by Sandra Brown
“Damned if you aren’t the stubbornest woman I’ve ever met,” he said with agitation. Then he chuckled. “Maybe that’s why I love you so much, baby.” He had enfolded her in a crushing embrace, and they had sealed their engagement with a kiss.
Oddly, he hadn’t asked her to sleep with him since. Until then, it had been a constant source of tension between them.
“It’s not as if you’re a virgin or something,” he had railed at her the first time she had refused his practiced invitation for her to stay the night at his sprawling Houston home. “You’ve been married, for God’s sake.”
She had been adamant then and continued to be. Apparently, since she had accepted the ring that branded her as his possession, he had found an outlet for his sexual frustration. Perversely, Erin was grateful to that anonymous woman—or women—who was supplying Bart with something she couldn’t give him.
The late afternoon San Francisco sun made rainbows on the facets of the diamond as she turned it on her finger. She sighed in resolution. As soon as she returned to Houston she would have to level with Bart. She had used the excuse of finding her brother for long enough. He would be expecting to proceed with wedding plans. If she had ever wavered in her decision before, after experiencing Lance Barrett’s kiss, Erin knew now for a certainty that she would never marry Bart Stanton.
Her reverie was interrupted when the door to the room opened, and she turned to see Melanie’s blond head peering around it.
“Miss O’Shea?” she asked timidly. “Mr. Barrett said you wanted to see me.”
Erin suppressed the strong urge to laugh. She was in this woman’s house, and yet the hostess was almost asking Erin’s permission to enter the room.
She crossed the room quickly and extended both hands to her sister-in-law. “Melanie.”
The young woman closed the door behind her and took both of Erin’s hands. They stared at each other for long moments, taking their measure of each other, and then it seemed the most natural thing in the world to come together in a sisterly embrace.
Erin’s heart constricted when she felt sobs wracking Melanie’s slender frame. Erin didn’t mind the tears that would stain her silk shirt as they fell on her shoulder. She stroked Melanie’s long, straight hair and shushed her, assuring her that everything would be well.
Tears were smarting in her own eyes by the time Melanie’s anguish had been spent and she pushed away from Erin. “We’re being terribly silly, aren’t we?” Erin said. “Let’s sit down over here and get better acquainted.”
“I’m sorry, Miss O’Shea,” Melanie sniffed. “I’ve needed to do that ever since Ken… ever since he… did what he did. I can’t understand it.” She shook her head sadly, staring bleakly into Erin’s face.
“Please call me Erin.”
“Are you really Ken’s sister?” the woman/child asked hopefully.
“As positive as I can be under the circumstances,” Erin answered honestly.
“You look like him,” Melanie said, looking closely at Erin’s face.
“Really?” Erin said with a laugh, delighted at the prospect. “Do you have any pictures of him?”
“Sure. Lots.” Melanie bounced off the couch, tears and remorse forgotten temporarily, and opened a drawer in the desk—the desk that Lance Barrett had so negligently leaned against, Erin thought inconsequentially, and hated herself for allowing thoughts of him to enter her mind.
“Here are our wedding pictures,” Melanie said.
“How long have you been married?” Hadn’t she asked Lance that question? He had given her an evasive answer.
“Four years,” Melanie replied as she flopped down beside Erin on the couch and opened a large white padded volume. “Here he is.”
Slowly Erin took the photograph album out of Melanie’s hands and lifted it toward her. She was unaccountably nervous as she lowered her eyes to the smiling man in the picture.
His image began to blur as her eyes filled with tears and impatiently she wiped them away in order to see him better. He was tall, towering over his bride who looked up at him with worshipful eyes. His hair was as dark as Erin’s, though it hadn’t been treated to the soft body permanent that hers had, and was combed back straight from his face. The eyes were an unmistakable family trait. His brows arched over his deep ebony eyes exactly as hers did. His mouth was less full, the lips more narrow, but the resemblance between them was striking.
“He’s very handsome, isn’t he?” Erin asked hoarsely. Her throat was clogged with emotion.
“Yes,” agreed Melanie. “I fell in love with him the first time I walked in the bank and saw him behind the teller’s counter. I asked Daddy who the new employee was, but he didn’t know his name. I made it my business to find out, though!”
“Your father works at the same bank that Ken does?”
“He’s the president and chairman of the board,” Melanie commented absently as she turned the pages of the album.
Erin digested this piece of news as she nodded appreciatively while Melanie pointed out other pictures of Ken. Erin would look at them more closely later in private. Something about Melanie’s father being such a top-ranking officer in the bank where her brother was employed bothered her. Would it have bothered Ken as well? Could that be the reason he had embezzled the money?
“Forgive me for being so nosy, Melanie. I want to learn as much about my brother as possible. You’re several years younger than he, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted, lowering her eyes. “He’s ten years older than I am. I was only twenty when we got married. Mother and Daddy had a fit when we announced our plans to them. We had been dating secretly. I think I knew all along that they wouldn’t be too happy with me for dating Ken. They wanted me to date the sons of their friends who play tennis and golf at the country club every day and go sailing on the weekends. I just wasn’t interested in anybody. I fell in love the first time Ken kissed me and then begged my forgiveness for doing so.” Her brown eyes were twinkling when she added, “I assured him, I didn’t mind.”
But your parents did, thought Erin.
There was a light tap on the door before it opened and Lance walked in. “What would you ladies like for dinner? I thought I’d go out for Chinese food if that’s okay with everybody.”
Erin couldn’t believe his insensitivity. He was treating this bizarre situation like it was a family picnic.
“Chinese food sounds great to me,” Melanie said happily. “Do you like it, Erin? If not, we can order something else.”
“I thought prisoners were restricted to a diet of bread and water,” she said directly to Mr. Barrett.
He glared at her a moment with those cold blue eyes before he growled, “Only the smart-assed ones.” The door was shut with emphasis.
“Brute,” Erin muttered when he had gone.
“Mr. Barrett?” Melanie asked in an astonished voice. “Why, he’s the nicest man I’ve ever met! Except for Ken, of course.”
Erin looked at her in puzzled shock. “You can’t be serious! He’s practically taken over the control of your house and your life. He issues orders like a drill sergeant and expects everyone to scurry to obey them. He has invaded your privacy to the utmost extreme.”
“He’s only doing his job, Erin,” Melanie said quietly. “Ken is in a lot of trouble, you know. When Mr. Barrett came here, he was apologetic for his intrusion. During the long hours he questioned me, he was a perfect gentleman, and put me at ease when I was frightened and heartsick with worry over Ken and what he had done. He coaxed me into remembering things I never could have otherwise; things that might help them track Ken down. I’ll do anything I can to help them. I want them to find Ken and bring him home. I want to know that he’s safe.”
Erin sympathized with the young woman and even concurred with her hope that Ken Lyman would soon be found. But she was stunned to hear Melanie describing Lance Barrett in such glowing terms. Words like “gentleman,” “apologetic,” “coax” didn’t fit the m
anner in which the man had treated her.
What made Erin a suspect in crime when he obviously didn’t think Ken’s wife was in collusion with him? He had abused her physically and verbally since her arrival. What had she done to provoke such harsh treatment?
* * *
Melanie insisted that, in spite of everything, Erin’s appearance in the house called for a celebration. She cajoled Mike into allowing Erin to leave the study and help her set the dining room table. Using her best tablecloth, china, and crystal, Melanie set the table with the detail required for an important dinner party.
Her attempt was touching and somehow pathetic. She seemed far younger than her twenty-four years. Even though she gave lip service to the seriousness of Ken’s theft, Erin doubted that Melanie really grasped it. Naiveté and blind trust were readily apparent in everything she said and did.
The three of them were laughing at a recalcitrant napkin that refused to stand at attention in the china plate as Melanie wanted it to, when Lance came through the door of the dining room.
He wore a scowl of disapproval when he leveled his hard gaze on Erin. Leaving no question of his displeasure at seeing her out of the room where he had sequestered her, he bore down on Mike.
“Uh… I… she… that is, Mrs. Lyman thought…” Mike stammered before Lance mercifully cut him off abruptly and said, “Let’s eat this before it gets cold.”
Mike breathed a visible sigh of relief and cast an eye toward Erin as if blaming her for his transgression. He was quick to hop to Lance’s aid in relieving him of some of the cartons of Chinese food. The white pasteboard was incongruous with the fine linen tablecloth and shimmering crystal, but no one seemed to notice as they took their seats around the table.
Erin watched with stunned eyes as Lance helped Melanie into her chair. He was solicitous in manner, and his eyes softened discernibly whenever he looked at her. Erin graciously accepted Mike’s help with her own chair. She smiled up at him and said, “Thank you,” missing the hard, quelling look Mike received from his superior.
Melanie explained to Lance her reason for going to the trouble of using the best dishes and setting the table in the dining room. “It’s not every day that one finds out they have a beautiful, sweet sister-in-law. If Ken were here,” her voice quivered slightly, “I’m sure that he’d want to celebrate her sudden appearance.”
“Did your husband ever mention having a sister that was separated from him?” Lance asked her softly. His tone was deceptive and for Melanie’s benefit alone. When he looked at Erin, she shuddered under the glacial stare.
“No. If he knew about Erin, he never told me. He’ll be delighted to see her. I know.”
“Miss O’Shea.” Erin jumped when Lance addressed her. “In this quest for your family, did you make any progress toward finding your parents?”
Coming from someone else, she would have considered that a reasonable question. But she knew that Lance Barrett was only baiting a trap he hoped she’d fall into.
“Unfortunately, no. The nun who told me about Ken remembered only that my mother brought us in together. She didn’t remember anything about her or why she… why she…” As usual when she talked on this subject, her vocal cords tightened, making it difficult for her to add the last words, “abandoned us.”
There was a noticeable cessation of dining sounds. No silverware clattered against china, no ice cubes rattled in glasses, no one said a word. Finally Melanie broke the period of suspended animation when she said as sweetly as a child comforting a playmate, “She probably had a very good reason, Erin.”
Erin composed her face and looked up at Melanie. Smiling, she said, “Yes, probably.”
Conversation during the remainder of the meal was more subdued. Only once did Lance make Melanie laugh when he regaled her with an adventure that he swore was true, but which Erin considered to be highly implausible. He had probably taken a mundane incident and embroidered it to make it seem more intriguing.
Erin conceded him a small amount of her admiration for entertaining Melanie and taking her mind off the problem that had toppled her world. She even grudgingly forgave him for going out for Chinese food which Melanie had eaten with gusto.
“Mike, if you’re finished, why don’t you go across the street and relieve one of the boys so he can go get them something to eat. Then when they’re settled in for the night, come back and check in with me.”
“Sure, Lance. Ladies.” Mike excused himself with his characteristic economy of words.
“What’s across the street?” Erin’s curiosity had gotten the best of her and she couldn’t help but ask what she thought was a harmless question.
“Mr. Barrett’s team has headquarters over there. They can watch this house, trace all the telephone calls, things like that. We mustn’t ever answer the red telephone. All our calls on the regular house phone are being taped. Wasn’t it lucky that the house was vacant just when they needed to rent it?”
Melanie’s eyes were wide with excitement, but Erin saw a flash of irritation in Mr. Barrett’s. He was less than happy with Melanie’s loquacious explanation.
“It’s time for you to go back to the study, Miss O’Shea,” he said peremptorily as he grasped her upper arm and virtually dragged her out of her chair.
“I think I should help Melanie with the dishes,” Erin protested, as she tried to extricate her arm from his hand. It was a futile attempt.
“I’ll help her,” he said.
She stumbled down the hall after him, barely able to keep up with his long stride. When they reached the door of the study, she jerked her arm free and faced him belligerently. “Do you have to manhandle me that way?”
“Did I hurt you?” he asked quickly. Was that a touch of genuine concern she heard in his voice? His hand came back to her arm, but this time when he touched her, it was almost a caress, as if he were soothing the place that may have been bruised by his fingers only moments before.
She could feel the warmth of his hand through her silk sleeve as he stroked her arm. Tentacles of sensation radiated from his fingers and ran up her arm and curled around her heart, swelling it, expanding her chest. His hand was so comforting as he continued to gently rub her arm, that Erin had the strange impulse to lean against that hard, strong chest and seek even more comfort.
Wasn’t there some study on the extraordinary relationship that developed between captives and captors? Didn’t captives often come to depend upon their captors to the point of love?
That possibility seared her brain and shook the foundations of her soul. She stepped away from him, suddenly afraid of the very real physical threat he posed. She must have imagined that momentary gentleness on his part, for when she looked into his face, it was hard and set in the grim lines she had come to recognize.
She heard him mutter a curse as he turned around and stalked down the hall.
Chapter Four
Erin was leafing through photograph albums when Lance came back into the room several hours later. It was not quite eleven o’clock, but her body was working on Houston time, and in light of the events of the day, she was exhausted. Somehow though, she couldn’t lie down on the sofa and seek the oblivion of sleep.
She pored over the pictures in the albums, searching each one for revealing traits of her brother’s personality. Melanie had brought her the albums when she had carried in an armload of blankets and pillows.
“Mr. Barrett asked me to bring these things to you. I offered to let you sleep in the guest bedroom upstairs, but he said no.”
“That figures,” Erin grumbled.
“I remembered these albums were stored in our bedroom closet. Would you like to look through them?”
“Thank you, Melanie. I can’t tell you how boring these four walls have become. Besides, I want to learn all I can about Ken.”
Displaying an understanding that surprised Erin, Melanie said, “I’d love to stay and talk to you, but I think I should leave you alone. There are over thirty years of Ken
’s life that you need to catch up on.”
Impulsively Erin went toward her sister-in-law and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for accepting me. I know that when they find Ken, everything will work out for the two of you. I’ll be available if you need any help.”
“Oh, Erin, Ken is going to love you. I know he is.” She sounded like an innocent child again.
Erin took her shoes off and curled her feet under her as she sat in the corner of the leather sofa and began studying the photographs. There were pictures of Ken with a nice-looking couple whom Erin supposed to be his adoptive parents. She laughed over one photograph featuring a Ken about nine years old wearing an enormous pair of Mickey Mouse ears standing outside the gates of Disneyland. For the next brief hours, his whole life kaleidoscoped before her eyes. She reached out and touched a recent photograph taken on Fisherman’s Wharf. Ken’s dark hair was windblown, his smile rakish, his long legs in the ragged cutoffs were tanned and muscular.
Tears pricked the backs of her eyelids as she prayed that soon she would see this man who was the only person on earth she knew of with whom she shared a bloodline. With the back of her hand, she whisked away the tears as the door opened and Lance walked in.
He stood in the doorway for a moment and allowed himself the luxury of staring at the woman folded into the corner of the couch. Either she’s who she says she is, or she’s one hell of an actress, he thought grimly when he caught her brushing away the tears.
Her fatigue was all too evident as she looked up at him, but he thought the hollows under her cheekbones added a waifish quality to her face that was beguiling. The faint lavender shadows under those wide, fathomless eyes made them even more haunting. Any man with an ounce of sense would run as far and as fast as he could from them.
He swallowed the lump that unexplainably formed in his throat when he noted the slender legs tucked under her hips. Her skirt had ridden up over the knee and accommodated him with an unrestricted view of a smooth, slim, silk-encased thigh.
Hell! he thought. If he didn’t know the muscles of his face were frozen into that implacable mask, he’d be making a fool of himself. He felt like a schoolboy seeing his first copy of Playboy. He wished he didn’t remember how her mouth tasted.