Page 1 of Her Stepbrother Master
1
Sarah Wharton College for Women
Lorna Post Dormitory
LuAnn Walters had sobered up at least an hour ago and now she found herself fighting back tears. Mrs. McCormick, their dorm mother had ordered her and her three roommates to pack up and evacuate their dorm room at Sarah Wharton Women’s College. She sat in the parlor of the dormitory and drew her knees up to her chest, the remaining liquor in her stomach churning. The words of the new hit Everly Brothers’ song “Wake Up, Little Susie” kept running through her head. Yep, she was definitely in “trouble deep.”
“Remove your feet from the chair,” their house mother Mrs. McCormick snapped, her thick brows lowering over beady eyes. “A young lady does not sit like a six-year-old.”
LuAnn dropped her feet back to the floor and shifted. Her eyes burned from crying and her tongue had dried up in her mouth. Just a month from graduating, she’d really blown it this time. Her father would kill her.
Mary, a first-year student, still sniffled next to her, her handkerchief wound tightly in her fingers, her blond pin curls hanging limp. The door swung open and a short, portly man came in.
“Daddy!” Mary jumped to her feet.
“Not one word,” the man boomed, his expensive tweed jacket straining at the shoulders. He smelled of pipe smoke, which turned LuAnn’s stomach. He looked at Mrs. McCormick. “Where are her things?”
“They are already packed and standing in the hallway, Mr. Anderson.” Mrs. McCormick sounded pleased with herself.
“I am deeply ashamed that a daughter of mine has been expelled from Sarah Wharton College,” he said.
“As I said on the phone, Mr. Anderson, the girls have not been expelled from school, only evicted from the dormitories, since they have repeatedly broken the rules here. They will, however, be on probation.”
“Same thing.” Mary’s father took his daughter by the upper arm and tugged her roughly toward the door. “She won’t be coming back. Obviously, she doesn’t take the education I’m spending a fortune on seriously. I knew letting a girl go to college was a mistake. Good night, Mrs. McCormick.” He pulled Mary out after him.
Mary cast a panicked glance over her shoulder at LuAnn, who shrank down further in her seat. She was the only one left now. Who would pick her up? Her father and stepmother were in Europe and Mrs. McCormick wouldn’t say who she had contacted in their place. Her Aunt Betsy and Uncle Roger? She couldn’t remember who had been listed as her emergency contacts on her application and registration forms. Would they have listed her oldest stepbrother, Brian? He lived and worked nearby in Hanover as an attorney. She chewed her lip. What would her parents do when they found out? Surely they wouldn’t pull her from school when she only had a month until graduation. But she could hardly commute from home, which was two hours away.
The sound of a motorcycle roaring into the parking lot made Mrs. McCormick glare out the window. LuAnn’s heart jumped. Could it be?—?
A tap sounded on the door and it swung open. She looked up and caught her breath.
Her stepbrother appeared, but not the one she’d expected. Brad, Brian’s younger brother, the rebel of the family and the object of all her teen fantasies, walked through the door in his leather motorcycle jacket. His motorcycle helmet had tousled his wavy, dark hair. He scanned the room, his gaze arriving on her face. “Hey, mouse.”
The pet name he’d given her when she was in middle school made something flutter in her belly. She stood up on wobbly legs. “Hi Brad,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Mrs. McCormick, I presume?” he asked, turning on his easygoing smile.
The housemother narrowed her eyes to scrutinize Brad. LuAnn imagined he looked a bit too much like the young men Mrs. McCormick had caught in their dorm room and not enough like a responsible adult here to claim his kin. “Yes...” She drew it out so it sounded more like a question than a response.
He held out his hand. “Brad Stanford, LuAnn’s brother.”
“Stepbrother?” Mrs. McCormick asked. “Or brother-in-law?” Clearly the different last name was taxing her brain.
“Stepbrother. You called our older brother, Brian, but he’s working through the night on a legal case and couldn’t get away. He sent me instead.” Turning to LuAnn, he asked, “What happened?”
She stared into Brad’s ocean blue eyes, her breath catching in her chest, as it always did when he was around. She’d had a paralyzing crush on him since the day he’d moved in with them when she was thirteen years old.
Brad raised an eyebrow, shifting subtly from the carefree rebel to the authority figure he represented.
LuAnn swallowed. “I broke some dormitory rules.”
Brad said nothing, as if waiting for her to elaborate.
“We were, uh, drinking. And smoking. And we sneaked boys into our room.”
Brad’s face grew serious. “I see.”
“It was not her first violation of rules, either. She’s been written up a few times already for smoking, sneaking out after hours and missing curfew,” Mrs. McCormick was happy to interject.
