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Nodding, Darcy spoke. “I understand. Sometimes, heart patients seem so healthy, it’s hard to believe that they’re sick. Other times, they can appear so fragile that you wonder how they’ve held on as long as they have. It must be quite a burden for your dad.”
Bill drew a deep breath and let it slowly out. “Dad died when I was five. Momma worked hard to keep my older brothers and sisters and me fed and clothed, and now I want to make her last days easier,” he said, his voice hoarse. He paused and swallowed, then moistened his dry lips.
“She used to be such a loving, giving person,” Bill went on. “It so hard to see her this way.” He looked down at Darcy’s hand, still covering his. Her skin was so soft, the fingers so delicate, he should hardly have noticed that it was there. But the comfort she provided was enormous.
Darcy didn’t respond. Maybe she knew that words weren’t necessary. There was nothing to say, but her silence seemed to tell more than a Sunday sermon.
Bill glanced at the clock over the pickup counter. Almost ten. At the rate he was going, he wouldn’t get home until midnight. He cleared his throat. “I reckon we’d best get on, then,” he finally said, his voice strained, thick.
“Yeah. I guess so.” Darcy lifted her hand, and in spite of the negligible weight she’d removed, his hand felt cold without it there resting on his.
DARCY GAZED OUT the window and tried to stay awake and on the lookout for a motel. So far, all she’d seen were local places that looked none too reputable. She might be eager to get away from Dick, but she wasn’t that desperate. And Bill had agreed to let her ride along as far as Montgomery where there were more to choose from and the choices were likely cleaner.
In the meantime, she had to keep her eyes open. That had been easy when they were driving through the countryside on the small, back roads. She’d been riding shotgun, helping Bill to guide them through the dense fog, and the constant motion and the stops and turns had kept her alert. Now that Bill had pulled onto I-65 and the fog was gone, the never-changing scenery, unbroken by bright lights or towns, and the comfortable seat seemed to hypnotize her.
Bill turned up the radio and opened a window, to keep from going to sleep himself, she supposed. As it was, her long, sleepless pre-wedding night and even longer day, began to catch up with her. Darcy found herself nodding off and, she tried to think of something to keep her awake.
She yawned. “Do you have a girl waiting for you at home?” she said, trying to make conversation.
Bill shrugged. “Nope.”
She didn’t know why she cared, considering she was hitchhiking and she’d never see him again after tonight, but that small bit of information about him seemed sad. “Do you have other family in Mattison?”
“Yeah.”
Darcy shrugged. Of course, he did. He’d already mentioned siblings. Obviously, he wasn’t in the mood to talk. “Would you rather I be quiet or do you need me to talk to help you stay awake?”
“Naw, I’m fine. It isn’t that late yet, and we’re trained to do without sleep. It’s part of the job.”
“Oh. I’ll just shut up then. When we get to town, you can drop me off, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“No problem.”
Darcy wondered how much company she could be, sitting there like a bump on a log. She felt about as useful as training wheels on a tricycle, but she was grateful not to have to make idle conversation. Just being in Bill’s strong, silent presence was comforting.
The quiet companionship would be over too soon, she thought as they passed a road sign announcing that Montgomery was thirty-eight miles away.
Thirty-eight miles. At seventy miles an hour, that meant about thirty more minutes in his company. Thirty-eight miles and Bill would drop her off at some motel. Thirty-eight miles and she could get a good night’s sleep and then figure out what to do with the rest of her life.
Montgomery was big enough to have several hospitals, she supposed. Hospitals were always short of nurses. Maybe she could get a job at one of them and start over free from pressure from her family. Free of Dick.
Then she wondered if it wouldn’t be better to just keep going without letting anybody know where she was. Even Bill Hays knowing that she had ended up in Montgomery might bring Dick and her family to her.
No, she wasn’t trying to hide from them. She just didn’t want to deal with them for a while. She needed time to get her head together. She wasn’t ready to face Dick, her parents, or even Uncle John right now.
She wanted to be just plain Darcy and to have the luxury of time to explore who that really was. Dick Harris and the Stanton family with their long military tradition couldn’t seem to understand that.
Darcy leaned back against the seat, pillowed her head with her bent arm against the window frame, and closed her eyes.
THE LIGHTS of the city loomed ahead of him, and Bill sighed. In just a few minutes, Darcy would be gone.
The roadside information signs indicated a wide selection of discount motels at the first exit, and he sighed again. He engaged the turn signal and started to ease into the right lane.
Then Bill looked across the seat to Darcy, sleeping on the seat beside him. Yes, he knew she expected him to stop at a motel in Montgomery, but she looked so peaceful curled up there that he didn’t have the heart to wake her. What had made her so tired that she dropped off next to a stranger? He flipped the turn signal off and remained on the highway.
There were plenty of other motels on the road ahead before they got through Montgomery. Who said they had to stop at the first one? Darcy hadn’t. She could get a room at the last one out of town just as easily.
Bill drove on through the sleeping city, then he drove past the last Montgomery exit, crossed the Alabama River and approached the first off-ramp for Pittsville just a few miles from Mattison. There were fewer motels here, but they were close.
Close to what? he asked himself. Or maybe to whom?
And why was he attracted to this woman he’d just met? It wasn’t as if he were looking for a woman, even if he had time for one. Duty, physical training, night school and his mother kept him busy enough for three men. The last thing he needed was any distraction from his goals.
But what a distraction Darcy would be, he couldn’t help thinking. He’d practically been a monk since he’d left high school and home. He’d wanted so much to pull himself out of the near-poverty he’d been raised in that he’d devoted all his time to the air force, to getting the education his mother couldn’t afford to give him, to making something of himself.
If he could just get his degree, he could obtain an appointment to Officer Training School, become an officer and gain respect in the world. After almost ten years, the degree was in sight.
But there were times when he had a few minutes to himself that he couldn’t help realizing just how lonely that climb toward the top had been. He looked at Darcy and wondered how it would be if….
No. He shook his head. He didn’t have the time.
He realized suddenly that as he’d been woolgathering, he’d driven right through Pittsville. Now what? He looked at Darcy asleep on the seat and shrugged. He could save her the cost of a night’s stay in a motel and put her up at Momma’s. There might be a time later on when she would need that money.
He could drive her to Montgomery in the morning.
He yawned and stretched and looked for the familiar landmarks near his home. He saw the old Shell station on the corner, closed now, but still bearing the familiar orange sign. The station had once been adjacent to a motel, but the motel had been closed since before he was born. The interstate had gone through, and the traffic on the Mattison highway had dwindled to nothing.
There was Mrs. Scarborough’s house three miles down the road from the little farm where he had grown up. He passed the Popwell’s place and Maggie Montoya’s restored house, then he saw the dirt road home. He eased on the brakes and steered onto the lane.
Darcy stirred. “Are we in Montgomery yet?” she said through a yawn.
“Hush, Darcy,” he said. “We’re home.” And that simple statement seemed so right, that it needed almost no explanation; although he knew he owed her one. “You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you. Momma’ll have a bed for you, and we can figure out what to do tomorrow.”
Darcy seemed to have heard his explanation, but she didn’t react. Was he going to have to explain again? Would she be angry that he had taken her home? Now, he wondered if he’d made a mistake by not dropping her off in Montgomery as they’d planned.
“Oh. Okay,” she mumbled, confirming his suspicion that she wasn’t fully awake.
Bill wondered again what had exhausted her so that she’d succumbed so completely to sleep. Had there really been a car broken down by the road? Or had she hitchhiked all the way? That would explain her exhaustion.
As he parked in front of the house, he realized with alarm that the lights were still on. Was Momma sick? Or had she simply fallen asleep in front of the television?
The family had tried to get her to accept live-in help, but she always brushed them off, saying she didn’t want a stranger in her house rearranging things, making it not her own. When she was ready for help, she’d tell them. Bill wondered if she was finally ready.
Then he looked up, surprised, when his mother flung open the screen door and stood at the top of the porch steps. She looked better than she had in months. Was she improving?
He knew better than to believe that, but a guy could always hope. He turned off the engine and climbed out of the car. He had to explain about Darcy before he brought her in to spend the night.
Darcy felt, more than heard, the car door slam. She struggled to rouse herself from the depths of exhaustion, but her mind refused to clear. Had Bill said they were home? She’d started to correct him, but it wasn’t worth the effort.
She rubbed her eyes and looked around. They seemed to be in somebody’s yard. Had Bill’s car broken down, too? Had he had to stop to ask help from a stranger?
No. He seemed to know the woman, dressed in a worn housecoat, coming slowly down the steps from the homey-looking front porch complete with an inviting swing and a profusion of potted plants.
Then Bill’s comment about being home started to make sense. This wasn’t Montgomery, and it sure wasn’t a motel.
He had taken her home to his mother’s house.
Darcy stretched and yawned, then fumbled to release her seat belt. She had to get out and move around. She’d been sitting on this seat too long, and her neck was stiff. She needed to work the kinks out of her back and to get the blood circulating again. Maybe then she could think.
She and Bill could sort everything else out later. Or tomorrow, she supposed. She glanced at her watch. It was almost midnight. He’d said his mother would have a bed, and that’s all she cared about for now.
She looked toward the house and couldn’t help being touched by the mother and son reunion.
“What are you doing up so late?” Bill called as he hurried up the dirt walk to the house.
Mrs. Hays laughed, her merry tone belying her serious condition. She looked well enough, but Darcy’s training allowed her to recognize the subtle signs that indicated her illness. “You said you were bringing me a surprise, Billy boy. You had my curiosity running so fast, I couldn’t sleep.”
Bill had forgotten about the comment he’d made when he’d called to say he’d be later than usual. He’d told her about ordering the new Jeep some time ago, but he hadn’t told her that he’d finally gotten it. He’d said he was bringing home a surprise.
A brilliant smile lit up Momma’s face, and Bill turned to see Darcy push open the passenger-side door and climb out, stretching after hours in the car.
“Oh son. It’s the best surprise you ever could give me,” Momma said, hurrying down the steps, her gait more steady than he’d seen in months. “I didn’t think you’d find a bride before…before…. Well, you know.” She smiled again and, arms outstretched, hurried toward Darcy.
He realized with horror what his mother must be thinking. Now, what was he supposed to do? Tell her the truth and break her heart?
Chapter Two
Bill’s mother folded Darcy into a warm embrace. “Welcome to the family, daughter,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “It makes an old lady happy to know that her youngest son is finally going to settle down.”
Fortunately for Darcy, the fact that she was enveloped in Mrs. Hays’s frail embrace kept her from displaying her shock at what the woman had just said. Had she really just called her daughter?
What’s going on here?
She glanced over Mrs. Hays’s shoulder and saw the panicked look on Bill’s face. At least he was as startled about this as she was. Darcy started to push herself out of Mrs. Hays’s embrace and explain, but Bill shook his head and silently mouthed the word, please.
Darcy signaled her objection, but Bill just shook his head again. Considering the woman’s health and the terribly late hour, she tacitly agreed to go on with the ruse. At least until morning.
They would have to explain then and make sure Mrs. Hays understood her mistake. As if she didn’t have enough sorting out of her own to do.
She patted Mrs. Hays gently on the back and pushed herself out of the woman’s embrace. “It’s so nice to meet you, Mrs. Hays. Bill has told me so much about you.”
“Well, Billy surely hasn’t said anything at all about you,” Mrs. Hays said, shaking her head. “If you’re going to be in the family, you can call me Momma. Or, at least, Nettie. Mrs. Hays sounds so unfriendly, don’t you think?”
“Yes, ma’am, I suppose it does. I’ll be happy to call you Nettie.” There was absolutely no way Darcy was going to call the woman Momma. That would just be too cruel.
It was bad enough that she and Bill were going to have to burst her bubble in the morning. She glanced up at Bill and raised an eyebrow and hoped he got the message.
She wasn’t sure what the message was, but she did want him to know that she wasn’t happy with the turn of events.
After all, she’d just escaped from one fiancé. She certainly did not need another one.
Darcy smiled at Mrs. Hays. “It’s awfully late, Mrs. H—I mean, Nettie. Why don’t we get you settled, and we can chat in the morning.”
“I do look forward to that, hon. And you are right. I am tired. I guess all this excitement’s done worn me out.” She turned toward Bill. “Help me up the stairs, son, so I can go to bed. I’ll leave you to settle your fiancée in—Why, I do declare, you have not introduced me to my future daughter-in-law.”
“It’s Darcy Stanton, Nettie,” Darcy said, forcing a smile. She waved and Nettie smiled back, then took Bill’s arm and allowed him to help her up the short flight of steps.
Wondering how they were going to talk their way out of this charade without hurting the woman struggling up the stairs, Darcy stood outside in the glare of the security lamp and took stock of her surroundings.
The house was small, and Darcy wondered how the woman could have raised five kids in it. But the lawn was trimmed and the flower beds neat and cared for. Obviously, Bill’s brothers and sisters were coming around to help. She thought about the strong love they must share and weighed it against her family’s feelings about duty and tradition. They didn’t compare.
She could see a couple of outbuildings beyond the small house: a chicken house, she supposed, and a shed or a small barn. Mrs. Hays might have kept some chickens and a few cows at one time, but Darcy doubted she was up to keeping them now.
It reminded her of something out of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books she’d loved as a child. Darcy suspected that it had been fun growing up here where the kids could run free and grow like weeds. Not like her own heavily restricted upbringing on military bases all over the world. She’d often had to be escorted to school by armed guards and had only dreamed of running free. The Hays family might have been poor, but her upbringing hadn’t been any better. At least, Bill and his siblings had the roots and stability she’d always craved.
“What do you think?”
Darcy turned, startled, at the sound of Bill’s voice behind her. “About what?”
She looked so much like an angel, Bill thought as he hurried down the porch steps to where Darcy waited outside in the yard. He shouldn’t have left her there, but he had to take care of Momma first. Hell, he shouldn’t have gotten Darcy in this mess in the first place.
He drew in a long breath and answered her question. “The Hays homestead, I suppose,” Bill said. “It’s gone to seed some since Momma’s been sick, but it was a nice place to grow up.” And for the first time in his life, Bill realized that it had been.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. I always dreamed of living in a place like this. I bet you had chickens and cows when you were growing up and had chores and everything.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Didn’t I what? Have chickens and cows?”
“No, chores,” Bill corrected.
“Oh, sure. Clean up my room. Dishes. I always wondered what it would be like to feed chickens, gather the eggs, and milk cows.”
Bill shrugged. “Feeding chickens is no big thing. You just toss out feed, and the chickens come running. It was a little more exciting to get the eggs. Sometimes an ol’ hen wouldn’t want to part with hers, and I’d have to shoo her off. She’d go with feathers flying and clucking fit to beat the band.” He chuckled and headed for his Jeep. “Can’t tell you much about milking, though. We just had steers.”
“Steers?” Darcy asked as Bill opened the back door to the Jeep.
Bill handed her the backpack and hoisted her duffel bag out along with his own, then slammed the door shut. “Yeah, we got bull calves free from the dairy farm down the road toward Pittsville and raised them for beef.”
He smiled inwardly as Darcy grimaced.
“How can you eat anything that you’ve looked in the face?” she said, horror written all over hers.
“You can eat anything if you’re hungry enough, I reckon,” Bill said as he turned toward the house. “You comin’?” He strode up the stairs. “It’s been a helluva long day, and I’d just as soon hit the sack than stand out here and talk about butchering beef.” He could stand around and talk with her as long as she could, but Bill could see that she was just as tired as he was. She might be wide awake right now, but he’d bet she’d drop off as soon as her head hit the pillow. Just as he would.
Just not together.
Why did he keep thinking about that?
He wouldn’t mind sleeping with her, but he’d only known Darcy for a few hours, and tomorrow they’d say goodbye. It was nice to dream about, but in the morning he would wake up and face reality.
Bill stopped at the front door to reach for the knob, and Darcy collided with him. He paused, enjoying the feeling of her soft form against him, but she drew away quickly enough. He turned around. “I want to thank you for what you did back there,” he said. “I know we’re going to have to come clean with Momma in the morning, but it was more important to get her to bed tonight. It’ll be easier for her to take when she’s rested,” he said.
“You’re probably right,” Darcy said. “But you will explain it to her first thing, won’t you?” She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “And you’ll drive me back to Montgomery?”
“I’ll take you anywhere you want,” he told her, but the only place he could think about taking her was to bed. His, not one in his sisters’ room where Momma’d said to put her. He figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to think about it. He was realistic enough to know it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. No, he told himself, firmly. It wasn’t ever going to happen.
“Thank you,” Darcy said and yawned again. “Now, could you show me where to sleep before I curl up on that porch swing over there?”
Bill chuckled. “I think I can show you something softer than that old porch swing. Come on inside. Momma said you could have Lougenia and Earline’s room.” He pulled open the screen door and ushered Darcy inside.
A ROOSTER CROWED, and Darcy roused briefly from deep sleep. She looked around the room, still colorless in the gray morning light, and listened for any sounds to indicate anyone in the house was up. Hearing none, she rolled over and burrowed her face into the pillow.
The next time Darcy woke, daylight was streaming in through windows unshuttered against the morning sun. She smelled bacon and coffee, and suddenly she was wide awake.
She was in Bill Hays’s mother’s house, and on top of that, she was pretending to be his fiancée. But only for a few minutes longer. Bill had promised to straighten it all out with his mother. Maybe he already had.
A girl could hope.
Darcy pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around the room she’d been too tired to study last night. It had obviously been a girl’s room. Two girls. Hadn’t Bill mentioned two names last night? There was another twin bed, the mate to the one she was in. Both were draped with pink chenille bedspreads, and a collection of dolls and stuffed animals watched her from the tops of both dressers and shelves on the wall. The toys were as dusty as the curling posters on the wall were worn.
Bill had mentioned that he was the youngest, so these sisters must have preceded him by five or ten years. The posters were from the eighties. She recognized Kirk Cameron and a young John Travolta. She smiled with the realization that teenaged girls were pretty much the same no matter where or when they grew up.
A light tapping on the door caused her to jerk the chenille cover up over her chest. She hadn’t packed a nightgown in her duffle bag and had slept in a T-shirt minus her bra. “Yes?” she managed, after her heart stopped beating a mile a minute.
“I’ve got breakfast ready. I didn’t wake you, did I?” Bill asked from outside the door.
“No, I was up. I’ll just be a minute.” Darcy threw off the covers and tumbled out of the bed. She found her duffle and rummaged through it until she located fresh underwear and a clean T-shirt. She wished they weren’t so wrinkled, but it couldn’t be helped. She hadn’t expected to be meeting her fiancé’s mother.
She hadn’t expected to acquire another fiancé on the same day she’d dumped the last one.
No, she reminded herself. In ten minutes or so, they’d straighten it out, and she wouldn’t have to pretend anymore.
She pulled on the T-shirt, slipped on her shoes, then grabbed her toothbrush and headed toward the bathroom. She might as well put her best face forward when she faced the music. The best one she could, considering.
She just hoped that Mrs. Hays wouldn’t be too upset about the truth.
BILL POURED his mother a glass of orange juice and watched as she drank it. It saddened him to see her so weak, and he felt so helpless not to be able to do anything about it. She’d been so strong when he was growing up, and now she seemed so frail.
“Happy Birthday, son,” Momma said. “In all the excitement last night I plumb forgot about it. We’ll have your party tonight. Along with your birthday, we’ll have something else to celebrate.”
“Something else?”
“Well, surely you want to announce your engagement,” she said. “I called Lougenia first thing this morning and told her all about it. She was so excited.”
Damn, Bill thought. Now what do I do? Why in the hell did I think we could get away with it? We should’ve told her the truth last night. “Momma, I wish you hadn’t done that,” he said, tempering his anger. After all, he wasn’t mad at Momma. He was mad at himself.
“Oh, did you want to save it till the party this evenin’?” She looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to steal your thunder by telling your sister.”
“It’s all right, Momma. We’ll sort it out later.” The sooner it happened, the better it would be for everyone, Bill couldn’t help thinking. At least, Momma hadn’t told his sister Earline. If she had, everyone in Pitt County would know by now.