The Lancaster Men

by Janet Dailey

  Whit rubbed his mouth over her lips, enjoying their feel without taking them. “Would a brother be crazy to explore every inch of you?” His heated breath filled her mouth but this time he didn’t wait for her admission. “I’m not your brother, Shari. I’m not going to let you pretend anymore that I am.”

  “Don’t.” She wasn’t sure what she was protesting. His continual teasing of her lips or his determination to turn her into a quivering mass of desire.

  “Do I have to take you to bed to convince you?” he demanded roughly.

  There was a cold run of ice through her veins as she suddenly realized how easily that could happen. Seduction required a willing participant, and she had shown herself to be willing. To make matters worse, she was more than half-convinced Whit would be the ideal lover. She was instantly repelled by that incestuous thought.

  Violently, she pushed away from him, holding the front of her robe closed with one hand and raising the back of her other hand to her mouth. She scrubbed it across her lips in an effort to erase the taste of him.

  Her gaze studied him with a new perception. There was no attempt on his part to bridge the distance between them. His male virility was a very obvious thing to her now. Whit stood there, with his hands at his side, looking back at her. His bare chest rose and fell with the ragged tempo of his breathing.

  Shari suddenly realized that this night could never be forgotten. They could never go back to the comfortable, secure relationship she’d known. Her stepbrother was lost to her forever. Her heart was twisted by the loss.

  “Why did you do this?” she accused with a broken sob. “Why did you ruin everything?”

  “Shari.” Whit took a step toward her, his hand reaching out.

  With a little cry, she pivoted away from him and ran to the door. Her shaking hand fumbled with the doorknob. For a panicked instant, she thought it was locked. Then she pulled it open and raced down the corridor to her room.

  Whit was coming after her. Shari could hear the long strides of his footsteps. Breathing in sobs, she made it inside the room before he could catch up with her. She leaned against the door to keep him out and shakily turned the key in the lock.

  The doorknob was rattled but it refused to turn. Her legs didn’t seem to want to support her and Shari continued to lean against the solidness of the door. Tears ran silently down her cheeks as she closed her eyes.

  “Shari, let me in.” His voice was pitched low and she knew he didn’t want to waken the other sleeping members of the house.

  “No, I won’t.” Her voice rasped out the refusal.

  “Shari, please,” Whit insisted in a fierce whisper, but she wouldn’t answer him. She couldn’t trust him—not anymore. She waited through the lengthy pause, knowing he hadn’t left. “Are you all right?” he asked finally.

  “No,” she answered in a sobbing laugh. “I’m not all right.” Shari closed her eyes tightly. “Go away. I don’t know you.”

  “Yes, you do,” he replied. “It’s yourself you don’t know.”

  With that, Shari heard him walk away. She didn’t draw a breath until she heard the door to his room shut. She stumbled to the bed and threw herself across its length to cry silently for the friend and “brother” that had been taken from her.

  In the past, it had often seemed that Whit was her only ally at Gold Leaf. Now Shari couldn’t depend on him. She became withdrawn and quiet, almost as if she had gone into mourning. She associated with the Lancaster family only when the occasion demanded it, such as mealtimes. She took part in little of the conversations that went on, and ignored attempts by the elder Lancaster and Rory to include her.

  Whit rarely spoke to her but his gaze seemed to be constantly on her. Any time he was in the same room with her, Shari was unsettled and on her guard. It seemed impossible to escape the tension. He electrified the air until it almost hurt to breathe.

  Only with her mother did Shari find any kind of relief. She stayed long hours at the hospital with her. Even when she was released on Monday and came home, Shari rarely left her mother’s side. A practical nurse, hired by Frederick Lancaster, took care of all Elizabeth’s medical needs but it didn’t matter to Shari that her presence wasn’t needed every minute.

  For more than a week, this continued. Once the routine was started, Shari didn’t know how to break it, even if she wanted to change it. Which, she kept telling herself, she didn’t. Whit’s behavior had been unforgivable.

  If she needed proof of that, she had it every night. She kept reliving that evening in her dreams. When she’d wake from them, Shari would remember everything in vivid detail. They disturbed her sleep to the point that rest was denied her. Each morning she awakened later and later.

  The summer sun was blazing through her window when Shari dragged her tired eyes open and rolled over to look at the clock on her nightstand. She groaned at the time, the clock’s hands showing it was going on nine. She was simply going to have to start setting the alarm, something she’d never had to do in her life.

  Sitting up, Shari swung her legs over the side of the bed and paused in an attempt to clear her head of sleep’s cobwebs. There was a knock at her door. She looked in its direction, comforted by the knowledge it was locked. It was always locked now.

  “Yes?” Her voice was groggy with sleep. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Rory,” came the cheerful reply. “Are you up?”

  “Yes.” In a manner of speaking she was, although she wouldn’t describe herself as being alert.

  When he tried the door and discovered it was locked, Shari pushed off the bed and grabbed her robe from the foot. Her legs carried her woodenly to the door while she shrugged into the robe and securely tied the front.

  Rory knocked again. “Hey, Sis. Open up.” He sounded puzzled.

  With a turn of the key to unlock it, Shari pulled the door open. “What did you want?” She didn’t bother with any preliminary greetings as she lifted the heavy weight of her hair away from her neck to rub the taut cords.

  He was frowning. “How come you locked the door?”

  To avoid his questioning eyes, her glance strayed past him. A thousand fire bells went off in her head when Shari found herself looking straight at Whit as he came out of his room. She stiffened, all her defenses bristling into life.

  His dark gaze seemed to bore into her for a long second, hard and unyielding, yet he offered no greeting and didn’t acknowledge her presence in any other manner. Rory turned to see what she was staring at just as Whit walked down the hall toward the stairs. His look was sharply curious when it returned to her.

  Again, Shari couldn’t meet her half brother’s gaze and turned away from the door to seek refuge inside the room. It prodded her into remembering his question and she searched for an answer to discard his suspicions.

  “I guess I got into the habit of locking it at college,” she lied, unable to identify Whit as the cause.

  “You’ve sure been acting strange lately,” Rory declared. “You never used to sleep so late. I remember when you’d get me out of bed.”

  Shari didn’t want to get into a conversation that analyzed her behavior. “What do you want?” She continued to keep her back on to him.

  “I have an errand to run for Granddad, so I thought I’d see if there was anything you needed from town,” he explained.

  “I don’t need anything,” she replied shortly without turning around. “If that’s all, would you please leave? I want to get dressed.”

  “That’s it, huh?” he challenged with exasperated patience. “No thanks for asking. Nothing. Just get out. I was trying to be kind and this is what I get for it.”

  Guiltily, Shari turned to face him. “I’m sorry,” she apologized for her rudeness. “I guess I’m not awake.”

  “That’s a convenient excuse.” His expression revealed that he didn’t believe her. “When we were growing up, I can’t remember you and Whit ever quarreling. But when the two of you have a fight, it’s a real dandy.”<
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  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She paled at his statement. “What makes you think I’ve had a fight with Whit?”

  “Aw, come on, Sis,” Rory reproved her attempt to deny it. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face. You don’t speak to him; you go all stiff and cold every time you’re in the same room together; and you’ve been walking around with a chip on your shoulder the size of a tree trunk. You’re taking your anger out on everybody around you, except Mom. How long is this going to go on?”

  “I doesn’t concern you so just stay out of it.” Shari didn’t want to hear the things he was saying, but she couldn’t seem to close her ears to them.

  “How can I?” He lifted his hands, palms upward, in a helpless gesture. “I’ve got the feeling I’m caught in the middle of somebody else’s war and I’m getting tired of being the innocent victim. I thought things would be better if you stayed, but you’ve got everyone walking around on tiptoes.”

  “It isn’t like that at all,” she protested impatiently.

  “You wanta bet?” he challenged. “I don’t know what started the argument the other night in Whit’s room, but one of you has to make the first move. Why don’t you just tell him you’re sorry and end all this?”

  Shari didn’t hear anything he said past the mention of Whit’s room. A chill ran down her spine. “How did you know I was in his room?” she asked in a stricken voice of alarm.

  “I told you before that I can hear you guys talking,” Rory reminded her. “I can’t tell what you’re saying, but I can hear your voices through the wall. I didn’t realize you were fighting until you ran out of his room and I heard Whit come after you.”

  A spasm of relief shook her. Shari didn’t want Rory to know—she didn’t want anyone to know what had transpired between herself and Whit. She didn’t examine her reasons for that, not caring whether they came from a lingering sense of loyalty to the Whit Lancaster she had once known or the guilt of her own initial, and not unwilling, role in the scene.

  “What did you argue about?” Rory frowned. “It couldn’t have been about you going back to Duke University. That was already settled.”

  “It’s none of your business,” Shari answered sharply.

  A heavy sigh came from him. “At least you and Whit say the same thing.”

  “You mean you asked him about it?” Shari wanted to be sure she understood him correctly.

  “Yes, but he was just as closemouthed about the whole thing as you are,” Rory complained.

  “Then why don’t you take the hint and stay out of it?” she suggested. “It’s none of your affair anyway.”

  “I’m only trying to help,” he insisted in his own defense.

  “Instead of being so concerned about the personal differences between Whit and me, you’d better concentrate on solving your own problems,” she said, finding a way to end the conversation. “Instead of standing here talking to me, you should be on your way to town to take care of that errand for Granddad. If you don’t, you’re going to be in trouble with him.”

  “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.

  Chapter Seven

  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 a
nd 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.