by Sandra Brown
The thought of his arms going around her with love and protection caused her to press heavily on the accelerator. Why, she asked herself, had she waited this long to tell him the truth? Gary knew her better than anyone in the world. If she poured out her heart, surely he would see that she had been victimized. She would explain that her reticence had been an attempt to protect him from public scorn. Since he was being scorned anyway, her silence was no longer effective or necessary.
Why let Neal, Hutch, and Lamar have that much control over their lives? Gary and she were strong, young, and intelligent. Together, safe and secure in each other’s love, they could put this episode behind them, leave Palmetto forever, and build a future.
The thought of physical lovemaking was daunting. But Gary was tender. He would be patient until all her fears and reluctance were abolished.
She nursed no illusions that life from now on would be easy. She would be asking a lot of Gary. He would have to be willing to accept the unacceptable. Which he would, if he loved her enough—and she had to believe that he did. He was dating someone else, but each time she had seen him, before he had a chance to slip on his mask of indifference, Jade had read in his brown eyes a painful yearning that matched her own. Focusing on that gave her courage as she sped through the twilight.
Lit from the inside, the windows of the Parker house made it look like a snaggle-toothed jack-o-lantern. Jade saw Mrs. Parker peer through the kitchen window when she heard the car pull up and stop. Since it was a warm, balmy evening, Gary’s younger brothers and sisters were still outside, playing in the yard. Otis was driving a tractor toward the house from across a field.
Jade alighted, surprised to discover that her knees were weak. It was silly to get this nervous over seeing Gary. He had been as hurt as she by their breakup. She clung to the hope that he would be as eager to reconcile.
Mrs. Parker waved at her from behind the screened kitchen window. “Jade, where’ve you been keeping yourself? I haven’t seen you in ages!”
“I know,” she said, smiling for the first time in months and hugging Gary’s little sisters. At least his family was willing to take her back. “I’ve missed all of you so much.”
“Guess what, Jade? Joey finally learned to pee in the potty.”
“How wonderful!”
“But he still has to wear diapers sometimes.”
“I know how to skate now, Jade.”
Jade reacted to each piece of good news, making much ado over the trivialities that were so important to them. “Where’s your big brother?” His car was there, so she knew he was around somewhere.
“He’s in the barn.”
“Mama told him to slop the hog before supper.”
“Well, I’d like to go see him now.” Jade gently moved the children aside.
“Are you staying for supper?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“Mama,” one of the boys shouted toward the house, “can Jade stay for supper?”
Jade waved at Otis as she crossed the yard, being careful of where she stepped. Otis removed his hat and waved it high over his head in greeting. She was encouraged by the warm reception Gary’s family had given her. Either they hadn’t heard the rumors about her or had refused to believe them.
“Gary? Gary?” She stepped through the wide doors, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness as they scanned the cavernous barn. The scent of hay was strong. “Gary, say something,” she said, laughing nervously. “Where are you? What are you doing in here in the dark?”
He wasn’t doing anything—except swinging at the end of the rope by which he had hanged himself from the rafters.
Chapter Eight
Atlanta, 1981
Dillon Burke, lying on the hotel bed wearing only his tuxedo trousers, idly plucked at his chest hair while gazing at the bathroom door, waiting for his bride to emerge. He was feeling more than a little drunk, although he had had only one glass of the champagne that had flowed so freely during the wedding reception that Debra’s parents had held. The Newberrys were drinking Baptists. Because they contributed so generously to their church, the minister had looked the other way when the magnums were uncorked.
Dillon, however, was drunk on love and happiness. He smiled, recalling how Debra had sloshed champagne on his hand when they hooked arms and toasted each other. Unmindful of their audience, she had flirtatiously licked it off.
His grandma had always advised him to find himself a Baptist girl. “They’re righteous girls for the most part,” she had said, “but they’re not burdened by guilt like the Catholic girls are.”
In Debra’s case, Granny Burke had been right. Debra’s moral fiber was as durable as belted steel, but she was an extremely sensual creature. From her large, noisy family, she had learned to express affection openly, without shame or timidity.
Dillon was impatient for some of that unreserved, unselfish love now. Thinking about it had aroused him. The rented trousers had become uncomfortably tight. He left the bed and moved across the plush carpeting to the window, which afforded a panoramic view of downtown Atlanta. It was dusk; lights all over the city were twinkling on. He drew a contented breath that expanded his broad chest. God, life really could be grand. His was. He had had a rocky beginning, but good fortune was finally catching up with him.
Hearing the bathroom door open, he turned around and saw Debra standing in a pool of golden light. Her blond hair formed a translucent halo around her head. As she moved toward him, her breasts swayed with fluid enticement against the front of her ivory silk nightgown. With each step she took, the sexy fabric briefly molded to and delineated the delta between her thighs.
He drew her against him and kissed her with unchivalrous fervor, pressing his tongue between her parted lips—and tasted mouthwash.
“What?” Debra asked softly when she felt his smile against her lips.
“Did you gargle?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. After I brushed my teeth, which I did as soon as I got out of the bathtub.”
“You bathed?” he asked, nuzzling her warm, fragrant neck.
“I think it’s customary for brides to bathe before presenting themselves to their husbands.”
“Do you want me to shower?”
“No.” She sighed, tilting her head to one side so he would have better access to her throat. “I don’t want you to do anything except what you’re doing.”
He chuckled. “Bet you do.”
He lowered his hands to her breasts and slid his knuckles back and forth across the tips until they were distended. “See? I was right.” Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her against him and kissed her passionately. When he finally raised his head, he said, “I love you, Debra.”
He had loved her almost from the moment he first saw her. They had met the first day of the fall semester at Georgia Tech. As seniors, they were enrolled in an advanced English course. Dillon was taking it as an elective. For Debra, a language major, the course on the origin of English was required.
After the first few words out of the effeminate professor’s mouth, Dillon figured he would have to go through the hassle of getting a schedule change. He didn’t think he could stomach three hours of the professor’s nasal intonations each week for an entire semester.
Then Debra rushed in, five minutes late, blond hair windblown, cheeks rosy with embarrassment, apologetic for not being able to locate the classroom, and breathless from the exertion of running up two flights of stairs.
Dillon fell in love and lust instantly.
After class, he elbowed his way through the other students in pursuit of the one who had changed his mind about a schedule change. “Hi,” he said, falling into step beside Debra Newberry. He had memorized her name when she gave it to the professor, who had been peeved over her interruption.
She looked up at Dillon with eyes the color of the Caribbean. “Hi.”
“Do you belong to anybody?”
They had reached the stairs. She st
opped and turned to face him. “Excuse me?” Propelling her backward so they wouldn’t cause a bottleneck, Dillon repeated his question. “I belong to myself,” she replied in a manner that would have made Gloria Steinem proud.
“No steady boyfriend, husband, or significant other?”
“No. Although I can’t see what business that is of yours.”
“I was getting to that. Would you like to go to bed with me?”
“I don’t know. Would I?”
She could have ignored him and simply marched downstairs. She could have gotten mad and slapped his face. She could have taken affront and given him a lecture on sexism. Instead, her reaction was just what he had hoped for—short of total capitulation, of course. She had turned the joke on him. He had asked the question with such an engaging grin that she couldn’t possibly have taken offense.
With very few exceptions, women liked his looks. Dillon modestly acknowledged this because, after all, he had had nothing to do with his handsome face. Genetics was responsible. He had always taken his hazel eyes for granted, but women seemed to think that the gold flecks in them were unusual and intriguing. They claimed to envy his long black eyelashes and the way his brown hair got sun-streaked in the summer.
When Debra gave him a once-over, for the first time in recent memory Dillon really cared what a woman thought of his looks. Apparently she found them pleasing and worth flirting with. Instead of going to bed, they settled on having coffee together and were almost finished with their second cups before she got around to asking him his name. From the beginning, it hadn’t mattered.
It was Thanksgiving Day before they went to bed together. They had been seeing each other exclusively, their dates usually ending with steamy necking and manual stimulation. With tremendous self-control, Dillon had restrained himself from even asking for more.
That afternoon, following an enormous Thanksgiving feast, they were in the Newberrys’ kitchen cleaning up when Debra said, “Dillon, let’s make love.” He wasted no time in hustling her out of the house, which was crowded with kinfolk, and drove her to the nearest motel.
“You should have told me you were a virgin,” he whispered afterward.
Seeing the uncertainty on his face, she nestled closer to him. “I didn’t want you to think I was a freak.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?”
“That you won’t respect me in the morning?” she asked impishly.
“No. It means we’ve got to get married.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
They postponed it for seven months, so that they could graduate first and because Debra had always dreamed of having a traditional June wedding. Besides, it took that long to make arrangements for a five-hundred-guests affair.
Now that the pomp of the ceremony was over, Dillon swept his bride into his arms and carried her to the bed, laying her down gently. “Don’t you want me to take this off?” she asked, touching the front of her nightgown.
“Not yet. You probably paid a fortune for it. You should get to wear it longer than forty-five seconds. Besides,” he added, “I like the way it feels.”
He skimmed his hand over her belly as he kissed her receptive mouth. Beneath his large hands, she felt like a doll with movable parts that were always willing to be positioned just so. He never took advantage of her eagerness to please, and he was always careful not to hurt her. He was mindful not to press too hard now as his hands sandwiched her narrow ribcage and pulled her belly up against his face. He kissed it through the slithering fabric.
“Hmm,” she moaned when he laid her back against the pillows. “Love me now, Dillon.”
“I am.” Though his erection was so full it was painful, he didn’t want their first lovemaking as man and wife to be hasty and unremarkable. He had waited all his life to feel a oneness with another person. Debra was that person. The occasion must be solemnized properly.
Aligning his fingers with her ribs, he used his thumbs to stroke the undercurves of her breasts, then whisked their small centers. The silk layer between his flesh and hers only heightened the pleasure he derived from the caress and the degree of her response.
Reacting to her whispered appeal, he scooped one breast from her loose neckline and took the nipple between his lips. He sucked it rhythmically, then worked erotic magic with his tongue.
“Dillon, please…”
His hand slid into the vee of her thighs. She angled her hips upward and rubbed her mound against the heel of his hand. He probably could have withstood that if she hadn’t unfastened his trousers and freed his erection. “Christ,” he hissed as she rolled the ball of her thumb over the sensitive tip.
As a result, the consummation of their marriage took place with him still in his tuxedo trousers and her in her negligee. It wasn’t until afterward that they lay naked, entwined on the wide bed, their desire only momentarily sated.
“I have the most beautiful husband in the whole world.” Debra was sprawled across his chest, caressing it with her open mouth and nuzzling her nose in the springy hair.
“Beautiful?” he said skeptically. “Hardly.”
Stubbornly she shook her head. “Beautiful.” She kissed one of his nipples and laughed when he grunted with pleasure.
“I’ve corrupted you. Before you met me, you were a nice girl,” he teased.
“That was before I knew what I was missing.”
Once she had accepted his marriage proposal, Dillon allowed himself to believe that she might truly love him, though she had professed it countless times. It was too good a fortune to befall him. He didn’t deserve someone as beautiful and unspoiled as Debra Newberry. He hadn’t earned the unqualified acceptance of her family. His distress over it had eventually sparked an argument.
In the middle of the quarrel, Debra had demanded, “What terrible secret are you afraid I’ll discover that’ll make me stop loving you?”
“I’ve got a record,” he had blurted. “Do you think your parents will want a son-in-law who’s done time?”
“I won’t know what to think until you tell me about it, Dillon.”
His parents had been killed when he was eight years old. “They were on their way to pick me up from summer camp. It was one of those freak highway accidents. A trailer truck jackknifed. Their car ran under it.”
Because there was no one else to take him, he had been placed in the custody of his father’s mother. “Granny Burke did her best, but I was an angry kid. Up till the time my mom and dad were killed, everything was okay. Dad was a good provider. Mom was attentive and loving. It didn’t seem fair to them or to me that they should be killed.
“I started making trouble at school. My grades went to hell. I resented Granny for trying to take my parents’ place, although, in hindsight, I realize what a tremendous burden I was to her at that time in her life. Eventually, I realized that this was the fate I’d drawn and that I had just as well make the best of it. For a few years, everything was fine.
“Then, when I was fourteen, Granny got sick. She had to go to the hospital. When I asked how serious her illness was, the doctors gave me a lot of bullshit about trusting in God’s will. That’s when I realized that my grandmother was going to die, too. To her credit, she told it to me straight. ‘I’m sorry to leave you alone, Dillon,’ she said, ‘but it’s out of my hands.’
“After she died I was placed in a foster home. I hated it. There were five kids besides me. I kept hearing about a war in a place called Vietnam, but it couldn’t have been anything like the fighting that went on in that house, especially between the couple. I saw him hit her more than a few times.
“The day I turned sixteen, I split. I figured that living on my own would be better than staying in the foster home. There was supposed to be a trust fund waiting for me, but I was given the runaround about that until I figured that someone, probably the foster parents, had gotten hold of it. I considered that nothing more than a minor setback. I was certain I could make it on my own, bu
t of course I couldn’t—not without stealing to keep myself from starving.
“Eventually I got busted and was sent to a ‘farm for troubled boys,’ which is a euphemism for jail. From the day I got there, I devised plans to escape. I tried it twice. The second time, one of the guidance counselors beat the crap out of me.”
“How dreadful,” Debra murmured sympathetically.
Dillon gave her a grim, lopsided grin. “At first I thought so, too. Later, he explained that before anything he had to say could sink in, he had to get my undivided attention.
“He told me that I had been dealt a pretty shitty hand all right, but that how I played the cards was up to me. I could either continue getting into trouble until I ended up in prison for life, or I could turn things around and start making circumstances work in my favor.”
“Obviously you took his advice.”
“I earned my high school diploma in that place. When I got out, he arranged a job for me at the public utilities company, drafting schematics and such. It paid for my college tuition and lodging. You know the rest.”
Debra gazed at him with mild annoyance. “That’s it? That’s the extent of your sordid, secretive past?”
“Isn’t it enough?”
“Dillon, you were a child. You made a few mistakes.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “I haven’t been a child since I was eight years old and learned that my parents had been decapitated. Since then I’ve been accountable for everything I’ve done.”
“Okay, so some of your mistakes were more serious than standard and the consequences of them more severe. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve risen above the errors of your youth. I’d like to meet that counselor and personally thank him for setting you straight.”
“I wish you could meet him, too. Unfortunately, shortly after I left, another kid knifed him during a counseling session, then stood by and watched while he bled to death. So,” he had summarized, “I don’t have anybody to invite to this fancy wedding your mother is planning.”
“You’ll be there,” Debra had said as she embraced him. “And since you make me so happy, that’s all that matters to my family.”