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He groaned. “It could take a couple of weeks for us to put a wedding ceremony together, and there’s no way I can wait that long to touch you. Your son can just learn right now to respect the needs of his elders.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Way kissed her once again. When they finally parted, he threw back his head and laughed. The biggest hood at Telarosa High had finally won the heart of the prettiest girl in the sophomore class.
As Bobby Tom leaped up on the platform to recognize the golf tournament winners, he was halfway giddy he felt so good. High on love and the realization that life held more for him than football, he had just decided exactly how he was going to go about letting Gracie know that everything had changed. Making the grand gesture had always appealed to him, and he intended to give his future wife a marriage proposal she’d never forget.
Gracie, in the meantime, was counting the minutes until the agonizing night would be over. She tried to find some sort of peace in accepting the knowledge that she would never again let herself be satisfied with less than she deserved, but nothing could ease her heartbreak.
Terry Jo had refused to handle the drawing for the quilt raffle, so she found herself on the platform, standing as far away from Bobby Tom as she could get. While Luther thanked the athletes for participating, she looked out over the crowd. Willow and the rest of the Blood Moon people stood in a group, Elvis had fallen asleep in Natalie’s arm, and Buddy and Terry Jo were standing with Jim Biederot, Bobby Tom’s old teammate, and the Calebows.
A number of Bobby Tom’s athlete friends had danced with her this evening, and most of them had been amused by her ignorance of who they were rather than being annoyed. Unfortunately, she’ had discovered that they had somehow learned she was the one who had broken off with Bobby Tom, instead of the other way around. Women would have been sympathetic if they heard their friend had been dumped, but Bobby Tom’s friends seemed to think this was unbelievably funny, and she was certain they’d been ribbing him about it all evening. She knew what kind of blow this would be to his pride, and a vague sense of apprehension settled around her pain.
Luther picked up the glass fishbowl containing the stubs of the raffle tickets that she’d given him earlier and gestured for her to approach. “Before Bobby Tom recognizes our guests tonight, we’re going to draw for the beautiful quilt the folks at Arbor Hills Nursing Home are raffling off. Most of you folks know Gracie Snow. We sure are going to miss her after she leaves and let’s give her a big round of applause for all the hard work she’s done.”
Enthusiastic applause broke out, accompanied by some loud whistles. She reached into the fishbowl to draw out the winner.
“Number one-three-seven.”
The ticket, as it turned out, was the one the crew members had bought for Elvis, who awakened as his mother brought him forward. Gracie handed over the quilt to Natalie and gave the winner a special hug and kiss, realizing, as she did, how much she was going to miss this sweet-tempered baby. With the drawing completed, she tried to step down off the platform only to discover that Luther was in the way.
Bobby Tom approached the microphone and launched into a routine that would have done a stand-up comic proud. As he poked fun at his friends’ golf games and his own poor score, she thought she’d never seen him more entertaining. His eyes fairly glowed with happiness, and his grin would have done justice to a toothpaste model. She had the dismal thought that he couldn’t have found a better way to let the crowd know that he wasn’t the one suffering from a broken heart.
He finished recognizing the athletes, and she waited for him to step back from the mike so she could slip away. Instead, he looked over at her. “Before we start the dancing again, I have one more announcement to make . . .”
A trickle of alarm slithered down her spine.
“Some of you might have heard that Gracie and I broke our engagement. You might also have noticed that she’s pretty mad at me right now.” Once again his mouth curled in a grin so engaging that it was impossible to imagine anyone other than the world’s most unreasonable person ever being upset with him.
She prayed for him to stop. She couldn’t bear the idea that he was going to somehow hold up her private misery in front of this crowd for everyone to see, but he continued to talk.
“The thing of it is, there are engagements and then there are engagements, and it turns out Gracie and I were only engaged to be engaged. But now it’s time to do this right. Bring Gracie over here, Luther, because she’s still mad at me, and I doubt she’s going to come on her own.”
She would never forgive him for this, she thought, as Luther gave a hearty chortle and pulled her forward. She looked down at Terry Jo, at Natalie and Toolee Chandler all standing before her in the crowd, wordlessly begging one of them to help her, but they were all smiling. Bobby Tom’s friends seemed to be enjoying this, too.
He wrapped his arm around her and gazed down into her stricken face. “Gracie, right here in front of God, the hometown crowd, and all these gym rats that I call my friends, I’m asking you to do me the honor of becoming my wife.” He put his palm over the microphone and leaned down to whisper, “I love you, honey, and this time’s for real.”
An awful shudder ripped through her. She never imagined anything could hurt this badly. The crowd laughed and clapped. These were the people he’d grown up with, the men who were his friends, and there was no way in the world he could tolerate any of them seeing him as a loser. He’d lied when he said he loved her. Lies came easily to him, and to save his reputation, he was willing to destroy her.
Her soft, choked words were for his ears alone. “I can’t marry you, Bobby Tom. I deserve something better.”
Only as her voice came back to her, amplified by the speakers, did she realize he’d removed his hand from the microphone before she spoke. The laughter of the audience abruptly stopped. There were a few nervous chuckles, and then as people realized she was serious, utter silence.
Bobby Tom’s face had gone pale. Stricken, she gazed into his eyes. She hadn’t wanted to humiliate him, but the words were spoken and she wouldn’t take them back because they were true.
She waited for him to come up with some sort of wisecrack to defuse the situation, but he didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, backing away. “I’m really sorry.” She turned and rushed off the platform.
As she pushed through the stunned, silent crowd, she waited to hear his lazy drawl, his endearing chuckle amplified by the microphone for the hometown crowd. In her mind, she could even hear the words he would choose.
Whooee! Now that, folks, is one mad little lady. Bet it’s gonna cost me more than a bottle of champagne and a night on the town to get her settled down.
She pushed forward, stumbling once on the hem of her long dress, and then she heard his voice, just as she’d known she would. But instead of
the words she had imagined, the loudspeakers crackled with rage and hostility.
“Go on, Gracie! Get out of here! We both know I was just trying to do you a favor. Shit; Why the hell would I want to marry somebody like you? Now get out of here! Get the hell out of my life, and don’t ever let me see your face again!”
