She felt herself blush, wanting to appear competent and prove how worldly she'd become in his absence. "Don't tease me, Will, not when this—this piece of junk is acting up."
His voice softened and lost its teasing note. "And it brought you to Calhoun to visit your husband."
Their eyes met—sober, yearning eyes. His hand took hers from the wheel, his thumb rubbed her knuckles.
"Elly—is it true? Are you pregnant?"
She nodded, a trembling smile tilting her lips. "We're gonna have us a baby, Will. Yours and mine this time."
Words eluded him. Emotion clotted his throat. He reached for the back of her neck and her belly, placing a hand on each, drawing her across the seat to rest his lips against her forehead. She closed her eyes and put both hands over his widespread right hand, covering the life within her body.
"A baby," he breathed at last. "Imagine that."
She pulled away to see his eyes. For infinite seconds they gazed, then suddenly both laughed.
"A baby!" he cheered.
"Yes, a baby!" She took his head in both hands and ruffled his hair. "With shaggy blond hair and big brown eyes and a beautiful mouth like yours." She kissed it and his lips opened to taste her, possess her, gratify her. His hand moved on her stomach, slid lower and made her shiver.
Against her lips he said, "When this one's born you'll have a doctor."
"All right, Will," she answered meekly.
He deepened his kiss and his caress until she was forced to remind him, "Will, there are still people going by."
Drawing a tortured breath he released her and said, "Maybe I'd better drive after all. We'll get there faster." The door slammed behind him and he jogged around the hood while she slid over. As he put the car in reverse he warned, "Hang on to that young one. We don't want to shake her loose." He backed down the curb, bouncing them a second time, while Elly clutched her stomach and they both laughed.
They drove around the courthouse square and out onto Highway 53, headed southeast. Behind them the sun sank lower. Before them the road climbed out of the valley, lifting them through rolling woodland that soon would burgeon with green. Will rolled down the window and breathed deep of the fresh winter air. He locked his elbows, caught the wheel with his thumbs and thrust his wrists forward, tasting freedom, drinking it like one parched.
Free. And loved. And soon to be a father. And befriended. And accepted—even admired—by a town that sprang to his defense. And all because of one woman.
It overwhelmed Will. She overwhelmed him.
Abruptly he pulled off the highway, bumped along a field access and pulled up behind a clump of leafless willows. In one motion he killed the engine and turned to his wife.
"Come here, green eyes," he whispered, loosening the knot of his tie. Like heat lightning she moved into his embrace. Their lips and breasts met and their tongues, cautious no longer, made reckless sweeps. Crushed together, they healed.
He broke away to hold her head and gaze into her eyes. "I missed you so damn much."
"Not as much as I missed you."
"You cut your hair." He scraped it back with both hands, freeing her face for his adoring gaze.
"So I'd look up-to-date for you."
He scanned her countenance, hairline to chin, and wondered aloud, "What did I ever do to deserve you?"
"Don't thank me, Will, I—"
He cut her off with a kiss. As it lengthened they grew breathless, feeling the bond strengthen between them. At last he freed his mouth. "I know everything you did. I know about the honey, and the ads, and the witnesses you found, and the car you had to learn to drive and the town you had to face. But the house, Elly. My God, you faced that house, didn't you?"
"What else could I do, Will? I had to prove to you that it wasn't true what you saw on my face the day you were arrested. I never meant it, Will...I..." She began crying. He caught her tears with his lips, moving across her face as if taking sustenance.
"You didn't have to prove anything to me. I was scared and stubborn and I acted like a fool, just like Miss Beasley said. When you came to visit me the first time I was hurt, and I—I wanted to hurt you back. But I didn't mean what I said, Elly, honest I didn't." He kissed her eyes, murmuring softly, "I didn't mean it, Elly, I'm sorry."
"I know, Will, I know."
Again he held her face, searching her pale eyes. "And when you came the second time, I kept telling myself to apologize but Hess was there listening, so I talked about stupid things instead. Men can be such fools."
"It doesn't matter now, Will, it doesn't—"
"I love you." He held her possessively.
"I love you, too."
When they'd held each other a while he said, "Let's go home."
Home. They pictured it, felt it beckon.
He took a lock of her short brown hair between his fingers, rubbing it. "To the kids, and our own house, and our own bed. I've missed it."
She touched his throat and said, "Let's go."
* * *
They drove on home through the purple twilight, through the brown
Georgia
hills, past cataracts and piney woods and through a quiet town with a library and a magnolia tree and a square where an empty bench awaited two old men and the sunshine. Past a house whose picket fence and morning glories and green shades were gone, replaced by a mowed yard, scraped siding and gleaming windows reflecting a newly risen moon. As they passed it, Elly snuggled close to Will, an arm around his shoulders, her free hand on his thigh.
He turned his head to watch her eyes follow the place as the car pulled abreast of it, then past.
She felt his gaze and lifted her smile to him.
You all right? his eyes asked.
I'm all right, hers answered.
He kissed her nose and linked his fingers with those hanging over his left shoulder.
Content, they continued through the night, to a steep, rocky road that led them past a sourwood tree, into a clearing where blue flowers would soon tap against a skewed white house. Where three children slept—soon to be four. Where a bed waited ... and forever waited ... and the bees would soon make the honey run again.
* * * * *