The Hellion (4 page)

Rachel fondly placed her hands on his forearms. "You don't have to worry about me, Marshall. I can take care of myself."

"I know you can. But I promised Owen."

"But the furnace won't break down, and the pool will keep filtering, and ... and ..." Suddenly Rachel was immensely glad to have Marshall there, a living, breathing entity who knew how dreadful it would have been for her to face the empty house alone at this moment.

She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling, but tears spilled, nonetheless. "Oh, Marshall ... oh, God ..." Her chest felt crushed as he took her into his arms, gently, consolingly. "Oh, thank you for coming home with me. I didn't know how I was going to face it alone."

"You don't have to thank me. You know that." His voice was gruff against her hair. "I loved him, too."

"I'll ... I'll be all right in a minute."

"Take it from me, dear, you won't be. Not in a minute, or a week, or even a month. But whenever you need somebody, all you have to do is call, and I'll be right here."

Before he left, Marshall walked through the house to make sure everything was safe and sound. Watching his tall form walk away, she thought, Whatever would I do without him? He was as steady as Gibraltar, as dependable as taxes, and as sensible as rain. Owen said before he died, "You know, Rachel, you can rely upon Marshall for anything."

She had wondered at the time if Owen was hinting that he himself might choose Marshall for her ... if and when. But Marshall wasn't that sort. Not steady-z-you-go, polite, socially adept Marshall. He was simply the kindest man she knew, and one with whom she'd shared the most devastating of human experiences not once, but twice.

But when he was gone, she still faced the desolation of going to bed alone. The house seemed eerie, especially the bedroom she and Owen had shared. When she'd donned her nightgown, she crept instead

to one of the guest bedrooms across the hall,
   
37 lying stiffly upon the strange-feeling mattress in the dark--unmoving, for a long time. Rachel had been propelled from one necessity to the next for so long, putting off the awesome need to cry. But there was little else she could have done, with no children to take over the burdens. It was the thought of children that did it at last. The dam cracked, then buckled, and when her tears came, they struck with the force of a tidal wave. She gripped the sheets, twisting in despair, sobbing pitifully into the dark. The racking sound of those sobs, coming back to her own ears, only made her cry the harder.

She cried for all the pain Owen had suffered, and for her own powerlessness to help him. She cried for the dream-filled girl she'd once been, and the disillusioned woman she now was. She cried because for almost two decades she'd been married to a man with whom she'd had a comfortably staid marriage when what she'd wanted was occasional tumult. She cried because in one split second she had looked up at a man's face across a quiet graveyard, and that tumult had sprung within her when it was her husband who should have caused it to surface all these years. She cried because it

seemed a sin to admit such a thing to herself on the very night of his funeral.

And when her body was aching with loss and desolation, she cried for Owen's child, which she'd never conceived.

And for Tommy Lee's child, which she had.

            
CHAPTER TWO

  
On the fourth morning following the funeral, Tommy Lee found little to smile about. He awakened sprawled on the sofa, still wearing a tweed sports coat, trousers, and tie, a foul taste in his mouth, and a head beating like a voodoo drum. Gingerly he rolled over, sat up, and nursed his tender head.

Upstairs things were a little better. The sun was already up behind the dogwoods and cedars and came cascading into his east bedroom and bath, bringing the sounds of spring birds from the trees.

Naked, he brushed his teeth, then straightened to study his reflection in the generous mirror above the vanity. His conclusion was the same as ever. You got to lose some weight, boy. You got to slow down with the women and spend a little time on healthier

activities.
                      
39

But somehow he never did. Somehow the beer was always too cold to refuse, and the women too warm. Life had its compensations.

But out of the blue came the thought of Rachel, svelte and graceful, not an ebony hair out of place, smelling sweet, still beautiful. What would she think if she saw him this way?

Angrily he spit, drew a mouthful of water and tilted his head back while rinsing, spit again, but avoided looking in the mirror while he tossed his wet toothbrush onto the vanity top and flicked on the radio. From its speaker, WWWR announced it had been serving Franklin County and Northwest Alabama since 1949. Then a strong female voice musically advised Tommy Lee to "Blame It on Love."

The hiss of the shower cut her off in mid-word.

For three days he'd resisted the urge to drive past Rachel's store, but when he arrived in town later that morning he gave in, passing his own office and continuing north along Jackson Avenue, the main drag of town, until he came abreast of a small dress shop

on the left. Above the door hung a crisp sign bearing a distinctive stylized lily and the word "Panache." He recalled when she'd first opened the place, ten years ago, that he'd looked up the word to find it meant "dashing elegance." At the time he'd been amused. Russellville, Alabama--population 10,000--seemed ill-chosen as a town to be availed of dashing elegance. Nonetheless, she'd brought a touch of it here. Above and beyond this, Rachel was an astute businesswoman. The store had succeeded, then thrived.

Poised, well dressed, genteel, she'd set a fine example for the ladies of the town. By now, every woman in Russellville knew who Rachel Hollis was. She was the pretty one, the soft-spoken one, the one in the Evan Picone suits and the Vidal Sassoon nail polish, the one who gave something from her store to every fund raiser, attended the First Baptist Church on Jackson Avenue, drove a sedate four-door sedan, had her hair done regularly in Florence, and lived in an elegant home on the east edge of town. She was the wife of that nice young man who worked at the bank with Rachel's

daddy. She was Everett Talmadge's
    
41 daughter.

As Tommy Lee drove past Panache, he saw Verda McElroy approach the front door and open up for the day. For a moment he thought she'd turn and see the white Cadillac cruising past, and he breathed a sigh of relief when Verda brushed inside and closed the door without turning around. He drove two blocks farther, swung over to Washington and returned to his own office at the south end of Jackson.

He drew up before a small brick building with white shutters, the home of TLG Enterprises, Ltd. Tommy Lee really didn't need an office; he could easily have run his business affairs out of his home. But renting the building got him out of the empty house and gave him somewhere to go during the day. It also provided a place for Liz Scroggins to answer the phone and carry on the secretarial duties he required.

Liz was thirty-five and divorced, and one of the few women who'd ever sent out signals Tommy Lee had ignored. Oh, she'd never sent them overtly, probably never even realized she'd

sent them at all, for Liz was a perfect lady. She was a looker, all right, but too damn good a worker to risk losing at the end of a messy affair. So Tommy Lee always got his poon tangin' someplace else.

He gave her a smile as he sauntered in and stopped before her desk. Though he drove like a wild man, he never appeared to be in a hurry when on foot.

"Well, good mornin', Liz."

"Mornin', Mr. Gentry."

"Don't you look like a li'l azalea blossom today." His eyes scanned her neat pink dress and he saw her blush.

"You say that every morning, I swear."

He laughed, unaware of the inborn Southern charm he exuded as he idled before her desk. "Well, then, it must be true." He did, in fact, admire the way Liz dressed, never in slacks, her golden hair always freshly fluffed and curled, her makeup conscientiously applied. There were times when he thought it was a shame she was his secretary. "I'm expecting some quotes from Hensley in the mail today. Let me know when they come in."

She nodded and leafed through three written
  
43 messages, handing them across the desk, one at a time. "Muldecott called from the Florence Bank. A Mr. Trudeau called from Sheffield Engineering." Liz kept her eyes carefully downcast as she slipped the last message across to him. "And your daughter called and asked to have you call her as soon as you got in."

As he took the yellow slip of paper, Tommy Lee's eyebrows drew into a frown. "Thank you, Liz." Already he was moving toward his private office. The door was rarely closed between the two rooms, and he left it open now as he picked up the phone and dialed Muscle Shoals.

"Hiya, baby, it's Daddy."

"Ohhh, Daddy, you'll never guess what's come up. Marianne Wills is having this pool party and I've been invited, but Mother refuses to let me go because there are gonna be boys there, too. She says I'm too young, but everybody I know is going, Daddy, and they're all fourteen, the same as me. Will you talk to her and get her to change her mind?"

"Baby, you know your mother won't change her

mind because of anything I say."

"Pleeease, Daddy."

Tommy Lee rocked forward in his chair and wearily rubbed his forehead. "Beth, if I take your side it'll only make things worse. You and your mother will just have to fight it out."

"That's all we ever do is fight!"

"I know, I know ..."

There followed a brief silence, then Beth's voice again, softer, more pleading. "Daddy, I hate it here. Why can't I come and live with you?"

"We've been over that a hundred times before."

"But, Daddy, she--was

"Your mother won't allow it, Beth. You know that."

Beth's voice suddenly turned accusing. "You don't want me. You don't want me any more than she does!"

Pain knifed through Tommy Lee's heart. "That's not true, Beth. You know I'd have you with me in a minute if I could." He knew Beth was manipulating him again, but the pain was real, nevertheless. As he always did, he sought an antidote. "Listen, honey, just in case she breaks down and lets you go to the party after all, how

would you like a brand-new bathing suit?"
      
45

"Really, Daddy?" By the quick brightness in his daughter's voice it was apparent to Tommy Lee that he was only adding to her problem by trying to buy her off, but he felt helpless, and the offer of a new suit eased his guilt. "There'll be a nice crisp fifty-dollar bill in the mail tomorrow. Now, will you try to make peace with your mother, and don't buck every decision she makes?"

"I'll try, Daddy, but she's--was

"She's doing the best she can, baby. Try to remember that."

Why did I defend Nancy? he wondered after he'd hung up. She's a nagging bitch and Beth has done well to live with her for this long.

Liz appeared in his doorway, leaned one arm against it, and studied him with a sympathetic expression on her face. "You know you shouldn't send her the fifty dollars again, don't you?"

He turned from the window, his unsmiling face masking a thousand hidden emotions. "I know. Don't nag me, Liz."

"If I don't, who will? My ex-husband pulls that on me, and for days after the boys visit

him, I'm the bad guy around home. Nothing I can do or say is right. The boys keep saying, but Daddy does this, and Daddy lets us do that. Sometimes I want to tell them, If you want to go live with your father, go."

He sighed. "Maybe I wish that's what Nancy would say."

"Do you?" she asked quietly. A man with your life-style--her expression seemed to say--what would you do with a fourteen-year-old daughter?

"That house is so big and so damn empty it echoes."

She assessed him silently for several seconds before adding softly, "When you're in it alone."

Surprisingly enough, Tommy Lee had the grace to blush. His relationship with Liz was unlike any he shared with any other women. They were aware of each other's availability, and a fine sexual tension hummed between them at moments like this. Yet they both understood that if it ever snapped, she'd lose the best job she'd ever had--and the friendship of a man whose life-style she should abhor, but for whom she instead felt a great deal of pity, because she could see beyond the ceaseless chasing to the

loneliness it masked.
                  
47

Liz pulled away from the door frame. "You wanted me to remind you that you were going to meet at eleven this morning with the people from the city about the zoning regulations on that apartment complex." The tension eased and they became merely boss and employee again.

"Thanks, Liz."

He watched her pink dress disappear around the corner and wondered what he lacked that he couldn't marry some nice woman like her and settle down companionably and work toward building a home with some permanent love in it, and think about approaching old age. Wasn't one woman enough for him?

His eyes swayed back to the window. Across the street and half a block away he could see the corner of the First State Bank of Russellville, the one Rachel's daddy ran, the one Tommy Lee shunned in favor of taking his business to the town of Florence, twenty-three miles away. He lit a cigarette without even realizing he was doing it, then sat mulling.