Read Now and Forever for Free Online

chinaberry tree and cut the engine. The sounds of machinery in the distance sawed into the quiet of the nearby forest, a quiet which usually was broken only by the intermittent chirp of crickets, the warble of songbirds. It was, Tish thought, impossibly far from the watery roar of the sea and the cry of gulls, so far from the sounds of freeway traffic and blaring horns and city noises. Involuntarily, she relaxed against the seat and closed her eyes with a smile.
    â€œCountry girl,” Russell said gently, his big hand brushing at a yellowjacket as it tried to land on her bare arm. “Fight it all you can, baby, but your heart’s here, just as much as mine is.”
    She turned her head on the seat and met his teasing gaze. Remembering his dark, sudden anger, she couldn’t smile the hurt away. “Are you leading up to another lecture about fast city men and slow Southern girls and the advantages of life in the country?” she asked coolly. “You can’t seem to manage a civil word for me unless there’s a sermon tacked onto it.”
    â€œStop that.” He pushed the brim of his hat back and stared across the fields where bare-chested field hands were just beginning to slow down in the heat, ready for frosty cans of cold beer as they left the tractors in between the rows of hay they were raking and bunching into bales. The green and yellow tractors were colorful against the horizon.
    â€œDon’t you ever get tired, Tish,” he asked harshly, “of pretending to be something you’re not?”
    â€œI’m not pretending,” she returned icily, folding her arms across her chest as though she felt a chill.
    â€œAren’t you?” He turned in the seat, lighting a cigarette while he stared at her. He let out a stream of gray smoke. “Honest poverty is nothing to be ashamed of. Your father…”
    â€œPlease!” The word broke involuntarily from her lips, and she bowed her head, her teeth catching her lower lip, her eyes closed. “Please, don’t!”
    He sighed heavily. “My God, can’t you talk about it yet, after all these years? Bottling it up inside you…”
    â€œPlease!” she repeated huskily.
    â€œAll right, damn it, all right!” He scowled down at her, something restless and wild in the look his dark eyes gave her. “God, baby, don’t. Don’t suffer so.”
    She shook back her hair and the tears, and lifted her face to the breeze. “Can we go? I want to see Eileen and Nan.”
    â€œDoes Tyler know the truth?” he growled suddenly. “Does he know what you crawled up from? Does he care?”
    A tremor went through her. “You wouldn’t dare tell him…!” she cried, as if he’d hit her.
    His face was impassive, but something flashed in his narrowed eyes. “You can’t run from yourself,” he said.
    She wanted to hit him, to hurt him. “I remember, Russell, is that what you want?” she asked huskily, fighting tears. “I remember dresses made out of flour sacks, and shoes that were too big because they were so cheap; and the other kids laughing at me because I had nothing…nothing! But I didhave my pride, and I never let them see how much it hurt!” Her eyes widened, aching, burning with the memory. “Even when you brought me here and put new clothes on me and bought me shoes that fit, it changed nothing! I was that sharecropper’s brat, and nobody wanted anything to do with me because I was white trash! Thank you, I remember it very well!”
    â€œYou remember all the wrong things,” he said quietly, his hand reaching out to brush one lone tear from her silky cheek. “I remember that you never shirked your chores, or told lies, or asked for anything. All those years, Tish, and you never asked for a single thing. Did you have so much?”
    She looked into her lap. “I had you, Russell,” she whispered.