by Sandra Brown
“Please don’t talk about dying, Roscoe.”
“Why not? It’s a fact. But you remember this.” Again he tried to sit up. Spittle gathered in the corners of his blue-tinged lips as he hissed at her. “Until I’m dead, you’re my wife and you’d damn well better act like it.”
“I will,” she vowed frantically, trying to pull her hand free. “I mean, I do.”
“I never put much stock in religion, but one thing I do believe. Thinking of disobeying a commandment is the same as doing it. Did you learn that in Sunday school?”
“Yes,” she cried desperately, terrified of him and not knowing why.
“Have you been thinking of disobeying any commandments?”
“No.”
“Like committing adultery?”
“No!”
“You’re my wife.”
“Yes.”
“You’d better remember it.”
All the strength went out of him then, and he fell back onto the pillows, struggling for air. Caroline wrenched her hand free from his death grip and ran to the door. She was bent on escape but remembered herself just in time and went for a nurse. “It’s my husband,” she panted. “I… I think he needs a shot of something. He’s terribly upset.”
“We’ll take care of him, Mrs. Lancaster,” the nurse said kindly. “If I might say so, you look in bad shape yourself. Why don’t you go home for now?”
“Yes, yes,” Caroline said, trying to restore her wits. Her heart was racing. She was trembling with fear. Why had she become so afraid of her own husband? “I think I will.”
Granger was getting off the elevator as she got on. “Caroline, is something wrong?” He was alarmed by the state she was in.
“No, no. I’m going back to the gin. Trouble there, but please don’t mention it to Roscoe. He’s upset.” Breathing raggedly, she backed against the wall of the elevator as though it were a hiding place from some unnamed terror that stalked her.
“Can I help—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head furiously as the doors began to close. “I’ll be fine. Go to Roscoe. He needs you.”
The doors closed between them and she brought her hand up to her mouth, covering it to stifle the whimpers she felt welling up in her throat. “God, God,” she repeated, wondering how he could have frightened her so. Her stomach was churning. Her body was flashing hot and cold.
She forced herself to walk through the first-floor lobby without a visible sign of her distress. By the time she reached her car, the most violent of her trembling had subsided. Lowering the car windows, she drove out of town along the river road. The wind beat through her hair, carrying with it all the scents of summer. There was little traffic and she drove fast, ridding her mind of the fears of moments ago.
She had let her imagination get the best of her. Roscoe couldn’t possibly have known about her and Rink that summer. Rink wouldn’t have told him. She certainly hadn’t. No one had ever seen them together or there would have been gossip all over town. No, Roscoe couldn’t know. Nor would he guess they were attracted to each other. To his mind, they had only met a few days ago.
His veiled threats and warnings were products of her own imagination and guilty conscience. Maybe his carefully chosen words hadn’t been threats at all. No, she shook her head. They had been, much as she would like to think otherwise. But why had Roscoe made them?
How else could he occupy himself? He had nothing more to do than to think, to speculate, to become paranoid and suspicious. A man with a brain as active as Roscoe’s would loathe lying in bed all day. He would despise that kind of inactivity. So mental power was the only thing he had left and his mind was working overtime to compensate for his wasting body.
Pain and anguish were magnifying everything in his mind, building mountains out of molehills. He had a wife more than thirty years younger than he. He had a strong, good-looking, virile son. For the time being they were living in the same house. He had put together a combination of facts that added up to a horrible suspicion.
He was wrong! She’d done nothing a wife shouldn’t.
On the other hand, he was right. Thinking about making love to Rink was as grim a transgression as the act. And she never stopped thinking about it.
She must force that thought from her mind. Maybe if she treated him more like a friend, as ludicrous as it seemed, more like a friendly stepmother trying to keep peace in the family, memories of times past would fade. She had to put things into a new perspective, into the here and now and forget all that had happened before.
When she returned to the gin, the afternoon sun was slanting across the floor from the windows high on the walls. She looked around her in dismay. The place was deserted save for Rink, who was lying on his back, one knee bent, inspecting the workings of the gin stand. He was banging against the metal with a wrench. The ringing sound echoed loudly and drowned out her footsteps. “Where is everyone?”
The racket ceased. His head came out from under the piece of equipment and he sat up. He wiped his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. “Hi. I didn’t hear you come in. I took the liberty of sending everyone home an hour early. There was nothing much to be done while I was trying to get this back in shape.” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the machine. “Dust was flying everywhere. With some of the faulty wiring in this place, that could create a dangerous situation.”
She should have berated Rink for closing early when it wasn’t his place to do so, but she didn’t. On her long drive, she had decided that Roscoe’s decision-making ability had been affected by his hospitalization. The thought of doing something he wouldn’t approve of behind his back was loathsome, but she had reasoned that what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. In the long run, what was good for Lancaster Gin was what he would want her to do.
She squatted down next to Rink. “How’s it going? Find the problem?”
“Yes, and it’s a doozy.”
“Can it be repaired?”
“Temporarily.” He sighed and made a swipe across his brow with his sleeve. “How is Daddy today?”
The reminder of the scene in the hospital room made her shiver. “Not so well. About the same.” He studied her closely, but she didn’t give anything away with her composed expression. Changing the subject quickly, she asked, “Have you had anything to eat?”
“No. I’m too hot and dirty to eat.” It was true he was dirty. His face was grimy and sweat-streaked. It made his teeth look even whiter when he smiled. “Besides, I didn’t want to take the time.”
She smiled and reached into the white paper sack she had carried in with her. “I brought you a late lunch. You won’t have to stop working—you can drink this lunch.” She poked a straw into the plastic lid on the paper cup.
“What is it?”
She thrust the tall frosty cup into his hand and stood up. “A chocolate milk shake.”
Chapter 6
What did it mean?
Damned if I know, Rink answered his own questions as he reached into the shower stall to turn on the taps. He peeled off the sweaty, oil- and dirt-streaked clothes. He sipped his drink and set it on the dressing table.
First there had been the chocolate milk shake. It was as obvious a friendship-making token as a peace pipe. All afternoon she had remained at the gin. She had said she had paperwork to do in the office, but more often than not she was kneeling down beside him asking if there were anything she could do to help, if there were something she could get him. With the efficiency of a surgical nurse, she had passed tools to him when he’d extended his hand.
They talked about inconsequential things. Most of those topics they agreed on. They talked about family matters. On none of those did they agree.
“Did you see Laura Jane today?” she asked him.
“No. Did you?”
“No. Yesterday she seemed depressed. I wonder if she’s just now realizing the severity of Roscoe’s condition.”
“Maybe. But it could have somethin
g to do with Bishop.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Hand me that screwdriver again, please.”
“The one with the red handle or the yellow?”
“Red. Because this morning when he brought that horse around for me, he was as touchy as a hungry crocodile.”
“Maybe you just intimidate him.”
“I hope to God I do.”
He expected an argument. Though he could tell she didn’t like what he’d said, she didn’t comment. Since the floor of the gin was dusty, she had pulled a stool near him—too near. Even when his head was buried in the machinery, even when he wasn’t looking at her, he was constantly aware of her presence. Her fragrance was as all-pervasive as the afternoon heat. Beneath his clothes, perspiration beaded and formed pools and trickled down his body in rivulets. But when his hand came in contact with hers, it was cool and dry. He wanted to press it to his face, his neck, his chest.
Cursing his recollection of the afternoon, he took another sip of his drink. That had only been the beginning of where he would like her hands to be.
On the way home, she had been chatty. As soon as they’d come through the front door she had turned to him and said, “Take your time in the shower. I’ll tell Haney to hold dinner until you’ve had time to cool off and relax. Let me fix you a drink to take up with you. What would you like?”
What he would like was for her to explain what the hell she was up to with this friendly camaraderie routine. Was this something Roscoe had put her up to? Or had she thought of it all by herself? Why all of a sudden was she acting like a new stepmother trying desperately to win the approval of the stepchild?
Well, whatever her game, it wasn’t going to work, he thought as he stepped under the shower’s spray. He was never going to think of her as a stepmother, and if she thought he ever could, then she didn’t remember anything that had happened that summer. That summer. The merest thought of it set his heart to pounding.
He scoffed at himself. Twelve years later and he was still acting like a besotted moron. He, Rink Lancaster, heartbreaker. Ha! He had never had problems with women except how to get rid of one once he was tired of her. Was it any wonder that his feelings for Caroline had come as a rude awakening?
That summer was a time of conflict. He was both happier than he had ever been and more miserable than he could remember. When he wasn’t with Caroline, he counted the minutes until he could be. When he was with her, he cherished every second but dreaded the time they would have to say good-bye. He was frustrated because he couldn’t take her somewhere on a normal date and terrified that someone would see them together. He was starving all the time but wanted nothing to eat. He went around in a perpetual state of sexual arousal, but there was no appeasing it. He wouldn’t with Caroline and he didn’t want another girl as a substitute.
He wanted Caroline Dawson. He couldn’t have her.
Night and day he had argued with himself. She’s a little girl, for God’s sake. Fifteen! You’re asking for trouble, Lancaster. Big trouble.
But every day had found him waiting for her in the woods, holding his breath out of fear that she might not come. His anxiety wouldn’t leave him until he saw her standing among the trees in a shower of sunlight.
But one day, that last day, the sun didn’t shine. It had rained…
It was sunny when he left the house. That day, even more than most days, he was anxious to see her. He and his father had had an argument that morning. Roscoe was bending the regulations of the cotton exchange. What he was doing wasn’t so much illegal as unethical. When Rink had hesitantly pointed that out to his father, Roscoe had flown into a rage. How dare his still-wet-behind-the-ears son presume to tell him how to run his business or live his life? He hadn’t brought Lancaster Gin to where it was by being Mr. Nice Guy.
Rink was heartsick over the things he saw happening but was powerless to do anything about. He needed to talk to Caroline. She listened.
She was already there, sitting under a tree with her legs primly folded beneath her. Her face lit up when she saw him rushing toward her. Without a word he dropped to his knees in front of her, cradled her face between his hands and kissed her. His tongue plowed deeply into her mouth, finding a wellspring of sweetness there so different from the ugliness between him and his father. Her kisses always took him far from the gloom that shrouded his beautiful home.
When at last he released her mouth, he muttered, “God, it’s good to see you.” Then once again his mouth came down hard on hers. Gradually and without preliminary, he lowered her to the ground, onto a bed of soft fern and moss. Compliantly she lay down and he stretched out beside her, pressing one thigh over hers.
He raised his head and gazed down at her. Her gray-blue eyes were languorous behind sooty lashes. Her lips were dewy and full from the ardor of his kisses. Her hair was fanned out behind her head like a dark silk mantle on the green undergrowth. A rising wind flirted with the wisps on her cheeks.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. He bent down and kissed her eyelids.
“So are you.”
He shook his head in denial. “I’m a selfish bastard. Who do I think I am, coming on to you like this, kissing you, taking for granted that you want to be kissed, without even so much as a hello? Why do you let me?”
A graceful hand came up to brush back the hair that was falling low over his eyebrows. “Because you needed me this way today,” she said.
He laid his head in the curve of her shoulder and her arms folded loosely around his neck. “You’re right. Daddy and I had a helluva shouting match this morning.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I, Caroline.” His voice had the ragged, tearing sound of desperation in it. “Why can’t he and I love each other? Or even like each other?”
“Don’t you?”
He took his time, considering the answer carefully. He knew then how important it was. “No. We don’t. Not even a little. I hate it, but that’s the way it is.”
“Tell me.”
“He married my mother for her family name and her money. He didn’t love her and she knew it. He’s to blame for her unhappiness in life and her premature death. I meant it when I said she died of a broken heart. And he doesn’t like me because I see him for what he is and he can’t stand that. He’s got so many fooled, but he can’t fool his own son and that galls the hell out of him.”
Her comforting fingers continued to sift through his hair. “Perhaps you judge him too harshly. He’s a man, Rink, not a god. He has faults. Are parents supposed to be without flaws?” She stroked down his cheek and applied light pressure to his jaw until he lifted his head and looked at her.
“I think you’re a bit intolerant. Forgive me for saying so. You demand perfection and can’t abide failure within yourself. But you expect the same from everyone else and that’s unfair, Rink. It’s unjust to impose your standards on the rest of us. We’re all no more than human.”
She stroked his lips with her fingertips. “I’m so sorry that the relationship between you and your father isn’t what it should be. Despite what my father is, I can’t help but love him. Mainly because he needs love so much.” She smiled up at him. “Go slow, Rink. Don’t be so impatient. Your father has lived one way for a very long time. It won’t be an easy conversion.” Her eyes filled with unshed tears. “But I admire you so much for the uncompromising stand you take on what’s right, even if it means angering your father.”
His smile was slow and infinitely tender. “You’re something, you know that? How do you make everything seem better? Hmmm? Why is it that when I’m with you things don’t look so dark, so hopeless? Why do I feel like I have all the answers when you’re around? At the same time you’re slapping my hand, you restore my self-confidence.”
Her pleasure in what he said was evident. Her eyelids lowered with unintentional coyness. “Do I do all that for you?”
The gold in his eyes turned molten. He moved closer and lifted himself over he
r. He was hard and full. “You do a lot of things for me,” he said thickly, rubbing his front against hers. Her eyes went wide and she shivered. Cursing himself, he moved away from her. “Damn! What’s the matter with me? I shouldn’t do things like that with you. I’m sorry.”
Reaching for him, she said, “It wasn’t that.” She held her arm up and showed him the gooseflesh. “It’s turned cooler. I think it’s going to rain.”
The words had no sooner left her mouth than raindrops began to fall lightly on her face. He rolled off her onto his back and watched as the clouds opened up. The rainfall rapidly increased to a downpour and they laughed like carefree children as they lay on their backs and let it deluge them. The fury of the sudden summer storm was soon spent and the rain once again subsided to a gentle shower.
Rink raised himself on an elbow and looked down at Caroline. Her complexion hadn’t suffered from being washed of the frugal amount of makeup she wore. It was glowing with youthful loveliness. His eyes moved down her neck, farther. The breath caught in his throat. Her white blouse was wet and clung to her breasts. Today she hadn’t worn a brassiere.
He looked at her in stunned inquiry.
Her voice was low and husky with embarrassment. “I don’t have anything pretty to wear. I thought… if I didn’t wear anything, it wouldn’t be so ugly… I… oh…” She made a whimpering sound and crossed her arms over her breasts. “I didn’t mean—”
“Shhh,” he said, slowly lifting her arms aside. For a long moment, while the only sound around them was the dripping rain, his eyes appreciated her. The wet blouse detailed everything, the soft mounds, the puckering areolas, the peaked nipples.
“I think I hear thunder,” she whispered tremulously.
He lifted her hand and laid it against his own wet shirt. “No. That’s my heart beating.”
He bent over her and placed his mouth on hers. The kiss was soft and sweet, exquisite in its tenderness. His tongue lightly flicked the corners of her lips, delicately traced their shape. From her throat a low purr reached his ears. “Oh, Caroline,” he rasped.