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Ignoring her, he made his way to the rear of the car, where he pulled her suitcase from the trunk.
She rushed to his side. “We’re both reasonable people. I’m sure we can work out a compromise. I’m sure we—”
“I’m sure we can’t. They’ll call a cab for you inside.” He dropped her suitcase on the pavement, climbed back into the Thunderbird, and started the car with a roar.
Without giving herself time to think, she threw herself to the pavement in front of the tires and squeezed her eyes shut.
Long, tension-laden seconds ticked by. The heat of the asphalt penetrated her one-size-fits-all mustard brown wrap dress. The smell of exhaust made her head spin. She felt his shadow fall over her.
“In the interest of saving your life, the two of us are going to make a deal.”
She eased her eyes open. “What sort of deal?”
“I’ll stop trying to ditch you—”
“That’s fair.”
“—if you do what I say for the rest of the trip.”
She thought it over as she rose to her feet. “I don’t believe that’s going to work,” she said carefully. “In case no one has ever pointed it out to you, you’re not always reasonable.”
Beneath the brim of his Stetson, his eyes had narrowed. “Take it or leave it, Gracie. If you want to be a passenger in this car, you’re going to have to set your bossy ways aside and do what you’re told.”
When he put it like that, she didn’t have much choice, and she decided to give in graciously. “Very well.”
He returned her suitcase to the trunk. She resettled in the passenger seat. When he got back in, he gave the ignition key an angry twist.
She glanced at her watch and then the map she had been perusing earlier. “Just one thing before we start. You might not have realized it, but it’s almost ten, and you have to be on the set by eight o’clock tomorrow morning. We have about seven hundred miles to travel, and it looks as if the shortest route—”
Bobby Tom tore the map, from her hand, balled it in his fist, and threw it out of the car. Minutes later they were back on the freeway.
Unfortunately, they were heading east.
By Tuesday night, Gracie had to acknowledge the fact that she was a failure. As she stared at the wipers sweeping half-moons across the Thunderbird’s windshield and listened to the rain spattering on the top above her, she mulled over the past few days. Despite making it as far as Dallas, she hadn’t been able to deliver Bobby Tom to Telarosa on time.
Droplets of water glistened on the hood of the car from the passing headlights. She tried not to dwell on Willow’s angry phone calls and, inst
ead, attempted to look at the positive side of the situation. In the past few days, she’d seen more of the country than she’d ever imagined, and she’d met the most interesting people: country and western singers, aerobics instructors, lots of football players, and a very nice transvestite who’d shown her some clever ways to tie a scarf.
Best of all, Bobby Tom hadn’t tried to shake her off. She still wasn’t entirely certain why he hadn’t ditched her in Memphis, but sometimes she had the eerie sense he didn’t want to be alone. With the exception of that one unfortunate incident when he’d stopped the car on a bridge, dragged her to the side, and threatened to toss her over, they’d gotten along very well. Even so, tonight she found herself feeling decidedly awkward.
“You comfortable over there, Gracie?”
She kept her eyes on the wiper blades. “I’m fine, Bobby Tom. Thank you for asking.”
“You look like you’re sort of squished against the door handle. This isn’t really a three passenger car. You sure you don’t want me to take you back to the hotel?”
“I’m positive.”
“Bobby Tom, sweetie, is she plannin’ to stay with us all night?” Cheryl Lynn Howell, his date for the evening, sounded petulant as she snuggled into his shoulder.
“She’s kind of hard to shake, honey. Why don’t you just pretend she’s not here?”
“That’s hard to do when you keep talking to her. I swear, Bobby Tom, you talked more to her this evening than you did to me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, honey. She didn’t even sit with us at the restaurant.”
“She sat at the next table and you kept turning around to ask her questions. Besides, I don’t know what you need a bodyguard for.”
