Lady Be Good

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  If only she had some idea what he was truly feeling, it might be easier, but he remained as closed off from her as a locked door.

  The next morning she awakened to the sound of him speaking quietly on the telephone in the suite’s adjoining living room. “I’m not going to talk about it, Shelby. And I’m not telling you where we’re staying, either. Now come on. Just put him on the phone.”

  There was a pause before Kenny spoke again. This time his voice was pitched higher. “Hey, Petie. It’s Kenny. Listen, buddy, I didn’t mean to disappear on you. I’ll be back soon, and we’ll go swimming, okay? Swimming. You and me.”

  Emma smiled to herself. This was the side of Kenny she loved the most.

  Another pause, then his pitch deepened, so she knew Shelby had come back on. “If you know which hotel we’re in, you’ll somehow let it slip, and then the press’ll be all over me.” Another pause, then he said dryly, “Yeah, it was a real romantic ceremony. Uh-huh. I’ll tell her.”

  He appeared in the doorway, his hair still rumpled and his stubble approaching the pirate stage. “Shelby says hi.”

  Knowing Shelby, Emma imagined the message was much longer than that, but she didn’t question him.

  They spent the next few hours in bed with Kenny directing the action, as always, but being so sublimely attentive to her needs that she couldn’t complain. Finally, they wrapped themselves in hotel bathrobes and ate a room service breakfast. Several times she tried to get him to talk about the enormity of what they’d done, but he shrugged it off as if they’d committed themselves to nothing more complex than a Saturday night date. Sex seemed to be the only connection he wanted to have with her, and the knot in her stomach grew tighter.

  After they’d finished eating, they went out to buy a change of clothes for each of them. Kenny tried to disguise himself in a pair of trendy sunglasses and his Dean Witter cap, but several people in the store still recognized him and wanted to talk about what had happened. He dismissed their questions by acting as if he didn’t understand them.

  Eventually, they found some anonymity by mingling with the tourists walking along the Strip. Although Emma’d seen photographs of Las Vegas, the reality of this resort built in the desert was far different. She found it fascinating from an anthropological standpoint, but not exactly to her taste, and Kenny seemed to read her mind. “Come on. I’ll show you a place I know you’ll like.”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Less than an hour later, they were looking out over Hoover Dam. The sheer size of the structure took her breath away.

  “I know you have lots of cool castles and awesome cathedrals and things like that back in England,” he said. “Not to mention some great golf courses. But you’ve got to admit this really kicks ass.”

  His boyish enthusiasm made her laugh. “It certainly does.”

  He gave her a squeeze, then gently brushed a tendril from her cheek. She wondered if the tender expression on his face was a trick of the light.

  “Sweetheart, I know you’re itching to sit down and analyze this thing to death. Make a big list, fill out a whole bunch of Cosmo compatability quizzes, discuss short-term objectives and long-term goals, and who knows what else. But could you just let it go for now? Could we take it easy? Have a good time and see how things work out?”

  As she gazed up into those marsh violet eyes with their fringe of spiky black lashes, she reminded herself that this was a man who’d made laziness his life’s goal. Or at least the appearance of laziness. Kenny didn’t want anyone ever to know he worked hard at anything. And apparently he had no intention of working hard at this. Or did he? In so many ways, he was still a mystery to her. She didn’t believe life’s important issues could simply be ignored, but she also knew she couldn’t make him talk about it. What he was asking was wrong, but this might be the only way he knew to cope.

  And maybe she didn’t want to talk about it, either. The notion startled her. She was a person who’d always confronted problems head-on, but did she really want to hear him spell out the fact that he liked her, but didn’t love her? Did she really want to hear him say that he had no intention of taking this marriage seriously, that he’d been upset and sleep-deprived when he’d gone into it, and that he regretted the whole thing?

  She was ashamed of her cowardice, and she gazed across Lake Mead toward a pair of sailboats. “All right, Kenny. Just for now.”

  He smiled down at her. “Have I ever told you that you’re one terrific lady?”

  “No. Just that I’m bossy.”

  “One thing doesn’t necessarily cancel out the other.”

  “You’re mad, do you know that? A complete madman.” As she smiled at him, her own words triggered a fragment of memory from the morning before, and she heard Hugh’s voice exactly the way it had sounded when she’d marched into his hotel room.

  He’s a madman! If I’d known he was insane when I spoke with him that first time . . .

  A funny prickling ran along her arms. This was what had been bothering her yesterday. What had Hugh meant when he’d said that? The first time implied there had been other times. But as far Emma knew, the men had only met once, in Shelby and Warren Traveler’s living room. Still, why would Hugh have said something like that if they’d only met once? Why would he have—

  She let out an audible gasp as it all became clear to her.

  “You bastard!”

  “Wh—”

  She slammed her purse into his thigh. Anger swirled around her and she found herself running. But there was nowhere to go, and this time she couldn’t commandeer his car since the keys were tucked safely in his pocket.

  She raced blindly toward a Gray Line tour bus and pounded on the door to awaken the driver who snoozed at the wheel. “Let me in!”

  “Emma! For Pete’s sake, what—”

  The driver swung open the door, and she rushed up the steps. “Shut the door immediately. And whatever you do, don’t let that man in—”

  Kenny stepped into the bus. “We’ve been having trouble getting my wife’s medication adjusted ever since her brain transplant. I’ll take care of her.”

  “Stay away from me!”

  “Honey . . .”

  She rounded on him in the aisle. “Liar!”

  “Now, Emma . . .”

  “You weasel!”

  “I’m not a—”

  “Blackguard!”

  He blinked. “Now, there’s a new one.”

  “Don’t try to be clever! Driver, throw this man off the bus!”

  The driver—short, balding, sixty if he was a day—blanched. Emma was so furious she could barely contain herself. Why hadn’t she been born tall and muscular and male?

  “Don’t you think we should talk about this?” He advanced on her down the aisle. “Whatever it is?”

  “Now you want to talk.” Suddenly, her knees would no longer support her, and she sank into one of the cushioned seats. “How could you have done it? How could you have betrayed me like this?”

  His face grew stony as he stopped beside her. “I don’t betray my friends.”

  Not only was that blatantly untrue, but hurtful as well. Was that how he regarded her? As just another one of his friends? “I know what you did. The moment Hugh said it, I should have realized what he meant, but I was too distracted by everything that had happened to pay attention.” As she gazed up at him, she was filled with outrage. “You were Hugh’s spy.”

  He took a deep breath, then sat in the seat across the aisle. She waited for him to deny it—wanted him to—but he didn’t. “Somebody had to watch out for you.”

  She felt as if she’d been ripped open. “I was watching out for me! I didn’t need you to do it.”

  “Now, there’s a lie!” He sprang back up again. “Of course I fed him information. I sure wasn’t going to let him find out that you were buying lice shampoo and kissing your escort in the middle of town, not to mention getting tattooed.”

  “I w
anted him to find that out.” She jumped to her feet, too.

  “Well, now, that just goes to prove my point.”

  A new thought struck her. “My tattoo! Of course it’s fading. It’s not permanent, is it?” She shoved up the sleeve of her T-shirt and looked at the tattoo with fresh eyes. Sure enough, it was fading. “You—God!” She jerked down her sleeve. “You must have put something in my margarita. I wasn’t drunk! I was drugged! And the tattoo wasn’t done with needles. It’s some kind of dye.”

  He splayed one hand on the back of the seat in front of him and leaned in to her. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re upset that you won’t have to spend the rest of your life with my name tattooed across your arm! If I don’t hear a thank-you in the next thirty seconds, we’re going to have a serious argument.”

  Her skin was burning. “You drugged me!”

  “Some knockout drops I got from one of my acquaintances in the medical profession. And the wife of an old friend did the artwork. She has a background in textile design.” He acted as if that made it all right, as if the details somehow mitigated the depth of his duplicity.

  “What else have you done that I don’t know about?”

  “Not enough, that’s for damned sure, or we wouldn’t have been forced to get married!”

  She froze.

  His voice softened. “Your plan was crazy from the start; you know that. And since I was supposed to be looking out for you, I felt responsible. All I wanted to do was make sure you still had a job when you got home.”

  “Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” she managed.

  “I’m not the one who French kissed Torie in the middle of the damn parking lot!”

  “I didn’t French kiss her!”

  “Close enough.” He took a deep breath. “Will you just let your brain work here for a minute instead of your emotions?” He pushed her back down, then once again took the seat across from her, sitting on the edge, so his long legs blocked the aisle. She felt the full voltage of those violet eyes. “I tried to get you to listen to reason from the very beginning, but you wouldn’t do it, and I couldn’t just stand by and watch you throw your whole career away over some idiot who wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “It wasn’t your decision.”

  He ignored her. “The day you told me about Hugh, something clicked in my mind. I remembered my father mentioning to Shelby that he was a big investor in TCS. After that, it was easy to get his phone number. I called and told him somebody needed to watch out for you, and after he huffed and puffed for a while, he let it slip that he’d already hired a Dallas PI to do the job. I told him that his PI wasn’t watching you nearly close enough, but that I’d volunteer for the job out of respect for his long relationship with TCS. He took me up on my offer, and that was pretty much it.”

  She regarded him stonily. “Hugh acted as if he didn’t know you when you were introduced.”

  “He’s arrogant, not stupid. I’m sure he realized you wouldn’t be too happy to learn that he’d set a spy on you. And it’s not like we were old school chums. We only talked once. After that, I gave my reports to his flunky.”

  “Now I know why you rushed me into getting married,” she said bitterly. “You did it out of guilt.”

  “How do you figure that? I don’t have a damn thing to feel guilty about.”

  Once again, she sprang to her feet. “You lied to me!”

  He shot up, too. “I never lied. I just didn’t tell you everything.”

  “Are you people about done back there?” the bus driver called out. “My tour group’s on its way.”

  “We’re done,” she said firmly. And then she looked Kenny straight in the eye, so he wouldn’t mistake her meaning. “We’re absolutely done.”

  “Don’t you say that!” To her astonishment, he grabbed her arm and pulled her tight against him. “I never figured you for a quitter. Where’s all that British stiff upper lip bull? First little bit of trouble on the horizon, and you’re ready to give up.”

  “This is more than a little bit of trouble. I don’t know you at all.”

  “You’re going to give up, aren’t you? You’re going to walk away.”

  “I just need some time to think.”

  “There’s a guarantee of trouble.”

  “Don’t you dare be condescending. I can’t play by your rules, Kenny. I’m not made that way. I can’t take things as they come and see what happens. I need time to adjust and think things through.”

  It was a long, silent drive back to the hotel.

  Chapter 22

  On the plane, Kenny buried himself in a book he’d bought at the airport gift shop, and Emma pretended to read a magazine. They barely spoke, but this time she didn’t challenge his silence because she had nothing more to say to him.

  She was so ashamed of herself. How could she have agreed to this travesty of a marriage when she’d known there was nothing between them except sex? There was no honesty, no understanding, no real commitment. Yet she’d married him anyway, just like a dotty, dear thing making a desperate, last-minute lunge for the brass ring.

  As they arrived in Dallas and made their way down the concourse, Kenny had never moved more slowly nor looked more unapproachable. Not even the fans who recognized him seemed to want to come any closer. It wasn’t until they’d reclaimed her luggage that he finally looked fully at her.

  “What’s it going to be?” he said stonily. “Are you running back to England like a scared rabbit, or are you going to stay here and fight?”

  She’d been thinking of nothing else since they’d left Hoover Dam, and she’d already made up her mind what she was going to do. “This isn’t a war.”

  His eyes were as cold as frozen amethysts. “Let’s just say it’s a test of character, then. Who has it and who doesn’t.”

  “Are you implying that I’m lacking in character?”

  “I don’t know yet. Are you running or are you staying?”

  His attitude infuriated her. “Oh, I’m going back to Wynette, all right. I’ve already made up my mind about that.”

  A flicker of satisfaction passed over his features. “You’re finally making sense.”

  “Unlike you, I know this isn’t a game, and I’m going back so we can sort this out. But I’m not staying at the ranch.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’m not running, but I’m not moving back in with you either.”

  “That doesn’t even half make sense! You were living at the ranch before we got married, so why would you move out now?”

  “Stop looking so outraged. This isn’t a real marriage, and you know it.”

  “It’s as real as it gets, and I’ve got the license to prove it.”

  “Stop it, Kenny. Just stop. You know exactly what I mean, so don’t try to hide behind that righteous indignation.”

  “I don’t have a clue what you mean.” He picked up her suitcases and stalked toward the parking garage.

  She didn’t even try to keep up with him. She was going to attempt to live up to her responsibility because that was the way she was made, but she wouldn’t go scurrying after him.

  When she finally got into the car, the radio was blasting. He glared at her and began pulling out of the parking space. As she fastened her seat belt, the sports report came on.

  No official word yet from PGA commissioner Dallas Beaudine concerning golfer Kenny Traveler’s latest brush with—

  He punched another button and turned the volume up. He needn’t have bothered because she had no intention of bringing up the subject of their marriage right now. The next move was his.

  The trip to Wynette seemed to take forever. Although they’d both ignored the airline food, neither of them felt like eating, so they only stopped for gas. Just before dusk, Torie called from Wynette to find out what time they’d be getting in. She also told Kenny that she’d spent the night at his condo, and Emma found herself wondering whether Dexter had been with her, although that possi
bility didn’t seem to occur to Kenny.

  The miles crawled by, and finally they reached the northern edge of Wynette. “Would you drop me off at the hotel, please?” Even as she was saying it, she wondered why she’d wasted her breath because she knew exactly how he’d respond.

  “If you’re going to run away from home, you’ll have to do it on your own. I’m not going to help you.”

  She was too tired to argue with him. Tomorrow was soon enough. She leaned back in the seat, closed her eyes, and didn’t open them again until they reached the ranch.

  They entered the house from the garage. Kenny moved ahead with her suitcases, then set them down to unlock the door. He held it open for her and she stepped inside.

  One moment the kitchen was dark, and the next it blazed with light.

  “Surprise!”

  “Surprise! Surprise!”

  “Here comes the bride . . .”

  Emma gazed at all the bright, cheery faces that filled the kitchen and realized that her miserable day had just taken a turn for the worse.

  “Time to cut the cake!” Patrick called out after the toasts had been delivered and guests introduced.

  Kenny and Emma moved from opposite sides of the room toward the confection Patrick had created, a creamy vanilla tower with two of Peter’s Fisher-Price figures perched on top, along with paper flags of the bride’s and groom’s respective countries. Emma wondered if anyone had noticed that the bride and groom in question had been talking to everyone except each other.

  Her head ached, and she wanted nothing so much as to curl up and go to sleep. She gazed enviously at Peter, who had fallen asleep on Kenny’s shoulder, leaving a drool mark on the collar of his golf shirt.

  In addition to the Traveler family and Dexter, Ted Beaudine was present, along with Father Joseph, a few executives from TCS, and a score of Kenny’s friends from the Roustabout who’d been entertaining each other with more stories of Kenny’s misbegotten childhood: how he’d stolen one woman’s science project, thrown someone’s best pair of sneakers onto a power line, lost someone else’s little brother.

  She pushed aside the protective instincts that their gleeful stories of Kenny’s headlong rush toward self-destruction always aroused in her. He was a grown man, and if he didn’t choose to defend himself, it was no concern of hers.