Darcy swallowed and pushed herself away from him, out of the shelter of his arms. When she was so close to him she couldn’t think clearly, and this was something she obviously needed to think about. She drew a breath, but she couldn’t look at him. “What are we going to do?”
“I think we should think about it,” Bill said quietly.
“No! Absolutely not!” Darcy jerked her head up and looked him square in the eyes.
That was a mistake. Every time she looked at him, her breath caught in her throat, and now that Nettie had mentioned the unthinkable, she’d even begun to think about it. Seriously? She was such a mass of confusion.
Oh, how she longed to spend the night in Bill’s arms, but did she want to marry him?
She didn’t know what she wanted.
Darcy looked around and realized that everyone in the Intensive Care Unit seemed to be looking at them.
“This was only supposed to be a pretense,” she hissed under her breath. “This was only supposed to be temporary, but you keep dragging me in deeper and deeper. Look what happened the last time you drew me into one of your brilliant ideas!”
Bill took her by the elbow and led her toward the corridor.
“Where are we going?” Darcy asked with alarm as she shook free of his iron grasp. She was not about to let him tell her what to do! She stopped dead still.
“Come on,” he said quietly, demonstrating far more calm than Darcy possessed at the moment. Of course, he’d had five whole minutes to think. “We need to talk about this,” he said, glancing around. “This is not exactly the kind of thing you want to have make the evening news.”
“All right,” Darcy said reluctantly. She shook his arm away and started for the hall. “We’ll go outside where we won’t be overheard.” But do not think that you are going to be able to convince me of anything this foolhardy, she thought.
Something deep inside her kept telling Darcy to think about it. If she actually said no, that would be the end of it. And she wasn’t sure she wanted it all to end. Even if it wasn’t real. Even if Bill hadn’t as much as hinted that he might care for her as she did for him.
The air outside was warm and sticky and promised another humid Alabama day. Bill found a spot in the shade near a humming air-conditioning unit where they could talk safe from prying eyes and ears. At least he was thinking more clearly than she was.
“You can’t ask this of me, Billy. You can’t,” Darcy whispered.
The place was secluded, but someone had left some webbed lawn chairs there. She settled onto one of the chairs and Bill took another one. He pulled it close to hers until they were sitting almost knee to knee. He leaned forward and their knees touched, sending a jolt of…something she couldn’t describe rushing through her as he closed his large hands over hers.
“It wouldn’t have to be a real marriage, Darcy.”
She gasped and snapped her head up to look at him, and Billy wondered if he’d gone too far. She jerked her hands away.
“We could just go through the motions. For Momma. Nobody’d have to know.”
Darcy sighed and closed her eyes, shaking her head slightly. “Where have I heard that before?”
“Oh, come on. We know where we messed up last time. We know what kind of precautions to take.” Last time, they had acted too quickly, they hadn’t had time to think it through. This time, they wouldn’t agree until they’d worked it all out, Bill vowed to himself.
“I just…got…away from an unwanted marriage by the skin of my teeth. I’m not ready to get mixed up in another. No matter how good the reasons,” Darcy said emphatically. She picked up a handful of loose dirt from the ground and watched it drift slowly from her hand in the turbulence from the air-conditioning fans. “I just can’t.
“I can’t.”
Bill swallowed. Apparently, Darcy was going to be a harder sell than he’d expected. He reached for her hand and was grateful that she didn’t yank it away again. He’d have to think this through a little longer. He’d have to figure a way to convince her. A way to make it happen and later a way out without injuring either of them.
He didn’t want to hurt Darcy.
But, if it was the last thing he ever did, he wouldn’t break his mother’s heart, either. He’d do anything he could to make her last days happy and worry-free.
Even if he did have to marry a woman he knew he couldn’t keep.
“We have to think about this, Darcy. I have to think it through. If I can come up with a plan that would work and that we’d be able to get out of without a big fuss, will you, at least, consider it?” Bill closed his hands over her small one and hoped he could telegraph his sincerity to her.
He wasn’t sure he could put it into words.
“I will think about it, Bill,” Darcy said slowly. “But I’ll make no rash promises. Been there, done that, got the fiancé.” She let out a long, tired breath. “I’ll listen to your plan, Billy. But you had better think this one through a lot better than you did the last one.”
“Heard that,” Bill said softly and drew back his hand. “Reckon we ought to go back inside? It might not be good if we stray too far from Momma this morning.” He got up and offered his hand to Darcy.
As she accepted it and scrambled to her feet, Bill continued. “I can think back there in that waiting room as well as I can out here, and when I come up with a plan, you’ll be the first to know.”
“And you won’t tell a soul until I’ve approved the plan?” Darcy said, letting go of his hand.
Bill felt briefly empty at the loss of her touch, but he had to get used to that, he told himself as they headed back inside. After all, he had made a business proposition. Not a proposal. It wasn’t going to be a love match.
Still, he thought, as the automatic door whooshed open for them and let them into the hospital and the refrigerated air, his heart couldn’t help hoping it could be.
OVER LUNCH in a corner booth of the Dinner Belle Diner, Darcy tried to concentrate on her tuna melt. She’d eaten at the place enough to know what the food should taste like, but today everything tasted like cardboard and sawdust.
Bill had been quiet all morning since their little excursion to the rear of the hospital, so she knew he’d been trying to work out the details of The Plan. They’d left the hospital when Earline came in on her lunch break, and now Bill was digging into his lunch with appetite and enthusiasm, so Darcy assumed that he was close to something he thought might work.
She waited for him to announce it with the dread of an accused prisoner waiting for the verdict. No matter what it was, it would change her life forever.
No wonder she couldn’t taste her food.
Still, Darcy forced herself to eat it, cardboard sandwich or not. She had a feeling she was going to need all her strength to get through the next few days.
“Here’s The Plan,” Bill said just as Darcy took a bite of potato salad.
She swallowed too quickly and choked. Coughing and sputtering, she grabbed for her water glass and knocked it over, sending a puddle of icy water spreading all over the Formica tabletop. Billy handed her his tea and she drank, while he swabbed at the spill. By the time Luverne arrived with a cloth, he’d averted the worst of the disaster.
Shaking her head and clucking her displeasure, Luverne made quick work of the rest of the mess, then left them alone. Had Luverne been there every other day Darcy had eaten lunch? Had Darcy not noticed her until she’d seen the woman flirting with her man?
Her man?
Darcy shook her head, cleared her throat, and swallowed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, finally allowing herself to look at Billy. “Next time, make sure I haven’t just taken a bite. Now, you were saying…?” Darcy pushed her plate away—she’d lost her taste for sawdust—and crossed her arms and propped her elbows on the table. “I’m all ears.”
Bill looked at her a long minute, then chuckled. “Not even close. But I have to say that you have the cutest little ears I’ve seen in
a long, long time.” He reached across the table and fondled her ear.
Darcy drew back and rolled her eyes. “Can it, Hays,” she said. “Let’s get this over with. The Plan?”
“We go over to the courthouse and apply for a license.”
Darcy jerked her hand back and closed her fist tight. “No!”
“We get the blood tests.”
“No-oh,” she said even more emphatically.
“Then we hope that Momma comes to her senses when she starts to feel better, and we don’t have to use them.”
Darcy expelled a long, relieved breath. That was the first thing he’d said all day that made any sense. “Amen to that one,” she said.
“But,” Bill added, “If she still insists, we go through with it. As long as it isn’t…” He paused for a moment and swallowed quickly. “…consummated, we can get out of it pretty quick.”
“What about the ceremony? You know your mother is going to insist that Reverend Carterette officiate.” Darcy paused, trying to dredge up the right words for what she wanted to say. “Reciting our vows in front of Reverend Carterette in church would be the same as lying to God. I can’t do that. I won’t.”
“Got that figured out, too,” Bill said. “He told Momma he was going to be away at a church raising next week. So, she won’t think a thing about us going in front of a judge.” He paused. “We’ll tell her that we’re doing it for her, and we want to do the church thing later for the whole family and the rest of our friends,” he added.
“What’s to keep her from telling somebody like she did last time?” Darcy still couldn’t believe how far the news of their phony engagement had traveled in one day.
Bill shrugged. “We’ll tell her that we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings by making them think they’d been left out, so we’ll ask her to keep it all a secret till the formal wedding. I think she’ll go for that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.” Bill took a long drink of tea. “At least this time, we’ll have asked her not to tell, and we’ll have given her a good reason.”
Darcy drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I don’t know,” she said. “It just doesn’t seem right to play with your mother’s emotions like that.”
“She’ll never know. What isn’t right is that a good woman who’s had to work all her life might die with her one last wish not granted. A wish that I could grant her,” Bill said with more force than necessary. “There are a lot of things that aren’t right in this world, and I can’t do anything about most of them. But, this is something I can fix. I just can’t do it by myself,” he said tiredly, as if exhausted by his attempt to persuade her.
“All right,” Darcy said slowly. “But you and I know that this will not be real. Not in any way. We have to be able to get an annulment, clean and neat. When it’s over we have to make it so this marriage never happened,” she said, so softly she wasn’t sure he’d heard.
Maybe it was because she didn’t want him to hear. Was it because somewhere far back in the dark recesses of her mind, she really wanted the paper marriage to mean something?
Darcy closed her eyes and sighed. A few weeks ago she’d left a man at the altar because she couldn’t picture herself married to him, and now she’d just agreed to pretend to be married to Bill. And it wasn’t going to be really a pretense; she could see it clearly in her mind’s eye. And in the eyes of the law it would be real.
At least until they proved otherwise.
BILL HUNG UP the pay phone and breathed a long, relieved sigh. He checked the coin box for change then turned to Darcy and made a thumbs-up sign.
“Good news,” he said, feeling more optimistic than he had since his mother had sprung her request on them. He sank onto a chair in the waiting room outside Momma’s room. Earline and Edd were in with her now, so he and Darcy had a moment alone.
Darcy looked as if she had steeled herself for the worst. She let out a short breath. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“No blood test, no waiting period,” he said, and he wondered if that was such a victory or not. Did he think that if they actually took out a license ahead of time, it would guarantee they’d go through with it? And why was he even entertaining the thought of staying married once it was over?
He’d made a solemn vow—if only to himself—that he’d never marry as long as he remained in the service. Leaving the air force now was out of the question, not when he was so close to his goal. He’d even applied for Operation Bootstrap, a scholarship program that allowed service members to attend college full time away from duty. He would finish his last few courses without the demands and distractions of duty to keep him from doing his best.
He didn’t need a wife right now. He didn’t want to put any woman—much less Darcy—into the same position his mother had found herself in. Yet, the thought of living without Darcy was beginning to loom larger than the fear that as his wife, she might have to live without him.
“Bill, are you listening to me?”
The touch of Darcy’s hand on his arm yanked him out of his thoughts. “What?”
“I said,” Darcy repeated, looking around to make certain they were still alone in the waiting area, “Why is no test, no waiting good news?”
“Because if Momma changes her mind, we won’t have done anything that might catch up with us later.”
Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Why are you so worried about it getting out?”
Bill didn’t know what to make of Darcy’s remark. Was she hurt? Hell, he didn’t know whether to laugh it off or try to explain. Now was not the time for joking, if you asked him. “No. I…Oh, hell, I don’t know what I meant by that. Just forget what I said, okay?”
“I’m sorry, Bill. I don’t know what I’m thinking.” Darcy drew in a deep breath and released it with a sigh. “It’s just…I…I just had myself all psyched up to do it, and then….” Her voice trailed away as if she didn’t know what she meant, either.
He could relate to that. He had no idea what was going on in his own confused head, and it was Momma they were thinking about. Darcy had no stake in this. She’d only met his mother a few weeks ago.
Hell, Darcy hadn’t known him but a couple of hours longer. Why should either one of them be looking at this thing as anything more than a favor? What did they call it in those romance books Lougenia liked to read? A marriage of convenience?
It was only going to be a marriage on paper. A temporary one at that. But, as far as he was concerned it would be anything but convenient. How was he going to deal with being married to her and not touching her? Not being able to make her his wife in every way.
No, Bill told himself. You’ve got to stop thinking about your feelings. This is not about you. Though he didn’t want to think about it, his mother had only a limited amount of time left on this earth. Doctor Williamson might have pulled her through this time, but what about the next? Or the time after that?
This was their way of making his mother’s last days happier. This was about Momma.
It wasn’t about them.
Bill risked a glance at the woman curled up in the seat next to him.
He just wished it were.
DARCY SAT in a chair pulled up next to Nettie’s bed while Bill sat on the opposite side holding the hand that wasn’t still encumbered by the IV line and sensors. At least in this room, Nettie’d been able to have flowers and gifts, and the counter behind her was veritably teeming with fragrant blossoms.
It amazed Darcy how efficiently the country grapevine worked, and it seemed as though everyone in the small Mattison community had sent or dropped by with some sort of love offering for Nettie. How wonderful it must be for her to know she had so many friends.
Darcy could count hers on the fingers of one hand, but she couldn’t help thinking that could change if she ever had the chance to stay in one place longer than a few years.
Billy and his mother were chatting about somebody she didn’t know, so Darcy
tuned out their comfortable talk and let her mind wander.
What would it be like to actually be married to this strong, gentle man who tried so hard to hide his feelings? She’d lived around the military all her life, and she knew about the elite corps of men to which he belonged, the men who wore those scarlet berets. She knew that they were trained to defend and protect and…to kill. Yes, she could see Bill fighting for his country and even killing if it were necessary, but she’d seen the tender side of him as well.
She wondered if he had to hide it from his buddies, his teammates. She wondered if it ever caused him problems on the job?
What would it be like to run her hands over the toned and sculpted muscles she’d only seen from a distance? How would it feel to have his body pressed against hers, slick and damp with desire? Would he make love as well as he’d been trained to make war?
“Have you young ’uns thought any more about what I asked you this morning?” Nettie said suddenly, as if she’d just thought of it.
Darcy blushed because of what she’d been thinking, and Bill cleared his throat.
“We just figured you were doing so well that it wasn’t necessary, Momma,” Bill said, his voice strained. “I’m going to be too busy with duty in the next few months to give my best to startin’ a marriage.”
Darcy could have kissed him. That was exactly the right thing to say. She started to second his sentiment, but Nettie stopped her.
“Psh. If you wait till everything is just perfect, it won’t ever be,” she said. “You’re young, but you’re smart. I’m sure you could figure out a way to make it work.
“And you know, I ain’t getting better. Doc might have pulled me through this time, but one of these days he won’t be able to.” She let out a shallow sigh, a sound so wistful, so poignant that it made Darcy want to cry. “The next time, the doctors might not be able to fix it.”
Darcy swallowed and covered Nettie’s hand with hers. The woman was right, of course, but it hurt too much even to think it. She swallowed again. “Now Nettie, you know they’re making advances in medicine every day. They could come up with the cure next week, and then you could be dancing at our wedding—one that my mother would have time to plan and do up right.”
Sgt. Billy's Bride Page 13
