He looked at her, puzzled. “What a curious thing to say. Whatever do you mean?”
She couldn't explain to him how afraid she was that after a few years in his company, she might be right back where she had started from—staring into mirrors and throwing a temper tantrum if her nail polish chipped. Leaning forward, she kissed him, taking a nip at his lip with her small, sharp teeth and distracting him from his question. The wine had warmed her blood, and his solicitude chipped away at the barriers she'd built around herself. Her body was young and healthy. Why was she letting it shrivel up like an old leaf? She brushed his lips with her own again. “Instead of a proposal, how about a proposition?”
A combination of amusement and desire sparked in his eyes. “I suppose that would depend on the kind of proposition.”
She gave him a saucy grin. “Take me to your bedroom, and I'll show you.”
Picking up her hand, he kissed the tips of her fingers, his gesture so courtly and elegant he might have been leading her onto the ballroom floor. As they walked through the hallway, she found herself enveloped in a haze of wine and laughter so pleasurable that, by the time they actually entered his opulent stateroom, she might have believed she was really in love if she hadn't known herself better. Still, it had been so long since a man had held her in his arms that she let herself pretend.
He kissed her, gently at first and then more passionately, muttering foreign words in her ear that excited her. His hands moved to the fastenings on her clothing. “If only you knew how long I have wanted to see you naked,” he murmured. Drawing down the bodice of her gown, he nuzzled at the tops of her breasts as they rose over the lacy border of her slip. “Like warm peaches,” he murmured. “Full and rich and scented. I'm going to suck out every sweet drop of their juice.”
Francesca found his line a little corny, but her body wasn't as discriminating as her mind and she could feel her skin growing deliciously warm. She cupped her hand around the back of his head and arched her neck. His lips dipped lower, burrowed beneath the lace of her slip for her nipple. “Here,” he said, closing around her. “Oh, yes...”
Yes, indeed. Francesca gasped as she felt the suction of his mouth and then the delicious scrape of his teeth.
“My darling, Francesca...” He sucked deeper, and her knees began to feel as if they would buckle.
And then the telephone rang.
“Those imbeciles!” He cursed in a language she didn't understand. “They know I am never to be disturbed here.”
But the mood had been broken, and she stiffened. She suddenly felt embarrassed to be getting ready to have sex with a man she only loved a little bit. What was wrong with her that she couldn't fall in love with him? Why did she still have to make such a big thing out of sex?
The phone continued to ring. He snatched it and barked into the receiver, listened a moment, then held it out to her, obviously irritated. “It's for you. An emergency.”
She let out an oath that was purely Anglo-Saxon, determined to have Nathan Hurd's scalp for this. No matter what his current crisis, her producer had no right to interrupt her tonight. “Nathan, I'm going to—” Stefan banged a heavy crystal brandy decanter down on a tray, and she pushed her finger into her exposed ear to shut him out. “What? I can't hear.”
“It's Holly Grace, Francie.”
Francesca was immediately alarmed. “Holly Grace, are you all right?”
“Not really. If you're not sitting down, you'd better do it.”
Francesca sank down on the side of the bed, apprehension growing inside her at the strangely subdued sound of Holly Grace's voice. “What's wrong?” she demanded. “Are you sick? Did something happen with Gerry?” Stefan's tirade quieted as he heard the worried tone in her voice, and he came over to stand next to her.
“No, Francie, nothing like that.” Holly Grace paused for a moment. “It's Teddy.”
“Teddy?” A surge of primal fear shot through Francesca, and her heart began to race.
Holly Grace's words came out in a rush. “He disappeared. Tonight, not long after I took him home.”
Raw terror swept through Francesca's body with such intensity that all her senses seemed to short-circuit. An instant array of ugly pictures flashed into her mind from programs she had done, and she felt herself skimming over the edge of consciousness.
“Francie,” Holly Grace went on, “I think Dallie's kidnapped him.”
Her first feeling was a numbing surge of relief. The dark visions of a shallow grave and a small, mutilated body receded; but then other visions began to appear and she could barely breathe.
“Oh, God, Francie, I'm sorry.” Holly Grace's words tumbled over each other. “I don't know exactly what happened. They accidentally met at my apartment today, and then Dallie showed up at your place about an hour after I'd dropped Teddy off and told Consuelo I'd sent him back to pick up Teddy so he could spend the night with me. She knew who he was, of course, so she didn't think anything of it. He had Teddy pack a suitcase, and nobody has seen either of them since. I've called everywhere. Dallie's checked out of his hotel, and Skeet doesn't know a thing. The two of them were supposed to go to Florida this week for a tournament.”
Francesca felt a sickness growing in the pit of her stomach. Why would Dallie take Teddy? She could only think of one reason, but that was impossible. No one knew the truth; she had never told a soul. Still, she couldn't come up with any other reason. A bitter rage mounted inside her. How could he do something so barbaric?
“Francie, are you still there?”
“Yes,” Francesca whispered.
“I've got to ask you something.” There was another long pause, and Francesca braced herself for what she knew had to be coming. “Francie, I've got to ask you why Dallie would do this. Something funny happened when he saw Teddy. What's going on?”
“I—I don't know.”
“Francie...”
“I don't know, Holly Grace!” she exclaimed. “I don't know.” Her voice softened. “You understand him better than anyone. Is there any possibility Dallie would hurt Teddy?”
“Of course not.” And then she hesitated. “Not physically anyway. I can't say what he might do to him psychologically, since you won't tell me what this is all about.”
“I'm going to hang up now and try to get a plane to New York tonight.” Francesca tried to sound brisk and efficient, but her voice was quivering. “Would you call everybody you can think of who might know where Dallie is? But be careful what you say. And whatever you do, don't let the newspapers find out. Please, Holly Grace, I don't want Teddy turned into a sideshow freak. I'll be there as soon as I can.”
“Francie, you've got to tell me what's going on.”
“Holly Grace, I love you... I really do.” And then she hung up.
As Francesca flew across the Atlantic that night, she stared vacantly into the impenetrable blackness outside the window. Fear and guilt ate away at her. This was all her fault. If she had been home, she could have prevented it from happening. What kind of mother was she to let other people raise her child? All the devils of working-mother guilt buried their pitchforks in her flesh.
What if something terrible happened? She tried to tell herself that no matter what Dallie might have discovered, he would never hurt Teddy—at least the Dallie she'd known ten years ago wouldn't have. But then she remembered the programs she'd done on ex-spouses kidnapping their own children and vanishing with them for years at a time. Surely someone with as public a career as Dallie's couldn't do that—could he? Once again, she attempted to unravel the puzzle of how Dallie had discovered that Teddy was his son—that was the only explanation she could find for the abduction—but the answer eluded her.
Where was Teddy right now? Was he frightened? What had Dallie told him? She had heard enough stories from Holly Grace to know that when Dallie was angry, he was unpredictable—even dangerous. But no matter how much he might have changed over the years, she couldn't believe he would hurt a little boy.
> What he might do to her, however, was another matter.
Chapter
25
Teddy stared at Dallie's back as the two of them stood in line at the counter of a McDonald's off I-81. He wished he had a red and black plaid flannel shirt like that, along with a wide leather belt and jeans with a torn pocket. His mother threw out his jeans as soon as they got the tiniest little hole in the knee, just when they were starting to feel soft and comfortable. Teddy stared down at his leather play sneakers and then ahead at Dallie's scuffed brown cowboy boots. He decided to put cowboy boots on his Christmas list.
As Dallie picked up the tray and walked toward a table at the back of the restaurant, Teddy trotted along behind him, his small legs taking two quick skips, trying to keep up. At first when they'd been heading out of Manhattan into New Jersey, Teddy had tried asking Dallie a few questions about whether he had a cowboy hat or rode a horse, but Dallie hadn't said much. Teddy had finally fallen silent, even though he had a million things he wanted to know.
For as long as Teddy could remember, Holly Grace had told him stories about Dallie Beaudine and Skeet Cooper— how they'd met up on the road when Dallie was only fifteen after Dallie had escaped from the evil clutches of Jaycee Beaudine, and how they'd traveled the interstates hustling the rich boys at the country clubs. She'd told him about bar fights and playing a round of golf left-handed and miraculous eighteenth-hole victories snatched from the jaws of defeat. In his mind, Holly Grace's stories had gotten mixed up with his Spiderman comic books and Star Wars and the legends he read in school about the wild West. Ever since they'd moved to New York, Teddy had begged his mom to let him meet Dallie when he came to visit Holly Grace, but she always had one excuse or another. And now that it had finally happened, Teddy knew this should be just about the most exciting day of his life.
Except that he wanted to go home now because it wasn't turning out anything like he'd imagined.
Teddy unwrapped the hamburger and lifted the top off the bun. It had ketchup on it. He wrapped it back up. Suddenly Dallie turned in his seat and looked right across the table into Teddy's face. He stared at him, just stared without saying a word. Teddy began to feel nervous, like he'd done something wrong. In his imagination, Dallie would have done things like reach over and slap him ten, the way Gerry Jaffe did. Dallie would say, “Hey, pardner, you look like the kind of man me and Skeet might like to have on the road with us when things get tough.” In his imagination, Dallie would have liked him a whole lot more.
Teddy reached for his Coke and then pretended to study a sign over on the side of the room about eating breakfast at McDonald's. It seemed funny to him that Dallie was taking him so far away to meet his mother—he hadn't even known that Dallie and his mom knew each other. But if Holly Grace had told Dallie it was all right, he guessed it was. Still, he wished his mom was with them right now.
Dallie spoke so abruptly that Teddy jumped. “Do you always wear those glasses?”
“Not always.” Teddy slipped them off, carefully folded in the stems, and put them on the table. The sign about eating breakfast at McDonald's blurred. “My mom says it's important what's inside a person, not what's outside—like if they wear glasses or not.”
Dallie made some kind of noise that didn't sound very nice, and then nodded his head toward the hamburger. “Why aren't you eating?”
Teddy pushed at the package with the end of his finger. “I said I wanted a plain hamburger,” he muttered. “It's got ketchup.”
Dallie's face got a funny, tight look. “So what? A little bit of ketchup never hurt anybody.”
“I'm allergic,” Teddy replied.
Dallie snorted, and Teddy realized that he didn't like people who didn't like ketchup or people who had allergies. He thought about eating the hamburger anyway, just to show Dallie he could do it, but his stomach was already feeling funny, and ketchup made him think about blood and guts and eating eyeballs. Besides, he would end up with an itchy rash all over his body.
Teddy tried to think of something to say that would make Dallie like him. He wasn't used to having to think about making grown-ups like him. With kids his own age, sometimes they thought he was a jerk or he thought they were jerks, but not with grown-ups. He chewed on his bottom lip for a minute, and then he said, “I've got an I.Q. of one hundred sixty-eight. I go to gifted class.”
Dallie snorted again, and Teddy knew he'd made another mistake. It had sounded like he was bragging, but he'd just thought Dallie might be interested.
“Where did you get that name—Teddy?” Dallie asked. He said the name funny, like he was trying to get rid of it fast.
“When I was born, my mom was reading a story about some kid named Teddy by this famous writer—J. R. Salinger. It's short for Theodore.”
Dallie's expression grew even more sour. “J. D. Salinger. Doesn't anybody call you Ted?”
“Oh, yeah,” Teddy lied. “About everybody. All the kids and everything. I mean, just about everybody except Holly Grace and Mom. You can call me Ted if you want to.”
Dallie reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Teddy saw something frozen and hard in his face. “Go on up and get yourself another hamburger fixed the way you want it.”
Teddy looked at the dollar bill Dallie was holding out and then back down at his hamburger. “I guess this'll be all right.” He slowly pushed back the wrapper.
Dallie's hand slammed down over the hamburger. “I said go get another one, dammit.”
Teddy felt sick. Sometimes his mom yelled at him if he made a fresh remark or didn't do his chores, but it never made his stomach feel all wiggly like this, because he knew his mom loved him and didn't want him to grow up to be a jerk. But he could tell that Dallie didn't love him. Dallie didn't even like him. Teddy's jaw set in a small, rebellious line. “I'm not hungry, and I want to go home.”
“Well, that's just too damned bad. We're going to be on the road for a while, just like I told you.”
Teddy glared at him. “I want to go home. I have to go to school On Monday.”
Dallie got up from the table and jerked his head toward the door. “Come on. If you're going to act like a spoiled brat, you can do it while we're on the road.”
Teddy lagged behind on the way out the door. He didn't care anymore about all Holly Grace's dumb old stories. As far as he was concerned, Dallie was a big old butt-wipe. Slipping his glasses back on, Teddy tucked his hand in his pocket. The switch comb felt warm and reassuring as it settled against his palm. He wished it was real. If Lasher the Great was here, he could take care of old Dallie Butt-Wipe Beaudine.
As soon as the car moved onto the interstate, Dallie punched the accelerator and shot into the left lane. He knew he was acting like a real son of a bitch. He knew, but he couldn't stop himself. The rage wouldn't leave him, and he wanted to hit something about as badly as he'd ever wanted anything in his life. His anger kept eating away at him, growing bigger and stronger until he could hardly contain it. He felt as if some of his manhood had been stripped away. He was thirty-seven years old and he didn't have a goddamn thing to show for it. He was a second-rate pro golfer. He'd been a failure as a husband, a goddamn criminal as a father. And now this.
That bitch. That goddamn selfish, spoiled little rich-girl bitch. She'd given birth to his child and never said a word. All those stories she'd told Holly Grace—those lies. He'd believed them. Christ, she'd gotten back at him all right, just like she'd said she would the night they'd had that fight in the Roustabout parking lot. With a snap of her fingers, she'd given him the most contemptuous fuck-you a woman could give a man. She'd taken away his right to know his own son.
Dallie glanced over at the boy sitting in the passenger seat next to him, the son who was the flesh of his body just as surely as Danny had been. Francesca must have discovered by now that he had disappeared. The thought gave him a moment's bitter satisfaction. He hoped she was hurting real bad.
Wynette looked very much as Francesca remembered it,
although some of the stores had changed. As she studied the town through the windshield of her rental car, she realized that life had carried her in a huge circle right back to the point where everything had really begun for her.
She hunched her shoulders in a futile attempt to relieve some of the tension in her neck. She still didn't know if she'd done the right thing by leaving Manhattan to fly to Texas, but after three unbearable days of waiting for the phone to ring and dodging reporters who wanted to interview her about her relationship with Stefan, she had reached the point where she had to do something.
Holly Grace had suggested she fly to Wynette. “That's where Dallie always heads when he's hurting,” she had said, “and I guess he's hurting pretty bad right now.”
Francesca had tried to ignore the accusation in Holly Grace's voice, but it was difficult. After ten years of friendship, their relationship was seriously strained. The day Francesca had returned from London, Holly Grace had announced, “I'll stick by you, Francesca, because that's the way I'm made, but it's going to be a while before I trust you again.”
Francesca had tried to make her understand. “I couldn't tell you the truth. Not as close as you are to Dallie.”
“So you lied to me? You fed me that stupid story about Teddy's father in England, and I believed it all these years.” Holly Grace's face had darkened with anger. “Don't you understand that family means something to Dallie? With other men it might not matter, but Dallie isn't like other men. He's spent all his life trying to create a family around him—Skeet, Miss Sybil, me, all those strays he's picked up over the years. This is going to just about kill him. His first son died, and you stole his second one.”
A wave of anger had shot through Francesca, all the sharper because she had felt a prick of guilt. “Don't you judge me, Holly Grace Beaudine! You and Dallie both have some awfully freewheeling ideas of morality, and I won't have either of you shaking your finger at me. You don't know what it's like to hate who you are—to have to remake yourself. I did what I needed to do at the time. And if I had to go through it again, I'd do exactly the same thing.”