by Sandra Brown
He smiled sadly. “There were a few, yes. Like the time I wanted to smoke one of his cigars. I was about twelve. He let me. I got sicker than a dog and he thought that was hilarious. He teased me about it for years later, but I didn’t mind. Then there was the time I got caught painting ‘Go Wildcats’ on the rival school’s team bus. Roscoe defended the whole bunch of us to the school board, reminding them that boys were supposed to raise hell or they wouldn’t be normal.”
His brow wrinkled. “There’s a pattern here, Caroline, that I’ve never thought of before. If I was involved in some kind of mischief, Roscoe approved. He liked me best when I was in trouble. It was when I stood up for something right that he couldn’t stomach me. He wanted me to be like him, a mover and shaker just a little beyond the pale of morality. I don’t claim to be a saint, but I’ve never swindled anybody or hurt anyone just for the hell of it.” He met her eyes full on. “I want you to know this. I regret very much that he and I didn’t love each other.”
“I know you wanted to love him, Rink.”
“If I ever have sons or daughters, I’ll love them for what they are. I’ll never try to change them. I swear that.”
They clasped their hands tightly across the table and didn’t release them until their food arrived.
By the time they had eaten, the place was getting rowdy. There were more drinkers and dancers than diners. The noise level had risen to a din. As soon as Rink got their check from the waitress, they made their way to the cash register at the end of the bar. Their tab was being tallied up when Caroline heard the first slurred voice.
“Must be nice, huh, Virgil, to move right in where Daddy left off?”
Rink’s hands, which had been leafing through a roll of currency, became ominously still. Caroline saw the vein in his temple begin to tick and his jaw bunch in anger.
Virgil giggled. “Reckon you’re right, Sam. Ain’t nuthin’ like havin’ your own daddy work out all the kinks for you, so to speak.”
Rink calmly laid his money on the bar. “Rink, let’s go.” Caroline grabbed his arm. He shook her off like a pesky fly. She glanced around self-consciously. Someone had turned down the volume on the jukebox. All the dancers were suddenly still. Others at the bar moved away from Virgil and Sam, who were obviously too drunk or too stupid to know that they had just ignited a very short fuse. As Rink turned to face them, his eyes smoldered with a yellow light that made Caroline shrink in fear.
“What did you say?” His lips barely moved as he asked his simple question in a deadly quiet voice. One of the men poked the other and they fell against each other laughing.
“Mr. Lancaster, sir,” the manager of the tavern ventured, “they’re new to town. They don’t know nothing about your family. They’re just shooting off their mouths. Don’t pay them no mind. I’ll throw them out.”
He could have saved his courage and his breath, for Rink ignored him. “What did you say?” he demanded more loudly. He advanced on the two men, who were teetering on their barstools.
“Well, we was just sayin’ how lucky you was to have had your daddy warm up your bed for you before he kicked off.”
Caroline raised a trembling hand to cover her mouth and tried to avoid the curious eyes that were aimed at her. She knew they were remembering that for all her finery, she was still Pete Dawson’s girl. Trash.
Virgil could barely talk for laughing at Sam’s clever way with words. “I’ll bet the sheets didn’t even cool off none before you moved right in. Did your daddy teach her some good tricks, sonny? Does she do for you what she—”
Virgil never got to finish his question. He never remembered even starting it. Rink’s rocketing fist crunched into his chin, lifted him off the stool and sent him flying into the ring of spectators. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
Sam watched his friend’s misfortune with open-mouthed astonishment. He got off his stool waveringly. He smiled sickly at Rink.
“He… he… we didn’t mean nuthin’ by it, Mr…. uh… Lancaster, sir. We was just funnin’ with—”
He saw the fist coming, tried to dodge it and took the blow full on his cheekbone. He howled in pain and fell to his knees. Rink stood over him, feet braced wide apart, breathing harshly, his fists balling and releasing at his sides.
“Apologize to the lady,” he said in a soft rasp. “Now.”
Sam rocked back and forth in agony, both his hands clutching the side of his face as though to hold it together. The only sounds he could utter were guttural whines.
“Apologize to the lady,” Rink roared.
Caroline rushed to him and grabbed his arm. “Please, Rink,” she pleaded earnestly, “let’s go. He can’t speak. It doesn’t matter. Just get me out of here. I can’t stand everyone looking at me. Please, let’s go!”
He shook his head as though to clear it. Then he abruptly turned toward the cash register, angrily tossed down a handful of bills and, while stuffing the rest of his money into his jeans pocket, took Caroline’s upper arm and dragged her with him as he pushed through the door.
He sped home, but the pickup lacked the responsive engine of his sports car. He cursed it when it sputtered and choked and wouldn’t go as fast as he wanted. When they got home, he came around to her side and opened the door but didn’t wait for her to get out before he stamped into the house. She followed and found him pacing the library like a caged cat. Judiciously she closed the door behind her as she entered the room and dropped her purse into the nearest chair.
He glared up at her. “Do you see what everybody thinks? They think you slept with my father.”
“I was his wife. What are they supposed to think?”
He cursed imaginatively and ran his hands through his hair. “I guess I’m the laughingstock of the whole damn town. What a kick everybody must be getting out of this. Me taking over where my old man left off.”
His selfishness overwhelmed her. “Have you given any thought to how I feel, to what they think of me?” She splayed a hand wide over her chest. “They all thought I had seduced your father into marrying me. Now they think I’ve seduced my stepson. Whatever they say about you can’t compare to the ugly things they say about me. I’m poor trash, remember? To them I always was and always will be. And it has nothing to do with how moral I am or am not. It’s a stigma I was born with.”
“But as Roscoe’s wife you were about to overcome that stigma, weren’t you?”
She tried to avoid answering, but when she saw the smirking knowledge on his face, she had to respond. “Yes.”
“Well, maybe for your sake it’s a damn shame he died,” he said cruelly. “At least you came out on top financially. I’m sure the contents of his will are common knowledge by now. Everybody knows I was left out of it. The whole town probably thinks I’m mooching off you because you’ve got The Retreat.”
“Be reasonable, Rink. That’s impossible. Everybody knows how successful your airline is.”
“They all know how much I love this place, too. They probably think I’m playing your stud just so you’ll keep me around.”
She recoiled as though he had slapped her. “I hate it when you talk like that.”
“Why not talk about it? Let’s face facts. Isn’t that what I’m doing?” he asked. “What purpose am I serving around here? Laura Jane’s got Steve to take care of her. Haney bustles around them like a mother hen. All I’m doing is keeping the mistress of the house happy in bed.”
“Don’t you dare sound self-sacrificing. You’re happy, too.” She cursed the tears of anger and hurt that filled her eyes.
“I was until I realized that everybody thinks I’m taking Roscoe’s place in your bed.”
“But you’re not! You know that, Rink.”
“The net effect is the same.”
“Because everyone thinks I slept with your father?”
“Yes.” The word exploded from his mouth like a missile. The aftershock that followed was a deadly silence. Finally Rink said, “Even dead he’s keepi
ng us apart.”
Caroline rounded on him, indignation lifting her head to a haughty angle. “Not him. You. Your damned pride. Your pride is keeping us apart this time.”
“And what about yours?” he flared back.
“Mine?” she asked, aghast.
“Yes, yours.”
“What have I ever had to be proud about?”
“That you went off and got yourself a college degree. That you married the richest man in the county. That you live in his mansion. That you’re socially above all those who used to look down their noses at you.”
“I told you when you first came back that I loved living here.”
“But what if everyone knew that the only reason Roscoe married you was to get back at me, that your marriage was a sham? Could you hold your head quite so high then?”
Her guilty silence was as good as a confession. She sank into a chair. Rink’s shoulders sagged. In a calmer voice he said, “I can’t stand their thinking you were my father’s lover and you couldn’t stand their knowing otherwise.” He threw his head back and laughed. “God, what a wizard of revenge he was. If his first trick didn’t work, keeping us apart by assuring me he’d slept with you first, he had this to fall back on.”
He went to the door. “Much as I hate to admit it, Caroline, we’ve played right into his hands. Just as he knew we would.”
There was a heart-wrenching finality to the way he pulled the door closed after leaving the room.
Chapter 13
I’d like to turn that boy over my knee, that’s what I’d like to do,” Haney grumbled as she stripped the linens from Caroline’s bed. “If any young’un ever needed a whipping…”
Caroline sat at her dressing table, trying to massage away a headache. It wasn’t working. Her whole body ached as though she had been bludgeoned. And she had been. By her argument with Rink.
The housekeeper heaped the linens in the middle of the floor and unfolded fresh ones. They popped crisply as she flapped them over the bed. With military neatness, she tucked them under the mattress. “Didn’t he say anything to you last night, give you any indication that he was going to sneak out of here like a thief in the night?”
“No, he… uh… We talked for a while. He came upstairs, and a few minutes later I went to bed. I didn’t know he was gone until you woke me this morning.”
“I taught that boy better manners and his mama did before me. Imagine just packing up and leaving without so much as a how-dee-doo. Driving that new pickup to the landing strip and taking off in his airplane. I swear to goodness, I don’t know what got into him.”
Caroline wished that for once the housekeeper wouldn’t be so talkative. The last thing she wanted to talk about was Rink. Her wounds were too new. Every mention of his name opened them up and made her heart bleed. “I’m sure he had neglected his business in Atlanta for as long as he felt he could.”
Haney threw her a sardonic look. I knew which way the wind was blowing, she wanted to tell the younger woman. She was dying to know what had happened between them to cause Rink to leave so suddenly. For weeks they had been walking around all goo-goo-eyed toward each other. Something had caused Rink to hightail it, and that something had to do with Caroline. She bent down and hoisted up the load of laundry. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell Laura Jane. It’ll break her heart that he didn’t even say good-bye.”
“You said he left her a letter.”
“That isn’t quite the same, is it?”
Caroline’s graciousness had worn out. She stood and went to her closet, gathering up clothes to take into the bathroom, silently hinting that she wanted to be left alone. “She won’t mind Rink’s leaving so much, now that she has Steve to take care of her.”
“And who’s going to take care of you?”
Caroline halted on her way through the bathroom door and spun around to face the intuitive housekeeper. Haney only gave her an arch look before ambling out with an air of superiority, her arms full of bed linens.
Caroline showered and dressed mechanically. She wasn’t interested in how she looked. Rink wouldn’t be there to see her. She would go on as normal, go to the gin and check on the progress of the reconstruction. It would be more important than ever for her to appear in charge and to stand firm on every decision. Some employees might use Rink’s abdication as an excuse to slack off on the work.
When she arrived at the gin, she learned that Rink hadn’t been all that impulsive when he’d left for Atlanta during the night. Barnes met her in the office.
He stood when she entered, shuffling his feet uneasily and never letting his eyes meet hers. “Rink—Mr. Lancaster, that is—called me from Atlanta first thing this morning.”
She tried to appear unaffected by the news, but her hand was trembling when she pulled open the desk drawer to put her purse inside. “Oh?”
Barnes cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am. And he said that I was to help you in any way I could to keep things running smooth, and all. He told me to call him if anything irregular-like came up.”
“Thank you, Barnes,” she said quietly. He hadn’t completely deserted her. He still cared enough to see that she wouldn’t be left with an inoperative gin. On the other hand, he could merely be protecting Laura Jane’s inheritance.
The foreman twisted his hat in his hand. “You know, me and the guys… well, we sorta got used to having Rink around again. ’Course he was just a kid when he left here the first time, but we all liked him even then. He was always looking out for us, know what I mean? Not like his daddy, meaning no disrespect. But Rink was always taking up for us workers.”
“Yes, I know what you mean, Barnes.”
“Well,” he said, backing toward the door and mentally cursing himself. Hell, he hadn’t meant to make her cry. “If you need anything, you just holler, you hear, Mrs. Lancaster?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
When he was gone, Caroline went to the window and surveyed the landscape. Summer’s demise was imminent. The flowers and trees were no longer lush. They were drying up, curling and brittle with fatigue, waiting to die. That was how she felt. For those precious weeks she and Rink had been together, her heart had celebrated life. Now it felt as shriveled as the last brave blossoms of summer clinging to life.
“It was never meant to be, Caroline,” she whispered to herself. Were they the proverbial star-crossed lovers, doomed before they were even born? Did fate arrange such human catastrophes? Or were they paying for the sins of their fathers, living out a biblical prophesy?
The cause didn’t matter because the end was irreversible. Rink had been right. They were both too proud. She had liked what being a Lancaster meant. Rink knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t want to give that up. And for fear that it would look like begging, he would never come to her as long as she owned The Retreat.
Her head came up. Her heart began to pound.
As long as she owned The Retreat.
Could she give it up? What did the house mean to her without Rink in it? That had always been part of its mystique, part of what drew her to it. It was where Rink Lancaster lived. Even when she shared the house with Roscoe, she would walk the halls and imagine Rink there, as a child, as an adolescent, as a young man. Without him it was just a collection of lovely rooms surrounded by four walls.
It had never belonged to her. Always to him. Legal jargon written down on a piece of paper would never change that.
But could she give it up?
A soft knock on the study door brought her head up from the ledgers. “Come in.”
Granger stepped into the shadowed room where only the green-shaded lamp on Roscoe’s desk shed any light. “Haney said you were in here. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
Caroline smiled at the attorney. “Come in, Granger. I welcome the interruption.”
“You’re burning the midnight oil. Is that necessary?”
Yes, it was necessary. Because when she didn’t bury herself in work she thought of R
ink. She thought of him anyway, but at least staying busy helped alleviate the pain. In the month since he had left, the pain had become less sharp, changing into a steady dull ache for which there was no relief. “This bookkeeping has to be done sometime. At the gin I’m constantly interrupted, so I can get more done here after hours. Did Haney offer you something? A drink, coffee?”
“No thank you.” He seated himself across the desk from her in the straight-back chair. “How are things at the gin?”
“Busy, chaotic, fine. But you know that. You were out there yesterday. Is there some problem, Granger?” He looked like a man on his way to the gallows. “Why did you come to see me?” Her face paled. Rink. Something’s happened to Rink.
Granger was sensitive to her rising panic. “No, no. I didn’t mean to alarm you. It’s nothing tragic.” He studied the rug beneath his chair for a moment. “It’s just that you’ve been extended an invitation and I don’t know how you’re going to take it.”
“An invitation to what?”
“An invitation to accept a plaque designating Roscoe as Citizen of the Year at the Fall Festival.”
He referred to the citywide celebration sponsored each year by the Winstonville Chamber of Commerce. Caroline couldn’t imagine herself having anything to do with the festival, nor Roscoe. “They want to give the award posthumously? Why? Why not honor someone who’s living?”
Granger scratched behind his long, droopy ear. “That’s what I asked. Not that I wasn’t honored on Roscoe’s behalf,” he rushed to add, ever loyal. “But it seems that the award committee voted on him last spring. They don’t see fit to change their minds and want you to accept the plaque at the opening ceremony of the festival.”
She stood and, wrapping her arms around her waist, went to stand at the window. It was raining, a dreary September rain. It fell heavily, despondently. Not at all like a soft summer rain that kissed and caressed naked skin even as hands and mouths did. She pressed her forehead against the cool pane of glass. Would she ever get over missing him?