Connie glanced over at the dancers and regarded her critically. “Gracie looks better since you let her get fixed up. Even so, she doesn’t seem like your type. People around here figured you’d marry a model or a movie star.”
“There’s just no accounting for the mysterious ways of the human heart.”
“I s’pose. Would you mind doing me a favor, B.T.?”
A wave of weariness swept over him. More favors. He was on the set at least twelve hours a day, and the past few days had been grueling. Normally, he enjoyed the action scenes, but not when they involved beating up a woman. He’d dreaded the fight scene with Natalie that occurred at the beginning of the movie, and he was so unconvincing they’d had to bring in a small male stuntman to double for her.
When he wasn’t on the set, there were incessant phone calls, drop-in visitors, and fund-raisers. With all that, he hadn’t had more than four hours of sleep at a stretch all week. Last night after he finished work, he’d flown his plane down to Corpus Christi to make an appearance at a charity banquet and the night before that he’d made radio spots advertising Heavenfest, but the only charity activity he’d really enjoyed was sneaking in to visit the kids in the pediatric wing at the county hospital.
“What do you need?”
“Could you stop by my house some evening and autograph a couple of footballs I bought for my nephews?”
“Be glad to.” He’d stop by all right. With Gracie at his side.
The song was coming to an end, and he excused himself so he could retrieve Gracie from Johnny Pettibone. Len Brown got there first, but he didn’t let that deter him.
“Hi, boys. You think I could claim a dance with my little sweetheart here?”
“Well, sure, Bobby Tom.” The reluctance in Len’s voice annoyed him. Gracie, in the meantime, was giving him a glare that was licensed to kill over the “little sweetheart” remark. The fact that he’d managed to irritate her helped restore his spirits.
Both of them had been so busy these past few weeks that they hadn’t spent much free time together, which was why he’d insisted they show up at the Wagon Wheel tonight, since nobody was going to believe they were engaged if they weren’t ever seen out socially. She was so damned efficient that he couldn’t think up enough things to keep her occupied. Since she hated being idle, she was turning herself into the company’s all-around errand girl and Natalie’s part-time baby-sitter.
He looked down into her flushed face and couldn’t help but smile. She had about the prettiest skin he’d ever seen on a woman, and he liked her eyes, too. There was something about the way they sparkled that always seemed to lift his mood.
“They’ve got a new line dance going, Gracie. Let’s give it a try.”
She looked doubtfully toward the dancers, who were performing a series of fast, intricate steps. “I never quite caught on to the last dance. Maybe we should sit this one out.”
“And miss all the fun?” He drew her into place, studying the dancers in front of them at the same time. The pattern was complicated, but he’d built a career out of counting steps and making cuts at precisely the right moment, and it didn’t take him more than thirty seconds to catch on. Gracie, on the other hand, was having trouble.
Halfway into the song, she still wasn’t going the same direction as everybody else. He decided he’d been a real heel to bring her out here when he knew she couldn’t keep up, but some immature part of him had wanted to remind her this was his turf, not hers, and she shouldn’t be flirting with men she wasn’t engaged to. His twinge of guilt changed to irritation as he watched her tossing her hair and laughing at her mistakes, just as if she didn’t care that she was the worst dancer on the floor.
Damp, coppery tendrils clung to her cheeks and the nape of her neck. She turned to face him when she should have turned away, and he saw that the top button of her vest had popped open revealing the inner curves of those cute little cupcakes of hers, which were rosy and glowing from the heat. One more button, and the rest of her would be on display. The idea filled him with indignation. She was a Sunday School teacher, for chrissake. She should know better!
She was too busy flirting with everybody in pants to notice his irritation, which only increased as he heard people he hadn’t even realized she knew calling out encouragement to her.
“The other way, Gracie. You can do it!”
“That’s the way, Gracie!”
The muscular college boy on her opposite side had already earned Bobby Tom’s disfavor by wearing a Baylor T-shirt. When the kid caught Gracie by the hips and turned her in the right direction, Bobby Tom’s eyes narrowed.
She laughed and shook her curls. “I’ll never get it!”
“Sure you will.” The kid raised the beer bottle he was holding right up to her lips.
She took a drink and coughed. The boy laughed and started to give her another sip, but Bobby Tom had no intention of watching her turn into an alcoholic right before his eyes. Looping his arm around her shoulders, he glared at the kid and pulled her away.
The boy flushed. “Sorry, Mr. Denton.”
Mister Denton! That did it! He grabbed Gracie’s wrist and pulled her toward the fire exit at the back.
She stumbled slightly. “What’s wrong? Where are we going?”
“I’ve got a stitch in my side. I need some fresh air.”
He hit the bar on the back door with the heel of his hand and dragged her out behind the building into the gravel lot where the employees parked. A battered green Dumpster sat behind the motley collection of vehicles, along with a shed built from concrete blocks.
He didn’t smell anything more exotic than french fries and dust, but Gracie gave a contented sigh as she breathed in the air. “Thank you so much for bringing me here. I don’t know when I’ve had such a good time. Everybody’s been so nice.”
She sounded giddy and her eyes sparkled like Christmas lights, making her look so pretty it was hard for him to remember she wasn’t prime-cut. The air-conditioning unit hummed loudly, but didn’t quite drown out the music from the juke box. She pushed a strand of hair away from her cheek, then locked her hands behind her neck and leaned back against the building’s rough wooden siding, thrusting her breasts forward at the same time.
Where had she learned a trick like that? He suddenly wanted his old Gracie back, with her raccoon tail dress and lumpy hair. He’d been comfortable with his old Gracie, and the fact that he was the one responsible for her transformation into a honky-tonk hellcat made him even more peeved.
“Did it occur to you that I might not like my fiancée displaying her chest to everybody in town?”
She looked down at herself and her hand flew to her undone button. “Oh, my.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, tonight, but I think you’d better settle down right now and act like an engaged woman.”
Her eyes shot up to meet his. She stared at him for a long moment, clamped her teeth together, and flicked open the second button.
He was so surprised by her defiance that it took him a few seconds to find his voice. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“There’s no one around. I’m hot, and you’re immune to me, so what difference does it make.”
She was hot, all right, and so was he. He didn’t know what had gotten into her tonight, but he was putting a stop to it. “I never said I was immune to you,” he retorted belligerently. “You’re female, aren’t you?”
Her eyes flew open. It was a nasty crack, and he was immediately ashamed of himself. His shame grew as the stunned expression on her face changed to a look of concern.
“Your knee is bothering you, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve been so grouchy all evening.”
Leave it to Gracie to find an excuse for his boorish behavior. She only wanted to see the good side of people, a fact that made everybody in the world take advantage of her. Still, he wasn’t up to destroying her illusions about him by telling her that his knee was doing fine. Instead, he rea
ched down and rubbed it through his jeans. “Some days are better than others.”
She cupped his wrist. “I feel terrible. I’ve been having such a good time that I wasn’t thinking about anybody but myself. Let’s go home so we can put some ice on it.”
He felt lower than a snake. “I should probably keep moving so it doesn’t freeze up. Let’s dance instead.”
“Are you sure?”
“ ‘Course I’m sure. They’re playing George Strait, aren’t they?”
“Are they?”
He caught her by the hand and gathered her against him. “You mean to tell me you don’t recognize George Strait?”
“I don’t know much about country singers.”
“In Texas, he’s more of a religious figure.” Instead of taking her back inside, he tucked her close and began to move. They danced between an old Fairlane and a Toyota, and her hair smelled like peaches.
As their boots shuffled in the gravel of the parking lot, he couldn’t resist slipping his hand under the hem of her vest and resting it in the small of her back. He felt the bumps of her spine, the softness of her skin. She shivered, reminding him that she needed a man so badly she was in danger of falling for the first smooth-talking bastard to come along.
The idea upset the hell out of him. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he liked Gracie, and he sure as hell didn’t want her stripping down for somebody who wouldn’t treat her with care. What if she gave herself to one of those sons of bitches who was too damned selfish to make sure she was protected? Or some oversexed jerk who rode her too rough and ruined her pleasure in sex forever? There were a million disasters waiting out there for a desperate woman like Gracie.
He’d been playing hide-and-seek with the truth too long, and he knew the moment of reckoning had finally come. If he wanted to keep facing himself in the mirror every morning, he had to set aside his misgivings about mercy fucking and do what needed to be done. She was his friend, dammit, and he never turned his back on his friends. That left him with no choice. The only way he could be certain the job got done right was to take charge of Gracie’s initiation himself.
For the first time all evening, his black mood lifted. He felt smug, even a little self-righteous, the same way he felt when he’d written out a five-figure check to a good charity. More than sex was involved here. As a decent human being, he had a responsibility to protect this woman from the pitfalls of her own ignorance. Without giving himself any more time to consider the complications that were certain to arise, he plunged right in.
“Gracie, we’ve been avoiding the topic for the past few weeks, but I think we need to clear the air. That night you were drunk you said some things.”
He felt her stiffen beneath his palm. “I’d appreciate it if we could both forget about that night.”
“That’s hard to do. You came on kind of strong.”
“As you said, I was inebriated.”
He’d said she was drunk, but this wasn’t the best time to correct her. “Liquor sometimes has a way of bringing out the truth, and since it’s just the two of us here, we don’t have to tell lies to each other.” He slipped his hand an inch higher on her spine and rubbed one of the bumps with his index finger. “The way I look at it, you’re pretty much a sexual powder keg waiting to blow up, which is understandable considering the fact that you’ve denied yourself one of life’s sweetest pleasures.”
“I didn’t deny myself. The opportunity simply never came along.”
“From what I saw inside, the opportunity could come along at any minute. Those boys are only human, and, the fact is, you were flaunting yourself.”
‘’I wasn’t!”
“All right. Let’s just say you were doing some heavy-duty flirting.”
“I was flirting? Really?”
Her eyes widened with delight, and he realized he’d made a tactical mistake. With her typical unpredictability, she hadn’t taken his comment for the criticism he’d intended it to be. Before she got so caught up with the notion of herself as a Southern belle that she forgot to pay attention to what he was saying, he hurried on. “The point is, I think it’s about time we put our heads together, so to speak, and came up with a plan that’ll be mutually beneficial.”
The song came to an end. He reluctantly withdrew his hand from beneath her vest and let her go. Leaning back against the side of the Fairlane, he crossed his arms over his chest.
“The way I see it, we each have a problem. You’re long overdue for some tutoring in the sexual arts, but since we’re supposed to be engaged, you can’t get your tutoring from just anybody. I, on the other hand, am used to having a regular sex life, but since I’m officially an engaged man and this is a small town, I can’t just call up my old girlfriends and make arrangements, if you get my point.”
Gracie was nibbling her bottom lip to beat the band. “Yes, I, uh— Well, it’s certainly a problem.”
“But it doesn’t have to be.”
Her chest began to rise and fall as if she’d just run a long distance. “I suppose not.”
“We’re both consenting adults, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t help each other out here.”
“Help each other?” she said, her voice faint.
“Sure. I could give you the tutoring you need, and you could keep me off the streets. I think it’ll work out just fine.”
She licked her lips nervously. “Yes, it’s—uh—very logical.”
“And practical.”
“That, too.”
He heard the barest trace of disappointment shade her response, and he knew enough about women’s need for romance to understand the time had-come for some fancy footwork. “Now the thing of it is, sex isn’t much fun if the two partners are only looking at it as some kind of convenience.”
She was nibbling again. “No, that wouldn’t be fun at all.”
“So if we decide we’re going to go ahead with this, we’d have to put all that out of our minds from the start and do it right.”
“Do it right?”
“Which doesn’t mean we wouldn’t have to set up some ground rules. I always think knowing the rules up front makes most things work out better in the long run.”
“I know you’re quite fond of keeping communication channels open.”
Along with that nervous flutter in her voice, he was almost certain he heard a small thread of annoyance, and he nearly chuckled aloud. Composing himself so that he sounded as serious as a TV evangelist, he regarded her gravely. “Here’s what I’ve been thinking . . . It’s obvious this is going to be a stressful experience for me.”
Her head shot up, and she was so clearly astonished it took all his self control not to laugh. “Why should it be stressful for you?”
He gave her a look of wounded innocence. “Honey, that’s got to be obvious. I’ve been pretty much a stallion from puberty on. Since I’m the experienced partner, and you don’t have any experience as far as I can tell that goes much beyond having that podiatrist kiss your foot, I’m going to be completely responsible for making sure your initiation into the sexual arts goes right. There’s a possibility—farfetched, I admit, but still a possibility—that I could mess everything up and you’d be traumatized for life. That sort of responsibility weighs heavy on my mind, and the only way I can guarantee everything goes right for you is to take absolute control of our sexual relationship from the very beginning.”
She regarded him cautiously. “Exactly what would that involve?”
“I’m afraid I’m going to shock you so much you’ll decide to back out before we even get started.”
“Tell me!”
Her voice had risen to something approaching a shriek, and he could no longer remember what his earlier bad mood had been about. Her impatience reminded him of someone who’d matched the first five numbers on her lottery ticket, and was waiting to hear the last one.
He tilted the brim of his Stetson back with his thumb. “The thing of it is, for me to make certain this is going to be
a good experience for you, I’d have to pretty much take control of your body right from the beginning. I’d have to own it, so to speak.”
She sounded vaguely hoarse. “You’d have to own my body?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Own it?”
“Yep. Your body’d belong to me instead of to you. It’d be just like I took a big ole Magic Marker and put my initials on every little part of you.”
Somewhat to his surprise, she seemed more stunned than insulted. “It sounds like slavery.”
He managed to look hurt. “I didn’t say I’d own your mind, honey. Just your body. There’s a distinct difference, and I’m surprised you can’t see that without me having to point it out.”
Her throat worked as she swallowed hard. “What if you force me—or my body, depending on how we’re looking at it—to do something I don’t want to do?”
“Oh, I’ll definitely force you. No doubt about it.”
Her eyes widened in outrage. “You’ll force me?”
“Sure. You’ve got years of catching up to do, and we only have a limited amount of time. I won’t harm you, sweetheart, but I sure will have to force you, or we’ll never get to the advanced stuff.”
He could see that remark had just about done her in. Her eyes were big gray pools and her lips had parted. Still, he had to admire her fortitude. One thing he’d figured out about Gracie right from the beginning. She had guts.
“I—uh—I’m going to have to think about this.”
“I don’t see what there is to think about. It either sounds right to you, or it doesn’t.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is. Believe me, honey, I know a lot more about this than you do. The best thing right now would be for you to say, ‘I trust you with my life, Bobby Tom, and I’m gonna do whatever you tell me to.’ ”
Her eyes snapped. “That’s taking control of my mind, not my body!”
“I was just testing to make sure you understood the difference, and you passed with flying colors. I’m proud of you, sweetheart.” He went in for the kill. “What I really want you to do now is open the rest of the buttons on that vest.”
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