A Time to Keep

by Rochelle Alers

  Gwen, waiting until she was seated and belted in Shiloh’s car, asked, “Why did you come for me?”

  Shiloh wanted to tell her he’d come because he’d missed her, that sleeping alone for the past three nights had been pure torture, that he he’d stayed up most nights watching movies in his hotel room, but decided to be truthful. There was no way he wanted his relationship with her to be based on lies.

  “My mother called and told me you were upset about something, and before you say anything about her meddling in our business I’m going to defend her. She sees you as a daughter, as she does with Nattie, and all she wants is for her children to be happy.”

  Reaching over, Gwen rested her left hand on his right thigh. “I’m not angry with your mother, Shiloh. Her calling you just hastened what my father wanted me to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Go home with you.”

  Shiloh took his eyes off the unlit road for several seconds. “I thought you were concerned what your folks would say if they found out we were living together.”

  “I’m sure they know we’ve been sleeping together, but what I don’t want to do is flaunt it in their faces.”

  Shiloh smiled. “I’m glad I’m marrying an old-fashioned girl.”

  She squeezed his knee. “Old-fashioned girls don’t live and sleep with their future husbands.”

  A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Think of me as a pair of shoes. Would you buy me without trying me on? Here’s another scenario. What if you entered a contest and one of the prizes was a pair of Manolo Blahniks in your size. Would you accept the shoes because you like the designer, or would you accept the lesser prize of a year’s supply of Spam?”

  “If I took the shoes and they didn’t fit, then I’d give them away.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Are you saying that if we didn’t make love until our wedding night and if I turned out to be a dud spud, then you’d trade me in for another man?”

  “No, darling,” she said softly. “If you were a dud spud, which you aren’t, I’d just have to teach you how to please me.”

  “Do I please you, Gwen?”

  “You have no idea how much you please me, in and out of bed.”

  Shiloh gave her another quick glance. “I think I do because I feel what you feel whenever we’re together. You complete me, darling.”

  There came another period of silence before Gwen said, “Daddy doesn’t want us to wait until the end of the year to marry.”

  “Why?”

  Gwen told Shiloh about her conversation with her father, how he helped make her see things differently, that there was no need for her to be so rigid when it came to following what she’d planned for her life.

  Shiloh slowed down as he neared the gatehouse. He pressed a button on the device under the visor, and the wooden arm swung up. Minutes later, he maneuvered into the driveway at the rear of his house and parked behind the Suburban. He turned off the headlights, but not the engine.

  “You want to change the date.” His query was a statement.

  She nodded.

  The cool air sweeping over his face and upper body failed to ease Shiloh’s anxiety. Gwen had become an enigma, her moods vacillating, and she was seemingly changing before his eyes. If he hadn’t seen her tears for himself he never would’ve believed his mother.

  He expelled an audible breath as he stared out the wind-shield. “When, darling?”

  “Next month.”

  “Next month,” he repeated. Shifting on his seat, he stared at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses. “Why?”

  Gwen glared at him. “You have the audacity to ask me why, Shiloh Harper.”

  “I need to know what’s up with you,” he spat out. “I told you that I wanted to marry you in June, but you wanted to wait until the end of the year. Now, you tell me you want us to get married next month.”

  “Do you or don’t you want to get married, Shiloh?”

  “Yes, baby, I do want to marry you.” His voice had softened considerably. Resting his right hand over her headrest, he leaned closer and pressed his mouth to her temple. “We can marry, but we won’t be able to take a honeymoon until later in the year. The vacation schedule at the station house is already in place, and I wouldn’t think of asking anyone to switch with me.”

  Gwen unbuckled her seat belt and wrapped her arms around Shiloh’s neck. “I don’t need a honeymoon as much as I want to be married to you,” she whispered close to his ear.

  “Okay. You pick the date, and I’ll show up.”

  Easing back, she stared at him staring back at her. “You think I’m losing it, don’t you?”

  A smile ruffled the corners of his mouth. “I have to admit I kind of like seeing you this way.”

  “You like me crazy?”

  “You’re not crazy, darling. This is the first since I’ve known you that you’re acting on what you feel in here.” He rested a hand over her heart. “Whenever we make love you let yourself go, and it’s only during that act I come to know who the real Gwendolyn is. It hasn’t always been that way out of bed. So, do I like what you’re showing me now? If it’s not you being in control, then yes. If it means spontaneity, then yes. And if it means we get to have each other for the rest of our lives, then it’s yes, yes, yes!”

  Gwen’s smile reminded him of the rising sun. “Let’s go inside before I jump your bones right here.”

  His left hand searched under the hem of her blouse, feathering up her rib cage. “Use me, abuse me, and I promise not to complain,” he whispered in singsong.

  She giggled like a little girl. “You may come to regret those words when I sop you up like a biscuit and molasses.”

  “I don’t think so, darling. And I’m willing to bet that you won’t be so smug when I drink you up like fine wine.”

  “Are you threatening me, darling?”

  “Oui, Mademoiselle.” Shiloh turned off the engine, then came around the car to assist Gwen, his arm looping protectively around her waist.

  “Will you teach our children to speak French?” she asked as he punched in the code to deactivate the security system.

  “No. Moriah can teach them French, because I don’t speak the language as well as I should.”

  “But, I heard you speak it.”

  “What you heard me speak is a French Creole dialect.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  Shiloh closed the door, resetting the alarm. “Not much. The primary pronunciation influence of Creole comes from the French spoken by slaves brought to Louisiana from Haiti. The result is that the Creole spoken today is a mix of seventeenth-century French and African tribal dialects. The Creole word for to buy is ashte, from the French word acheter. Coun in Creole means to go, which is very similar to the word courir in French.”

  Cradling Gwen’s face between his hands, Shiloh kissed the end of her nose at the same time Cocoa raced across the living room floor, her feet going out under her in her haste to greet them. Shiloh hunkered down and scratched the puppy behind her ears. “You’re going to have to sleep down here tonight because Mama and Daddy are going to be very busy, and we don’t want any interruptions.” Whenever he brought Cocoa upstairs, she had the habit of whining and scratching on the bedroom door until he opened it to let her in.

  Gwen rolled her eyes at Shiloh as she headed for the staircase. “I told you what was going to happen if you spoiled her. And if she scratches on the door tonight you get nada, nulla.” She paused on a stair. “How do you say nothing in French?”

  “Rien.”

  “Yeah, and that too,” she drawled, continuing up the staircase.

  Throwing back his head, Shiloh laughed as Cocoa yipped along with him.

  CHAPTER 16

  Gwen stole a surreptitious glance at her watch. If she didn’t leave within the next fifteen minutes she was going to be late for dinner at the Outlaw. She’d spent the past three hours with Shelby Carruthers’ mother, listening to the still-grieving woman exto
l the brains and beauty of her slain daughter, while revealing facts and details Gwen hadn’t been able to glean from the sheriff’s department and medical examiner transcripts.

  Janet Carruthers was eighty, a very old eighty. Her lank white hair was pulled into a single braid that reached her hips, and an ill-fitting faded housedress from another era hung loosely on her too-thin body.

  “Would you like to see my baby’s room, Miss Taylor?”

  Gwen wanted to say no, that she’d spent more time with her than she’d originally planned, and that she wanted to meet her family for dinner before going home and reviewing her notes on the cold case that had become an obsession.

  “Yes, I would, Mrs. Carruthers.”

  Rising from the chair at the kitchen table, she followed Janet out of the kitchen, down a narrow hallway and into a room at the rear of the house. Although neat and clean, the furnishings in the house were sorely outdated, the colors of olive green and orange predominating.

  The cell phone attached to Gwen’s waist vibrated. Reaching for it she flipped the top and read the number on the tiny screen. She had two missed calls: one from Shiloh and the other from her cousin Lauren. She would return the calls as soon as she finished her interview.

  Janet opened the door, then stood aside for Gwen to precede her into a space that had become a shrine to Shelby. Black-and-white photographs, fading local and high school newspaper articles were taped to every wall surface.

  The frilly cotton-candy pink canopy covering a white four-poster bed matched the bedspread. Everything in the room was either pink or white, which led Gwen to believe that pink had been Shelby’s favorite color.

  A collection of Nancy Drew mysteries lined a bookcase, along with other books and magazines. She read the spines of the magazines wrapped in clear plastic: Screen Gems, Photoplay, and Seventeen. Framed pictures from the movie magazines adorned one wall from ceiling to baseboard. She counted eight of Tab Hunter and six of Robert Wagner. There were too many of James Dean and Marlon Brando to count. There only a few Hollywood femme fatales: Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Wood.

  What drew her rapt attention were photographs of Shelby’s classmates. In each of them Shelby was very conspicuous because of her slender, curvy figure, long, silver-blond ponytail, sparkling sapphire-blue eyes, and infectious dimpled smile. It was apparent because of her natural beauty and outgoing personality the cheerleader and straight-A student had been selected as her graduating class prom queen.

  Gwen felt the hair stand up on the nape of her neck, followed by a rush of cold air. She shivered noticeably despite the heat. A sixth sense told her she was onto something, that intuitively the photographs either contained a clue or held the answer to the forty-two-year-old unsolved murder. She turned to find Janet staring at her with a strange expression on her face.

  Her blue eyes caught and held her gaze. “Is there something wrong, Miss Taylor?”

  “I don’t know, but I have a strange feeling that what I’m looking for is tied to these photographs. Do you happen to have a copy of your daughter’s yearbook?”

  “Yes…yes, I do,” she stammered as a rush of color swept over her pale face. “I kept all of my daughter’s things. I even found some letters that boys had written to her.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll take those, too. I promise that no one will see them. If I find something in those letters that might give the police a clue to link someone to Shelby’s murder, then I’ll let you know before I disclose the contents.”

  “Shelby’s gone and she’s not coming back, so whatever is in those letters can’t hurt her now. Losing my daughter destroyed my family. My husband started drinking when the police closed the case because of lack of evidence. He lost his job, and a month later he went out on his boat and put a bullet through his head. So, if you can find the bastard who killed my baby I know my Durant’s soul will finally rest in peace.”

  “I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll do my best to bring you some closure.”

  “You’re doing more than anyone has done in more than forty years.”

  Gwen wanted to tell the woman that she did not know why she’d become so intrigued with the cold case, but now that she’d opened the door to the past she had to see it to its conclusion.

  “I’m going to give you my cell phone number, so if you remember anything please call me. I don’t care how insignificant it may seem, I still want you to call me.”

  Janet nodded as she gathered the St. Martin Parish High School 1964 yearbook off a shelf, running her hand over the dusty cover. She picked up a shoebox, handing both to Gwen.

  “Thank you, Miss Taylor.”

  It was Gwen’s turn to nod. She hadn’t solved the case, but the fact that she had made an attempt was enough for the woman to feel a measure of gratitude.

  * * *

  Gwen pressed several buttons, activating her car’s cruise control before she pressed a button on her cell phone. Lauren answered with a friendly greeting.

  “I’m calling to tell you that I’ve changed my wedding date.”

  “Why, Gwen?”

  “I decided I didn’t want to wait until December to become Mrs. Shiloh Harper.”

  “Are you in the family way?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When will you know?”

  “In another week,” Gwen admitted.

  “You know there’s a new home pregnancy kit that will tell you if you are even before you miss your period.”

  “Ease up, Lauren. I’m not in that much of a hurry to find out whether I’m pregnant.”

  “You don’t sound too happy about this, cuz. What’s up?”

  “I had a heart-to-heart with my father last night, and I realize that I’ve stood in my own way when it came to personal happiness. I had a time for this and a time for that. And if what I planned didn’t work out, then I revised my plans over and over until I didn’t know what I wanted. I want to grow old with this man I find myself so in love with.”

  “I’ve never known you to talk like this, Gwendolyn.”

  “That’s because I’ve never felt like this, Lauren. When are the kids finished with summer camp?”

  “August 8. That’s on a Wednesday.”

  “Can you and your family come down that Saturday for a wedding?”

  “Of course we can. If you want I can take the kids out of camp early—”

  “No, Lauren. Let them finish the season. I’ve already selected my dress. What I’ll do is scan it and e-mail it to you. There’s a store in Boston that carries the designer’s gowns, so you should be able to find something similar to what I’m wearing. I’m going to ask Shiloh’s sister-in-law to be in the wedding party, which means I want Caleb as a groomsman. I want Drew, Kayla and Royce included, too.”

  “What is your color scheme?”

  “Pale pink and lime green.” They were her sorority colors.

  She told Lauren that Shiloh’s brother Ian who was to be the best man had offered to prepare the food for the reception which would be held at the newly restored Bon Temps. The plantation shutters were in place, the walls repapered with the patterns she’d selected, moldings were scraped and painted, along with walls and ceilings. All that remained was scraping the floors and applying polyurethane and painting the mansion’s exterior.

  “I can’t believe how much my life has changed since I’ve learned not to try and control what I can’t control.” Gwen glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Look, cuz, I’m going to have to end this call. I’ll call you either later tonight or tomorrow. And look for the dress whenever you go online.”

  She ended the call and pressed another button. “Hey you,” she crooned when she heard Shiloh’s voice.

  “Where are you?”

  The sparkle in her eyes faded as a frown creased her forehead. “Ex-cuse me.” There was no mistaking the sarcasm in the two words.

  There came a pregnant pause before Shiloh said, “Sorry about that. I called you more than
two hours ago and left a message for you to call me.”

  “I’m calling you back, Shiloh.”

  There was another pause, only the sound of his heavy breathing in her ear. “Look, baby. I’m not checking up on you, but when I called the house and Bon Temps and didn’t get an answer I sort of lost it.”

  “Who else did you call?”

  “Nash. I thought that maybe you’d gone in even though it’s not a day you’re scheduled to work.”

  “Did you say anything to my folks?”

  “No. I didn’t want to alarm them in case something had happened to you.”

  “What’s going to happen to me—” Her words trailed off when she heard a siren and saw a flash of lights in her rearview mirror. Her pulse accelerated when she realized she was being pulled over. “Shiloh, there’s a cop behind me. I swear I wasn’t speeding.”

  “Stop, then let me speak to him.”

  Signaling, she slowed, and pulled onto the shoulder. She’d lowered the driver-side window and had the cell phone out the window when the officer got out of his cruiser and approached her.

  “Sheriff Harper wants to speak to you,” she said, preempting whatever it was he wanted to say to her.

  The deputy took the phone and put it to his ear. “Yes, I found her. She appears to be all right, sir. You’ve got it.” He handed Gwen back her phone. “I want you to follow me, Miss Taylor.”

  “What for? Am I being arrested?”

  The deputy smiled and shook his head. “No, ma’am. But Sheriff Harper wants me to bring you in. He said if you resist, then I should bring you in the cruiser. It’s your choice, ma’am.” He touched the brim of his wide straw hat.

  “Mine!” she spat out like an impudent child.

  “Please follow me.”

  She sat motionless, teeth clenched, her hands clutching the steering wheel in a death grip, seething. Shiloh had used the power of his office to put out an APB—an all points bulletin—for her car. He was nothing more than a tyrant, despot and a bully.