Lady Be Good

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Ted piped up from behind Kenny’s shoulder, “That’s what I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.” He stepped between them. “The thing is, Dad, Lady Emma’s a lot like Mom once she gets an idea in her head.”

  “I doubt that. Your mother refused to marry me until I got my life straightened out. Seems Lady Emma’s not that particular.”

  Kenny didn’t like the implied criticism of Emma, and he was getting ready to say so when Ted stumbled over nothing and bumped him hard with his bag. “Sorry. Hey, Dad, how’s your shoulder feeling?”

  “The shoulder’s fine. It’s my game that’s rusty.”

  Not all that rusty. Kenny ignored the sight of Dallie’s ball lying in the middle of the fairway and concentrated on his slight of Emma. “Maybe I should give you a couple of strokes,” he said. “Doesn’t seem fair taking advantage of a handicapped senior citizen.”

  Dallie pointed off to the stand of trees on the left where Kenny’s ball rested. “I figure your handicap’s going to even out mine.”

  “What handicap are you talking about?”

  “The fact that you’re scared shitless.”

  A chill slithered right down Kenny’s spine. He should have known better than to bait a master strategist like Dallie. Still, he couldn’t let Dallie intimidate him, and he started to respond only to have Ted bump him with the bag again.

  “Will you watch where you’re going?”

  “Sorry.”

  And sorry was the word for the way Kenny played for the next nine holes. He missed half the greens and left himself miles from the pin on the ones he hit. Fortunately, Dallie’s driving distance and long iron play weren’t back to normal, so after nine holes, Kenny was only down by two.

  Just as they made the turn for the back nine, a golf cart came clattering up. “Kenny, darling!”

  The British accent was less noticeable than the one he’d recently grown used to, but just as familiar. He turned and began to smile, then saw that Francesca Serritella Day Beaudine wasn’t alone.

  Next to the gorgeous television star sat his very own wife. She was wearing his favorite hat, the straw one with cherries on the brim. They bobbed as the golf cart hit a bump. Both women wore sunglasses. Emma’s were her no-nonsense pair with the tortoiseshell frames, while Francesca’s were trendy oval wire-rims.

  She waved with one hand, while she drove the golf cart with the other. Francesca was one of his favorite people—not only beautiful, but smart, funny, and kind, in her own peculiar fashion. Still, he wished she were anywhere but here. “Emma and I decided to ride along and give the two of you moral support.”

  As the cart drew closer, he saw that Francesca was wearing some kind of pricey designer outfit, but it was Emma’s simple, flower-strewn T-shirt that caught his attention. As he observed the gentle rise and fall of her breasts beneath the bright yellow cotton, he remembered that he hadn’t been able to curl his hands around those breasts last night because his new wife insisted on sleeping alone.

  He frowned. The last thing he needed while he was struggling through one of the most stressful rounds of golf he’d ever played was to be distracted by Emma’s breasts. And he couldn’t give Dallie an even bigger psychological advantage by letting him see that the women’s appearance had unsettled him, so he forced a smile as he approached their cart.

  “Hey, Francie.”

  “My darling Kenny!” He was enveloped in a cloud of chestnut hair and expensive perfume. “You eloped, you naughty boy. I’ll never forgive you.” She beamed at him, and then her green cat’s eyes flew to her son. “Teddy, you’re not wearing a visor. Did you put your sunblock on?”

  Kenny had to give Ted credit for only rolling his eyes once. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turned her attention to her husband. “Dallie, how’s your shoulder? You’re not pushing yourself too hard, are you?”

  “My shoulder’s doin’ just fine. I seem to be two holes up on your darlin’ Kenny.”

  “Oh, dear. And I’m certain you’re both being quite beastly about it. They are, aren’t they, Teddy?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. They’re acting like perfect gentlemen. That’s the kind of game golf is.”

  Dallie grinned at his son, and even Kenny had to smile at that one.

  Francesca introduced Emma—who seemed to be ignoring Kenny—to Dallie. He chatted with her for a few moments, then, apparently satisfied with their conversation, turned back to the tee. “Ladies, you’re in for a treat today. You’re about to see how age and experience can overcome youth and laziness. I believe I’m up.”

  As Dallie stepped onto the tee, Kenny wanted to wrap his driver right around the sonovabitch’s neck. It was one thing for other people to tease him in front of Emma, but he didn’t want Dallie doing it.

  For the next seven holes, Kenny played as hard as he’d ever played, but his long game wasn’t there, and he hit the ball all over the course. Luckily, his putter kept him alive, and, going into seventeen, the match was finally even. His nerves, however, were as jagged as his long game. And the women weren’t making it any easier.

  After a dozen years of marriage, Francesca still hadn’t gotten the hang of even the most rudimentary golf etiquette. Kenny didn’t mind the talking so much, although that aggravated him. What really bothered him was that Francesca kept deciding to move her golf cart just as he was getting ready to hit. In all fairness, she moved it when Dallie was getting ready to hit, too, but it didn’t seem to bother Dallie. It sure did bother Kenny, though. And the one time he’d politely asked her if she had her cart parked right where she wanted it before he teed up, she’d looked hurt, Emma had given him a glare that could have frozen a swamp, and Dallie’d snapped at him as they walked down the fairway. “You haven’t learned a damned thing this past month, have you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m beginning to believe it.” He turned away to walk with Skeet, and Kenny rounded on Ted.

  “What the hell’s he talking about?”

  Ted gave him a pitying look, as if he were thirty-three and Kenny twenty-two. “Just what he’s been saying for years, is all. That some things are more important than golf.”

  What kind of answer was that? Kenny was so frustrated he wanted to scream, but he couldn’t do that, so he gritted his teeth, grabbed his seven iron, and proceeded to hit his ball five yards over the green.

  Emma, in the meantime, continued to ignore him. She smiled at Ted, laughed at one of Dallie’s jokes, regarded Skeet warily, and chatted away with Francesca. The few times she looked at Kenny, she had this closed-up expression on her face, as if she’d sealed herself away from him. It made Kenny feel guilty, which made him even madder.

  He sweated through another glove, and his shirt was soaked as he pulled his second shot on number eighteen and ended up in heavy rough. He couldn’t let Dallie beat him. If that happened, it would be as if everything Dallie believed about him was right, as if, somehow, the suspension could be justified. In all his life, Kenny’d only done one thing really well, and now even that had deserted him.

  Dallie’s second shot was a perfect lay-up in the middle of the fairway. Kenny wiped the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve and tried to ignore the cattle stampede that had started in his stomach. He had to dig this one out of the rough to get it close to the pin. One great shot. That’s what he needed to wipe the smug expression off Dallie’s face. One great shot.

  Ted handed him his wedge. Kenny took his stance and drew back the club, but as he was about to connect, Emma sneezed. It distracted him just enough that he got too far under the ball, which caught the front of the green and came to a stop a good thirty feet below the pin.

  He slammed the club head into the ground, an act of temper he hadn’t displayed on the golf course since he was seventeen. Then, Dallie had taken away the abused club, snapped it in half, and shoved it into Kenny’s bag. Guess you won’t be needing that club anymore.

  “You got it a little fat,” Ted poin
ted out unnecessarily.

  Dallie didn’t say a thing.

  Francesca asked Emma if she’d steal Patrick’s recipe for lemon pound cake. Why wouldn’t they go away! Why wouldn’t those women take that damn, noisy, rattling golf cart and, even more important, the straw hat with its bobbing cherries, and get out of here!

  Kenny threw the wedge back at Ted and marched toward the green. This was Emma’s fault! If she hadn’t shown up, he’d have been able to pull himself back together. But here she was sucking everything right out of him. Just like his mother used to do.

  And then the miracle happened. Dallie’s approach shot, which was dead on line, caught a gust of wind that blew it long. The ball ended up nearly as far above the pin as Kenny was below it.

  “Well, now, weren’t those two sorry excuses for golf shots,” Dallie said, as if it didn’t matter all that much.

  It mattered to Kenny. Each of them had long putts, but Dallie’s was tougher, and Kenny had one of the steadiest putting strokes on tour. For the first time since the round had begun, Kenny began to feel some confidence. He was going to make this putt.

  Dallie pointed to the small wooden bridge that led to the eighteenth green and reminded Francesca that she couldn’t take her cart across. “That’s all right,” she replied. “Emma and I need to stretch our legs anyway, don’t we?”

  Emma said nothing, and he wondered if she had any idea what was at stake right now. As she got out of the cart, the gold wedding band he’d slipped on her finger caught the sun. He remembered the expression on her face when they’d spoken their vows, an endearing combination of earnestness and apprehension that had made him want to wrap her in his arms and tell her he wouldn’t ever let anything hurt her.

  Behind him, the women’s sandals tapped on the wooden bridge as they crossed to the green. Kenny heard Francesca explain that it was the last hole, and the men were tied, and after all this time the entire match was coming down to a putting contest, and wasn’t golf the most ridiculous game.

  He couldn’t argue with that. He whipped off his sodden glove and shoved it in his pocket, but even though his shirt was sticking like glue to his skin, he felt his old confidence surge back as he took his putter from Ted and approached the green. Over the years he’d played in more high-pressure rounds than he could count, and he wasn’t going to let Dallie psych him out like this.

  He glanced at Emma, and when he saw the way she was watching him, a rush of adrenaline shot through his veins. This was the first time she’d seen him play, and, by damn, she wasn’t going to watch him lose to a man nearly twenty years his senior.

  He finally felt as if he were in control. His stomach quieted, his mind settled, and, right then, he knew he had it. Nothing on earth was going to stop him from making this putt. Dallie Beaudine was about to learn that suspending Kenny Traveler had been the biggest mistake of his life.

  He smiled to himself and looked over at Dallie, who had folded his arms over his chest and was studying the position of the two balls, one at the top of the green, one at the bottom, the pin in the center.

  Then Dallie grinned. “Let’s have ourselves some real fun, Kenny, and leave this match up to the ladies.”

  Kenny stared at him. “What?”

  “Our wives. Let’s let them finish up for us.”

  If Dallie had been speaking Greek, Kenny would have understood him better. “Our wives?”

  “Sure.” Dallie turned and smiled down at the women, who were standing near a live oak tree. “Francie! Lady Emma! Kenny and I are tied up here. Just to make it interesting, we’ve decided we’re going to let the two of you putt out for us. Nobody’s playing behind us, so you can take all the time you need.”

  Emma’s eyes widened, and Kenny exploded. “Bull! We’re not doing any such thing!”

  The acting PGA commissioner turned to stare at him, his Newman-blue eyes icy. “I’ve decided that we are.”

  Kenny felt a hitch in his spine, and his stomach, which only moments before had been calm, twisted into another agonizing knot. “You son of a bitch!” he hissed.

  Dallie smiled at him pleasantly, then spoke so softly only Kenny could hear. “It might not be a good idea to let your wife see you’re upset. Might make her tense, and a sensitive woman can’t putt worth a damn if she’s nervous. I’m only mentioning this because I’ve decided we’re going to let the two of them settle this whole thing between you and me.”

  A feeling of dread crept through him. “You can’t mean it.”

  “Oh, I mean it.” Dallie’s soft words fell over him like a poisonous vapor. “If Emma wins for you, you’re back on the tour. But if Francie wins for me, then your vacation just got extended.”

  “You can’t do this!”

  “I’m the PGA commissioner. I can do any damn fool thing I please. And you’d better keep your voice down because, if you let Lady Emma find out what’s really at stake here, you’re not going to have a chance in hell of finishing out the season.”

  A roaring went through his head like a demonic train. Dimly, he heard Francesca chatter on about a new shampoo, and Emma say something about a conditioner.

  “You’re crazy! This isn’t legal, and it sure as hell’s not ethical! I’m going to have my lawyers all over this.”

  “You do that. Considering how fast our legal system works, it should only take four or five years for you to win your case.” Dallie glanced toward the women, smiled, then looked back at Kenny. “You’re the one who turned this golf round into a life-and-death match. Isn’t that why you sweated through that pretty shirt of yours before we even got to the second tee? I’m just playing your game now, Kenny, except I’m making it interesting enough to keep myself from dying of boredom.”

  Dallie turned his back to him and, oozing charm with every step, walked over to Emma. “I don’t know how familiar you are with golf, Lady Emma, but the object right now is for you to get Kenny’s ball into the cup with fewer strokes than it takes Francie to get mine there. I’m sure if you just do your best, Kenny’ll be happy.”

  Kenny’s voice was coldly furious as he stepped around Dallie, then turned himself so Emma couldn’t hear. “It’s not even close to a fair contest. Emma’s never held a golf club in her life. Francesca’s been around it for years.”

  Dallie raised one eyebrow. “You’ve seen Francie play. Everybody in Texas knows she’s the worst golfer that ever picked up a club. Seems to me I’m the one at a disadvantage here.”

  Kenny’s fists clenched at his sides. “You’re crazy, you know that? The craziest son of a bitch I ever knew.”

  “That’s the way most people make their lives enjoyable, champ. Being a little crazy. I keep waiting for you to try it for yourself.”

  There it was again! That insistence that he was missing something everyone else understood.

  Dallie walked over to Francesca, kissed her nose, and handed her his putter. “I know putting isn’t your strong suit, honey, any more than using a driver or hitting an iron, but if you concentrate a little bit, I’m sure you can put that ball right in the cup.”

  Kenny spun toward Emma. Ted was handing his putter to her—the same putter Kenny’d used to win last year’s Players Championship. As she took it, she started nibbling away at her bottom lip with that worried expression on her face that always managed to twist around his heart. Now, however, it just made him feel violent. He forced himself to go over to her. “Just relax, will you?” The words didn’t come out in the reassuring way he’d intended, but like a drill sergeant’s barked orders.

  Emma’s teeth sank into her bottom lip. “Kenny, what’s going on here?”

  She’d gotten real quick on the pickup when it came to his personal business, and he wasn’t surprised that she’d figured out something was up. He managed to shrug. “Sonovabitch finished me off when he suspended me. I guess now he’s just spitting out the bones.”

  “You don’t want me to do this, do you?”

  “I don’t have much choice.”


  “Remember what I told you about female psychology and golf,” Dallie called out from the other side of the green.

  Kenny tried to take a deep breath, but the air was too thick to penetrate his lungs. “You ever putted a golf ball?” he asked Emma as calmly as he could manage.

  “Of course I have.”

  Relief shot through him. “You have?”

  “I played miniature golf several times when I was a teenager.”

  He winced. A long-ago experience on some two-bit miniature golf course was worse than useless. “That’s good, then,” he managed. “You know what to do.”

  On the other side of the green, Dallie was coaching Francesca. “I know it looks far, sweetheart, but it’s all downhill, so if you hit the ball too hard, it’s going to fly right by the cup.”

  “I know that,” she sniffed. “Really, Dallie, it’s a simple matter of physics.”

  Francesca sidled up to the ball, and Kenny was relieved to see that she was lined up so crooked she wouldn’t come within six feet of the cup.

  Unfortunately, Skeet Cooper had to open his big damn mouth. “Aim a little more to the left, Francie, or that ball’s gonna end up in Tulsa.”

  Francesca gave him her thousand-watt television star smile, adjusted her stance, drew back the putter and hit the ball so hard it flew down the green, past the cup, and nearly hit Kenny’s ball on the opposite fringe.

  Teddy groaned. “Mommm . . .”

  “Beastly game.”

  Dallie lifted one eyebrow. “I thought you said it was a simple matter of physics.”

  She stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his jaw. “I’ve never been good with science.”

  Francesca’s wild putt had given Kenny a reprieve, but, as his gaze flew back to Emma, he knew the match was far from over. She had such a death grip on his putter that her knuckles had turned white. Somehow he had to relax her, but he was so rigid with rage and resentment, he couldn’t speak.

  Ted moved up next to her. “Let me show you how to hold the club, Lady Emma.” He peeled the putter from her fingers, then repositioned it in her hand. “You need a firm grip, but not that tight. And the important thing is to stay completely still over the ball. That’s the reason Mom can’t putt; she’s always moving around. Mainly talking.” He stepped back.