Heaven, Texas (17 page)

“I would never force you. It's entirely your decision.”

The lack of emotion in his words frightened her more than an expression of anger would. He was insane, she thought. But his dark eyes regarded her with intelligence and a terrifying lucidity.

A note of pleading crept into her voice that she couldn't repress. “Tell me you won't move Rosatech.”

For the first time he hesitated, almost as if he were waging some sort of private war with himself. “I'm not making any promises until you've had time to think over our conversation.”

She drew a ragged breath. “I want to go home now.”

“All right.”

“I left my purse inside.”

“I'll get it for you.”

She stood alone in the garden, trying to take in what was happening to her, but the situation was so far outside her realm of experience that she couldn't absorb it. She thought of her son, and her blood went cold with fear. If Bobby Tom ever found out about this, he'd kill Way Sawyer.

“Are you ready?”

She jumped as he touched her shoulder.

He immediately withdrew his hand and offered her the purse. “My car's in the front.” He gestured toward a brick path that wound around the side of the house, and she moved toward it before he could touch her again.

When they reached the front, she saw his BMW instead of the Lincoln his chauffeur had driven and realized he planned to drive her home himself. He opened the door and she slipped inside without a word.

To her relief, he didn't attempt conversation. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine that Hoyt was beside her, but tonight he seemed impossibly far away?
Why did you leave me? How am I supposed to face this alone?

Fifteen minutes later, he stopped his car in her driveway and, looking over at her, spoke quietly. “I'm going to be out of the country for about three weeks. When I get back—”

“Please,” she whispered. “Don't force me to do this.”

His voice was cool and distant. “When I get back, I'll call to hear your decision.”

Suzy jumped out of the car and raced up the sidewalk to her house, running as if all the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.

Sitting behind the wheel of his car, the most hated man in Telarosa, Texas, watched her disappear inside. As the door slammed, his face contorted with anger, pain, and the barest hint of longing.

F
or the first time all evening, nobody was shoving a cocktail napkin under Bobby Tom's nose for an autograph, or asking him to dance, or poking around for details about the golf tournament. He finally had a few minutes to himself, and he leaned back into the corner of the booth. The Wagon Wheel was Telarosa's favorite honky-tonk, and the Saturday night crowd was enjoying itself, especially since Bobby Tom had been buying all the drinks.

He set his beer bottle down on the scarred table and stubbed out one of the thin cigars he occasionally permitted himself. At the same time, he watched Gracie make a fool of herself trying to line dance to a new song from Brooks and Dunn. It had been two weeks since her make-over, so he thought people should be used to her by now, but everybody in town was still fussing over her.

Despite all the improvements in her appearance, she wasn't even close to being prime-cut gorgeous. She was cute, no denying that. Pretty, even. In the land of big hair, that little flyaway cut of hers might very well be Shirley's masterpiece, and he got a big kick out of the way it fluffed around her face and glimmered all warm and coppery in the light. But he preferred his women blond and flashy, with legs up to their armpits and porn star breasts. Real live sex trophies, that's what he liked, and he wasn't going to apologize for it either. He'd earned those sex trophy females on the bloody battlefields of the NFL. He'd earned them in bruising drills and brutal two-a-day practices; he'd earned them by taking hits so violent he couldn't remember his name afterward. They were the spoils of gridiron warfare, and giving them up would be the same as giving up his identity.

He took a deep swig of Shiner, but the beer didn't fill up the empty place inside him. He should be starting the season now, but instead, he was prancing around in front of a movie camera like a damn pussy and pretending to be engaged to a bossy lady who wouldn't ever be mistaken for a sex trophy.

Not that Gracie didn't have an alluring little figure in those jeans that were so tight Len Brown couldn't seem to keep his eyes off her butt. He remembered telling his mother to make sure Gracie had a couple pair of jeans, but he didn't recall giving her permission to buy ones that were going to give her leg cramps.

The subject of Gracie's clothes made him scowl. He couldn't believe it when his mother told him Gracie had insisted on paying for her own clothes and they had ended up shopping at the outlets. He should have bought those clothes! It was his idea, wasn't it? Besides, he was rich and she was poor, and he damn well expected any woman he was supposed to be marrying to have the best. The two of them had gotten into a big argument about it when he'd found out, an argument that had escalated after Shirley sent him back the money he'd given her for Gracie's hair and makeup because Gracie had insisted on paying for that herself, too. Damn, she was stubborn. Not only did she refuse to take anything from him, but she actually had the nerve to tell him she intended to give him rent money.

He was going to have the last word, though. Just yesterday he'd gone into Millie's Boutique and picked out a dandy black cocktail dress for Gracie. Millie had promised to tell her she had a strict no return policy if Gracie tried to bring it back. One way or another, he intended to have his way on this.

He picked at the beer bottle's label with his thumb. Maybe he'd better have a talk with Willow. It had begun to occur to him that he needed to make damned sure Gracie never figured out who was funding that pitiful little paycheck of hers.

He glowered as Gracie missed some more steps. What in the hell had his mother been thinking of, advising her to wear that vest tonight? Right after he'd told Gracie he was taking her to the Wagon Wheel, he'd overheard her telephoning Suzy and asking what she was supposed to wear to a honky-tonk on Saturday night. Now he understood why he'd heard her say, “All by itself?”

Thanks to his mother, Gracie was wearing a gold brocade vest that didn't have anything under it except skin, along with tight, black jeans and a new pair of cowboy boots. The vest wasn't exactly immodest. A row of pearl buttons held it together, and the brocade fell in twin points over the waistband of her jeans. But there was something about the idea of wearing a fancy vest without anything under it that made her look like bimbo material, which couldn't have been farther from the truth, despite Len Brown's wandering eyeballs. Poor Gracie was probably embarrassed to tears right now knowing what a display she was making of herself.

The Brooks and Dunn song came to an end, and the music shifted to a slow ballad. Resigned to being a gentleman, he rose so he could rescue her before she ended up being a wallflower. He hadn't taken more than three steps, however, when Johnny Pettibone pulled her away from Len and they began to dance. Bobby Tom came to a stop, feeling vaguely foolish, and then told himself he'd have to remember to thank Johnny for being so nice to Gracie. Everybody had been real nice to her. Not that he was surprised. The fact that she was Bobby Tom Denton's intended had guaranteed everybody'd treat her like a queen.

As he watched Johnny pull Gracie closer, he felt a stab of irritation. She was an engaged lady, and they shouldn't be dancing so intimately, but Bobby Tom couldn't see that she was putting up the slightest bit of resistance. Matter of fact, she had her face turned up like a sunflower taking in Johnny's every word. For someone who should be feeling embarrassed and out of place, she certainly seemed to be having a good time.

He remembered Gracie's problem with sexual frustration and scowled. What if she couldn't control those hormones of hers now that her make-over had given her a little bit of male attention? The idea bothered the hell out of him. He couldn't blame her for wanting to do what came naturally, but she sure as hell wasn't going to do it while she was engaged to him. There weren't any secrets in Telarosa, and he didn't care to think what he'd go through if the town found out that a woman like Gracie Snow was cheating on him.

He suppressed a groan as Connie Cameron sauntered over. “Hey, B.T., want to dance again?”

She rested her arm on the lavender silk shirt he wore with his jeans and charcoal Stetson, then brushed her breasts against him. Unfortunately, their mutual engagements hadn't discouraged her one bit.

“I'd love to, Connie, but the fact is, Gracie gets real ornery if I dance more than once with a beautiful woman, so I have to mend my ways.”

She pushed away several strands of dark hair that had gotten tangled in one of her long silver earrings. “I never thought I'd see the day you let a woman pussy-whip you.”

“I never did, either, but that was before I met Gracie.”

“If you're worried about what Jim will think, he's on duty tonight. He won't ever find out we've been dancing.” She emphasized the last word with a little mouth pucker so he'd know dancing wasn't all she was offering.

Bobby Tom imagined Jimbo kept close track of Connie, but that wasn't why he backed off. He simply found it difficult anymore to conceal his impatience when he was around women like her. “I don't worry too much about Jimbo. It's Gracie I'm concerned about. She's real sensitive.

Connie glanced over at the dancers and regarded her critically. “Gracie looks better since you let her get fixed up. Even so, she doesn't seem like your type. People around here figured you'd marry a model or a movie star.”

“There's just no accounting for the mysterious ways of the human heart.”

“I s'pose. Would you mind doing me a favor, B.T.?”

A wave of weariness swept over him. More favors. He was on the set at least twelve hours a day, and the past few days had been grueling. Normally, he enjoyed the action scenes, but not when they involved beating up a woman. He'd dreaded the fight scene with Natalie that occurred at the beginning of the movie, and he was so unconvincing they'd had to bring in a small male stuntman to double for her.

When he wasn't on the set, there were incessant phone calls, drop-in visitors, and fund-raisers. With all that, he hadn't had more than four hours of sleep at a stretch all week. Last night after he finished work, he'd flown his plane down to Corpus Christi to make an appearance at a charity banquet and the night before that he'd made radio spots advertising Heavenfest, but the only charity activity he'd really enjoyed was sneaking in to visit the kids in the pediatric wing at the county hospital.

“What do you need?”

“Could you stop by my house some evening and autograph a couple of footballs I bought for my nephews?”

“Be glad to.” He'd stop by all right. With Gracie at his side.

The song was coming to an end, and he excused himself so he could retrieve Gracie from Johnny Pettibone. Len Brown got there first, but he didn't let that deter him.

“Hi, boys. You think I could claim a dance with my little sweetheart here?”

“Well, sure, Bobby Tom.” The reluctance in Len's voice annoyed him. Gracie, in the meantime, was giving him a glare that was licensed to kill over the “little sweetheart” remark. The fact that he'd managed to irritate her helped restore his spirits.

Both of them had been so busy these past few weeks that they hadn't spent much free time together, which was why he'd insisted they show up at the Wagon Wheel tonight, since nobody was going to believe they were engaged if they weren't ever seen out socially. She was so damned efficient that he couldn't think up enough things to keep her occupied. Since she hated being idle, she was turning herself into the company's all-around errand girl and Natalie's part-time baby-sitter.

He looked down into her flushed face and couldn't help but smile. She had about the prettiest skin he'd ever seen on a woman, and he liked her eyes, too. There was something about the way they sparkled that always seemed to lift his mood.

“They've got a new line dance going, Gracie. Let's give it a try.”

She looked doubtfully toward the dancers, who were performing a series of fast, intricate steps. “I never quite caught on to the last dance. Maybe we should sit this one out.”

“And miss all the fun?” He drew her into place, studying the dancers in front of them at the same time. The pattern was complicated, but he'd built a career out of counting steps and making cuts at precisely the right moment, and it didn't take him more than thirty seconds to catch on. Gracie, on the other hand, was having trouble.

Halfway into the song, she still wasn't going the same direction as everybody else. He decided he'd been a real heel to bring her out here when he knew she couldn't keep up, but some immature part of him had wanted to remind her this was his turf, not hers, and she shouldn't be flirting with men she wasn't engaged to. His twinge of guilt changed to irritation as he watched her tossing her hair and laughing at her mistakes, just as if she didn't care that she was the worst dancer on the floor.

Damp, coppery tendrils clung to her cheeks and the nape of her neck. She turned to face him when she should have turned away, and he saw that the top button of her vest had popped open revealing the inner curves of those cute little cupcakes of hers, which were rosy and glowing from the heat. One more button, and the rest of her would be on display. The idea filled him with indignation. She was a Sunday School teacher, for chrissake. She should know better!

She was too busy flirting with everybody in pants to notice his irritation, which only increased as he heard people he hadn't even realized she knew calling out encouragement to her.

“The other way, Gracie. You can do it!”

“That's the way, Gracie!”

The muscular college boy on her opposite side had already earned Bobby Tom's disfavor by wearing a Baylor T-shirt. When the kid caught Gracie by the hips and turned her in the right direction, Bobby Tom's eyes narrowed.

She laughed and shook her curls. “I'll never get it!”

“Sure you will.” The kid raised the beer bottle he was holding right up to her lips.

She took a drink and coughed. The boy laughed and started to give her another sip, but Bobby Tom had no intention of watching her turn into an alcoholic right before his eyes. Looping his arm around her shoulders, he glared at the kid and pulled her away.

The boy flushed. “Sorry, Mr. Denton.”

Mister
Denton! That did it! He grabbed Gracie's wrist and pulled her toward the fire exit at the back.

She stumbled slightly. “What's wrong? Where are we going?”

“I've got a stitch in my side. I need some fresh air.”

He hit the bar on the back door with the heel of his hand and dragged her out behind the building into the gravel lot where the employees parked. A battered green Dumpster sat behind the motley collection of vehicles, along with a shed built from concrete blocks.

He didn't smell anything more exotic than french fries and dust, but Gracie gave a contented sigh as she breathed in the air. “Thank you so much for bringing me here. I don't know when I've had such a good time. Everybody's been so nice.”

She sounded giddy and her eyes sparkled like Christmas lights, making her look so pretty it was hard for him to remember she wasn't prime-cut. The air-conditioning unit hummed loudly, but didn't quite drown out the music from the juke box. She pushed a strand of hair away from her cheek, then locked her hands behind her neck and leaned back against the building's rough wooden siding, thrusting her breasts forward at the same time.

Where had she learned a trick like that?
He suddenly wanted his old Gracie back, with her raccoon tail dress and lumpy hair. He'd been comfortable with his old Gracie, and the fact that he was the one responsible for her transformation into a honky-tonk hellcat made him even more peeved.

“Did it occur to you that I might not like my fiancée displaying her chest to everybody in town?”

She looked down at herself and her hand flew to her undone button. “Oh, my.”

“I don't know what's gotten into you, tonight, but I think you'd better settle down right now and act like an engaged woman.”

Her eyes shot up to meet his. She stared at him for a long moment, clamped her teeth together, and flicked open the second button.

He was so surprised by her defiance that it took him a few seconds to find his voice. “Just what do you think you're doing?”

“There's no one around. I'm hot, and you're immune to me, so what difference does it make.”

She was hot, all right, and so was he. He didn't know what had gotten into her tonight, but he was putting a stop to it. “I never said I was immune to you,” he retorted belligerently. “You're female, aren't you?”