The Lancaster Men (8 page)

At the approach of her half brother and stepbrother, Shari climbed the steps to the front door. The knob yielded to the touch of her hand and she pushed it open to walk inside. It had always seemed that nothing could happen within these thick walls without the direct permission of a Lancaster, which made it all the more difficult to accept that her mother had been stricken and was lying in a hospital bed. Perhaps the Lancasters weren’t so omnipotent after all.

The wide hallway echoed their footsteps on the oak floors, an intrusion in the silence. Soon it was answered by another set of footsteps hurrying toward the front hallway. The housekeeper, Mrs. Youngblood, appeared, relief breaking through her strained expression when she saw them.

“Thank God, you’ve arrived.” It was truly a prayer of thanks by the religious woman as she sent a glance heavenward.

“How’s Mother?” Shari asked the question uppermost in her mind as a door to her left was opened.

It led to the library, the private sanctuary of Lancaster males. Shari stiffened and half-turned to look at the aged man she knew would be standing in the opening. Frederick Lancaster leaned heavily on his cane, an indication that his health wasn’t as robust as his body appeared.

His height was equal to Whit’s, but advanced years had stooped him. His dark hair had turned to an iron shade of gray and a multitude of lines had weathered his face. However, his eyes burned brightly with the topaz color she often saw reflected in Whit’s.

Mrs. Youngblood didn’t offer any information now that the head of the family was on the scene. She left it to Frederick Lancaster to inform them of Elizabeth Sutherland Lancaster’s present condition.

“So, Whit has brought the runaway children home,” he commented with an edge of reproval.

“He didn’t bring us home. We came,” Shari corrected, bristling as she always did when she confronted him. “How is Mother?”

“You’ve never been concerned about her before
this,” he pointed out. “Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to come rushing back when she’s in the hospital?”

“They’re here now, Granddad,” Whit inserted firmly. “That’s all that’s necessary for the present. What is Elizabeth’s condition?”

“She has had a bad stroke, but the doctors are confident that she will recover.” His cane thumped the hardwood floor as he hobbled into the entrance hall.

The first tingle of relief went through Shari and her glance ran to Rory to share the moment. He blinked at the tears in his eyes, trying not to let them be seen lest his grandfather think he was weak.

“I’m taking Shari and Rory to the hospital to see her as soon as they’ve freshened up and changed,” Whit stated.

“I’ll never understand how a woman as selfless as Elizabeth could have two such thoughtless children,” their grandfather declared in open disgust. “All you care about is yourselves.”

“That isn’t true,” Shari angrily denied the charge.

“What do you think started this all off?” he challenged. “Rory goes tearing off to join the circus. He didn’t even have the courtesy to leave a note to explain why he was leaving—or the guts to tell us he was going.”

“This wasn’t Rory’s fault,” Shari insisted as her younger brother paled under the accusation of blame.

“You’re damn right it wasn’t!” the patriarch of the Lancaster family agreed with an emphatic nod, and pointed an arthritically crooked finger at Shari. “It was yours! He was only doing what he knew you did
at his age! I should never have listened to Whit. I should have hauled you back here and locked you in your room.”

“You couldn’t have kept me here! Not you! Not anybody!” She was shouting. She hadn’t been inside the house a minute before she was locked in another one of their duels of will.

“After all your mother did for you, I’ll never understand how you could treat her the way you have,” he said coldly. “You don’t even come to see her during the college breaks unless you have nothing better to do.”

“And just why do you think I stay away from Gold Leaf?” Shari stormed. “It’s because of you! You think you can control everybody’s life. You want everybody to do what you want! That’s why I left—and that’s why Rory left! We just couldn’t stand it any more! If anyone’s to blame for what happened to Mother, it’s you!”

“Shari, that’s enough!” Whit ordered.

There were hot tears in her green eyes when she looked at him. “I don’t know why I let you bring me here! I knew this would happen!”

“I brought you here because this is your home,” he stated.

“No, it isn’t! It’s never been my home. I only lived here,” she retorted, speaking the truth she had always felt. “It belongs to Lancasters and I’m a Sutherland. I used to cry myself to sleep at night because I wasn’t a Lancaster. But when I look at you—” She turned to her step-grandfather, “—I’m glad I’m not! I’m glad!”

Before she disgraced herself by breaking into
tears, Shari bolted for the stairs, brushing past the embarrassed housekeeper who had been an unwilling witness to the bitter exchange. She ran directly to the room that had always been hers and threw herself onto the bed, sobbing openly.

Someone touched her shoulder. She stirred, peering tearily through her lashes to see Whit standing by her bed.

“Go away,” she complained.

“Take a shower and run some cold water over your face,” he instructed. “You don’t want your mother to see that you’ve been crying when we go to the hospital.”

It was true. She didn’t. She managed to restrain her sobs to hiccoughing sounds. “Why does he always have to do this to me?”

“Believe it or not, he loves you, Shari,” Whit answered. “Now get a move on. We’re leaving for the hospital in twenty minutes. You don’t have much time to get ready.”

Cold water took a lot of the puffiness out of her face, but not all of it. Exactly twenty minutes from the time Whit had given her, Shari was descending the steps. She paused at the landing, rawly stiffening when she saw her grandfather waiting at the bottom, using the banister for support instead of his cane.

Determined not to let him incite her to anger again, Shari started down the steps. Her emotions were too torn apart from the sequence of recent events to endure another battle royal with him.

“Shari,” he called her name when she would have walked right past him. She would have done so anyway if she hadn’t heard a placating quality in his voice. So she stopped and turned to look at him, a vaguely defiant tilt to her chin.

“Yes.”

“I was upset and probably said some things I
shouldn’t have.” His reply came close to a grudging apology, but he was too proud to come right out and say he had been wrong. “Your mother’s illness has been a strain on all of us, I guess.”

“Yes,” she admitted that her nerves had been worn thin by it.

“You’ve been like my own granddaughter. I’ve always wanted you to regard Gold Leaf as your home,” he insisted.

“I’ve explained how I feel about that.” Shari avoided his gaze.

“Yes,” he sighed heavily and paused. “We both have a bit of a hot temper. Do you think we could manage to observe a truce—for your mother’s sake?”

Coming from him, it was quite a gesture. “I think we could try.” Shari was moved to agree.

He offered to shake hands on the bargain and Shari accepted. He held her hand an instant longer. “If I interfere too much—” he said without admitting that he did. “—it’s only because I want you to do what is best.”

“Best, according to your standards,” she reminded him.

“Yes … well. …” He released her hand, unwilling to go so far as to admit that there were standards other than his own. “Whit is waiting outside for you. You’d better go. Give Elizabeth my love.”

“I will,” Shari promised and hurried down the hallway to the front door.

Whit had the engine running when she climbed into the empty passenger seat of the car. He ran a
glance over her before shifting gears to start down the drive. Rory was in the backseat.

“Did you talk to Granddad?” Whit inquired with apparent foreknowledge that she had.

“Yes.” She suspected he had had something to do with it. “We agreed to a truce of sorts.”

“He could use some compassion from you,” Whit stated.

“Why?” She asked the question to discover Whit’s reason for saying that, not to argue whether or not it was true.

“Granddad has buried his parents, his brothers, his wife, and his son. Your mother may be his daughter-in-law, but he has developed a deep affection for her over the years. He had to have been very worried and frightened when she had the stroke. Try to imagine how helpless he felt at the time,” Whit suggested with a side glance at her. “And the three of us weren’t here. He needed us as much as your mother did—perhaps more.”

Helpless, frightened—those weren’t words Shari would have associated with Frederick Lancaster. He was the strong, stern head of the family. In the space of twenty-four hours, her entire outlook on things seemed to have turned topsy-turvy.

“I suppose he did,” Shari conceded the possibility.

“Whit talked to Annie,” Rory spoke up from the backseat, referring to the housekeeper by her given name. “Mom is partially paralyzed from the stroke.”

Her widened gaze flew to Whit in alarm. “Is that true?” she asked in a small voice.

“Yes,” he admitted without taking his attention
from the road, and speaking very matter-of-factly. “Her left side has been affected. Her speech has been impaired.”

“Not permanently?” Shari hoped fervently.

“No,” Whit confirmed. “At this point, the doctors can’t say how much use she’ll recover or how soon. It’s going to be a long, slow process.”

Shari sank back in her seat. “I hadn’t thought … I hadn’t realized …” she murmured.

“It’s better if you know all this before you see her,” Whit stated. “Both of you need to be prepared for the way she’s going to look and act.”

“Yes,” she agreed numbly.

His advice proved to be invaluable. Without it, Shari was certain she would have broken down and cried when she saw her mother lying in the hospital bed, so incapacitated and unable to communicate. The smile Shari plastered on her face never cracked under the strain of maintaining a cheerful front. It remained in place until she stepped out of the room, and a raw shudder shook it away.

“Are you okay?” Whit was beside her, a hand on her waist in a silent offer of support if she needed it.

“Yes,” she nodded affirmatively and breathed in deeply. Lifting her head, Shari studied his handsomely carved features and the compassion written in his amber-brown eyes. “I want to stay with her.” She expected him to argue, so she rushed to justify her request. “I know she’s receiving excellent care from the hospital staff, but they’re all strangers to her. It would be less of an ordeal if she could see a familiar face.”

“You don’t need to convince me, Shari,” Whit
smiled faintly, the sun-creased lines deepening around his eyes. “I agree.”

“You do?” She was vaguely surprised, although she wasn’t sure why.

“A member of the family should sit with her. I know she’ll be very pleased if that person is you. She’s missed you a great deal since you’ve been away at college. We all have,” he added with an intently probing look.

There was a tightness in her throat. She made a little move toward him. A second later, he was taking her into his arms to hold her close and rest a hard cheek against her hair. Shari reveled in the strength and comfort she found in his undemanding embrace. His hand gently rubbed her shoulder blade, his touch familiar yet with a trace of intimacy.

“You belong at Gold Leaf,” Whit muttered near her ear, his warm breath stirring her hair. “It is your home, Shari. Someday I’ll prove it to you.”

Something unsettled her. She was too confused to decipher whether it was his subject matter or the hard flesh and bone of his male body pressed to her length. Whit seemed to sense the beginnings of resistance in her and loosened the circle of his arms to let her stand alone. There seemed to be a veil over his expression, yet there wasn’t anything different in the way he looked at her.

A nurse walked by them in the corridor, her white uniform rustling softly. Shari was reminded of where they were and why. Concern for her mother overrode the vague confusion of the moment.

“I’ll let Mother know I’ll be staying with her,” she said.

“Just during the day,” Whit qualified. “After visiting hours are over at night, you’ll be coming home to Gold Leaf.”

That day started a routine that was followed for an entire week. Shari spent the daylight hours at her mother’s side and drove back to Gold Leaf late in the evenings to sleep. In one short week, her mother had made a lot of progress.

From not being able to make any intelligible sound at all that first day, she could make understandable words. It was still difficult for her to speak in complete sentences, so their conversation usually included a sign language they had developed. She had recovered some use of her left side, and the doctors hoped she would regain more of it with physical therapy.

After witnessing some of the minor triumphs her mother had achieved, Shari was encouraged by her progress. Her mother would definitely get better.

She told Beth that when her friend phoned on a Friday morning before Shari had left for the hospital. “The doctors are talking about releasing her next week,” she added.

“Shari, I’m so glad to hear it,” her friend declared.

“We all are.” It was a tremendous relief.

“Doré and I are back at the sorority house. Will you be arriving Sunday?” Beth asked. “Don’t forget classes start again on Monday morning.”

“I wish I could,” Shari smiled ruefully. “I suppose I’ll come sometime late Sunday night.”

“We’ll be watching for you,” she promised. “Let
us know if there is any change in your plans—and drive carefully.”

“I will.”

There was an exchange of good-byes before Shari hung up the telephone receiver. She glanced at her watch and saw she was running late. A cup of coffee and some toast were all she’d have time to have for breakfast this morning. She wasn’t worried about being hungry before lunch because she could always get some scrambled eggs and sausage at the hospital cafeteria.