But not this way.
He brushed the thought aside.
One light was on, behind the door she'd promised to leave unlocked.
Shiloh opened the door before he even rang the bell;
there was no point in pretending that she wasn't looking for him.
He loomed in the silent shadows, then spoke at last. "You better not open the door for just anybody. The big bad wolfs still on the prowl around these parts."
She had been so tense that his wry comment took her by surprise, then she laughed. "You ought to know."
Stepping back, she motioned him in, and after a second's wary hesitation, Billy entered.
He was determinedly casual in his T-shirt and jeans; so was she in the brightly colored madras skirt and blouse, and open-toed sandals.
"You found your shoes," he said ironically, and she flushed. "That's a shame."
Billy looked from her feet to the room. He'd only been in this house once, on the carpet for messing with the great one's daughter. This room was warm and soft, lit by one dim lamp and full of comfortable couches and reclining chairs. There were plants everywhere—red geraniums and ferns—and magazines, and a big-screen television. All along one wall ran French doors opening on to a hedged, shaded alcove in the dark garden beyond.
Not glamorous like the other room he'd seen, but splashed with a sort of well-heeled comfort that made him as uneasy as a high-buttoned shirt.
"You meant for me to come." It was half question, half statement.
"You know I did. Here, sit down. I made a drink—a fruit blend. Lots of peaches," Shiloh told him with a laugh. "You may not like it—no alcohol. I don't drink. But—"
"I don't drink much, either," Billy interrupted. "I don't like the taste of the stuff."
Shiloh said in surprise, "But I thought—"
"Not me. I like to remember my fights."
He wondered if he was supposed to mention the fights. It seemed a little crude for this setting and this girl.
Her skin above the low round top glowed with a rich, warm sheen in the light of the lamp, and if he looked at her lips one second longer, he'd remember exactly how they felt last night.
Abruptly, he fumbled for the chain around his neck. "I've been thinking all afternoon about why you came out to the farm, and I reckon this is it."
But she caught his hand, and he went still, standing there with her hand over his at his throat.
"No, that's not it, Billy. I thought I wanted it back, but you can keep it."
Then she dropped her fingers, and her laugh was husky and nervous. "After all, why give it back now, after all the—the aggravation you've put me through?"
Billy shrugged, confused. "I don't know. Maybe I just wanted to yank you around some, the same way you were doing me. Sort of seemed like fair play."
"I've never yanked you around," she denied indignantly.
"No? Then what do you call what you were doing todav?" he demanded.
"That's different. I did that because I didn't know how else to get your attention."
"Oh, you got it all right. There's no red-blooded man in his right mind who wouldn't have noticed—and liked it."
"So, what are you so mad about, Billy?" "I'll tell you what. It was all a big tease, wasn't it? You got next to me last night, so you decided to do it again today. But now that I'm here, right where you wanted me, you've got your shoes on. Where's all that come-on now, honey?"
"That's not why I did it."
"That only leaves one other reason, Shiloh," he cut in, his eyes as blue as the flame in a hot fire as he dropped his gaze down over her.
She never flinched from his stare, and when he looked into her eyes again, they were straightforward and nearly defiant. But her cheeks burned red.
"That's not the reason, either, Billy," she said quietly. "There's one more."
"I don't know it if there is. What in the hell do you want from me?" He frustratedly raked his hand back through his hair.
"I've got some things that I want to tell you, Billy." He made as if to turn away impatiently, and she reached out and caught him by the arm. "Please."
He might drown in her eyes, so he gave in reluctantly—let her hand push him into the corner of the couch. Then he forced himself to relax, resting back against it, spreading his arms across its back, stretching out his legs.
"Okay. So talk, Shiloh."
When he looked up at her, he was casual and insolent and beautiful, and making it so hard for her to explain.
"When I came to the jail and asked you to marry me, it was to avoid Michael. But it was a whole lot more, too. Sometimes I think it was really to get back at Sam. He's the one who hurt me the most. I know I haven't been too mature about all of this, but I'm willing to admit the truth. Now."
He knew immediately where this conversation was leading, and it made him angry and mean. "And now you want out of this on the quiet, because last night I lost it and got too intense," he returned. "I forgot those rules, didn't I? I went over the bounds. Well, dammit, so did you, Shiloh—either that, or you needed a man so much that you got turned on by even me."
She sucked in her breath sharply, anger flaming over her, and without thought, slapped him. His head jerked sideways with the force of the blow.
Carefully, he touched his fingers to the hot lash marks of her hand on his cheek before he looked up at her again as she stood over him.
Gasping for breath, her eyes glittering with fury and hurt, she was waiting.
"You can't talk to me like that. I haven't done one thing to deserve it, except be stupid enough to think I could explain my feelings and this situation to you. You don't even listen," she flared.
"Oh, I listen. You think I like what I hear? You just said you married me because it was the worst thing you could do to hurt your old man." He laughed a little. "I tell you, Shiloh, honey, you really know how to make me feel good."
She'd never really thought about Billy as being twenty-seven, nearly thirty. He'd always been teasing and youthful in her memory. But tonight he looked older, his face somber in the shadows. That fact, and the red brand her hand had left on his brown cheek, made her calm down a little, thinking, regretting, considering.
He was anything but happy: wary, cynical, cautious, reluctant. There was a fine edge of control about him, even in spite of her violence, and Shiloh realized now that Billy in his discipline was far more dangerous than Michael with all his excesses. Shame washed over her: she'd been the one to lose control.
She should let him go. She should let this end.
"I don't want out. I want time." She didn't know how else to say it without being blunt.
"Time! For what?"
"Time with you, to find out if there really was another reason you were the one I asked to marry me."
He was as still as a stone statue, his eyes intense and blinding.
"I don't know what's happening to me, Billy," she whispered painfully, twisting her hands together as she stood in front of him. "You scare me to death—you make me do things—but when you touch me, everything in me lights up."
She turned away in confusion and embarrassment. "Then you walk away. So maybe it's only me. Tell me, Billy, before I make a fool of myself."
He felt frozen with shock; whatever he'd been expecting, it hadn't been this, this sweet, stumbling confession. This girl—this version of her—was his. The one he remembered. The one he'd thought was dead and gone.
"No," he said at last, and his voice sounded like a frog's, "it's not . . . just you."
When she turned back, her eyes glistened with tears. "You asked me what I wanted. I don't want you to walk away like you did last night before I can tell you that I didn't know until you put it into words that I'd done so much wrong to you, Billy. Even tonight."
She moved, a little uncertainly.
He didn't even hear her clearly. His every molecule was focused on the girl who stepped lightly across his legs, her skirt brushing his knees, and dropped to
the couch beside him. He couldn't make a sound as she edged toward him until she had him trapped against the arm of the couch. Her light weight rested against him as she laid one tentative finger on the white cotton shirt, against his heart, and let her eyes close as she strained upward to kiss his lean brown jaw with lips of contrition, just where her hand had scalded him.
His eyes were black with emotion, but he made no effort to touch her.
"You say I'm sorry' real sweet, Shiloh," he said haltingly. "But what am I supposed to do? I don't know the rules here, either."
"Maybe there aren't any. Except one—honesty. Can't we tell the truth to each other and try to work out whatever this is?"
He watched her a minute, considering. "You want the truth? I don't believe you do, but I'll give it, anyway. I didn't like the way last night turned out. Whatever kind of bad joke that marriage was, it tied us together a little more. I can't forget it. I want to know how much more. I want to kiss you, and see if this thing between us really can burn me up." He looked at her lips, and in the stillness, he heard her too-rapid breathing. "So I've said it. You can run now, Shiloh. Because I'm tired of joking around and playing it cool and pretending like what we've been and done with each other doesn't matter, like I don't remember when I really do."
Billy pulled away a little more, as far back as the couch would let him go, and laughed. "I was right. That's the one truth you didn't want to hear, isn't it?"
"I told you, I'm ready to hear all of it."
She was so close, right under his hands, her cheeks warm and smooth, her eyes velvet and full of sparkling light from the little lamp, her mouth upturned, opening a little. For him?
"You better get away quick, Shiloh, unless—"
He choked on the words, and it was already too late, because she made a movement toward him. His arms reached for her, pulling her against him in one swift motion, hauling her up into his lap, and his mouth smothered hers, painful for a second in its possession.
But Shiloh didn't turn away, or struggle. She wanted this, and she wanted him to know it, so she went where he pulled her, sliding both arms in a passionate hold around his slender waist, and she opened her mouth the instant before his tongue swept urgently across it.
Inside her heart, the delicate, aching little tendrils of emotion that he stirred in her swelled into one huge wave of sweetness that threatened to wash her away, so she hugged him more tightly, until her hands found the bottom of his T-shirt and slid upward in delight over his sleek skin. Somewhere in the middle of her bursting emotions, she felt him shiver beneath her fingertips, and the sensation so surprised and pleased her that she had no room for any other thoughts at all.
Maybe it was an eternity before he pulled away from her lips, dropping kisses on her face, and down the side of her throat.
"A long time," he was gasping against her skin. "Years . . . since you kissed me . . . like that, Shiloh. I don't—"
But she had no time for words now. She slid both hands around his chest, up his throat, tangling her fingers in the heavy mass of hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him down toward her lips again.
He answered her urging hands, twisting so that she was beneath him on the couch, her legs still across his lap as he bent over her, barely letting her breathe. She felt his hand as it slid past her knee, under the skirt, to caress her thigh.
Too far for one kiss; not far enough for the emotions spiraling around them.
She shaped his head beneath her fingertips, holding him down against her throat as his lips slid to the hollow between her breasts.
It felt good to touch him.
"Shiloh! What are you doing?"
The shocked voice cut between them like a knife, slicing through the bonds of pleasure and emotion that wrapped them together on the couch.
Shiloh twisted away from Billy in a daze. Who? Who stood there in the door with her hair in a long dark braid over one shoulder of her pink bathrobe, a gun in her hand? She had a gun.
"Laura!" The word burst from Shiloh, half in dismay, half in fright, like the crack of a bat against a ball.
Too late she realized exactly in what position Laura had caught Billy and her. She was pushed down in the corner of the couch, nearly under him. He had lifted himself up enough to see who had entered, and the distracted, flushed look his face wore when he raised his head would have told the story even without his T-shirt being halfway up his chest and his hands firmly on her.
"Laura, put down that gun," Shiloh said, swallowing hysterical laughter. She pushed against Billy's chest, and when he resisted, looking down at her, she whispered urgently, "Let me up, Billy."
He hauled himself up slowly, sliding his hand from her leg, then pulling his shirt down. Deliberate. Calm.
Laura practically quivered with outrage, but she lowered the gun, pointing it toward the floor.
"I couldn't sleep, heard him pull in, looked out and saw you let him in. I thought it was Mi—somebody else. That you might need help." "Oh, Laura—"
"But it wasn't. It was him. The Walker boy. And you, Shiloh . . . you were—"
"I know what I was doing."
Laura looked at her accusingly. "I thought this was over before you went to college." "What are you talking about?"
"Did you think I was blind? I saw the way you watched him that summer. I knew he wouldn't stay away from you. I knew you met him, Shiloh. I didn't have a choice. I had to tell Sam."
Shiloh stared at her in dismay. "You, Laura? Why?"
"I told you. Sam needed to know. I didn't tell anybody else, not even T-Tommy. But I was right to tell Sam. If there was anything to Walker—to the two of you—you wouldn't be sneaking around like that, hiding from everybody. You can't be up to any good with him, Shiloh."
"You don't know the first thing about it, or Billy," Shiloh said tightly.
"Oh , yes, I do. I know you can't let him handle you the way you just did without trouble. You can't play around with the likes of Billy Walker and not get caught, one way or the other. And Sweetwater, when it finds out, won't forget it. Neither will Michael, nor whoever else it might be you finally decide to settle down and marry someday."
Behind Shiloh, Billy came to his feet, so close his body bmshed hers. But there was no time to think about him; Laura's words hurt like knives.
"That's enough, Laura," she choked out.
"No, it's not. I'm ashamed of you, Shiloh. You're with each other for one reason. I saw you. I know what's going on here, in secret. So what does that make you?"
"Tell her, Shiloh."
Billy Bob's voice was quiet, determined, harsh. His hands came down on her shoulders to grasp them forcefully, his fingers painful in their clutch.
"Don't let her talk to you like this. You're gonna have to tell it sooner or later, aren't you? Tonight was about that, wasn't it? So tell her."
She wanted to, but she couldn't. There was too much she didn't know, too much she wasn't sure of.
And there was still her father to confront.
"Billy, I—I can't. Not yet."
It hurt to make the admission, and she was too afraid to look at him, but she felt his hands slowly drop away.
"Laura, this is between Billy and me. I'm old enough that you can't stop me, or him. But if you tell Sam, it'll do nothing but make trouble."
Laura's face was as shattered and disappointed as Billy's hands had felt.
"I never thought you'd do this again, Shiloh. Go behind Sam's back. Doing things God never intended you to do with a man who wasn't your husband."
"You don't know anything about what I've done with Billy. It's my life, anyway."
Laura turned away, dragging her housecoat around herself tightly.
"I interfered once," she told Shiloh. "And I see it did no good."
She glanced sideways one more time at the tall man who loomed silently beside the girl.
"But I won't be keeping an eye on you for Sam anymore whenever he goes somewhere. I'll tell him you're too old for me. I won'
t lie to him, Shiloh, the way you are."
Laura hesitated, then she spoke directly to Billy. "And you, you'd better be careful with her."
He didn't answer, and finally Laura disconsolately stepped out the door and faded into the night, the gun dangling toward the ground.
She might have made a comic figure if she hadn't been so pitiful.
She left behind two silent people.
It was Billy who moved first, pushing his shirt roughly down into his jeans.
"I'm sorry."
He glanced sideways at her. "I'm not. I learned a whole lot while she was here. More than you meant me to know, I reckon."
"What does that mean?"
He straightened, looking right at her. "You never did tell me why you wanted me to come tonight, Shiloh."
"Because . . . I'm afraid of being without you. I don't understand it—I just know that I feel different with you. It's never been like this with anybody else."
"But." He said the one word harshly.
"But I don't know if I can trust the feelings. Or . . . or you."
"Or me."
"Sam says—"
He almost pushed away from her. "Why don't you figure it out yourself, Shiloh? Does it ever cross your mind that you might know me better than he does?"
"I'm confused, Billy. I don't know if I can face Sam with this yet because it means I'll give up everything. You won't lose your home, your family. I will. And all I've got to go on is that when I'm with you, when you touch me, everything lights up. With Michael I never—"
"I don't want to think about you and Michael. And far as I can see, there's nothing for you to give up everything for. There's nothing between us except . . . what? A few kisses? You're sure not about to tell that you married me, are you? I knew that this marriage was a convenience— the money made that easy to see—but I didn't know until tonight that you were ashamed of it."
He'd meant to hurt her, to return the pain she'd handed out to him in the last few minutes. He succeeded; her face went white. "I'm not. I told you. I'm just afraid. I didn't know what I was asking when I got you to come tonight."
Billy Bob Walker Got Married Page 17
