"Do you think he suspects me?" Her voice eased his tension and took a little of the starch out of him. It was husky and sweet as usual, but there was a little tremor in it.
Shiloh was not as cool and calm as she appeared, thank God.
But he wouldn't apologize for his clothes. "I don't think so. But he made me so late I just got out of the jail and came straight here."
"It's okay. But we'd better hurry."
He nodded, and they both started moving, each to his own vehicle. Then both stopped.
"There's no point in takin' both," he pointed out reasonably. And he didn't add, I'll be damned if I'll crawl in Sam Pennington's Caddy, either.
"You're right. You can ride with me," she offered.
"What's wrong with my truck?" he asked belligerently.
She shrugged. "Nothing, except the car's air-conditioned. And there's more room for those long legs of yours." She glanced downward, and Billy's heart gave a hard jerk of surprise. Shiloh never made personal remarks. Even if this one hadn't been especially provocative, it said clearly that she'd been looking at him.
Billy didn't know whether to be dismayed or pleased. He chose a little of both.
"My legs will be fine in the truck," he answered shortly.
"I don't want to leave the car here. I doubt that anybody would find it, but the whole world knows it's one of Sam's." She gestured toward the license plate with its distinctive "S.P." tag. "If it sits here, and somebody sees it, they'll call T-Tommy again, and this game is over before it gets started."
Then she turned back to the car decisively. "Besides, it's got a full tank of gas."
He'd opened his mouth to argue, but her comment made him shut it abruptly. Billy remembered suddenly that he had exactly $36.00 to his name. If something happened to his truck—and it had one bald tire—he might not have the money to fix it, let alone fill it up with
gas.
So it was with extreme reluctance and a tinge of anger that he finally went after the high-handed miss who was already sliding into the car.
The driver seat, no less. She was clearly the one in charge here.
You sell yourself like so much merchandise, and that's the way you get treated, Billy Bob thought bitterly, and without another word, he climbed into the passenger seat.
It smelled of expensive leather and her light perfume; this princess coach with her alligator purse on the carpet at his feet and a folded yellow umbrella on the dash was a foreign world.
And the squealing little buzzer that went off when he opened the door wouldn't shut up until he wrapped the seat belt over himself and snapped it closed. Caught and imprisoned by his own hand.
Then they sat staring at each other in silence.
Billy finally made a sweeping motion that invited her to move on. "It's your party, honey. You gonna get on with it, or sit here all day?"
And without another word, she pulled away from the shelter of the gin.
They drove in silence for a while, while he slid glances over at her and considered the way she handled the car. Smooth. A little too quick to go for the gas, but that was all.
She looked totally in control, so he moved to break her hold, flipping on the radio without asking her permission.
When he found a steel-rich, fiddle-crazy song about women and drinking, he left the dial right there. Still she said nothing.
"That's the damnedest outfit I ever saw any bride wear," he told her at last.
She glanced over at him in surprise. "What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing, if you want to keep the preacher or the JP or whoever it is who marries us hopped up on pins and needles wondering if you've got on anything under that jacket," he answered bluntly.
Her cheeks flushed. "What's wrong with you these days?" she snapped. "You never used to say stuff like that."
"Don't avoid the question," he retorted. "Do you?"
She opened her mouth as if to spit her anger at him but suddenly seemed to change her mind. Instead, her hand went to the buttons on the coat, twisting them deliberately through the button holes.
"You can see for yourself," she taunted unevenly.
Billy couldn't tear his eyes away from her hand, and when she finally pushed the jacket open, his heart hit several hundred beats a minute.
She had on a cool white camisole top, as deeply veed as the jacket but otherwise completely safe.
His momentary relief wasn't much help. "You never used to do stuff like that," he counter-accused.
"So what's your reason?" she demanded, shooting an angry glare at him.
"Why'd I say it, you mean? I guess because I don't like the way you look."
She said derisively, with only a trace of hurt in her voice, "You and Sam. He's out to protect my reputation. Why are you so concerned?"
"You don't look real. You look like—like some ice queen behind those big glasses and in that hot little outfit. You sit on your little throne over there moving the rest of the world around like pawns. Don't you think I'd rather have paid my own way out of jail?" he returned in frustration.
She took a deep breath and her hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Than to marry me, you mean?" He said nothing.
"We don't have to do this," she told him at last. "We can find a place to turn around."
There was a long, stark silence.
"Do what you want," muttered Billy at last. "I'll pay you back the money as soon as I can."
"I don't want the money," she returned hotly. "It's not important."
"Not important!" His voice was incredulous; then he laughed. "That just shows how little you know about the real world, honey. I bet everything I don't have that you've never been without money, or your charge cards, or a nice little checkbook in your whole life, have you?"
Shiloh bit her lip and kept driving.
"That's what I thought," Billy answered triumphantly. "You buy your fancy clothes that I don't even know you in, you'll buy a new car to replace the one you smashed to pieces, you even bought me. Well, I wish I'd cost you a whole lot more, Shiloh. Thousands more. You should have had to pay enough to make you at least think about me and what you were doing to me when you made that offer."
When she stopped the car, they both sat breathing furiously. Where had all the anger come from, Billy wondered wildly. He hadn't known it was in him until it spilled out on her in a dark, acidic tide.
"Forget it," she whispered, never looking at him. "I'll find another way to fight Sam."
"Shiloh, I'm sorry." The words hung in his throat, but he got them out.
She shook her head wordlessly, swallowing heavily. But as her hand reached for the gear shift, Billy caught it, taking both of them by surprise.
It was warm, her skin smooth to his touch—the first touch since the other night in the jail cell. He'd remembered the brush of her hand every day since.
She looked at him in wary shock and tried to pull away, but he held her fingers firmly.
"I said I'm sorry," he told her huskily. "I don't know why I said it, except I'm feeling pretty low right now. I don't like me much, and I'm takin' it out on you."
She just watched him, like a wide-eyed child behind the dark glasses.
Slowly, carefully, he reached out and pulled the dark shades away from her face. Behind them was the girl he'd spent a night in jail with, not the cool snob who'd come home from college with her nose so high in the air she couldn't see him.
"I don't want to marry you now," she told him defensively.
He was so close to her, he could see the pulses beating in her throat.
"So you'll do what? Find somebody else?"
He shook his head before she could answer.
"It won't be the same. I'm perfect for what you need," Billy told her flatly. "If you'll just quit making me feel like a hobo you've picked up out of the goodness of your heart, we'll be all right. Do you think I like gettin' married lookin' like this"—he gestured down at his old clothes— "when my—my bride looks like you do? And
she's footin' the bill, too?"
Shiloh let her brown gaze slide from his face, down the brown length of his throat to the open collar of the white shirt, down to his waist, and out his long arm where the sleeve was rolled up to his elbow.
"You look all right," she told him in surprise, as if she'd never even considered him worth looking at before.
"Thanks," he said wryly, then let his own gaze travel down to that deep vee again where her white shirt contrasted sharply with her warm skin. "You look . . . too good."
Her face suddenly flushed, and her lips opened a little.
Billy watched them a minute. He knew what he was going to do. He was going to make his peace on her lips, then he was going to shut up and marry this girl.
"Billy—" The word held a panicky protest as his mouth drew near hers. "Billy, if you kiss me, this whole thing is off, and I want my money back."
He stared at her, his face darkening. "What in hell for?"
"I told you, it's business. I'm not getting into anything else. I just want this mess straightened out." Her words were rushed.
They hurt his ego. "I don't think that's why. I think you're scared to death."
"Of you?" She tried hard to sound scornful.
"Of me, and of kissing me, and of being here with me right now," he accused.
"You're crazy. I don't want to kiss you because that's got nothing to do with our deal. And besides"—Shiloh knew she should quit while she was ahead, but her tongue wouldn't obey—"I've heard you spread yourself thin.
You're available to everything in skirts these days. I'd rather have kisses that are a little bit fresher, from a man who's a little more discriminating. Yours are too cheap for my taste."
For an instant she actually thought he might hit her; then his face flushed red as he pulled away from her and faced forward out the window.
At last she reached for the gear shift, and to her surprise, her hand was shaking a little. "We'll go back," she whispered.
"No."
He never looked at her; his jaw was as tight and set as granite. "No, we won't. We'll get this over with, because I don't have the damn money to repay you. And when it's done, and we get back to Sweetwater, you walk on your side of the street and I'll walk on mine."
"But—"
"And when you finally get up the nerve to tell Sam, you send word to me and we'll end it. Then I won't owe you one red cent, and I swear to God I'll never come near you again. So drive on. Have the guts to do what you set out to do at least."
And after a long, long moment of indecision, Shiloh pulled from the little park and headed out—toward Memphis.
She'd paid good money for him, after all.
The Shelby County Administration Building was big and crowded, and they waited for a little while in line.
Then it was simple. Quick. Cold-blooded. Painless.
They proved they were over eighteen with their driver's licenses. They signed the marriage license. And Shiloh paid the fee.
"No," she told him as he reached for his wallet, "it's my party, remember? I'm paying." "Fine," he said stonily. And that was that.
The marriage was more difficult.
The judge who married them was easy to locate, just a little way from where they bought the license. He was young, round, and prematurely bald—nothing at all like Robert Sewell.
Billy took time to be grateful for that small mercy, but he tried not to look down past the man's nose so that he wouldn't notice his robe.
They had little or no trouble finding witnesses. The next couple waiting to be married—both barely out of their teens—were pressed into service by the judge.
"Now, I believe we've got everything," he declared at last in relief. "If you will just stand here"—he motioned fussily to a spot somewhere in front of him—"we'll get this started."
He glanced down at the license. "You're William Robert Walker—I always like to get names down properly. And you're Shiloh—what a lovely name—Pennington. No middle name?"
"No," she said, her voice tiny and a little nervous.
"Fine, fine. Let's see, you've got license, witnesses— how about the rings?"
They stared blankly at the judge for a minute.
"Rings," Shiloh murmured helplessly, looking up at Billy Bob, and there was a long waiting pause.
"I think we forgot the rings," he told the judge at last.
The man looked from one of them to the other, his pumpkin-shaped face puzzled. Then he asked slowly, "Is this marriage a hasty one? Something you've only recently decided to do?"
And for the first time he stopped and looked them over—Shiloh in the white suit, Billy in the worn jeans. He couldn't help but notice how Shiloh was standing well away from the man beside her instead of holding his hand or hugging up to him the way the happy two waiting their turn were standing.
"Perhaps you'd like to talk to one another in private," the judge added at last.
"No," Shiloh replied quickly.
"We've done all the talking we need to do," said Billy ironically.
"But both of you seem so unprepared—" "Reckon we're better at things besides talking," Billy drawled outrageously, reaching out to wrap his big hand around Shiloh's upper arm. "You could say we're sorta gettin' married in a fever."
The judge's cheeks flushed nearly as darkly as Shiloh's. "Marriage is not something to do on a spare day," he said repressively, "or on a whim with a person you barely know, or somebody you've met as a ... a one-night acquaintance." He could barely get out the last three words.
"I've known him four years," Shiloh interposed, "and here, I'll use this for a ring. He can get me one later, or something." She tugged hurriedly at the gold college ring she wore, and when it slid off, she held it out for the judge's inspection.
"Well, if this is what you want," he said reluctantly, then opened his tiny black book with the civil wedding ceremony in it.
Billy remembered to reach up and pull off the cap, holding it in one hand. Then he remembered more, that once he had thought about eloping somewhere with Shiloh. It had sounded dangerous, and exciting, and romantic. But the reality was something far different.
The judge's chambers were routine and boring. The paneled walls held recessed shelves full of heavy dark books, volumes of law, no doubt. The desk in the corner by the window was neat as a pin with only a picture of a blond-haired woman and a little girl with her father's pumpkin-shaped face sitting on it. And outside the window were buildings and rows of more buildings against the blue of the afternoon sky. When the sun poured in through the panes, it fell on a commercial tourist painting—a collage of sorts about Tennessee—that somebody had hung on the wall.
He was getting married, Billy thought, not in the eyes of God and friends, but under the watchful gaze of Andrew Jackson and Roy Acuff as they stared down from that collage; even a youthful Elvis sneered at them.
And as the judge began, a loud jet swept over the building on its way to a landing at the Memphis airport, nearly drowning the words.
He wished he'd never done this. He wished he were modern and up-to-date, as casual about marriage as the rest of humanity seemed to be nowadays. He wished he didn't remember that he'd also once thought of marrying this same girl in the little church at Seven Knobs where his mother went, where old Brother Thompson talked about a friendly God and knew Billy Bob the child and Billy Bob the man and loved him anyway, in spite of his predilection for Saturday-night carousing and Sunday-morning sleeping-in.
He wanted to go home, away from this strange judge, and the two teenagers, and Elvis and Roy—and away from the woman by his side who was repeating her vows calmly enough.
"... until death do us part." Her voice was so low it was barely audible.
"You may give him the ring as a token of the promise you have made," the judge informed Shiloh gravely, and she nodded jerkily and held the ring out toward him.
He remembered to hold out his hand, and she hesitated a minute, uncertain what to do. The ri
ng was small, his hand large, twice the size of hers. It might, with effort, fit his little finger.
On that thought, Billy took her hand in his right one, catching it along with the cap he still held, and all of a sudden, as if an electric bolt of knowledge had been hooked into him, Billy felt her true emotions: her hand was trembling a little, too warm and too wet with perspiration. She was as uptight as he was, and the knowledge sent a wave of relief through him.
Her dark hair looked nearly auburn in the light from the window, and as he stared down at the top of her bent head, she looked up in one fleeting, puzzled glance at his stillness.
Shiloh had always had the brownest eyes he'd ever seen—as wide as an inquiring deer's. Eyes that led you straight down to her soul, if you only knew how to see it.
Right now, at this minute, they were the same eyes he'd fallen into that afternoon he'd first seen her on the back porch of Sam's house. It didn't matter that this was Memphis, not Seven Knobs, and that all the years had come between them.
For a few seconds, he could forget Sam and Sewell and his brother, Michael, and just remember that he'd once loved her.
He pushed her hand toward the finger he had extended, showing her to slide the ring on it. It hung on his knuckle—he might have to cut the gold band off—but it went on at last.
Her fingers clung to his for a minute, and he wrapped her hand in his and held on.
The judge, satisfied, continued. "And do you, William Robert Walker, take this woman ..."
He got out the words by watching the judge's face; she was watching his, her head tilted to see him as he spoke. Why?
The judge tried to be gracious. "Since there is no ring, you may kiss your bride as a token of these vows."
He didn't look at her as he bent quickly toward her cheek; in spite of everything, her words burned in his ears. His kisses were "too cheap" for her taste.
But as he laid his lips coolly against her skin, she suddenly shocked him by turning her head, and her mouth found his, pressing against it, clinging for an instant. It was a fleeting touch, but every nerve, every cell, every fiber in him went on red-hot, instant alert.
Billy Bob Walker Got Married Page 12
