The Lancaster Men (3 page)

“Well, I definitely think we should pay a visit to Shari’s family since we are this close,” Beth agreed to that extent. “How would you ever explain to them why we didn’t stop to say ‘hello’?”

“It’s very easy.” Shari tried not to let her irritation rise at the way they were ganging up on her. “They don’t know we’re here.”

“But surely you told them?” Beth stared.

“I wrote Mother that I was going to be spending these two weeks with friends. I didn’t mention where. I’m sure she’ll assume that I’m spending it with one of your families,” she replied.

“But the condominium? Don’t they know we’re using it?” Beth protested.

“No. In mother’s last letter, she said they weren’t going to be able to get away to spend any time here this summer. Since none of the family was going to be using it, I thought it was the ideal place for us to come.” Shari didn’t see what Beth was getting so upset about.

“Do you mean we’re staying here without permission?” Her friend frowned and bit worriedly at her lip.

“We don’t need permission to stay here,” Shari explained patiently. “The condo belongs to Whit. He certainly isn’t going to object to us using it.”

“I agree with Beth. I think you should have let him know we were going to be here,” Doré stated. “It could be embarrassing if he decided to come here this weekend with a female companion.”

“Whit wouldn’t do that sort of thing,” Shari retorted.

“Any man would do that sort of thing,” Doré corrected with a knowing look. “That’s probably why he has the condominium, so he could have a weekend hideaway.”

“It’s used for the family as a vacation spot,” she insisted. The thought of it being used for any other purpose was distasteful. “If you two have finished with your drinks, I’d like to watch some of the athletic events being held.”

“If you insist,” Doré agreed with I’ll grace.

The afternoon crowd was just beginning to disperse when the three girls left MacRae Meadows to return to the Lancaster condominium so they all would have time to shower and change before going out to dinner at the country club’s restaurant. The resort complex was almost literally carved out of a forest of trees and rock near the sheer cliffs of Grandfather Mountain.

When Shari inserted the key into the door, she discovered it was unlocked. She glanced over her shoulder at her two friends, her expression puzzled. “I locked the door before we left, didn’t I?”

“I thought you did,” Beth agreed, but she didn’t sound positive.

Turning the knob, Shari pushed the door open and looked inside before entering. Nothing appeared to be out of place. She was just about convinced she
had left the apartment without locking it until Doré called her attention to the suitcase sitting at the foot of the stairs.

“I have the feeling we aren’t the only ones who decided to use the condominium this weekend,” she murmured.

Shari tried very hard not to remember Doré’s earlier suggestion that Whit used the place for romantic weekends, but she felt an indignant anger begin to grow. She started toward the stairs leading to the upstairs bedrooms.

“Hello? Is anybody here?” She called out.

She had one foot on the stairs when a voice answered her. Only it came from the direction of the kitchen. “Shari? Is that you?”

She pivoted in surprise. She recognized the voice, but it wasn’t the one she had expected to hear. The kitchen door was pushed open and a tall, young man walked through. His hair was as black as her own, but his eyes were dark brown instead of green.

“Hi, Sis.” He didn’t seem at all surprised to see her. “How come you haven’t stocked this place with some food? The cupboards are bare or haven’t you noticed?”

“Rory! What are you doing here?” She stared at her younger brother and recovered her shock to move forward to meet him.

“I could ask you the same question,” he retorted with a grin. “I thought I was going to have the place to myself until I went upstairs and saw all those suitcases filled with women’s clothes. I was almost convinced that I was in the wrong condo. Then I saw your name on one of the luggage tags. Nobody
mentioned to me that you were going to be here this weekend.”

“I didn’t tell them,” she admitted, then came back to her original question. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. Mom never said anything about it in her last letter. As a matter of fact, she said none of the family would be using it. How did you manage to get away?”

“It was easy,” he shrugged. “I took a page out of your book.”

“What do you mean?” she frowned.

“I ran away,” he stated, his expression not changing from its lazy grin.

“You what!” Shari was stunned by his answer. At times, Rory could be a terrible tease. She was half-convinced this was one of them.

“Close your mouth, Shari.” He tapped the underside of her chin with his finger. “You’re creating a draft.” His glance wandered to her friends. “Granddad would be upset with your lack of manners, Sis. You haven’t introduced me to your friends.”

Prompted by his reminder, Shari went through the formality. “This is my younger brother, Rory Lancaster. These are two of my sorority sisters—Doré Evans and Beth Daniels.”

“I’m Beth.” She stepped forward to clarify the introduction. “Shari said it would be all right if we stayed here.”

“It is as far as I’m concerned,” Rory assured her. “We have an open-door policy in our family. Friends are always welcome.”

“Is Mother coming?” Shari was visualizing all
sorts of complications and trying to solve them before they occurred.

“No.”

Something in his expression made Shari ask, “You were just joking earlier, weren’t you?” She frowned because she suddenly wasn’t sure. “You didn’t leave Gold Leaf, did you?”

“I don’t know why you have any doubts.” His head moved to the side in an attitude of disappointment. “I thought you were the one person who would understand.”

“But why? What happened?”

Rory was nineteen, two years her junior. He’d always seemed so carefree, never taking anything too seriously. She could never recall him arguing with anyone, certainly never his grandfather.

“You know what it’s like at home,” he reminded her. “With Mom always pushing me and Granddad pulling me, and Whit walking around as the shining example of what I should become, I couldn’t take it any more.”

Beth shifted uneasily and glanced at Doré. “Why don’t we go upstairs and take our showers?” she suggested. “That way Shari and her brother can have some time alone.”

In a position where she had to reluctantly agree or appear impolite, Doré still showed her desire to see the outcome of this unfolding drama.

“I suppose that would be the thing to do.” She trailed slowly after Beth, lingering on the stairs to eavesdrop for as long as she could.

Shari eyed her younger brother with a grim sadness.
“I didn’t know you were having a difficult time at home.”

“How could you?” Rory shrugged, but his glance contained a hint of condemnation. “You’ve hardly been home at all these last three years. You have your college, friends, and all sorts of activities. Sometimes I have the feeling you’ve forgotten all about us.”

“That isn’t true,” she denied. “I don’t come home very often because—You know why I don’t so there isn’t any point in going into my problems.”

“Ever since you left, Granddad has been impossible to live with,” he grumbled. “Between him and Mother, I’ve been practically smothered.”

“Just because I rebelled against his authority, that didn’t give him any right to take it out on you.” She tried to control the rising temper that was invariably sparked by any discussion concerning the Lancaster patriarch. “You should have talked it over with Whit. Granddad listens to him.”

“Whit doesn’t know anything about it,” Rory replied.

“Do you mean you haven’t told him how you feel?” She studied her brother with confusion.

“He’s busy. You know what it’s like at this time of year.” He attempted to justify his silence, then shrugged. “Besides I’ve never been able to talk to him about my problems. You have always been closer to him than I’ve been.”

“That isn’t true,” she protested.

“Yes, it is. You’ve always confided everything in him,” Rory insisted. “I remember how you used to
slip into his bedroom at night. The two of you would talk for hours. Sometimes I’d lie in my bed listening to you and wish I could go in there.”

“But why didn’t you?” His revelation troubled her. They had never consciously excluded Rory from their late-night gatherings.

“I just didn’t, that’s all.” He shrugged his answer, revealing a regret that he’d even brought up the subject. “It doesn’t matter.”

Hesitating, Shari bit at the inside of her lip, then decided not to pursue the subject. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “I’m just going to relax for a few days and think. But I’m not cut out to be a tobacco farmer, Shari.” His frustration surfaced in an impatient rush. “Heck, I can’t even stand the smell of cigarette smoke!”

The remark sparked a childhood memory. “Do you remember that time we took a pack of Whit’s cigarettes and sneaked into the garage to smoke them?” A laughing smile spread across her features. “I was about ten years old and you were eight.”

“Boy, do I remember!” he laughed. “It must have been a hundred and fifty degrees in that garage. It was stuffy, with no circulation. The smoke just hung there in a blue cloud around our heads.”

“Every time we tried to inhale, we started coughing and choking,” Shari recalled, laughing with him.

Looking back on the incident, she could see its humor. At the time, it had seemed like high adventure. There had been excitement in sneaking off to do something forbidden.

“You got sick afterward,” she remembered and wondered if that had been the start of her younger brother’s abhorrence of tobacco.

“I was never so sick in all my life!” Rory admitted. “And you just laughed.”

“I’d never seen anybody turn green before,” she defended her reaction of that long-ago time. “Mother was so worried about you.”

“She never did guess what made me so sick.” There was a lopsided grin slanting his mouth.

“Whit did, though.”

“He did?” Rory expressed surprise. “He never said anything.”

“No. He saw how sick you were and decided that we had been sufficiently punished for our little escapade,” Shari replied.

“But how did he know?”

“I guess we reeked of tobacco smoke,” she supposed. “He lectured me about being such a corrupting influence on you.”

She remembered the glint that had been in Whit’s eyes and realized now he had been amused by the results of their encounter with the demon tobacco. As she gazed at Rory, she saw that he was still following in her footsteps and her amusement faded.

“The family will probably find me guilty of leading you astray again, now that you’ve left home.” Shari sighed.

“They shouldn’t blame you. It’s their own fault,” he insisted.

“It can’t be easy for them to accept, especially for Mother.” She knew the furor her own leaving had caused. “I suppose there was a big scene.”

“No.” He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his slacks and moved away, but not before Shari had glimpsed the vaguely guilty look on his face. Her gaze sharply narrowed in confusion.

“I can’t believe that you left without them trying to stop you.”

“I didn’t tell them I was going.” Before she could voice a reply, Rory turned to face her and justify his actions. “I told you that I took a page from your book. Whit was in the fields with the workers and Granddad was napping. Mom was at some ladies’ club. I did the same thing you did—packed up and left when no one was around.”

“Mother is going to be so upset.”
Not to mention Granddad Lancaster,
Shari thought but only to herself. That didn’t need to be said.

“I know. But I have my own life to live.” He staunchly defended his right to do what he wanted, not what the family dictated.

“You did leave a note, didn’t you?” Somehow she knew his answer.

“No.”

“Oh, Rory.” She shook her dark head in grim disapproval. “When you aren’t there for dinner tonight, Mother is going to imagine all sorts of terrible things have happened to you. She’ll be half out of her mind with worry. You’d better call and let them know where you are.”

“I will,” he promised, then qualified it. “—as soon as I know where I’m going and what I’m going to do. I need some time to think without anybody hassling me. So don’t you start in on me, too, Shari.”

The appeal for her support and understanding
prompted Shari to swallow some of her anger for his inconsiderate behavior. “All right,” she agreed tersely. “But I still think you are wrong for not letting Mother know where you are and assuring her that you are okay.”

“Thanks, Shari.” His mouth curved in a grateful smile. “I knew I could count on you to take my side in this.”

What else could she do? Rory had placed her in the uncomfortable position of feeling responsible for his actions because he’d patterned them after her own. A rueful smile edged the corners of her mouth.

“Some vacation this is turning out to be,” she murmured. “Instead of avoiding any squabbles with the Lancaster family, I find myself in the middle of one.”

“I don’t expect you to get involved in this,” Rory stated. “No one has to know that you had any part in it. It was my decision, not yours.”

“I know.” But she hoped Granddad Lancaster saw it that way. They found enough subjects to argue about without adding Rory to the list.

“Since we have that settled, what are your plans for dinner tonight? Are you going out?” Rory returned to the subject related to his empty stomach.

“Yes. We came back to shower and change before going to the club,” Shari explained.

“Is it all right if I come with you? I’m starved.”

“Of course, you can.” She didn’t think Beth or Doré would object if he joined them.

“I guess I’d better shower and change, too.” He walked toward his suitcase sitting at the foot of the stairs. “Is anybody using Whit’s room?”

“No.”

“In that case, I’ll unpack my stuff in his room.” Rory paused on the first step. “What time were you going to be ready to leave for dinner?”