Lady Be Good

  She sank down into the overstuffed chair and bit her bottom lip. She had only a little over a week left and she needed to remember that Kenny Traveler was for thrills, for scandal, even for memories, but not forever. Regardless of what last night had meant to her, it was merely the tiniest detour on the great golf course of his life. He’d shared his body, but nothing of what he was, and, in the future, if he remembered her at all, it would only be because she was different from his other sexual conquests.

  But she would never forget. She’d carry the memory of this night to her grave, and she knew it wasn’t the orgasms she’d remember, but the intimacy, the feeling of connection. Sleeping with someone, being held so tenderly in his arms, and hearing his heart beat. Letting herself pretend, if only for a few moments, that she was joined to another.

  She gazed out the window and thought how easily attachments came to most of the people she knew. But not to her. For as long as she could recall, her life had been a series of broken attachments. She remembered being six years old and standing in the doorway of Orchard House watching her parents drive away to spend eight months in Africa. They’d loved her, but not as much as they’d loved their work.

  She’d tried attaching herself to teachers and house mothers. Some of them had been fond of her, but they had children of their own, or they found other jobs and moved away. Only St. Gert’s never changed. Solid, comforting, always there.

  The grand old lady had been with her through both her parents’ deaths, through long holidays when she had been the only child left at the school, and then later as a teacher when she’d grown to care so much about other people’s children. St. Gert’s was the single unbroken attachment in her life.

  But not for long. Soon she’d be forced to leave the beloved old pile of bricks and stone. With that tie severed, there would be no place left in the world that she could call home.

  It was tempting to allow herself a few moments of self-pity, but she wouldn’t do it. No matter where her new life took her, she’d always have the satisfaction of knowing that the school lived on, that it would provide a place of shelter for other lonely girls. And, for now, she wasn’t going to think beyond the present. For a few more days, she would simply cherish every moment of this brief, physical attachment to a man who didn’t love her.

  Chapter 14

  Emma stood just outside the barrier around the petting zoo and watched Kenny carry Peter toward the center of the miniature barnyard. “It’s all right, Petie. That old goat’s not going to hurt you.”

  Petie wasn’t buying it and he clung more tightly to Kenny’s neck.

  Emma smiled. The petting zoo had been set up in the parking lot attached to a small strip mall that was celebrating its first anniversary. The buildings’ pastel-painted Wild West exteriors formed a background to a carousel, an assortment of clowns giving away balloons, and various family-friendly companies promoting their products with free food and games.

  “This goat looks mighty hungry to me.” Kenny stooped down and held out a handful of feed. As the goat nudged Kenny’s legs to get to the food, Petie climbed higher on his brother’s chest. Kenny laughed and dropped the pellets. “Maybe we’d better go see the rabbits. I think they’re more your speed.”

  Emma tried not to let the image of the two of them together etch itself into her heart. Spending one night with a man didn’t give her the right to start imagining that it was her child he held in his arms. Silly, desperate Emma. So hungry for love she wanted to imagine herself having a baby with a man who was completely unsuitable. Had she forgotten that she’d never fancied rogues? Her own pitifulness disgusted her. Still, truth was truth, and she couldn’t deny the obvious. She had fallen deeply into infatuation with Kenny Traveler.

  Infatuation, not love, she reminded herself. They didn’t have enough in common for her to love him. But, oh, she was infatuated. She was infatuated by his humor, his easy charm, the love he displayed for his baby brother, as well as the way his quick intelligence forced her own brain to full alertness.

  But she wouldn’t pretend that there wasn’t also a dangerous element to her infatuation. To the rest of the world, Kenny might appear to be nothing more than a sublimely handsome athlete with an overabundance of charm, but she knew better. He had a whole world of psychological demons haunting him.

  She saw Peter’s forehead wrinkle at the baaing of the lambs, and he drew up his knees to protect himself from their nosy exploration. Kenny kissed his head and carried him out of the petting zoo toward Emma.

  “I think it’s safe to say you’re not going to have a big career as a farmer, Petie boy.”

  She tickled the baby’s belly. “You’re still young, aren’t you, luv? Lots of time to get used to savage animals.”

  “Yeah, I swear that baby lamb looked a little bit like Hannibal Lecter around the eyes.”

  “Easy for a big man like him to make fun, isn’t it?”

  Peter gave her a drooly grin and poked a wet finger at her mouth. They began wandering toward a clown holding balloons. On the way, a young woman holding a clipboard approached them and smiled at Emma. “The next round of the Diaper Derby’s starting soon if you and your husband would like to enter your baby.”

  A pang of embarrassment mixed uncomfortably with longing. “He’s not my—”

  “What’s a Diaper Derby?” Kenny asked.

  “A crawling race for babies.”

  “A race?” His face split in a grin. “Now we’re talking.” He tossed Petie up in his arms, tucked him like a potato sack in the crook of his elbow, and turned toward the Diaper Derby arena. “Greatness moves on to the next generation of Travelers.”

  “Kenny, maybe we’d better think about this.” But, for once, she was talking to his back.

  The race was being held behind a waist-high barricade on a padded red mat that was about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide with six narrow lanes divided by white lines. One parent positioned the baby at the starting line, while the other parent sat at the finishing line urging the child forward. The first of the six babies to make it was the winner.

  “Now, here’s the way we’re going to do this,” Kenny said after he’d studied the layout. “Petie’ll crawl to me faster than you, so you start him off, and I’ll wait for him at the finish line.”

  She looked over at the spectators who’d gathered to watch. “I don’t know. Peter wasn’t overjoyed with the petting zoo, and it’s quite noisy here.”

  “Petie’s not afraid of a little gallery noise, are you, bro?”

  Peter gave a baby chortle and smacked his fist against the Top Flite logo on Kenny’s shirt. Kenny laughed, tossed him up again, and handed him over to Emma.

  He went to her easily. Her heart ached as she looked into those bright violet eyes with their tiny fringe of spiky lashes. Despite her years of experience with children, she hadn’t spent much time with babies. Now she felt a pang of longing so intense it surprised her. She pushed the emotion away and watched Kenny head for the opposite end of the mat. She realized he was actually studying the competition, and she hugged Peter a bit tighter. “I’m afraid you’re in for it, luv.”

  She could see Kenny dismissing a fairy-sprite of a little girl dressed in a yellow romper with layers of lace across her bottom. Then he passed over a blond-haired baby of indeterminate sex who was desperately clinging to his or her mother. For a moment, his attention lingered on a set of lively chocolate-colored twins, but they seemed more interested in each other than the event.

  Suddenly he stiffened. His eyes narrowed, and she could almost hear the theme from Rocky playing in his brain. He’d found the one man who stood between a Traveler and athletic glory.

  The challenger had a single spike of red hair shooting up from a nearly bald head. His body was strong and brawny, clad in plaid overalls and a Tigger T-shirt. His feet were encased in a pair of miniature Nikes that pumped as he struggled to get down. Twenty-five pounds of raw dynamite. This was the man to beat.

  The you
ng woman in charge gave the instructions. As Emma sat behind the starting line with Peter on her lap, she cast a wary eye at Kenny. He seemed to be taking this a little too seriously.

  After one last look at the spike-haired bruiser in the lane next to Peter, Kenny crouched at the finish line and called down to his baby brother. “You’ve got to stay focused. Make them play your game, Petie. A hundred and ten percent. You’ve got to give it a hundred and ten percent.”

  The mother of the little girl in the lacy romper looked at Kenny as if he’d escaped from a lunatic asylum.

  Emma sighed and stroked the baby’s soft arm, while she tried to catch Kenny’s eye. But his entire focus, all one hundred and ten percent of it, was on the game.

  “Ready. Set. Go.” At the command from the starter, Emma set Peter on the starting line and released him.

  With a superb display of finely honed Traveler crawling skills, he shot toward his brother.

  Kenny slapped the mat. “That’s right! Faster.”

  Peter slowed.

  “Pick it up, Petie. Let’s go!”

  The baby came to a dead stop. Wrinkled his forehead. Plopped back on his bottom.

  Kenny held out his arms. “Come on, Petie! Don’t stop now. You’ve got the lead.”

  Peter stuck his fingers in his mouth and looked up at the cheering spectators. Kenny’s knee inched forward across the finish line.

  Two lanes over, the baby in the androgynous clothes dropped to the mat and began a lazy sideways scoot.

  “Let’s go, Petie! Let’s go!” Kenny slapped the mat again as his other knee crept over the finish line.

  Peter’s bottom lip sagged in a pathetic quiver.

  The red-haired bruiser let out a howl and darted back to the starting line.

  Kenny’s brows shot together. “You’ve got it now, Petie! The big man’s DQed!”

  Peter’s eyes filled with tears.

  “No, no! Don’t do that!”

  The chocolate-colored twins moved into the same lane and rolled on top of each other.

  “They’re dropping like flies! You can take it, Petie! Only a little farther.”

  Peter’s small chest shook with a sob.

  “Shake it off! Shake it off and come to Kenny.” He crept farther into the lane.

  Peter let out an earsplitting howl.

  “No crying, buddy! Don’t ever let ’em see you cry. Come on! I’m right here.”

  Frozen, Peter sat on the mat and sobbed.

  The little girl in the lacy yellow romper shot across the finish line to win the race, but Kenny was too busy inching forward on his own hands and knees to notice.

  “Don’t quit! Nobody remembers a loser. Come on, Petie! You can’t quit!”

  Emma couldn’t take any more. She hurried forward onto the mat and snatched the sobbing little boy up into her arms. “It’s all right, luv. I won’t let that crazy man get you.”

  Kenny came out of a trance and looked up. For the first time he seemed to realize where he was.

  On his hands and knees.

  A third of the way down the lane.

  In the middle of a baby race.

  Quiet fell over the small crowd. Kenny turned red and shot to his feet. The quiet intensified. Then a grizzled man in a John Deere cap gave Kenny an admiring salute.

  “Now, that’s the way you turn a kid into a champion.”

  Chapter 15

  Kenny couldn’t breathe as the ghosts of his past crashed on top of him. Emma was clutching Petie to her breast. She gazed across the mat and gave Kenny a look that seemed tinged with pity. He couldn’t tolerate it, and he rushed forward.

  “Let me have him.”

  Petie screamed and gripped Emma’s neck more tightly. “Just give him a minute,” she said.

  But he didn’t have a minute. He jerked his wallet from his pocket, thrust it toward her, and grabbed Peter. “Buy yourself something. I’ll be back.”

  He quickly left her behind and carried the screaming baby to his car. He could never let her witness this.

  Accompanied by the sound of Petie’s earsplitting shrieks coming from the car seat, he jumped behind the wheel and peeled out of the parking lot. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.”

  He blinked his eyes and raced toward the edge of town. The baby’s screams didn’t subside. Finally, he found the privacy he needed, a narrow lane that led toward a patch of trees. He parked his car in the exact place he’d hidden his bike when he was a kid coming apart inside.

  “Why’d you beat me up, Kenny? I didn’t do anything to you.”

  As he retrieved the hysterical baby, Petie arched his spine, trying to get away. His shrieks hurt Kenny’s ears, but the look of betrayal in the baby’s eyes broke Kenny’s heart.

  “I’m sorry, fella. I’m so sorry.” Pressing his lips to his brother’s hot, damp temple, he carried him into the trees toward the rushing sound of the river. “Shhh . . . don’t cry. Don’t cry, scout. It’s all over.”

  As he rocked and crooned, the baby’s sobs gradually subsided. He walked him along the riverbank, stroking his little back, humming and talking nonsense, letting the rush of the river soothe the baby as it used to soothe him when he came here to recover from some piece of nastiness he’d unleashed on Torie or one of his schoolmates. Finally, Petie quieted enough for Kenny to settle down in the shade of a bigtooth maple. He leaned against the trunk and propped the baby on his lap.

  “I know, Petie. I know. . . .”

  The little boy reared back his head, and Kenny saw a whole world of hurt in his eyes.

  “I won’t ever do that to you again. I promise. The old man’s going to be bad enough. You don’t need it from me, too.”

  Petie stuck out a trembly lip. He’d been betrayed, and he wasn’t going to forgive too easily.

  Kenny used the bottom of the baby’s bright blue T-shirt to wipe his small, drooly chin. “You don’t have to win a race for me to love you, buddy. Do you understand? Despite what happened back there, I’m not like the old man. I don’t care if you’re last every time, if you stink at team sports. Even if the worst happens and you hate golf, it doesn’t matter. You understand me? We’re brothers forever.” He drew the baby up to his face and kissed his slobbery cheek. “You might have to win the old man’s love, scout, but I promise you won’t ever have to win mine.”

  Emma stood in the middle of the crowd staring down at the wallet Kenny had thrust in her hand. After last night, she felt as if she’d been slapped.

  Just as she was looking around for some privacy, she saw Ted Beaudine approaching. He gave her his shy smile. “I heard you were here, Lady Emma. Where’d Kenny go?”

  “He left with Peter.”

  “You look a little upset.”

  Those old man’s eyes of his saw too much. “A little.” She opened her purse to slip in the wallet only to have him take it from her hand.

  “Is this Kenny’s?”

  “He shoved it at me right before he ran off.” She couldn’t stop herself from adding, “He told me I should buy something for myself.”

  “No kidding.” Ted’s mouth curled in a slow smile. “My daddy’s rich, my ma’s good-looking, and this is my lucky day.”

  Emma frowned as he tucked the wallet in his back pocket. “Your mother’s rich, too; I’ve heard your father looks like a movie star. And give that back to me.”

  His hazel eyes crinkled at the corners. “Come on, Lady Emma. I’m a semi-impoverished twenty-two-year-old who just graduated from college and doesn’t have a job. Kenny, on the other hand’s, got more money than he has the energy to count. Let’s go enjoy ourselves.”

  “Ted, I really don’t think—”

  But he was already moving. Catching her arm, he led her toward the parking lot and a rather battered open-topped red Jeep with black roll bars. “If any of you see Kenny,” he called out to a group of teenagers, “tell him Lady Emma’s at the Roustabout.”

  Emma found herself being driven away in a car with a set of golf club
s rattling in the back and a graduation tassel swinging from the rearview mirror. “Maybe you should let me have that wallet,” she said as the Roustabout came into view.

  “I will. Later. After we use what’s in it.”

  “We’re not spending Kenny’s money, no matter how much of it he has. It isn’t right.”

  “Texas women wouldn’t see it that way. Women down here like their revenge. Do you know my parents once had a fight in this very parking lot? People still talk about it.”

  “I suppose public arguments can get a little nasty.”

  “Oh, this wasn’t an argument. It was a fight. Physical.” He chuckled. “I’d of loved to have seen that.”

  “Bloodthirsty boy. And I don’t believe a word of it. Your parents have a wonderful marriage.”

  “Now they do, but it took them a while to get there. My dad didn’t even know I existed till I was nine. They both had a lot of growing up to do.”

  Coming from any other twenty-two-year-old, the comment would have been humorous, but there was something about Ted Beaudine that made her a believer.

  As they got out of the car and walked toward the Roustabout, she said, “I’m surprised you don’t have a job yet. From what Torie and Kenny said, you have an excellent academic record.”

  “Oh, I’ve had lots of offers, but I want to stay near Wynette.”

  “You grew up here, didn’t you?”

  “I grew up all over, but this is the place my family calls home, and I’m pretty attached to it.” He held the door open for her. “That limits me to two companies.”

  “TCS and Dexter’s father’s company.”

  “Both of them have done everything they could to hire me. Unfortunately, that’s turned me into the prize in another one of their range wars. The situation’s gotten a little ugly, so I’m stalling until I see whether Torie’s ever going to figure out what a great guy Dexter is.”

  “If the merger happens, you don’t have a problem anymore, is that it?”

  “Exactly. In the meantime, though, I’m just about flat broke. And neither of my parents, being self-made people, is sympathetic.” He slipped Kenny’s wallet from his back pocket. “Which is why this is a gift from the gods.”