Part 11 (1/2)
He smiled and gazed up at the ceiling fan. ”I can't believe how hot it is in here, and it's only the first of July. Hard to imagine how much worse it'll get.” He shook his head, his expression as guileless as a saint's. ”I was going to put in air-conditioning for Lucy, but I'm glad now that I didn't. Adding all those fluorocarbons to the atmosphere would have kept you awake at night. Do you have any beer?”
She glowered at him. ”I can barely afford milk for cereal.”
”You're living here rent free,” he pointed out. ”The least you could do is keep beer in the refrigerator for company.”
”You're not company. You're an infestation. What do you want?”
”This is my place, remember? I don't have to want anything.” He pointed the toe of a scuffed, but very expensive, loafer toward the jewelry laid out on the floor. ”What's all this?”
”Some costume jewelry.” She knelt down and began to gather it up.
”I hope you didn't pay real money for it. Eye of the beholder, I guess.”
She gazed up at him. ”Does this place have a postal address?”
”Sure it has an address. Why do you want to know?”
”I want to know where I live, that's all.” She also needed some things sent to her that were packed away in her closet back home. She found a sc.r.a.p of paper and wrote down the address he gave her. She nodded toward the front of the church. ”As long as you're here, will you turn on the hot water? I'm getting tired of cold showers.”
”Tell me about it.”
She smiled. ”You can't still be suffering from the effects of Lucy's three-month s.e.xual moratorium?”
”d.a.m.n, but you women sure do like to talk.”
”I told her it was stupid.” She wished she were evil enough to pa.s.s on the news that Lucy had already taken a lover.
”We finally agree on something,” he said.
”Still ...” She returned to putting the jewelry away. ”Everybody knows you can have any brainless woman in Wynette. I don't exactly see what your problem is finding s.e.xual companions.h.i.+p.”
He looked at her as though she'd just joined the Idiots Club.
”Right,” she said. ”This is Wynette, and you're Ted Beaudine. If you do one of them, you'd have to do them all.”
He grinned.
She'd intended to annoy, not to amuse, and she took another swipe. ”Too bad I was wrong about you and Torie. A clandestine affair with a married woman would answer your problem. Almost as good as being married to Lucy.”
”What do you mean by that?”
She extended her legs and leaned back on her hands. ”No messy emotional c.r.a.p. You know. Like real love and genuine pa.s.sion.”
He stared at her a moment, those tiger eyes inscrutable. ”You think Lucy and I didn't have pa.s.sion?”
”Not to be insulting-okay, maybe a little insulting-but I sincerely doubt you have a pa.s.sionate bone in your body.”
An ordinary mortal would have been offended, but not St. Theodore. He merely looked thoughtful. ”Let me get this straight. A screwup like you is a.n.a.lyzing me?”
”Fresh viewpoint.”
He nodded. Contemplated. And then he did a very unTed Beaudinelike thing. He dropped his lids and gave her a wicked eye-rake. Starting at the top of her head and sliding down her body, lingering here and there along the way. Her mouth. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The apex of her thighs. Leaving hot little eddies of desire behind.
The absolute horror of not being immune to him hurled her into action, and she jumped up from the floor. ”Waste of effort, Mr. B. Unless, of course, you're paying.”
”Paying?”
”You know. A big wad of twenties on the dresser afterward. Oops... I don't have a dresser. Oh, well, there goes that idea.”
She'd finally managed to annoy him. He stalked into the back room to either turn on the hot water or blow the place up. She sincerely hoped it was the former. Not long after, she heard the back door close, and a few moments later, his car pulling away. She was strangely disappointed.
The foursome teed off the next day. Ted and Torie playing Kenny and Spence.
”I had to go to Austin yesterday,” Spence told Meg, ”and every time I saw a beautiful woman, I thought about you.”
”Jeez, why?”
Ted gave her a surrept.i.tious poke. Spence threw back his head and laughed. ”You're something, Miz Meg. You know who you remind meof?”
”I'm hoping a young Julia Roberts.”
”You remind me of me, that's who.” He resettled his straw Panama on his head. ”I had a lot of challenges in my life, but I always faced them down.”
Ted whapped her on the back. ”That's our Meg, all right.”
By the time they reached the third green, she was wilting from the heat but still happy to be outside. She forced herself to concentrate on being the perfect caddy, along with shooting Ted adoring glances every time Spence got too cozy.
”Would you stop that!” Ted said, when they were out of earshot.
”What do you care?”
”It's unnerving, that's all,” he complained. ”Like being trapped in an alternate reality.”
”You should be used to adoring glances.”
”Not from you. you.”
It was soon evident, even to Meg, that Torie was a highly compet.i.tive athlete, but on the back nine, she suddenly began missing putts. Ted never lost his easy charm, not until he was alone with Meg when he confirmed her suspicions that Torie was doing it deliberately. ”That was barely a three-foot putt,” he groused, ”and Torie lips the cup. Spence could be around for weeks. Anybody who thinks I'm going to let him win every match is crazy.”
”Which is obviously why Torie missed that putt.” At least someone other than herself understood Spence's ego. She glanced around for the most recent head cover she seemed to have misplaced. ”Concentrate on the big picture, Mr. Mayor. If you're determined to destroy the local environment with this project, you need to be more like Torie and work harder to make Spence happy.”
He ignored her jab. ”Look who's talking about making Spence happy. It wouldn't hurt you to be nicer to him. I swear I'm going to stage a public fight with you so he knows exactly how unrequited your pa.s.sion for me is.”
He put a long wedge shot on the green, tossed the club at her, and stalked off.
Thanks to Torie, Spence and Kenny pulled off a one-hole victory. Afterward, Meg headed for the ladies' locker room, which, technically, employees weren't supposed to use, but since it was equipped with a vast array of personal-care products sadly missing from her own collection, she used it anyway. As she splashed her heat-flushed face with cold water, Torie joined her at the sink. Unlike Meg, the heat didn't seem to have affected Torie, who merely pulled off her visor to refasten her ponytail, then looked around to make sure the locker room was empty. ”So what's really between you and Ted?”
”What do you mean? Haven't you heard the rumors about how I drove Lucy away so I could have him for myself?”
”I'm a lot brighter than I look. And you're not a woman who'd fall for a guy who basically hates your guts.”