Wild Bride (14 page)

“On that we are in agreement.”

I
t took her two whole days to get the house cleaned and back to the way it was before. There were still folding tables and chairs in the backyard that her father and Billy had to take back to the town hall.

They had more leftovers in the fridge and freezer than she knew what to do with. She’d made homemade chicken soup with the leftover chicken and had sent a pot home with her parents. She delivered two whole pies to Holly’s place in hopes that she wouldn’t see them sitting around the house and gain all the weight back.

She’d even delivered a whole meal’s worth of food to Carmen and her two kids.

She enjoyed her hour visit, and Carmen updated her on hiring her lawyer back. She told her that he thought she had a very strong case against her ex and assured her that he wouldn’t get full custody of her kids.

“Well, of course you do.” Savannah smiled at the two kids playing quietly with Lego’s on the floor.

“I hope so. It would kill me if I didn’t get to see their funny faces every day.” Carmen smiled at her two kids. “What about you? Are you and Billy going to have more kids?”

Savannah almost gasped, but then she thought about it. She’d always wanted lots of kids. She’d hated that she’d been an only child. But she still hadn’t completely committed herself to their relationship. True, she couldn’t imagine taking Maggie away from Billy, or—her blood turned cold—him taking Maggie from her. Shaking her head, she dismissed the thought. Billy would never do anything like that. He didn’t have the meanness in him like his father had.

“We…we haven’t talked about it,” she told Carmen and then excused herself, telling Carmen that it was time to put Maggie down for a nap.

On the short walk back to the house, she pushed Maggie’s stroller slowly and thought about the conversation. She and Billy hadn’t talked about their future. Oh, sure, he’d proposed to her, twice now. But the first time had been because they’d just found out she was pregnant. The second… Why had he proposed the second time? She stopped walking and thought back to that day in the diner. What had they been talking about? She couldn’t really remember. All she remembered was being embarrassed and upset that he’d proposed to her at Mama’s.

She started pushing the stroller again and thought about their relationship, about their future. About her future. What did she want? She knew that all of the dreams that she’d had as a child were gone and looking down at her sleeping baby, she realized she no longer cared about the same things that she had a year ago. What weighed heavy on her now was the question of what next. What did she want now?

Billy was scheduled to leave in two days and she still didn’t know how she felt about it. It was only for two weeks this time, but things had changed so much between them. She still wasn’t sure what to think about everything that had happened between them.

As she walked by Holly’s place, she waved in to one of the sisters that was working behind the tall bar counter. She like both of them, which was funny, because they had been living in Fairplay for a few years and Savannah would have never said that about them over a year ago. They just didn’t run in the same circles she had.

Now she was thankful she didn’t still run in those circles. Several of her friends had moved out of town shortly after she’d found out she was pregnant. She’d heard that two of them were living in Houston, but other than that, she didn’t know what they were doing. They hadn’t called or texted her, and she’d forgotten about them with everything that had been going on in her own life.

She remembered how much it had stung that they’d stopped calling her, but now, she knew it had been for the best. Right after she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d tried to keep their friendships and it had been exhausting. They liked to go out dancing and drinking at least three times a week. Besides, they still smoked and she didn’t want Maggie to be around anyone who smoked.

She stopped again in the middle of the sidewalk and closed her eyes, remembering the few times she’d pretended to smoke while she’d been pregnant.

Thank God the doctor had stifled any concerns she’d had about side effects. She’d been so stupid back then. Shaking her head, she started walking again and looked up to see Billy sitting on the front steps of the house, watching her.

“Deciding if you’re going to come back home?” he asked when she was a few steps away from him.

“Hmm?” She parked the stroller in front of them and moved around to sit next to Billy.

He chuckled a little and nodded. “The way you kept stopping back there. It kept looking like you were trying to decide if you wanted to come back home or not. ”

She shook her head. “No, I was just thinking of how stupid I used to be.” She sighed and rested her elbow on her knees. “I can’t believe I kept smoking for the first few weeks of pregnancy.”

He looked at her and nodded. “I know what you mean.” Shaking his head. “I can’t believe how much I used to drink. Just that one sip of that beer the other day, and I was wanting a tall glass of tea instead.”

She chuckled. “I can’t believe I used to have the energy to go dancing three nights a week.”

He chuckled, then sobered and took her hand. “Do you miss it?”

She thought about it for a moment. “If it means giving Maggie up, no.” She smiled. “How about you?”

He shook his head. “If it means giving you two up, no.” He pulled her close and kissed her softly on the lips and she felt something shift inside her. Something she’d been trying to hide her whole life.

Billy smiled at his computer screen and wished more than anything that he was back at home. He was two days into his fourteen-day shift and he missed his girls so much. He’d plastered his little sleeping area with pictures of the two of them, but it just didn’t fill the emptiness or replace the feeling of holding either of them every night when he went to bed.

So far, he’d gotten along great with the rest of the crew. It was taking him a little while to adjust to living and working a few hundred feet above the water, but he thought he could get the hang of it. Luckily, it didn’t sway and swing with the waves. He’d been told that it did move a little when they had high winds, but nothing major.

The work was hot and dirty and lasted a full fourteen hours each day. When he crawled into his bunk at night, he was almost too tired to chat with Savannah. Almost. He enjoyed that fact that she always dressed up nice for their Skype calls. Even Maggie was usually dressed in a dress or a cute outfit, with bows in her blonde hair.

“Has she said anything else?” he asked while keeping his eyes glued to the screen.

“No.” She sighed and frowned a little. “I keep trying to teach her ‘mama,’ but she just won’t say it.”

He frowned a little. “I miss you,” he said in a low voice. He knew Mark, his roommate, was asleep in the bunk below him, and he didn’t want the conversation to wake him.

She nodded and then set Maggie down in her playpen. Then she came back to the computer and placed the laptop on her lap.

“I woke up this morning and reached for you.” She frowned.

He smiled, knowing it was her way of saying that she’d missed him, too.

“Two weeks is a long time,” he said, watching her eyes soften as she nodded. “I’d better get some sleep. Morning shift starts pretty early.” He smiled.

“Billy?” She pulled the computer closer. “I miss you too,” she said quickly and then hung up.

He couldn’t stop smiling as he drifted off to sleep.

The next few days he learned a lot about working and living with a group of fifty grown men while trapped on a forty-story-tall building a mile away from anywhere. There was enough square footage for everyone to have their own space, but that didn’t stop the tempers from flying when the job was demanding enough. Especially when lives were on the line. He’d found out quickly that there were a few employees that he had to watch his back around.

Since he’d been hired as a manager, he worked inside in the bull room most of the time. The bull room was a sixteen hundred square foot room that had more computer monitors then he’d ever seen. His job on those days he worked inside was keeping the platform level. It was glorified babysitting; he pushed buttons that moved water in and out of long hulls causing the platform to move if needed.

He knew there were identical screens onshore and someone else sat in an office building watching the same information pop up. But he was in control of leveling and, for the most part, it was a boring job that demanded he not take his eyes from the screen the entire time he sat in the big chair.

He liked the days when he worked outside more. He’d walk the rig with a checklist and make sure everything was in working order. He liked getting his hands dirty and really enjoyed the fresh salt air.

By the end of each day, whether he’d spent it inside or out, his body would ache and his eyes were be dry. He knew that he’d have two whole weeks to rest up and spend with his family, but he couldn’t help but wish that he could have a normal job in town. Something that would guarantee he could spend each day with his girls.

But it would be hard to match the amount of pay he was making He knew this was the only way to keep them in the tiny house and give his family what they needed.

Finally, the day arrived when he packed up his belongings and waited for the helicopter ride to the shore. He couldn’t wait to hold his girls in his arms and as he drove out of Houston, he called Savannah.

“Hey, I’m just leaving Houston. I should be there in just under two hours.”

“Good, we have a surprise for you.” He could hear her laughing.

“Oh?” he said, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Yes, but I’m not telling until you get home.”

He sighed and wished the speed limit was a great deal higher than seventy. “Be there as soon as I can.”

“Drive safe,” she said before hanging up.

Savannah was full of nerves again. Why did it seem like she couldn’t get a handle on herself when it came to Billy?

The last two weeks had been fine. Just fine. Not exciting, not spectacular, nothing more than fine. She really did miss him. His smile, his laughter, the way he was with Maggie. But most of all, she missed him holding her at night. She didn’t know when she’d become addicted to him, but it had happened.

Taking care of Maggie and going on her daily walks just weren’t as much fun anymore. The only time she did enjoy herself was when she went to visit Carmen or when they ran into Tracy on the bridge, which had started happening more often.

She’d even seen her and her parents at Mama’s once when she was having lunch with Lauren and Holly. The girl had looked even smaller sitting next to her parents. She would have thought they looked like a cute family if she didn’t know that the girl was being completely tortured by a group of kids at the school. She’d even considered going to her parents and talking to them at one point, but had talked herself out of it.

She’d been so busy yesterday getting the house ready for Billy’s return, she and Maggie had missed their evening walk. It was strange; she’d missed Billy more in the last two weeks than she had the six months he’d been gone before.

With the house completely ready, she double-checked herself in the mirror one last time and was heading into the living room to check on Maggie, who was napping in her crib, when the doorbell rang.

She frowned as she walked towards it. Billy wouldn’t ring the doorbell; he’d just walk right in.