She couldn’t stand watching Willow drool on him. As she turned away, her eyes fell on the Thunderbird. Dust streaked its shiny red finish and the windshield was splattered with bug gore, but it was still the most beautiful car she’d ever seen. As frustrating as the past four days had been, they had also been magical. Bobby Tom and his red Thunderbird had transported her into a new and exciting world. Despite the conflicts and arguments, this had been the best time of her life.
She walked over to the catering wagon to fetch a cup of coffee while she waited for Willow to finished worshiping at Bobby Tom’s feet. An exotic-looking, dark-haired woman with long silver earrings stood behind the counter. She had heavily made-up eyes, olive skin, and bare tan arms with silver bangles at her wrists.
“You want a donut to go with that?”
“No, thanks. I’m not too hungry.” Gracie filled a Styrofoam coffee cup at an urn.
“I’m Connie Cameron. I saw you driving in with Bobby Tom.” She took in the navy blue suit in a way that made Gracie realize she had once again dressed wrong. “Have you known him for long?”
The woman’s manner was less than friendly, and Gracie decided it was better to clear up any misunderstanding right at the beginning. “Only a few days. I’m one of the production assistants. I escorted him here from Chicago.”
“Nice work if you can get it.” Connie’s gaze was carnivorous as she watched Bobby Tom in the distance. “I spent some of the best times of my life with Bobby Tom Denton. He sure does know how to make a woman feel one hundred percent female.”
Gracie didn’t know how to answer that, so she smiled and carried her coffee over to one of the folding tables. As she took a chair, she forced herself to put Bobby Tom out of her mind and still thinking about her new responsibilities instead. Since production assistants were at the bottom of the totem pole, she could end up working with the prop people, typing crew sheets, running errands, or performing any of a dozen other jobs. As she saw Willow approach, she hoped her boss hadn’t decided to send her back to L A to work in the office. She wasn’t nearly ready for this adventure to end, and the thought of never seeing Bobby Tom again gave her a sharp pang . . .
Willow Craig was in her late thirties, a woman with the lean and hungry look of an obsessive dieter. She bristled with frantic energy, chain-smoked Marlboros, and could be curt to the point of rudeness, but Gracie still admired her tremendously. She began to stand to greet her, but Willow gestured her back into her chair and .sat down next to her.
“We need to talk, Gracie.”
The brusqueness in her tone made Gracie uneasy. “All right. I’m anxious to hear about my new duties.”
“That’s one of the things I want to discuss.” She pulled a pack of Marlboros from the pocket of her peach jumpsuit. “You know that I’m not happy with the way you did this job.”
“I’m sorry. I did my best, but—”
“It’s performance, not excuses, that count in this business. Your failure to get our star here on time has been extremely costly.”
Gracie bit back all the explanations that were bubbling to her lips and said, simply, “I realize that.”
“I know he can be difficult, but I hired you because I thought that you could handle difficult people.” For the first time, her voice lost its edge and she regarded Gracie with a trace of sympathy. “I’m partially to blame. I knew you lacked experience in the business, but I hired you anyway. I’m sorry, Gracie, but now I’m going to have to let you go.”
Gracie could feel the blood, draining from her head. “Let me go?” she whispered. “No.”
“I like you, Gracie, and, God knows, you saved my life when Dad was dying at Shady Acres and I was so distraught. But I didn’t get where I am today by being sentimental. We’re on a tight budget, and there’s no room for dead weight. The fact is, you were given a job to do, and you couldn’t handle it.” “Her voice softened as she stood up. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. If you’ll stop by the office at the hotel, you can pick up your check.”
With that, Willow walked away.
The hot sun beat down on. Gracie’s head. She wanted to turn her face into it and let it burn her up so that she wouldn’t have to face what she feared the most. She had been fired.
In the distance Bobby Tom emerged from one of the trailers followed by a young woman with a tape measure draped around her neck. She laughed at something he said, and he gave her an answering smile so charged with intimacy that Gracie could almost see the girl falling in love. She wanted to yell at her, to warn her it was the same smile he gave tollbooth operators.
Tires squeaed and a silver Lexus peeled into the compound. The driver had barely brought the vehicle to a stop before the door flew open and an elegantly dressed blond-haired woman jumped out. Once again Bobby Tom’s face lit up with a lady-killer grin. He ran toward the woman and pulled her into his arms.
Sick at heart, Grade turned away. She stumbled blindly through a quagmire of cables, not paying attention to where she was going, knowing only that she had to be alone. On the other side of the equipment trucks, she saw a shed that rested at a crazy angle next to the hull of a rusted car. Slipping behind the weather-beaten structure, she sagged down in a patch of shade and leaned against the rough wood.
As she buried her head in her hands, she felt all her dreams slip away and despair gripped her. Why had she tried to reach so far above herself? When would she learn to accept her limitations? She was a homely woman from a small town, not some wild-eyed adventuress who could take on the world. Her chest felt as if it were squeezed by a giant fist, but she couldn’t let herself cry. If she did, she would never be able to stop. The days of her life stretched in front of her like one of the endless highways they had traveled. She had hoped for so much and ended up with so little.
She had no idea how long she sat there before the squawk of a bullhorn cut through her misery. Her navy suit was much too heavy for the hot July afternoon, and her skin was sticking to her blouse. Rising, she glanced without any real interest at her watch and saw that a little over an hour had passed. She had to get into Telarosa to pick up her paycheck. Nothing could make her stay here any longer, not even her suitcase locked away in Bobby Tom’s trunk. She’d make an arrangement with someone in the office to pick it up for her.
She remembered having seen a road sign indicating that Telarosa was only three miles to the west. Certainly she could walk that far and spare herself the indignity of having to beg a ride from someone at Windmill. They could have her job, she told herself, but they weren’t taking the few shreds of pride she had left. Squaring her shoulders, she made her way across the field to the road and began to walk along the dusty shoulder.
Barely fifteen minutes passed before she, realized that she had seriously underestimated her stamina. The strain of the last few days, the sleepless nights she’d spent worrying, the meals she’d only picked at, had left her exhausted, and her black pumps weren’t designed for walking any distance. A pickup flew by, and she lifted her arm to protect her eyes against the dust. Less than three miles, she told herself. That wasn’t far at all.
The sun beat down on her head, and the sky was bleached to the color of bone. Even the weeds along the side of the road looked parched and brittle. She peeled off her damp suit coat and carried it over her arm. Off to her right she caught glimpses of the river, but it was too far away to provide any relief from the heat. She stumbled, but quickly righted herself. As she glanced above her, she hoped the dark birds circling overhead weren’t vultures.
Forcing herself to ignore both her growing thirst and the blister her pumps had rubbed on her heel, she tried to decide what to do. Her financial nest egg was pitifully small. Although her mother had urged her to take a larger share of the profits from the sale of the nursing home, Gracie had refused because she wanted to make certain her mother had plenty to live on. Now she regretted not setting aside a little more. She would have to return to New Grundy immediately.
She winced as her ankle turned on the uneven surface but she kept moving. Her throat felt like a tube of cotton, and she was dripping with perspiration. She heard a car coming from behind her and automatically lifted her arm to shield her eyes from the dust.
The car, a silver Lexus, pulled to a stop beside her, and the passenger window slid down. “Would you like a ride?”
Gracie recognized the driver as the blonde she’d seen throwing herself at Bobby Tom several hours earlier. The woman was older than she’d realized, probably in her early forties. She looked rich and sophisticated, as if she drank bottled water between tennis games at the country club and slept with a good looking ex-wide receiver when her husband was out of town. Gracie didn’t want to face another encounter with one of Bobby Tom’s women, but she was too hot and tired to refuse.
“Thank you.” As she opened the door and settled into the cool gray interior, she was enveloped by the scent of expensive perfume and the lilting music of Vivaldi.
With the exception of a wide wedding band, the woman’s hands were free of jewelry, but pea-sized diamond studs glittered in her earlobes. She wore her frosted blond hair in the soft, side-parted pageboy favored by wealthy women, and a belt of hammered gold links loosely cinched the waist of a gracefully cut oyster white sheath. She was slender and lovely, and the faint web of lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes only seemed to make her look more sophisticated. Gracie had never felt dowdier.
The woman at the wheel touched her finger to the button that raised the window. “Are you going into Telarosa, Miss—?”
“Snow. Yes, I am. But, please, call me Gracie.”
“All right.” Her smile was friendly, but Gracie sensed a certain reserve. The wide gold cuff on her right wrist glimmered in the sunlight as she turned down the volume on the radio.
She knew the woman must be curious about why she had been walking along the highway, and she appreciated the fact that she wasn’t being pressed for explanations. On the other hand, her personal unhappiness was no excuse to be rude.
“Thank you for picking me up. The walk was a bit longer than I’d thought.”
“Where would you like me to drop you?” Her accent was distinctly Southern, but it carried more of a lilt than a twang. If she hadn’t personally witnessed her rescuer throwing herself at Bobby Tom, Gracie would have believed this woman represented everything gracious and civilized.
“I’m going to the Cattleman’s Hotel, if that’s not too far out of your way.”
“Not at all. I assume you’re with the film company.”
“I was.” She swallowed hard, but she wasn’t quite able to hold the words back. “I’ve been fired.”
Several long moments passed. “I’m sorry.”
Gracie didn’t want pity, so she spoke briskly. “So am I. I’d hoped it would work out.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
Her rescuer managed to sound both sympathetic and respectful, and Gracie could feel herself responding. Since she was very much in need of a confidante, she decided that, if she didn’t reveal too much, it would be all right to talk about it.
“I was a production assistant for Windmill Studios,” she said carefully.
“That sounds interesting.”
“It’s not a very prestigious job, but I’d wanted to make some changes in my life, and I felt lucky to get it. I had hoped to learn the business and work my way up.” Her lips tightened. “Unfortunately, I got tangled up with a self-centered, irresponsible, egotistical, womanizing bounder, and I lost everything.”
The woman’s head whipped to the side, and she regarded Gracie with dismay. “Oh, dear. What did Bobby Tom do this time?”
Gracie stared at her across the interior of the car. She was so startled that long seconds ticked by before she found her voice.
“How did you know who I was talking about?”
The woman arched one smooth brow. “I’ve had lots of experience. Believe me, it wasn’t hard to figure out.”
Gracie regarded her curiously.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Suzy Denton.”
Gracie tried to sort it out. Could this woman be his sister? Even as the notion flickered through her mind, she remembered the wedding band on her finger. A married sister wouldn’t have the same last name.
Her stomach plummeted. That lying snake! And after all his talk about football quizzes.
Fighting dizziness, she said, “Bobby Tom didn’t tell me he was married.”
Suzy gazed at her with kind eyes. “I’m not his wife, dear. I’m his mother.”
“His mother?” Gracie couldn’t believe it. Suzy Denton looked much too young to be his mother. And much too respectable. “But you’re not a—” She cut herself off in midsentence as she realized what she’d almost let slip out.
Suzy’s wedding ring clicked against the steering wheel as she gave it a hard smack. “I’m going to kill him! He’s been telling that hooker story again, hasn’t he?”
“Hooker story?”
“You don’t have to worry about sparing my feelings. I’ve heard it before. Did he tell you the one about me showing up drunk at all his high school games or the one where I proposition his coach on the practice field in front of his teammates?”
“He—uh—didn’t mention a coach.”
Suzy shook her head in annoyance and then, to Gracie’s surprise, the corners of her mouth began to curl. “It’s my fault. I know he’d stop if I insisted, but—” A trace of wistfulness had crept into her voice. “I’ve just always been so very respectable.”
They reached an intersection, and Suzy put on the brakes at a stop sign punctured by a bullet hole. At the base of the hills off to their right, Gracie saw several low industrial buildings marked by a black-and-bronze sign reading ROSATECH ELECTRONICS.
“For the record, I was happily married to Bobby Tom’s father for thirty years until he was killed in an automobile accident four years ago. When my son was growing up, I was his Cub Scout den mother, his homeroom mother, and team mother. Contrary to the stories he puts about, Bobby Tom had an entirely conventional upbringing.”
“You don’t look nearly old enough to be his mother.”
“I’m fifty-two. Hoyt and I were married a week after I graduated from high school, and Bobby Tom was born nine months later.”
She looked nearly ten years younger. As always, being with someone so different from herself piqued Gracie’s curiosity, and she couldn’t resist a little gentle probing.
“Did you ever regret getting married so young?”
“Never.” She gave Gracie a knowing smile. “Bobby Tom is the image of his father.”
Gracie understood completely.
Although Suzy was doing her best to conceal her curiosity, Grade could almost see her wondering how a plain mouse with dowdy clothes and bad hair had gotten tangled up with her lady-killer son. But now that Gracie knew with whom she was speaking, she could hardly complain about his behavior.
They crossed a set of railroad tracks and entered the downtown area. Gracie saw right away that Telarosa was doing its best to hide its troubles from the world. To conceal the fact that too many of its stores were empty, civic groups were using the windows for display. She saw craft projects in what had been a shoe store and posters advertising a car wash in an abandoned bookstore. The marquee over the empty movie theater announced HEAVENFEST, THIS OCTOBER THE WORLD COMES TO T’ROSA! On the other hand, several of the stores looked new: an art gallery with a Southwestern motif, a jeweler advertising handcrafted silver, a Victorian house that had been turned into a Mexican restaurant, complete with wrought-iron tables on the porch.
“It’s a pretty town,” Gracie observed.
“The economy has hurt Telarosa, but we’ve had Rosatech Electronics to keep us stable. We passed the plant coming into town. Unfortunately, the new owner seems determined to close it and move the work to another plant near San Antonio.”
“What will happ
en then?”
“Telarosa’s going to die,” Suzy said simply. “The mayor and the city council are trying to promote tourism to keep that from happening, but we’re so isolated that it’s going to be difficult.”
They passed a park with neat flower beds and an ancient live oak shadowing the statue of a war hero. Gracie felt incredibly selfish. Her problems seemed small compared with the disaster facing this pleasant town.
The road curved and Suzy pulled up to the entrance of the Cattleman’s Hotel. She shifted her car into park and removed her foot from the brake. “Gracie, I don’t know what happened between you and Bobby Tom, but I do know that he isn’t unjust. If he’s wronged you, I’m sure he’ll want to make amends.”
Not likely, Gracie thought. When Bobby Tom found out she’d been fired, he was going to click his heels and treat everyone in town to a steak dinner.
6
Bobby Tom pulled off his Stetson, ran his fingers through his hair, and then put it back on as he regarded Willow with cool, level eyes. “Let me make sure I understand this. You fired Gracie because I didn’t make it here by Monday morning.”
They were standing next to the production trailer. It was just past six o’clock, and they had finished shooting for the day. Bobby Tom had spent most of the time either standing around sweating in the heat or having somebody fuss with his hair. Neither activity appealed to him, and he was hoping the work would get more interesting tomorrow. So far the only acting he’d done had involved coming out of the back door of the house, dunking his head in a bucket of water, and walking over to the corral. They’d photographed him from every possible angle, and David Givens, the Blood Moon director, seemed happy.
“We’re operating on a very tight budget,” Willow replied. “She didn’t do her job, so she had to go.”
Bobby Tom dipped his head and rubbed his eyebrow with his thumb. “Willow, I’m afraid you don’t understand something that was evident to Gracie the first time we met.”