Before the thought barely materialized, the music changed, and the band slid into a slow, aching song. The lights above them went out, until the only thing lighting the hall were big lanterns that burned as decorations in the corners and on the refreshment table.
There was one behind Billy, turning him into a gold-edged silhouette, lighting only the side of his face.
Over the microphone, over the music, came the drawling, gentle voice of an old gray man who held his fiddle at rest for a moment. "This one's for all the sweethearts out there tonight. Slow and easy, and all you have to do is hold on real tight." Then he lifted the fiddle to his shoulder and began to pull the bow across the strings in sweet, piercing, slow strokes.
Shiloh stumbled, then tried to back away. Billy stopped her.
"One dance, you said," she whispered, finding his face in the shadows of the dusky room.
"Until the music stops," he corrected. "Don't be afraid, Shiloh. I'm not gonna hurt you."
His face was so quiet, his long eyes so watchful, his voice so calm, so certain.
It had been so long since she'd let Billy—this Billy, the one she trusted—wrap her up completely and hold her against him. Unafraid of anything. Certain of love.
There'd be no room for even one evil memory of Michael in Billy's arms.
No place for Sam, either.
And after tonight, never again. No excuses left for Shiloh to come to Billy after tonight.
Something in her face changed; her body relaxed. And without another word, he pulled her close.
Here in this warm darkness, nothing mattered. Not who he was, not who she was, not what they'd done.
This one moment was what heaven would be like—no past, no future, just an immediate, choking, unbearable sweetness.
She knew, just barely, when his right arm came up, his hand grasping her skull compulsively, his calloused fingers tangling in her hair as he pressed her hot face against him, bent his own bright head over her dark one. It didn't matter.
It would tomorrow, but not now.
Nothing mattered, not while the fiddle pulled them through the song, not while it shivered and cried and moaned.
And when the music faded into nothing, life stopped.
With a gasp for oxygen, Shiloh came off his chest and pushed away. She had to get out. Now.
Quick, before the lights came on, and she had to face him. It was better to be a coward and run.
In and out of the crowd, along the edge, to the doors.
Across the floor, Billy Bob came to his senses. She wouldn't get away, not tonight. Not after that dance. He had been holding the Shiloh who had once begged him to make love to her: that was the only truth he could understand at the moment.
The lights brightened and applause from the dancers went up as he shoved his way after her, taking the faster, direct path that she'd avoided. He couldn't see much or think clearly; his whole body was on fire with the way she had touched him. But he caught a glimpse of her as she reached the doors and ran out into the night.
Once outside he scanned the parking lot under the purple security light.
Trucks, and more trucks. A few cars.
To his right, a car door opened. An interior light flashed on, and he saw the rose-red of her shirt as she got in.
He leaped two vehicles, catching himself with his open-palmed hand on their hoods as he catapulted over them, running until he was close enough to yank open her passenger door as she tried to pull out from the parking space.
Shiloh gave a small scream as he threw himself in beside her. Then he reached for the ignition switch, turned off the engine, and yanked the keys away.
"Are you crazy?" she gasped, and she made a futile grab for the keys.
He pulled them back, breathing hard.
"Give me those keys."
"No, ma'am. And if you keep yanking at 'em, I'm gonna toss them across this parking lot." "No, don't. I'll quit."
They sat in a pounding silence another moment before he asked harshly, "Why'd you run?"
He heard her shuddery breath, saw the way she grasped the wheel. "I gave you your dance. That's all I was supposed to do. I only did what I had to do to get the ring back. And since you're here, I want it." She thrust her chin up aggressively.
"Shiloh, look at me."
"Will you stop ordering me around?"
His hand shot out, grasped her chin, turned her stiff jaw until she had to face him.
"You did all that stuff in there just to get this back?" he asked disbelievingly, grasping the chain and the ring through the shirt, all in one crumpled hold.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
His arms reached for her, his hands catching her by the shoulders as he pulled her toward him angrily. "The hell you don't. You had your face against me, you had your arms around me, and you didn't want to turn loose. I know, Shiloh, because I didn't want to, either."
She was shaking in his hands, but she stayed stubbornly silent.
"If that's the truth, you look me in the face and swear it. Tell me that you touched me like that just for this damned ring."
His passionate face, his hands straining against her— they forced her to look up, to open her mouth.
"Tell me. After all these years, tell me you've changed that much. That I couldn't feel what was in you. Was it for the ring?"
"I—please, Billy—"
"Shiloh."
"No. No." The word shook, her throat catching on it. "Now—-are you satisfied? Leave me alone!"
"No, I'm not satisfied. Not yet. But—"
She knew what he was going to do even before he moved; she shut her eyes for the inevitable.
Kissing Billy Bob was like falling, plunging, spiraling off some great height. Her heart shot up in her throat, she felt dizzy. And she was weightless, buoyant, exuberantly free.
But there was danger, ft gave this flight a piquancy, and it terrified her out of her mind. It was too easy to crash.
She grabbed at him to stop herself from burning to death in her fiery freefall to earth, and he pulled her up to him, so tightly they were sealed together.
And still the kiss scorched and burned.
When he finally slid away from her lips, she was crying, tears so quiet he didn't know they were there until they wet the hollow of his throat where he pushed her face while he sucked in his breath harshly.
"What are you crying about?" he got out at last. "I said I wouldn't hurt you, and I didn't, did I?" She shook her head. "What, then?"
She pulled away, and he let her go. The car was hot, even with the windows down. Both of them were wet with perspiration. If he hadn't wanted to hold her so much, it would have been a relief when she moved, a break in the heat.
"So now we've—we've started this again," she whispered shakily, wiping her wet cheeks with the palms of her hands. "What good does it do us?"
"What good—"
"I mean, I can't trust you. You're with a girl every time I turn around. Or in a fight over one."
He had to breathe, so he reached for the door handle and unfolded himself from the car. It was cooler here, directly in the night air, but nothing could cool his emotions. She'd always done this to him, dammit.
"So it should end here, tonight, before—"
"Before what? Before you actually let yourself feel something for me again, if you ever did?" He turned violently, resting his arms on the top of the car. "Let me ask you something, honey. Where do you get off thinking you're so perfect yourself?"
After a long moment's pause, Shiloh opened her door and climbed out, and when she shut it behind her, turned to face him.
"All I've heard about is what I've done," he said savagely. "About how—how cheap my kisses and my body are. Well, what about you?"
"I haven't—"
"I didn't kiss you because of ... of things, Shiloh. It was in spite of 'em. In spite of the things your daddy said to me—and you let him. Hell, you took his side and went with him. In spite of my bro
ther. I know what you did, Shiloh. You let him take my place. He's me, but different. He's the easy way. And in spite of your money that lets you buy other people's self-respect. But that one's my fault. I could'a said no."
His breath was coming in such jerks it was tearing him apart. He pulled away from the car, shuddering. He meant to walk away before she killed him.
"Billy—"
He turned back toward her, his hair as it brushed thickly back from his face and curled along his collar nearly white in the light of the security lamp, his eyes black.
"Did you make me answer you about the ring and kiss me just to pay me back for everything?" She asked it in one painful rush, and he didn't really answer her.
Instead, he said at last, "That kiss wasn't cheap, Shiloh Pennington. I never gave one that cost me so much."
All of north Mississippi lay under an oppressive June heat wave this Saturday afternoon. Maybe the two of them should have stayed inside, but Shiloh's nervous energy had brought them both out here. Laura sat in the swing, a cushion against her back, cooling herself with a handheld fan that read Hayes and Borden Funeral Home, Sweetwater, Mississippi, on one side and had a picture of an angelic little girl in an Easter bonnet praying on the other side.
Laura watched Shiloh, who sat silently on the porch steps, moodily turning the rose she'd broken off the trellis.
"This heat's terrible," the housekeeper said at last.
"Looks like you're feelin' it, Shiloh. You don't look good. I hope Sam's cooler in Jackson."
Shiloh didn't answer. She couldn't think now of why she'd wanted to come out to the backyard. It was a bad place to be. The roses that climbed the trellis, the rows of Foster hollies that ran along the drive, the dusty ivy that edged the flower beds—Billy Walker had planted them.
"Where do you get off thinking you're so perfect?" "You let him take my place." "You let him—"
Shiloh came up from the steps so fast she nearly fell, clutching the rose so convulsively that a hidden thorn stabbed her. She winced and tossed the flower away.
"What'n the world is wrong with you?" Laura sighed. "You got something on your mind, Shiloh?"
"It's something I have to work out myself," she said at last.
Laura eyed her. "Why do I think this has something to do with Michael?" "No, not him."
"It's all over Sweetwater that the wedding's been postponed. People want to know why. And Lydia Sewell's lettin' it be known that she's not happy with you right now."
"I don't care. I've got other things to think about that are more important."
Laura raised her eyebrows in surprise, but Shiloh didn't notice. She couldn't escape last night. Billy Bob's words rang everywhere she turned. She'd never seen it his way, nor seen herself in such an unflattering light. She'd always thought she was the one wronged, the one who tried to be a good daughter and a good—whatever it was she'd once been to Billy. Shiloh had meant truly to come back from Mexico with things cleared up; she intended to hold both Sam and Billy. He'd been the one who hadn't waited or called or tried to see reason.
He'd run off to Tupelo—how was she supposed to have found him there?—and he'd taken up with another girl.
"I know what you did, Shiloh . . . he's the easy way."
Putting her hands over her eyes, she tried to block out everything—the way what she and Sam had done seemed so ugly now, the anguish on Billy's face for a moment last night. Where was the easy-going, I-don't-give-a-damn redneck brawler he'd always been?
Last night, he had scared her and fascinated her and seemed suddenly capable of breaking her heart all over again without half trying.
"If my wife hears of this . . ." She saw him smiling, laughing down at her—golds and blues and whites.
His wife. Married to Billy Bob Walker. If she wanted to, right now she could go hunt him up, pull out that piece of paper, and make demands. Nobody in this world would blame her.
Even Billy himself might not protest too much. She felt his face rough against hers, his lips sweet.
But would she get something worth having from him if she did?
"If you want to do something that involves somebody else," Shiloh said abruptly, startling Laura out of the light doze she'd fallen quietly into, "and you don't know if it's in hi—their best interests, why can't you just be honest and explain the situation to—everybody?"
"Lord, Shiloh," Laura said with a yawn, "you lost me way back yonder."
"Does honesty make things right?" Shiloh persisted. "It always seemed to me it just hurt."
"All I ever saw, it set things straight. Might not make things easy, though. You thinkin' about just tellin' the whole town that your engagement's off for good? Sam won't like it. He keeps hopin'—"
"No." Shiloh cut across her words, then stared out at the tiny lily pond, where something was making the reeds move in the heat of the afternoon.
"I've got to go to town, Laura. Just for a while. I'm going to change my clothes."
"Hel—1—lo, trouble."
Jimmy Mabrey breathed the words through his teeth as he looked up from the long bed of the tractor trailer where he was shuffling freshly dug young trees into place, their roots encased in big balls of canvas-covered dirt. He stopped what he was doing, standing completely still, staring off in the direction of the road, toward Walker's Fruit Stand.
Billy Bob, operating the loader that was lifting the trees up to the flatbed, finally twisted to see what had stopped Jimmy's labors. He wiped the sweat out of his face, hardly able to see out of his steamy aviator sunglasses.
But he saw enough.
He nearly went through the roof of the loader. What was she doing here?
The girl who had just climbed out of the Cadillac was tall. She wore cuffed red shorts, and even at this distance, Billy Bob could tell her feet were bare.
She had on some kind of swingy white top that ended at her waist, sleeveless and low necked, revealing more smooth, tanned skin.
"Good Lord," said Jimmy. "Wonder what color her eyes are behind them glasses?"
"Brown," snapped Billy.
"I say blue. I'm partial to blue. But with legs like that, who cares." His tone was reverential.
"Better close your mouth," Billy advised the seventeen-year-old. "You'll catch flies." He swung out of the loader.
"Where you goin'?" Jimmy hollered after him. "To see what Trouble wants, that's what. Keep working"
"Someday I'm gonna be the boss," Jimmy murmured to himself. Shiloh.
Why? She'd never come to Seven Knobs before. Was it because he'd made a fool of himself last night and she wanted to rub it in today?
The tall, slender man looked like an advancing dark cloud, Shiloh thought in apprehension, but she kept looking at the fruit baskets displayed. The old man behind the long wooden rows of bushel baskets must be Billy's grandfather.
It was hard to tell what Billy was thinking. Like her, he had on dark glasses, and he was pulling off a pair of heavy gloves.
She jumped into the conversation first.
"I think I want a half a bushel of these," she told his grandfather hurriedly, pointing to yellow peaches splotched crimson by the sun.
"Mighty good choice," the old man told her cheerfully. "They're fresh and sweet."
"They look good." She raked her hair back, running her hand through the top.
"Here, Billy," said the old man, "seein' as how you beat all records gettin' up here from that field, you want to load them in this little lady's trunk?"
Billy didn't say a word. He just stood waiting while Grandpa got things sorted.
No shoes. She really didn't have on any shoes.
The shorts were not nearly as provocative as they could have been, but the feet were a different matter.
His pulse speeded up a little; he hoisted the basket.
"In the trunk, ma'am?" he asked without a flicker of recognition.
She still hadn't looked right at him. She was too scared to, but she nodded, then opened the car door, a
nd pushed some button that made the trunk lid open.
Billy took his time placing the basket with its load of peaches. If she'd come to talk to him, she could come back here. She did.
This close he caught her sweet perfume.
"You must be havin' a party. All these peaches. Too many for you."
She swallowed. "I might have one. A party, I mean. Just for me and—and one other person."
His hands froze where he'd lifted them to shut the trunk.
"My father's in Jackson this weekend. And our housekeeper goes to her house next door and to bed at eight thirty every night."
Had he heard right? he wondered wildly.
Did he understand? Shiloh thought desperately. Maybe she'd done this all wrong.
He slammed the lid, fingers lingering on it. Grandpa was too close for him to grab her up and shake her.
"You better lock your doors if you're all by yourself." She looked right at him. "I will. All but one. The one in back beside the French doors." "For your friend."
She nodded, then nearly ran down the dusty road to slide in the car, bare feet and all.
His heart was pounding like a racehorse's, and no amount of water could quench his sudden thirst.
She had come after him. For the first time in his life, Shiloh had come to get him. Why?
"Well, what was her name?" Jimmy demanded as Billy climbed back in the loader.
"You were right, kid. It's Trouble."
Billy was fashionably late, not because he was trying to be but because he spent half an hour trying to get up the nerve to pull in the drive of the closest thing to a mansion that Sweetwater had.
He hoped he wasn't making a stupid mistake as he parked the truck in the paved turn-around in back and wondered what he was letting himself in for. Shiloh had shocked him with that come-on; he didn't know her these days.
He ignored the unexpected pang of disappointment and hurt, reminding himself that a man deserved something for his troubles, and he'd been itching to get his hands on Shiloh Pennington for too long.
Billy Bob Walker Got Married Page 16
