“Very much.”
“The two of us were the same age, and we went through school together. He was Telarosa High’s golden boy, just like your son.” His smile didn’t make it to his eyes. “He even dated the prettiest girl in the sophomore class.”
“Thank you for the compliment, but I wasn’t even close to being the prettiest girl. I still had braces on my teeth that year.”
“I thought you were the prettiest girl.” He took a sip of wine. “I’d just worked up the nerve to ask you out when I heard you and Hoyt were dating.”
She couldn’t have been more startled. “I had no idea.”
“It’s hard to believe I really thought I had a chance with Suzy Westlight. After all, I was Trudy Sawyer’s son, and I lived in a different world from Dr. Westlight’s daughter. You came from the right side of the railroad tracks and had pretty clothes. Your mother drove you around in a shiny red Oldsmobile, and you always smelled clean and new.” His words were poetic, but he spoke them in hard, clipped tones that robbed them of any sentiment.
“That was a long time ago,” she said. “I’m not new anymore.” She brushed her fingers over the silky fabric of her evening trousers and felt the small bump on her hip from her estrogen patch. It was another sign that life had lost its promise.
“Aren’t you going to laugh at the idea of a dead-end kid like me wanting to ask you out?”
“You always acted as if you hated me.”
“I didn’t hate you. I hated the fact that you were so far out of my reach. You and Hoyt came from a different world, one I couldn’t come close to touching. The golden boy and the golden girl, happily-ever-after.”
“Not anymore.” She ducked her head as she felt her throat close.
“I’m sorry,” he said brusquely. “I didn’t mean to be cruel.”
Her head shot back up, and her eyes were glazed with tears. “Then why are you doing this? I know you’re playing some kind of-game with me, but I don’t know what the rules are. What do you want from me?”
“I thought you were the one who wanted something from me.”
His flat response told her that he was unmoved by her obvious distress. She blinked her eyes, determined not to let tears fall, but she hadn’t been sleeping well since her first meeting with him, and it was difficult to hold on to her composure. “I don’t want you to destroy this town. Too many lives will be ruined.”
“And exactly what are you willing to sacrifice to keep that from happening?”
Fingers of dread trailed down her spine. “I don’t have anything to sacrifice.”
“Yes, you do.”
The hard note in his voice undid her. Crumpling her napkin on the table, she stood. “I’d like to go home now.”
“You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”
“I don’t see any reason to prolong this evening.”
He got to his feet. “I want to show you my rose garden.”
“I think it would be better if I left.”
He pushed his chair back and came toward her. “I’d like you to see it. Please. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
Although he didn’t raise his voice, the note of command was unmistakable. Once again he was going to have his own way, and she didn’t know how to fight the firm hand that enclosed her upper arm and led her toward the French doors at the end of the dining room. He pushed down on a wave-shaped brass handle. As she stepped outside, the night settled around her like a fragrant steam bath. She smelled the lush perfume of roses.
“It’s lovely.”
He led her along a cobbled path that wound through the flower beds. “I brought in a landscape architect from Dallas to design it, but he wanted everything too fussy. I ended up doing most of the work myself.”
She didn’t want to think about him planting a rose garden. In her experience, gardeners were benevolent people, and she could never view him that way.
They had reached a small koi pond set in a ramble of tall grasses and foliage. It was fed by a waterfall trickling over terraced stone, and recessed lighting illuminated the fat fish as they swam beneath the waxy leaves of the water lilies. She knew he wouldn’t let her leave until he’d had his say, and she sat down on one of a pair of verdigris iron benches decorated with twining grape leaves that provided a resting place beside the pathway.
She crossed her hands in her lap and tried to brace herself. “What did you mean when you asked me what I was willing to sacrifice?”
He took the bench across from her and stretched out his legs. The lights in the pond threw his cheekbones and the bony ridge above his eyes into sharp relief, adding a menacing aspect to his features that further unnerved her. His voice, however, was as soft as the night. “I wanted to know how committed you were to keeping Rosatech here.”
“I’ve lived in this town all my life, and I’d do anything to keep it from dying. But I’m only the president of the Board of Education; I don’t have any real power in the county.”
“Your power in the county doesn’t interest me. That’s not what I want from you at all.”
“Then what?”
“Maybe I want what I couldn’t have all those years ago when I wasn’t anything more than Trudy Sawyer’s bastard kid.”
She was aware of the trickle of the waterfall, the distant hum of the air-conditioning units that cooled the house, and those peaceful noises made his quiet words seem all the more ominous. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Maybe I want the prettiest girl in the sophomore class.”
Dread crept through her, and the night that wrapped-around them was suddenly full of peril. “What are you talking about?”
He propped his elbow on the back of the bench and crossed his ankles. Despite his relaxed posture, she sensed a tightly coiled watchfulness about him, and it frightened her. “I’ve decided I need a companion, but I’m too busy running Rosatech to spend the time looking for someone. I want that person to be you.”
Her mouth was so dry that her tongue felt swollen. “A companion?”
“I need someone to attend social functions with, someone to accompany me on trips and serve as my hostess when I entertain.”
“I thought you had a companion. I’ve heard you’re seeing someone in Dallas.”
“I’ve seen a lot of women over the years. I’m looking for something a little different. A little closer to home.” He spoke as calmly as if he were discussing a business agreement, but there was something about him, a heightened sense of alertness, that made her certain he wasn’t as calm as he pretended to be. “The two of us would still be able to live our own lives, but you’d be . . .” He paused and she felt as if his eyes were burning straight through hers into her skull. “You would be available to me, Suzy.”
The way he lingered over the word chilled her. “Available? Way, you’re not— It almost sounds as if—” She couldn’t hide her horror. “I’m not sleeping with you!”
For a moment he said nothing. “You’d hate that, wouldn’t you?”
She sprang to her feet. “You’re crazy! I can’t believe you’re suggesting this. You’re not talking about a companion; you’re talking about a mistress!”
He lifted one eyebrow, and she thought she had never seen a man so cold, so completely lacking in feeling. “Am I? I don’t remember using that word.”
“Stop toying with me!”
“I know you have an active life, and I don’t expect you to give it up, but sometimes when I need you with me, I’d like you to make concessions.”
Her blood pounded in her ears, and her voice seemed to be coming from very far away. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Doing what?”
“Blackmailing me! That’s what this is about, isn’t it? If I sleep with you, you’ll keep Rosatech in Telarosa? If I don’t, you’ll move the company.” He said nothing, and she couldn’t quite suppress the bubble of hysteria rising inside her. “I’m fifty-two years old! If you’re looking for a mistress, why don’t you do what other me
n your age do and find someone young.”
“Young women don’t interest me.”
She turned her back to him, her nails digging into her palms. “Do you hate me so much?”
“I don’t hate you at all.”
“I know what you’re doing. You’re living out some kind of vendetta from thirty years ago.”
“My vendetta is with the town, not with you.”
“But I’m the one who’s being punished.”
“If that’s the way you see it, I won’t try to change your mind.”
“I’m not going to do this.”
“I understand.”
She spun back. “You can’t force me.”
“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.
12
For 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 h
ad 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.