Johnston - I Promise Page 20

  “Or what?” Delia challenged. “There’s nothing you can do to hurt me, Cliff.”

  “From what I saw in the Times, you’re already in plenty of trouble. Give me a hard time, and it’ll only get worse.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Call it what you like. Just leave me and my wife alone.” The phone went dead.

  “I take it that was the esteemed congressman from Texas,” Marsh said, taking the phone receiver from Delia’s limp hand and hanging it back on the wall.

  “It was,” Delia said. “He threatened me. He said he’d make trouble if I don’t stay away from Rachel. Can he do that, Marsh?”

  “Probably. He’s got friends, too, Delia.”

  Delia retrieved the phone and called Rachel’s home number. It rang, and this time the answering machine picked up, but Delia didn’t feel comfortable leaving a message after her call from Cliff. “Where do you suppose she’s gone? How am I supposed to get her on a plane headed in this direction if she won’t answer the phone!”

  Delia slammed the phone back on the wall so hard the bell inside rang.

  “Do you feel better now?” Marsh asked.

  “Don’t patronize me,” Delia snapped, pacing the length of the kitchen and back again. “This is serious.”

  “I never thought it wasn’t.”

  “I don’t know a soul in Dallas I can call to go check on her,” Delia said miserably. “What good does it do to get Cliff out of town if I can’t reach Rachel?”

  “How about if I fly up there and bring her and Scott back with me?”

  Delia stopped pacing and stared at Marsh. “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not sure Rachel would come if you asked. If anybody goes, it should be me.”

  “You can’t leave your mother alone right now. And you can give me a note for Rachel, explaining the situation.”

  Delia could ask Maria to stay overnight while she flew to Dallas, but the housekeeper had family of her own. Marsh’s offer was tempting. “What about Billie Jo?” Delia asked.

  “She’s old enough to stay by herself.” Marsh frowned thoughtfully and amended, “It would be better, though, if she could stay with you.”

  “You know I have the room, if you don’t think she’d mind.”

  “She’ll do as she’s told,” Marsh said. “But no, I don’t think she’d mind. In fact, she’s fascinated by you.”

  “She is? Because I’m a judge?”

  “Because you lost my baby.”

  As far as Delia could tell, Billie Jo North was not the least bit pleased to be spending the night at the Carson mansion. The sulky pout hadn’t once left her face since Delia had picked her up after school. Delia had kept up a one-sided conversation while she cooked supper and served it to Billie Jo at the kitchen table. It was hard to imagine herself that young. But Billie Jo was the same age Delia had been when she ran away from home.

  The teenager had been twirling the same few strands of spaghetti around her fork for the past five minutes. She hadn’t eaten ten bites of her supper.

  “I can make something else, if you don’t like spaghetti,” Delia said.

  “I’m not hungry,” Billie Jo said.

  Delia didn’t know a teenager who wasn’t always starving, but she didn’t contradict the girl.

  From out of nowhere, Billie Jo asked, “Are you in love with my dad?”

  Delia’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  “You were going to go to bed with him. Are you in love with him?”

  The girl’s frankness left her momentarily speechless. If things worked out the way Delia hoped, Billie Jo would become her stepdaughter. That thought was both delightful and daunting. There was nothing wrong with admitting how she felt about Marsh. Except she would have liked to tell him before she told anybody else.

  “Yes, I love him,” she said.

  The girl let out a long-suffering sigh. “I thought so.” She set her left elbow on the table and dropped her cheek into her palm. “Boy, this is a mess.”

  “What’s a mess?”

  “Dad wasn’t too happy getting stuck with me in the first place, and he sure isn’t going to want me around if he’s getting married again.”

  “Marsh and I haven’t talked about marriage.” They hadn’t even talked about love in the present tense, but hey, why worry about details at a time like this. “I know your father wouldn’t give you up for anything—or anyone.”

  Billie Jo eyed her doubtfully. “I don’t know how you can say that. He can hardly wait to get me through high school so he can go back to his stupid newspaper.”

  Delia felt her stomach knot. “He hasn’t said anything about that to me.”

  “He’s probably planning to send me off to a girl’s school somewhere in the Northeast when he marries you,” Billie Jo said glumly. “That’s what I thought he’d do when Mom died. I was surprised when he didn’t. I should have known this wouldn’t last.”

  Delia knew exactly how Billie Jo was feeling. She knew what it was like to be abandoned by someone you loved. To feel a little hope that you might get back what you lost, only to realize you might be left alone again. She had given Billie Jo the only comfort she could. But if things worked out between her and Marsh, and she had anything to say about it, Billie Jo would be living with them.

  “Do you like it here in Uvalde?” Delia asked Billie Jo.

  “I didn’t at first. Now that I’ve met this boy at school . . . It’s not so bad.”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Sounds like it’s going to rain.” As Delia spoke, she heard the first splatters of rain against the kitchen windows. It quickly turned into a deluge.

  Because of the drought, every drop of water was welcome. So Delia was surprised to hear Billie Jo’s “Oh, no! Rain!”

  “What’s the matter?” Delia asked.

  “The roof leaks. At home, I mean. We had a storm once before, and it was awful. I have to go and set out some pots to catch the rain, or everything will get ruined. We need to go now!”

  Delia rose hesitantly from the table and carried her plate to the sink. “I’m sorry, Billie Jo, but I can’t leave my mother alone.” She racked her brain to think of a friend she could trust to take Billie Jo home and couldn’t come up with a name. Maria’s family only had one car, and her husband worked nights. At times like this, Delia missed her old friend, Peggy.

  “I’ll call Todd,” Billie Jo suggested, hurrying to the wall phone in the kitchen. “Maybe he can give me a ride home.”

  “Who’s Todd?”

  “The boy from school I mentioned. Daddy knows him.” Billie Jo called, but Todd wasn’t able to help. He had talked back to his mother at supper, and she had taken away his truck keys.

  Billie Jo turned to Delia, her expression crestfallen. “Todd can’t do it.”

  “Maybe the rain damage won’t be as bad as you think,” Delia said.

  “It will!” Billie Jo cried. “You don’t know what it’s like. There are drips everywhere!” Billie Jo wrung her hands. “You have to take me home. You have to! My things will be ruined, if you don’t.”

  Delia’s heart went out to the girl. She made a sudden decision. “Give me a minute to check on Mother. Then we’ll go. I can be gone long enough to set out some pots. But you won’t be able to stay and watch them fill up,” Delia said with a smile.

  “Thank you,” Billie Jo said. “Thank you so much!”

  Delia ran upstairs and peeked in at her mother. The remnants of Hattie’s dinner sat on a tray near the bed. Delia saw in the dim light from the lamp near the door that her mother was sleeping peacefully. With any luck, she would never know that Delia had been gone. Delia quietly picked up the supper tray and carried it back downstairs with her.

  “Mother’s asleep,” she said. “Let’s make this quick.”

  They used umbrellas to race from the kitchen door to Delia’s rental car and laughed at each other’s soaking wet clothing
once they were safe inside.

  “We might as well have skipped the umbrellas,” Delia said. “The rain’s blowing sideways.”

  Delia made the trip to Marsh’s home in record time. She was careful not to speed, but she pushed the limit. The road up to the house had turned to mud, and the car skidded as she hit the brakes at the back door.

  Billie Jo was out of the car in a flash and scampering for the mud porch. It wasn’t locked, and she shoved her way inside the house before Delia was even out of the car. Delia hurried after her, leaving the useless umbrella behind.

  Her hair was dripping wet by the time she reached the door and let herself in. She took one look at her snakeskin boots and realized why Marsh had a mud porch. She found Billie Jo’s muddy boots lying discarded outside the kitchen door and pulled hers off, too. She wiped her muddy hands on a towel hanging from a nail on the back of the house and headed inside.

  Billie Jo was squatting in front of a cupboard beside the stove. Pots and pans rattled as she pulled them free and stacked them behind her. Delia picked one up and set it on the kitchen table under a steady drip which had already created a small puddle of water. As far as she could tell, that was the only leak in the kitchen.

  “Where are the towels?” Delia asked. “I’ll wipe up this water.”

  “In the hall closet, near the bathroom,” Billie Jo said.

  Delia left Billie Jo gathering pots and pans and headed down the hall. She nearly slipped and fell, which was how she found the second leak. She turned on the hall light, stared at the wet floor, then looked up at the ceiling, before retreating to the kitchen for another pot.

  Billie Jo held an armful of pots, and Delia took one from the top of the stack.

  “These are mine,” Billie Jo said. “Get your own.”

  “Emergency,” Delia said with a grin. “Flood in the hall.”

  Billie Jo didn’t argue further. She crept along the edge of the hallway where it was dry and slipped into her bedroom.

  Delia inspected the hall ceiling, trying to find the source of the drip. A drop of water plopped onto her forehead. She stepped back and set the pot on the floor and waited. The next drop hit near the edge of the pot. She centered it and headed to the linen closet for towels to clean up the mess in the kitchen and hall.

  Once she found the towels, Delia realized she and Billie Jo needed to be dried off, too. She wiped her face and briskly towel-dried her hair, leaving the towel around her shoulders as she headed for Billie Jo’s room with another towel for her.

  She knocked on the closed door and waited until Billie Jo said, “Come in.”

  The room reminded her a lot of her own teenage bedroom. Pictures and dried flowers and notes were taped to the mirror over the dresser. The lamp beside Billie Jo’s brass-railed twin bed had apparently been with her a long time, because it featured Cinderella in her ball gown. Clothes were layered over the back of a wicker chair by the bed. A tumble of shoes lay in the bottom of the closet. The bed hadn’t been made.

  Billie Jo looked at her expectantly.

  “I thought you could use a towel to dry off,” Delia said, “so you don’t get a chill.”

  Instead of giving the towel to Billie Jo, Delia spread it out and draped it over the girl’s head. Their fingers tangled as Delia helped Marsh’s daughter dry her hair.

  A moment later, Billie Jo’s hands dropped to her sides, and she stood unmoving, letting Delia finish the job.

  When Delia pulled the towel away, Billie Jo glanced at her and then at her hands, which had knotted in front of her.

  “My mom used to do that,” Billie Jo said. “Dry my hair with a towel like that after she washed it, when I was a kid.”

  Delia folded the towel to give herself something to do with her hands so she wouldn’t reach for Billie Jo. Marsh’s daughter so obviously needed a hug, and so obviously wouldn’t have accepted one from her.

  “You must miss your mother a lot,” Delia said softly.

  Billie Jo tried to shrug as though it were no big deal, but couldn’t pull it off. “Yeah,” she said, her heart in her eyes, her voice a bare whisper. “I do.”

  Billie Jo’s glance slid to a photograph beside the bed.

  “Is that a picture of your mother?” Delia asked, gesturing with her chin.

  “Yes.”

  “May I see it?”

  Billie Jo picked up the color photograph of a smiling young woman with windswept, curly blond hair standing at the helm of a yacht and held it out to her. “Daddy thinks I look a lot like her.”

  She did. Except for the shape of her eyebrows and her square chin, both of which she had gotten from Marsh. “Your mother was very beautiful,” Delia said. Unbelievably beautiful. Delia felt a spurt of jealousy and nipped it in the bud. The woman was dead. And Marsh had divorced her years ago.

  A loud plop, as a drop of water landed on the small writing desk in the corner, reminded them why they were there.

  “I’d better get that water wiped up in the hall,” Delia said, handing the picture back to Billie Jo.

  “I’ll come help you when I’m done here,” Billie Jo said.

  “Use this to wipe up any extra water you find.” Delia thrust the folded towel at Billie Jo and headed back into the hall.

  Nobody had a perfect life, Delia thought as she dropped to her knees to wipe up the water from the hall floor. There were always trials and tribulations to be overcome. They just took different forms in each family.

  She wondered if Billie Jo would let her become another mother to her. She wondered if she would even get the chance.

  Billie Jo still hadn’t come out of her bedroom by the time Delia was done. “How are you doing?” she called down the hall.

  “Fine,” Billie Jo called back. “Did you check Daddy’s room?”

  “Not yet.” Delia had been in Marsh’s room once before, but she couldn’t have described it to save her life. She had been too busy being embarrassed to form any impressions. She was surprised at how neat it was. Her eyes were drawn to the quilt on the bed.

  She reached out to touch the motley collection of fabrics and colors and realized it was sopping wet. She had already starting stripping it from the bed when Billie Jo arrived in the doorway.

  “Uh-oh,” Billie Jo said.

  Delia stopped what she was doing. “Uh-oh?”

  “Daddy is absolutely insane about that quilt. I was going to take it on a picnic one time, and he made me put it back. He treats it like it was made of gold, or something.”

  Billie Jo crossed to the bed and pointed out a ragged spot on the quilt. “See that? Rats ate it. Daddy said he was lucky that was all the damage they did. I didn’t realize till he found it in the barn that he’d been looking for it ever since we came back here.

  “It’s special, because it’s made with pieces of North history. Daddy said someday, when I have kids of my own, it’ll be mine.”

  Billie Jo paused, as though realizing how much she had said and how corny it sounded. “Anyway, I thought you should know to be careful with it.”

  “It’s sopping wet,” Delia said. “I was going to throw it in the dryer, so it doesn’t get moldy.”

  “The dryer doesn’t work,” Billie Jo said. “We’ve been hanging things on the line out back.”

  Delia finished stripping the precious quilt, whose history she knew as well as Marsh’s daughter. Marsh had brought the quilt to the live oak one day and explained the story of each patch as his grandmother had told it to him. The ruined patch had been a piece of the dress his mother had worn on her first date with his father.

  “We’ll take the quilt with us, and put it in the dryer at my house,” Delia said as she gathered it into a wet bundle. “See if you can find where that leak’s hitting the bed and put a pot under it,” she told Billie Jo, “while I take this out to the kitchen. That way we won’t forget it when we leave.”

  It took them half an hour to put pots under all the leaks and wipe up all the water they could find.


  “Was anything of yours ruined?” Delia asked.

  “Some papers got wet, but they’ll dry,” Billie Jo said. “Thanks, Delia.” She flushed. “I mean, Judge Carson.”

  “Delia’s fine,” Delia said with a smile. “I’m glad you made me come. I can see this would have been a disaster.”

  Why hadn’t Marsh had the roof repaired? Even as she formulated the question, Delia thought she knew the answer. He must have been inundated with work on the ranch, and with the persistent drought, who could have imagined it would rain? Knowing Marsh, it had never occurred to him to hire someone else to do something he knew how to do himself.

  Delia and Billie Jo emptied all the pots and pans one last time before they left. “If the rain doesn’t stop, we’ll make a quick trip back later to check on everything,” Delia promised.

  They pulled their boots back on, and Delia retrieved the quilt before they braved the rain again.

  On the ride back to the Circle Crown, the sullen-eyed, silent teenager Delia had met at supper was replaced by one who talked a mile a minute and asked questions like she was the investigative reporter, instead of her dad.

  “Have you ever been married?” Billie Jo asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was engaged once, but we realized we didn’t love each other enough to spend our lives together.”

  “Did my dad get you pregnant?”

  Delia was so startled by the question she almost ran the car off the road. “No, he did not!”

  “Oh.” Billie Jo was silent for a few moments. “Whose baby was it?”

  Delia didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t tell the truth. She didn’t want to lie, either. “I can’t tell you that, Billie Jo. Not without revealing some things that are still painful to me.”

  That shut Billie Jo up. For about a minute.

  “So my dad didn’t rape you?”

  “He most certainly did not! I know the whole town believes he did, but it simply isn’t true.”

  Billie Jo looked relieved for a moment. But came up with another question. “Then why did you run away?”