AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Nine
“You’re in my line, sweetheart,”Nick Wilson says, glancing over his shoulder at his wife, who is standing approximately twenty feet away at the edge of the putting green.
Dani steps quickly to her right.
“Sorry, hon. I can still see you.”
Dani scurries toward the large sand trap on the far side of the green. “Heavens to Betsy. How’s this?”
“Perfect. Thanks, hon.”
Dani smiles as her husband restarts his routine: lifting his putter into the air to determine the ball’s correct trajectory, securing his legs in a parallel position to that line, keeping his head down and his eyes on the ball, followed by a few waggles with the golf club and a couple of practice strikes in the air above the ball, holding his follow-through each time. She takes a deep breath as the ball finally rolls off Nick’s putter toward the hole, willing it to go in.
But the ball has been struck too hard, and Nick has failed to read enough of a break, so instead of ending up in or even close to its target, the ball veers a good five feet to its right and rolls down the gentle incline, coming to a stop inches from Dani’s feet.
Damn,she thinks, wishing this afternoon was over. They’ve been on the impeccably maintained private course for more than four hours. Four hours that feel like forty. It’s hot. She’s tired. She still can’t figure out what they’re doing here. They barely know Norman Fisher and his trophy wife, a sweet but vacuous young woman with whom she has absolutely nothing in common.
“Looks like you’re away again,” Norman says, not quite able to disguise the delight in his voice. The two men have a “friendly” competition going, and if Nick misses his next putt, they will be all tied up after seventeen holes.
Only one more hole to go,Dani thinks as, once again, Nick begins his painstakingly slow routine.Slower than molasses,she thinks, silently acknowledging that this is probably what makes him such a good doctor, this attention to detail, this thoroughness at every stage of the process, this desire—thisneed—for perfection.
Still, perfection isn’t an easy trait to live with, she thinks, watching the ball roll toward the hole.Go in. Go in.For almost its entire length, it looks as if Nick’s going to sink it. But then the ball hits a slight bump in the grass and ends up doing a three-sixty around the hole to remain stubbornly outside it.
“Oh, so close,” Norman says. “Looks like we’re all tied up, Doc.”
“On to the eighteenth,” Poppy Fisher chirps.
Dani watches Poppy drape a congratulatory arm around her husband’s shoulders, sees his hand slip casually toward her buttocks. She smiles as they walk toward their cart, trying not to compare herself to the younger woman. Not that there’s any comparison. Poppy is six feet of drop-dead gorgeous in her short and flouncy black golf skirt and clinging neon-yellow top, whereas Dani is five feet four inches of average in her plain white polo shirt and long brown shorts that skim the tops of her dimpled knees. The fact that both women are blond only serves to exaggerate the differences between them. While Poppy’s hair hangs wondrously straight and shiny beneath her stylish visor, Dani’s unruly curls shoot from the bottom of her baseball cap like an explosion.I look like a circus clown,she thinks, catching sight of her reflection in the golf cart’s rearview mirror as she slides into the passenger side.
Behind her, she hears the angry thrust of Nick’s putter as he returns it to his bag.
“You’ve got to watch where you stand,” he says as he takes his position behind the wheel, jaw clenched, eyes refusing to meet hers.
“I’m sorry. I tried…”
“Try harder.”
“You said where I moved was perfect.”
“What else could I say without sounding like some sort of prima donna? I mean, how many times do I have to ask you? Are you deliberately trying to make me look bad?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“I should have had that putt. You cost me a hole.”
“I’m sorry,” Dani says again, and she is, although she isn’t sure why. “Maybe you’re taking this competition a bit too seriously?” she ventures.
“Maybe you could learn a little golf etiquette.”
“Sorry,” she says again. And then, to lighten the mood, “A little golf etiquette comin’ right up.”
“Coming,” he corrects, refusing to be mollified as he pulls to a stop behind Norman’s cart. “Looks like you’ve got the honors,” he tells Norman without a trace of anger or impatience.
Poppy ambles up to the side of Dani’s cart as their husbands approach the tee box. “Having a good time?”
“Sure am,” Dani lies. “The course is beautiful.”
“Yeah, we love living here. The place has everything—golf, tennis, a fabulous gym. The doc would love it.”
