bulk barns for storing Gold Leaf tobacco. Beyond the plantation buildings were the rolling fields of leggy tobacco plants, coloring the ground with a deep shade of green.

In the outer hallway, footsteps approached her
door. Shari stiffened and glanced warily over her shoulder, fires of resentment still burning green in her eyes. The doorknob was tried but its locked bolt resisted the attempt. A trio of summoning knocks followed each other in rapid succession.

“Shari, open the door.” Whit’s firm voice was slightly muffled by the separating panel of the heavy door.

“Leave me alone,” she replied. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

She didn’t want him to reason away her anger. She had a right to feel outraged at the way the patriarch of the Lancaster family had taken it upon himself to handle her affairs.

“You’re acting like a child.” His voice was curt with impatience. “Unlock this door.”

His accusation that her behavior was childish prompted Shari to take a step toward the door. She stopped the instant she realized that had been his intention.

“I will not,” Shari stated to let him know she wouldn’t be coerced.

“All right. Just stay in there and pout,” Whit replied grimly.

He didn’t give her a chance to change her mind. Shari heard his footsteps carry him away from her door the minute he had finished speaking. She was left with the uncomfortable sensation that she hadn’t handled the scene very well. There was a vague irritation with herself that she couldn’t quite shake.

It became a silly matter of pride that kept her in the room the rest of the evening. To pass the time,
Shari made a project out of bathing and washing her hair. Finally she was left with nothing else to do but get ready for bed.

Lying beneath the covers, she listened to the male members of the Lancaster family turning in for the night. Whit’s room was next to hers. The dividing walls partially muffled the sounds of him moving about. Finally the house was silent. She closed her eyes but she wasn’t even close to being sleepy.

Alone in her bedroom, Shari felt isolated and adrift. Memories of long-ago nights crowded into her mind—the innocent, midnight chats in Whit’s room. She longed for that comfortable relationship when she had been able to talk over her problems, big or small, with Whit.

Those had been special times, precious moments to look back on with fondness. There was a desire to reach back into the past and make it part of the present.

Throwing aside her covers, she climbed out of bed and pulled on a robe over her shortie pajamas. There wasn’t any need for a light as Shari made her way to the door and unlocked it. She knew her way around the house blindfolded.

Her bare feet made hardly any sound in the
carpeted hallway. Not wanting to waken the other members of the household, Shari went directly to Whit’s door. A sliver of light shone beneath it, letting her know he wasn’t yet alseep. She knocked softly. Obeying old habits, she opened the door a crack without waiting for permission to enter.

“It’s me,” Shari whispered when she saw him sitting up in bed, smoking a cigarette. “Can I come in?”

“It’s late,” he reminded her without actually telling her she couldn’t.

“I know.” She slipped inside his room and quietly closed the door.

The only light in his room came from the lamp on his bedside table. Its pool of light illuminated the man in bed, propped into a sitting position by a pair of pillows. A blanket and sheet covered the lower half of his body, but his naked chest was exposed to her view, a dark circling of hairs in its center. It wasn’t an uncommon sight. Shari remembered from past occasions that Whit had a habit of sleeping in his undershorts.

It had never bothered her before to see the sinewed expanse of his naked shoulders and the muscled flatness of his stomach. She tried to ignore the vague disturbance that wandered through her system this time.

“Maybe I should follow your lead and start locking my door,” Whit suggested when she approached his bed.

“I wasn’t in the mood to talk,” she offered in the way of an indirect apology for locking him out of her
room earlier that night. “You shouldn’t smoke in bed,” Shari criticized to change the subject.

“I believe you’ve warned me about that before.” He crushed the cigarette butt in the glass ashtray on the nightstand. Several others already occupied the ashtray along with a collection of ashes.

“Obviously you don’t pay attention,” she observed. “I guess you take after your grandfather. He does what he wants regardless of what other people say.”

“When are you going to grow up and realize he’s an old man.” Whit didn’t show any sympathy for her position. “Do you have any idea what it cost him to turn over the management of Gold Leaf to me because he wasn’t capable of running it anymore?”

“I’m sure it was difficult for him,” Shari conceded grudgingly.

“Difficult? It nearly killed him.” His reply was flat. “He has tried to compensate for that loss by asserting authority over you and Rory. He wants to be important so he takes things upon himself to fill that need.”

Shari knew she had never considered the situation in that light, but it was hard for her to admit it. She had a stubborn streak that ran a mile wide.

“That’s easy for you to say. It isn’t your life he’s trying to run,” she retorted, then sighed. “I try not to lose my temper with him but I always do.”

“Have you ever tried counting to ten?” Whit suggested dryly, evoking a smile from her.

“No, Grandad would suspect that I can’t count that high.” Shari grinned and pushed at long,
blanket-covered mounds where his legs were. “Move over so I can sit down.”

Something hard flashed in his eyes as he shifted his position to make room for her. “Don’t you think you’re too old to be climbing into my bed in the middle of the night?” Whit challenged.

Shari didn’t take his question seriously and climbed onto his bed to sit cross-legged facing him. “I’ve missed those long talks we used to have on this bed.”

Her glance wandered around the room, touching on familiar objects like the photograph of his parents on the dresser and a later, family portrait that included her mother, Rory, and herself. A hooked rug continued to occupy the center of the room, protecting the hardwood floor. Time had changed little about the room, outside of a few new books on the shelf above the desk.

“One of the best things that ever happened to me was when my mother married John Lancaster and you became my brother, Whit,” she declared, bringing her gaze back to him.

But his attention was focused on the ruffled neckline of her pajama top where it dipped low to reveal the swell of her breasts. There was sharp, almost angry, reproval in his glance when it lifted to her face.

“Why did you bother to wear a robe?” he challenged.

A little embarrassed by her inadvertent lack of modesty, Shari fumbled for the loose ends of the robe’s sash. “I guess I just forgot to tie it.” She quickly corrected that omission, crossing the front
folds of the robe over each other and securing them with a knot in the cloth belt.

“I think it’s time you were going back to your own room,” Whit stated with a thin-lipped expression.

“Not yet,” Shari protested. “We’ve hardly had a chance to talk.”

“Then get up,” he ordered. “If we’re going to talk, it’s going to be somewhere other than this bed.”

Although puzzled by his behavior, she uncurled her legs and slid off the bed to the floor. The bed had always been the location for their talks. She didn’t understand why he was suddenly changing the routine.

“Hand me my pants,” Whit ordered. “They’re lying on that chair over there.” Shari walked to the straight-backed chair he had indicated and started to pick up the pair of tan denims draped across the seat. “I’ve got stuff in the pockets,” he warned her not to let it fall out.

She picked them up by the waistband and carried them to the bed. “Here you are.” She handed them over to him.

Whit remained under the covers, holding the pants in his hand and looking at her expectantly. But Shari didn’t know what he expected from her. The corners of his mouth were pulled inward in an expression of exhausted patience.

“Will you please turn around?” he requested with a circling gesture of his hand, a trace of harshness in his tone.

She released a short laugh of surprise. “Are you serious?” she asked, unable to keep the laughter out
of her voice. “Whit, I’ve seen you in your under-shorts before.”

But he didn’t find anything funny about the situation. If anything, his expression became harder and more forbidding.

“Dammit, I said turn around,” he snapped.

Bewildered over the reason for his anger, Shari did as she was told and faced away from the bed. His attitude seemed to change the entire atmosphere in the room. She was much more conscious of the sounds he was making behind her—the muted clink of the coins in his pockets as he pulled on his pants and the zip of the fly closing. It started a lot of disturbing thoughts.

She tried to eliminate them by making light of the situation. “When did you become so shy, Whit?” she asked, very careful not to turn her head. “I don’t remember modesty being one of your virtues.”

There was an impatient click of a cigarette lighter. Out of the corner of her eye, Shari caught the swirl of tobacco smoke. Then Whit was briskly walking by her toward the chairs on the other side of the room. He stopped when he realized she wasn’t following him and looked back at her.

“You said you wanted to talk,” he reminded her curtly. “Let’s talk.”

“What is the matter with you, Whit?” She was drawn slowly in his direction, her gaze searching the taut features for an explanation for his strange behavior. “You aren’t acting like yourself at all.”

“Oh?” The simple sound bordered on a taunting challenge. “Perhaps you should enlighten me on the
proper way I should behave.” He had just lit the cigarette and already he was turning to put it out, using an ashtray on the desk. “Just exactly what is it that you expect from me?”

“I guess I expect you to act more like the Whit I remember.” Shari wasn’t certain herself.

“Times change—and people change with them,” he answered curtly.

“Maybe so,” she shrugged. “But you’re still my brother.”

Something seemed to snap in him. The anger that had been held in check suddenly erupted. Shari blinked in shock when he roughly grabbed her arms and gave her a hard shake. A dark fury raged in his hard eyes.

“Dammit, I am not your brother!” His voice was husky with his effort to keep its volume down. “What is it going to take to get it through your head that we are not related?”

“But—” How could he say that? They were, too.

Whit read her thoughts before her befuddled mind could speak them. “It means nothing that my father married your mother. There’s no blood tie between us. You aren’t my sister. You’re a woman, and a damned beautiful woman at that!”

A little shiver of sensual alarm ran down her spine. She couldn’t deal with this kind of talk—not from Whit. She tried to push away from him but he simply tightened his hold to bring her closer to the bare wall of his chest.

Her hands were discovering a new sensation as they spread across the hard flesh of his shoulders in
an attempt to keep some distance between them. His body heat seemed to burn them and the warmth radiated through her sensitive nerve ends.

“Whit, let me go.” The breathless quality in her voice kept the request from being an order.

“If I were your brother, I wouldn’t let you go.” His hooded look roamed over her face. “I’d turn you over my knee for parading into a man’s bedroom in that skimpy pair of frilly pajamas. But I’m not your brother so you’ll get no spanking from me.”