by Janet Dailey
The set of his jaw was hard with displeasure when he studied her defiant expression. Her attitude was plain and Whit was able to read her like a book. His gaze narrowed in grim disapproval.
“How long do you intend to carry on this war of silence?” Whit challenged.
Shari refused to answer him. It was useless to try for the door. Whit would only catch her and haul her back, so she turned into the room. But he caught her arm again to swing her around and force Shari to face him.
This time his hold on her arm brought a vivid rush of memories. She couldn’t be indifferent to it or them. Alone in the library with him, there was too much chance that the scene in his bedroom might be repeated.
“Don’t touch me,” she warned, her teeth tightly clenched to keep the tremor out of her voice.
Whit breathed out a silent, humorless laugh and didn’t let her go. “It’s no good telling me that—not after I’ve held you and kissed you. I couldn’t stay away from you any more than a drowning man can stop himself from grabbing at a rope.”
A little shiver trickled down her spine, because Shari knew he was right. They had crossed a bridge, and there wasn’t any going back. Struggling against the grip of his hand could incite him into something more physical, so Shari chose to stiffly stand her ground in silent resistance. But her senses were reacting to him, disturbed in a way that was more sensual than scared. She had to resist them as well.
“Do you think I wanted this to happen?” Whit demanded. “I tried to deny what I was feeling for you but I couldn’t. And I can’t.”
She lowered her gaze to the front of his shirt; the material was stretched across his flatly muscled chest, pulling at the buttons. It was extremely easy to recall the feel of the hard flesh the shirt concealed, and the sensations touching it had aroused.
“That’s your problem,” Shari insisted because she had her hands full with her own.
“I’ve waited a long time for you to look at me as a man,” he stated. “You did the other night, for the first time.”
Holding her silence, Shari didn’t bother to correct him that it hadn’t been the first time. She’d had glimpses of him a few times just prior to that night, because of things Doré had said and the territorial instincts that had surfaced. But she wasn’t any better prepared for such recognition now than she was then.
“You know I’m right. Why won’t you admit it?” Whit showed some of his impatience with her.
“I’ll admit nothing because there’s nothing to admit!” Shari lied vigorously. “I hate you for the way you’ve ruined everything.”
“What did I ruin?” He shook his head in a kind of quiet disgust. “I was never your brother. You chose to look upon me as one, but that’s not what I was. That’s not what I am.”
“Don’t you see?” she argued. “I can never trust you again. It will never be the same between us!”
“If you gave it a chance, it would be better,” he insisted.
“No!” She wouldn’t even consider that possibility.
“Shall I prove it?” Whit challenged with an arching brow that seemed to mock her denial.
“Leave me alone. That’s all I want from you.” Shari strained away from him, not trying to break free yet wanting as much distance between them as possible. A treacherous temptation was insidiously working on her system in the face of his suggestive challenge. “If it hadn’t been for Mother, I would have left this house the next morning and never came back.”
“Your mother wasn’t the only reason you stayed.” He smoothly dismissed her explanation. “There’s a part of you that felt something happen that night. Curiosity made you stay to see if it could happen again.”
“That’s not true.” But a quiver of apprehension removed the conviction from her voice, because that traitorous curiosity was working on her right now.
She was conscious of his masculine build, the understated potency of his male charm, and the unnerving line of his mouth. In spite of her determination to show indifference, Shari was stimulated by his closeness, the familiar aroma of tobacco that clung to his clothes and mingled with his own individual scent, and the clean, strong lines of his features.
“Prove it, then,” Whit challenged.
“How?” She was thrown into confusion.
“Kiss me the way you would kiss Rory.” He eyed her with a knowing look that openly doubted her ability to do it.
“That’s ridiculous,” Shari protested with ill-concealed panic. “Why should I have to prove anything to you?”
“You’re not proving it to me,” he countered. “You’re proving it to yourself.”
“And the result would be your interpretation.” She was thinking fast, trying to find a way out of the dangerous entrapment of his challenge. “If I kissed you the same way I would kiss Rory, there would be warmth and love in it. You’d simply take that and twist it into something entirely different.”
“Like desire, for instance?” Whit mocked her softly, and Shari trembled a little because she could feel that sensation stirring inside her.
When he took the book out of her hand, there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. She felt helpless and she hated the feeling. Resisting Whit was like crossing swords with a master fencer. She’d never win.
But Shari wasn’t a quitter. Defiance shimmered in her green eyes as he slowly pulled her rigid body into his arms, but they closed when his mouth settled onto hers. At first, its pressure tantalized her lips, almost laughing at their rigid line. The pervasive warmth of his embrace spread through her limbs while he slowly deepened the kiss.
At some point, she began kissing him back, returning the lazy ardor. The circle of his arms tightened to mold her to his hard length. The instant Shari realized how quickly she had surrendered, she turned her head away from him and tightly closed her eyes in self-reproach.
“There’s nothing sinful about wanting me, Shari,” he murmured near her ear. The gentle insistence of his tone almost persuaded her to believe him. “It’s as natural as breathing.”
“I can’t,” she protested in a husky note. “Not after all these years.”
“I know you need time to adjust,” Whit admitted grudgingly and lifted his head. “That’s why I’ve stayed away from you this past week so you could think things through for yourself.”
When Shari pushed out of his arms, Whit didn’t try to stop her. “I want you to stay away from me,” she insisted, because she knew that she couldn’t trust herself anymore.
“I won’t,” he warned. “You’re rejecting me for the wrong reasons.”
“How can you be so sure?” She was forced into defying him. “You think you know everything! Well, you don’t!”
“I don’t know everything, but I know you,” Whit stated with calm certainty.
Shari sought refuge in a general anger at his sex. “I’m wasting my time talking to you. You Lancasters are all alike. Your opinion is the only one that matters.” Agitated, she looked around. “Where did you put the book I had? I was taking it to Mother.”
“It’s right here.” He picked it up from a side table and handed it to her, faint amusement showing through his arrogant expression. That only angered her more.
Jerking the book out of his hand, Shari held onto it tightly and searched desperately for something suitably cutting to say. She didn’t have time to find it as the library door was opened behind her, and the elder Lancaster hobbled in with his cane. She looked back when he stopped and eyed the two of them, his aging features wearing an expression of warm satisfaction.
“The two of you are on speaking terms again,” he remarked. “It’s about time. No good comes from brothers and sisters fighting.”
“Whit isn’t my brother,” Shari stated with faint sarcasm. “Don’t take my word for it. Ask him.” She tossed the challenge over her shoulder, daring Whit to bring the issue out into the open.
“I’m not her brother,” he admitted it readily, then went a step further. “You might as we
ll get used to the idea, Granddad, because I’m going to marry her.”
Shari went white with shock, then erupted into a full-blown anger. “Over my dead body!”
“You will be very much alive on our wedding night!” Whit snapped, answering her with equal force. “That, I promise you!”
“You’re crazy.” She was trembling. “I’ll never marry you.”
“Yes, you will.” The absolute certainty of his steady gaze was unnerving. “You’ll marry me and you’ll like it.”
Her glance swung to the elder man, leaning heavily on his cane. He was watching their exchange with what appeared to be enjoyment. Any thought that he might come to her aid was immediately dashed.
“He’s crazy, Granddad,” Shari appealed to him anyway.
“I think he’s making a lot of sense,” he replied blandly. “I don’t know of any other man who could handle you except Whit.”
“I don’t need anyone to handle me!” she flared. “I can take care of myself.”
“Every woman should have a man to take care of her,” Frederick Lancaster insisted.
“That attitude went out of style with shoulder pads!” Shari declared in disgust. “It’s only you Lancaster men that are holdouts.”
“I have no intention of taking care of you,” Whit informed her. “In fact, I plan on it being the other way around. But you can’t disagree that every woman should have a man to love her.”
“No, I don’t disagree with that,” she retorted. “But I don’t want you to be the one who loves me.”
“There isn’t anything you can do about it, so you might as well accept it,” he stated.
She turned on Frederick Lancaster in a temper, her green eyes blazing. “This is all your fault!” she accused. “You’re always trying to make decisions for other people. Whit is following in your footsteps. You’re wrong—both of you!”
There wasn’t a better exit line, so Shari used that one to storm out of the library. She nearly ran over the housekeeper busy dusting the furniture in the entry hall.
“Here.” Shari stopped and shoved the book into Mrs. Youngblood’s hands. “Would you take this upstairs to my mother and tell her I’m going for a walk. I’ll see her around lunchtime.”
Taking it for granted that the housekeeper would do as she asked, Shari didn’t wait for a reply. She swept out of the house and down the front steps of the portico, not slowing down until she was well away from the house.
The slower pace was not the result of a cooling temper. It was dictated by the heat of a summer sun, beating down on the earth. Perspiration was collecting under the heavy weight of the hair on her neck. She lifted it so the drifting breeze could reach it as she strolled past the bulk barns.
They were another example of the changes at Gold Leaf. Nothing was as it had been, not Whit and not the processing of the money crop—tobacco. When Shari was a child, the old gold leaves of tobacco had been painstakingly tied to sticks, then racked on poles to be cured in the old log tobacco barns.
She missed the old, twin-eaved structures. It didn’t matter how labor-efficient the bulk barns were. Leaves, the size of a blade from a huge ceiling fan, were stacked in the barns for curing, a much simpler system.
But it somehow lacked the romance of the first—just as Whit’s announcement that they were going to be married had lacked the flourishes and frills. Shari simmered with indignation at his high-handed manner—and Granddad Lancaster’s endorsement of Whit’s decision. Neither cared what she thought or felt. She might as well have been a child for all the notice they took of her opinion.
Somewhere along the line, Shari had begun to accept the concept that Whit was not her brother, and never had been—perhaps because of the elder Lancaster’s easy acceptance of it. She was also becoming reconciled to the physical attraction she felt toward Whit. But she would never accept someone telling her what she would do.
Marriage had never been mentioned by Whit. He hadn’t even proposed to her. And he’d never said that he loved her. He had simply informed her they were going to be married and she was going to like the idea. Just thinking about the arrogance of it all made her blood boil.
The Lancasters weren’t the only ones who had pride. Shari possessed it in abundance, too. No one had ever ruled her, although Frederick Lancaster had tried. She was determined that Whit Lancaster would fare no better.
She paused at the stables where the carriage horses and hunters had once been housed during that long ago era of Gold Leaf. Only three horses were stabled there now. The fat, white gelding called Snowdance had been Rory’s first horse.
The gentle old beast had been retired to the pasture years ago. Rory had sentimentally refused to sell the gelding, afraid it would wind up in a glue factory. Now it was living out its years in the company of two young, spirited steeds.
The black horse was a recent present to Rory from his grandfather, a coming six year old, but Rory hadn’t taken much interest in Coaldust. Shari suspected he had outgrown his horse phase. The golden chestnut approached the paddock fence at a gliding trot, its flaxen mane and tail flaring out like a banner. Banner was the four year old’s name.
Shari admired the classy horse as it came to the fence rail where she was standing and curiously thrust its velvet nose toward her. Banner belonged to Whit. There was a boldness about the horse that seemed to match its owner, spirited without being high-strung or nervous.
As Shari stroked its sleek neck, the horse nuzzled the front of her T-shirt, trying to find the pockets that usually contained pieces of carrot or apple. With a laugh, she pushed its nose away. It faded into a smile as Shari recalled the many times she had gone horseback riding with Whit.
Her own horse had been a feisty gray gelding that she had named Rebel, but Shari had sold him when she’d entered college. She wished she had him back. Together they had wildly ridden off a lot of her anger, tearing across the fields and racing the wind until her temper had cooled.
It was nearly noon before she retraced her path to the house. Shari felt relatively calm, all things considered, as she entered the air-cooled house. From the dining room, there was the muted clatter of the table being set for lunch.
The library door was closed when she passed it. Shari glanced at it, an emerald sparkle of defiance in her eyes. She paused in the dining room to see if Mrs. Youngblood needed any help with lunch, expecting and receiving the refusal. Then, she continued on to the ground floor washroom to clean up before lunch.
A few minutes later, she returned to the dining room. Frederick Lancaster was already seated at the head of the table. Whit and Rory were just taking their seats. Whit paused to pull out the chair beside his for Shari, but she walked around the table to sit next to Rory. The amber glint in his dark eyes seemed to accept the veiled challenge of her gesture and silently warned her it wouldn’t go unanswered.
“Boy, Sis, you are a dark one,” Rory declared with a grinning smile.
Her gaze darted across the table to Whit, a whisper of alarm in her head. But Whit didn’t appear to be paying any attention to her. A dark vitality was evident in his smoothly hewn features. Shari was positive he had something to do with Rory’s remark. The thought was reinforced by the suggestion of a complacent smile deepening the corners of his mouth.
“Why do you say that?” There was wary caution in the question she put to Rory. She had to be sure what he meant by his remark.
“Because of your engagement to Whit,” he replied as if it were obvious. “I still don’t understand why the two of you were so secretive about the way you felt toward each other. You aren’t actually related.”
For a count of ten, Shari kept her lips lying flatly against each other and looked across the table at the I-told-you-so glitter in Whit’s eyes. She was determined not to lose her temper, not this time. It had gained her nothing during their encounter in the library.
“I’m sure glad—” Rory went on, “—that the two of you have finally made up after your lover’s quarrel. T
hings can get back to normal around here now.”
“I doubt if things will get back to normal, Rory,” Shari said smoothly and with smiling calm. “You have been misinformed. There wasn’t any lover’s quarrel. And there isn’t any engagement.”
Her young brother’s mouth opened and closed for a confused second as he glanced from her to Whit. “But … Whit said. …”
“Whit is a Lancaster,” she pointed out in what sounded like a reasonable tone. “He thinks he has the final word on everything. But he’s wrong.”
Rory was confused. “Aren’t you going to marry him?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Both Shari and Whit answered simultaneously, their replies cancelling each other out. Their glances locked across the table. Shari’s was cool and challenging, although inside she was simmering. Whit’s dark eyes revealed easy confidence, and a hint of amusement at her denial.
With a bewildered shake of his head, Rory looked at his plate. “I wish I knew what was going on here.”
“Shari is simply trying to establish her independence,” Whit explained. “She’s afraid of losing it if she becomes Mrs. Whit Lancaster.”
“I have no intention of losing it—or allowing you to run my life,” she bristled at his accusation. She was afraid, but she suspected it was another one of his tricks. She wasn’t about to play into his hand when she didn’t have the trump card.
Whit deliberately ignored her response and addressed himself to Rory. “It’ll take her some time to get used to the idea of being my wife. But she’ll come around.”
The very sound of his voice was possessive and the way his dark glance ran over her was equally so. Referring to her as his wife carried a connotation of marital intimacy that Shari suddenly couldn’t handle. The thought of lying naked in his arms filled her with a coursing heat that scorched her raw nerve ends. Too many remembered and imagined sensations went spinning through her mind.
