Billy Bob Walker Got Married (36 page)

"To tell the truth, I'm kinda wondering how many boyfriends there were," he said softly, nearly nose-to-dangerous-nose with her.

"I never did anything—"

"You mean you never kissed them? Nor held them? Nor slid your tongue over their mouths the way you do mine? Hmmm?"

She blushed.

"Maybe that's no big deal with some girls," he said roughly, his other hand catching at her neck to hold her. "But with you, honey, those things could bum a house, let alone a man."

"My school was strict, Billy. Curfews and the whole bit. You could get expelled for even being seen at a club. Great academics, strictest code in the state. It was a good school—and it was just what Sam wanted. He called three and four nights a week, just to make sure I stayed put."

"Now, see, there's something about Pennington I like, after all," Billy said ironically. "He tried to keep you under lock and key. But the way you look—there had to be somebody. How many, Shiloh?"

"I dated a few." It might do him some good to hear a little factual information, Shiloh thought indignantly. She was sick of hearing Angie Blake's name.

"A few? Two?"

"More than that."

"I thought you said it was a strict school," he muttered, and his voice had a growl in it.

"Not that strict, Billy," she teased, her eyes sparkling with laughter and a touch of temper.

"Four? Five?
Six?"

"You're getting hot," she whispered, as he pulled her face closer to his, preventing her retreat. "You're damned right I am."

"How was it I kissed all those boys? Like this?" She surprised him by moving closer, by pressing her lips to his suddenly. Then she raised her hands to touch his face, as streaked with dirt as her own was.

"Or was it like this?" She opened his lips with her tongue. He gasped—and made a heated lunge for her.

" 'Scuse
me.
I didn't know you were, uh, busy, uh, look, Billy, I'll come back—"

The stumbling words broke them apart, and Shiloh surfaced just in time to see a grinning, red-faced Jimmy backing out of the greenhouse.

"I'm gonna kill him," Billy muttered, crooking his arm to push his hair back.

"Guess it'll be all over the county that we were making out in the greenhouse," Shiloh said in mock dolefulness.

Billy grinned unrepentantly. "Business will probably double."

The next morning over an early breakfast—this family did everything at the crack of dawn, Shiloh had already discovered—Ellen offered a little shyly, "I'd like it if you ... if you wanted to go to church with me this mornin', Shiloh."

At her side, Billy stopped his cup of coffee halfway to his lips, surprise on his face.

Grandpa gave him a knowing wink. "These Baptists are quick workers, son. Your mother's already startin' on her to go to church."

Ellen's face brightened with color. "I was hopin' to have some company once in a while, since neither of you ever see fit to go anymore. But if Shiloh doesn't want to, that's all right.''

"Maybe she's not Baptist, Mama," Billy suggested.

"I don't know what I am," Shiloh admitted. "Sam sent me to a Methodist prep school and a Church of Christ college. And now, I've gone and married a Baptist." Her eyes laughed at Billy before she finished speaking. "We never went to church, but Sam had a brother, David, who did. Finally, he gave up everything—the partnership they had, all the money they'd made together—and went to South America to be a missionary. He died there. He was always religious, Sam said. Quiet and good, sort of shy. I don't know. I never knew him."

"You sure this is Pennington's brother?" Billy asked dryly.

"Will!" his mother expostulated.

"Anyway," Shiloh continued, "Sam kept waiting for religion to hit him like that, to feel it like David always did. And when it didn't, he got angry. No use for church, but he cares enough about it that he won't go for any other reason. He's got no time for people who attend just for business or politics or mixing."

"Sounds like he's waitin' for things to be perfect," Willie commented.

"That's the way he likes everything. Daughters, too." Shiloh's voice was quiet.

Willie shot a look at Billy, who'd gotten still and quiet. "He's gonna live a mighty lonely life, if that's the case. Nothing's ever completely the way we want it," the old man offered.

"He is. Lonely, I mean." Shiloh poked at her bacon and eggs.

"People are people. You're gonna hate some and love some, and some are gonna look up to you and some are gonna try to pull you down. But it's still better to get out and live with them, and put up with their faults and your mistakes, than to live completely alone." Willie rose heavily as he finished speaking to go to the sink.

Billy ran a hand around the back of his neck and took another sip from his coffee cup, eyeing his mother over the rim.

"I reckon Grandpa's lecturing Sam Pennington this time, Mama, not you," he said gently.

"I'm livin' my life the way I want to live it," Ellen told her father.

"So is Sam," Shiloh said, with a trace of darkness in her voice. "But I'd like to go to church with you, unless Billy needs me for something."

He shot her a sideways, wicked look from his long eyes, then buried his nose in the coffee cup to drain it.

"Nothing I can think of, right at this minute," he said meekly. "Maybe later," he added suggestively. This time his fingers raked along the angle of his jaw, fresh shaven from an episode not long after dawn when he'd locked himself in the bathroom with her while she showered. She remembered clearly—very clearly—how his shave and her shower had culminated.

Under the table, she stepped on his foot in a scandalized warning.

"They'll look you over good, honey," Billy drawled. "First off because of who you are, and second, just to make sure I hadn't damaged you in any way." Laughter lurked behind his eyes.

"Now, Billy," admonished Ellen. "Don't scare her. They're good people. I'll be ready at nine thirty, Shiloh. And it pleases me that you'll visit this Sunday."

When she had gone, Billy leaned close to Shiloh, his blond head nearly touching hers, whispering conspiratorially, "Jimmy Mabrey's mama and daddy go there. Wayne Mabrey's a deacon. By now, they know what we were doing in the greenhouse yesterday. There's probably a commandment against it."

Under the table, his hand suddenly slid up under the loose shirt of his that she wore, and his fingers raked her stomach. She jumped, reddening, glancing frantically across the kitchen to where his grandfather stood looking out the window.

"There ought to be a law against
you,
Billy," she muttered, "and those wandering hands. They're
everywhere,
even on Sunday."

"Nope. They're just on you."

♦ ♦ ♦

Billy and his grandfather worked in a companionable silence for a while in the fruit stand, cleaning, restocking.

"Been a real good summer so far," said Willie, just before the white car came over the horizon. He watched it approach as he spoke to his grandson, who was down on his hands and knees with the watermelons.

"Hope you've been keeping the girl close," the old man told him.

"What?"

"You may need another alibi. Here comes T-Tommy." Billy twisted, rising to his feet as the sheriff pulled up in front of the stand. "Mornin'."

Neither responded to T-Tommy's greeting. He threw up both hands in surrender.

"Okay. I'll just come out and tell you. I'm bringin' bad news. Where's Shiloh?"

"Gone to church with Mama," Billy answered slowly. "This has got something to do with her old man, right?"

"Have you still got that Cadillac of his?"

"It's sitting at the barn. Nobody's been driving it. I meant to bring it back into town and just hadn't done it. Maybe this afternoon. Shiloh doesn't want it."

"Don't you touch it, Billy. That old bastard's gone and filed a report with the highway patrol, chimin' it's been stolen. If a trooper catches you with it, you'll be in hot water all over again."

"Stolen! He knows better than that! His own daughter was driving it." Billy slammed his fist into the big pole that held up one corner of the porch.

"Well, you know how that goes. He's hurt, and he's madder'n hell. He's after anybody he can get, and he hopes it's you, even if it just stirs up trouble for a little while."

"You let him file that report?" Willie asked T-Tommy grievously.

"Not me. I just found out what he'd done last night. It's a good thing Billy didn't get caught driving it."

"He gave them Billy's name?"

"Nope. He didn't go that far. Just an auto theft report. He wants it back, I think, just so he can make life that much rougher for her. 'Cause you see, he figures she needs it, and deep down inside, he wants her to come crawling home because the two of
them"
— he nodded at Billy—"can't make it."

"She's not coming back. Tell him that," Billy said to T-Tommy fiercely.

"Not me. But I'm gonna pull this Cadillac into town behind my car, right up to his door. Wiped clean of every print on it. Say it's at the barn?"

"Hey, what happened to Juliard and Sewell?" Willie called after T-Tommy.

"Oh, them. Well, it appears Juliard thinks he made a mistake. After Sewell's people got hold of him, that is. Now he can't remember who hit him. It's all hushed up in the media, too. And I heard that Pennington was picking up Juliard's tab at the hospital. Wonder how much else went into some sweet little bank account for the guy, back home in Magnolia?"

T-Tommy shook his head cynically. "I tell you, Willie, I'm thinkin' real hard these last four or five days about retiring."

After the sheriff s car had nosed off toward the barn, Willie said to Billy Bob, "I told you Pennington was a mean son of a bitch. He wants the girl back, just like T-Tommy said. But you can't tell her about this deal with the car. Let her believe we took it into town, or had it taken."

"It would kill her to know what he's done," Billy said somberly. "She loves him."

"There's more than that to this here situation. You're gonna sound mean and jealous, too, if you ride Pennington too much. Best thing to do is just stay clear of him when you talk. We sent the car back—-it's nothing much. Okay? No mention of him."

"I'm not going to let him take her away. She won't go," Billy vowed angrily, then strode off toward the pecan groves, swearing viciously to himself.

That night he made love to her with hard, possessive hands that allowed her little or no room to move, and it wasn't until she protested that he relaxed his hold on her.

Afterward the fan blew across them, cooling their skin and calming their heartbeats.

"We took the Cadillac back to town. T-Tommy came and helped us."

Billy spoke the words in the moonlit darkness of the room, breaking the silence between them.

She shifted her head on his shoulder to look at him. "Did you? I hadn't noticed."

There was such a long silence that he finally relaxed. She hadn't cared enough to ask.

But just as he ran his hand down her arm, she rolled on her side to face him.

"Did you take it to—to Sam?"

"No. Reckon T-Tommy meant to."

"Oh." "You miss him." His words were slow and accusing. "I'm not going to lie and pretend I don't, Billy. He and Laura were my whole family." "They
w
ere.
Now
I
am."

"I've proved that, haven't I? I just wish Sam would understand that I can love you and still love him, too."

"A husband always takes a man's daughter away, even if it's only a little. Most men just get smart enough to understand and let it happen because they can't stop it. It's natural, Shiloh."

"I know. Why can't Sam see that? I just hate that he's disappointed and alone." Her voice caught, as if she were crying.

"It's his own fault," Billy returned, his voice hard.

"I know he doesn't want to see me hurt. If he'd just give in, and understand that I love you, he'd gain so much that he doesn't have now. His daughter back, and a son—"

Billy snorted. "Forget that, baby."

"And someday, he'd be a grandfather, wouldn't he?" she asked wistfully.

Billy raised up on one elbow to look down on her as she lay beside him in a tangle of sheets. "Do you love me, girl?"

"You know the answer."

"I want to hear it, anyway."

"I love you, Billy."

"Enough to last even when Pennington never comes around, and when he refuses even to look at those babies you're talking about?"

"I think he will someday, Billy."

"But if he doesn't?"

"Then yes, I love you enough even for that."

"I hope you mean it, because it's a man's right to expect his wife to stick by him, even over her own family. I'm not in the wrong here, Shiloh, and I swear, I won't back down, even for you. And I damn sure won't for your daddy."

They had days of peace after that, when on the surface things lapped smoothly along.