by Janet Dailey
“I’m not going to marry you, Whit.” Shari had to deny him to regain control of her nearly shattered composure, but she lacked the strength to meet his gaze. She tried to assume an air of calm indifference. “You are just making a fool of yourself by saying that I will.”
“We’ll see,” he murmured with an apparent lack of concern. “Would you pass me the salt?”
His confidence was infuriating, especially when her own was a little shaky. Shari longed to hurl the saltshaker at him and run from the room. Such an action would be an admission that her objections were being worn down. Shari was determined to remain at the table and swallow every bite of lunch even if she choked on it. Whit appeared to know that, which didn’t help the situation at all.
No further reference was made to the supposed engagement during the rest of the noon meal. When lunch was finished, Shari helped the housekeeper clear the dishes from the table while the men excused themselves.
The fine tension that claimed her didn’t go away when Whit left the house to finish his day’s work. It remained to thread through her veins, never letting the thought of him stray far.
She was struggling with it when she climbed the stairs to spend the afternoon with her mother. The middle-aged practical nurse was on her way down the steps, carrying the lunch tray Mrs. Youngblood had sent up.
“Did Mother eat well?” Shari asked, because she was often guilty of picking at her food.
“She cleaned up every bit of it,” Nurse Jeffers informed her with a wide smile. “May I offer you my congratulations on your engagement to Mr. Lancaster?”
Shari stiffened to a halt halfway up the stairs. The news had spread fast. She realized that was natural at Gold Leaf, especially when there was a Lancaster involved.
“I’m not engaged to Whit,” she flatly denied it, intending to crush the rumor before it went any further. “I’m not engaged to anyone. Whoever told you otherwise was lying.”
The nurse’s mouth dropped open, but Shari didn’t wait to hear any apology or explanation. She climbed the rest of the stairs with quick impatient steps; their sound was a rapid tattoo that told of her barely contained temper.
Outside her mother’s door, Shari paused to take a deep breath and fix a bright expression on her face. When she walked in, her mother way lying in bed, propped in a sitting position by pillows. Shari recognized the book her mother was holding as the one she had selected from the library that morning.
“Is it good?” she asked, drawing her mother’s glance.
“Shari!” Her mother said with some surprise. “I didn’t expect to see you this afternoon.”
“Why not?” She laughed shortly in confusion.
“I presumed you would go into town with Whit to pick out your engagement ring,” she explained and closed the novel to set it aside.
Shock drained the color from her face. Shari hadn’t dreamed that the news had spread all the way to her mother’s room.
“Who told you such a thing?” She wanted to know the identity of the informant, guessing it was either the nurse or the housekeeper. All the while she struggled to contain her irritation and hide it from her mother.
A slight frown creased her mother’s face as she tried to recall. “I don’t think it was actually said that you would accompany Whit, but it seemed logical that you would.”
Shari wasn’t interested in the business about the ring. She shook her head to dismiss that subject. “I mean, who told you about the engagement?”
Her mother’s smile was vaguely bewildered.
“Why, Whit did, of course.” And Shari wanted to scream her frustration. To make matters worse, her mother misinterpreted the agitation in Shari’s attitude. “I couldn’t have been happier when he told me the two of you were going to be married.”
“He shouldn’t have told you that.” Shari tried to calmly correct the information.
“I quite understand that you would have preferred to be with him when he told me but I think Whit wanted to do it all properly by talking to me first in private.”
“He shouldn’t have told you because the announcement was premature,” Shari went one step further in her statement. “I haven’t agreed to marry him.”
“You needn’t withhold your answer because of me,” her mother replied, still not recognizing what Shari was trying to tell her. “I am really so much better that there isn’t any reason to postpone your engagement to him.”
“You’re not listening to me, Mom.” She continued to speak calmly, stretching her patience to the limit. “I have not agreed to marry Whit.”
Her frown deepened. “But this morning, he said—”
“He was speaking out of turn,” Shari interrupted with a forceful assertion.
But she could tell that her mother still didn’t believe her. Shari suddenly realized why. A man had told her—a Lancaster man, and Elizabeth Lancaster accepted their word without question. It was her nature. She wouldn’t believe otherwise until Whit said it was so. Shari was so frustrated she wanted to take her mother by the shoulders and shake some sense into her.
She clamped down on the impulse. In her mother’s physical condition, just recovering from a stroke, Shari didn’t want to risk upsetting her by arguing. She would simply have to find another way to deal with the problem.
It seemed safer to change the subject. “What time did you say the doctor was coming?”
“This afternoon, around two,” her mother explained.
“Would you do me a favor and not say anything to him about Whit and me?” Shari requested with a strained smile. “I don’t want anyone else to know.”
“Naturally you want a little time to yourselves.” Her mother made her own interpretation of the request. Shari didn’t waste her breath trying to deny it.
An hour later, the doctor arrived. Shari stepped out of the room while he conducted his examination of her mother. She went downstairs and directly to the library. Granddad Lancaster was the only one in the room.
“Did you want to see me?” He looked up in sharp inquiry when she entered the library without knocking—a definite breach of Lancaster etiquette.
“I was looking for Whit,” she stated.
“I’m afraid he’s out. I don’t expect him back until dinnertime,” he said.
“I want to see him the minute he comes back,” Shari said and emphasized it by repeating it. “The very minute he comes back. You tell him that.”
She was determined to have him correct this intolerable situation with her mother. She didn’t want her to continue to believe they were engaged.
“I’ll tell him,” Granddad Lancaster promised.
Chapter Eight
There was a blue-black sheen to her freshly washed hair as Shari styled it with the blow dryer. She had stepped out of the shower not fifteen minutes earlier. For the fourth time, she had to stop to retuck the end of the bath towel wrapped around her. It would have been simpler to put on a robe but it seemed pointless to get the one in her bedroom now. She was nearly finished.
Her wristwatch was lying on the marble-topped counter by the sink. She glanced at the time it indicated—a few minutes before five o’clock—and tried to speculate what time Whit would arrive home.
Her temper simmered every time she thought about him informing her mother of their supposed engagement. Did he think that by telling everybody she would begin to accept it as an accomplished fact? If he did, he had another think coming.
Viewing her reflection in the bathroom mirror, Shari was satisfied with the way her hair looked and switched off the dryer. The makeup could be applied later, after she had dressed for the evening meal.
It was going to be a special occasion, since the doctor had given her mother permission to join the family downstairs. That was the biggest reason Shari wanted this absurd matter of her engagement cleared up before then. She didn’t want it to be a topic of conversation at dinner tonight.
As she left the private bath adjoining her bed-room, Shari started t
o loosen the tucked corner of the towel so she could immediately dress in the clothes already laid out on her bed. She stopped short when she saw Whit standing a step inside her room, and recovered just in time to catch the towel before it could slip out of position.
“What are you doing in here?” she accused.
“I knocked and called your name but you evidently didn’t hear me.” His traveling glance was inspecting her from head to toe, taking special note of her bare limbs.
There was something almost physical about the way he looked at her. Her reaction to it was very definitely physical, her pulse stimulated to a faster tempo, and a warmth spreading over her skin.
“And you walked in just the same.” Shari tried to secure the towel without making a project out of it, feigning an indifference she was far from feeling.
But her action attracted his glance to her breasts as the towel stretched tautly across them. Shari was reluctant to draw a breath or allow any movement that might increase his interest.
“I thought I heard a noise,” Whit explained and slowly lifted his glance to her face. There was a faint curve to his mouth when he observed the heightened color in her cheeks. “I decided to check to see if you were here since you made such an issue of seeing me before dinner.”
“Yes, I did.” Shari allowed herself to be side-tracked. “You are going to speak to my mother and clear up this impression she has that you and I are engaged.”
“But we are,” he insisted in a perfectly reasonable voice.
“We are not!” she retorted.
Whit just smiled and reached into the side pocket of his light tan suit jacket. When his hand came out, he was holding a small, square box.
“This is for you,” he said and tossed it to her, not crossing the short distance to actually hand it to her.
Shari reached for it and missed. It landed on the floor near her bare feet. She stooped down to pick it up, recognizing it instantly as a ring box.
“What is this?” she challenged.
“Your engagement ring,” Whit replied smoothly.
She didn’t know whether she was more angered by his presumption that she would wear it or the casual way he’d given it to her—almost indifferent. Her fingers tightened around the corners of the box, wishing it was his jugular vein.
“Is this a peculiar custom of the Lancasters?” Shari questioned with a trace of sarcasm. “Throwing engagement rings at girls?”
His low chuckle was throaty and amused. “If I got down on one knee to you, you’d kick me in the teeth—and we both know it,” he mocked.
“You’re right. I probably would.” She was nearly angry enough to at least try it.
“Aren’t you going to open the box and look at the ring?” Whit prompted.
Shari hesitated for an instant, almost tempted. “No,” she refused. “I don’t want it.” She tossed it back to him, and Whit caught it with a one-handed grab. “I guess you’ll have to take it back. You were a fool to buy it in the first place.”
“No.” He rolled the box around between his fingers for a few seconds, then set it on top of an oak chest of drawers. “I’m not going to take it back. It’s yours.”
“I’ll just throw it away,” she warned him.
“If you do, I’ll buy you another one.” He wasn’t the least put off by her threat.
Sheer frustration ran through her. “Why don’t you listen to me?” she protested. “There isn’t any engagement! And there isn’t going to be any marriage!”
Whit studied her without saying anything. Shari pivoted, turning her back to him and silently damning him for being so immovable. How many times in the past had she known him to take a firm stand and refuse to be moved? Too many.
“Whit Lancaster, you just can’t have everything your own way,” she insisted tightly.
“I haven’t.” His voice seemed closer, and she realized he must have come up behind her. “The problem is you have had your way for too long. Everyone has always given in to what you want—including me. You wanted me to be your big brother—and I tried to be what you wanted.” When he paused, Shari felt his hand slide under her hair and curve itself to the back of her neck. Her skin seemed to come alive under his touch. “I can’t pretend anymore that I don’t want you in the way that a man wants a woman.”
His words, his voice, his touch were kindling little fires inside her; wildfires that could burn out of control if she let him continue.
“Please let me go?” Shari tried to make it sound like a very reasonable request, concealing any hint that she was disturbed by him.
“No, that isn’t what you want me to do.” His hand moved from the base of her neck onto her shoulder while his other hand took a position on the opposite side. They moved with restless interest over the bareness of her shoulders and down her arms. “I haven’t figured out why you won’t admit it.”
When his hands slid off her arms to cross her stomach, Shari was gently molded against the hard outline of his body. She closed her eyes, fighting the heady sensation it caused.
“You are very experienced in the way of making a woman feel things.” She offered it as a justification for her own aroused state.
“Is that what’s bothering you?” he asked, and his mouth moved against her hair. “Because I know how to give you pleasure, yet you don’t know how to please me. I’ll gladly teach you. We can have the first lesson now.”
When his hands cupped her breasts, the towel covering them seemed ineffectual. The sensation of possession burned right through the material and Shari stiffened.
Whit nuzzled the lobe of her ear, his warm breath stirring up excitement in the shell-like opening. “Don’t fight what you’re feeling. Enjoy it.”
She turned her head to the side in what was intended to be the beginning of a negative movement, but it lacked any follow-through. A sensual heat was weakening her defenses.
“Don’t tell me I have to enjoy it.” Didn’t he understand the issue here? She wouldn’t be told what to do, who to marry, or who to love.
“Then make me enjoy it,” Whit challeneged and turned her around.
His mouth hovered close to her lips, waiting for her to take up his invitation. A little thrill of power ran through her as she let her gaze wander over his handsomely carved features bent so closely to her.
Her fingertips traced the clean line of his jaw all the way to the prominent bone in his cheek. Then Shari let her fingers succumb to the urge to bury themselves in the vital thickness of his hair. They applied pressure to bring his mouth the last little distance to hers.
The aggressive side of her nature had always been forced to stay in the background, never showing itself when she was in a man’s arms—until now. It added a volatile dimension to the embrace, setting both of them on fire.
She was crushed against his body by his circling arms, the material of his pants rough against the bareness of her thighs. His mouth mated with hers, the completeness of that union leaving them hungry for something more. The world seemed to spin at a crazy speed, but the ride was deliciously exhilarating.
When he scooped her up into the cradle of his arms, the towel was pulled loose, but the closeness of their bodies held it in place. Shari trembled with utter pleasure at the dark desire blazing in his eyes as he scanned the rapt expression on her features.
“Do you see the way it will be after we’re married?” His voice was husky and rough, disturbed by the rapid pattern of his breathing.
Looking at him now, Shari wondered how she could ever have seen him in a brotherly light. He was much too virile and earthy, too sexually exciting. Perhaps, regarding him as a big brother had been a defense mechanism of her heart to keep her from falling hopelessly in love with him.
It was useless to speculate about that now, but one thing was certain. “I bet you’d really be the ideal lover,” she whispered.
She was conscious of his chest swelling on a quickly indrawn breath that was slow to be released. He carried her to the bed as
if she weighed no more than a tied bundle of tobacco leaves on which the family fortune was founded.
As he laid her down, Whit left room on the edge of the mattress so he could sit facing her. The covering towel had slid down around her waist and hips, but Shari couldn’t remember why she needed to cover herself. In fact, there was a certain pride in knowing that he liked what he saw.
“This isn’t a passing thing for you or me,” Whit said and let his hand travel slowly up her neck to caress the smooth line of her jaw. “We’ll feel like this when our grandchildren are playing on the front lawn.”
“First, there have to be children before there can be grandchildren,” she reminded him with a faint smile.
His gaze lingered on the full shape of her lips, softly swollen from his kisses. His thumb moved over to trace their outline, then gently forced them apart. Her teeth, lightly and sensuously, nibbled on the calloused, rounded point of his thumb, the tip of her tongue tasting the salty flavor of his skin with its tang of nicotine.
The line of his mouth took on a certain dry humor. “I hope I bother you as much as you bother me,” he murmured and drew his hand away.
Her laugh was soft and a little throaty, quietly reveling in the power she was just learning she had over him. For the time being, Shari didn’t dwell on the knowledge that Whit possessed an equal power over her. That she had known, but hers was a new experience.
When she shifted to make more room for him, she caught a glimpse of white polka dots on a background of ocean-green silk beneath her. She was lying on the clothes she’d set out to wear that evening—with a damp towel beneath her to compound the problem. Shari reacted with dismay.
“My clothes!” She pushed at Whit to get him off the bed and scrambled after him when he did, dragging the towel with her.
The instant she was on her feet, she turned to survey the damage. The dampness of the towel had virtually ironed the wrinkles into her clothes.
“I was going to wear that to dinner tonight,” she complained to Whit.
The gold lights in his eyes were dancing with laughter while the deepened corners of his mouth held in a smile. “Do you suppose this is the way it will be after we’re married, too?” he asked with definite amusement. “From now on, don’t put clothes on the bed. Keep them in the closet.”