"Ring the doorbell and ask permission to see my wife. That's good, Shiloh, real good."
"You know it'll be easier to tell about this marriage if we do it this way for a few weeks. A month. And it'll give us time out in the open, out from the pressure, to find out if a marriage will work. I've never even met your mother, Billy. Nor been to your house. If we are going to be married, I want it to last."
Her words were logical, sensible, pleading. He stood stiffly, rejecting them for an eon, then he took a deep breath and his whole body relaxed.
"You offered me money for my name-—we got married fresh out of a jail cell—and tonight I watched you kiss another man in front of our whole hometown. Now you want me to be proper and reasonable."
He propped his right forearm on the top of the truck, the other pushing against the open door, and he looked at her while she waited for his answer, while that sweet night breeze blew his hair back a little.
"One day," he said abruptly. "Tomorrow. I'll do it one day and see what happens. If you really do step out Sam Pennington's door with me—" His words were intense, doubtful.
And suddenly, she knew what to do. Now was the time.
"I've got something for you, Billy," she said, her words tremulous.
He eyed her dubiously.
"But you have to close your eyes."
"Shiloh—"
"Just do it."
He made an impatient gesture. "My eyes are closed. See?"
She tried to straighten enough to get to her pocket and bumped her head on the top of the truck before she slid the chain out. His face was lifted toward the light, the angle highlighting the thick blond hair brushed off his temples, the smooth, strong planes of his high cheekbones, the straight line of his nose, the strong one of his jaw. For all Billy's good looks, he wasn't pretty; he looked like a man. Hers.
She dropped the chain over his head; it hung for a second on the bridge of his nose before it slipped around his neck.
And before he could open his eyes, she leaned forward and kissed him, the kiss so dark and intense that he forgot what she'd done and just wrapped her up against him, tailing forward into the truck, hitting his elbow on the steering wheel.
When at last she pulled away without breath, he looked down at her, unmoving, his eyes vivid. Then Shiloh broke the gaze to touch the ring, and he glanced down to find it and pick it up himself.
He understood what it meant; the blaze of triumph and tenderness that flared in his face told her that. Then he raised the ring to his lips and kissed it.
He didn't reach for her; instead he pushed her away, down onto the seat. She caught at him, but he whispered no, his eyes gleaming like lambent coals as he looked down at her. Then he lifted his hands and brought both of them to the front of her shirt, to the buttons that held the delicate white cotton cloth together.
Her breath caught in her throat as he unsteadily undid the first one, then the next. He raised his intent, absorbed gaze to her startled one as he reached for the third button.
"Billy—"
"I don't have a ring, not tonight," he said with difficult)' as he undid the next button, "and maybe you can't wear one from me for everybody to see for a few days yet. But if you meant all you said, then I've got a right to do some claiming of my own."
She lay perfectly still, eyes wide and heart beating visibly in her throat as he opened the last button, reached around her to pull her shirt from the shorts, and spread it open.
He sucked in his breath at the sight of her skin, glowing with a creamy warmth here in the dim darkness. At the edge of the white satin undergarment she wore, her breasts were so smooth he had to touch them, running his hand gently across all that was exposed. She was trembling a little under his touch, each breath lifting her breasts a little.
"Don't be afraid," he whispered. "Nobody will know. And I'll quit if you want me to."
"What are you going to do?" Her whisper was shaky.
"This," he answered, and he bent his wheat-blond head to the curve of her breast, just at the edge of the lace. She felt his tongue brush her skin, then his lips as they settled firmly on her, pulling with a tender suction.
Then she knew, and a hot sweet wave of emotion swept across her. "Billy," she whispered tenderly, achingly, cuddling his head against her breast, pushing her fingers through his hair to hold him to her.
So different from Michael when he'd bent to her breast, she thought in an unexpected, painful insight.
Billy couldn't know—must never know—what Michael had done, but she wished that he could feel how his unwitting action took away the shame of his brother's; that he could know that nothing had shown her more clearly the difference between the two men, and how much she wanted this one, the one with the gentle mouth.
The world was confused and mixed up: it thought Michael Sewell was the better man.
A woman who'd been with both knew the truth.
The two of them stayed like that a long time, even when his mouth finally released her. And in the long, silent moments afterward, her heart stilled to a reasonable beat and his ragged breathing slowed and calmed.
At last he lifted his head to look her in the face, then he looked down at his handiwork, at the mark his mouth had left at the curve of her left breast.
"That's my claim," he said quietly. "And even after the mark is gone, you remember it, Shiloh. It's there, even if nobody else can see it." Then he breathed harshly and said in an attempt at joking laughter, "And honey, they'd better not see it."
She couldn't say anything yet, her throat tight and clogged, and finally, Billy pulled her shirt together and began buttoning it again, glancing up at her time after time as he worked.
"You didn't stop me," he said at last. "So, you don't hate it?"
She shook her head, and he slid to the next button.
"What's the matter, then?" he asked at last, fastening the last one and holding her down to look into her face.
She didn't want to come out of the dazed, honeyed splendor where she'd been lost, where speech was a burden and an intrusion. As he propped himself up over her, she reached out and caught the ring as it dangled between them from the chain around his neck.
"This means no more girls for you," she managed, teasingly.
"No more girls. I haven't been with one since before we married, Shiloh." Then the lines of his face shifted into rueful laughter. "Which means I'm a fool to let you go tonight with just—this." His fingers brushed her shirt where the skin still tingled from the touch of his mouth.
"It's all I can stand tonight, I think."
"But there'll be other nights."
"We're going to make it, Billy Walker."
His face darkened. "Just don't walk off with Michael
anymore, no matter how much you look like you belong with him."
"Billy, we'll look better together, me and you. Wait until tomorrow. You'll see. We're going to set this town on its ear."
13
It didn't seem to matter that Shiloh had not gotten to bed until three A.M.; she was awake at seven, happy and scared and wound tighter than an alarm clock.
Today was the first day of freedom, and the way things went this particular Saturday would determine the immediate future.
Most of all, she had to bite the bullet and face Sam at Billy's side. If she flinched even once, both Billy and Sam were going to be aware of it.
She smiled at herself in the mirror, a secretive, pleased smile. Billy Bob was coming here, today, for her.
A knock on her bedroom door made her jump.
"Shiloh, are you awake?"
Sam. The girl in the blue cotton sleepshirt stared wide-eyed at the one in the mirror. What did he want this early?
So find out, she told herself sternly.
Her father was already dressed for the day, his clothes fresh and crisp, but his face under the silver hair was old and tired.
"I thought I heard you moving when I walked past," Sam said quietly. "I don't have much ti
me. I have to meet the judge and two of his advisers in an hour. But I wanted to say"—he looked away, down the hall at the oil still life that hung above an antique drop-leaf desk—"that I regret not believing what you told me about Michael." He said it gruffly, rushing over the words, before he glanced back at her, embarrassed.
Shiloh stared; Sam had never apologized to her before, not in twenty-two years.
"I've been remembering it all night, what he said to you. I know that he's disappointed. I still believe that he loves you as much as he can love anybody, but that's no excuse. Not for anything."
"Papa—" Shiloh couldn't seem to get the word out; then Sam cut her off with a quick movement.
"Lydia was out of line to speak to you like she did. And I had words for Michael, but he never came home last night. Just stay clear of both of them. I've got no time to talk now, but I'll tell you this, Shiloh: there's bigger fish than Michael in the sea, and I reckon, better ones, too, even if it took a lightning bolt to make me see it."
Awkwardly, he reached out to touch her cheek.
Now. Tell him now, she thought, but as she hesitated, gathering up courage, Sam turned away, looking at his watch. "I'm late. I'll see you later today. I won't be at the parade, but I'll be at the square at three. Is that the time you're supposed to present the trophies?"
She nodded wordlessly.
"All right." And he was gone, down the stairs.
♦ ♦ ♦
Billy didn't come.
Not at eight, or nine. And at a quarter to ten, Shiloh walked past the phone resolutely; she refused to call him. She'd said what she had to say last night, and done other things as well.
The mark on her breast burned for an instant, and her cheeks flushed at the memory. If he didn't come after that, she couldn't make him. She wouldn't even try.
He should have gotten his hair cut long ago, Billy thought in a near panic as he brushed it back furiously on Saturday morning. He'd started wearing it this way out of teenage rebelliousness, and then it just seemed as he grew older that he never had enough time to go regularly to the barber shop to maintain a neat, short shear.
Sam Pennington might find a short-haired Billy Bob easier to take.
Well, it didn't matter. It was too late now. And if the old scoundrel didn't like him any better today than he had four years ago, all the haircuts in the world wouldn't matter.
What mattered was that Shiloh was waiting for him ... he hoped.
But just in case, he meant to wait to tell Mama and Grandpa about her. Some tiny doubt in his heart still lingered. She had to prove herself.
Well, he'd done what he could with what he had to work with, he thought, surveying himself critically in the mirror: the summer plaid shirt, the neatly creased jeans, the big belt buckle, the shined-up boots.
He wasn't Michael, and he wasn't going to make even one concession toward his brother's uptown, well-tailored panache.
It was only six o'clock, but he had this gut feeling she was already waiting for him.
"This is a big day," he told Chase and the dogs solemnly as he fed and watered them. "She says she's going to tell the world." It was safe, he figured, to at least tell the three of them. "Reckon I look all right?"
But it was Ellen who answered the question later. She stared as he walked through the kitchen after he'd washed his hands.
"My gracious," she said in surprise at his neatness.
Billy poured himself a cup of coffee and avoided her eyes.
"Gotta go to town," he said casually, sipping the hot liquid as he faced her. "Is Grandpa ready?" "That girl who called—"
"I told you, it was nothing to worry about," he said quickly.
"But, Will—"
"Mama," he said flatly, setting the cup down, "don't ask me anything else. I don't want to talk about it. Not yet. It's my business, okay?"
She turned away, her feelings hurt. "If you say so."
Billy watched her stiff back a minute as she washed dishes at the sink, searching for something to say.
"Are you coming with us?"
"No." She answered decisively. "Too many politicians in town for me."
They'd never really spoken of it much before, this matter of the Sewells; it was implicitly understood that the less said, the better. So it was a measure of just how upset Ellen was that she even hinted that the judge's actions concerned her at all, and of just how ebullient Billy was that he answered her.
"You can't keep on and on hiding from him," he said abruptly. "It was nearly thirty years ago."
She turned to look at him, her hands still in the soapy water. "And that's my business."
"Mama—"
Grandpa stepped heavily through the screen door. "T-Tommy's pullin' in the drive," he said to Billy.
Billy looked at him in blank surprise. "What for?"
Willie eyed his grandson dubiously. "You're usually the one that can answer that."
"Not this time." He crossed to the screen door and stepped out on the back porch, just as the sheriff climbed out of the car, a strange reluctance about his movements.
"Mornin', T-Tommy."
"Mornin', Billy Bob. Willie."
There was a long pause. Billy reached for the porch banister to lean forward on it, braced with both hands. "You here for breakfast?" he asked humorously.
T-Tommy didn't crack a smile. "I'm here for you," he said somberly.
Billy straightened. "Me! What in hell for?"
The sheriff took several slow, threatening steps until he was staring up into Billy's face in accusation from the ground below.
"You want to tell me where you were and what you did last night, Billy? And don't say you were at home. Clancy Green got in from fishin' before dawn this mornin'—he's already told me he saw your truck out at two A.M."
Billy opened his mouth to speak—then closed it. He couldn't say he'd been making out with Shiloh Pennington, could he?
"No answer?" T-Tommy's voice was a growl of disappointment and anger.
"What d'you want to know for?" "There was a wreck out on 25 this morning, Billy—not long after Clancy saw you." "So? It wasn't me."
"No. It was a man from Magnolia, Arkansas. Somebody ran him off the road. He don't remember much after that—either the other driver hit him nearly head-on and forced the collision, or he forced him to run off the road and wreck that way."
Billy straightened slowly, his face cool. "Like I said, so what?"
"Then the other driver got out of his own car, opened the Arkansas man's car door, looked in at him, saw him layin' there in his own blood, beggin' for help . . . and walked away. Just pulled off. This man—his name's Juliard—he thinks he begged the other driver for help several times."
Th e morning was so bright it hurt to look out toward the sun-sprayed, glittering trees in the nearest peach orchard. The breeze was unexpectedly cool, too, like the one that had brushed against him and Shiloh as she stood before him last night.
Those stray thoughts wandered into his head in the few seconds before Billy made himself face what T-Tommy was getting around to saying.
Willie had frozen beside him; he thought Ellen had done the same at the screen door.
"I didn't," he said clearly, "hit another car, then walk off and leave the driver."
T-Tommy reached up to pull off his sunglasses before he squinted up at Billy. "Juliard says you did."
His flat words broke the peculiar silence. Ellen gave a sobbing intake of sound; Willie swore. Billy came off the porch in two long, angry strides, right down face-to-face with the sheriff.
"How could he? I don't know anybody from Magnolia, Arkansas—and he sure as hell doesn't know me."
"He described you to a T, Billy. You think I'm makin' it up? That I want to believe it? He thought you were drinking. I hope to God you were. Surely you couldn't leave a man bleedin' to death from somethin' you'd done unless you were drunk, or high. Why, I've seen you work with a sick animal and treat it better than that. But it had to be you.
Juliard went on and on about you bendin' over him. He was nearly hysterical. I showed him three different sets of pictures, and he picked you out, over and over, even when the medication that the doctor gave him was settin' in."
"I didn't do it!"
"He's got a concussion. He's cut open here. Hurt bad." T-Tommy put his hands against his own round abdomen. "Some broke ribs, and a compound fracture of his leg. And he laid there for nearly an hour, if we've got it figured right."
"I said, / didn't do it." Billy repeated the words again and again. What had gone wrong with the world? When had it turned upside down?
"Then why did Clancy see you out on the highway?" T-Tommy asked at last, quietly. "What were you doin' at one—and at two—this mornin'?"
"I was . . . drivin'. I went to the—the booth on the square for a while."
"Will!" his mother whispered in dismay. "You went back out?"
What was he going to do? Billy wondered in some distant, cold, logical corner of his mind. Try to straighten this out on his own? Or involve Shiloh? No, first he had to try to work it out. It was a mistake. Surely the truth would show up.
"My truck. Look at it," he told T-Tommy suddenly. "I didn't hit anybody."
"Juliard doesn't know if you did or not. Maybe you just ran him off the road, like I said. Randy Porter's out of town. He could'a told us more if he'd seen the man's car, but he won't be back for three days." T-Tommy fiddled with the glasses a few seconds, then said reluctantly, "I gotta take you in, Billy Bob. You know that."
"But I—" What? What could he say? I'm innocent? I've got a girl waiting?
"He didn't do anything," Willie said angrily, moving toward the sheriff as fast as his cane allowed. "Are you deaf? He said it and said it."
"It's just for questionin', Willie. At least, that's all it is now." T-Tommy walked over to his car and opened the back door. "Some folks would say I should handcuff you, but I don't want to do that. Not in front of your family. So just get on in, Billy. Don't make it hard on everybody."
Billy Bob Walker Got Married Page 21
