It took enormous self-control not to respond to his baiting. Not only was she too edgy to match wits, but she was feeling remarkably tolerant toward him, despite his sensual torment. She’d been touched by his behavior toward Natalie the past two days as they’d filmed their love scene. His costar’s breasts had continued to leak, most of the time on him, until Natalie was so embarrassed, she’d been fighting tears. Bobby Tom had been a perfect gentleman, teasing her until she relaxed and making her feel as if this sort of thing happened to him all the time, as if a day wouldn’t be complete without it, as if he looked forward to being soaked with breast milk.
Sometimes his ability to hide his real feelings frightened her. No one should have that much self control. She certainly didn’t. Right now, just the thought of making love with him had turned her insides to mush.
He dabbed at her bare thigh with his napkin, although she hadn’t dropped anything there. His thumb brushed over the inner slope, and she caught her breath.
“Is something wrong?”
She gritted her teeth. “No— No, uh, nothing at all.” He was making her an emotional wreck with his innocent little touches, brushing her leg as he shifted position, grazing her breast with his arm as he reached for a piece of chicken, every moment of contact so brief it could have been accidental, but since Bobby Tom never did anything accidentally, he had to be playing one of his games. If only he’d bring up the subject of the night ahead so they could clear the air between them and she could stop feeling so apprehensive. She’d bring it up herself, except she didn’t have the foggiest notion how to go about it.
She dusted some biscuit crumbs off the lap of her crisp white shorts to give herself something to do with her hands. He was the one who had told her to wear shorts tonight, and although she considered them a bit too casual, she’d remembered his flattering comments about her legs and acquiesced. She’d also chosen a cropped turquoise cotton poor boy sweater that bared her lower back every time she leaned forward, a fact that she didn’t think had escaped his attention.
“I wish you’d start watching the dailies,” she said, trying to take her mind off her overheated body. “Maybe it would make you more enthusiastic about a movie career. Everybody knew you’d be photogenic, but I don’t think anybody expected you to be as good as you are.”
Several times she’d had the opportunity to sit in while Willow, the director, and various other members of Blood Moon’s production staff gathered to watch the film they had shot the previous day. Bobby Tom had a much quieter presence on screen than he did off, underplaying everything so that he didn’t seem to be acting at all. It was a solid, re-strained performance that managed to overcome some of the predictability of the script.
Instead of being flattered by her praise, he frowned. “Of course I’m good. You think I would have taken on something like this if I thought I’d mess it up?”
She gazed at him suspiciously. “From the beginning, you’ve been surprisingly confident for someone who says he’s never acted before.” Her eyes narrowed as a sudden thought struck her. “I don’t know why I haven’t already figured this out. You’re pulling another one of your scams, aren’t you?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Acting lessons, that’s what.”
“Acting lessons?”
“You heard me. You’ve taken lessons, haven’t you?”
He looked sulky. “I might have talked to one of my golf buddies a few times while we were playing, but that’s it. A couple of conversations walking down the fairways. One or two tips between putts. That’s all.”
He hadn’t allayed her suspicions a bit, and she gave him her steeliest glare. “Which golf buddy would that happen to be?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Bobby Tom . . .”
“It might have been Clint Eastwood.”
“Clint Eastwood! You’ve been taking acting lessons from Clint Eastwood!” She rolled her eyes.
“That doesn’t mean I’m serious about this business.” He pulled his hat an inch lower on his forehead. “Making love with ladies I’m not attracted to isn’t my idea of how I want to spend the rest of my life.”
“I like Natalie.”
“She’s okay, I guess. But she’s not my kind of woman.”
“Maybe that’s because she’s a woman, not a girl.”
His expression grew belligerent. “Now what’s that supposed to mean?”
Her rising tension was making her cranky. “The indisputable fact is, you don’t have the best taste when it comes to female companionship.”
‘’That’s a lie.”
“Have you ever dated a woman with an IQ larger than her bra size?”
His eyes drifted down to her breasts. “A lot larger.”
She could feel her nipples tightening. “I don’t count. We’re not officially dating.”
“You’re forgetting about my relationship with Gloria Steinem.”
“You did not date Gloria Steinem!”
“You don’t know that for a fact. Just because we’re engaged doesn’t give you the right to tell me what sort of ladies I’m attracted to.”
He was stonewalling. He brushed her bare calf with his leg, and her skin broke out in goose bumps. Since she knew she wouldn’t get any farther with him, she abandoned that particular line of attack for another.
“You certainly seem to have a head for business. Maybe you’d be happier doing that than acting. I had no idea how many successful business ventures you were involved in. Jack Aikens told me that you were born with horse sense.”
“I’ve always been able to make money.”
She’d never heard less enthusiasm, and as she slipped another french fry under the bleachers, she tried to figure out why. Bobby Tom was intelligent, handsome, charming, and he could make a success of anything he put his mind to. Except the one thing he wanted most—to play football again. It struck her that in the time she’d known him, she’d never once heard him complain about having his career ended so brutally. He wasn’t a complainer by nature, but she was certain he’d feel better if he could vent his feelings.
“You keep a lot bottled up inside you. Would it help if you talked about what happened?”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me, Gracie.”
“I’m not trying to, but having your life turned upside down would be difficult for anyone.”
“If you expect me to start whining because I can’t play ball anymore, you can forget it. I’ve already got more than most people walking this globe even dream about, and self-pity isn’t high on my list of desirable virtues.”
“I’ve never known anyone less prone to self-pity than you, but you’ve built your life around football. It’s natural for you to feel a sense of loss now that it’s gone. You certainly have a right to be bitter about what happened to your career.”
“Tell that to somebody who doesn’t have a job, or tell that to a homeless person. I’ll just bet they’d trade places with me in a second.”
“If you follow that logic, no one who has food and shelter should ever feel unhappy about anything. But life’s more than food and shelter.”
He swiped a paper napkin across his lips, touching her breast with his elbow as he did and setting off a chain reaction of sensations inside her. “Gracie, don’t take offense, but you’re about boring me to death with this conversation.”
She shot him a sideways glance, trying to see if the caress had been deliberate or accidental, but he wasn’t giving anything away.
He straightened his leg to reach inside his jeans pocket, and the denim tightened over his hips. A pulse thrummed in her throat. “You’ve aggravated me so much I nearly forgot what I wanted to do tonight.” He withdrew something and closed his fist around it. “To accurately reconstruct everything you’ve missed in your relationship with the opposite sex, we’d have to go all the way back to playing doctor behind the garage, but I figured we’d skip that part and jump rig
ht ahead to high school when things get more interesting. Sherri Hopper never gave me back my high school ring after we broke up, so we’re going to have to make do with this.” He opened his hand.
Lying in his palm was the most massive man’s ring she had ever seen. Its gaudy collection of yellow and white diamonds arranged to form three stars twinkled in the fading light. The ring was threaded with a heavy gold chain that he slipped over her head.
The ring settled with a thud between her breasts. She picked it up, crossing her eyes slightly to look down at it. “Bobby Tom, this is your Super Bowl ring!”
“Buddy Baines gave it back to me a couple of days ago.”
“I can’t wear your Super Bowl ring!”
“I don’t see why not. One of us has to.”
“But—”
“People in town are going to get suspicious if you don’t have a ring. Everybody’ll get a real kick out of this. Although I wouldn’t plan on being in too much of a hurry when you go to town. Everybody’s going to want to try it on.”
How many bruising hits had he taken to earn this? How many broken bones and sore muscles had he endured? At the age of thirty, she finally had a man’s ring, and what a ring it was.
As she reminded-herself she only had it temporarily, she remembered the pangs she’d experienced as a teenager when she’d seen the girls at her high school with a boy’s ring dangling from a chain around their necks. How much she had wanted one for herself.
She fought to hide her emotion. This was only pretend, and she shouldn’t let it mean so much to her. “Thank you, Bobby Tom.”
“Generally at this moment a boy and girl would commemorate the event with a kiss, but, frankly speaking, you’re a little too hot for me to handle in public, so we’ll postpone that till we have a little more privacy.”
She clutched it tighter in the palm of her hand. “Did you give out your high school ring a lot?”
“Only twice. I believe I already mentioned Sherri Hopper, but Terry Jo Driscoll was the first girl I ever loved. She’s Terry Jo Baines, now. Matter of fact you’re going to meet her; I said we’d try to stop by her house tonight. Her husband Buddy was my best friend all through high school, and Terry Jo’s real hurt I haven’t introduced you to her yet. Of course, if you’d rather do something else . . .” He gave her a sideways glance. “We could probably postpone the visit until tomorrow.”
“Tonight’s fine!” Her throat was dry and her voice sounded squeaky. Why was he prolonging her agony like this? Maybe he’d changed his mind and he didn’t want to make love to her. Maybe he was trying to get rid of her.
His arm brushed the bare patch of skin just above her waist as he reached behind her toward the paper carton she’d set on the seat. She jumped.
He looked at her, his dark blue eyes as innocent as a baby’s. “I’ll help you do dishes.”
With a wicked grin, he began gathering up the fragments of their fried chicken dinner and stuffing it all back in the paper sack, touching her here and there in the process until she had goose bumps everywhere. He knew exactly what he was doing, she decided. He was deliberately driving her to insanity.
Ten minutes later, they were being ushered into the cluttered living room of a small, one-story house by a plump, but still pretty, woman with a baby face and over-processed blond hair, who was clad in a red print top, white leggings, and a battered pair of sandals. She looked like someone who had taken more than her share of knocks in life, but hadn’t let it get her down, and her affection for Bobby Tom was so open and honest that Gracie liked her immediately.
“It’s about time Bobby Tom brought you around.” Terry Jo squeezed Gracie’s hand. “I swear, everybody in town like to die when they heard he finally got engaged. Jo-leen! I can hear that paper rattlin’, and you get out of those Little Debbies right this minute!” She gestured across the clean, but shabby living room, toward the kitchen that lay beyond. “That’s Joleen. She’s our oldest. Her brother Kenny’s over at his friends for the night. Buddy! Bobby Tom and Gracie are here! Budd-ee!”
“Stop yellin’, Terry Jo.” Buddy ambled into the living room from the kitchen, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth in a way that made Gracie suspect he had been the one rustling around in the Little Debbies instead of his daughter.
She had met Buddy Baines briefly when she’d taken the Thunderbird to his garage for new tires. Like the house in which he lived, he had a run down quality about him. With his dark hair and swarthy complexion, he-was still a good looking man, but an extra roll of flesh had begun to thicken his waistline and he had the beginnings of a double chin. Still, she could imagine him as he’d been in high school, just as good looking as Bobby Tom, but dark instead of blond. The three of them—Bobby Tom, Buddy, and Terry Jo—must have been quite a sight.
After Joleen had run in to exchange a moist, enthusiastic greeting with her Uncle Bobby Tom, Terry Jo drew Gracie into the kitchen to help her carry the beer and chips. Gracie had no desire for either, but she didn’t have the heart to refuse Terry Jo’s cheerful hospitality. She had tucked Bobby Tom’s ring inside her sweater, and it nestled between her breasts. She touched it there as she looked around the kitchen. It was as shabby and homey as the living room, with children’s artwork held to the refrigerator by Bible verse magnets and a pile of newspapers stacked on the floor next to a dog’s water dish.
Terry Jo held the refrigerator door open with her hip while she began pulling out beer cans and passing them to Gracie. “You might know that Buddy’s daddy is Mayor Luther Baines, and he told me to tell you they’ve put you on the birthplace committee. You’ve got a meeting Monday night at seven. If you want to stop by and pick me up, we can go together.”
Gracie gazed at her in alarm as she cradled four cold beer cans against her chest. “The birthplace committee?”
“For Heavenfest.” She shut the refrigerator door, grabbed a bag of chips from the counter, and poured them into two blue plastic bowls. “I know Bobby Tom’s told you how the town bought the house he grew up in. We’re dedicating it during the festival, but we still need a lot of help getting it ready.”
Gracie remembered Bobby Tom’s opinion of the bizarre scheme to turn his childhood home into a tourist attraction. “I don’t know, Terry Jo. Bobby Tom’s not too happy about this.”
Terry Jo took two of the beers back and handed Gracie one of the potato chip bowls. “He’ll come around. One thing about Bobby Tom. He knows what he owes this town.”
Gracie didn’t necessarily think Bobby Tom owed the town anything, but since she was an outsider, she had a different point of view from the local citizens.
As the women returned to the living room, Buddy and Bobby Tom were arguing about the-Chicago Stars’ chances of making it to another Super Bowl. Bobby Tom had his ankle crossed over his knee, and his straw cowboy hat rested on his calf. Gracie walked to the sofa and handed him a beer. His fingers brushed hers, and she felt a tingling that traveled all the way up her arm. He gazed at her with those midnight blue eyes of his, and her knees grew weak.
As she placed the bowl of chips on the coffee table and took a seat next to him, she realized Buddy was watching her with open interest. She felt his eyes moving over her breasts and down her bare legs. When Bobby Tom looked at her like that, she got goose bumps, but Buddy’s perusal embarrassed her. If she’d known they were going to stop here, she would have ignored Bobby Tom’s request and worn slacks.
Buddy took a beer from his wife and, leaning back into the vinyl recliner, regarded Bobby Tom. “So how does it feel not playing in preseason? This is the first time in how many years?”
“Thirteen.”
“That’s tough. You broke some records, but if you’d been able to play longer, you might of got more of the important ones.”
Buddy was deliberately pouring salt into Bobby Tom’s wounds, and Gracie waited for Bobby Tom to deflect the gibe with one of his wisecracks. Instead he shrugged and sipped his beer. She felt oddly protective of him. Here, am
ong his childhood friends, he seemed vulnerable.
Impulsively, she leaned over and patted Bobby Tom’s thigh through his jeans. The muscles beneath her palm felt hard and powerful. “I’m sure most of the people in town are grateful he’s making a movie instead of going off to training camp. Windmill s pouring a lot of money into the local economy. But, why am I telling you this, Buddy? Your garage is getting all kinds of business from Windmill, isn’t it?”
Buddy flushed. Bobby Tom shot her an assessing look. She patted his thigh again as if she had every right to touch whatever part of his body took her fancy. Terry Jo stepped into the silence with a report on the progress the various Heavenfest committees were making and finished by announcing that Gracie had been named to the birthplace committee.
Bobby Tom’s eyes narrowed. “I told Luther I wasn’t having anything to do with that, and neither is Gracie. It’s a damn fool idea, and whoever came up with it ought to have his head examined.”
“It was Luther’s idea,” Buddy said belligerently.
Bobby Tom raised his beer can. “I rest my case.”
Gracie expected Buddy to rise to his father’s defense, but instead, he grunted and grabbed a handful of potato chips from the bowl at his side. His mouth full, he turned to Gracie.
“The town was surprised to hear about the two of you. You’re not Bobby Tom’s usual type.”
“Thank you,” Gracie replied politely.
Bobby Tom chuckled.
Buddy studied her more closely, then regarded Bobby Tom. “How’s Suzy taking your engagement? Or is she too busy spending time with her new boyfriend to pay attention?”
“Hush, Buddy!” Terry Jo exclaimed. “I don’t know what’s got into you, actin’ so mean tonight. And there’s no need to bring up something that probably isn’t anything more than gossip.”
“Bring what up?” Bobby Tom asked. “What are you talking about?”
Buddy stuffed another handful of chips into his mouth. “You tell him, Terry Jo. He won’t believe me.”