Jimmy set her down and glared at her. Priscilla elbowed him in the stomach and tried to push her way past him. Jimmy grabbed her and held her in place. She was still too thin so it was a relatively easy task to immobilize her.

“You jerk, leave me be. I have a stage to catch,” Priscilla hissed.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jimmy asked her angrily. He knew she would be upset and justifiably so, but she threw a bag at his head!

“None of your business.”

“You are carrying my child. It is my business.”

“Who says it’s your child?” Jimmy made note of the fact she did not deny she was pregnant. Of course if one looked at her belly it was pretty easy to see the protrusion there. She had lost too much weight to hide it.

Jimmy raised a brow at her.

“Okay, fine, it’s yours, so what? You don’t care about me but you care about the baby?” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears.

Jeez, Jimmy thought. She really believed that. “Cill, no.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders and held her wrists gently.

“What do you want? Should I leave the baby with you? Like you’d know what to do?” she continued scornfully.

“Would you let me say two words?” Jimmy spat out.

“Say a hundred, it really doesn’t matter,” she told him coldly.

“I was wrong to listen to your father. I wanted to see you. But I let myself believe you’d be better off without me.” He looked at the ground sheepishly. “I figured you’d come and yell at me sooner or later and we’d be together again.”

“What kind of crap is that?” Priscilla yelled. “I am supposed to come to you? I was bedridden for weeks!”

“I was wrong! Okay? I admit it. I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t of listened to your father -”

“Stop blaming him!”

“I was stupid -”

“Was?”

“Am stupid, okay? I’m sorry. Just don’t leave to punish me,” Jimmy was pleading now. “What are you going to do?”

“Live with my aunt,” Priscilla snapped.

“And you want to do that?”

“I want my mother to be alive, I want to see my father smile like he used to, I want to be near my family, I want to go to teacher’s college, I want a nice hot slice of blueberry pie, I want so many things,” Priscilla yelled. “But I don’t have a choice.”

“Here’s a choice. Stay here -”

“Hmph.”

“Marry me,” Jimmy continued as if she had not spoken. “You will be near your family, you won’t be alone. Our baby will have a mother and a father.”

“Marriage is for people in love,” Priscilla said quietly. It pained Jimmy to hear the defeat in her voice. But at least she was no longer shouting at him.

“Cill,” Jimmy began.

“Please,” Priscilla begged him, “please don’t say you love me. I am not a fool. Don’t treat me like I am one.”

“And you running off, raising our baby by yourself is not something a fool would do?” Jimmy retorted. “What will you say when he or she asks about their father? Don’t you want the baby to your own father? Know his or her aunts and uncles? Tell me you will be happier out east and I’ll go, but can you say that? Can you say this is what is best for the baby?” he added, his voice growing softer. “Can you?”

Priscilla did not answer. She simply looked away, unable to meet Jimmy’s eyes.

“Cill,” he continued quietly. “I want to raise our baby with you. Please give me that chance.”

She lifted her head and stared at him silently for a long while. “I,” she said, her voice so scratchy Jimmy could barely understand her. She cleared her throat and spoke more clearly. “I don’t want to leave home. My family needs me. So yes, I’ll marry you.”

Jimmy smiled and took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. He was pleased to see that Priscilla did not pull it away. Now he just needed to find some blueberry pie.

“One condition,” she added.

“Okay,” Jimmy said, his eyes filled with confusion. He thought they were heading in the right direction. The word condition sounded ominous.

“Don’t lie, don’t make promises. Don’t pretend you care. If you want to sleep with me, then I’ll sleep with you. I’ll be a good wife,” she said mockingly, “but I can’t, I can’t,” she paused, unable to go on.

Can’t what? Jimmy thought, love him, talk to him like she did before, what? “Cill, don’t do this,” Jimmy murmured, trying to pull her close. If she would just try they had a chance at happiness. But Priscilla pushed him away, her eyes darting about the alley until they settled on her shoes.

“When you were sick, I tried to see you all the time,” Jimmy told her and he was relieved to see her head snap upward in surprise. He hoped that he could make her stop hating him. “I missed you. But what happened to you was my fault.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know what to do. So when your father said he’d let me be part of the ceremony as long as I stayed away after it, I agreed. It was better than not doing the ceremony, right? I would have agreed to anything that would have helped you.”

Priscilla eyed him balefully.

“Anything,” Jimmy repeated. “What would you have done in my place? Not participate in the ceremony?”

“I would have tried to see you,” Priscilla snapped, “afterwards. When you needed me most.”

Jimmy winced at her words. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you. I should have sent word to you at least, let you know that I was thinking about you, let you have a part in the decision, but I didn’t and I can’t change that no matter how much I wish I could. But you have to know this too, that night we had, God, I never had one like that before. I think about it, about you, all the time.”

“I can show a man a good time,” Priscilla said bitterly.

“Don’t talk like that. You know I didn’t mean it like that. I care about you, a lot. I never stopped.”

“How nice.”

“I know you want me to say I love you -”

“I thought I just said not to lie, not to pretend!” She snatched her hand away and placed both of her hands on her hips as she glared at him.

“I’m not. I’m trying to tell you how I feel. I don’t know what love is,” Jimmy told her desperately. “Hell, I thought I loved Sarah Downs. But that wasn’t love. All I know is that it kills me to know I hurt you.”

“And yet you are still standing,” she retorted.

“Are you going to give me a chance?” Jimmy asked quietly. “I can’t marry you and have you tear me down every single day. I feel rotten enough for the way I behaved. I’m sorry, more sorry than you will ever know. And I will try to make it up to you any way I can. But if we can’t go forward, then there isn’t any point. My folks tore each other down every day and I hated it. I won’t do that to my child. I’ll support you, I’ll pay for your teacher’s college, I’ll pay for everything. I’ll marry you in name only and then end the marriage when the baby is born, if you prefer.”

He paused. “I’d rather be your husband, raise our baby together,” he admitted, his heart so full, he could barely continue, “but I won’t be your whipping boy, paying for my wrongs forever.”

Priscilla stared at him with solemn eyes.

“For the baby at least,” Jimmy said, “can we try?”

Priscilla finally answered after an interminable silence filled the air. “For the baby,” she said softly.

Jimmy took her hand. “Let’s go find Sam.” He could ask Sam to marry them and then ask for a job, he thought as they slowed moved toward the street. Then suddenly he leaned down and kissed her. It was the only way to know for sure, he decided. Did Priscilla have any feelings for him that were good?

Priscilla held herself still and then gradually Jimmy felt her begin to relax as her arms went around his neck and her body melted into his. He put his hands on her cheeks, on thumb resting on her neck, feeling the blood thumping through her veins. He slid one hand down to the small of her back and pulled her closer as he deepened their kiss.

Priscilla jerked herself away when a wagon rumbled by the alley, breaking the spell. She stared at him. “What was that for?”

“I had to know.”

“Know?! Know what?” Priscilla demanded.

“If you still cared.” Jimmy smiled and Priscilla looked angry enough to spit nails. “Let’s go find Sam,” he said once more, humming to himself. He had only taken a few steps when a rock hit him in the back.

He turned and found Priscilla glaring at him. “You are a louse!”

“I can live with that, as long as you keep kissing me like that,” Jimmy told her with a smile.