“Oh, darling, of course we’ll be there. Is that all? Are you sure there isn’t something else I could do to help?”
“I think you’ve already done it,” Cherry said.
“Done what?”
“Taught me to believe in love again.”
“Oh, darling…”
Cherry saw the tears in her mother’s eyes and felt her throat tighten until it hurt. “I owe you so much… Mother.” She gave a sobbing laugh and said, “There, I said it. Mother. Oh, God, why did I wait so long?”
It had taken being a mother herself to understand the tremendous gift Zach and Rebecca had given her. She could hardly see Rebecca through the blur of tears, and when she blinked, she realized Rebecca had her arms open wide. She grasped her around the waist and held on tight.
Cherry refused her mother’s invitation to stay for dinner. “Billy and Zach—Daddy—aren’t comfortable enough around each other yet. I’d rather give them time to get to know each other better before we show up for supper.”
“All right. Whatever you think best. You can count on us to be in court tomorrow to support you both.”
“Thanks, Mother. That means a lot.”
“I wasn’t sure before that you were ready for marriage and all its responsibilities,” Rebecca said. “This visit has reassured me.”
“That I’m ready for marriage?”
“That you’re ready for whatever life offers. Be happy, Cherry. That’s all I can ask.”
Cherry smiled. “I’ll try, Mom.”
“Mom. I like that,” Rebecca said. “Mom feels even better than Mother.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Cherry agreed with a cheeky grin. “It does.”
CHERRY SPENT THE REST of the afternoon floating on air. She had never felt so confident. She had never been so certain that everything would turn out all right. Her youthful optimism remained firmly in place until Billy was late arriving home for supper. She waited an hour for him before she finally fed the girls and sent them upstairs to play.
She put a plate of food in the oven to stay warm while she cleaned up the kitchen. She still wasn’t worried. Billy had been late once or twice before when some work had needed to be finished before dark.
But sundown came and went without any sign of Billy.
Cherry told herself, as she bathed the twins, that there was probably some good reason for the delay. Maybe he was working hard to make up for the fact he would be in court all day tomorrow. Maybe the truck had broken down and he had needed to walk home.
Maybe he had an accident. Maybe he’s lying hurt or dying somewhere while you’ve been blithely assuming everything is fine.
Cherry silenced the voice that told her disaster had struck. Nothing could have happened to Billy. He was strong and had quick reflexes, and he knew the dangers of the kind of work he did. He was fine.
But he was very late.
Cherry read the girls two bedtime stories, thinking he would show up at any minute to tease and tickle them and kiss them good-night.
“Where’s Daddy?” Raejean asked when Cherry said it was time to turn out the light.
“Isn’t he coming home?” Annie asked.
“Of course he’s coming home. He just had some errands to run. As soon as he arrives, he’ll come and kiss you good-night. Go to sleep now.”
She turned out the light and was almost out of the room when Raejean whispered, “Is Daddy going away?”
Cherry turned the light back on. Both Raejean and Annie stared back at her with frightened eyes. Damn Mrs. Trask and her phone calls, Cherry thought. She crossed and sat beside Raejean and brushed the bangs away and kissed her forehead reassuringly.
“Your daddy isn’t going anywhere. He’ll be right here when you wake up in the morning.”
“Nana said Daddy might be going away,” Raejean confessed.” I don’t want him to leave.”
“Neither do I,” Annie whimpered.
“Oh, my dear ones,” Cherry said. She lifted a sobbing Raejean into her arms and carried her over to Annie’s bed, then slid an arm around each girl and rocked them against her. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine. Your Daddy’s not going anywhere. And neither am I.”
“Are you going to be our mother forever?” Annie asked.
Cherry was struck dumb by the question. She realized the folly of her promise that she wasn’t going anywhere. She and Billy had a temporary marriage. She had no right to presume he would want it to continue any longer than necessary to convince the court to let him keep his children.
She was forced to admit the truth to herself.
She didn’t want the marriage to end. She wanted to stay married to Billy. She wanted to be the twins’ mother forever. All she had to do was convince Billy to let her stay.
When he showed up. If he ever did.
“Why don’t we ask your daddy when he comes home if it’s all right with him for me to be your mother forever,” she answered Annie at last. “Would that be all right?”
“I guess,” Annie said. “If you’re sure he’s coming home.”
“I’m sure,” Cherry said.
That seemed to assuage the worst of their fear, and she managed to get them tucked in again. As she was turning out the light, Raejean said, “Cherry?”
“What is it, Raejean?”
“I don’t want you to leave, either.”
Cherry smiled. “Thanks, Raejean. That means a lot to me.”
She rose up on one elbow and said, “I’m sorry about spilling grape juice on the couch. You don’t think Daddy came home and saw it while we were gone and got really mad, do you?”
Her heart went out to the child. “No, Raejean, I don’t think it’s anything you did that’s making your father late getting home. I’m sure he’s been delayed by business. Go to sleep now. Before you know it, he’ll be waking you up to kiss you good-night.”
As she was closing the door, Cherry heard Annie whisper, “That’s silly. Why is Daddy going to wake us up to kiss us good-night?”
“So we’ll know he’s home, dummy,” Raejean explained scornfully.
“Oh,” Annie whispered back. “All right.”
Cherry headed downstairs hoping that Billy would arrive to fulfill her promise and waken the twins with a kiss.
As the night passed and he didn’t return, she began to worry in earnest. The worst thing was, she had no idea where he might have gone. She made up her mind to wait until midnight before she called the police to report him missing. That’s when the bars in town closed.
Not that she believed for one second that he had gone to a bar. Not with everything on the line the way it was. Not with everything he did subject to intense scrutiny in the courtroom. Not as determined as he was to keep custody of his children in the face of his mother-in-law’s clutching grasp for them.
She sat in the dark on the front porch step, waiting for him to come home. At five minutes before midnight she saw a pair of headlights coming down the dirt road that led to the house. Her heart began to pound.
Surely it was Billy. Surely it was him and not someone coming to tell her he had been hurt.
The vehicle was headed for the back of the house, moving too fast for safety. She ran through the house, turned on the back porch light and slammed her way out the back door. She was there when the pickup skidded to a stop.
When she saw it was Billy’s truck, she released a breath of air she hadn’t realized she had been holding. The relief turned quickly to anger when Billy stepped out of the truck and she saw his face. One eye was swollen almost closed and his lip had a cut on one side.
“You’ve been fighting!” She gasped as he began to weave his way unsteadily toward her. “You’re drunk!” she accused. “How could you, Billy? How could you?”
“I’m not drunk!” he said. “I’ve just got a couple of cracked ribs that are giving me hell.”
She quickly moved to support him. “What happened? Where have you been? Who did this to you?”
She fe
lt him slump against her. “Aw, Cherry, I don’t believe I let this happen. Not the day before I have to go to court. The judge’ll never understand.”
“Forget the judge. Explain this to me.”
“I went to town to get some supplies at the hardware store and ran into that Ray character, the one who took you to the prom.”
“Ray did this to you?” she asked incredulously.
“Him and three of his friends.”
“But why?”
“It doesn’t matter why. Or it won’t to the judge. All he’ll see is that I’ve been fighting again. Lord, Cherry, I hurt. Inside and out.”
“Come on in to the kitchen and let me bind your ribs,” Cherry said. “Maybe I can get the swelling down in your eye, so it won’t look so bad tomorrow.”
“Maybe I can say I’m sick and get a postponement,” Billy suggested.
“Is it possible the Trasks won’t find out about the fight? Did the police come?” she asked.
“They were there,” Billy said.
“But you weren’t arrested?” Cherry said. “That must mean something. I mean, that you weren’t at fault.”
“I wanted to fight, all right,” Billy said flatly. “And I’d do it again.”
“Don’t say things like that. You can’t keep getting into fights, Billy. Not if you want to keep custody of your girls. What could be so important it was worth risking your girls to fight about?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer her, but that could have been because he was too busy hissing in a breath as she administered antiseptic to the cuts on his face. She eased the torn shirt off his shoulders and saw the bruises on his ribs. They must have kicked him when he was down.
“Where have you been all night, if you weren’t in a bar somewhere drinking?” Cherry asked.
“I went to the stock pond to sit and think,” he said.
“While you were thinking, did it occur to you that I’d be worried,” Cherry asked archly.
“I’m sorry, Cherry. I lost track of the time.”
He sat stoically while she strapped his ribs. But the light had gone out of his eyes. He had already given up. He had already conceded the battle to Penelope.
“You aren’t going to lose tomorrow,” she said to him. “You can tell the judge a bull stomped you, or—”
Billy snorted. “Stomped on my eye? Forget it, Cherry. You know as well as I do that my fight with Penelope is over before it’s begun.”
“I refuse to accept that!” Cherry snapped back. “You’re a good father. You love your children, and you provide a stable home for them.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“What more can the judge ask?” Cherry demanded.
Billy reached up gingerly and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t know. You can believe there’ll be something Penelope can offer that I can’t.”
“There’s nothing she can give them that you can’t,” Cherry said fiercely. “And there’s something you can give them that no one else can.”
“What?”
“Love. A parent’s love. Don’t discount it, Billy. It’s a powerful thing.”
She saw the doubt in his eyes. He wanted to believe her, but he was afraid to let his hopes get too high. She lowered her lips to his, tender, as gentle as she had ever been. She brushed at the hank of hair that had fallen once more on his forehead. “You’re going to win, Billy. Believe it.”
He took her hand and pressed her palm against his lips. “Thanks, Cherry. I needed to hear that.”
But she saw he didn’t completely believe it. He believed this was the beginning of the end. He believed he was going to lose his children. That he was going to lose her. She could feel it in the way he clung to her hand.
She pulled herself free, unwilling to indulge in his despair.
“The girls were worried about you,” she said as she scurried around fixing an ice pack for his eye. “I promised them you would wake them up to kiss them good-night so they would know you got home all right.”
“I’ll go do that now,” he said, groaning as he got to his feet, the ice pack pressed against his eye.
“Don’t fall coming back downstairs,” she said.
He turned and looked at her. He was in no condition to make love to her, and for a second she thought he was going to refuse to come back downstairs and join her in bed. But he nodded his head in acquiescence.
“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Cherry hurried to finish her ablutions and ready herself for bed before Billy came to her room. The sexiest nightgown she owned was a football jersey, and she quickly slipped it over her head. She was naked underneath it.
She pulled the covers down and slipped under them to wait for him. She left the light burning, because she knew he liked to watch her as they made love.
It didn’t take her long to realize, once Billy entered her room and began undressing himself, that he needed help. She got out of bed and came to him, sick at heart at this reminder of the fight that might cost him his children.
She took her time undressing him, kissing his flesh as she exposed it. Shoulders. Chest. Belly. She sat him down and pulled off his boots and socks and made him stand again so she could unbuckle his belt and unzip his jeans and pull them off. By the time he was naked, he was also obviously aroused.
“Lie down,” she coaxed. “You’re hurt. Let me do all the work.”
She had never said she loved Billy in words. But she showed him with her mouth and hands and body. She eased herself down on his shaft, and when he arched his body into hers, said, “Lie still. I’ll move for both of us.”
She did, riding him like a stallion, never giving him a rest, until both of them were breathing hard and slick with sweat. She pushed him to the brink, brought him back, and took him there again. Until at last she rode him home.
He was already asleep, his breathing deep and even, by the time she slipped to his side, reached over to turn out the light, and snuggled against him.
“You’ll win, Billy,” she whispered into the darkness. “You have to win. Because I love you and Raejean and Annie. And I can’t bear to give you up.”
She felt his arm tighten around her.
At first she was terrified because she thought he must have heard her. Then she realized it was a reflexive move. He had reached for her in his sleep and pulled her close.
“You’re not going to lose me, Billy,” she murmured against his throat. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His body relaxed, and she closed her eyes to sleep.
CHAPTER TEN
THE DAY OF THE HEARING dawned fly-buzzing hot, as though to deny the cloud of disaster that loomed over their heads. In the bright sunshine Billy’s face looked even worse than it had the night before. His left eye was swollen nearly shut, and the myriad bruises had taken on a rainbow of colors—pink, yellow and purple. He walked stiffly up the courthouse steps, like an old man, an occasional wince revealing what even that effort cost him in pain.
Cherry had put on a simple, flowered cotton dress with a Peter Pan collar she often wore to church. It made her look every bit as young as she was. Billy was dressed in a dark suit that fit his broad shoulders like a glove and made him into a dangerous, imposing stranger.
The twins bounced along beside them in matching dresses and pigtails, chattering like magpies, excited by the prospect of going on a picnic after the court hearing was over. Cherry chattered back at them, putting on a cheery false front to prove she wasn’t as frightened as she was.
She and Billy had exchanged very few words since waking that morning, but their eyes had met often, communicating a wealth of information.
I feel awful.
I can see that. You look like you got stomped by something mean.
What if I say something wrong? What if I can’t convince the judge to let me keep my kids?
Everything will be all right.
What if it isn’t? What will I do?
I’m here for you, Billy.<
br />
I’m scared, Cherry.
So am I.
I’m glad you’re here with me.
He reached out to take her hand, clutching it so tightly it hurt, as they entered the courtroom. The instant the twins saw their grandparents sitting at a table at the front of the courtroom with two men dressed in expensive suits, they went racing down the aisle to greet them.
“Hi, Nana,” Raejean said, giving her grandmother a hug. Mrs. Trask wore a sleek designer suit that shouted wealth, her short-cropped, silvery-white hair perfectly coiffed.
“Hi, Grandpa,” Annie said, getting a sound hug from her grandfather. Mr. Trask sported a double-breasted wool blend suit, his pale blond hair cut short on top and trimmed high over his ears.
The adults exchanged not a word, but their eyes spoke volumes.
Animosity from Mrs. Trask.
Antagonism from Billy.
Anguish from Cherry.
“Raejean. Annie. Come sit over here,” Billy ordered.
Reluctantly the girls left their grandparents and came to sit beside Billy and Cherry across the courtroom.
Billy’s attorney had already suggested that Billy compromise with Mr. and Mrs. Trask and give them partial custody of the children. The lawyer had warned that with their duo of legal experts, the Trasks would very likely win full custody if Billy insisted on fighting them in court.
“Are you ready, Mr. Stonecreek?” Billy’s lawyer asked as Billy and Cherry joined him.
“I’m ready.” Billy knew his lawyer believed they were fighting a lost cause. But he wasn’t willing to give up his children without clawing for them tooth and nail.
Billy turned to find the source of a small commotion at the back of the courtroom. “Cherry, look.”
Cherry looked and felt tears prickle behind her eyes. Her whole family was trooping into the courtroom. Zach and Rebecca, Rolleen, Jewel, Avery, Jake, Frannie, Rabbit, and Colt. She knew what it meant at that moment to be part of a family. They were there for her.
“Thank you,” she mouthed.
Her mother smiled encouragement. Zach nodded. Colt grinned and gave her a thumbs-up, while Jewel mouthed back, “We’re with you, Cherry.”
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