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Turning his back to the window, he walked over to the desk, hooked the modem from his laptop computer into the telephone line, and sat down. But his hands fell still before he typed in the commands to access his electronic mail. He wasn’t in the mood to work on any of his business deals tonight.
He kept seeing the expression on Gracie’s face when she’d spotted the Mississippi River. How long had it been since he’d felt that kind of enthusiasm? All day, Gracie had pointed out things he’d ceased to notice years ago: a cloud formation, a truck driver who looked like Willie Nelson, a child waving at them through the rear window of the family van. When had he lost touch with ordinary pleasures?
He glanced down at his keyboard and remembered how much he used to enjoy wheeling and dealing. At first he’d played around in the stock market, but then he’d bought into a small sporting goods company. After that, he’d invested in a radio station followed by an athletic sneaker company. He’d made mistakes along the way, but he’d also made a lot of money. Now he couldn’t seem to remember what the point of it all had been. He’d thought that making a movie might be a good way to distract himself, but with shooting about to begin, he couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for that idea either.
He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Tonight he’d promised Shag to help launch his new restaurant. He’d lent Ellie money and told AJ. he’d let his nephew interview him for his high school newspaper. To his way of thinking, a person who’d been star-kissed from the moment he was born didn’t have the right to say no, but sometimes he felt as if he was slowly suffocating from all the demands people made on him.
Now he had to go to Telarosa to make another payment on the debt he owed the small town that had nurtured him, and he’d gotten cold feet. Despite the fact that he was the one who’d insisted the filming take place there, he wasn’t ready to face all of’ them. He knew he was a has-been, but they wouldn’t have figured it out yet, and they were still going to want a piece of him.
His presence would stir things up, as it always did, and not everybody would welcome him with open arms. He’d had a nasty confrontation with Way Sawyer a few months back over Sawyer’s plan to move Rosatech, the electronics firm that supplied Telarosa with its economic lifeblood. The man was ruthless, and Bobby Tom didn’t look forward to seeing him again. He’d also have to deal with Jimbo Thackery, the town’s new chief of police and Bobby Tom’s enemy from grade school days. Worst of all, there would be a whole flock of women who had no idea that his sex drive had just about disappeared along with his football career, and, no matter what, he had to make certain they stayed ignorant.
He stared blindly down at the keyboard. What was he going to do with the rest of his life? He’d lived with glory for so long that he had no idea how to live without it. From childhood he’d always been the best: All-State, All-American, All-Pro. But he wasn’t the best any longer. Successful men weren’t supposed to face this kind of crisis until they retired in their sixties. But he’d retired at thirty-three, and he had no idea who he was any longer. He knew how to be a great wide receiver, he knew how to be the Most Valuable Player, but he had no idea how to be an ordinary human being.
A particularly prolonged female moan coming from the television interrupted his thoughts, and he frowned as he remembered he wasn’t alone. Genuine amusement had become increasingly rare in his life, which was why he’d kept Gracie Snow around for the day, but as he recalled his body’s reaction to her arousal, he no longer felt like laughing. Getting turned on by a charity case like Gracie was—in a way he didn’t want to examine too closely—somehow the final indignity, a tangible symbol of how far he’d come down in the world. Not that she wasn’t a real nice lady, but she definitely wasn’t Bobby Tom Denton material.
Right then he made up his mind. He had enough problems in his life, and he didn’t need any more. First thing tomorrow, he was getting rid of her.
4
Church bells rang outside the window as Gracie crossed to the bedroom door and tapped gently. “Bobby Tom, breakfast is here.”
Nothing.
“Bobby Tom?”
“You’re real,” he groaned. “I was hoping you were only a bad dream.”
“I ordered breakfast from room service, and it’s here.”
“Go away.”
“It’s seven o’clock. We have a twelve-hour drive ahead of us. We really need to get on the road.”
“This room has a balcony, sweetheart. If you don’t leave me alone, I’m throwing you right over the top of it.”
She retreated from his bedroom door and walked to the table, where she nibbled at a blueberry pancake, but she was too tired to eat. All night long, she’d awakened at the slightest noise, certain Bobby Tom would slip out while she slept.
At eight o’clock, after she’d called Willow to report on her questionable progress, she tried again to rouse him. “Bobby Tom, are you finished sleeping yet because we really must leave?”
Nothing.
She opened the door gingerly and her mouth went dry as she saw him sprawled naked on his stomach with the sheet twisted around his hips. His legs were splayed, one of them bent. Despite the angry scars behind his right knee, they were strong and beautiful. The skin looked bronzed against the stark white sheet and the golden hair on his calves shimmered in the morning light that crept through a slit in the drapes. One foot was buried in the blanket at the bottom of the bed; the other was long and narrow with a high, well-defined arch. Her eyes lingered over the ugly red puckered scars on his right knee, then rose to his thighs and the sheet that wound round his hips. If only that sheet were three inches higher. . . .
She was shocked by the force of her desire to see that most private part of him. All the nude male bodies she had seen in her lifetime were old. Would Bobby Tom look like those men in the movie last night? She shivered.
He rolled over, taking the sheet with him. His hair was thick and rumpled, with a trace of curl at the temples. The skin on his cheek held a crease from the pillow.
“Bobby Tom,” she said softly.
One eye opened a fraction of an inch, and his voice was gravelly from sleep. “Get naked or get out.”
She walked determinedly over to the windows and pulled the cord on the draperies. “Someone certainly is grouchy this morning.”
He groaned as light flooded the room. “Gracie, your life is in serious jeopardy.”
/> “Would you like me to turn on the shower for you?”
“You gonna scrub my back, too?”
