Billie cried till she was spent. She blew her nose lustily and then washed her face. The little address book that Riley had given her for Christmas last year was in her hand. This would be the first time she had ever called Thad at his office. Thad wouldn’t lie.
“CO’s office, secure line,” a voice said briskly.
“I’d like to speak to Admiral Kingsley, please. This is Mrs.—this is Billie Coleman.”
“Just a minute, ma’am, the admiral is on another line. Will you hold?”
“Yes.”
Two minutes later Thad came on. “Billie, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
Billie cleared her throat and then apologized. “Thad, I have to ask you something. Are you aware of Moss’s affair with Alice Forbes? The affair that’s been going on for three years?”
Thad didn’t know what he had expected, but this question was like a thunderbolt. How in the name of God could he answer? “Billie, that’s not a fair question to ask me.”
“I apologize, Thad. You just gave me your answer. You shouldn’t always be so kind. People take advantage of you when you do that. Good-bye, Thad.”
Billie dragged herself into the pretty bathroom that only she used. She looked at the floor-to-ceiling mirror without really seeing her reflection. The sight of the thick plum-colored towels hanging against the powder-blue tile was comforting, in a way. Moss had always rolled up his towel and tossed it either on the floor or in the tub. The toilet seat was down. He had been notorious for leaving it up all the time. The one bright yellow toothbrush in the holder looked particularly lonely. Without thinking, Billie opened the medicine cabinet and took out a new red toothbrush. She slipped it through one of the small openings. Two. As in couple. A small jar of Pond’s Cold Cream, a bottle of Seconal, and some toothpaste were all that was in the cabinet. Billie’s eyes lingered for a long time on the bottle of sleeping pills. She reached for it. It would be so easy. All she had to do was take a glass of water and swallow the pills. Lie down and go to sleep. No one would miss her until dinnertime. How many pills were in the bottle? She shook it and tried to count. Fourteen, she decided.
A vision of Seth at Jessica’s funeral swam before her weary eyes. If she knew for certain that Moss would truly mourn her, it might be worth it to die. But the thought of him attending her funeral the way Seth had Jessica’s made her dump the contents of the bottle into the toilet bowl. The sound of the flush was loud in the quiet, pretty room. She wouldn’t end up like Jessica. The glass vial made a loud thump when she tossed it into the white wicker basket.
Billie’s step was firm when she walked from the bathroom. The storm was still raging but it didn’t seem as bad. The inky blackness was now a sooty gray. The rain was still coming down in great splashes against the window, but the wipers on her car were powerful. If she took the main highway to the studio, she might make it before serious flooding occurred. She threw on a bright yellow slicker with matching hat.
She wasn’t going to Jordan Marsh’s studio. She was going to Jordan Marsh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Billie maneuvered her car along the rain-slicked highway, her mood and thoughts as threatening and oppressive as the thick gray clouds scudding above. Rain pelted the windshield. Matching the beat of her heart, the wipers beat a furious rhythm. “Shavers,” Maggie called them when she was young. God, wasn’t a girl of thirteen young? Or was it that since that June night in the police station she’d ceased thinking of Maggie as a child? The dreadful experience she’d seen on her daughter’s face that night was that of an older, jaded woman. A woman who knew men’s ways, as Agnes would have put it.
Billie drove the curves of the highway automatically, as though her car knew the way. Automatically. Autopilot. That’s what Moss had been working on for this past year and he’d never mentioned it to her. Why? Did he think she was too stupid to comprehend? When they were first married he’d tell her not to worry her pretty little head about this or that. Then she’d found security in leaving the worrying to him, or so she’d thought.
Billie’s foot pressed down on the accelerator, sending a sudden surge of power through the Italian-made engine. Even this damn car was one of Moss’s choosing. He was the one who understood engineering and machines; this was the car she was to have. Billie regretted that she hadn’t insisted on the Chevrolet she so admired. Italian sports cars were for women like Alice Forbes. Chevys were for the Billie Ameses of Philadelphia. Moss made every decision on every aspect of her life, even the aesthetic ones like choosing cars and travel plans, and even the vital ones concerning the children, like where they should go to school. She’d followed Moss’s “suggestions” for so long that she hadn’t even realized how long it had been since she’d made a choice of her own, a decision of her own, for herself.
Billie bit down on her lower lip and veered her car around the bend. Well, she was making one today in going to Jordan. And this was her own choice and it was entirely for herself.
When she pulled into the small parking lot adjacent to Jordan’s studio, she was gratified to see his Oldsmobile parked near the door. No other cars were present; the storm had probably kept the other students away. For a long moment Billie sat in the shelter of the car, her hand gripping the steering wheel. It would be so easy to just restart the engine and leave. He’d never even know she’d come. She could forget it herself. Before she had time to reconsider, Billie swung open the door and stepped out into the rain, skipping across puddles as she made her way to his door.
“Jordan! It’s me, Billie! Jordan?” She rapped on the glass pane.
“Billie? Billie, come in! You’re drenched! I wasn’t planning on holding class today; I thought the storm would keep my students away. At least the less devoted of them.” He smiled, the warmth in his eyes chasing away the gloom of the day.
Billie stepped inside and let him help her off with her slicker; small puddles formed on the floor around her. “I didn’t come for lessons, Jordan. I came to be with you.” The words were out, but she was afraid to look into his face. Her hands groped for him blindly. She was in his arms. He felt so good. Smelled so good. The soft, well-worn shirt and faded jeans followed the lines of his body, making him accessible to her touch. His shoulder was against her cheek, his lips in her hair, and when he spoke her name with a sense of awe and wonder, she knew she’d been right in coming here. She was a wounded soul, pushing away thoughts of Moss’s betrayals. Jordan could heal her.
Jordan tipped her face up to his with a gentle touch of his long, artistic fingers. When his lips met hers, his kiss was gentle, moving across her mouth slowly, meltingly. Then he pulled away, looking deeply into her eyes, and whispered, “Are you certain?”
Her answer was to step back into his embrace, holding to him tightly, offering her mouth again to the tenderness of his. She needed this, needed him. A great wrenching of her heart brought a sob to her lips. It had been so long since she’d been held this way, wanted this way. Even when Moss did come to their room, their lovemaking had become mechanical, a greedy self-serving act to satisfy themselves. An act. Gone was the spontaneity, the great yearning desire to give and share.
“Billie? What’s wrong?” Jordan asked, searching her eyes for the answer.
“Only that I need you. So much,” she told him truthfully. “I need to be loved, to be wanted.”
“That’s what I have to give you, Billie. Love. I want to make you feel my love.”
Their clothes fell from their bodies like the petals of summer’s first rose. His body felt strange and unfamiliar against her own. The stubble of beard on his chin was softer than Moss’s. His touch was searching, tender. Moss’s was sure and possessive, out of long years of charting her body and knowing it as well as he knew his own. Billie felt herself inwardly backing away from the intimacy Jordan offered. The very thing she so desperately wanted, this close loving affection, seemed unattainable and out of her reach. Memories intruded of that other man she had loved more than she loved herself. Moss
.
Jordan’s lips traced lazy patterns along the sweep of her shoulders and down to her breasts. His effect on her was hypnotic, sensuous, and Billie willed herself to surrender to the moment and the man. She accepted his nearness, his touch, his kiss on the most intimate parts of herself. She accepted these things the way she would have taken food or warmth or air to breathe, because she needed them. And she did need them, to reaffirm herself as a woman.
Billie lay quietly in Jordan’s arms, listening to the beat of his heart and to the lovely words he spoke. She was beautiful, desirable, loving, and warm. She was a beautiful lover. And yet it was Jordan himself who was all these things. They’d shared the most intimate act possible between two people. He’d brought her body to life beneath his hands and his lips. But it was her soul that was dying and however he tried he could not touch it.
Her body was satisfied, her ego fed, and yet misery lived in her core. There was no future with Jordan and she knew it. She had taken all he could give and she’d given nothing in return. With Moss, her greatest ecstasy had been losing herself in him, giving totally of herself and knowing that the offering was pleasing to the man she loved. She didn’t love Jordan. She had nothing to give and taking wasn’t enough.
“Will you come back to me, Billie?” Jordan whispered against her ear. “Was it good for you? As good as it was for me?”
“It was good,” Billie murmured, wrapping her arms around him and nuzzling his jaw. “I’ll come back.”
Billie could never make up her mind about Sunday dinner at Sunbridge. With Agnes at the helm it resembled a Cecil B. DeMille production with Mickey Mouse overtones. The array of crystal, china, and silver was blinding. The maids were attired in bright pink uniforms with frilly white aprons and little starched caps. The children were always in attendance on Sunday night and then, after the large heavy meal, were driven by the chauffeur back to their respective schools. While the setting and the accoutrements were Hollywood style, the dinner participants and their moods were strictly Coleman. Seth ate like a ranch hand, talking with his mouth full, mostly about the ranch. Agnes did her best to look regal from her position at the foot of the table. She ate daintily, taking small bites of food and chewing each mouthful thirteen times. Moss and Riley jabbered and babbled nonstop. Maggie and Susan were quiet, depending on Billie to keep up their end of the conversation concerning school and their various activities.
Billie always took two aspirins at the end of the meal.
Something was off center this evening. Maggie was answering when she was spoken to but otherwise there was a blank vagueness about her that alarmed Billie. Was the child sick? Or was she getting ready to pull what Seth referred to as one of her aunt’s stunts?
“Maggie, do you feel all right?” All conversation at the table stopped as the family listened to see what kind of story Maggie would come up with this time.
“I feel fine, Mother. Why do you ask?”
“You look a little flushed to me. Let me take your temperature after dinner.”
“I don’t have a fever, Mother. I feel fine. It’s warm in here.”
“We’ll take the temperature anyway. I can’t send you to school tomorrow if there’s a chance you’re coming down with something. The whole class could get it.”
“Why aren’t you eating your dinner?” Moss queried.
Maggie’s head shot up. It had been a very long time since her father had asked her a direct question. Billie’s throat constricted at the naked adoration on her daughter’s face. She started eating immediately. “I guess my mind was on school and a test tomorrow,” Maggie said between mouthfuls of food.
“Don’t stuff your mouth. You’re old enough to eat properly.
And don’t ever talk with your mouth full.”
Billie’s eyes narrowed and her left hand clenched into a tightly balled fist in her lap.
“I can’t eat any more. Mother, may I be excused?” Maggie’s tears were close to the surface, and Billie didn’t dare take a chance on the girl’s erupting into one of her screaming outbursts.
“Of course. Come along. I want to take your temperature anyway.” Billie laid her napkin on the table. The glance she shot Moss was stormy.
“There’s nothing wrong with the girl,” Seth growled.
Billie stopped in midstride and turned. “I’ll be the judge of what is or isn’t wrong with my daughter. Don’t interfere between my daughter and me, now or ever.”
“Billie!” Agnes was aghast. “Now that wretched child has spoiled another dinner. You really are going to have to do something.”
Billie’s back stiffened. “The next time you feel compelled to blame someone for a spoiled dinner, try to blame the right person. My husband!” With a venomous look at Moss, Billie marched from the room with her head held high.
“That wife of yours is getting out of hand, Moss.”
“That’s enough, Pap. Billie’s a mother. Mam was the same way.” Agnes cringed inwardly at the accusing glance he directed at her.
Upstairs, Billie shook the thermometer. “You don’t have a fever, but you don’t look right, Maggie. You know your marks are good enough for you to take a day or so off. Maybe a bug is going around and we can nip it at the onset so you don’t lose more time later. I really am worried, Maggie. Have you been sleeping?”
“Off and on. I have a lot on my mind. Mother . . . I . . .”
“Yes, Maggie? Whatever it is, do you want to talk about it?”
“Oh, never mind. Not tonight. Why don’t you and I go shopping next weekend? I think I gained some weight. Too many late-night snacks with the girls after lights out.”
The wan smile bothered Billie. “I’d like that, Maggie. Just the two of us. We’ll go to all the big stores and get a whole new wardrobe. I think it’s time you had some new clothes. You didn’t want to go the last time, when I took Susan.”
“I didn’t need anything then. Why waste Pap’s money? I told him he didn’t have to give me such a generous allowance and that I was saving, but he didn’t listen. I’m trying, Mam, but he—”
“Shhh, I know, honey. We’re going to work it out. You let me worry about your father. If you feel all right, you’d better get your things together and get downstairs. I want you back at school before curfew.”
Maggie picked up her weekend bag and a pile of books. “I’ll see you on the weekend. I’m sorry about dinner. I never seem to do or say the right thing. I don’t know why. I think there must be a devil in me somewhere. Grandpap says there is, anyway.”
Billie could feel her temper rising again. “He said that to you?”
“It doesn’t matter. Pap says it, too. I’m just like Aunt Amelia. Pap likes Aunt Amelia but he doesn’t like me. You figure it out, Mam. I have to get going.”
“If you don’t feel well, call me. Promise, Maggie.”
“I promise,” Maggie called over her shoulder.
Susan and Riley ran in, kissed Billie quickly, and then ran out and down the stairs. Their clattering made Billie smile, but then the front door slammed behind them. Sunbridge was like a tomb again.
Billie sat down with a thump on her velvet-covered slipper chair. She kicked off her high heels and propped her feet on a hassock. Out of habit she reached for the packet of letters on the round cherrywood table. Reading Thad Kingsley’s letters always made her feel better. Someday she was going to tell him how much they meant to her. She knew them by heart, but she still searched for the letter she wanted. The naval stationery was as crisp as fresh celery.
I can only try to imagine the heartache you are suffering over Maggie. You have to try to be strong, my dear. She’s still a little girl in so many ways. She’s not quite a young lady and yet she’s not a baby. She’s caught in that in-between time. I have to side with you when you say money, and by that I mean having too much, is not Maggie’s problem. We both know what her problem is and until you can get Moss to see the light, both of you are going to be miserable. There are times when Moss needs t
o be hit over the head. His stubbornness can be overwhelming. In that respect Maggie does take after him. I feel that the constant comparisons to Amelia do not help matters. You asked for my opinion; otherwise I wouldn’t comment or foist my thoughts on you. I have every faith that you will manage to pull things together. You have strength you haven’t tapped yet. Trust me when I tell you it’s there and to draw from it.
I would love to come to Sunbridge for a visit, but I don’t think it would be wise under the circumstances. Moss drew the line on that last visit and I would feel very uncomfortable. He feels I betrayed him by going with you to look for Maggie. Moss doesn’t take betrayal well. Our friendship is in jeopardy, as I’m sure you know. I also know that that’s the main reason for your invitation, but I’m afraid, dear Billie, that it will have to come from Moss.
I would like to invite you and the girls to Corpus Christi for a weekend anytime you’re free. I have a wonderful housekeeper and cook, and plenty of room. I have a monstrous fireplace. It’s a nice place to sit and pretend. Fireplaces with blazing logs, the funny papers, and a cup of grog are for families. Oops, I almost forgot the dog! I have this mutt that wandered by one day and never left. I call him Solomon because he was wise enough to know that if he didn’t do his business outside, he couldn’t stay. We get along fine. He greets me when I get home and lies by my side all evening. Put him in the picture when you visualize my fireplace.
It’s almost time for Solomon’s nightly walk, so I’ll close for now. Take care, Billie, and remember, if there’s anything you need, anything at all, call. I’ll always be here for you.
Texas Rich Page 43
