Chapter Eight
T he clubs landed with a crash. All seven men standing on the tee spun around to stare at her. She tried to look abashed. “Oops. Dang. Big mistake.”
Ted had pulled his drive into the far left rough, and Skipjack grinned. “Miz Meg, I sure am glad you’re not caddying for me.”
She stubbed her sneaker into the ground. “I’m really sorry.” Not.
And what did Ted do in response to her blunder? Did he thank her for reminding him of what was most important today? Conversely, did he stalk over and wrap one of his clubs around her neck as she knew he wanted to? Oh, no. Mr. Perfect was way too cool for any of that. Instead, he gave them his choirboy smile, wandered back to her with his easy lope, and righted the bag himself. “Now don’t you stress, Meg. You’ve just made the match more interesting.”
He was the best bullshit artist she’d ever known, but even if the others couldn’t see it, she knew he was furious.
They all set off down the fairway. Skipjack’s face was flushed, his golf shirt sticking to his barrel chest. She understood the game well enough by now to know what needed to happen. Because of his handicap, Skipjack got an extra stroke on this hole, so if everybody parred it, Skipjack would win the hole for his team. But if either Dallie or Ted birdied the hole, Skipjack would need a birdie himself to win the hole, something that seemed highly unlikely. Otherwise, the match would end in an unsatisfying tie.
Thanks to her interference, Ted was farthest from the pin, so he was up first for his second shot. Since no one was close enough to overhear, she could tell him exactly what she thought. “Let him win, you idiot! Can’t you see how much this means to him?”
Instead of listening to her, he drilled a four-iron down the fairway, putting him in what even she could see was perfect position. “Butthead,” she muttered. “If you birdie, you’ve just about guaranteed your guest can’t win. Do you really think that’s the best way to put him in a good mood for your odious negotiations?”
He tossed his club at her. “I know how the game is played, Meg, and so does Skipjack. He’s not a kid.” He stalked away.
Dallie, Kenny, and a glowering Skipjack put their third shots on the green, but Ted was only lying two. He’d abandoned common sense. Apparently losing a game was a mortal sin for those who worshipped in the holy cathedral of golf.
Meg reached Ted’s ball first. It perched on top of a big tuft of chemically nurtured grass in perfect position to set up an easy birdie shot. She lowered his bag, contemplated her principles once again, then brought her sneaker down as hard as she could on the ball.
As she heard Ted come up behind her, she shook her head sadly. “Too bad. It looks like you landed in a hole.”
“A hole?” He pushed her aside to see his ball mashed deeply into the grass.
As she stepped back, she spotted Skeet Cooper standing on the fringe of the green watching her with his small, sun-wrinkled eyes. Ted gazed down at the ball. “What in the—?”
“Some kind of rodent.” Skeet said it in a way that let her know he’d witnessed exactly what she’d done.
“Rodent? There aren’t any—” Ted spun on her. “Don’t tell me . . .”
“You can thank me later,” she said.
“Problem over there?” Skipjack called from the opposite fringe.
“Ted’s in trouble,” Skeet called back.
Ted used up two strokes getting out of the hole she’d dug him into. He still made par, but par wasn’t good enough. Kenny and Skipjack won the match.
Kenny seemed more concerned about getting home to his wife than relishing the victory, but Spencer chortled all the way into the clubhouse. “Now that was a golf game. Too bad you lost it there at the end, Ted. Bad luck.” As he spoke, he was peeling away at a wad of bills to tip Mark. “Good job today. You can caddy for me anytime.”
“Thank you, sir. It was my pleasure.”
Kenny passed some twenties over to Lenny, shook hands with his partner, and took off for home. Ted dug into his own pocket, pressed a tip into her palm, then closed her fingers around it. “No hard feelings, Meg. You did your best.”
“Thanks.” She’d forgotten she was dealing with a saint.
Spencer Skipjack came up behind her, settled his hand into the small of her back, and rubbed. Way too creepy. “Miz Meg, Ted and his friends are taking me to dinner tonight. I’d be honored if you’d be my date.”
“Gosh, I’d like to, but—”
“She’d love to,” Ted said. “Wouldn’t you, Meg?”
“Ordinarily yes, but—”
“Don’t be shy. We’ll pick you up at seven. Meg’s current home is hard to find, so I’ll drive.” He gazed at her, and the flint in his eyes sent a clear message that told her she’d be looking for a new home if she didn’t cooperate. She swallowed. “Casual dress?”
“Real casual,” he said.
As the men walked away, she contemplated the evils of being forced on a date with an egotistic blowhard who was practically as old as her father. Bad enough by itself, but even more depressing with Ted watching her every move.
She rubbed her aching shoulder, then uncurled her fingers to check out the tip she’d received for spending four and a half hours hauling thirty-five pounds of golf clubs uphill and down in the hot Texas sun.
A one-dollar bill looked back at her.
Neon beer signs, antlers, and sports memorabilia decked out the square wooden bar that sat in the center of the Roustabout. Booths lined two of the honky-tonk’s walls, pool tables and video games another. On weekends, a country band played, but for now, Toby Keith blasted from the jukebox near a small, scarred dance floor.
Meg was the only woman at the table, which left her feeling a little like a working girl at a gentleman’s club, although she was glad neither Dallie’s nor Kenny’s wife was present, since both women hated her. She sat between Spencer and Kenny, with Ted directly across the table along with his father and Dallie’s faithful caddy, Skeet Cooper.
“The Roustabout’s an institution around here,” Ted said as Skipjack finished polishing off a platter of ribs. “It’s seen a lot of history. Good, bad, and ugly.”
“I sure do remember the ugly,” Skeet said. “Like the time Dallie and Francie had an altercation in the parking lot. Happened more’n thirty years ago, long before they were married, but people still talk about it today.”
“That’s true,” Ted said. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard that story. My mother forgot she’s half my father’s size and tried to take him down.”
“Damn near succeeded. She was a wildcat that night, I can tell you,” Skeet said. “Me and Dallie’s ex-wife couldn’t hardly break up that fight.”
“It’s not exactly the way they’re making it sound,” Dallie said.
“It’s exactly the way it sounded.” Kenny pocketed his cell after checking on his wife.
“How would you know?” Dallie grumbled. “You were a kid then, and you weren’t even there. Besides, you’ve got your own history with the Roustabout parking lot. Like the night Lady Emma got upset with you and stole your car. You had to run down the highway after her.”
“It didn’t take too long to catch up,” Kenny said. “My wife wasn’t much of a driver.”
“Still isn’t,” Ted said. “Slowest driver in the county. Just last week she caused a big backup out on Stone Quarry Road. Three people called me to complain.”
Kenny shrugged. “No matter how hard we all try, we can’t convince her that our posted speed limits are only polite recommendations.”
It had been going on like that all evening, the five of them entertaining Skipjack with their good ol’ boy patter, while Spence, as she’d been instructed to call him, soaked it in with a combination of amusement and the faintest hint of arrogance. He loved being courted by these famous men—loved knowing he had something they wanted, something he had it within his power to withhold. He dragged his napkin over his mouth to wipe off some barbecue sauce. “You’ve got strange ways in this town.”
Ted leaned back in his chair, as relaxed as ever. “We’re not hampered by a lot of bureaucracy, that’s for sure. People around here don’t see the sense in all kinds of red tape. If we want to make something happen, we go ahead and do it.”
Spence smiled at Meg. “I think I’m about to hear a paid political announcement.”
It was long past time. She was bone tired and wanted nothing more than to curl up in her choir loft and go to sleep. After her disastrous caddying round, she’d spent the rest of the day on the drink cart. Unfortunately, her immediate boss was a stoner kid with minimal communication skills and no idea how her predecessor had set up the beverages. How was she to know that the club’s female golfers were addicted to diet Arizona iced tea and got huffy if it wasn’t waiting for them by the fourteenth tee? Still, that hadn’t been as bad as running out of Bud Light. In a curious case of mass self-delusion, the club’s overweight male golfers seemed to have concluded the word light meant they could drink twice as much. Their bellies should have pointed out their faulty reasoning, but apparently not.
The most surprising part of today, however, was how much she hadn’t hated it. She should have detested working at a country club, but she loved being outside, even if she wasn’t allowed to drive all over the course the way she wanted and had to stay parked at either the fifth or fourteenth tee. Not getting fired was a bonus.
Spence tried to sneak a surreptitious look down the top she’d fashioned from one length of the rehearsal-dinner silk wrap she now wore with jeans. All evening, he’d been touching her, tracing a bone on her wrist, caressing her shoulder, the small of her back, feigning curiosity over her earrings as an excuse to rub her lobe. Ted had taken in every touch and, for the first time since they’d met, seemed happy she was around. Spence leaned in too close. “Here’s my dilemma, Miz Meg.”
She edged nearer Kenny, something she’d been doing all evening until she was practically in his lap. He seemed oblivious, apparently so used to women hitting on him that it no longer registered. But Ted was registering, and he wanted her to stay put, right where Skipjack could paw her. Since his easy smile never changed, she didn’t know how she knew this, but she did, and the next time she got him alone, she intended to tell him to add “pimp” to his big, impressive résumé.
Spence toyed with her fingers. “I’m looking at two sweet pieces of property—one on the outskirts of San Antone, a city that’s a hotbed of commercial activity. The other in the middle of nowhere.”
Ted hated cat-and-mouse games. She knew because he leaned farther back in his chair, as unruffled as a man could be. “The most beautiful part of nowhere anybody’s ever seen,” he said.
And one they wanted to destroy with a hotel, condos, manicured fairways, and pristine greens.
“Don’t forget there’s a landing strip not twenty miles out of town.” Kenny fingered his cell.
“But not much else to speak of,” Spence said. “No upscale boutiques for the ladies. No nightclubs or fine dining.”
Skeet scratched his jaw, his nails rasping over the graying stubble. “I don’t see that’s much of a disadvantage. All it means is people’ll spend more money at your resort.”
“When they’re not coming into Wynette to get their fix of small-town Americana,” Ted said. “The Roustabout, for example. This is the real thing—no phonied-up national franchise with mass-produced steer horns hanging on the wall. We all know how much rich people appreciate authenticity.”
An interesting observation coming from a multimillionaire. It occurred to her that everybody at this table was filthy rich except her. Even Skeet Cooper must have a couple of million tucked away from all the prize money he’d earned caddying for Dallie.
Spence curled his hand over Meg’s wrist. “Let’s dance, Miz Meg. I need to work off my dinner.”
She didn’t want to dance with him, and she extracted her hand with the excuse of reaching for her napkin. “I don’t understand exactly why you’re so eager to build a resort. You’re already the head of a big company. Why make your life more complicated?”
“Some things a man’s destined to do.” It sounded like a line from one of her father’s worst movies. “You ever heard of a guy named Herb Kohler?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Kohler Company. Plumbing. My biggest rival.”
She didn’t pay much attention to bathroom fixtures, but even she’d heard of Kohler, and she nodded.
“Herb owns the American Club in Kohler, Wisconsin, along with four of the Midwest’s best golf courses. Each room at the American Club is outfitted with the latest plumbing fixtures. There’s even a plumbing museum. Every year the place is top ranked.”
“Herb Kohler’s an important man,” Ted said with such a lack of guile that she nearly rolled her eyes. Was she the only person who saw through him? “He sure has made himself a legend in the golfing world.”
And Spencer Skipjack wanted to outdo his rival. That’s why building this resort was so important to him.
“It’s too bad Herb didn’t build his place somewhere people could play year-round,” Dallie said. “Wisconsin’s a damn cold state.”
“The reason I was smart enough to choose Texas,” Skipjack said. “I came down here a lot from Indiana when I was a kid to visit my mother’s family. I’ve always felt at home in the Lone Star State. More Texan than Hoosier.” He turned his attention back to Meg. “Wherever I build, you be sure and tell your father he’s invited to play anytime as my guest.”
“I’ll do that.” Her athletic father still loved basketball, and thanks to her mother, now rode horseback for pleasure, but she couldn’t imagine him swinging a golf club.
She’d had separate phone conversations with both of her parents today, but instead of begging them to send money, she’d told them that she’d gotten a great job in hospitality at an important Texas country club. Although she didn’t say she was the activities coordinator, neither did she correct her mother when she came to that conclusion and said how wonderful it was Meg had finally found a useful outlet for her natural creativity. Her dad was just happy she had a job.
She couldn’t keep quiet about this any longer. “Have any of you thought about leaving that land alone? I mean, does the world really need another golf course eating up more of our natural resources?”
Ted’s frown was almost imperceptible. “Recreational green spaces keep people healthy.”
“Damn right they do,” Spence said before Meg could bring up the golfers and their Bud Light. “Ted and I have talked a lot about that.” He pushed back his chair. “Come on, Miz Meg. I like this song.”
Spence might have her arm, but Meg could have sworn she felt Ted’s invisible hand shoving her to the dance floor.
Spence was a decent dancer, and the song was up tempo, so things started out all right. But when a ballad came on, he pulled her so close his belt buckle pressed against her, not to mention something more objectionable. “I don’t know what happened to make you fall on hard times.” Spence nuzzled her ear. “But it looks like you could use somebody to watch out for you until you’re back on your feet.”
She hoped he didn’t mean what she thought he meant, but the evidence below his belt buckle seemed to indicate he did.
“Now I’m not talking about anything that would make you uncomfortable,” he said. “Just the two of us spending some time together.”
She deliberately tripped over his foot. “Oops. I need to sit down. I picked up a couple of blisters today.”
Spence didn’t have any choice but to follow her back to the table. “She can’t keep up with me,” he grumbled.
“Not many people can, I’ll bet,” Mayor Suck-up said.
Spence pulled his chair closer and draped his arm around her shoulders. “I got a great idea, Miss Meg. Let’s fly to Vegas tonight. You, too, Ted. Ring up a girlfriend and come with us. I’ll call my pilot.”
He was so certain of their compliance that he reached for his cell, and since not one of the men at the table did anything to dissuade him, she realized she was on her own. “Sorry, Spence. I have to work tomorrow.”
He winked at Ted. “That’s not much of a country club you work for, and I’ll bet Ted could talk your boss into giving you a couple of days off. What do you think, Ted?”
“If he can’t, I can,” Dallie said, tossing her to the wolves.
Kenny piled on. “Let me do it. I’ll be happy to make a call.”
Ted gazed at her over the top of his longneck, saying nothing. She stared right back, so angry her skin burned. She’d put up with a lot lately, but she wouldn’t put up with this. “The thing is . . .” She bit off the syllables. “I’m not exactly free. Emotionally.”
“How’s that?” Spence asked.
“It’s . . . complicated.” She was starting to feel nauseated. Why couldn’t life come with a pause button? More than anything, that’s what she needed right now, because without a chance to think this through, she was going to say the first thing that sprang into her mind, the stupidest thing, but again, no pause button. “Ted and me.”
Ted’s beer bottle clinked against his teeth. Kenny perked up. Spence looked confused. “This morning you said the two of you weren’t a couple.”
She pinched her mouth into a smile. “We’re not,” she said. “Yet. But I have hopes.” The word caught in her throat like a bone. She had just validated everything people believed about her motivation for stopping the wedding.
But Kenny kicked back in his chair, more amused than accusatory. “Ted does this to women all the time. None of us can figure out how.”
“I sure can’t.” Ted’s father slanted her a peculiar look. “Homeliest kid you ever saw.”
Ted ground his words around the edges of a lazy smile. “It’s not going to happen, Meg.”
“Time will tell.” Now that she saw how much she’d aggravated him, she warmed to the topic, despite its larger implications. “I have a bad history of falling for the worst men.” She let that settle in for a moment. “Not that Ted isn’t perfect. A little too perfect, obviously, but . . . attraction isn’t always logical.”
Spence’s heavy dark brows met in the middle. “Wasn’t it last month he was all ready to marry the president’s daughter?”
“The end of May,” she said. “And Lucy is my best friend. It was a total debacle, as I’m sure you know from all the press.” Ted watched her, his easy smile fixed in place, a microscopic nerve jumping at the corner of his eye. She began to enjoy herself. “But Lucy was never the right woman for him. Thanks to me, he knows that now, and frankly, his gratitude would be embarrassing if I weren’t so head over heels.”
“Gratitude?” Ted’s voice was tempered steel.
To hell with it. She waved an airy hand and began to embellish with all the skill of her actor-playwright father. “I could play coy and pretend I haven’t fallen totally—and I mean totally —in love with him, but I’ve never been the kind of woman to play games. I throw my cards right on the table. It’s better in the long run.”
“Honesty’s an admirable quality,” Kenny said, openly enjoying himself.
“I know what you’re all thinking. That I couldn’t possibly have fallen for him so quickly because, no matter what anybody says, I did not break up that wedding. But . . .” She shot Ted an adoring look. “This time it’s different for me. So different.” She couldn’t resist fanning the flames. “And . . . Judging from Ted’s late-night visit yesterday . . .”
“You two had a late-night visit?” his father said.
“Pretty romantic, right?” She manufactured a dreamy smile. “At midnight. In the choir—”
Ted shot to his feet. “Let’s dance.”
With a tilt of her head, she transformed herself into the mother of all sorrows. “Blister.”
“Slow dance,” he said silkily. “You can stand on my feet.”
Before she could come up with a way out, Ted had her arm and was dragging her toward the crowded dance floor. He tucked her against him—one step from a chokehold. At least he wasn’t wearing a belt, so she didn’t have to put up with a buckle . . . or any other object pressing into her flesh. The only thing hard about Ted Beaudine was the expression in his eyes. “Every time I think you can’t cause more trouble, you manage to surprise me.”
“What was I supposed to do?” she retorted. “Fly off to Vegas with him? And when did ‘pimp’ become part of your job description?”
“It wouldn’t have gone that far. All you had to do was be nice.”
“Why should I? I hate this town, remember? And I don’t care if your stupid golf resort gets built. I don’t want it to get built.”
“Then why have you gone along with this so far?”
“Because I’ve sold out. To put food in my stomach.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“I don’t know . . . It seemed like the right thing to do. God knows why. Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not the evil bitch everybody’s made me out to be. But that doesn’t mean that I’m willing to turn hooker for the good of y’all. ”
“I never said you were evil.” He actually had the nerve to look wounded.
“You know he’s only interested in me because of my father,” she hissed. “He’s a little man with a big ego. Being around famous people, even an auxiliary person like me, makes him feel important. If it weren’t for my parents, he wouldn’t look at me twice.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“Come on, Ted. I’m not exactly the type to be a rich man’s bimbo.”
“That’s true.” A world of compassion softened his voice. “Bimbos are generally good-hearted women who are pleasant to be around.”
“Spoken from experience, I’m sure. By the way, you may be God Almighty on the golf course, but you’re a lousy dancer. Let me lead.”
He lost a step, then looked at her oddly, as if she’d finally taken him by surprise, although she couldn’t imagine why, and she relaunched her attack. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you and your lover fly to Vegas with Spence? I’m sure the two of you could show him a great time.”
“That really galls you, doesn’t it?”
“The fact that you screwed around on Lucy? Oh, yes. Right now she’s eaten up with guilt. And don’t think for a second that I won’t fill her in on all the sordid details of your extracurricular activities as soon as we get the chance for a long chat.”
“Doubt she’ll believe you.”
“I don’t get why you proposed to her in the first place.”
“Not being married was starting to hold me back,” he said. “I was ready to move on to the next stage of my life, and I needed a wife for that. Someone spectacular. The daughter of the president fit the bill perfectly.”
“Did you ever love her? Even a little?”
“Are you crazy? It was a sham right from the beginning.”
Something told her he was throwing up a smoke screen, but the mind-reading thing she’d been doing all evening failed her. “It must be hard being you,” she said. “Mr. Perfect on the outside. Dr. Evil on the inside.”
“It’s not that hard. The rest of the world isn’t as insightful as you.”
His easy smile slid over her, and a tiny zap—almost imperceptible—so small it was hardly worth noting—but still there — hit her nerve endings. Not all of them. Just a couple. The ones located somewhere south of her belly button.
“Crap!” he exclaimed, voicing her feelings perfectly.
She turned her head and saw what had caught his attention. His beautiful brunette lover making a beeline for Spence.
Ted abandoned Meg and ambled back to the table, his amble so full of purpose Meg was surprised he didn’t leave tread marks on the floor. He hit the brakes just as his lover held out her hand to their visitor.
“Hi, there. Torie Traveler O’Connor.”