Now and Forever

by Diana Palmer

  Russell’s smile deepened. “I’ll settle for coffee.”

  “It’ll only take a minute!” Belle backed away and almost ran for the kitchen. Lutecia had never seen her move so fast.

  “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Currie?” Angela asked, patting the sofa beside her. Her icy eyes actually smiled for him. “I’m so glad to have met you at last. Lutecia told us that you farmed, but I never expected…” She bit her lip, plainly losing her cool poise for an instant. “I mean…”

  Russell crossed his long legs, and his eyes caught Lutecia’s. “I know exactly what you mean, Mrs. Tyler,” he said with a mocking smile.

  She glared at him, and for an instant the tension in the room was almost tangible. Until Belle entered the suddenly silent room with a tray of hot coffee and started firing questions right and left at Russell.

  Frank perched himself on the arm of Lutecia’s chair, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “Stuffy, middle-aged bachelor?” he teased. “Good Lord, he’s a walking miracle of sophistication! Or was your description colored by sibling rivalry?”

  She blushed. “It’s the way I remember him,” she mumbled miserably.

  “You’re afraid of him.”

  Her wide, panicky eyes met his. “Afraid?” she echoed. “I’m terrified!”

  A shadow crossed Frank’s pale face. “Stay here,” he told her. “He can’t make you go back.”

  She held on to his hand. “Can’t he?” she laughed humorlessly. “Can you stop him, Frank?”

  He started to speak, but a glance in Russell’s direction froze the words on his lips. The older man’s hard eyes were studying them with an angry scrutiny even while he listened to Angela’s casual conversation.

  No one, Lutecia thought irritably, ever stood up to Russell for long. All her life, it seemed, she’d been looking for a man strong enough to do that.

  “I hate to cut this visit short,” Russell said suddenly, his crisp tones interrupting her musings, “but I’m short on time.” He glanced at his watch, a flash of gold imbedded in a nest of thick, dark hair on his muscular wrist. “I’ve got a buyer flying in from Dallas to discuss a cattle deal with me. Get your things together, Tish.”

  She rose automatically at the authority in his voice, resenting it but not resisting. The nickname was a carryover from her childhood, from days when she’d tagged after the tall man like a second shadow and loved him even while she fought him.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, pausing to brush a casual kiss against Frank’s cheek as she passed him. She ignored Russell’s raised eyebrow as she rushed out of the room. It was the first time she’d made any affectionate gesture toward Frank in front of the family, and she wondered just for a second why she felt the necessity.

  When she came back into the living room lugging her suitcases and purse, Belle Tyler was sitting on the couch between her mother and Russell. She was so close to him that a fly couldn’t have breathed in the space between them. Lutecia’s jaw clenched involuntarily.

  “Oh, there you are, darling,” Belle called. “I was just telling Russell how much Frank and I are looking forward to our visit.”

  “I hope we won’t be in the way,” Frank muttered.

  “Not at all,” Russell replied cooly. “The invitation included you, Mrs. Tyler,” he reminded Angela.

  “You’re very kind,” she replied with a smile. “But I have some business to attend to. Since my husband’s death, most of the responsibility for the company falls on me, you know.”

  Russell acknowledged that bland statement with a half smile, and Tish could have laughed. Woman’s Lib might have swept the country, but the words weren’t included in Russell’s autocratic vocabulary.

  He bent to take the suitcases out of Tish’s hands effortlessly, his eyes meeting hers at point-blank range with the action. “Nervous, honey?” he asked in a voice that reached only her ears, and she knew the smile would be there before she saw it.

  “Because of you?” she said with a forced laugh. “How ridiculous.”

  “You’ve been clinging to Tyler like a lifeline since the minute I walked in the door,” he remarked, straightening as he turned toward the door.

  She said her goodbyes, said all the polite, necessary things, while Russell put her bags in the trunk of his rented car. Her hand trembled under the pressure of Frank’s as he led her to the passenger side.

  “Cheer up,” he murmured in her ear. “He is your brother, after all, and blood’s thicker than water. I’ll be there in two weeks. Think about that.”

  “I’ll live on that,” she corrected, and lifted her face for his brief, gentle kiss.

  “Let’s go,” Russell said impatiently, sliding in behind the wheel, oblivious to Belle’s possessive gaze.

  She got in beside him and they drove away, the chorus of goodbyes ringing in her ears.

  Later, gliding along the highway, she felt Russell’s eyes on her. “What, exactly, were they expecting, Tish?” he asked quietly. “A gangly hayseed wearing torn jeans and carrying a pitchfork?”

  She studied her hands in her lap. “You didn’t disappoint Belle, at least.” She threw him a glance. “She did everything but wear a sign saying ‘take me, I’m yours.’”

  “The line forms to the right, baby,” he said absently, lighting a cigarette without taking his eyes from the road. “I’m up to my ears in women as it is.”

  “You always were,” she said impulsively, flushing as the words died on the air. “Drawn like flies by the scent of money,” she added quickly.

  “In other words, my only attraction is the size of my wallet?” he asked with a hint of a smile.

  “How would I know?” she asked defensively.

  “How, indeed?” Soft laughter filled the car. “I’m your ‘brother,’ I believe?”

  She flushed to the roots of her hair. “They just assumed that you were. I tried to tell them, but…”

  “Like hell you did.”

  She folded her arms tightly across her chest and stared out the window. “What do you think of Frank?” she asked casually.

  “Nice boy. What does he do for a living?”

  “He isn’t a boy!” she snapped.

  She felt his fiery glance. “Compared to me, he is. I’ve got at least nine years on him.”

  “He’s twenty-six.”

  “Eight years, then. I asked you a question.”

  “He’s a vice-president in his father’s company. They’re in electronics.”

  “Well,” he said, “he’s pretty.”

  “So are you,” she flashed, lifting her stubborn chin. “Pretty irritating and pretty apt to stay that way!”

  She felt the fiery glance he shot in her direction, and almost shuddered at the intensity of it.

  “I’ll tell you once,” he said in a deceptively gentle tone, “to take that chip off your shoulder. There’s a line you don’t cross with me, honey.”

  Her lip trembled with mingled antagonism and fear. “I’m almost twenty-one, Russell,” she said finally. “I don’t like being treated like a child. You’ve walked all over me since I was in grammar school, and I don’t have to take it anymore.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” he said deeply, and a wisp of smoke drifted past her as he exhaled. “You’ll take anything I dish out and like it. Won’t you?” he demanded harshly.

  She cringed mentally at the threat in the soft tones that were a thousand times worse than shouting. “You started it,” she mumbled tearfully. “You were mad when you got to the beach house, and you’re still mad. Must you be so cruel, Russell?”

  “Baby, you don’t know how cruel I can be,” he said matter-of-factly. “And if you don’t take the edge off that sharp little tongue, I’ll show you.”

  She drew in a deep breath, blinking back the tears. “I’m sorry,” she said finally, almost choking on her pride with the words.

  They were in the city now, and he stopped for a traffic light, throwing a lazy arm over the back of the seat. His eyes scanned h
er drawn face, and she reluctantly returned his gaze.

  His fingers caught a loose strand of her hair and tugged at it. “That was a hell of a welcome,” he said roughly, “for a man you haven’t seen in a year.”

  “Has it been that long?” she asked innocently.

  “You know damned well it has. And you haven’t stopped running yet, have you?” His eyes bit into hers with a vengeance.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said shakily, her hand going to his, trying to push it away from her hair.

  He caught her fingers in his big, warm hand, and the touch was electric, jolting. “I didn’t mean to be quite so brutal,” he said quietly, his eyes searching hers. “And I sure as hell didn’t expect to find you gone, bag and baggage, before I had time to explain.”

  Her fingers went cold in his, and she could feel something inside her melting, aching. She tugged at the firm clasp and he released her as he moved the car back into traffic.

  “My God,” he said roughly, “the way you’d been flirting with every man on the place, including me,” he added with a challenging glance, “what did you expect me to think? There you were in the bath house, in Jimmy Martin’s arms, and you were wearing nothing but a towel! He was damned lucky I didn’t kill him.”

  She closed her eyes against the memory. She could still see Russell’s eyes the way they’d looked that day, blazing, merciless, as he literally threw Jimmy out the door.

  Like the boy he was, Jim ran for his life, leaving Lutecia there to bear the brunt of Russell’s black temper, the searing accusations, and what had followed….

  “You might have told me about the rattlesnake to begin with,” Russell said, turning the car into the road that led to the nearby airport.

  “You wouldn’t have listened,” she said in a husky whisper. “It was curled up in my clothes, and I didn’t even see it until I’d taken off my swimsuit. I grabbed the towel, and screamed….”

  “And Martin just happened to be riding around the lake. I know, damn it.” His jaw tightened in profile. “Mindy said you phoned her to bring you some more clothes. By the time I cooled down and came home, you were long gone. You wouldn’t even answer your damned phone at college!”

  “I never wanted to see you or talk to you again,” she murmured, turning her eyes to the parking lot ahead.

  “So your roommate told me.” He pulled the car into a parking space at the airport terminal and cut the engine. His dark eyes narrowed on her face, traveling down to her plunging neckline and remaining there so intently that she folded her arms self-consciously over the gap.

  Was he remembering, too, she wondered? Remembering what had happened after Jimmy Martin ran away?

  She could still hear Russell’s voice, the quiet fury in it that cut like tiny whips as he’d dragged her trembling body in the damp towel wholly into his arms.

  “My God, you’ve been begging for this all summer,” he’d growled, holding her mercilessly even as she struggled, “why fight me now?”

  And he’d bent his head. And even now, a year later, she could still feel the hard, cruel pressure of his mouth as it took hers, the humiliation of a kiss without tenderness or consideration or warmth. It had been, as he meant it, a punishment to hurt her pride as much as her soft mouth. When he’d finished and she was shaking like a leaf from the shock of it, he’d thrown her away from him. And the words he’d used to describe her as he strode out of the bath house had left her crying and had sent her running from Currie Hall before he came home.

  She swallowed nervously, avoiding his intent gaze.

  “I couldn’t forget,” she whispered, “what you called me. It wasn’t true, any of it, and…!”

  “I know.” His big hand touched her cheek, gently. The back of his fingers were cool against the heated flesh. “God, Tish, we were so close! I knew better, even when I accused you, but the sight of you and Martin…I lost my head. I wanted to hurt you, and that was the only thing on my mind.”

  Unconsciously her lips trembled. “You succeeded.”

  His fingers touched that full, soft mouth lightly. “I know. I could feel your mouth trembling under mine.”

  Her face went scarlet at the words. Until that day, she and Russell had been like brother and sister. She’d followed him everywhere as an adolescent. Even when he went to dull livestock auctions, she endured the smell of cattle and horses and sweat and smoke just to be near him.

  It had been like that all through school; she had bragged about her bigger-than-life adopted brother to the other children when they teased her about being a sharecropper’s daughter. Even though Russell had bought her new clothes, the children remembered the flour-sack dresses she once had worn, and threw it up to her. All she had to do was threaten them with Russell, and knowing his temper, they’d shut up. But that was childhood. And now, she wasn’t a “sister” anymore…

  “A year,” Russell remarked absently, “and you’re still terrified of me.”

  She swallowed down a hasty denial and brushed at a stray lock of dark hair. “Please,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He lit a cigarette and sat smoking it until the silence descended on them like a fog. “It’s damned hard to face a problem by walking away from it, Tish,” he said finally.

  Her chin lifted proudly. “I don’t have any problems.”

  “Thank you for that stoic testimony, Saint Joan, and shall we both pray for rain before the flames hit you?”

  Her face became a bright red and the laughter welled up inside her and burst like a summer storm. Russell’s dark eyes glittered with amusement, and the years fell away. Quite suddenly, the antagonism she’d felt was gone like a shadow before sunlight.

  “Oh, Russell, you…!” she cried, exasperated.

  Chuckling, he crushed out his cigarette. “Come on, brat. Let’s go home.”

  Minutes later, she was sitting in the cockpit of Russell’s Cessna Skyhawk while he went over the preflight checklist, a procedure that was still incomprehensible to her.

  She watched him with quiet, caressing eyes and saw the way the light burned in his dark hair. Despite the events of the past year, the dreams she had always had about him had never really stopped. The vague longing persisted. The look that had flashed through his stormy eyes that lazy summer afternoon when the whole pattern of her life seemed abruptly to change forever still haunted her.

  Anyway, she had Frank. Frank, who was younger and handsome and so undemanding. Frank, who wouldn’t remind her of the childhood that had caused so many nightmares.

  But, oddly, she wanted Currie Hall again. She wanted Mattie, little and wiry and coffee-colored, to call her “sugar cane” and fuss over her. She wanted old Joby’s lazy smile as he polished the silver and hummed spirituals in the kitchen while Mattie cooked. She wanted Eileen’s gay laughter and the feel of the towering old house nestled among the pecan trees that were old enough to remember Reconstruction and the ragged trail of weary Confederate soldiers making their way home.

  How was it possible to love something and hate it all at once, she wondered, and again her eyes were drawn to Russell as he eased his formidable weight into the seat beside her.

  He tossed the clipboard with the checklist onto the back seat of the four-seater plane and threw a grin at Tish. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Ready.” She checked her seat belt and her door while he cleared the plane for takeoff and taxied out onto the runway to wait for the final go-ahead.

  When it came and he pulled back on the throttle, she felt a rush of excitement as the small craft gathered speed and nosed up toward the sky in a smooth, breathless rush.

  Russell chuckled at the wild pleasure in her face. “It wasn’t me you missed,” he taunted. “It was the damned airplane.”

  “I love it!” she cried above the drone of the engine.

  “Do you? I’ll wait until we get over some open country and treat you to a few barrel rolls,” he mused.

  “You wouldn’t!”
she gasped, gripping the seat.

  He caught the expression in her eyes and threw back his head, laughing like the devil he was.

  “Russell Currie, if you dare turn this plane over with me in it, I’ll…I’ll send an anonymous letter to the Federal Aviation Administration!” she sputtered.

  “Baby, there isn’t much I wouldn’t dare, and you know it,” he replied. “All right, calm down. We’ll save the stunts for another time.”

  She glanced at him apprehensively. The lion was content now, his dark eyes bright with the pleasure of soaring above the crowded expressways, of challenging the clouds.

  She wondered if he was remembering other flights. In Vietnam he had been a combat pilot and she and the rest of the family had lived for letters and rare trans-Atlantic phone calls, and the six o’clock news had held a terrifying fascination with its daily reports on offensives and skirmishes. He’d been wounded in an attack on the base and spent weeks in a hospital in Hawaii. When he finally came home there was death in his eyes, and he had bouts with alcohol that threatened to last forever. It was rumored that his problems were caused, not by a winnerless war but by the death of a woman in childbirth. A woman, the only woman, Russell had ever loved. It was a subject no one, not even Baker, dared to discuss with Russell Currie. A subject Tish only knew about from vaguely remembered bits and pieces of overheard conversation.

  She studied his profile with a tiny frown. His reputation with women was enough to make protective mothers blanch, but, somehow, Lutecia avoided thinking of him in that respect. It was too dangerous to remember how those hard arms had felt in an embrace, how that firm, chiseled mouth…

  He turned suddenly and caught her curious stare. It was as though those piercing dark eyes could see the thoughts in her mind. One dark eyebrow went up as his gaze dropped relentlessly to the soft curve of her mouth and lingered there until her cheeks flushed red, and she jerked her face toward the window.

  Soft laughter merged with the sounds of the engine. She closed her eyes against it.

  It only seemed like minutes before the sprawling town square of Ashton came into view below, like an oasis of civilization surrounded by miles and miles of farmland.