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“Denton.”
Bobby Tom had known he was going to have to confront Sawyer soon, but he wouldn’t have chosen tonight to do it. Stilt, he’d seen Sawyer’s name on the guest list, so it wasn’t a real surprise, and he had no intention of backing away. For some reason this man was connected with his mother’s sadness, and he wanted to know why.
Sawyer had been inspecting one of the oversize drivers on display, and as he stepped forward he held it loosely across his body. His formal dress didn’t disguise how haggard he looked, as if he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for some time. Bobby Tom struggled to control his antipathy. Despite Sawyer’s announcement about Rosatech, he would never like this man. He was a cold, hard-hearted son of a bitch who’d cheat his own grandmother if he saw the need.
He pushed aside the fleeting impression that right now Sawyer looked more tired than ruthless.
“What can I do for you?” he said coldly.
“I want to talk to you about your mother.”
It was exactly the subject they needed to discuss, but Bobby Tom felt himself bristling. “There’s nothing to talk about. You stay away from her, and everything’ll be fine.”
“I’ve been staying away from her. Has that made things better? Is she happy?”
“You’re damn right she is. Happy as I’ve ever seen her.”
“You’re lying.”
Despite his words, Bobby Tom heard the uncertainty in Sawyer’s voice and took advantage of it. “The last time we talked, she was excited about taking a cruise and adding some new plants to her garden. She’s been so busy with her friends and projects it’s hard for us to find time to get together.”
Sawyer’s shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly, and his fingers grew lax on the club he was holding, but Bobby Tom didn’t relent. Somehow this man had hurt his mother, and he had to make certain it didn’t happen again. “As far as I could tell, she didn’t have a care in the world.”
“I see.” Sawyer cleared his throat. “She misses your father very much.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
Sawyer rested the head of the club on the carpet. “You look just like him, you know. The last time I saw him he was only eighteen or nineteen, but the resemblance is still strong.”
“That’s what people say.”
“I hated his guts.”
“I don’t imagine he was too fond of you, either.”
“Hard to tell. If he disliked me, he never showed it, even though I sure gave him cause. He was so damned nice to everybody.”
“Then why did you hate him?” The question slipped out despite his intention to remain detached.
Sawyer ran his hand along the club’s grip. “My mother cleaned your grandmother’s house for a while, did you know that? This was before she gave up on life and found another way to make a living.” He paused, and Bobby Tom thought of the story he’d been telling women for years about his mother being a hooker. It had all been one big joke to him, but it hadn’t been a joke to Sawyer, and despite his dislike of the man, he felt a sense of shame.
Sawyer went on. “Your dad and I were the same age, but he was bigger, and when we were about in sixth, seventh grade, your grandmother used to give my mother all his old clothes. I had to go to school in your father’s hand-me-downs, and I was so jealous of him, sometimes I thought I was going to choke on it. Every day he saw me coming to school in his castoffs, and he never said a word about it. Not one word. Not to me, not to anybody. The other kids noticed, though, and they’d taunt me about it. ‘Hey, Sawyer, isn’t that Hoyt’s old plaid shirt you’ve got on.’ If your dad was around, he’d just shake his head and say, hell, no, that wasn’t his shirt; he’d never seen the damned thing before. Jesus, I hated him for that. If only he’d thrown my poverty in my face, I could have fought him. But he never did, and looking back on it, I don’t think it was in his nature. In a lot of ways, I believe he may have been the best man I ever knew.”
Bobby Tom felt a sense of pride as overwhelming as it was unexpected. And then, almost immediately, a devastating sense of loss. He steeled himself to show none of those emotions. “But you still hated him.”
“Envy’ll do that to you. In high school I once broke into his locker and stole his school jacket. I don’t think he ever figured out it was me. I couldn’t wear the damned thing, of course; didn’t even want to. But I took it over by the tracks and burned it, so he’d never be able to wear it again. Maybe I thought getting rid of it would erase all his accomplishments, or maybe I just couldn’t stand watching him drape it over your mother’s shoulders when they were walking home. Damned thing used to come almost to her knees.”
This vision of his parents as high school kids made Bobby Tom feel strangely disoriented. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? My mother.”
“I guess it always has been.” His eyes clouded, as if his thoughts were far away. “She was so pretty. She doesn’t think so because she had braces until the end of her sophomore year and that’s all she remembers, but take it from me, she was pretty as a picture, braces and all. And she was like your dad, nice to everybody.” He laughed with genuine amusement. “Everybody but me. One day she met up with me in the hallway when nobody was around. She was taking something to the office for a teacher, I guess, and I was cutting class. I flipped up my collar and slouched against one of the lockers like a no-good punk. I gave her my best badass squint and looked her up and down, probably scared her half to death. I remember her hands started to shake around the paper she was holding, but she stared at me dead-on. ‘Wayland Sawyer, if you don’t want to end up a bum on the streets, you’d better get yourself to class right this minute.’ A spunky lady, your mama.”
It was hard to hold on to his antipathy in the face of such relentless honesty, but Bobby Tom reminded himself that Sawyer wasn’t a teenage punk any longer and this time the threat he posed to his mother was real.
“It’s one thing for a kid to scare her,” he said quietly. “It’s another for a grown man. Tell me what you did to her.”
Bobby Tom didn’t really expect him to answer, and he wasn’t surprised when Sawyer turned away without responding and walked over to the wooden rack. When he’d put the golf club back in place, he leaned against the counter, but despite his casual posture, his body was tense. Bobby Tom felt himself growing more alert, as if he were about to take a hit.
Sawyer gazed up at the ceiling and swallowed hard. “I let her believe I’d close Rosatech unless she became my mistress.”
