When she arrived at the restaurant, she saw Dallie sitting in a high-backed booth at the rear away from the crowd. Spotting her, he stood and for a fraction of a moment, a puppy dog grin flashed over his face, an expression more appropriate to a teenage boy than a grown man. Her heart gave a queer thump in response.
“Hey, honey.”
“Hey, Dallie.”
She had attracted a great deal of attention as she walked through the restaurant, so he gave her only the briefest of kisses when she reached him. As soon as she sat, however, he leaned across the table and did the job right. “Damn, Francie, it's good to see you.”
“You, too.” She kissed him again, closing her eyes and enjoying the heady sensation of being near him.
“Where'd you get those earrings? Ace Hardware?”
“They're not earrings,” she retorted loftily, settling back into the booth. “According to the artist who made them, they're free-form abstractions of conceptualized angst.”
“No kidding. Well, I sure hope you had them exorcised before you put them on.”
She smiled, and his eyes seemed to drink in her face, her hair, the shape of her breasts underneath her cashmere T-shirt. Her skin began to feel warm. Embarrassed, she pushed her hair back from her face. Her earrings jangled. He gave her a crooked grin, as if he could see every one of the erotic images that flashed through her head. Then he settled back in his chair, his navy sport coat falling open over his shirt. Despite his smile, she thought he looked tired and troubled.” She decided to postpone telling him the good news about her contract until she found out what was bothering him.
“Did Teddy watch the tournament yesterday?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What'd he say?”
“Not too much. He wore the cowboy boots you gave him, though, and this unbelievably hideous sweat shirt that I can't believe you bought.”
Dallie laughed. “I'll bet he loves that sweat shirt.”
“When I tucked him in that night, he was wearing it with his pajarna bottoms.”
He smiled again. The waiter approached, and they turned their attention to the blackboard that listed the day's specials. Dallie opted for chili-spiced chicken with a side helping of barbecued beans. Francesca hadn't been hungry when she arrived, but the delicious smells of the restaurant had piqued her appetite and she decided on grilled shrimp and a small salad.
He fiddled with the saltshaker, looking a little less relaxed. “They had the pin placement all screwed up yesterday or I would have done better. It threw me off. And there was a hell of a lot more crowd noise than there should have been. One son of a bitch clicked his camera just when I got to the top of my backswing. Damn, I hate that.”
She was surprised that he felt the need to explain himself to her, but by now she was also too familiar with the patterns of his professional career to believe any of his excuses. They chatted for a while about Teddy, and then he asked her to save some time for him that week. “I'm going to be in the city for a while. They want to give me some lessons on how to find the red light on the camera.”
She gazed at him sharply, her good mood evaporating. “You're going to take the announcing job they offered you?”
He didn't quite look at her. “My bloodsucker's bringing me the contracts to sign tomorrow.”
Their food arrived, but Francesca had lost her appetite. What he was about to do was wrong—more wrong than he seemed to realize. There was an air of defeat about him, and she hated the way he wouldn't look at her. She probed at a shrimp with her fork and then, unable to contain herself, confronted him. “Dallie, you should at least finish the season. I don't like the idea of your quitting like this with the Classic only another week away.”
She could see his tension as his jaw set and he stared at a point just above the top of her head. “I have to hang up my clubs sooner or later. Now is as good a time as any.”
“Television announcing will be a wonderful career for you someday, but you're only thirty-seven. Lots of golfers still win major tournaments at your age or older. Look what Jack Nicklaus did at the Masters last year.”
His eyes narrowed and he finally looked at her. “You know something, Francie. I liked you a hell of a lot more before you turned into such a damned golf expert. Did it ever occur to you that I've got enough people telling me how to play, and I goddamn well don't need another one?”
Caution told her the moment had come to back off, but she couldn't do it, not when she felt that she had something important at stake. She toyed with the stem of her wineglass and then met his hostile gaze head on. “If I were you, I'd win the Classic before I quit playing.”
“Oh, you would, would you?” A small muscle ticked in his jaw.
“I would.” She dropped her voice until it was a barely audible whisper and looked him straight in the eye. “I'd win that tournament just so I knew I could do it.”
His nostrils flared. “Since you barely know the difference between a driver and a one-iron, I'd be mighty interested in watching you try.”
“We're not talking about me. We're talking about you.”
“Sometimes, Francesca, you are the most ignorant woman I've ever known in my entire life.” Banging down his fork, he looked at her and thin, hard lines formed brackets around his mouth. “For your information, the Classic is one of the toughest tournaments of the year. The course is a killer. If you don't hit the greens in just the right spot, you can go from a birdie to a bogey without even seeing it coming. Do you have any idea who's playing in the Classic this year? The best damned golfers in the world. Greg Norman will be there. They call him the Great White Shark, and it's not just because of his white hair—it's because he loves the taste of blood. Ben Crenshaw's playing—he putts better than anybody on the tour. Then there's Fuzzy Zoeller. 01' Fuzzy cracks jokes and acts like he's taking a Sunday walk in the woods, but all the time he's figuring out how deep he can dig your damned grave. And your buddy Seve Ballesteros is going to show up, muttering in Spanish under his breath and plowing right through everybody who gets in his way. Then we come to Jack Nicklaus. Even though he's forty-seven, he's still capable of blowing every one of us right out of the running. Nicklaus isn't even human, Francie.”
“And then there's Dallas Beaudine,” she said quietly. “Dallas Beaudine who has played some of the best opening rounds in tournament golf, but always falls apart at the end. Why is that, Dallie? Don't you want it badly enough?”
Something seemed to snap inside him. He pulled his napkin from his lap and wadded it on the table. “Let's get out of here. I'm not hungry anymore.”
She didn't budge. Instead, she hugged her arms over her chest, lifted her chin, and silently dared him to try to move her. She was going to have it out with him once and for all—even if it meant losing him. “I'm not going anywhere.”
At that exact moment Dallie Beaudine finally seemed to comprehend what he had only dimly perceived as he'd watched a pair of incomparable four-carat diamond studs sail out into the depths of a gravel quarry. He finally understood her strength of will. For months now, he had chosen to ignore the deep intelligence that lay behind her green cat's eyes, the steely determination hidden beneath that sassy smile, the indomitable strength at the heart of the woman who sat across from him so absurdly packaged as a frivolous ball of fluff. He had let himself forget that she had come to this country with nothing—not even much strength of character—and that she had been able to look every one of her weaknesses straight in the eye and overcome them. He had let himself forget that she had turned herself into a champion, while he was still only a contender.
He saw that she had no intention of leaving the restaurant, and the sheer force of her will staggered him. He felt a moment of panic, as if he were a child again and Jaycee's fist was headed right for his face. He felt the Bear breathing down his neck. Watch it, Beaudine. She's got you now.
And so he did the only thing he could—the only thing he could think of that might distract this bullheaded
, bossy little woman before she sliced him apart.
“I swear, Francie, you've put me in such a bad mood, I'm thinking about changing my plans for tonight.” Surreptitiously, he slid his napkin back into his lap.
“Oh? What plans did you have?”
“Well, all this nagging has almost made me change my mind, but—what the hell—I guess I'll ask you to marry me anyway.”
“Marry you?” Francesca's lips parted in astonishment.
“I don't see why not. At least I didn't until a few minutes ago when you turned into such a damn nag.”
Francesca leaned back into the booth, possessed by an awful feeling that something inside her was breaking apart. “You don't just blurt out a marriage proposal like that,” she said shakily. “And with the exception of a nine-yeàr-old boy, we don't have a single thing in common.”
“Yeah, well I'm not so sure about that anymore.” Reaching into the pocket of his suit coat, he drew out a small jeweler's box. Extending it toward her, he flipped open the lid with his thumb, revealing an exquisite diamond solitaire. “I bought this from a guy I went to high school with, but I think it's only fair to tell you he spent some time as an unwilling guest of the state of Texas after he walked into a Piggly Wiggly with a Saturday night special in his hand. Still, he told me he found Jesus in prison, so I don't think the ring's hot. But I suppose you can't be too sure about that sort of thing.”
Francesca, who had already taken note of Tiffany's distinctive robin's-egg blue packaging, was paying only the vaguest attention to what he was saying. Why hadn't he mentioned anything about love? Why was he doing it like this? “Dallie, I can't take that ring. I—I can't believe you're even suggesting it.” Because she didn't know how to say what was really on her mind, she threw out all the logical impediments between them. “Where would we live? My job is in New York; yours is everywhere. And what would we talk about once we got out of the bedroom? Just because there's this—this cloud of lust hanging between us doesn't mean we're qualified to set up housekeeping together.”
“Jeez, Francie, you make everything so complicated. Holly Grace and I were married for fifteen years, and we only set up housekeeping in the beginning.”
Anger began to form a haze inside her head. “Is that what you want? Another marriage like the one you had with Holly Grace? You go your way and I go mine, but every few months we get together so we can watch a few ball games and have a spitting contest. I won't be your buddy, Dallas Beaudine.”
“Francie, Holly Grace and I never had a spitting contest in our lives, and it can't have escaped your notice that boy of ours is technically a bastard.”
“So is his father,” she hissed.
Without losing a beat, he shut the Tiffany box and slipped it back in his pocket. “All right. We don't have to get married. It was just a suggestion.”
She stared at him. Seconds ticked by. He lifted a forkful of chicken to his mouth and slowly began to chew.
“Is that it?” she asked.
“I can't exactly force you.”
Anger and hurt rose up so far inside her she thought she would choke. “That's all, then? I say no, and you pick up your toys and go home?”
He took a sip of his club soda, the expression in his eyes as abstract as the silver earrings at her lobes. “What do you want me to do? The waiters would throw me out if I got down on my knees.”
His sarcasm in the face of something so important to her was like a knife through her ribs. “Don't you know how to fight for anything you want?” she whispered fiercely.
The silence that came over him was so complete that she knew she had hit a raw nerve. Suddenly she felt as if the scales had dropped from her eyes. That was it. That was what Skeet had been trying to tell her.
“Who said I wanted you? You take everything too seriously, Francie.”
He was lying to her, lying to himself. She felt his need as much as she felt her own. He wanted her, but he didn't know how to get her and, more important, he wasn't even going to try. What did she expect, she asked herself bitterly, from a man who had played some of the best opening rounds in tournament golf, but who always fell apart at the end?
“Are you going to have room for dessert, Francie? They got this chocolate thing. If you ask me, it could use a couple dabs of Cool Whip on the top, but it's still pretty good.”
She felt a scorn for him that bordered on real dislike. Her love now seemed to be an oppressively heavy weight, too much for her to carry. Reaching over the table, she grabbed his wrist and squeezed it until her fingernails had dug into his skin and she was sure he knew for certain that he needed to listen to every word she had to say. Her words were low and condemning, the words of a fighter. “Are you so afraid of failing that you can't go after one single thing you want? A tournament? Your son? Me? Is that what's been holding you back all this time? You're so afraid of failing that you won't even try?”
“I don't know what you're talking about.” He attempted to pull his hand away, but her grip was so tight he couldn't do it without drawing attention to them.
“You haven't even gotten out of the starting blocks, have you, Dallie? You just hang out on the sidelines. You're willing to play the game as long as you don't have to sweat too much and as long as you can make enough wisecracks so everybody understands you don't really care.”
“That's the stupidest—”
“But you do care, don't you? You want to win so much you can bloody well taste it. You want your son, too, but you're holding yourself back from him just in case Teddy won't have you—my wonderful little boy who wears his heart on his sleeve and would give anything in the world for a father who respected him.”
Dallie's face had paled, and his skin beneath her fingers was clammy. “I respect him,” he said sharply. “As long as I live, I'll never forget that day he came after me because he thought I was hurting you—”
“You're a whiner, Dallie—but you do it with so much style that everybody lets you get away with it.” She released her grip, but she didn't let up on him. “Well, the act's wearing thin. You're getting too old to keep slipping by on your good looks and charm.”
“What the hell do you know about it?” His voice was quiet, slightly hoarse.
“I know everything about it because I started out with some of those same handicaps. But I grew up, and I kicked my bloody life in the tail until it did what I wanted.”
“Maybe it was easier for you,” he retorted. “Maybe you had a few breaks thrown your way. I was on my own when I was fifteen. While you were taking walks in Hyde Park with your nanny, I was dodging my old man's fists. When I was real little, you know what he used to do to me when he got drunk? He used to turn me upside down and hold my head underwater in the toilet.”
Her face didn't soften with even a moment's sympathy. “Tough shit.”
She saw that her coldness had infuriated him, but she didn't let up. Her pity wasn't going to help him. At some point people either had to throw off the wounds of their childhood or go through life permanently crippled. “If you want to play games with yourself, that's your choice, but don't play them with me, because I'll bloody well call your bluff.” She rose from the booth and then stared down at him, her voice frigid with scorn. “I've decided to marry you.”
“Forget it,” he said, cold with fury. “I don't want you. I wouldn't take you if you were gift wrapped.”
“Oh, you want me all right. And it's not just because of Teddy. You want me so badly it scares you. But you're afraid to fight. You're afraid to put anything on the line for fear your head's going to get dunked in that toilet again.” She leaned forward slightly, resting one hand on the table. “I've decided to marry you, Dallie.” She gave him a long, cool look of appraisal. “I'll marry you the day you win the United States Classic.”
“That's the stupidest—”
“But you have to win it, you bastard,” she hissed. “Not third place, not second place—first place.”
He gave her a scornful, shaky l
augh. “You're crazy.”
“I want to know what you're made of,” she said contemptuously. “I want to know if you're good enough for me— good enough for Teddy. I haven't settled for second rate in a long time, and I'm not going to start now.”
“You've got a mighty high opinion of what you're worth.”
She threw her napkin straight at his chest. “You bet I do. If you want me, you'll have to earn me. And, mister, I don't come cheap.”
“Francie—”
“You lay that first-place trophy at my feet, you bloody son of a bitch, or don't bother to come near me again!”
Grabbing her purse, she swept past the startled diners at the front tables and dashed out the door. The night had grown cold, but her anger burned so hot that she didn't feel the chill. Stalking down the sidewalk, she was propelled by fury, by hurt, and by fear. Her eyes stung and she couldn't blink them rapidly enough to hold off the tears. Two glistening drops beaded on the waterproof mascara that coated her bottom lashes. How could she have fallen in love with him? How could she have let such an absurd thing happen? Her teeth began to chatter. For almost eleven years, she had felt nothing more than strong affection for a handful of men, shadows of love that faded nearly as quickly as they appeared. But now, just when her life was coming together, she had once again let a second-rate golf pro break her heart.
Francesca passed through the next week with the feeling that something bright and wonderful had slipped from her life forever. What had she done? Why had she challenged him so cruelly? Wasn't half a pie better than none? But she knew she couldn't live with half of anything, and she didn't want Teddy to live that way either. Dallie had to start taking risks, or he would be useless to them both—a will-o'-the-wisp neither of them could ever count on. With every breath she took, she mourned the loss of her lover, the loss of love itself.