"Papa," she said involuntarily, and he let go of all his breath in a sudden expulsion of defeat.
"I thought you'd gone, Shiloh," he said at last, wearily. "I'm tired of fighting. Why can't we get along?"
She swallowed the emotions choking her and rubbed her forehead where a headache had begun to pound. "You want everything your way," she told him. "We get along when I don't fight it."
"Shiloh." He said her name abruptly. "I'll be damned if I ever understand you, but I'll give a little, if you will."
She dropped her hand to stare at him in surprised wariness. "Give what?"
"I told Michael today to give you time, to leave you alone for a few weeks."
"And—and the wedding?"
"We'll postpone it, a little while," he said evasively. "I think this is nerves, Shiloh, that's all."
"And what will happen when I don't ever agree for the wedding to take place?" she asked carefully.
"We'll wait and see. But you'll get over these feelings, and be glad Michael's still here," he answered with his usual self-righteous bullheadedness. "There's not many men that'd be willin' to hang around. He loves you."
Shiloh looked at him, wanting desperately to make her peace with him, but knowing full well this was a long way from over. Still, here at least was a breathing space.
"I don't like feeling as sick as I did today when I thought I was really gonna have to track you down and bring you home," Sam said huskily, and his face blurred a little around the edges as if he were trying hard to hold on to control.
She took a step toward him. "You could just let me go, Papa. Turn loose a little."
He shook his head. "No. I'm not an old fool yet. I know what I've got in you. You're a pretty good kid. And I know down inside me that you want to do what's right. No matter what I holler when I'm mad, I know you'd never deliberately hurt me, or disappoint me. In the end, you'll do me proud."
Have I mentioned that I got married this afternoon? The guilty words hovered on the tip of her tongue. But no, she knew Sam. She might need Billy Bob yet. Wait, wait, she cautioned herself.
"I'm not a saint," she told him at last.
"You wouldn't be mine if you were," he answered, his mouth twisting in a smile. "A little peace for a while, Shiloh?"
She took two steps closer to him. "Just for a little while."
He laughed in relief, then slid an arm around her shoulders. It had been a long, long time since he'd hugged her; Sam was not a man who believed in physical contact. But Shiloh's whole body felt light; her father and she might stop butting heads for a day or two. She might rest and quit running.
"Good. Good. Now, where in the hell have you been?"
She sighed. There was no getting away from it; she might as well answer. "I drove all the way to Memphis and back."
"To see Michael?" he asked, suddenly hopeful. "Because he was here, meeting with me about you most of the day. Shiloh, he wants—"
"No. I drove because I wanted to. And if we're going to get along, you'll have to—"
"Stop talking about Michael. I know. I will, for the time being."
The phone was ringing as they stepped into the kitchen. Sam grimaced. "Probably T-Tommy."
"You didn't send him out hunting for me, did you?" Shiloh demanded.
Sam shrugged guiltily, then picked up the receiver.
As Shiloh watched him talk, she remembered the day.
Sam was going to be furious if the events ever came out. He'd feel hurt and angry and betrayed, and the latter was an emotion he couldn't handle at all. Not since Caroline.
If she'd only waited, she might not have had to marry Billy Bob. If she'd only known Sam was going to give her a little room . . .
She wouldn't have spent the day being jerked around, being kissed and mauled and—and threatened by that overgrown daddy longlegs.
♦ ♦ ♦
On Wednesday morning, Sam installed her at the bank in Sweetwater. Six months in Dover was enough apprenticeship, he announced. But Shiloh knew the truth, that he wanted to keep his eye on her. He realized something was wrong with the Memphis story, and he didn't want a repeat of that day.
It wasn't the most pleasant transition. Somebody had to go to Dover in her place, and she went in at Sweetwater over people who'd been around a lot longer.
Two or three of the women clearly resented her; one, Rita, was an acquaintance, a girl with whom she'd gone to elementary school.
Shiloh ate lunch alone in the rec room for three days before Rita came hesitantly on the fourth and sat down at the same table, smiling.
"She acted half-afraid of me," Shiloh told Laura, confused. "I don't know why. I remember that she bit me in the second grade because I spilled paint on her dress. I've known her a long time. We were friends, even."
"Give her a little time. You're the boss's daughter," Laura pointed out sensibly. "It doesn't pay to get mixed up with you."
"I breathe. I get hungry. I sleep. I'm just like her. And the rest of them, too."
"You don't do the things they do."
"What do they do? Go to the Legion Hall on Friday nights?" There, she'd asked about the place, finally able to get it into the conversation.
Laura looked up in mild surprise from the towels they were folding. "Well, that wasn't what I was talking about, but I guess they do. How'd you come up with the Legion Hall?"
"Rita said she goes sometimes." Shiloh kept her gaze on the towels. "Is it a place I could go?"
"There's nothing wrong with the Legion Hall if you like dancing. Me, I don't hold with it. Nothing good ever came out of that much movin' around between the sexes, that's my opinion. But it's not a good idea to get social with people who work for you in the way those do."
"They work for Sam."
"And someday they're liable to be workin' for Sam's daughter," Laura said implacably. "He stays out of their lives. He expects you to do the same."
"Well, I'm not Sam. I like people, Laura. Real people."
Shiloh got up and turned away. When Laura came into the kitchen a few minutes later, she was staring out the window toward the row of magnolias down on the far side of the yard.
"You know what, Laura? Sometimes I wish I was just one of those girls down at the hall, and nothing more." "You're crazy, girl. Crazy."
The band at the Legion Hall didn't have a name; it was just Jake Piedrow and his three sons. But they could play the fire out of a fiddle tune or a waltz, and Jake's oldest boy, Aaron, had a baritone voice that let him cover everything from ballads to yodels. Jake himself favored the blues, and he liked a good Sam Cooke tune once in a while.
They were experts.
So was the dancer in Billy Bob's arms. Angie's slight weight nearly floated her off the ground as they shuffled and two-stepped with the rest of the crowd. She was smiling up at him; he kept looking away.
Maybe she thought he was keeping an eye out for the youngsters that wandered through the crowd while their parents and grandparents danced.
She could just keep on thinking it. He wasn't about to tell her the truth, that he was eyeing the door in the hopes that a girl with a wild, thick mane of red-lit brown hair and legs as long as the Natchez Trace would walk through.
Where was she?
She wasn't going to dismiss him now that she'd gotten a marriage out of him; she wasn't going to walk away like she had when she was an eighteen-year-old who really hadn't loved him the way he—the adult—had loved her.
He'd be damned if he wouldn't wring something more out of her this time, even if it was just sex. He'd show her what his "cheap" appeal was.
But she hadn't come.
When he stopped dancing, the music rushed on. So did Angie and the rest of the crowd, and he bumped and jostled several.
"What's the matter?" she demanded. "Tired already?"
Billy shook his head. "I'm thirsty. Here, you don't have to leave the floor because of me. There's Tracy."
Angie caught his hand as he lifted to signal the other
man over. "No," she said softly, at least as softly as she could in the laughter and the music. "I don't want to be with Tracy. No more dancin'. I'll go with you."
Billy hesitated, then shrugged. She'd come tonight on her own, apparently looking for him; she could do as she pleased.
"Sorry, kid," he told one of Dale Simcox's little twins as he stumbled over him on the way to the Coke dispenser.
"Whew," said Angie as they picked up the tall red cups full of ice and fizz, "it's hot in here tonight."
She ran a hand up her nape, fluffing the ridiculously short bob out, and sipped Coke as she looked up at him. In the yellow glow of the big bulbs that hung suspended from the ceiling, her hair was spun gold, her skin glowed golden, her jewelry and her sleeveless, cool top with its metallic threads all glinted gold.
Not a touch of earthy red-browns about her.
Where Shiloh's hair swung and bounced and waved, Angie's was as controlled and still as the precious metal it resembled, lacquered and gelled until not even the big fans that extended from the ceiling could stir it when their brown blades swung ponderously. The breeze they spawned could hardly be felt in the crowd of people.
"Let's go cool off on the porch," Angie invited, and took Billy's hand to tug him along. A line of sweat dripped down his back, so he agreed. Once out the big wide doors, he leaned a shoulder on the brick building and looked over the scattered, laughing couples who stood around.
No sign of a Cadillac pulling into the parking lot ahead of them.
Angie took another sip and eyed him. "You're awful quiet tonight."
"Am I? Must be tired. Two weeks layin' around jail, and this week back at hard work on the farm again."
"We could go to my place. You'd get some rest there— eventually," she urged in a teasing voice, but she smiled up at him suggestively. "It's been a while, Billy."
He looked down at the hand resting lightly on his shirtfront, its nails long and manicured, sparkling with some kind of glitter—golden, too. She'd pulled out all the stops tonight.
"I don't know, Angie," he said, lamely. "I'm not... not in the mood."
Her cheeks flushed lightly. "You've been that way a lot lately. What'd you do, get religion or something?"
"Look, let's just dance."
"No. I don't want to dance. I want to know what's wrong. You've never treated me like this, no matter how many other girls you ran around with. I'm not gonna stand for it, Billy." Her eyes sparked with frustrated temper.
"I didn't ask you to, did I?" He said it quietly.
She stared at him a long, long moment. "My God. There's somebody else, isn't there? Really somebody else. And big, bad Billy Bob Walker thinks he's in love."
"Just drop it, Angie."
"You're actin' like some junior-high kid."
"I said drop it, okay?"
He pulled away from her clinging hands and strode back into the building trying to get away from her jeering words; they made him—and his big plans for tonight-seem ridiculous. Just plain stupid.
It was gone midnight. He was heading home. And he was going to forget Shiloh Pennington.
He stopped by the back door to wait for a group of chattering women who'd halted in front of it for a conversation. He wanted out, before Angie found him again.
"Shiloh Pennington has Diane's job now."
The name struck his ear at such a timely moment in his thoughts that he jumped. Who had spoken it? Somebody in the group of women. The tall one. The brunette.
"Maybe she's as good at what she does as they all claimed down at Dover," she was saying, "but I say it's not right. Mr. Pennington just moved her in without a by-your-leave."
"It's his bank," another answered, shrugging fatalistically.
And a third, a tiny redhead, put in, "I don't think she likes being there too much. We haven't been too friendly."
"Well, that's tough," retorted the first.
"I went to school with her," the redhead said mildly. "She's nice. I like her."
"Oh, please, don't start with a good-neighbor policy," the first returned, but the redhead didn't answer as a man who'd been waiting for her led her onto the floor.
Billy's eyes followed the brunette. What had Pennington done? And where was Shiloh? He came slowly back into the room, considering.
He might just ask the tall, pretty brunette to dance.
The weekend passed slowly. Shiloh spent most of Saturday sunning in the backyard, reading a book, and drinking Laura's iced tea.
Maybe she should have been worried that she was twenty-two and home alone with a good book on a Friday night, but mostly she just felt relief that she didn't have to worry about fighting off Michael.
Still, by Sunday morning she was ready to do something, and when Sam asked her to go to the golf course with him, she was willing. They drove to Tobias County and ate breakfast with two of Sam's cronies, both old enough to be her grandfathers.
After an hour in their company, Shiloh declined their invitation to play golf and instead spent most of the morning swimming in the club's pool. A slightly overweight mother and her two little girls were there as well, so there was someone to talk to, at least as long as the anxious woman wasn't calling the two. "Autumn! Cody! Don't go near the deep end. Do you hear me?"
And as the midday got nearer and nearer, the three left and Shiloh lay dozing like a well-fed cat in the sun.
It was the brush of fingers along her arm that roused her out of sleep—that and the sudden dark shadow that fell over her. But just as she managed to open her sleepy eyes, an open, warm palm, wet with water, pressed against the hot skin of her bare thigh, and someone laid his lips on hers.
She came awake with a hard jerk, her hands flying up instinctively to push him away, and her heart leaped into her throat as she looked straight up into Michael's carefully blank blue eyes.
"Hello, Shiloh."
In a wild panic, she shoved up, pushing against his bent body, scrambling away, recoiling from the accidental touch of her hand on his skin.
"What are you doing here?" she gasped.
"Dad came for his usual round of golf. I came looking for you." His voice wasn't as smooth as usual, his eyes on her lips.
"Don't waste your time. You just get away and keep away from me." She looked wildly around. There were two waiters setting outdoor tables, laying silverware for lunch around the pool. She wasn't alone; she could scream. The panic that had swirled up through her like dust in a hard wind settled a little, letting her see and breathe more clearly.
"Didn't Sam tell you?" Michael said quietly, and his hand reached out to touch one of the brown curls that lay against her neck, dried now from her swim. She watched him, her eyes wide, startled, terrified. Afraid to move. His hand was trembling, insistent at the side of her throat.
It was broad daylight. He couldn't do anything. "Tell me what?"
Michael's eyes went back to her mouth.
"This marriage isn't off. It's just delayed. He thinks I should give you time. So to please the old reprobate, I'll do it. But don't think for a minute I won't get you in the end, Shiloh, because I will." His last words were nearly whispers. "God, I love you. I handled you all wrong the other day. I won't make that mistake again. I'll be more careful, I swear it, and the next time I'll be the winner. When I think about you, about how wild you were under me—" His breath rapid, his eyes full of slumberous passion, he leaned closer and closer, until she could see ever)' eyelash, every pore, and she stood mesmerized, locked into a trance that wouldn't let her move. "I don't think I can wait," he whispered in a hot conclusion to his own words, and kissed her.
With one hand hard against the back of her head, with the other suddenly sliding under her buttocks in a rude intimacy, he had Shiloh paralyzed for an instant.
But she didn't close her eyes. She saw his face pressed against hers, magnified a thousand times, and the same smothering sensation that had choked her before swamped her now. She began to fight, in a panic.
"Michael!"
He turned her loose even as her father's voice roared across the pool, and she stumbled from him in haste and panic.
Sam and Judge Sewell stood watching, her father's face furious, the judge's embarrassed. And behind them, the two waiters had straightened, listening.
"You sent him to me," Shiloh choked out accusingly to her father.
"No. I swear it, Shiloh," Sam answered instantly. "And as soon as I saw Robert and he told me Michael was here, we came in. I gave you my word. And you"-—his glare swung to Michael—"you gave me yours, boy."
"Yes, sir, I did," Michael replied, contritely, but his face was flushed and his lips heavy with the passion he couldn't quite manage to erase, even here in this danger zone in front of her father. "But I walked out here and . . . and there she was." He gestured at Shiloh, who remembered suddenly that she was wearing a high-cut, single-piece black bathing suit—and that was all.
She snatched up her robe, flinging it around her.
Michael looked away. Guilt was written on his face, guilt and regret. "My God, Sam, what do you expect me to do? A few days ago she was going to be my wife. How do you think I feel, seeing her now, loving her like I do, and you tell me not to call her, not to see her, not to touch her. Do you think I'm made of stone?"
He pushed back the heavy swath of blond hair that swung down over his forehead in a gesture of despair, and Sam's face softened for an instant in sympathy.
"I expect you to keep your word to me," he said, but his words were calmer.
Michael took a deep breath, but it was the judge who answered, his voice short.
"I think you're being too hard on him, Sam. From what I saw, he kissed her, that's all. The girl's not made of glass. Have some consideration for my boy."
"It doesn't make any difference. Michael promised to give Shiloh time. I promised her she'd have it. That's all you need, isn't it, Shiloh?"
His sudden question pulled her out of her shock and fear and fury. She could still feel his fingers; each one had burned an indelible mark on her skin.
Billy Bob Walker Got Married Page 14
