Billy Bob Walker Got Married (19 page)

"Did you make me answer you about the ring and kiss me just to pay me back for everything?" She asked it in one painful rush, and he didn't really answer her.

Instead, he said at last, "That kiss wasn't cheap, Shiloh Pennington. I never gave one that cost me so much."

All of north Mississippi lay under an oppressive June heat wave this Saturday afternoon. Maybe the two of them should have stayed inside, but Shiloh's nervous energy had brought them both out here. Laura sat in the swing, a cushion against her back, cooling herself with a handheld fan that read Hayes and Borden Funeral Home, Sweetwater, Mississippi, on one side and had a picture of an angelic little girl in an Easter bonnet praying on the other side.

Laura watched Shiloh, who sat silently on the porch steps, moodily turning the rose she'd broken off the trellis.

"This heat's terrible," the housekeeper said at last.

"Looks like you're feelin' it, Shiloh. You don't look good. I hope Sam's cooler in Jackson."

Shiloh didn't answer. She couldn't think now of why she'd wanted to come out to the backyard. It was a bad place to be. The roses that climbed the trellis, the rows of Foster hollies that ran along the drive, the dusty ivy that edged the flower beds—Billy Walker had planted them.

"Where do you get off thinking you're so perfect?" "You let him take my place." "You let him—"

Shiloh came up from the steps so fast she nearly fell, clutching the rose so convulsively that a hidden thorn stabbed her. She winced and tossed the flower away.

"What'n the world is wrong with you?" Laura sighed. "You got something on your mind, Shiloh?"

"It's something I have to work out myself," she said at last.

Laura eyed her. "Why do I think this has something to do with Michael?" "No, not him."

"It's all over Sweetwater that the wedding's been postponed. People want to know why. And Lydia Sewell's lettin' it be known that she's not happy with you right now."

"I don't care. I've got other things to think about that are more important."

Laura raised her eyebrows in surprise, but Shiloh didn't notice. She couldn't escape last night. Billy Bob's words rang everywhere she turned. She'd never seen it his way, nor seen herself in such an unflattering light. She'd always thought she was the one wronged, the one who tried to be a good daughter and a good—whatever it was she'd once been to Billy. Shiloh had meant truly to come back from Mexico with things cleared up; she intended to hold both Sam and Billy. He'd been the one who hadn't waited or called or tried to see reason.

He'd run off to Tupelo—how was she supposed to have found him there?—and he'd taken up with another girl.

"I know what you did, Shiloh . . . he's the easy way."

Putting her hands over her eyes, she tried to block out everything—the way what she and Sam had done seemed so ugly now, the anguish on Billy's face for a moment last night. Where was the easy-going, I-don't-give-a-damn redneck brawler he'd always been?

Last night, he had scared her and fascinated her and seemed suddenly capable of breaking her heart all over again without half trying.

"If my wife hears of this . . ." She saw him smiling, laughing down at her—golds and blues and whites.

His wife.
Married to Billy Bob Walker. If she wanted to, right now she could go hunt him up, pull out that piece of paper, and make demands. Nobody in this world would blame her.

Even Billy himself might not protest too much. She felt his face rough against hers, his lips sweet.

But would she get something worth having from him if she did?

"If you want to do something that involves somebody else," Shiloh said abruptly, startling Laura out of the light doze she'd fallen quietly into, "and you don't know if it's in hi—their best interests, why can't you just be honest and explain the situation to—everybody?"

"Lord, Shiloh," Laura said with a yawn, "you lost me way back yonder."

"Does honesty make things right?" Shiloh persisted. "It always seemed to me it just hurt."

"All I ever saw, it set things straight. Might not make things easy, though. You thinkin' about just tellin' the whole town that your engagement's off for good? Sam won't like it. He keeps hopin'—"

"No." Shiloh cut across her words, then stared out at the tiny lily pond, where something was making the reeds move in the heat of the afternoon.

"I've got to go to town, Laura. Just for a while. I'm going to change my clothes."

"Hel—1—lo, trouble."

Jimmy Mabrey breathed the words through his teeth as he looked up from the long bed of the tractor trailer where he was shuffling freshly dug young trees into place, their roots encased in big balls of canvas-covered dirt. He stopped what he was doing, standing completely still, staring off in the direction of the road, toward Walker's Fruit Stand.

Billy Bob, operating the loader that was lifting the trees up to the flatbed, finally twisted to see what had stopped Jimmy's labors. He wiped the sweat out of his face, hardly able to see out of his steamy aviator sunglasses.

But he saw enough.

He nearly went through the roof of the loader.
What was she doing here?

The girl who had just climbed out of the Cadillac was tall. She wore cuffed red shorts, and even at this distance, Billy Bob could tell her feet were bare.

She had on some kind of swingy white top that ended at her waist, sleeveless and low necked, revealing more smooth, tanned skin.

"Good Lord," said Jimmy. "Wonder what color her eyes are behind them glasses?"

"Brown," snapped Billy.

"I say blue. I'm partial to blue. But with legs like that, who cares." His tone was reverential.

"Better close your mouth," Billy advised the seventeen-year-old. "You'll catch flies." He swung out of the loader.

"Where you goin'?" Jimmy hollered after him. "To see what Trouble wants, that's what. Keep working"

"Someday I'm gonna be the boss," Jimmy murmured to himself. Shiloh.

Why?
She'd never come to Seven Knobs before. Was it because he'd made a fool of himself last night and she wanted to rub it in today?

The tall, slender man looked like an advancing dark cloud, Shiloh thought in apprehension, but she kept looking at the fruit baskets displayed. The old man behind the long wooden rows of bushel baskets must be Billy's grandfather.

It was hard to tell what Billy was thinking. Like her, he had on dark glasses, and he was pulling off a pair of heavy gloves.

She jumped into the conversation first.

"I think I want a half a bushel of these," she told his grandfather hurriedly, pointing to yellow peaches splotched crimson by the sun.

"Mighty good choice," the old man told her cheerfully. "They're fresh and sweet."

"They look good." She raked her hair back, running her hand through the top.

"Here, Billy," said the old man, "seein' as how you beat all records gettin' up here from that field, you want to load them in this little lady's trunk?"

Billy didn't say a word. He just stood waiting while Grandpa got things sorted.

No shoes. She really didn't have on any shoes.

The shorts were not nearly as provocative as they could have been, but the feet were a different matter.

His pulse speeded up a little; he hoisted the basket.

"In the trunk, ma'am?" he asked without a flicker of recognition.

She still hadn't looked right at him. She was too scared to, but she nodded, then opened the car door, and pushed some button that made the trunk lid open.

Billy took his time placing the basket with its load of peaches. If she'd come to talk to him, she could come back here. She did.

This close he caught her sweet perfume.

"You must be havin' a party. All these peaches. Too many for you."

She swallowed. "I might have one. A party, I mean. Just for me and—and one other person."

His hands froze where he'd lifted them to shut the trunk.

"My father's in Jackson this weekend. And our housekeeper goes to her house next door and to bed at eight thirty every night."

Had he heard right? he wondered wildly.

Did he understand? Shiloh thought desperately. Maybe she'd done this all wrong.

He slammed the lid, fingers lingering on it. Grandpa was too close for him to grab her up and shake her.

"You better lock your doors if you're all by yourself." She looked right at him. "I will. All but one. The one in back beside the French doors." "For your friend."

She nodded, then nearly ran down the dusty road to slide in the car, bare feet and all.

His heart was pounding like a racehorse's, and no amount of water could quench his sudden thirst.

She had come after him. For the first time in his life, Shiloh had come to get him. Why?

"Well, what was her name?" Jimmy demanded as Billy climbed back in the loader.

"You were right, kid. It's Trouble."

Billy was fashionably late, not because he was trying to be but because he spent half an hour trying to get up the nerve to pull in the drive of the closest thing to a mansion that Sweetwater had.

He hoped he wasn't making a stupid mistake as he parked the truck in the paved turn-around in back and wondered what he was letting himself in for. Shiloh had shocked him with that come-on; he didn't know her these days.

He ignored the unexpected pang of disappointment and hurt, reminding himself that a man deserved something for his troubles, and he'd been itching to get his hands on Shiloh Pennington for too long.

But not this way.

He brushed the thought aside.

One light was on, behind the door she'd promised to leave unlocked.

Shiloh opened the door before he even rang the bell;

there was no point in pretending that she wasn't looking for him.

He loomed in the silent shadows, then spoke at last. "You better not open the door for just anybody. The big bad wolfs still on the prowl around these parts."

She had been so tense that his wry comment took her by surprise, then she laughed. "You ought to know."

Stepping back, she motioned him in, and after a second's wary hesitation, Billy entered.

He was determinedly casual in his T-shirt and jeans; so was she in the brightly colored madras skirt and blouse, and open-toed sandals.

"You found your shoes," he said ironically, and she flushed. "That's a shame."

Billy looked from her feet to the room. He'd only been in this house once, on the carpet for messing with the great one's daughter. This room was warm and soft, lit by one dim lamp and full of comfortable couches and reclining chairs. There were plants everywhere—red geraniums and ferns—and magazines, and a big-screen television. All along one wall ran French doors opening on to a hedged, shaded alcove in the dark garden beyond.

Not glamorous like the other room he'd seen, but splashed with a sort of well-heeled comfort that made him as uneasy as a high-buttoned shirt.

"You meant for me to come." It was half question, half statement.

"You know I did. Here, sit down. I made a drink—a fruit blend. Lots of peaches," Shiloh told him with a laugh. "You may not like it—no alcohol. I don't drink. But—"

"I don't drink much, either," Billy interrupted. "I don't like the taste of the stuff."

Shiloh said in surprise, "But I thought—"

"Not me. I
like to remember my fights."

He wondered if he was supposed to mention the fights. It seemed a little crude for this setting and this girl.

Her skin above the low round top glowed with a rich, warm sheen in the light of the lamp, and if he looked at her lips one second longer, he'd remember exactly how they felt last night.

Abruptly, he fumbled for the chain around his neck. "I've been thinking all afternoon about why you came out to the farm, and I reckon this is it."

But she caught his hand, and he went still, standing there with her hand over his at his throat.

"No, that's not it, Billy. I thought I wanted it back, but you can keep it."

Then she dropped her fingers, and her laugh was husky and nervous. "After all, why give it back now, after all the—the aggravation you've put me through?"

Billy shrugged, confused. "I don't know. Maybe I just wanted to yank you around some, the same way you were doing me. Sort of seemed like fair play."

"I've never yanked you around," she denied indignantly.

"No? Then what do you call what you were doing todav?" he demanded.

"That's different. I did that because I didn't know how else to get your attention."

"Oh, you got it all right. There's no red-blooded man in his right mind who wouldn't have noticed—and liked it."

"So, what are you so mad about, Billy?" "I'll tell you what. It was all a big tease, wasn't it? You got next to me last night, so you decided to do it again today. But now that I'm here, right where you wanted me, you've got your shoes on. Where's all that come-on now, honey?"

"That's not why I did it."

"That only leaves one other reason, Shiloh," he cut in, his eyes as blue as the flame in a hot fire as he dropped his gaze down over her.

She never flinched from his stare, and when he looked into her eyes again, they were straightforward and nearly defiant. But her cheeks burned red.

"That's not the reason, either, Billy," she said quietly. "There's one more."