by Sandra Brown
She lifted her head and gazed down at him. “Do you know what I wish?”
He touched her face with exploring fingertips, marveling over the unspoiled beauty of it, the purity of her mind, the lack of guile and meanness. Such qualities were precious to him because he had seen so little evidence of them. Until he had met Laura Jane, he’d thought human nature was putrid, including his own. “What do you wish?” he asked softly.
“That they could love each other the way we do.”
He longed to laugh, he longed to cry, he longed to kiss her. He thought about the two former, he did the latter. Pulling her down gently, he pressed a tender kiss onto her parted lips.
“Steve?” she whispered.
“Hmmm?” He kissed her face, amazed that skin could be so fragile and still hold a body together.
“You’re not wearing your plastic leg.”
He ceased his nuzzling instantly and followed her eyes to the end of the bed where he had propped the prosthesis. “No,” he said sharply. “I’m not.”
“Let me see your leg. Please.” She reached for the sheet to pull it back.
He grabbed it and held it taut over his body. “No.”
His tone was colder, harder, than he had ever used with her. For a moment it frightened her, but only for a moment. She laid her hands over his and tried to work his fingers off the sheet. “Please, Steve. I want to see you.”
Angrily he flung her hands off. He raised his hands from the sheet and threw them over his head. She wanted to see? All right, better to let her see. Better to let her get disgusted now before he fell any more in love with her than he already was. Better that she should run from him shrieking in fear and revulsion now than later. He was hideously deformed and the sooner she realized it, the better for them both.
In anguish, he felt the sheet slide away from his body. The cool air from the window air-conditioning unit touched his body. His jaws ached from clenching them. He stared at the ceiling, trying to concentrate on the dancing patterns of light the television cast there. He didn’t want to see the look of horror on her face. He wished he could close his ears to any sound of repulsion she might make.
He wouldn’t blame her, of course. She had been sheltered from ugliness. Her world had been soft and beautiful, a chrysalis of gentility and graciousness. The world he came from, the jungle war he had lived through, were as foreign to her as life on another planet.
“Oh, Steve.”
It wasn’t the kind of reaction he had expected. Her voice was breathless, tremulous; her tone emotional, reverent. Tucking in his chin, he looked down the length of his body just in time to see Laura Jane’s hands reaching out to touch his pink, puckered thigh. Even though he could feel the shy, light touch, even though he could see her hands gliding over the hair-roughened skin, he didn’t believe it. His flesh quivered beneath her sweet tribute, but his heart exploded.
“Steve, you’re beautiful.” As she looked down at him her eyes were liquid with tears. He searched them but could find no trace of repugnance, nor even pity, only undiluted love and admiration.
With a strangling sound, he reached for her and pulled her down onto his chest. His hands cradled either side of her face, holding her hair back as she bent toward his mouth.
He kissed her with a new ardency. His tongue pressed into her mouth deeply. It swirled, gathering up all her sweetness. Learning from him, she nibbled at his lips, sucked lightly when he introduced his tongue into her mouth again and went on a darting expedition between his lips with her own tongue.
“God, God, Laura Jane.” He held her head tight against his shoulder to stop her ardent kisses and to regain his breath and common sense. His sex was full and surging behind his underwear. Everywhere her skin touched his, he was burning. He thought to ease himself by touching her breasts. But their full soft weight in his palms only made him want her more, not strictly in a carnal sense but for all the healing succor she offered.
“I feel funny on the inside,” she confessed. Her hand feathered over his chest and stomach.
Mirthlessly he laughed. His loins were throbbing. “So do I.”
“My heart’s beating fast.” Taking up his hand, she pressed it over her left breast.
His hand closed softly over the delicate mound of flesh. He gritted his teeth. “So is mine.”
“Is this how you feel when you make love?” she whispered.
He couldn’t vocalize an answer but nodded.
“We can’t make love because we’re not married, right?”
He moaned and hugged her closer. “No, baby, no. We can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to you.” Nor to him. If he had her once, he knew he would want her every day for the rest of his life.
Sitting up, she smoothed her hand over his cheek. “Then, Steve,” she said with simple logic, “let’s get married.”
It was a subdued group that gathered in the front parlor of The Retreat. The day was equally gloomy. Moisture-laden clouds hung heavily over the landscape. It hadn’t rained. Rain would have been a welcome relief from the oppressive humidity.
This day had been both anticipated and dreaded. Twice Granger Hopkins had set a time for the reading of Roscoe’s will. Twice it had been postponed. On the first occasion, Rink had been unexpectedly called back to Atlanta to handle some Air Dixie business. Granger himself had asked for the second postponement. Another client had demanded his immediate attention.
Caroline was secretly glad for these delays. She had been promising herself for weeks to start looking for another house, someplace small but with character, someplace away from town but not too remote for a woman living alone. But she felt no ambition to get started on the project. She used the gin as her excuse.
They had ginned more cotton than ever before. She and Rink went early every morning and came home late every evening. The majority of the season’s crop had been ginned, baled and was waiting in the warehouse ready for shipment to the various merchants. The Delta Mills order had been flown to Jackson as Rink had promised.
They shared a feeling of supreme satisfaction, but also one of unspoken loss. Without the constant demands of the gin, they had no reason to spend so much time together. Since that night by the swing, there hadn’t been a romantic interlude between them, but the desire was there, a living thing, constantly flowing between them.
Granger coughed behind his hand to get their attention. “I guess we’re ready.” He was seated beside a small table where he had laid a manila envelope.
Laura Jane and Rink were sharing an heirloom love seat. Their hands were clasped affectionately. Caroline sat in a wingback chair at their left. Haney, who had also been invited, sat to their right and slightly behind them in a lyre-back chair.
Granger took a pair of wire-rimmed eyeglasses from his breast pocket and settled them on his beefy nose. Carefully opening the envelope, he took out the multi-paged document and straightened the stiff sheets. He began to read.
Roscoe had never been philanthropic. He had begrudged every cent his wife Marlena had given to charity. What donations he had made in his lifetime had not been made out of a spirit of generosity, but rather for an income tax advantage. In his will, however, he had bequeathed a sum of money to the church he had been an unfaithful member of and to various other community charities.
Granger paused, poured a glass of water from the pitcher Haney had left on the table for him, sipped it and proceeded. He read in an unemotional voice, but with a detectable reluctance. As the terms of the will were methodically read, the reason for that reluctance became appallingly clear. When he was done he folded the papers and stuffed them back into the envelope. He removed his glasses and replaced them in his breast pocket.
The other three in the room remained motionless. Even Laura Jane, who couldn’t fully understand the implications of her father’s will, comprehended the unfairness of it.
“He didn’t leave anything to Rink.” Laura Jane addressed Granger, but her eyes made a slow sweep around the room and final
ly fell on her brother, whose face seemed to be carved of stone… or ice.
“That old bastard,” Haney said under her breath as she left the room in a huff. She would refuse to accept the money left to her for “years of devoted service to Laura Jane.”
Caroline slowly stood and took a hesitant step toward the love seat. “Rink, I’m sor—”
His head snapped up and his golden eyes blazed at her, halting the words before they could leave her mouth. Rink leaped off the love seat with all the sinuous grace of a panther and had the same deadly look of carefully contained violence about him. He left the room without a word. Remorsefully Caroline stared after him. Laura Jane nervously twisted her handkerchief between her fingers.
Granger went after Rink and caught up with him in the foyer. “Rink, I’m sorry.” He grabbed for Rink’s sleeve and succeeded in stopping him on his way out of the house. “I hated like hell to be the one to read that will. I begged Roscoe to reconsider.”
“You should have known better and saved your breath,” Rink said bitterly.
“I tried to persuade your mother to keep this house and estate in her name. Long before her death, she signed it over to Roscoe, making it his after she died. At the time I didn’t think that was a good idea. Of course, now…”
“For the first time in history, there’s not a Winston at The Retreat. It belongs to a Dawson now.” His tone was scathing as he spoke the name.
“If you think Caroline had anything to do with Roscoe’s decision, you’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Yes,” the lawyer said emphatically. “She was as ignorant of this as she was of that scholarship.”
Rink’s head jerked around. “How do you know about that?”
“I know,” Granger replied in a low voice. “Just as I know about everything he secretly did for her. I couldn’t understand it. I would have thought he was her sugar daddy, except… well, he had other girls for that.” He eyed Rink keenly. “I finally figured it out. Only lately, though. For years he’d been using her to get to you, hadn’t he?”
Rink was admitting nothing. Apparently the lawyer had put together an accurate picture of things, with one vital piece missing. He didn’t know about Rink and Caroline those long years ago. “Well, if that was his dying wish, it’s been granted. Because he’s sure as hell gotten to me this time.”
He stalked out, letting the door slam behind him.
In the parlor Caroline watched him go. She had what she had always wanted. The Retreat. But at what price? The man she loved.
“Caroline, what will I do with the cotton gin?” Laura Jane asked in bewilderment as she came up behind her stepmother. “I’ve only been there a few times in my whole life.”
Compassion for the confused young woman acted as a distraction from Caroline’s own heartache. She embraced Laura Jane. “You don’t have to worry about the gin any more than you ever have. Your father only willed you the profits from it.”
“What about you?”
“I’m to be paid a yearly salary for watching over it for you. Granger will advise us both and keep track of everything. So stop worrying. It’ll be just as it was before.”
“You’ll stay here, won’t you? You won’t leave?”
“You heard Granger. Your daddy gave The Retreat to me.” She laid her cheek against Laura Jane’s hair and let it absorb the tear that trickled from her eye. She wasn’t fooled. Roscoe’s motives had been far from benevolent. He had known that by giving her The Retreat, he could ensure that Rink would despise her. She now owned his mother’s house. If Rink had ever loved anything, it was The Retreat.
“You’ll stay, but Rink won’t,” Laura Jane said miserably.
“No, Rink won’t stay.” Then Caroline sent the girl to Haney so she could cry alone.
“What are you doing up?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Should I feel honored?”
“I thought we should talk.”
“About what?”
“Don’t be obtuse, Rink.”
“Obtuse?” he asked, his dark brows arching high over his eyes. “Now that you’re the lady of the manor you’ve started using fifty-cent words.”
The foyer was dim. It was late. He hadn’t returned for dinner and Caroline had no guarantee that he would come back at all. Except for Laura Jane. He wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye to her. So she had waited up until she’d heard his pickup in the driveway, then had run downstairs to confront him when he came through the front door. She was standing on the second step. He was on the first. He was looking up at her belligerently.
“I don’t blame you for being angry.”
“Thanks. I’m glad I have your blessing.”
“Rink, please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t blame me for Roscoe’s will! I had nothing to do with it. I was as flabbergasted as you. Why don’t you contest it?”
“Give Roscoe and the town the satisfaction of knowing how much it bothers me? No thank you.”
Roscoe’s dead! she wanted to scream. When would the war between father and son end? With forced calm, she said, “No matter what that piece of paper says, The Retreat belongs to you, Rink. It always will. You can live here for the rest of your life if you want to.”
He laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “The terms of the will only stipulated that Laura Jane could live here for the rest of her life, not me, too. Your hospitality is commendable, Mom,” he said, bowing slightly at the waist.
She flinched against his ugly words, but she tilted her chin up. “I can see you’re determined to hurt me. All right. If it makes you feel better, go ahead. Call me dirty names.”
With lightning reflexes, his hand shot out, caught the tie belt at her waist and hauled her against him. The impact drove the breath out of both of them. He twisted the belt around his fist, grinding his hand against her stomach. His jaw was rigid and hard as he clamped his teeth tight. He closed his eyes.
For only an instant, a heartbeat, he laid his head on her breast and groaned almost soundlessly. Then he released her with a terse expletive.
“I’m sorry, Caroline, I’m sorry.” He sighed. “Yes, I’m mad as hell. But not at you. At him. What makes it worse is that there’s no getting him back. He’s dead and I’m powerless to fight the sonofabitch. There’s no way to release the rage inside me.”
He banged his fist on the oak banister. Instinctively she reached out to comfort him but withdrew her hand before it could make contact. He would only misconstrue her love as pity and would hate her for it.
“Where did you go tonight?” she asked softly.
He drew in a deep breath that expanded his chest and opened his unbuttoned shirt to reveal a mat of dark curling hair. “Driving. Just driving around town.” He looked at her. “This is my home, Caroline. Despite its flaws, I love this town. I could no more turn off my love for it because the people in it aren’t perfect than I could love Laura Jane less because she’s not perfect. I’ll miss it all over again when I have to leave.”
“You are leaving, then?”
“In the morning.”
Pain knifed through her heart and she clutched her hand to it. Her face crumpled. So soon! He would be gone and this time he might never come back. Now he could send for Laura Jane when he wanted to see her. “Rink, what kind of monster was he? What kind of man leaves no legacy to a son like you?”
He saw her tears and her pain and knew that it was for him, for all that hadn’t been. He wanted to hug her to him. He wanted to bury his head between her breasts and breathe the scent of her flesh. He wanted to press his lips into her skin. He wanted her loving comfort. He wanted the temporary forgetfulness making love to her would bring him. At that moment he could almost have begged her for it. But he remembered the words he had been intended to remember.
You’ll never have that woman now, Rink. I know you. Your damned stubborn Winston pride won’t let you have her. Because I had her first. Y
ou remember that. She was my wife and I had her first.
“He left me a legacy, Caroline,” he said roughly. “A helluva legacy.”
He brushed past her and went upstairs. Slowly she followed and went into her room. Peeling off her robe, she lay down on the bed, thinking that there was no way she would ever rest again.
But when the telephone rang a while later, she was bemused and disoriented with sleep as she picked up the receiver and brought it to her ear.
“Hello.”
She listened for no more than an instant before dropping the phone and racing for the door of her room, not even taking time to put on her robe. Her bare feet flew over the hardwood floors in the dark hallway. She barged through the door of Rink’s room and raced toward the bed. Her hands landed in the middle of his bare back.
“Rink, Rink, wake up.”
He rolled over and stared up at her in disbelief. Her eyes were dilated, her hair was wild, her breasts were heaving, almost spilling out of her nightgown. “What—”
“The gin’s on fire!”
Both his feet hit the floor at the same time, almost knocking her over in the process. He grabbed up a pair of jeans that were folded over a chair. “How do you know?”
“Barnes called.”
“Is it bad?”
“He couldn’t say yet.”
“What about the fire department?”
“Already notified.”
“What the hell is going on in here?” Haney demanded from the doorway as she knotted the sash of her robe around her waist. “It sounded like y’all were playing basketball and—”
“The gin’s on fire.”
“Lord o’ mercy.”
Caroline left Rink’s room at a run. He was almost dressed and she intended to go with him. She pulled on the first clothes her hands came into contact with, an old shirt and a pair of denim cutoffs. She crammed her feet into a pair of sandals. Not exactly a firefighting outfit, but she could already hear Rink’s boots thudding down the stairs. She bounded after him.