Take Me Home (9781455552078) (2 page)

O
LIVIA HAD JUST FINISHED
ringing up Martha Wolcott's purchase of a new set of laundry pins when she noticed Billy Tate pacing back and forth in front of Pickford Hardware's display window. Even through the dusty glass, he looked nervous, agitated, and more than a little out of sorts. As she watched, Olivia noticed that Billy was talking to himself, occasionally gesturing, his hands jabbing through the air. Every once in a while he paused to wipe his brow with a handkerchief.

“Thank you kindly, my dear,” Martha said as she placed the pins in her purse. “I hated to have to buy them, what with the way I've always tried to make do with less for the war effort, but my old set plumb gave out!”

“Everything does eventually,” Olivia mumbled, distracted; she was remembering how chilly it had been that morning on her way to work, the cold feeling more like winter than spring, and therefore couldn't understand why Billy was sweating so much.

“Wouldn't you agree?”

Startled, Olivia realized that by watching Billy, she hadn't been paying attention. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Wolcott,” she admitted sheepishly, smiling in the hope that it might mask her embarrassment. “I didn't catch that.”

“I was just saying that so much has changed in town since the war began that it's almost unrecognizable, especially to an old woman like me,” she repeated with a smile that caused the wrinkles around her eyes to deepen. “Why, I doubt you would've ever imagined that you'd be here, working in the hardware store.”

Martha was right; Olivia never would have thought that she would be working for Henry Pickford, selling nails, scrub brushes and buckets, light bulbs, and even the occasional set of laundry pins. But whatever direction her life had been going, it had never been the same after a cold Sunday morning back in December 1941. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry in the war, fighting against both the Germans and the Japanese, Olivia's life, as well as the course of her country, had been changed forever. James Pickford, Henry's son, along with most of the young men in Miller's Creek, had immediately enlisted in the armed services. Since Henry was a good friend of Olivia's father, she'd ended up taking James's place at the family business. Her days were spent behind the cash register, sweeping floors, and stocking the shelves with what few items weren't consumed by the war effort. Olivia had taken to the work right from the start; she especially liked talking with customers, and earning money of her own was both new and rewarding. Even though she still worried about the men fighting overseas, she knew she had to continue to do her part, whatever might be asked of her.

“I wonder what will happen when the men come home,” Martha said.

Olivia had wondered the same thing herself.

Once Martha had started for the front door, Olivia turned her attention back to wondering what Billy was up to. But as she craned her neck, looking through the dusty glass, he suddenly entered the hardware store. Holding the door open for Martha, he smiled warmly at the older woman, sharing a kind word before purposefully striding toward the counter, his face no longer as friendly, but determined, even a bit grim.

Billy Tate had been clumsy as a child, all jutting elbows and knobby knees, and some of that awkwardness still remained; whenever he was in a hurry, as he was now, it looked as if he was about to trip over his own feet and fall flat on his face. He wasn't tall or muscular, but average in height and thin in build, his button-down shirt hanging a bit loosely on him. His black hair was pomaded flat above his prominent forehead. His dark eyes were as thin as his pursed lips. When he was nervous, his large Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a cork in the creek.

He was Olivia's oldest friend…Her
best
friend…

“I need to talk with you,” Billy said when he reached her, his voice insistent. “It's important.”

Olivia felt her stomach lurch. “What is it?” she asked, worried. “Did something happen?”

“Not here,” he answered. “We need to go somewhere private.”

Glancing at the clock that hung above the door to the storeroom, Olivia said, “I'm not supposed to go to lunch for another half an hour, but I guess I could ask if I could leave early.”

Billy nodded urgently.

Henry Pickford told Olivia to go ahead. When she returned to Billy, she barely had time to take off her apron before he grabbed her hand and hurried them out into the spring afternoon. He moved so fast that it was a struggle for Olivia to keep up. Rounding the corner of the hardware store, he took off down the sidewalk.

“Where are we going?” Olivia asked.

For someone in such a rush, Billy seemed indecisive; he would take a long look one way before turning and staring in the opposite direction. “I don't really know,” he admitted. “I just want to make sure we're alone.”

“How about the old lumber barn?” she suggested.

“Good idea!”

Potter's Lumber maintained a large building across the street from Miller's Creek's library. Many years before, it had been used to store chunks of ice cut from the frozen waterway in the winter that were then packed in sawdust to be used over the rest of the year. But now, with refrigerators becoming more common, the building sat empty save for some old machinery and a few other odds and ends. When they arrived, the door creaking open on rusty hinges, there wasn't anyone else around, just as Olivia had expected.

“Now will you please tell me what's the matter?” Olivia asked. She stood in the sunlight that streamed through the open doorway, rubbing her arms for whatever warmth she could get, a chill still clinging to the air.

But all she got was more silence as he paced back and forth in the shadows, as agitated as he'd been outside the hardware store.

“Come on, Billy!” she insisted.

“I know, I know,” he replied, flustered. “I just didn't think it'd be like this. I mean, I've said the words over and over again in my head so many times that I swear I could tell them to you backward. But now here we are and I'm tongue-tied.” He pulled his handkerchief out and again wiped his brow. Glancing at her, he added, “It doesn't help that you're so darn beautiful.”

“Don't say that,” Olivia said, embarrassed.

“But it's true.”

Olivia had never thought of herself as pretty, even if Billy wasn't the first person to tell her so. When she sat in front of her bedroom mirror at night, brushing countless strokes through her long blond hair, the young woman looking back at her didn't strike her as someone who would turn heads. Her dark blue eyes, small nose, and button mouth seemed well positioned enough, but she couldn't help but think that her skin was a touch too pale and the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and along both cheeks was distracting, a blemish. To hear someone compliment her looks, as Billy had just done, always caused her to flush red with embarrassment.

“Is this about the Navy?” she asked.

“No…yes…both I reckon,” Billy answered.

In a little more than a month, Billy was scheduled to report for boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center near Chicago. Twenty-two years old, the same age as Olivia, Billy had been trying to enlist for years, since just after he'd turned eighteen, but had always been rejected for medical reasons; an illness when he'd been a child had weakened his heart. But Billy hadn't been willing to take “no” for an answer. After countless attempts, and plenty of frustration, he'd finally found a doctor willing to look past his health problems and clear him to enter the service. Olivia had been the first person he'd told when he'd gotten the news.

“Well, which is it?” Olivia pressed.

“What I have to say to you isn't
about
the Navy, but
because
of it,” Billy explained. He'd finally stopped his pacing and had stepped nearer to Olivia; up close, she could see the beads of sweat dotting his forehead. “Ever since I found out that I'd be able to join up, to go off and fight for my country, I've been doing an awful lot of thinking about everything I'll be leaving behind.”

“That's understandable,” she answered.

Gently, Billy reached out and took Olivia by the hand; his touch was hot and sweaty, almost uncomfortable, although she had no inclination to pull away. “But what really got to me,” he continued, his voice catching, “was that whenever I thought about not coming back…”

“Nothing's going to happen to you,” Olivia insisted; she'd been telling him this for months, trying her best to convince them both.

Billy smiled. “
If
something happens to me,” he said, “there's only one person I'd regret not being able to come back to.” Pausing, he added, “You.”

Olivia couldn't speak. She was both confused and growing nervous.

What happened next felt like something out of a romantic movie. Slowly, Billy lowered himself to the dusty floor, bending down on one knee in front of her. He fished around in his pocket for a moment before pulling his hand free; pinched between his thumb and finger was a simple gold band that shone brightly in the spring sunlight.

“Olivia Marsten,” Billy said. “Will you marry me?”

The first time Olivia met Billy Tate, she had laughed in his face.

She'd been eight years old, walking along the bank of the creek, watching the swift spring waters race over rocks and around branches, carrying fallen leaves to some unknown destination. Suddenly, from around a bend in the waterway and beneath the shade of a budding oak tree, she heard a yelp of delight. Hurrying to the sound, she found a young boy pulling furiously on a fishing pole, his catch squirming desperately on the other end of the line. Just as he managed to reel in his prize, the fish clutched tightly in his hands, the boy noticed that Olivia was watching. Surprised and flustered, he'd inadvertently stepped backward, dropping off the bank and into the water. He'd landed on his rump in the shallows, completely soaked through from head to toe, the fish once again swimming freely in the creek.

Unable to help herself, Olivia had burst out laughing; after a moment's hesitation, Billy had joined her. In that instant, a friendship had been born between them, one that Olivia would come to cherish with all her heart.

Billy had always been there for Olivia, listening when she complained about how overbearing her mother could be; nodding his head in agreement when she grumbled about how her younger sister, Grace, was always borrowing her things without asking; and holding her hand as they raced through the woods outside town, a summer storm coming, the booming thunder behind them, her heart pounding hard, as if they were being chased. In turn, Olivia had shared in Billy's triumphs and tragedies, holding him close after his mother had died of influenza, his head pressed tightly to her shoulder, his sobs shaking them both.

But other than the time when they'd shared a tentative kiss behind Ernie Peabody's barbershop, both of them curious to find out what all the fuss was about, there'd never been a hint of romance between them. When Olivia had pined for Clyde Barrow, a love that would forever remain unrequited, Billy had sympathized. When Billy had courted Meredith Armstrong, taking her to a couple of movies, Olivia had been jealous that she couldn't spend as much time with him as she would've liked, not because she'd wished she was the object of his affections.

She'd thought they'd been friends, pure and simple.

But somehow, Olivia had misunderstood.

Looking down at him on bended knee, her heart in her throat, Olivia would never have imagined that she'd find herself right here, right now, with Billy's words still hanging in the air between them, unanswered.

Olivia's mind raced. Even though she had been cold a few minutes before, rubbing her arms for warmth, she could now feel beads of sweat running down her face, tickling her neck. Never in her life had she ever been so confused, so completely unsure of what she should say or do. A part of her wanted to cry. Another wanted to run away. Yet another wanted to do nothing, to stay quiet, and to wait for Billy to fill the silence that slowly trickled on and on.

“I know this is a surprise,” he finally said. “I can see it in your face as plain as day, but I just had to tell you the truth. I need you to know that I've been in love with you ever since the day we met.”

Disbelief washed over Olivia. It felt as if she were caught in the web of a dream from which she couldn't wake.

“I've tried to tell you so many times,” he continued. “But whenever I screwed up my courage, trying to convince myself that this time would be different, it failed me. I just couldn't go through with it. I was afraid that if I told you the truth, if I admitted to loving you and then you rejected me, it would ruin what we had. I just couldn't risk our friendship, so I kept it all bottled up inside.

“But things are different now that I'm going off to the war. There's no longer any reason for me to hold back.” Giving Olivia's hand a gentle squeeze, he added, “That's why I asked you to marry me.”

Struggling, Olivia thought about her own feelings for Billy. He was the best friend she could have ever hoped for. He was honest and dependable. He laughed easily, wasn't possessed of a temper, and listened with a caring ear. If his future was a star, it would have been the brightest in the sky. Billy's father was the president of the town bank; while the son had been handed his job, Billy had worked hard to live up to it, and had earned the respect and admiration of everyone he did business with. Because of his family's wealth, and the fact that Billy was sure to someday take over his father's position, whoever became his wife was sure to have a well-off life. In short, Billy was exactly the sort of man most women wanted for a husband. Still, questions filled Olivia's head.