“You’re still her father. She should have known you’d worry. Let’s split up, so we can do this faster,” Delia said.
Marsh was grateful for the respite from Delia’s probing questions. When he had realized Billie Jo wasn’t on the bus, he had been mad at first, thinking she was sulking somewhere, punishing him for getting her into trouble at school. Or maybe afraid of what he would do when he found out she had been in another fight.
As the daylight hours waned, his anger had faded and the worry had grown. What if something bad had happened to her? What if someone was hurting her right now? He had seen too much in his lifetime not to have a very vivid imagination.
He thought of all the ways he had failed Billie Jo as a father. Being gone so much overseas when she was little. Seeing her so seldom once he and Ginny were divorced. Sending a birthday card when he remembered, a Christmas card with money, but not a gift he had picked out himself. He thought of the promises he had made once upon a time about the kind of father he would be.
His kid would get lots of hugs. His kid would know he—except it had turned out to be a she—was loved.
He didn’t think he had touched Billie Jo since he had met her in Logan Airport in Boston after Ginny’s death. He had wanted to hug her. The forlorn teenager had looked like she needed a hug. But when he reached for her she had ducked under his arm and headed for the baggage carousel, muttering something about his luggage.
Since then, they had been two strangers living in the same house. He hadn’t known what to do to break down the barriers between them. He had no practice being a parent. He had no role model to follow.
That wasn’t precisely true. He could remember listening to his grandmother’s stories, being hugged by her, being tucked into bed by her.
But Billie Jo was sixteen. You didn’t tell stories to a sixteen—year—old or tuck her into bed. And she looked mortified every time he even hinted he might like to give her a hug.
Marsh leaned against the roof of a shiny red Ford Taurus with mag wheels and stooped down to speak to the teenage boy in the driver’s seat. “Have you seen Billie Jo North since school let out?”
“Naw. Is she in some kind of trouble?”
Marsh realized he might be creating more than a few problems for his daughter by asking about her like this. “No, just trying to locate her,” he said. “If you see her, tell her to call home.”
“Is there some kind of emergency?” the girl sitting next to the boy leaned over to ask.
“No, just looking for her.”
Marsh repeated the same questions up one side of the Sonic at a Ford Bronco, Chevy pickup, VW Bug, and ancient Ford Fairlane, while Delia went down the other side. They met at the walk-up order window.
“Any luck?” Marsh asked.
Delia shook her head. “No one’s seen her. Let’s go to Taco Bell and ask there.”
They repeated the same procedure at Taco Bell and McDonald’s and Pizza Hut with no success. It was long past dark. They drove around for a while looking up and down the streets in town, but saw no sign of her.
“Maybe she’s gone home,” Delia suggested. “When was the last time you called?”
“It’s been a few hours.” Marsh stopped at the Mid-Town Gulf station next to the courthouse on Main Street and used the pay phone. The phone at the ranch rang until he heard himself on the answering machine asking the caller to leave a message. He felt a stab of fear and channeled it into anger, which was more familiar and made him feel less terrified.
“If you’re home, Billie Jo, pick up the goddamn phone,” Marsh said. He felt Delia’s hand on his arm and realized Billie Jo wasn’t likely to respond to that sort of language, not to mention his angry tone of voice. Especially if she had run in the first place because she was afraid of what he would do to her for getting into trouble again at school.
“Look, Billie Jo,” he said in a calmer voice. “I’m just worried about you. So if you’re home, please pick up the phone.”
Marsh waited. He heard the whir of the answering machine but nothing else. His stomach knotted. And knotted again. He slammed the pay phone receiver back on the hook. “Damn it! If she’s home, she’s not answering the phone.”
“Maybe we should go to your place and wait for her there,” Delia suggested. “We aren’t doing much good driving around in circles.”
“You’d come home with me?”
“Why not?”
Marsh could think of a couple of good reasons. For one thing, he was ashamed of the way the place looked. It hadn’t been in very good shape twenty years ago, and it looked even worse now. There were a couple of antiques—his sleigh bed and a copper-plated dry sink with a hand-painted porcelain bowl, the pitcher for which had been broken long ago. But the rest of the furnishings were early Sears—a red Formica-topped, chrome-legged table and padded, chrome-legged chairs in the kitchen; a sagging sofa and a ragged, overstuffed chair in the living room; and some rugs that covered the worst-worn spots in the hardwood floors.
He could blame the run-down condition of things on his father, but Delia would see that the linoleum in the kitchen had been worn down a lifetime ago, and the watermarked rose paper had been there half a century.
For a second thing, he didn’t think it was such a smart idea to be alone with her. Nevertheless, he wanted—needed—her to come home with him. To keep him from going crazy with fear while he waited. To keep him from turning that fear into anger when his way-ward daughter finally showed her face. And to help him get through the night if she didn’t.
When they reached the house, it was dark.
Marsh bit back a groan of frustration and despair. “Where the hell is she?”
“She’ll come home when she’s ready.”
“How soon will that be?”
“When she’s ready,” Delia repeated.
“Wait here until I get the back porch light on,” he told Delia. But when he opened the mud porch door she was at his shoulder and followed him inside the kitchen. He reached for the knotted string over the kitchen sink and winced as the bare seventy-five-watt bulb blinded him.
As soon as his eyes adjusted, he headed for the refrigerator, dropping his hat on the antler rack along the way. He gestured Delia toward the chrome chair with the most intact plastic seat. “Make yourself comfortable. Want a Pearl? Oh yeah, you don’t like beer. Billie Jo has about a case of Diet Coke in here. How about one of those?”
“Sure.”
“Want a glass and some ice?”
“No, the can is fine.”
He popped the lid and handed her the Coke, then stepped back to the counter and set the cap on his beer against the Formica and hit it with the heel of his hand. The metal cap went flying and landed in the chipped porcelain sink. He took a long drink, needing the alcohol more than the liquid refreshment. Needing to keep space between him and Delia, too aware of her, of the fact she was here in his house, and they were alone.
He watched her glance around when she thought he wasn’t looking, saw her appraising, judging. And knew what conclusion she would be forced to draw.
“It isn’t much,” he said bitterly. “But it’s home.”
“It could be very—”
“Operative words,” Marsh interrupted. “Could be. It isn’t much right now, though. Right?”
“You said it. I didn’t.”
“Discretion. Diplomacy. Qualities I would expect to find in a judge.”
Delia’s back stiffened, but she said nothing.
Marsh didn’t know why he was so intent on provoking her, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Maybe if she stayed angry, she would keep her distance. Because he sure as hell was having trouble keeping his.
“There’s been so much to do around the ranch—fence to mend, machinery to fix, fields to plow, cows to be inseminated—I haven’t really gotten around to the house.”
“It could use a woman’s touch,” Delia said, and then blushed delightfully.
“I’ve always thou
ght so,” he said in a husky voice.
“What time is it?” she asked.
Marsh was frozen for a moment watching her throat move as she took a long swallow of Coke. He glanced at the microwave clock. “It’s nearly eleven-thirty.”
Delia set the Coke on the table. “Maybe we should call the police.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I hate to do that. It’ll be all over town if I do, and if she is just out with a friend, or staying away to avoid me . . .”
“Why not just ask the Uvalde police chief to have his men keep an eye out for her while they drive around town? The county sheriff can do the same.”
“It’s worth a try.” He picked up the phone and made the calls. The police chief was co-operative, but Sheriff Koehl had other fish to fry.
“Koehl has other priorities,” Marsh said disgustedly as he hung up the phone, “unless I’m willing to make a formal missing person report.” The former deputy’s pride had been dented by that incident twenty years ago, even if all had been forgiven—because the statute of limitations had run—by the time the prodigal returned.
Marsh sieved his hand through his hair. “God, I’m a rotten father.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Isn’t this incident proof enough?”
Delia shook her head. “It looks to me like Billie Jo is as much to blame here as you. She’s the one who got in trouble. She has to learn to face the consequences of her actions.”
“Like you did?” Marsh asked quietly. “Seems to me you ran away, too.”
Delia’s brow furrowed, and her eyes searched his face. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Purposely insulting me.”
Marsh set his longneck on the counter. “Does the truth hurt that much?”
“There were extenuating circumstances.”
“There always are.” He took a step toward her and watched her grip the nearest chair, as though to use it as a barrier between them. She was wearing a pair of aged, butter-soft jeans, a sleeveless white silk shell, and snakeskin cowboy boots. He didn’t stop until he was standing behind her, his hands at his sides, not touching her at all.
He could feel her heat.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He could smell the lavender shampoo in her hair. Why did it have to be lavender, of all scents?
He slid his hands around her waist from behind and felt her quiver. He laid his palms flat on her abdomen and pressed, and she leaned back into him, her buttocks nestled against his groin. She laid her head back against his chest, and he watched her eyes drift closed.
He lowered his head and kissed her throat beneath her ear. “Delia,” he murmured against her skin. “You taste good.”
He expected her to jerk away at any moment, to flee as she had those long ago days, to tease him with a taste of her and deny him the feast. She remained languid in his arms.
He took more. A nibble on the lobe of her ear. A love bite at her shoulder.
She made a moaning sound in her throat. But she didn’t try to escape.
His genitals drew up tight in anticipation.
He slid his hands upward toward her breasts and felt the nipples, pebbled and pointy beneath the silk. Her breathing faltered as he circled the tips with his fingers.
“My turn to tease,” he murmured in her ear.
Marsh turned her in his arms and lowered his mouth, oh so slowly, toward hers. He gave her plenty of time to realize the folly of what they were doing. He gave her a dozen chances to say no.
Her liquid eyes spoke volumes, but her lips didn’t move.
Then he had what he wanted. Her lips soft and pliant under his. He brushed against them briefly—more teasing—and heard her murmur of protest. Then he claimed her mouth, rougher than he wanted to be, because he needed too much. Anger tethered for years broke free as he forced her mouth open with his tongue and thrust deep.
You should have been mine long ago. We should have had these years together. You shouldn’t have run from me.
He mastered his anger and stifled the resentment he had left unacknowledged for so many years, intent on enjoying what he had, for as long as he had it.
Where he had expected resistance, there was none.
She opened to him, her body arching to-ward him in imitation of his tongue thrusting in her mouth. He grabbed her buttocks with one hand and pulled her tight against him, grinding their bodies together, groaning with the exquisite feel of her with only a few layers of denim and cotton to keep them apart.
It wasn’t close enough.
“I want you. I want to be inside you,” he said raggedly.
His mouth clamped onto hers without giving her a chance to reply. He wasn’t taking no for an answer. She shouldn’t have started this if she didn’t intend to finish it.
Moments—minutes?—later he tore his mouth away and laid his forehead against hers, his heart ricocheting around in his chest, gasping breath as though he had run a marathon. His body ached. He needed to be inside her now. So far, he hadn’t asked, he had taken. But he wanted more. He wanted everything. He wanted what she had never given him.
To his dismay, he realized he wanted—needed—her to be willing. He wanted to be sure she knew what she was doing. And that she wanted it as much as he did.
“Say yes, Delia. Please say yes.”
She sighed tremulously. The refrigerator hummed. His pulse hammered in his ear.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”
He made a growling sound in his throat, an animal claiming its mate, and swept her up into his arms. She gave a startled cry of alarm and then laughed, a bubbly, happy, excited sound that made his own lips curve in response.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Carrying you off to my den, where you can’t escape me,” he said, burrowing his nose against her throat and biting and sucking hard enough to make her moan. Her arms clung to him, and he felt the sexual tension in her body.
He lifted his head to study her in the harsh light of the naked kitchen bulb. She looked a little dazed, a little frightened. Her cheeks were flushed with heat, and her lips were pouty from the kisses he had already given her. He couldn’t resist tasting her again.
He felt her fingers tangling in the hair at his nape and shivered at the touch. He broke the kiss as he headed down the hall to his bedroom with her in his arms. The light from the kitchen was diffused in the hall, and her eyes gleamed like an animal in the dark.
He swore under his breath when he saw that his bedroom door was closed. He didn’t want to set Delia down even to open the door, so he angled her and wrestled with the knob and shoved the door open with his shoulder.
He headed for the bed, intending to lay her down, but halfway there she pulled his head down and kissed him.
Her tongue traced the seam of his lips, and as he opened his mouth, slipped inside. The sheer eroticism of what she was doing stopped him in his tracks.
He let her legs slide to the floor because he wanted to feel her against him. He spread his legs and tucked her between them, lifting her enough to fit them together.
He felt her unbuttoning his shirt and shrugged his way out of it as she dragged it down his arms. He hindered her efforts to completely remove the shirt, because at the same time he was pulling her shell out of her jeans.
“Turn on the light,” she murmured against his lips. “I want to see you.” Her hand slid down the front of him as her mouth suckled one hard male nipple.
The top of his head was about to come off. She couldn’t want to see him half as much as he wanted to see her. All of her.
He tore himself away and grabbed for the light on the bedside table, nearly knocking it over before he managed to turn it on. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light and two seconds more for his mind to register what his eyes were seeing.
Billie Jo squinted up at him. “Daddy?”
She was curled up on his bed, wrapped like a burrit
o in his grandmother’s patchwork quilt. She wriggled inside the quilt, freeing her arms so she could shove herself upright as far as her elbows. Her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, as though she had been crying. A dozen balled Kleenex scattered on the bed attested to it. She stared bewildered at him for a moment before her gaze flickered to Delia. Her eyes widened in alarm, then narrowed on him.
He thrust a hand through his hair in agitation, faced with the knowledge that his daughter had caught him half-naked in his bedroom with a strange woman. The snug fit of his jeans left nothing to the imagination and made his intentions toward said woman perfectly clear.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Marsh growled as he snatched his shirt up off the floor and slipped it on, leaving the tails to cover his arousal.
“What’s she doing in here?” Billie Jo countered.
He ventured a glance at Delia and saw she was beet red with embarrassment and desperately finger-combing her hair and tucking her shell back into her jeans. Her efforts weren’t doing much good to hide the state she was in. Her pupils were huge, and her nipples were visibly peaked beneath the silk.
He was glad as hell to know Billie Jo was safe. And equally irate about when and where she had turned up. Nothing was going to happen between him and Delia tonight for certain, and God knew when—or if—this opportunity would come again.
He turned his frustration and fury on his daughter.
“She’s here,” he said, “because we were looking for you all goddamn afternoon and evening. Where the hell were you? Why didn’t you come home on the bus? And how did you get yourself in trouble again when you were already on suspension?”
“What do you care?” Billie Jo countered. “So long as I’m not in your way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you never wanted me here in the first place. Now I see why! I’m obviously cramping your style.” She tried getting to her feet, but the quilt kept her trapped on the bed like a fly in a web.
“Who I entertain and when I do it are none of your damn business,” Marsh retorted defensively.
“Marsh, please,” Delia said. “You’re only making things worse.”
I Promise Page 15