Billy Bob Walker Got Married (33 page)

"Is that a promise?" she teased, just as his lips bent to hers.

"Honey, that's a blood oath," he breathed into her mouth. "

So she spent the afternoon wearing a long T-shirt of Billy's that she found folded up in the tiny laundry room, while her clothes washed. No one except her was at the house, and its silence and heat began to wear at her until she finally dared to walk outside on the back porch barefooted. The shirt came to her midthigh; surely if nobody got close enough to realize she had on nothing under it, it would be all right to walk outside.

In fact, the only person to discover such an embarrassing thing was likely to be Billy, and Shiloh doubted if he would mind it much at all.

The yard had an old, established feel to it, probably because of the size of the trees that shaded it, and it was welcoming in an unassuming way. No elaborate lily ponds or strategically placed brown gravel paths here. Instead, an old well house stood off to the far left, its roof barely three feet out of the ground. Over the years, it had been nearly swamped with ivy and the overhanging vines of forsythia.

A wild rose bush sprawled across the old wire fence that ran down the right length of the yard, and its tiny, dusky pink blooms were so heavy and profuse that the fence dipped slightly under its weight, laden down with its honeyed load.

Old-fashioned, shade-loving impatiens ran wild around the bases of the two spreading oaks at the back of the yard, their vivid, lush blooms even more deeply pink than the roses.

A swing—the biggest one Shiloh had ever seen—hung from a frame suspended between the two oaks, and the way the grass had been worn away until the dirt had been exposed under it told her how often that swing was used.

Besides it, there were only three other chairs in the backyard; one of them, a heavy wooden one, sat near the swing. The other two, both rockers, were here, on the back porch. One held a faded, dented cushion. The other sat near the bannister, and the fronds of the huge Boston fern that hung from the basket near it reached down to brush its high back. Beyond the trees and the fence, the land rolled. Seven Knobs was the one section of Briskin County that dipped and rose a little instead of being nearly flat; it dipped and rose seven times, in fact, in long, slow, graceful sweeps.

Peace lay over this place, as did sunshine that sprinkled through the heavy leaves of the trees. The only sounds were the birds and the occasional blast from a horse, probably beyond the distant barn, and the rumble of a far-off tractor.

Was it Billy?

She closed her eyes and pictured him at work in the hot sun, the ever-present cap covering his thick blond hair; the long, sleek muscles in his back pulling upward as he bent to watch the ground beneath him, the sure, deft, brown hands on the wheel.

Friday night, going into town with Billy Bob, promises of kisses and caresses and fun.

She would make this work, in spite of everything—his family, her uncertainty in this house, the lack of money.

And she would begin tonight.

"Mama, Grandpa, we just wanted to tell you that we're going out, and we'll probably be late getting back home," Billy said cheerfully, as he led Shiloh out the kitchen.

Ellen looked up from the salad she was making at the sink; it was the first time Shiloh had seen her since this morning. Ellen offered a tentative smile; that, too, was a first. "Have a good time."

"No need to stay out until all hours tonight," Grandpa drawled outrageously from his chair beside a tiny little television where the local news was being broadcast in shimmering images. "This time you can bring the girl home with you. Now if you can just get her in the right bed."

Billy muttered an expletive under his breath, his cheeks red as he pulled Shiloh out the back screen door. "That old man's getting on my nerves."

"I don't know how many Friday nights you've laid out with some girl, Billy," Shiloh said dangerously, as he opened her truck door, "but tonight is different. Tonight is your honeymoon."

"I've told you before about those other girls. And one Friday night not so long ago I watched you climb in Michael's Jag in front of the bank and pull off into the sunset," he said brusquely.

Both looked away; neither wanted to fight. Not now.

Then he opened his own door and slid in beside her.

"Shoot," he muttered, looking toward the garage. "I forgot to take the Cadillac back. Just remembered it." He hesitated, then made up his mind. "It'll have to wait until tomorrow. I'm not ruining a date with you for Pennington's car."

Two miles down the highway, he looked over at the girl in the truck with him.

"I like your dress," he said teasingly. "Have I seen you wear it before?"

She relaxed, then fell in with his mood. "At least it's clean. I loved it when I put it on yesterday. Now I'm beginning to wish I'd never seen it. I wore your T-shirt while I washed this, and even it looked better to me."

Billy considered the vision he had of her wrapped in one of his extra-long, tall-men white Fruit of the Looms.

"You'll have to let me see you in it. That way I can give you my opinion. Of course, it's hard to see much with you sitting way over there." He raised his eyebrows question-ingly, patting the seat beside him suggestively with his sprawled, lazy hand.

After a second's pause, Shiloh gave a tiny laugh under her breath and slid over to him. His right arm wrapped around her, squeezing her up tight for a second.

"I can't get too close," she informed him.

"Why not? I don't bite."

"No, but this stick shift in the floor won't let me."

"Next truck I own, I'll definitely go for an automatic," he said regretfully, letting her straighten a little. "So where are we going?"

Shiloh stared at him blankly. "I don't know. The only times I ever came to Tobias County, it was to Greenview Golf Course with Sam. I've never been shopping here."

He'd never been to the golf course, he thought, then reminded her quietly, "You came with me once, to a dance."

She thought for a second. "That night was the first time I'd ever been anywhere with you. I couldn't see or hear anything else
but
you. We could have been on the moon for all I remember of the place."

Her words took the shadows away that had chased across his face.

"If I get real lucky, maybe you won't remember much else tonight, either," he said huskily, and his hand squeezed her arm. "Maybe neither of us will."

But by the time he got to Martinsville, he'd definitely remembered a few things, such as the name of the store where Angie shopped. It was in the Delta Shopping Center, along with a Wal-Mart, which suited him fine: the big department store carried fans.

A fancy Atlanta architect had designed the place, determined to make it look as southern as
Gone With the Wind.
He'd even tried to induce Spanish moss to droop and sway from two oaks that guarded the sweltering, sticky span of asphalt, broken at four-foot intervals by neatly lined boxes marking off Bradford pear trees.

A Dodge Dakota truck was tooling out of a spot directly under one of the oaks; Billy beelined for it.

Then he pointed Shiloh in the direction of the clothing store, which she looked over solemnly. "I've never been here before."

"I hear it's okay." He wasn't about to say, I saw its labels in Angie's clothes. Awkwardly, he took the bill he'd carefully creased and folded earlier, lifted her hand, and pushed it in it. "Spend it all. It's not that much anyway."

Embarrassed, she didn't look down. "Aren't you coming with me?"

He grinned. "If you'll let me help in the dressing room, I might. If we didn't get thrown out of the store." Dipping toward her, his lips caressed her jaw, then his teeth nipped playfully.

"Billy Bob Walker, is that all you think about?" Shiloh demanded, glancing around to make sure no one had heard, nudging his mouth away with a finger.

"I've been married—really married—about twenty-four hours. I've been with you one time. One time, for four years of waiting." His face had gone serious; his hands gripped her shoulders as they stood lost in the rows of the parking lot. "So I'm doing well to walk and talk, Shiloh. Yeah. It's all I can think about. Don't you think about it?"

She remembered the way she'd spent the afternoon mooning over him, imagining him at work, his body controlling the tractor.

"Well? Do you?"

"You know I do," she capitulated hurriedly.

"So let's forget this and go somewhere to be together," he suggested swiftly, pushing her face against the open neck of his shirt. "I can say it a whole lot plainer, what I want to do, if you'll let me."

"I've got to have something to wear," she managed.

He released her reluctantly. "Okay. So go get some clothes that I can yank off you in a hurry." Then he smiled, ending the teasing. "That funny pinky-red color you wore to the Legion Hall
—
I thought you were the prettiest thing I'd ever seen in it, baby."

"Where will you be?" she demanded.

"There. At Wal-Mart. I've got some things to buy."

"Billy." She caught at his arm as he headed away and worried her lip in embarrassment when he obligingly stopped to listen. "I wasn't expecting us to get together this fast, you know."

"So?" He waited patiently, puzzled, running his hand down her bare arm. So warm, so soft. Wal-Mart was a mighty poor second choice to her wet mouth, her luscious body; and what'd she need clothes for, anyway?

"I never had time to—" She looked away, blushed.

He frowned.

"Oh, good gracious, don't you understand, Billy Bob? I haven't seen a doctor about—"

He sucked in his breath as her meaning hit. "This is a fine time to talk about birth control," he murmured ruefully, glancing around them at the cars and the people hurrying past, his stomach tightening, his hands clenching, his whole body pulling in like a big tiger's.

"I didn't remember it last night," she told the second button on his shirt. "I couldn't think at all. But if we keep on like that, things are liable to happen." "Not things, honey. They have names—babies." "I didn't think I should wait until, well, you know, to tell you that we'd have to stop tonight unless you were . . . were prepared. Because I'm not. But I will be, in a few weeks. Is that how long it takes?" She was rambling, babbling, trying to say these extremely embarrassing words in broad daylight, directly to him.

He ran his hand up her throat, nudging her chin toward him. Reluctantly, she looked at him, at the warm blue eyes, crinkling at the corners as he gazed down at her with a slow, hot, pleasurable stare. "I don't want to wait. And I don't think anything on this green earth could make me stop something I've started with you, Shiloh. I don't know how long it takes birth control pills—is that what you're talking about?—to take effect. I'm glad you don't know, either. So I'll take care of it tonight and for the next few days." He bent to kiss her lightly, his fingers still warm around her chin, his face intent. "But if we don't quit talking about it, I'm going to give this parking lot a bigger show than it's getting right now." Another kiss. "And you'd better go get those damned clothes while you still can. Be good, Shiloh."

"Yes, Billy Bob," she said demurely, but she flashed a grin at him as she pulled away and ran across the parking lot, the blue dress swirling around her.

He drew a deep breath and turned toward the big store behind him without really seeing anything except Shiloh's pink-cheeked face.

She was so young, so innocent. Angie had always talked about the subject with ease and nonchalance and a joking flippancy. Not Shiloh. And it made him downright edgy with nerves and a heated anticipation to consider the fact that she was planning their lovemaking on an extended, normal basis. It was pure pleasure to consider it. No shame, no guilt, no remorse—they were married. It was right. It was reveling in freedom.

He could definitely get addicted to this situation.

He had given her a hundred-dollar bill. She looked down at it as she stood in the store, and blinked away sudden tears. She didn't think he could afford it.

Part of her wanted to refuse the money; there was a certain shame in being dependent on another person. But the way Billy had given it, she had felt loved and taken care of, too; he was waiting to see if she was willing to take from him, to let him provide for her.

It was clearly a point of pride with him. So Shiloh would swallow her own pride and buy something he would like.

Just for an instant, though, it crossed her mind to wonder if she'd given him anything in return, any emotion, to ease the sting of her own offer of money. Was this how Billy had felt when she'd held out that thirty-five hundred dollars all those weeks ago?

"I'm not your charity case," he had said.

Well, beginning now, she would erase any doubts he might have about that money; it was no more between them than this bill he'd pressed into her hand.

The clothes at this store were less expensive than any she was used to and far more casual. Most of the shorts and pants relied on odd novelty touches and cuts for appeal, and the tops and shirts were eye-catchingly designed. '

No lined linen slacks, no silk blouses, no subtly textured expensive fabrics.

Liz Claiborne didn't live here, not in this department store.

But the neighborhood wasn't bad. She liked cotton blends and cool tops, and if there was one thing Shiloh had, it was an eye for cut and color. Hadn't Sam spent years complaining about it?

So she spent fifteen minutes looking over the other patrons of the shop, trying to catch the mood of these clothes.

When she left the store an hour later, two large sacks in her hands, she was laughing. She definitely thought Billy was going to approve.

He was waiting for her in the truck, one long leg outside the door he'd propped open against the heat, which had dropped considerably since the sun had gone down. He was drinking a bottled Coke while he fiddled with the radio; the humidity made the long hair in back cling to the edges of his neck, curling under just a little.

"Waiting for somebody?" she asked mischievously.

His head came up, startled, and then he stared for a long second. "You'll do," he answered at last, sliding out to take her bags from her and put them in the back of the truck, never taking his eyes off her.

He liked the way the floral print shirt lit up her skin; the way the scooped-neck collar hinted at the swell of her breasts.

He caught her shoulders to pivot her completely around in front of him, as he admired the way the shorts hugged her brown legs and wrapped her slender waist.