Rachel was very wise, knowing even better than he how badly his old wounds needed to be cauterized. "You'll really do it, Rachel? You'll marry me?" he asked hoarsely.
"Don't you think it's time?" came her trembling reply.
He drew back to look into her dark eyes, and his own traversed her face, cataloging it feature by feature while his thumbs brushed the crests of her cheekbones. Her lips were slightly parted, her hair in disarray, and the expression in her eyes was one he'd dreamed of seeing there during the endless years when nothing and no one else could quite fill the empty spot in his heart.
"Oh, Rachel ... my Rachel." He dropped his forehead against hers, letting his eyes
sink shut, capturing the essence of the
359 moment to carry within him as a talisman during the days ahead. "How I love you."
She swallowed back the tears in her throat. "I love you, too ... so much."
Then their mouths were joined and emotions billowed. They clung together in an ardent kiss, pressing their bodies close, hands wandering impatiently now that the decision was made.
Abruptly Tommy Lee drew back, holding her head with both hands. "When?" Without giving her time to answer, he rushed on, "Right away, as soon as we can get a license and find somebody to do it. I want us to have a honeymoon, so you'll have to make arrangements at the store, and afterward ... which house do you want to live at? I'd live here if you asked me to, but ... oh, Rachel, say you'll move into my house on the lake. God, it'll be like a dream--was
"Hold on." She couldn't resist chuckling at his impetuousness. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
He frowned in puzzlement. "What?"
"Beth. Shouldn't I meet her first? Don't you think we should get her approval, since she's
going to be part of the family, too?"
"Oh, Beth." He wrapped Rachel loosely in his arms and rocked her. "Beth is going to love you."
He said it with such thoughtless conviction there seemed no other way it could be.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The expression on his daughter's face when Tommy Lee walked into his house less than an hour later warned him trouble lay ahead.
"Where were you all night?" She stood with both hands stuffed into the tight pockets of her blue jeans, a scowl on her face.
"Oh!" He came up short, searching for a reply. "Did you wait up for me?"
"Hardly. That's what parents usually do. Georgine wanted to leave for home, and when you weren't getting up and weren't getting up she sent me in to wake you, but your bed wasn't even slept in."
Tommy Lee was saved from replying when Georgine came around the corner with her purse in her hand, her lips drawn up tight and a
disapproving tilt to her chin.
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"We already had breakfast and cleaned up the dishes and called town to say I'd be gettin' there late!"
"I'm sorry, Georgine. If you're ready I'll take you now."
"If I'm ready ... hmph." She snorted past him on her way to the door, and Tommy Lee asked himself for the hundredth time why he put up with her insubordination. He truly disliked the woman, but now that Beth was here, he needed her more than ever.
"You wanna ride along, honey?" he invited Beth.
"No," she pouted, crossing her arms stubbornly.
"You sure? We could talk."
"I'm sure."
But he could see the hurt in her eyes. "Back in half an hour and we'll spend the day doing whatever you want to, okay, sugar?"
For a minute the stubborn expression remained on her chin, but at last she nodded.
In the car Georgine sat as if she had spine trouble, her mouth as sour-looking as if she'd just
bitten into a kumquat.
"Georgine, I'm sorry I wasn't here to get you into town right away this morning."
"Ain't me you should be sayin' you're sorry to; it's your daughter. Impressionable young girl like that--what she gonna think?"
Tommy Lee imagined she'd think exactly what she was thinking, but he wasn't going to admit it to Georgine. He hadn't given a thought to Beth last night and realized too late the import of his having been out all night, especially given Beth's age. He was not accustomed to having restrictions put on his freedom, but Georgine was right. He certainly hadn't set a good example.
When he got back home he found Beth in the kitchen stirring something at the stove. Her hair fell down the center of her back in a single French braid, and even from behind he could see the first curves of maturity already beginning to sculpt her body. She had a waist now, and gently swelling hips tapering into long legs. She had fought with her mother over a boy after Nancy caught the two of them kissing, which had started the whole fiasco that finally led to Beth's running away and ending up
here.
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The eternal taboo on sex, he thought ruefully, going back for a moment to when he and Rachel had been the same age Beth was now. He stood for a long minute with his hands in his trouser pockets, studying her, wondering how to handle the delicate situation. He could tell from the way her head was drooped that she was upset with him and maybe a little shy about facing him.
"Still mad at me, huh?" he asked quietly.
She shrugged, but still didn't turn around.
"You don't even want to talk to me?"
Again came the sheepish shrug. He couldn't help smiling--so young, so idealistic. He moved up behind her and cupped a hand around the side of her neck.
"I'm sorry, baby. I've got no excuses."
She stared into the kettle and kept stirring. "After the show I brought the kids back here to meet you, and you weren't even home."
"I said I'm sorry. It won't happen again, and that's a promise."
"Where were you?"
This time it was his turn to withhold an answer. In spite of the fact that he'd planned to tell Beth about Rachel immediately, he was reluctant now, for fear it might cast a shadow over his daughter's impression of the woman he loved.
"You were with a woman, weren't you?"
"Beth, I'm forty-one years old."
At last she turned and lifted accusing eyes to his. "I know who it was. It was that one on the church steps, wasn't it?"
For a moment their eyes clashed; then Tommy Lee sighed and held her by both shoulders. "What makes you say that?"
"I could see how you were looking at her, Daddy. I'm not exactly a child."
"Her name is Rachel, and the first thing I want you to understand is that I love her."
"Mother always said you liked other women too much and that's why she got divorced from you."
"Beth, I'm not going to argue with you about your mother. It's pointless."
Suddenly tears brimmed on Beth's eyelids. "But I don't understand ... She got mad at me when all I did was kiss a boy. But you ... well, you ... you stayed out all
night. You mean it's not okay when you're
365 fourteen, but it's perfectly all right when you're forty-one?"
Tommy Lee didn't know how to answer. There could be no double standard, and to claim there was would be hypocritical. He had wanted a second chance at being a father. Now here it was, and he was finding out exactly how difficult fatherhood could be.
"No, sweetheart," he admitted, "I'm not saying that. I'm saying that at forty-one a person is better equipped to handle the consequences of his actions. But your mother is wrong about one thing. There's no reason to feel guilty for kissing boys when you're fourteen years old. As a matter of fact, that's exactly how old I was when I started kissing girls, and you know who the first one was?"
She shook her head, mesmerized by the sudden turn of the conversation.
He smiled, looking down into her pretty brown eyes, the freckles on her cheeks, her generous bowed lips, which were very much like his. "It was Rachel Talmadge--that was her name then."
"You've known her that long?"
"Uh-huh. Since we were kids."
But instead of impressing Beth, the fact made her stiffen and pull away. Puzzled, Tommy Lee watched her turn toward the stove again, and the momentary rapport between them was broken.
"I made you grits and sausage while you were gone, since Georgine didn't hold breakfast for you."
He watched her get a plate and spoon grits onto it, then move to the sink to fill the kettle with water, and he was suddenly weary, wondering how to deal with her jealousy. She stabbed three sausage links and added them to the plate, switched off the burners and turned expectantly with her offering in her hands, and Tommy Lee thought, Lord, will the way ever be smooth for Rachel and me?
"You don't like talking 'bout Rachel, do you?" he asked.
Her tone was defensive as she blurted out, "I wish Mother had been your first girlfriend. Then maybe you'd still be married to her."
And after that it seemed best to drop the subject of Rachel for the time being until things smoothed over a little bit.
During the weekend Beth displayed an
367 increasing possessiveness about her father. Though he admitted he was again being manipulated by a female smart enough to realize he felt guilty and to use that guilt to get what she wanted, he went along readily with her plan for him to take her shopping for school clothes in Muscle Shoals. The following morning when they glimpsed Rachel on the church steps, Beth commandeered Tommy Lee's arm and maneuvered him inside before he got a chance to talk to her. The remainder of that day was devoted to taking Beth's new friends waterskiing, and when the afternoon finally ended, Tommy Lee wanted nothing so badly as to see Rachel for a couple of hours, having thought of nothing but her for two solid days. But when he casually mentioned that he thought he'd drive into town to pick up some things from his office to glance through at home, Beth immediately said she'd ride along with him.
Finally, late Sunday night, Tommy Lee escaped to his room so he could call Rachel. At the sound of her hello a sharp upthrusting stab of love pressed beneath his heart and suddenly everything seemed right again.
"I've missed you," he breathed, closing his
eyes, lying flat on his back across the bed.
"And I've missed you. I looked for you all day today."
"I'm sorry I couldn't make it, but it appears we have one problem I hadn't counted on."
"It's Beth, isn't it?"
He rubbed the corners of his eyes. "God, is it ever. She acts as if she doesn't want me out of her sight for a minute. She wasn't exactly happy to see me getting home in the middle of Saturday morning and wanted to know where I'd been."
"Did you tell her?"
"She guessed." He scowled at the ceiling.
"She guessed? ... But how?"
"She called you `the woman on the church steps.`"
"Ahh ... of course."
"Was I that obvious when I looked at you?"
Rachel's soft laugh came over the wire. "Was I?" He pictured her as she'd been Friday night, soft, pliant, smelling sweeter than anything nature had ever conjured up. He felt his body nudging toward arousal
at the mental images.
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"All I've thought about since walking out of your house is you. While I was chauffeuring Beth all over Muscle Shoals, and driving a speedboat full of shrieking teenagers, I wanted to be only one place."
"Where?" she murmured in a soft, seductive voice. It was not the words that mattered, rather the subtle nuances of two lovers infatuated with the mere act of listening to each other breathe.
"In your bed. In you."
Her breath again seemed to brush his ear. "Tommy Lee, I want to see you tonight. Can't you come over?"
"I'm tempted, darlin', but if I did I'd never come back home, and I promised Beth I'd be spending nights here from now on."
She sighed in disappointment, and he pictured her curling into a ball in the middle of her bed. "When will I see you again?"
"Tomorrow afternoon. I'll pick you up as soon as you close the store."
"I'll have my own car there. Meet me at the house instead."
"Do you think we can hang in there till then?"
"I don't know. We have a lot of lost time to make up for, don't we?"
His voice held a tremor as he declared, "But we will, babe, we will."
"I can't wait. Can you stay for supper tomorrow?"
No matter how much he wanted to, he answered, "I'm afraid not. Beth's got something special planned for the two of us. She's doing the cooking."
"Well, next time, then."
"Next time for sure." Tommy Lee stifled a yawn--he hadn't had much sleep all weekend. "Rachel, I'm exhausted. I've been on the water all day."
But she wasn't ready to give him up yet. "Are you in the bedroom?" she asked.
"Yes, staring at the ceiling and picturing you as you were Friday night."
"Our bedroom?" she inquired softly.