Heaven, Texas (10 page)

The fact that nobody at the DQ had seen Gracie had escalated his worries, and he'd decided to stop and see if his mother could come up with any additional ideas about how to locate a missing person before he went to see Jimbo. She kept a spare key under the potted geraniums, but he rang the bell instead because he didn't want to scare her.

The spacious two-story house had black shutters and a cranberry red door with a brass knocker. His father, who'd built up his small insurance agency over the years until it was the most successful one in Telarosa, had bought the house when Bobby Tom went off to college. The home Bobby Tom had been raised in, the small bungalow the city foolishly planned to convert into a tourist attraction, lay on the other side of town.

Suzy smiled when she opened the door and saw him. “Hello, sweetie pie.”

He laughed at the name she'd called him for as long as he could remember and, stepping inside, tucked her under his chin. She slipped her arms around his waist and gave him a hard squeeze.

“Have you had anything to eat?”

“I don't know. I guess not.”

She gazed at him in gentle reprimand. “I don't know why you had to buy that house when I've got plenty of room here. You don't eat right, Bobby Tom. I know you don't. Come on into the kitchen. I've got some leftover lasagna.”

“Sounds good.” He tossed his hat on the brass rack in the corner of the hallway.

She turned to him, her forehead creased in an apologetic frown. “I hate to bother you, but did you get a chance to talk with the roofer? Your father always handled that sort of thing, and I wasn't sure what I should do.”

Hearing this sort of uncertainty from the woman who so competently oversaw the budget for the public school system worried Bobby-Tom, but he kept his feelings to himself. “I called him this afternoon. He seems to be giving you a good price, and I think you should go ahead with the job.”

For the first time he noticed that the pocket doors leading into the living room had been pulled shut. He couldn't ever remember that room being closed off and he gestured toward it with a tilt of his head. “What's going on?”

“Eat first. I'll tell you later.”

He began to follow her, but came to a sudden stop as he heard a strange, muffled sound. “Is somebody in there?”

No sooner had the question slipped out than he realized his mother was dressed for bed in a light blue silk robe. He felt a painful constriction. She'd never mentioned anything about seeing other men since his dad had died, but that didn't mean she wasn't.

He told himself it was her life, and he had no right to interfere. His mother was still a beautiful woman, and she deserved every bit of happiness she could find. He certainly didn't want her to be lonely. But no matter how much he tried to convince himself, he felt like howling at the idea of his mother being with any man other than his dad.

He cleared his throat. “Look, if you're seeing somebody, I understand. I didn't mean to walk in on anything.”

She looked startled. “Oh, no. Really, Bobby Tom  .  .  . “She began fiddling with the sash on her robe. “Gracie Snow is in there.”

“Gracie?” Relief rushed through him, followed almost immediately by anger. Gracie had scared the life out of him! When he'd been imagining her dead in a ditch somewhere, she'd been cozying up with his mother.

“How did she end up here?” he asked in short, clipped tones.

“I picked her up on the highway.”

“She was hitchhiking, wasn't she? I knew it! Of all the damn fool—”

“She wasn't hitchhiking. I stopped when I saw her.” Suzy hesitated. “As you can probably imagine, she's a bit upset with you.”

“She's not the only one who's upset!” He pivoted toward the sliding doors, but Suzy's hand on his arm restrained him.

“Bobby Tom, she's been drinking.”

He stared at her. “Gracie doesn't drink.”

“Unfortunately, I didn't realize that until she'd gone through my supply of wine coolers.”

The idea of Gracie slugging down wine coolers made him even angrier. Gritting his teeth, he took another step toward the doors, only to have his mother once again interrupt him.

“Bobby Tom, you know those people who get giddy and happy when they drink?”

“Yeah.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Gracie isn't one of them.”

G
racie sat curled up on the sofa with her clothes rumpled and her hair standing out from her head in coppery clumps. She had a blotchy face, red eyes, and a pink nose. Some women could cry pretty, but Bobby Tom saw right away Gracie wasn't one of them.

She looked so miserable that his anger faded. As he gazed down at her, he found it hard to believe that this sorry excuse for a female was the same spunky, bossy lady who'd done the worst striptease in history, thrown herself over his car door like a human cannonball, sabotaged his T-bird, and given Slug McQuire a blistering lecture on sexual harassment after he'd come on a little too strong to one of the waitresses at Whoppers.

Normally, he would rather have been locked in a room with a swarm of killer bees than a crying woman, but since this particular woman was Grade, and she'd somehow become his friend, he made an exception.

Suzy gazed at him helplessly. “I invited her to stay the night. She was fine at dinner, but when I came home from my board meeting, I found her like this.”

“She sure is carryin' on.”

At the sound of his voice, Grade looked up, gazed at him with bleary eyes, and hiccupped. “Now I'm”—a drawn-out sob—“not ever going to”—another sob— “have
sex.”

Suzy made a beeline for the door. “Excuse me, but I believe I have some Christmas cards I need to address.”

As she disappeared, Gracie fumbled for the box of tissues that sat on the sofa next to her, but she had trouble locating it through her tears. Bobby Tom walked over, plucked one out, and put it in her hand. She buried her face in it, her shoulders shaking, pitiful mewing sounds coming from her lips. As he sat down next to her, he decided she was, without a doubt, the most miserable drunk he'd seen in his life.

He spoke softly. “Gracie, honey, how many of those wine coolers did you drink?”

“I don't d-drink,” she said between sobs. “Alcohol is a cr-crutch for the weak.”

He rubbed her shoulders. “I understand.”

She looked up and, tissue in hand, pointed toward the oil painting of him that hung over the fireplace. His father had given it to his mother as a Christmas present when Bobby Tom was eight years old. It showed him sitting cross-legged in the grass hugging the dog he'd grown up with, a big old golden retriever named Sparky.

She jabbed her finger toward the portrait. “It's h-hard to believe a sweet child like that could grow up into such a d-depraved, egotistical, immature, w-womanizing, job-stealing rat!”

“Life's funny that way.” He handed her another tissue. “Gracie, honey, do you think you could stop crying long enough for the two of us to talk?”

She shook her head in a wobbly arc. “I'm not ever going to st-stop. And do you know why? Because I'm going to sp-spend the rest of my life eating m-mashed potatoes and smelling like disen—disen—fectant.” Another wail. “Do you know what happens when you're around d-death all the time? Your body dries up!” She startled him by clasping her hands over her breasts. “They're drying up. I'm drying up! Now I'm going to die without ever having s-sex!”

His hand stilled on her shoulders. “Are you telling me you're a virgin?”

“Of course I'm a virgin! Who would want to have sex with someone as h-homely as me?”

Bobby Tom was too much of a gentleman to let that one go by. “Why just about any healthy red-blooded male, honey.”

“Ha!” She withdrew her hands from her breasts and reached for another tissue.

“I'm serious.”

Even drunk, Gracie wasn't taking any of his malarkey . . “Prove it.”

“What?”

“Have s-sex with me. Right now. Yes! R-right this very minute.” Her hands flew to the buttons on the front of her white blouse, and she began pulling them open.

He stilled her arms and kept a firm rein on the smile that wanted to break loose. “I couldn't do that, sweetheart. Not with you so drunk and everything.”

“I am not dr-drunk! I told you before, I do not drink.” She snatched her hands from beneath his and clumsily stripped the blouse off her arms. Before he knew it, she was sitting before him, bare from the waist up except for a bra made of transparent pink nylon embossed with tiny hearts that looked like little love bites sprinkled over her breasts.

Bobby Tom swallowed hard as his groin shot from soft to hard in 0.9 seconds. He had the wild thought that he was going crazy, right along with Gracie. After secretly worrying because his sex drive seemed to have deserted him at the same time his career had ended, he was now even more worried to find himself being turned on by something so tame.

She looked at the expression on his face and promptly burst into fresh tears. “You don't want to have s-sex with me. My br-breasts are too small. You only like women with gr-great big ones.”

She'd spoken the truth, so he didn't understand why it was so hard for him to drag his eyes away from those pint-size morsels curving out from her chest. Probably because he was tired and coming back to Telarosa had lowered his emotional defenses to the point where he'd react to anything. He was careful not to hurt her feelings. “That's not true, honey. It's not size that counts so much as what a woman does with what she has.”

“I don't
know
w-what to do with what I've got,” she wailed. “How am I supposed to know when nobody's ever sh-shown me? How am I supposed to know when the only m-man who's given me any encouragement is a p-podiatrist who kept asking me if he could k-kiss my instep?”

He didn't have a good answer for that one. One thing he did know, however, was that he wanted Gracie to put her blouse back on.

As he reached over to pick it up from the floor where she'd dropped it, she jumped unsteadily to her feet. “I'll bet if I stripped n-naked right in front of you, you still wouldn't want me.”

His head shot up just in time to see her fumbling with the button on the side of her ugly navy skirt.

He got to his feet. “Gracie, honey  .  .  .”

Her skirt dropped to her ankles and he couldn't quite conceal his surprise. Who would have thought those ugly clothes could have been hiding such a sweet little figure? Sometime that evening, she'd gotten rid of both her shoes and her hose, leaving her only in bra and panties beneath her clothes. Her breasts were small, it was true, but she had a slim waist to match, round, well-proportioned hips, and straight, slender legs. He told himself the contrast she presented with those perfectly toned, hard-muscled Amazons he'd been keeping company with for half his lifetime was the only reason he found her appearance so appealing. Her hips weren't rock hard orbs sculpted by two hours of step-aerobics every day, and her biceps hadn't been molded with free weights into ropes of steel. She had a natural woman's body, soft and slim in some places, round in others.

His groin ached as he noticed that her underpants matched her bra. The panties, however, had only one heart on them, a large pink one right at the center that wasn't quite big enough to hide the wisps of curly hair peeking around the sides. He experienced a perverse desire to strip them off her right here in the living room of his mother's house, right here with Sparky looking on. He wanted to open those legs and see if she was as dried up as she claimed. And if she was, he wanted to use every trick he'd learned to make her sweet and wet and ready for him.

He actually found himself toying with the idea. Investing a couple of hours under the sheets with Miss Gracie wouldn't kill him. It would almost be a humanitarian gesture. Then reality asserted itself. The last thing he needed in his life right now was another woman. He'd been trying to get rid of them, not add a new one to the menagerie. Besides, even though he had almost twenty years of sexual experience, none of it was with an almost middle-aged old maid who'd probably have a stroke if she saw a man naked, no matter how much she might think she wanted to taste the forbidden fruit.

He wasn't heartless, however, and the misery on her face got to him. He walked over to take her in his arms. She gave a long, heartrending sigh and molded her body to his as if the two of them had been heat-fused.

Something went off inside him that felt like a Fourth of July rocket. She smelled sweet and old-fashioned, like lavender and lilacs. Her ugly hair was soft under his chin, the smooth skin of her back turned into silk beneath his fingers. He let his hands slide down along her spine to her waist and then lower still. He was surprised at how small she felt against him. Because of her bossy nature, she seemed like a much larger woman.

Her arms crept around his neck. “Are we going to have sex now?”

Despite his throbbing groin, he was amused to note that she sounded nearly as apprehensive as she did eager. His fingertips touched the top edge of her underpants and slipped inside. He caught her bare bottom in the palms of. his hands and pulled her tight against him, vaguely ashamed of the fact that he was copping a cheap feel from a maiden lady too drunk to defend herself. On the other hand, it had been a long time for him, and his reaction was understandable.

“Not yet, sweetheart.”

“Oh. Could we kiss?”

“I s'pose we could do that.” He looked down into her tear-smeared face. She had a nice mouth, wide and generous, with a Cupid's bow perched right in the middle of her top lip. Bending his head, he covered it with his own.

She kissed like a teenager on her first date, and the innocence of it both excited and annoyed him. It wasn't right that a thirty-year-old woman didn't have any more experience with men than this. He started using his tongue on her, just a little bit, to get her used to the idea.

She was a quick learner, and it didn't take long at all for her lips to part. With a soft sigh, she let him in.

She tasted like fruit and tears. He stroked her with his tongue, while his hands continued to enjoy the sheer pleasure of caressing female hips that weren't as muscular as his own. As he enjoyed her small, soft body, he forgot about her bossy nature and aggravating ways. She made him remember exactly how many years has passed since he'd been with a virgin.

He heard little moans against his mouth, and her tongue took off on an adventure of its own. His body reacted violently. Drawing his hands out of her panties, he lifted her by the backs of her thighs. She splayed them automatically and wrapped them around his hips. As she gripped his shoulders, he realized he'd started to sweat. If he didn't stop right now, he was going to forget who she was and take her right here on the floor of his mother's living room. A room, he reminded himself, with a set of unlocked doors and the portrait of an innocent child looking on.

“Gracie  .  .  .” He eased her legs from around his hips to set her back down, then reached up to unlock her arms.

“Sweetheart, we're going to have to slow down a little here.”

“I don't want to. I want you to show me what happens next.”

“I can see that. But the fact is, you're not ready for anything more than kisses right now.” He set her firmly away from him and bent over to pick up her clothes, adjusting himself when his back was turned because he didn't want to shock her to death.

He coaxed her into her clothes not a moment too soon because he'd just fastened her skirt when the doors slid open and his mother came in.

“How's she doing?”

Before he could reply, Gracie gave a loud, offended sniff “Your son is no gentleman. He refused to have sex with me.”

Suzy patted his arm, her eyes dancing with amusement. “Words to warm a mother's heart.”

Bobby Tom had definitely been around females long enough for one night. He turned to Gracie. “Now listen to me, sweetheart. You're going to sleep here tonight, and I don't want you to worry about a thing. Willow will be coming around to see you first thing tomorrow morning.”

Once again, Gracie peered past him to Suzy. “You don't happen to have any dirty movies in the house, do you?”

Suzy shot her son a disapproving look, then linked Gracie's arm with her own. “The two of us are going to take a little walk upstairs now.”

To his relief, Gracie went along without protest.

He followed them into the hallway and retrieved his hat from the rack. As they began to mount the stairs, he looked up at his mother. “Just how many of those wine coolers did she drink?”

“She had three,” Suzy replied.

Three!
Bobby Tom couldn't believe it. After only three drinks, she'd stripped off her clothes and demanded that he have sex with her.

“Mom?” He shoved on his hat.

“Yes, dear.”

“Whatever you do, don't let her anywhere near a six-pack.”

Aspirin burned in Gracie's belly and the late-morning sun knifed her eyeballs as she let herself out the sliding door that led to Suzy Denton's patio. Bougainvillea grew along the back of the house and honeysuckle trailed over a rustic fence on one side of the yard, which was shaded by an old pecan and several magnolias. A colorful annual garden in a sunny spot held frilly pink and white petunias, geraniums, daisies, and periwinkles. A sprinkler hissed near some low shrubbery, and everything smelled clean and fresh from its morning watering.

Her hostess, wearing khaki shorts and a brightly colored T-shirt with a parrot on the front, knelt on the ground be-fore a small herb garden. She looked up and smiled. “Did Miss Craig leave?”

Gracie nodded and immediately regretted making such a drastic movement with her head. She winced, then walked slowly to the end of the patio where Suzy was working.

“Willow wants to hire me back.” She gingerly lowered herself to sit on the top step.

“Oh?”

“But not as a production assistant. As Bobby Tom's assistant.”

“Oh.”

“I told her I'd think about it.” Gracie tucked the skirt of her sadly crumpled navy suit around her legs, all she had to wear since her suitcase was still tucked away in the trunk of the Thunderbird. She swallowed hard. “Suzy, I can't tell you how sorry I am about last night. After all you've done for me, I abused your hospitality and embarrassed you in your own home. My behavior was reprehensible, the most reprehensible thing I've ever done in my life.”

Suzy smiled. “You really have been sheltered, haven't you?”

“That's no excuse.”

“You had a bad shock yesterday,” Suzy said kindly. “Any woman would have been upset.”

“I
threw
myself at him.”

“He's used to it, dear. I'm certain he's already forgotten about it.”