Now and Forever (14 page)

“You need a crash course in how to speak Southern,” she told him. “Ask Nan when we get through turning her eyes greener.”

He laughed. “I'll do that.”

It wasn't until the end of their fourth dance together that Nan finally got tired of the back seat and gave in. But before she and Frank got their act together, Tish was already getting the benefit of a furious pair of dark brown eyes from across the room. Russell glared at her openly, contemptuously, from under a scowling brow.

“I didn't rape him, you know,” she mur
mured under her breath as Russell joined her at the punch bowl.

“Of all the damned exhibitions I've ever seen, that one could win a prize. Come with me!” He caught her wrist in a strong, merciless hand and drew her out the door onto the cold front porch. He closed the door behind them with a sharp click and looked down into her wide, misty eyes under the porch light.

“What the hell were you trying to do in there,” he demanded coldly, “start the gossips on a field day? By God, don't you ever let a man hold you like that again on a dance floor!”

“But, Russell, everybody does it…” she stammered.

“I don't give a damn what everybody does,” he shot back. His eyes were glittering with anger, dark and narrow and dangerous. “I don't want the whole county turning back the pages on you.”

“To my dirty past, you mean,” she flashed. “You're the one who always wanted me to dig it back up and show the world how poor my people were! Was it so
you could demonstrate your own generosity and American nobility by taking a sow's ear and making a silk purse out of it?”

“Shut up, you little savage,” he said in a tone like ice.

The word hurt. It was what the children at school had teased her with when she went to school in flour-sack dresses.

She literally shook with the rage. “Why don't you slap me, Russell?” she choked. “It wouldn't hurt any worse. Thanks for telling me what you think of me. I wish you'd done it years ago…” Her voice broke, and she spun away to jerk the door open.

“Tish…!” he called.

“Go to hell, Russell!” she cried. She ran straight up the stairs and into Nan's shocked arms.

 

“I can't go home,” Tish said when the party was finally over. She was sitting on Nan's bed with a red face, red eyes, and tear stains all over her cheeks. She hadn't moved from the spot all night.

“You know you're welcome to stay,” Nan said sympathetically. “It'll be all right
in the morning. You and Russell have always fought like this, but you've always made up, too.”

“Not this time,” she choked. “Did you tell him what I said? That I wasn't going home tonight?”

“I told him, Tish.”

“Well? What did he say?”

Nan looked down at the red patterned skirt she wore. “He didn't say anything.”

Tish managed a shaky smile. “As usual, nothing he feels ever shows. If he feels anything.” Tears welled in her eyes. “You told Eileen I didn't want her to come up, didn't you? I just…just don't want family.”

“There's nobody here but me,” Nan said with a quiet smile. “Just your old jealous friend. You stinker, playing a trick like that on me,” she laughed. “Frank told me all about it. Finally I had to let go of my pride and admit that I loved him. But it wasn't easy.”

“It never is, I guess. Russell really didn't say anything?” Tish asked hesitantly.

“I wish I could figure you and him out,” Nan said wearily. “No, Tish, he didn't say
anything at all. He just took a shot of Dad's gin.”

“Oh.”

“What do you mean, ‘oh'?” Nan asked. “Don't you know Russell never drinks gin? He hates it; you know that.”

She stared at her friend blankly.

Nan sighed wearily. “I'll get you some pajamas, my stupid friend.”

Tish bit her lip. “It was his birthday, you know.”

“I know.”

“I didn't even give him his present. Oh, Nan!” she wailed, burying her face in the pillow.

Nan came back with pajamas and a wet cloth. “Tomorrow it's going to be guns at twenty paces. I refuse to referee you people any more. Honestly, for two grown up adults…”

She went on and on, but Tish wasn't listening. She hurt deep in her soul, and all she wanted to do was cry.

A good night's sleep helped the ache, but it was replaced by honest panic when Nan told her that Russell's big town car was pull
ing up at the front steps. She couldn't face him, not yet. Oh, she'd have to go home some day, it was inevitable, and she'd face it when she had to…but not now!

Hoping to avoid him, she went down the stairs gingerly, her eyes searching the foyer cautiously, but there was nobody there. Not a sound met her ears.

With a sigh of relief, she turned and went through the deserted kitchen, out the back door, and walked out under the huge pecan trees—just in time to see Russell turning the corner of the house. Her heart skipped a beat and then pounded furiously.

Vaguely embarrassed, she stood there, her hands folded nervously behind the pair of faded jeans Nan had loaned her. Russell was casually dressed in slacks and a beige knit pullover shirt. He wasn't smiling, but he wasn't angry. She could tell that by his long, measured stride. When he was angry, he moved slowly, deliberately, and his eyes could singe. Now they were dark but calm, as he stopped just in front of her and looked down into her flushed face.

“They want to know when you're coming home,” he said without preliminaries.

Tish swallowed nervously. “I…hadn't thought about it,” she admitted, her voice subdued. She stared down at the dark brown leather of his dress boots. Beside them, ants were crawling in curvy lines between two small anthills made of red dirt in the sparse grass. She felt something stick in her throat and knew it was her pride. It was horrible to have to apologize.

“I wanted to call,” she murmured, “but I didn't know if you'd even speak to me.”

She felt his big hand at her temple, smoothing back the loose strands of dark hair that played in the nippy breeze. “I don't sulk, baby,” he reminded her, his voice deep and quiet. “My temper's like flash fire; it comes quick, it goes quick. You know that.”

She shook her head, tears threatening. “I only know that it was your birthday, and I…I…” She looked up at him miserably, helplessly, her eyes swimming, her full lips trembling moistly, her cheeks as pink as the inside of a seashell.

His eyes darkened suddenly, and he
looked down at her as if he wanted to grab her and take several bites. The tension was visible in his taut muscles.

“Russ, I'm sorry!” she whispered brokenly. “Don't be mad at me anymore!”

“Oh, God…!” he breathed roughly. He swept her up in his hard arms and crushed her body against his, burying his face in her hair. His fingers bit into her soft flesh cruelly. “God, baby, don't ever run out on me like that!”

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she returned the fierce, hungry embrace, feeling as if she'd been half a person all her life until this minute, when she wanted more than anything to stay where she was forever. She might have sprouted wings for the sweetness of the peace she felt. She pressed closer, her arms tight around his neck.

He smelled of cologne and tobacco where her face rested against his cheek, and she could feel the deep, powerful beat of his heart.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” she whispered at his ear.

His arms contracted, hurting her, and it
was sweet, sweet pain. A hard, deep sigh passed his lips, and he loosened his hold on her, drawing back to look at her.

She met his searching gaze squarely and felt her heart fluttering like a trapped butterfly in her chest.

Russell's eyes went to the long, slender fingers pressed against his soft, warm shirt. “Your hands are trembling, Tish,” he murmured deeply, catching her misty gaze.

“I…I'm a little cold,” she whispered shakily.

“So am I.” His head bent to hers. “Come here, honey.”

“R…Russell,” she whispered in token protest as his hard, lazy mouth brushed against hers.

“Surely I'm entitled to a birthday kiss,” he murmured, “even if I am damned near old enough to be your father.”

“Of…of course, and you aren't old, but…”

He nipped at her soft lower lip, his arms bringing her close, safe, in their hard circle. “But what, honey?”

Her hands linked behind his head. “Never mind…” she breathed. “Oh, kiss me…!”

“Oh, good, you're making up!” Nan's sweet voice fell like a bomb on the silence just as Russell's hard mouth touched hers.

“Damn!” Russell said under his breath, and a shudder went through him as he let Tish out of his bruising arms.

“Russell!” she whispered accusingly, her eyes bright with emotion as she looked up at him.

“I told you, Tish, didn't I?” Nan beamed, her pleasure at the reunion making her oblivious to the trembling undercurrents of emotion. “Do come in and we'll have coffee.”

 

The tension was still between them when they left Nan's house. Tish could feel it as she climbed into the big black Lincoln beside Russell and leaned her head back against the seat while he put a tape in the deck. The sweet strains of “Remember Me” filled the car, and she wanted to moan out of unfulfilled longing. In the back of her mind she nursed mingled hope and fear that he might stop the car on a long stretch of
road and finish what he'd started when Nan interrupted them.

But the big car kept going, like a missile over the dusty roads, swirling up yellow dust in a cloud behind it, and Russell drove straight toward home. Only a minute after he'd put the tape in, he hit the switch and changed tracks and the heartbeat rhythm of “Forever in Blue Jeans” throbbed through the interior of the car.

“Damn,” he muttered huskily, and abruptly pulled the tape out and concentrated on his driving.

Tish watched him, feeling the leashed fury that she couldn't understand, as he lit a cigarette and drew on it, sending clouds of smoke into the space between them.

Another two minutes and he pulled up sharply inside the white and green-trimmed garage and cut the engine. He got out, helped her out, and slammed the door behind her, his muscular arms trapping her against it as they imprisoned her there.

“You're wondering why I didn't stop along the way, aren't you?” he growled harshly. His hands went to her flushed
cheeks to hold her face in a vicelike grip while he studied her with blazing eyes. “It's because I'm thirty-five years old, and you're twenty,” he told her roughly. “And if that doesn't explain it, I'm not going to.”

He dropped a brief, rough kiss on her stunned mouth and strode away, leaving her there with a heavy heart.

The restraint stayed between them in the days that followed. The old times, the good times, were forgotten along with the laughing banter that had characterized their relationship.

Russell kept out of her way with a vengeance, and she went to equal lengths to avoid him. It was noticed by the other members of the family but never discussed. Tish began to look forward to college with a fatalistic pleasure. At least there she wouldn't have to see him every day. And maybe, just maybe, it would quit hurting so much.

 

It hardly seemed like Mindy and Baker had left when they came back, and the household was caught up in the business of getting ready for Christmas. It put a sparkle
in Tish's sad eyes as she and Mindy and Eileen planned Christmas for Lisa.

“What about a saddle for her pony?” Eileen suggested.

“No, she needs some dresses,” Mindy said.

“Maybe some stuffed animals,” Tish pondered. “And how about her governess? Should we get her anything, since she's only here in the daytime?”

“I guess Miss Asher might like some handkerchiefs,” Eileen said. “She likes the frilly ones….”

“I still want a party, regardless of Russell's arguments,” Mindy said firmly, tossing her curly blond head. “The noise can't bother the livestock, they're too far away from the house. Anyway, Tish deserves a going-away party. I don't know how we'd have managed without her.”

Tish blushed. “You'd have done fine.”

“I don't think so. Make up a list, dear, and let's get the invitations out this week,” Mindy told Tish. “Now, about the tree…”

“Not me,” Eileen said quickly. “Not again. I'm not following Russell and Tish
through sixteen Christmas-tree lots in the rain so she can veto twenty trees and go back to the first one to buy it.”

Tish stiffened. “I do not drag anyone through sixteen…”

“Oh, hell, yes, you do,” Russell said as he came through the doorway with Baker. “Every year. But not,” he added, “this year. Lisa's going to pick out the tree.”

It was worse than being hit. It was as if he was deliberately telling her she had no more place in family tradition.