Southern Gentlemen: John Rip PetersonBilly Ray Wainwright

by Jennifer Blake

  “Therapy. I just want to set something to rights. And I can’t tell you how good it feels to jerk weeds out of the ground and banish them to the compost pile.”

  “Honey, I don’t have a compost pile.”

  “You will by the time I’m finished. A big sucker of a compost pile. Barn-sized.”

  “Um…Are you going to leave a plant or two?”

  “You’ll love it.” She cocked her head. “Tell me you don’t mind?”

  Mind? Did he mind Carolina using his front garden as a pressure valve for more stress than anyone deserved? Did he mind Carolina at his house, pursuing a project that could take years? Decades?

  “You do whatever you want, any time you want to. My neighbor up the road wants to bushhog the whole thing and plant corn.”

  She slapped her hands on her hips. “He’ll have to answer to me!”

  “My daddy used to come out here every night when he wasn’t off drinking. I’d find him on his hands and knees talking to the plants. The garden was always more than he could handle, but I think it kept him from taking his own life.” He shook his head. “Taking it all at once, anyway.”

  “He must have been quite a man. He had a vision. I can see it, even if he never quite achieved what he wanted here.”

  “Do you want me to stay and help?”

  “Honestly? No. I’d like to be alone.”

  He understood perfectly. “Good, then I’ll make dinner.”

  “Please, don’t go to much trouble. I’m not really very hungry.”

  “I promise.”

  She flashed him a grateful smile; then she lowered herself to the blanket she’d spread to protect her dress and returned to pulling weeds.

  Half an hour later she appeared at his front door, hot and bedraggled, but still incredibly lovely. “Can I come in?”

  “You’d better believe it.” He swung open the screen door, and she brushed past him, the hem of her skirt tickling his knees provocatively. “Doing better?”

  “There aren’t enough weeds in the world to cure what’s wrong with me, but that helped.” She headed straight for the downstairs bathroom. “I’m going to freshen up, then I’ll help with supper.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s almost finished.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “You haven’t seen it yet.”

  She gave him the first real smile of the day.

  Back in the kitchen, he put the finishing touches on their omelet and slid it under the broiler to brown. Then he ladled fruit cocktail into bowls and popped the handle on the toaster.

  By the time Carolina joined him, the meal was on the table.

  “This looks great.” She brought the coffeepot to the table, as casually as if they’d been fixing meals together forever. “Cream but no sugar, right?”

  He felt a surge of warmth that she’d noticed. Sometimes the small details were the ones that seemed most important. The unconscious intimacies. The unspoken affirmations.

  He watched her pour. “And you take toast with no butter. Only a little jam,” he said.

  She set the pot on the table. “That’s Gloria’s doing. She’s conscientious, if nothing else. When I lived with the Graysons, she made sure I never had to wrestle with demon fat grams.”

  “I’ll bet she didn’t serve omelets.”

  “I wonder what the children will have for supper tonight? She’ll let them have a little fat, of course. She understands they need it. But she’ll be certain it’s carefully measured. Champ couldn’t control his diet after he left home. I guess he was making up for all the things his mother never let him have—” She bit off the last word. “I don’t want to talk about Champ or Gloria. I’m sorry.”

  “They’re on your mind tonight. Understandably.”

  “Kitten didn’t want to go.” Carolina looked up from her plate. She still hadn’t taken a bite. “I had to force her, Billy. When she’s with them, she has to be someone she’s not. The pressure’s too much.”

  “Kids can handle a lot of pressure. And at the evening’s end, she comes home to you.”

  “For how long?”

  He put his napkin back beside his plate and rose. Then he circled the table and held out his arms. “Come here.”

  She was against his chest in seconds. “I’m sorry!”

  He stroked her hair. It was fine and soft under his fingertips, and even though he was there to comfort her, something altogether male and sexual engaged inside him. “It’s all right. If you need to cry, cry.”

  “I need to scream!”

  “You can do that, too. Just give me a chance to plug my ears.”

  “You’re so good to me!”

  He wanted that to be enough, but it wasn’t. He wanted to believe he was a better man than he was, because being needed by Carolina was more than he’d ever expected. But his body was coming to life against hers. In a moment his reaction would be no secret.

  He moved away and held her at arm’s length, as if he needed to see her face. “Being good to you is no hardship.”

  “Do you know what bothers me?”

  He told himself to be patient, that she needed a friend tonight. “What?”

  “That I’ve found you again, but our time together revolves around my situation.” She said the words forcefully, as if she was expelling them from deep inside her.

  “Your situation is very complicated.”

  “Billy, I don’t want the custody issue to be all there is between us. But that’s the way it is. You’ve been beaten within an inch of your life. You’ve lost your best friend. Your practice is going to suffer—we both know the judge will see to that. I’m just somebody who’s making your life harder. I’m a burden, when I want to be more.”

  His heart was beating faster. He told himself that Carolina was so badly in need of support that she was interpreting her own gratitude as something else.

  He spoke slowly, carefully. “You’re not a burden. I want to help you. As for the rest of it, we can take everything a step at a time.” He was being reasonable, responsible. He was taking care of her, the way he had always taken care of the people in his life.

  He wanted to sweep her into his arms and kiss away everything that lay between them.

  “I’ve taken my whole life one step at a time, playing by everybody else’s rules. Do you know where that’s gotten me? One step closer to nowhere!” She shook off his hands, a gentle but uncompromising flick of her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. You’re going to start believing everything the Gray sons say about me.”

  “No chance of that.”

  “Just tell me this. Do you have any feelings for me? I know we’re friends, and I know you’re concerned. I even know that once upon a time you thought you loved me. But we were kids, Billy Ray. And we’re not kids anymore.”

  “I don’t think either of us can talk accurately about feelings right now, Carolina.”

  “Oh, I can. I want you. That’s one of those feelings that just can’t be denied. I look at you and I go all soft inside, like everything I am is melting and running together. Used to be I just wanted to be with you, that I felt whole when we were together, and I liked the way I felt when you kissed me. But that was a long time ago. And both of us are all grown up now, with grown-up needs.”

  He could think of a thousand reasons to speak, but none of them was as compelling as his need to kiss her. Before her last words died away, she was crushed against his battered chest, held securely in his black-and-blue arms. Her lips were soft against his and as familiar as a daydream.

  She broke away just long enough to speak. “Don’t do this because you think I need you.”

  “Feel how much I need you,” he said, pressing his hips against hers and holding her tightly against him. “I’m not a saint, Carolina. I couldn’t make love to any woman as a public service.”

  Her answer lay somewhere between a laugh and a moan. He had remembered how it felt to kiss her, but he had never felt
her body squirming unsatisfied against his. Sensations burst inside him like skyrockets. He silenced the inner voice that pointed out she was a passionate woman starved for love, that no one had touched her this way for a very long time. It was enough that she trusted and desired him.

  Well, nearly enough.

  “Will dinner keep?” She kissed him again before he could answer. She slanted her lips a different way and moaned softly when his opened under them.

  “I don’t care.” He ground out the words like the final prayer of a dying man. A lifetime of restraint dissolved around him. He could no more turn away from her than he could turn back time. This was inevitable, and had been since the kiss they had shared in his driveway.

  He found the zipper at the back of her dress and inched it down. Under his palm her skin was warm and smooth, and it seemed to heat as he touched it. His fingertips grazed the side of her breast under a satin bra. He lifted the bra higher, releasing her breast, and felt the warm soft mound tighten under his hand.

  Her breath caught. She found the buttons of his shirt, as if to hurry him along, jerking them out of the buttonholes. She continued to kiss him all the while, as if she couldn’t bear to end that intimacy. He had vague thoughts of sweeping her off her feet and carrying her upstairs, but he was still weak. And the bedroom seemed far away.

  “I love your sofa.” She whispered the words, a veiled plea, against his lips.

  He knew what she wanted. In its last incarnation, the blue velvet sofa might very well have suffered the same fate.

  “Carolina, this is happening so fast….”

  “It’s twelve years later than it should be.”

  His hand closed around her breast, and he couldn’t be a good guy any longer. They were adults, and they wanted each other with a fierce hunger. They could deal with the results of this. They could work out anything.

  The last button gave on his shirt. Her sundress slid down her arms and pooled on the floor at her feet. He reached for the clasp on her bra.

  A knock at the front door rattled through the house.

  Billy Ray closed his eyes, his breathing harsh and uneven. “Who in the hell?”

  “Billy Ray? Are you in there?”

  He recognized his grandfather’s voice. Apparently so did Carolina. She made a sound like glass crashing to the floor.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

  She had already moved away and was bending to retrieve and zip the dress. “You don’t have to tell me.

  “I have to answer it.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Maybe the Fates are trying to tell us something.” He jerked his shirt closed and buttoned it with one hand as he tucked it into his pants with the other.

  “Sure. Maybe we’re supposed to wait another twelve years.”

  He called to Joel. “Come on in. I’ll be right there.” Then he looked down at Carolina. “Are we going to listen to them?”

  She lifted her chin resolutely. “I want you, Billy. I know you don’t trust it yet. Not completely. But I want you. And I’m not going to let anybody, not the Gray-sons, not the Fates, tell me what’s good for me! Never again. I’m a big girl. I know my own mind.”

  “It wasn’t our minds talking just now, Carolina.”

  “No, it was every part of me talking.” She touched his face. He was surprised to see that her eyes were filled with tears. “All of me, Billy. Please believe it.”

  8

  With Billy Ray at her side, Carolina waited in the Graysons’ hallway for Kitten and Chris. He had volunteered to get the children with her, and she had gratefully accepted, although she knew she shouldn’t involve him any further in her struggle with her inlaws.

  Gloria escorted the children through the family room and out to meet her. Carolina stooped, and Chris ran screeching delightedly into her arms. Kitten was more subdued, but she hugged Carolina hard, as if she really hadn’t been sure her mother would return.

  “What did you do today?” Carolina asked Kitten, trying for a semblance of normalcy. “Did you play with your dolls?”

  “I don’t like dolls.”

  “She refused to play with any of her toys.”

  Carolina rose with Chris in her arms to face her mother-in-law. “Did she?”

  “I’ve bought lovely dolls for Catherine. Some of them are very expensive. Now she claims she doesn’t like dolls.”

  Except for the fashion doll Champ had given her, Kitten had never really liked dolls, a fact Gloria had refused to recognize. Carolina tried to smooth the waters. “Children go through phases, Gloria. I’m sure she’ll enjoy them another time.”

  “I like running and jumping. I like putting stuff together!” Kitten launched herself at Billy Ray, who caught her just in time and swung her into his arms.

  Gloria raised an eyebrow. “If you ask me, she’s doing too much running and jumping. She hardly sat still for a moment.”

  “She’s an active little girl.” Carolina was about to turn away when she realized something she never had before. Her mother-in-law, the ice queen of Moss Bend, was hurt. She had bought Kitten expensive toys as a way to show her love, but Kitten had spurned them.

  For the good of her children Carolina swallowed her own anger, reaching out to Gloria in the only way she could. “You know, Kitten loved that craft kit you bought for her last summer. Remember? The one with the beads and wire for stringing necklaces? She’s wonderful with her hands. She had so much fun with it Maybe next time they visit you could find something like that to do together.”

  For a moment Gloria looked as if she was going to decline the suggestion. But clearly Carolina had just traveled the extra mile, and the breeding Gloria was so proud of demanded that she be gracious in return. “Thank you,” she said stiffly. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Next time they visit?” Judge Grayson appeared in the family room doorway. “Do you think because of your…generosity today, we aren’t going to pursue custody?”

  Before Carolina could remind him that he was going to upset the very children he claimed to be trying to protect, his wife turned to him. “We will not discuss this now, Whittier. Do you understand?”

  In all the months she had lived in this house, in all the time she had been required to spend with her inlaws, Carolina had never heard her mother-in-law stand up to the judge.

  Whittier’s sunken eyes blazed, but he disappeared back into the family room. Gloria waited until he was gone. “Neither of the children ate a decent supper. You’ll want to feed them again before bedtime. Something healthy.”

  Carolina didn’t know what to say. Certainly not “thank you.” She wasn’t quite up to that; besides, it wouldn’t be appreciated. She settled on the obvious. “I’ll bring them at the same time next Wednesday.”

  Gloria nodded, then, without saying goodbye to anyone, she started off down the hall.

  Outside, Billy Ray set Kitten on her feet, and she scampered toward his car. Chris struggled to get down, and Carolina put him on the ground to follow his sister. “You’ll want to feed them again before bedtime,” Billy said in a perfect, tongue-in-cheek imitation of Gloria. “Something heal-1-l-thy.”

  Carolina giggled. She was so relieved to be safely away from the Graysons that she felt twenty pounds lighter and twenty years younger. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “I was thinking ice cream.”

  “Exactly!”

  He took her hand, sliding it inside his with an ease and familiarity that sent warm shivers down her spine. She walked beside him to the car, basking in the glow of his unspoken support. They seemed like a real family, going out together for a treat.

  But they weren’t a real family. For a moment she could only think of the poor choices she’d made in her life. Then Billy Ray squeezed her hand, and she realized that the days of poor choices were over.

  At the corner table in Moss Bend’s newest icecream parlor, Billy Ray watched Kitten and Chris gobbling mounds of ice cream. Carolina had wisely insist
ed that theirs be put in bowls with the cones perched on top. He could just imagine Chris, cone in hand, ice cream all over the front of his playsuit.

  The little boy grinned up at him, as if hoping for a grin in return. Chris looked a little like his father, a fact that had perturbed Billy Ray at first. But right now Chris looked more like his mother. He had Carolina’s eyes and chin, as well as her smile. Above and beyond family resemblances, he was Chris, and Kitten was Kitten. Billy Ray was fast falling in love with them.

  In the past few days he had admitted to himself that he had never fallen out of love with the children’s mother. He could admit that to himself now, although the love had gone underground for more than a decade. He didn’t believe in soul mates. Yet he didn’t know how else to explain the connection he felt to Carolina, the sense of lightness when he was with her, the need to become part of her. The last went beyond sex. He wanted her. Oh, yes, he wanted her in every possible way, and tonight had proved it beyond a doubt. Sexual frustration had reached new and painful heights. But most of all, he wanted to be with Carolina forever.

  “Grandpa got mad at me.” Kitten waved her spoon, ice cream dribbling down her chin. “He said I was bad. I told him I wasn’t. Just a ‘vidual.”

  “A ‘ vidual?” Billy Ray grinned. “Who told you you were a ‘vidual, sugar?”

  “Mommy says I’m a ‘vidual.”

  “In-di-vidual. Close enough.” Carolina reached over and wiped her daughter’s chin. “And so you are.”

  “He was mad ‘cause I didn’t want peas.”

  “Peas…” Billy Ray made a face as if he were strangling. “Peas!” He wrapped his hands around his throat.

  Kitten laughed out loud, banging her spoon on the table in emphasis.

  “You two ‘viduals are going to get us kicked out of here.” But Carolina smiled. “Kitten, it’s great to be an individual. Just be sure you know what’s worth standing up for and what’s not.”

  “Yeah. Peas are worth a fight,” Billy Ray said when Kitten looked confused. “But chocolate cake, now. Fighting over chocolate cake’s not worth the time of day.”