The Lancaster Men (12 page)

“Running errands is all anybody thinks I’m good for around this place,” Rory griped. “Nobody listens to me. They just pat me on the head and tell me to be a good boy and run along.”

Shari realized that she hadn’t been very understanding. As he turned to leave, she added, “Thanks for caring, Rory.”

He paused to look back and slanted her a half-smile. “I’m just your kid brother. What do I know about anything?” he mocked without any bitterness and walked into the hall, closing the door behind him.

Alone in her room once again, Shari was reminded again of the lateness of the hour by the bright sunlight pouring into the room. The summer day already promised to be a hot one.

The thick wails of the old southern mansion kept out a lot of the heat, but it still needed the assistance of central air conditioning to keep the temperature inside at a comfortable level. Shari dressed for the season in a pair of blue cotton slacks and a lighter blue T-shirt with the insignia of her sorority printed on the front.

Before going downstairs for a late breakfast, she stopped in her mother’s room. Elizabeth Lancaster was seated in one of the cushioned chairs in the sitting area of her large bedroom, listening to the radio. Shari smiled at the sight of her mother up and about after seeing her so many times in bed.

“Good-morning.” She walked over to kiss her mother’s cheek.

“Good-morning, sleepyhead.” Her mother still spoke slowly but with much less effort. “I was beginning to wonder where you were.”

“I just got up,” Shari admitted. “Need I ask how you are this morning?”

“If I told you I’m going to ask the doctor to let me come downstairs and have dinner with the family tonight, would that answer your question?” she countered with a small smile.

“Yes, I think it would. When’s Doctor Franck coming? This afternoon?” she asked.

“Yes, he’s supposed to be here around two, barring any emergencies,” her mother explained, then her maternal instincts surfaced. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No, I was just going downstairs and decided to check on you first.” Shari didn’t wait to be lectured on the necessity of starting out the day with a
nourishing breakfast. “Would you like me to bring a book from the library when I come back?”

“Yes.” Her mother nodded with a twinkle in her eye. “Make it a murder mystery.”

“I’ll pick out one with bodies lying all over the place,” Shari laughed.

“Please, not too many,” she admonished with a faint smile. “Now, go eat your breakfast.”

The downstairs seemed empty. There wasn’t a soul around, although Shari heard the steady hum of a vacuum cleaner coming from one of the rooms. She didn’t disturb Mrs. Youngblood from her morning cleaning and bypassed the dining room. The table had already been cleared of breakfast dishes.

She went straight to the kitchen to fix her own small breakfast. There was coffee in the pot. Shari poured herself a cup, got a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator, and fixed two slices of toast. It was too close to lunchtime to have a full morning meal.

When she had finished, Shari washed up her own dishes and put them away in the cupboards. She left the kitchen to go to the library crossing her fingers that she wouldn’t run into Whit.

When Shari neared the library, the sound of the vacuum cleaner grew louder. At the doorway, she saw the housekeeper running the machine over the large area rug. Shari hesitated to enter, not wanting to get in the woman’s way, but Mrs. Youngblood saw her and motioned her into the room.

For the most part, the library was the domain of the Lancaster males. As a result, its decor was very masculine. There was a preponderance of darkly stained wood, heavy furniture covered in burgundy-red leather, and a massive, centuries-old desk and chair.

The housekeeper made one more swipe across the print rug as Shari entered the library, then switched off the vacuum cleaner. Aware that her grandfather constantly shooed Mrs. Youngblood out of the library before she could finish her cleaning, Shari
didn’t want the woman to feel she had to stop because she was there.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” she protested. “I’m just going to get a book for Mother and I’ll be gone.”

“You’re not,” Mrs. Youngblood insisted. “Miracle of miracles, I’m through. The minute Mr. Frederick went out for a walk, I dashed in here. For once, I have it all cleaned before he returned.”

Shari smiled in silent understanding. “I didn’t want you to think I was chasing you out.”

She mentally filed away the information that her grandfather was taking a morning stroll, but she didn’t ask where Whit was. She presumed he was also outside somewhere.

“You missed breakfast,” the housekeeper said as she unplugged the vacuum cleaner cord and began winding it up. “Would you like me to fix you something?”

“I’ve already raided the kitchen,” Shari admitted and walked to the bookshelves that filled the wall next to the brick fireplace. “I think I can make it until lunch.”

The housekeeper rolled the silent vacuum cleaner toward the doorway. “The library is all yours. Would you answer the phone if it rings? I can’t always hear it when I’m cleaning,” she explained.

“Of course,” Shari promised.

A few minutes later, the vacuum cleaner was started up again, its loud hum coming from the living room. Shari paid little attention to it, busy perusing the fiction titles in search of a novel her mother might enjoy.

Just as she took an Agatha Christie book from the shelf to glance through, she thought she heard footsteps. She turned her head to absently glance toward the door. Her heart and lungs seemed to stop functioning. Whit was halfway into the library before he noticed her standing by the bookshelves. He stopped abruptly.

Her fingers tightened around the hardbound book, all her senses sharpened by his presence. The story line of the novel ceased to be important. The only thing that mattered now was getting out of the room. Her pulse was running away with itself, sending a heat coursing through her veins.

The tension in the air was so intense it seemed suffocating. With the book clutched tightly in her hand, Shari tore her gaze from Whit’s strong features and started for the door.

“Don’t go yet,” he stated. “I want to talk to you.”

Shari faltered for an instant, almost responding to the firm authority in his voice. She caught herself in time.

“We have nothing to say to each other.” She was deliberately cold.

With her head held high, Shari walked to the opened door. She had almost reached the safety of the entry hall when Whit grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the library, closing the door to shut them both in. Shari had been trying so hard to avoid a situation like this where she was alone with him. She was rigid with a panic she didn’t want him to see.

“I said I wanted to talk to you,” Whit repeated.

Shari was reminded that his word was always
accompanied by action. He didn’t believe in arguing a point. He intended to talk to her whether or not she wanted to listen. In a show of stubbornness, she clamped her mouth shut, intending for it to be a strictly one-sided conversation.

The set of his jaw was hard with displeasure when he studied her defiant expression. Her attitude was plain and Whit was able to read her like a book. His gaze narrowed in grim disapproval.

“How long do you intend to carry on this war of silence?” Whit challenged.

Shari refused to answer him. It was useless to try for the door. Whit would only catch her and haul her back, so she turned into the room. But he caught her arm again to swing her around and force Shari to face him.

This time his hold on her arm brought a vivid rush of memories. She couldn’t be indifferent to it or them. Alone in the library with him, there was too much chance that the scene in his bedroom might be repeated.

“Don’t touch me,” she warned, her teeth tightly clenched to keep the tremor out of her voice.

Whit breathed out a silent, humorless laugh and didn’t let her go. “It’s no good telling me that—not after I’ve held you and kissed you. I couldn’t stay away from you any more than a drowning man can stop himself from grabbing at a rope.”

A little shiver trickled down her spine, because Shari knew he was right. They had crossed a bridge, and there wasn’t any going back. Struggling against the grip of his hand could incite him into something more physical, so Shari chose to stiffly stand her
ground in silent resistance. But her senses were reacting to him, disturbed in a way that was more sensual than scared. She had to resist them as well.

“Do you think I wanted this to happen?” Whit demanded. “I tried to deny what I was feeling for you but I couldn’t. And I can’t.”

She lowered her gaze to the front of his shirt; the material was stretched across his flatly muscled chest, pulling at the buttons. It was extremely easy to recall the feel of the hard flesh the shirt concealed, and the sensations touching it had aroused.

“That’s your problem,” Shari insisted because she had her hands full with her own.

“I’ve waited a long time for you to look at me as a man,” he stated. “You did the other night, for the first time.”

Holding her silence, Shari didn’t bother to correct him that it hadn’t been the first time. She’d had glimpses of him a few times just prior to that night, because of things Doré had said and the territorial instincts that had surfaced. But she wasn’t any better prepared for such recognition now than she was then.

“You know I’m right. Why won’t you admit it?” Whit showed some of his impatience with her.

“I’ll admit nothing because there’s nothing to admit!” Shari lied vigorously. “I hate you for the way you’ve ruined everything.”

“What did I ruin?” He shook his head in a kind of quiet disgust. “I was never your brother. You chose to look upon me as one, but that’s not what I was. That’s not what I am.”

“Don’t you see?” she argued. “I can never trust you again. It will never be the same between us!”

“If you gave it a chance, it would be better,” he insisted.

“No!” She wouldn’t even consider that possibility.

“Shall I prove it?” Whit challenged with an arching brow that seemed to mock her denial.

“Leave me alone. That’s all I want from you.” Shari strained away from him, not trying to break free yet wanting as much distance between them as possible. A treacherous temptation was insidiously working on her system in the face of his suggestive challenge. “If it hadn’t been for Mother, I would have left this house the next morning and never came back.”

“Your mother wasn’t the only reason you stayed.” He smoothly dismissed her explanation. “There’s a part of you that felt something happen that night. Curiosity made you stay to see if it could happen again.”

“That’s not true.” But a quiver of apprehension removed the conviction from her voice, because that traitorous curiosity was working on her right now.

She was conscious of his masculine build, the understated potency of his male charm, and the unnerving line of his mouth. In spite of her determination to show indifference, Shari was stimulated by his closeness, the familiar aroma of tobacco that clung to his clothes and mingled with his own individual scent, and the clean, strong lines of his features.

“Prove it, then,” Whit challenged.

“How?” She was thrown into confusion.

“Kiss me the way you would kiss Rory.” He eyed her with a knowing look that openly doubted her ability to do it.

“That’s ridiculous,” Shari protested with ill-concealed panic. “Why should I have to prove anything to you?”

“You’re not proving it to me,” he countered. “You’re proving it to yourself.”

“And the result would be your interpretation.” She was thinking fast, trying to find a way out of the dangerous entrapment of his challenge. “If I kissed you the same way I would kiss Rory, there would be warmth and love in it. You’d simply take that and twist it into something entirely different.”

“Like desire, for instance?” Whit mocked her softly, and Shari trembled a little because she could feel that sensation stirring inside her.

When he took the book out of her hand, there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. She felt helpless and she hated the feeling. Resisting Whit was like crossing swords with a master fencer. She’d never win.

But Shari wasn’t a quitter. Defiance shimmered in her green eyes as he slowly pulled her rigid body into his arms, but they closed when his mouth settled onto hers. At first, its pressure tantalized her lips, almost laughing at their rigid line. The pervasive warmth of his embrace spread through her limbs while he slowly deepened the kiss.

At some point, she began kissing him back, returning the lazy ardor. The circle of his arms tightened
to mold her to his hard length. The instant Shari realized how quickly she had surrendered, she turned her head away from him and tightly closed her eyes in self-reproach.

“There’s nothing sinful about wanting me, Shari,” he murmured near her ear. The gentle insistence of his tone almost persuaded her to believe him. “It’s as natural as breathing.”

“I can’t,” she protested in a husky note. “Not after all these years.”

“I know you need time to adjust,” Whit admitted grudgingly and lifted his head. “That’s why I’ve stayed away from you this past week so you could think things through for yourself.”

When Shari pushed out of his arms, Whit didn’t try to stop her. “I want you to stay away from me,” she insisted, because she knew that she couldn’t trust herself anymore.

“I won’t,” he warned. “You’re rejecting me for the wrong reasons.”

“How can you be so sure?” She was forced into defying him. “You think you know everything! Well, you don’t!”

“I don’t know everything, but I know you,” Whit stated with calm certainty.

Shari sought refuge in a general anger at his sex. “I’m wasting my time talking to you. You Lancasters are all alike. Your opinion is the only one that matters.” Agitated, she looked around. “Where did you put the book I had? I was taking it to Mother.”

“It’s right here.” He picked it up from a side table and handed it to her, faint amusement showing
through his arrogant expression. That only angered her more.