Laura took a step closer. "What'd he do?"
"Sam's determined for me to marry him. I let him— Michael—think I would. I thought I loved him a little. But I can't . . . And last night, he tried to—"
"He tried to force you, didn't he?" Laura asked knowingly, and she reached out to pull the goblet from the white-knuckled grasp Shiloh had on it. "Here, you're about to break my good glass."
Her prosaic, matter-of-fact voice made everything Shiloh was trying to say seem normal, and the words came spilling out.
"He knows everything about a woman, and everywhere we go, people like him. Especially the women. But I never worried about that because he never noticed them. I think he ... he loves me. But Laura ..." Shiloh slid into the antique wild-cherry rocker that sat in front of the big open fireplace in one wall of the kitchen. "He's not a good person. He's not strong, or something. There's no backbone. Whenever something happens, it's always somebody else's fault. And he drinks . . . and drinks. Not at work, but when we're alone together. That's when it scares me."
"And he was drinking when he tore that blouse off your back last night when you two were here by yourselves?" Laura demanded, coming up behind the rocker.
"A little. Maybe . . . more. I don't know for sure, but I"—she shuddered—"tasted it. He ... tried to—" Shiloh stood hastily, her face twisting. "I can't talk about it, and anyway, Sam won't believe me. Nobody will."
"I'm listening," Laura told her quietly.
"He meant to rape me," Shiloh burst out.
The words rang in the kitchen, ugly and stark.
"You're gonna have to tell Sam," Laura said at last. "He won't believe. Nobody will. Don't you think I went through this over and over last night? Michael Se-well couldn't be a rapist. And there's Caroline to remember. Like mother, like daughter, that's what Sam would say. So will all of Sweetwater. Remember Caroline?" Shiloh's voice broke as she stared down at the chair she was clutching. "Couldn't get enough men."
Laura's hand rested briefly on Shiloh's back; beneath the navy jacket she wore, Shiloh was hot to the touch, shaking from emotion. She'd always been strung tighter than most, Laura thought, always trying too hard to be perfect. There was laughter and passion in her; it was too bad she kept it beaten down most of the time trying to prove something to her father.
"I believe you do need a rest," was all the housekeeper said. "You go upstairs, have a warm bath, a nap. Tonight, when you and Sam sit down over my supper, you'll get a chance to tell him. I'm fixing creamed breast of chicken. That'll soften him up."
Shiloh didn't smile. In fact, it angered her that Laura should baby her and pamper her, as if one hot meal, one warm bath, and the promise of her father's coming home should pacify her. She was twenty-two, and the world treated her like some kind of brainless infant.
Without a word, though, she turned out of the kitchen. What was she supposed to do? Tell Laura off for her kindness? She was so exhausted she might have finished the speech by falling at her feet.
The oak treads of the back staircase led directly to her big bedroom. Its creamy carpet swept to the delicate, tall posts of the Queen Anne cherry bed under myriad rose and moss-green pillows, the ones that Shiloh scattered wide as she threw herself across the heavy ruffled coverlet.
Here, through the French door she pushed open onto the little balcony, came the sounds of peace: a mockingbird chirping, the muffled, distant crack of Clarence’s hammer.
A world so calm that her memories had no place in it, but the minute she was still, they came washing over her. . . .
"Come on, let me in, Shiloh," Michael said quietly as she stared at him through the crack in the door. "What's going on with you?"
"I don't want to talk to you. I've said all I'm going to," she answered steadily.
"Well, good for you. But maybe I haven't," he retorted angrily and all of a sudden, he gave the door a hard shove, his movement so unexpected it jerked it out of her hand and sent her stumbling back.
Then he was inside, pushing the door shut behind him, but his bright blue eyes were focused intently on her.
For a minute they just stood there, facing each other. "You've got no right to come shoving in here," Shiloh told him unsteadily.
"No right?" he asked incredulously. "What's got into you? I've been coming in here off and on for the last four years."
But he didn't move away from the door, and standing there in his expensive sweater and linen slacks, Michael was so calm, so smoothly sophisticated, that she felt flustered at her own childishness.
And the white-hot tingle of fear that had shot through her like electricity at his abrupt movement faded into an embarrassed nothing.
"Oh, all right," she muttered ungraciously, turning her back on him to walk away. "Come on in. Say what you have to say and get it over with. None of it will change my mind."
She didn't really hear him follow her across the wooden floor of the foyer into the family room, where his feet made little or no sound on the carpet. But when she flung herself down on the peach, blue and green striped couch and faced the elaborate fireplace, empty and cold now, Michael was standing there.
Just watching her.
His strange stillness should have been her first warning.
"You want to tell me what this means?" he asked abruptly, tossing a small, square box to her. "I got it out of my mailbox day before yesterday. It's the reason I drove all the way from Memphis as soon as I could."
Shiloh set the package carefully out of her lap, onto the couch, before she looked back at him.
"I think it's pretty self-explanatory. It's my engagement ring. I tried to give it back to you two weeks ago. Finally, I mailed it."
He slid both hands into his pockets as if to keep from strangling her. "You mean to say that you actually meant all that wild stuff you told me after we left the club?"
"Hard to believe, isn't it? But the answer's yes—I did."
"Why? Why all of a sudden just break it off?" he demanded furiously, glaring at her.
Make it clean and quick, Shiloh, she told herself, and she stood, counting off the reasons on her fingers.
"I don't love you, I don't like the way you run over people, I don't like the way you use your looks and your money to get everybody from waitresses to me to do what you want, I don't like the way you just assume I'm yours, or just an extension of you, and most of all"—Shiloh drew a deep breath and looked right at him—"I don't like the way you drink. The way you have no self-control."
Michael's body jerked as if she'd touched a live nerve, and his face mottled red. "The way I drink!" he repeated incredulously. "What in hell are you talking about?"
"Don't treat me like I'm a half-wit. I know what I see. And what's so scary is the way you keep it from everybody until you've got them right where you want them and you think they won't tell," Shiloh retorted, but her voice was unsteady. She knew instinctively that this was dangerous ground. "I'm even surprised that you remember we had an argument two weeks ago. You'd been getting drunker and drunker while we sat there in the corner of the club. I had to drive, remember? And it hit me that I didn't want to be with you anymore. Something . . . something in me isn't satisfied with—with us. I took you to the judge's house. Your parents weren't home, but I used their phone to call a taxi while you were passed out in the car. Did it ever cross your mind to wonder how I got home?"
He never looked away from her face, but his own darkened guiltily.
"That's what I thought," she told him steadily. "You need to get help, Michael, no matter what your parents think. So there's the door, and you can take this with you when you go." She caught up the ring box and stepped briefly toward him, shoving it at him.
He looked down at it for one dazed minute, and suddenly, she felt almost sorry for him. Smooth, beautiful Michael. He'd never been rejected in his life; he was the darling of his parents, the envy of most of the male population of Sweetwater.
Failure came hard for him.
"Here," Shiloh said, more gently,
offering the ring again. "I'm sorry."
His hand, already tanned from the two weeks he'd spent in the gulf scuba-diving with friends last month, reached out slowly for it—and then he had her, his grasp on her wrist furious and tight.
"You think you can just walk away from me after stringing me along all this time?" he hissed, his hot face nearly against hers. "You think I need help? How about what you need?"
"Michael, stop—"
But he ignored her shocked whimper of sound as he grabbed her other arm above the elbow and bent both of them behind her at a painful angle, forcing her into an arching backward stance.
Shiloh stared up in sudden, full-bloomed fright at his face right above hers, and the heat from his body swirled around her. So did the fleeting scent of whiskey.
"I love you. We're engaged. You don't walk out on me. You'll marry me when I say, or when Sam says. Remember him? You haven't told him about breaking it off yet, now, have you?"
His grasp on her arms tightened painfully; both that and his words forced a sharp cry from her.
"That's what I thought. You mean to marry me—this is just some little game you decided to play," he gasped out, his words coming in heavy explosions on her face that made her stomach churn. "This marriage is too important to Sam—to my father—to everybody for you to end it."
"No . . . no, I mean it," she whispered, pushing the words out in spite of his crushing embrace around her. "Turn loose, Michael."
"You've made me ache and beg to make love to you, and I've let you say no and walk away. How many times? How many times, Shiloh?" he demanded harshly, shaking her.
"I ... I don't know," Shiloh finally gasped out painfully. "Please, you're hurting me—"
"Well, no more. No more." In the sudden heavy stillness, she caught the hot flame that suddenly flared in his eyes, felt the deliberate thrust of his body against her thighs. Bending her arms that he still held behind her, he forced her to her knees, and her heart stopped.
Everything stopped.
She was in a nightmare, darkness all around her, blood throbbing in her ears, as her senses opened wide to take in a terrible, agonizing realization: he was going to rape her.
Right here, in her own house.
"My... God ... no ... Michael... no ..." The words were only tiny sparks of sound that ignited him into sudden, violent, triumphant action. "I don't want to. Please."
"It's exactly what you're wanting, what you've been pushing me for," he panted heavily, shoving her to the smooth carpet without ever releasing her, following her down like a swooping eagle, pinioning her beneath his tall body and heavy weight.
Smothered—she was being smothered under him, under his scent and his clothes, and she screamed once as she began a violent, twisting, bucking, writhing motion under him, frantic to dislodge his strength and his hold— and finding him immovable and implacable.
Fury shot through her for one blessed moment. "I—I'll kill you for this," she blazed up at him, her teeth biting and snapping like an animal. "Sam—Sam will kill you."
Michael watched her struggle for a second before he replied, "No, he won't. Nobody will believe one word of your crazy story. Not about me. We're engaged. Half the town expects we've been doing this for months, and, by God, we should have been."
He bruised her lips, covering them with his, and when she twisted furiously away, he let his weight press her body painfully down on her arms, still bent behind her, until she made a choking sound in her throat in protest, her face twisted, and her body went limp.
"Now, be good."' he commanded thickly. His tongue traced her lips, finally licking across them. "Shiloh," he groaned, then he kissed her again, his tongue pushing past her teeth.
She might vomit, she thought in revulsion, then instead, she bit him—as hard as she could, and she tasted blood.
He jerked away as if he'd been set on fire, a red stain on his lip. "You little bitch!" he said, and they glared at each other, each breathing harshly.
"All right, if you want to play hard ball," he muttered, and he released her arm, still keeping it caught under her, and with one swift jerk, he tore open the white blouse she wore.
She screamed; he stared down at her, his eyes bright and hot, almost as if he didn't see her at all, then slowly, deliberately ran his hand tenderly down her throat to the tops of her breasts, his fingers sliding under the lacy silk of her bra. touching her.
"Beautiful. Just relax, Shiloh. It'll be over soon. You'll see you love me. That's all I want," he whispered. Then, abruptly, he gave another sudden, hard jerk, one that pulled her body off the carpet roughly for a second, and stripped the rest of the blouse away, except for the tattered pieces that clung to her arms. He made no effort to remove them.
Her teeth were chattering; he really' meant to do it, and she couldn't remember . . . What was she supposed to do? Let it happen? Fight—if she could? What . . . what?
"Don't hurt me. Please, don't. I'll hate you—I'll hate you—" She couldn't stop the words; they kept rattling through her teeth.
"You're going to love me," he whispered in return, his voice husky and thick. "And then there'll be no more talk about breaking this engagement. Shiloh." He made a husky sound, a murmur of appreciation, as be bent to kiss her right above her left breast. Then his white, perfect teeth suddenly snapped, and he bit her sharply, laughing a little in wild excitement.
She was so numb she only jerked. Then he raised up and reached for his belt buckle, fumbling with it. His weight lifted from her right side and her hand found an escape.
As she yanked it free, her brain flooded with an instant memory of what somebody had instructed rape victims to do—maybe it had been Donahue, she thought hysterically, the thought inconsequential but clear—and she hit him as hard as she could with her fist in his Adam's apple.
He choked, gagged, grabbed at his throat. Then she poked him in both of his eyes with her fingers. He crumpled to the side, and with a strength born of terror, she yanked and jerked herself out from under him.
But she wasn't through: just as he was staggering to his feet, she kicked him solidly right between the legs with every ounce of strength she had.
He gave a strangled cry of agony and crumpled back to the carpet, clutching himself, making a retching sound in his throat.
The ring box lay right at her hand as she rolled away a second time, and in a blaze of glory she threw it at him.
"Take it—and get out!" she screamed, then she herself ran for the door and escape.
Once outside, the fragrant night air hit her bare skin. Realizing too late her state of undress, she plunged into the dark garage, locking herself inside the Porsche, lying flat in the darkness, shaking, raying, and sick.
His own car had been standing in the drive in the front of the house; maybe it was minutes, or maybe it was hours, before she heard it pull off into the night.
All she knew was that Michael Sewell was gone, and she hated him.
Then she crept back inside the house and threw up in the downstairs bathroom.
When Shiloh awoke, the sun was sinking behind the heavy stand of pines at the far end of the yard, and a slightly chilly twilight breeze brushed across her bare arms from the French door.
Michael was with her for a flashing instant as she struggled up out of sleep, and she gave a hard, frightened jerk that knocked pillows onto the floor.
Shiloh sat up abruptly and shivered. How long would it be before she forgot what happened last night?
Putting her hand to her mouth to stifle the moan, she came up off the bed in one quick motion.
Laura was right: she had to tell Sam. He wasn't heartless, and he was her father; surely she could make him understand. She would tell him tonight at supper.
In the shower, the warm, soothing water sluiced over her, washing away the memories she'd spent the afternoon with, and she toweled herself dry roughly.
When she sat down in front of the mirror, she could find no trace of fear or anger in her face. It
looked like always: smooth skin, with a touch of brown rather than pink in it; wide brown eyes above high cheekbones; a nose that wasn't quite perfect—it had a tiny tilt at the bottom instead of being elegantly classic; a wide mouth; and a wild cloud of wine-brown hair that nearly—but not quite—touched her shoulders.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, to inspire passionate love nor ugly lust that she could see.
They said that she looked like Caroline, all the people of Sweetwater, and that Caroline had been a raving beauty when she was young. Shiloh could barely remember her then; her mother had left when she was five. Once, though, she had seen a picture in the attic and she'd stared at it with all the hungry fascination of a twelve-year-old. It had lasted until she realized what she was doing. Then she'd dropped the picture like a scorching coal and had gone running out of the attic.
She remembered enough about Caroline and her leaving to want no part of her.
The girl in the mirror swallowed. Her mother had had an effect, even gone. Shiloh had stayed away from men. She'd never even flirted with one until she was eighteen, and then it had started so easily and felt so right she'd been involved with him before she knew it.
Billy Bob Walker.
Shiloh winced and closed her eyes as his face floated into her mind. It was Michael's face—but no, not quite. Funny, but when she'd first started dating Michael last fall, his resemblance to Billy Bob had only enhanced his appeal.
Now just the opposite happened.
Billy had brown streaks in his hair, hair too shaggy and too long. Michael was more purely blond, his hair clipped close to his head and styled neatly. Billy's face was thinner, one tooth was slightly out of line, his eyebrows were brown, the planes of his cheekbones high and smooth beneath his long blue eves. He had a beautiful nose, straighter and more exact than Michael's. And where Michael was square and muscular, Billy was lankier and longer. He looked like what he was—a farmhand.
She could remember Sam's fury when he found out, although she never knew who'd seen her and Billy Bob together and told him.
Billy Bob Walker Got Married Page 5
