by Sandra Brown
“Good morning.” She bent over him, took his hand and kissed his forehead. “The nurse said you had a rough night. Did you get any rest?”
“Don’t patronize me please, Caroline.” He shook off her hand. “I’ll have a whole goddamn eternity to rest.” He laughed wheezingly. “Or to burn, I’m sure some hope. Did you get the payroll done?”
“Yes,” she said, stepping away and taking his rejection of her affection pragmatically. He was gravely ill. He was allowed some contrariness. “This morning. I’ll deliver the checks to the gin this afternoon.”
“Good. I don’t want them to think I’m dead yet.” He laid a hand on his stomach and winced with pain, cursing viciously.
When he subsided, Caroline said softly, “Are you up to having visitors?”
“Who?”
“Laura Jane and Haney.”
“Haney! That hypocritical bitch. She’s hated me since the day she first saw me. Thought I married Marlena for her money and for The Retreat. Blamed me for Rink’s leaving. Blamed me for every goddamn thing that went wrong with this family.”
Caroline played devil’s advocate. “Why didn’t you fire her years ago?”
He cackled. “Because I liked jousting with her. Kept my wits sharpened. Now she’s come to snivel over my deathbed. Ha!”
Caroline had seen him in this kind of mood before, but she had always ignored it until it passed. She regretted that he chose to be this way during their last days together. “Please, Roscoe. Don’t be angry. Haney picked some flowers from the rosebeds for you.”
He growled his consent to see the housekeeper. “Laura Jane has no business in here. This place’ll scare her silly. Does she know I’m not coming home?”
Caroline looked away from the razor-sharp eyes. “Yes. I told her yesterday.”
“What did she say?”
“She said you’d go to Heaven and be with Marlena.”
He laughed until pain wrenched him again. “Well, it would take a simpleton to think that.”
His choice of words offended Caroline greatly, but she held her peace. Few ever argued with Roscoe over anything, even his way of putting things. “Shall I tell them to come in?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, waving a thin hand weakly. “Let’s get it over with.”
“There’s someone else, Roscoe.”
Her quiet tone brought his eyes snapping back to her. He stared at her hard, searchingly, making her unaccountably uncomfortable. “Rink? Rink’s come?”
She nodded. “As soon as Granger called him.”
“Good, good. I want to see my son, to say some things to him before it’s over.”
Caroline’s heart swelled with gladness. It was time these two strong-willed men settled their differences. She hastened toward the door, missing the cold, shrewd calculation in Roscoe’s eyes as he watched her go.
Laura Jane was first in the room. She ran toward the bed and flung her arms around her father’s neck, hugging him hard. “I miss you at home, Daddy,” she said. “We have a new filly. She’s beautiful.”
“Well, that’s fine, Laura Jane,” he said and gently pushed her away. Caroline watched, wishing just once that he would return the spontaneous affection his daughter showed him. “Been picking the rosebushes, I see,” he grunted crossly as he peered up at the housekeeper from under scowling brows.
Haney had been bullied by him for years. She wasn’t the least intimidated now. “Yes. These are only half of them, too. The others are on the dining room table.”
Roscoe appreciated her spunk. They had waged a cold war for over thirty years and he considered her a worthy opponent. “To hell with flowers. Bring me anything to eat?”
“You know you’re not supposed to have anything the hospital doesn’t cook.”
“What the hell difference does it make?” he roared. “Huh? Somebody tell me.”
One by one he treated the women to baleful stares and then turned his head to meet his son’s steady gaze. For an interminably long time the two men stared at each other. No one moved. Finally Roscoe’s chest began to shake with a low, rumbling laugh. “Still mad at me, Rink?”
“I got over being mad a long time ago, sir.”
“Is that why you came back? To make peace with your old man before he croaks. Or for the reading of the will?”
“I don’t need anything in your damn will.”
Haney stepped forward diplomatically. She had feared the reunion wouldn’t be pleasant. “I’m taking Laura Jane home now. Laura Jane, kiss your daddy and let’s go.” The girl complied dutifully.
Roscoe barely noticed them leave. His eyes were still boring into those of his son. Caroline was left alone with two generations of Lancasters who had far more than years separating them.
“You turned out to be a good-looking man, Rink,” his father said analytically. “Hard and mean, too. The meanness doesn’t show up in all those smiling newspaper pictures, but I figured it was there.”
“I had a good teacher.”
That same laugh, a hideous laugh, filled the room again. “You bet you did, sonny, you bet you did. Only way to get on in this world. Be mean as hell to everybody and no one’ll ever get the best of you.” He gestured impatiently. “Sit down, both of you.”
“I prefer to stand, thank you,” Rink replied. Caroline sank into an available chair. She’d never seen Roscoe quite this acerbic. No wonder Rink had been forced to leave his home. She had known the antagonism between them was strong but nothing like this.
“From what I read, that airline of yours is making you rich.”
“My partner and I had great expectations for Air Dixie from the first. So far all our goals have been exceeded.”
“Smart philosophy you’ve got. Herd the passengers on, herd them off, low fares, keep the planes flying. You’ve profited when others are going out of business.”
If Rink was surprised to learn that his father had followed the success of his commuter airline, he gave no indication of it. “As I said, we’ve been pleased with our success.”
A nurse came in carrying a stainless-steel tray with a hypodermic needle on it. “I’ve come to give you a shot for your pain, Mr. Lancaster.”
“Stick it in your own ass and leave mine alone,” Roscoe shouted at her.
“Roscoe,” Caroline said, shocked by his vulgarity.
“Doctor’s orders, Mr. Lancaster,” the nurse said firmly.
“I don’t care what that quack said. This is my life, what’s left of it, and I don’t want any damn shot to relieve my pain. I want to feel everything. Understand? Now get out of here.”
The nurse’s lips pursed in severe disapproval, but she left the room.
“Roscoe, she’s only doing—”
“Stop mothering me, for God’s sake, Caroline!” The tone of his voice was like none he had used with her before. She shrank back as though he’d struck her. She fell silent, her lips compressed. “If all I’m going to get from you is insipid pity, don’t bother coming back.”
Breathing hard, Caroline hastily grabbed up her purse and left the hospital room with regal dignity. As soon as the door closed behind her, Rink whirled on his father.
“You sonofabitch.” His golden eyes flashed fire. Each hard muscle in his athletic body was strained with fury. “You’ve got no right to talk to her in that way, I don’t care how much pain you’re in.”
Roscoe chuckled, an evil sound, as evil as his calculating expression. “I have every right. She’s my wife. Remember?”
Rink’s hands balled into fists on his thighs. He made a feral sound deep in his throat before he spun on his heels and stormed from the room.
At first he didn’t see Caroline. Then he spotted her at the end of the corridor. Slumped against the wall, gazing sightlessly out a window. He came up behind her. He raised his hand to touch her, paused to reconsider, then thought, To hell with it, and placed his hand on her shoulder. She reacted instantly, stiffening reflexively.
“Are you all right?”
/>
Oh God, she thought. Why had he asked that, in that particular tone of voice? It was exactly the way he had asked her that same question another time. The same words, the same inflection, the same gentle concern in the husky timbre of his voice.
She turned slightly to look up at him over her shoulder. Tears formed in her eyes. They could have been put there by the humiliation she had suffered at her husband’s hands. But that wasn’t the reason for them. They were tears of remembrance. She gazed into his eyes and was transported back, back to that first night….
The car lights came up behind her and she hurried her footsteps. She didn’t particularly like walking home alone. Of course, she could wait for Papa, but Lord knew when he’d likely start home. Besides, in his condition he would be of no help if she were to be attacked.
She had almost died of shame that afternoon when Rink Lancaster had figured out that she was the town drunk’s daughter. He would know that they lived in an old ramshackle house and that her mama took in laundry to keep food on the table and secondhand clothes from her customers on Caroline’s back.
She had recognized him instantly. Everybody knew the Lancasters. She had seen Rink many times from afar, driving like a bat out of hell in his shiny red sports car with the convertible top down, the wind whipping his black hair around his head. Usually there was a girl with him, her left arm draped over his shoulders. The radio would blare. He would honk and wave at everybody he knew, including the sheriff’s deputies, who overlooked his flagrant disregard of the speed limit. Everybody knew Rink Lancaster, football hero, basketball team captain, track star, heir to The Retreat and the largest cotton gin in five counties.
He had occupied her thoughts during the hours she worked at Woolworth’s. Now she hurried home so she could crawl into bed and think about him and all he had said to her that day. Of course he probably wouldn’t even remember—
“Hi, Caroline.” The car that had been cruising behind her crept to her side. Incredulously she looked into Rink’s smiling face as he leaned over the passenger seat and opened the door. “Get in. I’ll drive you home.”
She glanced up and down the road as though she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t. “I don’t know if I should.”
He laughed. “Why?”
Because boys like Rink Lancaster didn’t drive girls like Caroline Dawson around in their sports cars, that’s why. But she didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything. Her heart, pounding in her throat, left no room for words.
“Come on, get in,” he said with an irresistible smile. She slid into the leather seat and pulled the door closed behind her. The seat swallowed her in luxury and it was all she could do to keep from running her hands over its softness. The dials and gadgets on the dashboard winked at her in myriad colors.
“Do you like chocolate milk shakes?”
She had only had one in her life. One day after Mama got paid they had stopped at a lunch counter in town and bought one to share as a special treat. “Yes.”
“I stopped at the Dairy Mart. Help yourself.” He tilted his head and indicated the paper cup propped between the seats on the console. It had a lid on it, but the straw was sticking up out of the hole in the top.
“Thank you,” she said timidly, picking it up and sucking on the straw. It was cold and rich and delicious and she smiled her pleasure. He smiled back.
The radio wasn’t playing loudly and the canvas top was up on the car. He didn’t want anyone to see her with him. She understood and didn’t mind. He had come to pick her up; he had bought her a chocolate shake. That was enough.
“How was work?”
“I sold a set of dishes.”
“Yeah?”
“They were ugly. I don’t think I’d like eating off them.”
He laughed. “Then you don’t plan to sell dishes all your life?”
“No.”
“What do you want to do?”
Go to college, she thought with that desperation of the hopelessly hopeful. “I don’t know. I like math. I was on the honor roll two years in a row.”
She felt a need to impress him with something, tell him something that would make him remember this night, because she knew she would never forget it for as long as she lived. She, Caroline Dawson, riding around with Rink Lancaster! Why had he bothered? He could have his pick of girls, girls older and far more worldly than she. Girls who wore pretty clothes and went to club meetings, girls whose mothers served on committees and drove long cars, girls who would never deign to speak to Caroline Dawson.
“Math, huh? Maybe I could have used your help up at college. I barely squeaked through my math courses.”
“Did you like college?”
“Sure. It was a blast. But I’m glad to be out.”
“You graduated?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“What’s your degree in?”
“It was a toss-up between agriculture and engineering. I thought I already knew a lot about agriculture, so I majored in engineering.”
“That should be helpful at the gin.”
“I guess.” Without asking directions he turned off the highway onto the county road that led to her house.
“You don’t have to take me all the way,” she said hastily.
“It’s darker than pitch out here.”
“I’m not scared to walk the rest of the way, honest. Please stop.”
Without an argument, he braked the car. She didn’t want him to drive her all the way home. There would then be explanations to make to her mother. This day was too special. She didn’t want to share it with anyone. Mostly, she didn’t want him to come face-to-face with the squalor she lived in.
After the motor had been cut, everything went silent. He turned off the headlights and let the convertible top down. The moon bathed them with a silvery-white glow. A breeze flirted with their hair.
He propped his arm on the back of her seat. His knee bumped into hers as he turned to face her. He didn’t move it away. She could smell the cologne he was wearing, see the faint shadow of a beard. He wasn’t a boy, he was a man. She had never had a date before, never been alone with a man of any age.
Self-conscious because he wasn’t saying anything, she continued to suck on the straw. He watched her intently. With every pull of her lips on the straw, she was aware of his eyes on her mouth. The straw made a loud slurping sound when she reached bottom and she looked up at him in mortification.
He was smiling. “Enjoy the milk shake?”
“Very much. Thank you.” She handed him the empty cup and he bent to shove it beneath his seat.
When he straightened, he leaned forward slightly so that they faced each other. As it had that afternoon, conversation gave way to ravenous curiosity. She studied him as intently as he did her. She could see his eyes roving over her face and hair and neck and chest, and it made her feel warm and funny on the inside, weightless. Yet there was a gathering heaviness in the lower part of her body. A heat, unfamiliar and delicious, forbidden and heavenly, began to pump through her veins.
He placed his thumb lengthwise under her lower lip, touching the border of it with his well-trimmed nail. She thought she might die of suffocation. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe.
“You’re very pretty,” he said huskily.
“Thank you.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen.” He muttered a curse under his breath and looked away from her. Then, as though he couldn’t control them, his eyes came back. “I thought about you all day after I saw you in the woods.” His hand was lying along her cheek now and his thumb was hypnotically stroking her bottom lip.
“You did?”
“Mmm,” he murmured. “All afternoon you were on my mind.”
“I thought about you, too.”
That seemed to please him. He grinned lopsidedly. “What did you think?”
Her cheeks flamed and she was grateful to the darkness for hiding her girlish blu
sh. To avoid his eyes, she looked down at his throat in the open collar of his shirt. “Things,” she said hoarsely, shrugging with feigned indifference.
“Things?” He smiled. But it was a slight, fleeting smile, not one that distracted him from his intent perusal of her face. “Did you think about…” He seemed to search for the proper words.
“Making out” was what came to her mind. That was what kids did when they went on dates, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that what they whispered about in groups that she was never invited to enter?
But that was not what Rink said. He said, “Did you think about us… together? Maybe touching?”
“Touching?” she repeated breathlessly.
“Kissing?”
Her lips parted, but no sound came forth. She heard nothing but the beating thud of her own heart.
“Have you ever been kissed?”
“A few times,” she lied.
“You’re so damn young,” he groaned, squeezing his eyes closed momentarily before opening them quickly. “Would you be afraid if I kissed you? Would you like it if I kissed you?”
“I’m not afraid of you, Rink.”
“And the other?” he prodded gently, touching her hair.
“I… I think I’d like you to… kiss me.”
“Caroline,” he whispered, moving closer. She felt his breath on her face first and her eyes closed. Then his lips touched hers—soft, still, hesitant. When she didn’t pull away, he tilted his head to one side and pressed more firmly. Again and again his lips collided with hers in brief, light kisses, soft pecks that made her hungry from the bottom of her soul for something she couldn’t name. Even “making out” didn’t apply. Because anybody could do that and this was something she knew no one had ever experienced before.
He cupped her face with both palms and laid his mouth, lips open this time, firmly over hers. She felt the moistness of his tongue just a breath away from her lips, then on them, flicking lightly.
He moaned softly before he pressed his tongue against her lips. Caroline’s eyes went wide with shock. She froze. Then the pleasure of what he was doing vanquished her resistance and her lips parted. His tongue slid between them. It touched the tip of hers, rubbed, stroked, pushed deeper.