A Time to Keep (8 page)

“Does he at least look good in his uniform?” Lauren asked, giggling.

“Yes, but I think he looks better out of it.” Shiloh wearing a shirt and jeans had the same impact on her as a man in formal attire; he carried himself with a commanding air of self-confidence that she hadn't encountered in any of the men she knew.

“You've seen him without his clothes?”

Gwen sucked her teeth while rolling her eyes. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Mrs. Samuels. I was talking about civilian clothes, not his birthday suit. And if you say anything else I'm going to hang up on you.”

“There's no need to get
hos-tile,
Gwendolyn. I don't need to remind you that each sunrise brings you one day closer to thirty-eight.”

“Hel-lo. Test tube,” she countered in singsong.

“I'm hanging up,” Lauren threatened.

“Good night, cuz,” Gwen drawled, unable to stifle a laugh.

The distinctive sound of a dial tone reverberated in her ear before she pressed a button and placed the receiver in its cradle. She'd teased Lauren about artificial insemination even though  she  preferred  getting  pregnant  naturally.  Gwen doubted whether she would ever choose something so impersonal
as going to a sperm bank. Adoption was her first choice, but that was an option that had remained secret.

Thinking of children reminded her of the upcoming fund-raiser to help needy families. Shiloh said the affair was a masquerade ball and she had to find something to wear.

“Aunt Gwendolyn,” she whispered. Her aunt's closets overflowed with dresses and costumes from her days as an actress. She and her great-aunt were about the same height, and the last time she saw sixty-something Gwendolyn Pickering, the older woman had the figure of someone half her age.

It'd been years since she'd played dress-up; attending the fund-raiser would bring back memories of the Venetian masked balls during Carnival. There was something about the city built on water that reminded her of Bayou Teche. It was as if time stood still, leaving those trapped within in a spell that was far from reality.

She rose from the chair and headed for the staircase. The fund-raiser was only two days away.

S
itting in a rocker on the porch of the Louisiana bayou plantation house where he'd grown up, Shiloh stared at his mother's delicate profile. “Are you sure you want to go with Augustine?”

Moriah Harper's hands tightened around the arms of a matching rocker as she stared at her bare feet resting on a cushioned footstool. “Yes, I'm sure, Shiloh.” She turned her head and glared at her firstborn. “Do you have a problem with that?”

His jawline muscles clenched angrily to halt the flow of expletives poised on the tip of his tongue. He loved and respected his mother, but her decision to attend the fund-raiser with a man who'd pursued her relentlessly since she'd become a widow annoyed him. His father hadn't been buried a month when the man who owned the largest catfish farm in the region came calling.

“You're a grown woman, Mama, and—”

“Oh, so you've noticed,” Moriah countered, interrupting him.

“Please don't be catty, Mama. It's not becoming,” he chided softly.

Her green eyes sent off glints of anger and annoyance that her children—Shiloh in particular—were meddling in her life. She'd lost her husband, the love of her life, but she was still alive.

“What I find unbecoming is you trying to tell me how to live my life. Your daddy and I always talked about what we would do if one outlived the other. And we both decided that we wouldn't spend the rest of our lives mourning. I've gone to church every day since Virgil's funeral mass to light a candle for his soul. One morning last month Father Basil met me as I was leaving, asking whom I was lighting the candle for. When I told him that it was for Virgil, he said something to me that made me rethink my actions.

“I was lighting candles for someone who couldn't see the light, while my own light had gone out because I was mourning for what was, and would never be again. I'm saying this because Virgil's gone and he's not coming back. And in my heart of hearts, I know he doesn't want me to stop living, so that's why I accepted Augie's invitation to go with him to the fund-raiser.” Her expression softened, making the elementary school nurse seem closer to fifty instead of sixty. “I'm sorry, but you're going to have to find your own date this year.”

Shiloh smiled at the tall, slender woman with short curly salt-and-pepper hair. She'd inherited the large expressive green eyes from her Cajun father, and the richness of her chestnut-brown  complexion  from  her African-American mother. “I already have a date.”

The lashes shadowing Moriah's eyes fluttered as she sat up straighter. Her heart pounding a runaway rhythm, she prayed Shiloh hadn't reconciled with his ex-wife.

“Who is she?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Shiloh leaned back on the chair, smiling. “You don't know her.”

“Does she have a name?”

“Miss Taylor.”

“Does Miss Taylor have a first name?”

“Gwendolyn.”

It was Moriah's turn to smile. “Where did you meet her?”

“I picked her up along the road.”

“Along the road as in hitchhiking?”

Reaching over and patting his mother's hand, Shiloh winked at her. “No more questions, Mama. You'll get to meet her Friday.” Rising from his rocker, he leaned over, and kissed Moriah's scented cheek. “Good night, beautiful.”

Moriah smiled, patting his back over the bulge of the firearm concealed under his shirt. “You be careful, son.”

“I will.”

She stared through the screen as he walked off the porch, got into his car and drove away. She'd always warned Virgil to be careful each time he left the house, and it was no different with her son.

“You'll get to meet her Friday.”
Shiloh's words stayed with her long after he'd left. While she'd lit candles for her dead husband, she'd also prayed for her son, prayed that he would meet someone who would make him laugh again.

She hoped this Gwendolyn Taylor would be the one who would help soften his heart.

* * *

It was six-twenty, and Gwen still hadn't slipped into the burgundy Renaissance-inspired ball gown. She was partial to the gown because it was in keeping with a black lace mask adorned with burgundy silk ties. She'd found the mask in a box stacked in a walk-in closet in one of the guest bedrooms.

Gwendolyn Pickering's closets were a treasure trove of
clothes and costumes spanning decades. Her aunt had made her theatrical debut at the age of six in a church musical, and as she matured, went on to starring and supporting roles in dozens of independent black films until her unexpected retirement in the early '50s. She left California for Louisiana, moving into
Bon Temps.

Sitting on a padded bench in front of a vanity mirror, the bulbs surrounding the mirror set for nighttime illumination, Gwen outlined her mouth with a shade of wine-colored lipstick. She wondered how many times her aunt had sat on the stool making up her face before putting on her evening finery to descend the curving staircase and greet her guests who'd gathered in the ballroom.

Her aunt's life had always been shrouded in mystery, but some of that mystery was about to be stripped away. Gwen had found a large corrugated box filled with letters addressed to Miss Gwendolyn Pickering at
Bon Temps.
None of the envelopes bore a return address, but a postmark indicated they'd been mailed from New Orleans.

She applied a second coat of lipstick, pleased with the result. The upper half of her face would be hidden under the mask, so attention would be drawn to her mouth. A light coat of loose powder, a few brushstrokes over her hair pulled off her face and secured on the nape of her neck with ruby-jeweled hairpins that were in the package Billy Sykes had sent to her completed her exotic look. Her aunt had entrusted her lawyer with a small rosewood box filled with pieces of estate jewelry and an accompanying appraisal that listed the contents at half a million dollars. A teardrop-shaped ruby pendant suspended on an ornate filigree gold chain resting between the valley of her breasts matched the earrings dangling from Gwen's pierced lobes.

She left the dressing room for the bedroom. Picking the ball
gown off the bed, she stepped into it and eased it up her hose-covered legs and over the bodice of a strapless black bustier. Narrow bands to billowy gauzy silk sleeves with gold-threaded embroidered cuffs were attached to the beaded off-the-shoulder straps. The revealing décolletage that flowed into a full skirt was not a garment for a lady invited to the de Medici court, but of a Venetian courtesan.

The doorbell chimed, and she went completely still. Turning, she stared at the clock on the fireplace mantel. It was 6:30. Shiloh was on time. Clutching the back of her dress with her left hand, she used her right to lift the sweeping skirt, and raced out of her bedroom and down the long hallway to the staircase.

“I'm coming!” she shouted as she descended the staircase in her stocking feet. She made it to the door before it rang again, opened it, and went completely still.

Shiloh stood under the beam of twin porch lamps in sartorial splendor. Light slanted over his deeply tanned brown face, making his eyes appear lighter than they actually were. Her gaze moved slowly from his stunned expression to a white tie under a matching spread collar shirt and dinner jacket with shawl lapels. Black dress trousers and slip-ons pulled together his winning formal dress.

“I'm still dressing,” she said breathlessly.

“So I see,” Shiloh confirmed, staring at the swell of flawless brown flesh rising and falling above the incredibly beautiful gown draping the body of the woman who'd occupied his every waking moment. He'd given up trying to identify why he'd found himself drawn to Gwendolyn Taylor and decided to give in to whatever it was that made him want to know her—every way possible.

Gwen moved behind the door. “Please come in. As soon as I hook myself up and get my shoes I'll be ready.”

Stepping into the entryway, he eased the door from her grip
and closed it. His gaze never wavered as he stared down at the woman who'd caught him in a web of seduction with her lovely face, curvaceous body and sassy tongue.

“Let me hook you up.”

Gwen shook her head. “No. I can do it.”

“It'll go faster if I do it.”

“No, Shiloh.”

“Hush, darling,” he crooned, ignoring her protest. Moving behind her, he began slipping the many hooks into the corresponding eyes, silently admiring the flawless skin on her back and curbing an urge to press his mouth to the velvety perfumed flesh.

Gwen suffered his closeness, his fingers brushing her bare skin. “I'm not your darling,” she said in a strained voice she didn't recognize as her own.

Shiloh leaned closer, his mouth inches from her ear. “It's just a figure of speech down these parts, darling.”

“Up where I come from it has a different connotation.”

“You're no longer up North, darling, but in the good ole South. We may not be as liberal or freethinking as the people you're used to, but what we are is honest and for the most part God-fearing folks who'd go out of their way for a neighbor in need. You hang around here long enough and you'll see that.”

She drew in a breath. “Are you chastising me, Shiloh Harper?”

He pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, smiling. “No, darling, I'm not. And I think you have the hang of it already.”

“Hang of what?”

“Calling someone by their full name when you're pissed off.”

Gwen could not stop the smile curving the corners of her mouth upward. “I believe that is a black thing.”

“Black
and
southern.”

“How did you get the name Shiloh?”

“I'll tell you in the car,” he promised, fastening the last hook. “You're done.”

Resting his hands on her shoulders, he turned her around to face him. A swath of heat raced through him and settled in his groin as he swallowed an expletive. Gwen Taylor wasn't beautiful. She was magnificent! The swell of breasts rising above the revealing décolletage spelled trouble—trouble for him.

“What's the matter?” Gwen asked when she saw his expression.

“Nothing,” he answered truthfully. But if Gwen asked him the same question after the men attending the fund-raiser at the restored mansion near Shadows-on-the-Teche caught sight of her bosom, the response would have been another matter indeed.

She smiled at him. “Thanks for hooking me up. Give me five minutes and I'll be right back.”

Shiloh watched her retreating figure, then sat down on one of the hall chairs and waited. He crossed one leg over the opposite knee, smiling. He knew attending the fund-raiser with Gwen would shock more than a few people because he hadn't been seen with a woman since his divorce.

He'd heard the rumors about his sexual preference, but hadn't bothered to refute them. He still preferred women, just not the ones who threw themselves at him. When he met Deandrea she'd come on to him like a voracious piranha. Her insatiable sex drive appealed to his ego because she claimed he was the first man who could satisfy her. They'd spent their entire honeymoon in bed, leaving only to eat and bathe.

However, the honeymoon ended a year later with him filing for divorce. He cited irreconcilable differences rather than adultery. Not outing Deandrea and François salvaged their reputations and his pride; he hadn't wanted anyone to know that he'd been cuckolded by his best friend.

Shiloh caught movement out of the corner of his eye and
rose slowly to his feet. Gwen came toward him, the toes of a pair of black silk-covered high heels peeking out from under the sweeping skirt of her gown. She handed him a lace mask with dark-red ties, as a small evening pouch suspended from her wrist by a silk cord bumped against her side.