Shades of Twilight (5 page)

Even at five o'clock in the morning, Grandmother would have had her breakfast in the morning room, but Roanna didn't even pause there on her way to the kitchen. Webb, while thoroughly comfortable with the wealth that was at his disposal, didn't give a snap of his finger for appearances. He would be scrounging around in the kitchen, preparing his own breakfast since Tansy didn't come to work until six, then eating it at the kitchen table.

She burst through the door, and as she had expected, Webb was there. He hadn't bothered with the table and was instead leaning against the cabinet while he munched on a jelly-spread slice of toast. A cup of coffee steamed gently
beside his hand. As soon as he saw her, he turned and dropped another slice of bread into the toaster.

“I'm not hungry,” she said, poking her head into the huge double-doored refrigerator to find the orange juice.

“You never are,” he returned equably. “Eat anyway.” Her lack of appetite was why, at seventeen, she was still skinny and barely developed. That and the fact that Roanna never simply
walked
anywhere. She was a perpetual motion machine: she skipped, she bounded, occasionally she even turned cartwheels. At least, over the years, she had finally settled down enough to sleep in the same bed every night, and he no longer had to search for her every morning.

Because it was Webb who'd made the toast, she ate it, though she rejected the jelly. He poured a cup of coffee for her, and she stood beside him, munching dry toast and alternately sipping orange juice and coffee, and felt contentment glowing warmly deep in her middle. This was all she asked out of life: to be alone with Webb. And to work with the horses, of course.

She gently inhaled, drawing in the delicious scents of his understated cologne and the clean, slight muskiness of his skin, all mingled with the aroma of the coffee. Her awareness of him was so intense it was almost painful, but she lived for these moments.

She eyed him over the rim of her cup, her whiskey brown eyes glinting with mischief. “The timing of this trip to Nashville is pretty suspicious,” she teased. “I think you just want to get away from the house.”

He grinned, and her heart flip-flopped. She seldom saw that cheerful grin any more; he was so busy that he didn't have time for anything but work, as Jessie consistently, relentlessly complained. His cool green eyes warmed when he smiled, and the lazy charm of his grin could stop traffic. The laziness was deceptive, though; Webb worked hours that would have exhausted most men.

“I didn't plan it,” he protested, then admitted, “but I jumped at the chance. I guess you're going to stay in the stables all day.”

She nodded. Grandmother's sister and her husband, Aunt Gloria and Uncle Harlan, were moving in today, and Roanna wanted to be as far from the house as possible. Aunt Gloria was her least favorite of aunts, and she didn't care much for Uncle Harlan either.

“He's a know-it-all,” she grumbled. “And she's a pain in the—”

“Ro,” he said warningly, drawing out the single syllable. Only he ever called her by the abbreviation of her name. It was one more tiny connection between them for her to savor, for she thought of herself as Ro. Roanna was the girl who was skinny and unattractive, clumsy and gauche. Ro was the part of herself who could ride like the wind, her thin body blending with the horse's and becoming part of its rhythm; the girl who, while in the stables, never put a foot wrong. If she had her way, she'd have
lived
in the stables.

“Neck,” she finished, with a look of innocence that made him chuckle. “When Davencourt is yours, are you going to throw them out?”

“Of course not, you little heathen. They're family.”

“Well, it isn't as if they don't have a place to live. Why don't they stay in their own house?”

“Since Uncle Harlan retired, they've been having trouble making ends meet. There's plenty of space here, so their moving in is the logical solution, even if you don't like it.” He ruffled her untidy hair.

She sighed. It was true that there were ten bedrooms in Davencourt, and since Jessie and Webb had gotten married and now used only one room, and since Aunt Yvonne had decided to move out last year and get a place of her own, that meant seven of those bedrooms were empty. Still, she didn't like it. “Well, what about when you and Jessie have kids? You'll need the other rooms then.”

“I don't think we'll need seven of them,” he said drily, and a grim look entered his eyes. “We may not have any kids anyway.”

Her heart jumped at that. She had been down in the dumps since he and Jessie had married two years ago, but
she had really dreaded the idea of Jessie having his babies. Somehow that would have been the final blow to a heart that hadn't had much hope to begin with; she knew she'd never had a chance with Webb, but still a tiny glimmer lingered. As long as he and Jessie didn't have any children, it was as if he wasn't totally, finally hers. For Webb, she thought, children would be an unbreakable bond. As long as there were no babies, she could still hope, however futilely.

It was no secret in the house that their marriage wasn't all roses. Jessie never kept it a secret when she was unhappy, because she made a concerted effort to make certain everyone else was just as miserable as she was.

Knowing Jessie, and Roanna knew Jessie very well, she had probably planned to use sex, after they were married, to control Webb. Roanna would have been surprised if Jessie had let Webb make love to her before they were married. Well, maybe once, to keep his interest keen. Roanna never underestimated the depths of Jessie's calculation. The thing was, neither did Webb, and Jessie's little plan hadn't worked. No matter what tricks she tried, Webb seldom changed his mind, and when he did it was for reasons of his own. No, Jessie was
not
happy.

Roanna loved it. She couldn't begin to understand their relationship, but Jessie didn't appear to have a clue about the type of man Webb was. You could appeal to him with logic, but manipulation left him unswayed. It had given Roanna many secretly gleeful moments over the years to watch Jessie try her feminine wiles on Webb and then throwing fits when they didn't work. Jessie just couldn't understand it; after all, it worked on everyone else.

Webb checked his watch. “I have to go.” He swiftly gulped the rest of his coffee, then bent to kiss her forehead. “Stay out of trouble today.”

“I'll try,” she promised, then added glumly, “I always try.” And somehow seldom succeeded. Despite her best efforts, she was always doing something that displeased Grandmother.

Webb gave her a rueful grin on his way out the door, and
their eyes met for a moment in a way that made her feel as if they were co-conspirators. Then he was gone, closing the door behind him, and with a sigh she sat down in one of the chairs to pull on her socks and boots. The dawn had dimmed with his leaving.

In a way, she thought, they really were co-conspirators. She was relaxed and unguarded with Webb in a way she never was with the rest of the family, and she never saw disapproval in his eyes when he looked at her. Webb accepted her as she was and didn't try to make her into something she wasn't.

But there was one other place where she found approval, and her heart lightened as she ran to the stables.

When the moving van drove up at eight-thirty, Roanna barely noticed it. She and Loyal were working with a frisky yearling colt, patiently getting him accustomed to human handling. He was fearless, but he wanted to play rather than learn anything new, and the gentle lesson required a lot of patience.

“You're wearing me out,” she panted and fondly stroked the animal's glossy neck. The colt responded by shoving her with his head, sending her staggering several paces backward. “There has to be an easier way,” she said to Loyal, who was sitting on the fence, giving her directions, and grinning as the colt romped like an oversized dog.

“Like what?” he asked. He was always willing to listen to Roanna's ideas.

“Why don't we start handling them as soon as they're born? Then they'd be too little to shove me all over the corral,” she grumbled. “And they'd grow up used to humans and the things we do to them.”

“Well, now.” Loyal stroked his jaw as he thought about it. He was a lean, hard fifty and had already spent almost thirty of those years working at Davencourt, the long hours outside turning his brown face into a network of fine wrinkles. He ate, lived, and breathed horses and couldn't imagine any job more suited to him than the one he had. Just because it was customary to wait until the foals were
yearlings before beginning their training didn't mean it had to be that way. Roanna might have something there. Horses had to get used to people fooling around with their mouths and feet, and it might be easier on both horses and humans if the process started when they were foaled rather than after a year of running wild. It should cut down on a lot of skittishness as well as making it easier on the farriers and the vets.

“Tell you what,” he said. “We won't have another foal until Lightness drops hers in March. We'll start with that one and see how it works.”

Roanna's face lit up, her brown eyes turning almost golden with delight, and for a moment Loyal was struck by how pretty she was. He was startled, because Roanna was really a plain little thing, her features too big and masculine for her thin face, but for a fleeting moment he'd gotten a glimpse of how she would look when maturity had worked its full magic on her. She'd never be the beauty Miss Jessie was, he thought realistically, but when she got older, she'd surprise a few people. The idea made him happy, because Roanna was his favorite. Miss Jessie was a competent rider, but she didn't love his babies the way Roanna did and therefore wasn't as careful of her mount's welfare as she could have been. In Loyal's eyes, that was an unforgivable sin.

At eleven-thirty, Roanna reluctantly returned to the house for lunch. She would much rather have skipped the meal entirely, but Grandmother would send someone after her if she didn't show up, so she figured she might as well save everyone the trouble. But she had cut it too close, as usual, and didn't have time for more than a quick shower and change of clothes. She dragged a comb through her wet hair, then raced down the stairs, sliding to a halt just before she opened the door to the dining room and entered at a more decorous pace.

Everyone else was already seated. Aunt Gloria looked up at Roanna's entrance, and her mouth drew into the familiar disapproving line. Grandmother took in Roanna's wet hair
and sighed but didn't comment. Uncle Harlan gave her one of his insincere used-car-salesman smiles, but at least he never scolded her, so Roanna forgave him for having all the depth of a pie pan. Jessie, however, went straight on the attack.

“At least you could have taken the time to dry your hair,” she drawled. “Though I suppose we should all be grateful you showered and didn't come to the table smelling like a horse.”

Roanna slid into her seat and fastened her gaze on her plate. She didn't bother responding to Jessie's malice. To do so would only provoke even more nastiness, and Aunt Gloria would seize the chance to put in her two cents' worth. Roanna was used to Jessie's zingers, but she wasn't happy at all that Aunt Gloria and Uncle Harlan had moved into Davencourt, and she felt she would doubly resent anything Aunt Gloria said.

Tansy served the first course, a cold cucumber soup. Roanna hated cucumber soup and merely dabbled her spoon around in it, trying to sink the tiny green pieces of herb that floated on top. She did nibble on one of Tansy's homemade poppy seed rolls and gladly relinquished her soup bowl when the next course, tuna-stuffed tomato, was served. She liked tuna-stuffed tomato. She devoted the first few minutes to painstakingly removing the bits of celery and onion from the tuna mixture, pushing the rejects into a small pile at the edge of her plate.

“Your manners are deplorable,” Aunt Gloria announced as she delicately forked up a bite of tuna. “For heaven's sake, Roanna, you're seventeen, plenty old enough to stop playing with your food like a two-year-old.”

Roanna's scant appetite died, the familiar tension and nausea tightening her stomach, and she cast a resentful glance at Aunt Gloria.

“Oh, she always does that,” Jessie said airily. “She's like a hog rooting around for the best pieces of slop.”

Just to show them she didn't care, Roanna forced herself to swallow two bites of the tuna, washing them down with
most of her glass of tea to make certain they didn't lodge halfway.

She doubted it was tact on his part, but she was grateful anyway when Uncle Harlan began talking about the repairs needed on their car and weighing the advantages of buying a new one. If they could afford a new car, Roanna thought, they could certainly have afforded staying in their own house, then she wouldn't have to put up with Aunt Gloria every day. Jessie mentioned that she would like a new car, too; she was bored with that boxy four-door Mercedes Webb had insisted on buying for her, when she'd told him at least a thousand times she wanted a sports car, something with style.

Roanna didn't have a car. Jessie had gotten her first car when she was sixteen, but Roanna was a rotten driver, forever drifting off into daydreams, and Grandmother had stated that, in the interest of the safety of the citizens of Colbert County, it was best not to let Roanna out on the roads by herself. She hadn't resented it all that much, because she would much rather ride than drive, but now one of her demon imps raised its head.

“I'd like to have a sports car, too,” she said, the first words she'd spoken since entering the dining room. Her eyes were round with innocence. “I've got my heart set on one of those Pontiac Grand Pricks.”

Aunt Gloria's eyes rounded with horror, and her fork dropped into her plate with a clatter. Uncle Harlan choked on his tuna, then began laughing helplessly.