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He waited until she’d almost gotten away from him be-fore he called her back. “Gracie?”
She turned, her eyes wary.
“About those condoms, sweetheart. Make sure you get the jumbos. Anything smaller is too tight a fit.”
Until then, Bobby Tom had never seen a woman blush on top of a blush, but Gracie managed it. She fumbled for her sunglasses, slapped them back over her eyes, and fled.
He chuckled softly. He knew he should feel bad about bullying her, but instead, he was inordinately pleased with himself. Gracie was one of those women who could drive a man crazy if he let her. All in all, it was better to establish the natural order of things right from the beginning.
An hour later, with her purchases made, she pulled out of the drugstore parking lot in Bobby Tom’s Thunderbird. Her cheeks still burned as she remembered what had just happened at the pharmacy counter. After having reminded herself that modern, socially aware women purchased condoms all the time, she had finally worked up enough nerve to set her purchase next to the register only to have Suzy Denton come up to her at exactly that moment.
The box had sat in plain view like a ticking grenade. Suzy saw it, of course, and immediately busied herself studying a photograph of a two-headed dog on the front page of one of the tabloids. Gracie had wanted to die.
Now she shared her feelings with Elvis, who was tucked into an infant car seat next to her. “Just when I think I can’t embarrass myself in front of Suzy any more than I already have, something else happens.”
Elvis burped.
She smiled despite herself. “Easy for you to say. You weren’t the one buying the condoms.”
He chortled and blew a saliva bubble. As she’d been leaving the ranch, she’d run into Natalie, who was frantically dashing around trying to find someone reliable to watch over Elvis for an hour or so while she filmed her first scene of the day. When Gracie had volunteered, Natalie had showered her with gratitude and a lengthy series of instructions, relaxing only when Gracie had finally started taking notes.
Gracie’s hangover had disappeared and her head no longer ached. She’d retrieved a clean dress, a sadly wrinkled black-and-brown—striped shirtwaist, from the suitcase in the trunk and changed into it in the motor home before she’d left. Now, she once again felt human.
She had just reached the edge of the town when a pungent odor prickled her nostrils, followed by the unhappy sounds of a baby who didn’t like lying around in a dirty diaper. She looked over at him. “You stinker.”
He puckered up his face and began to wail. There was no traffic coming so she pulled to the side of the road, where she managed to change the baby. She had just resettled behind the wheel when she was distracted by the crunch of tires in gravel.
As she turned in her seat, she watched an imposing-looking man in a beautifully tailored light gray suit clim
b out of a burgundy BMW parked on the shoulder of the road behind her. For an older man, he was very attractive: short dark hair barely flecked with gray, an arresting face, and a powerful body that didn’t seem to have an extra ounce of
fat on it.
“Do you need help?” he asked, coming to a stop next to the side of the car.
“No, but thank you.” She nodded toward the baby. “I had to change a diaper.”
“I see.” He smiled at her, and she found herself smiling back. It was nice to know there were still people in the world who would inconvenience themselves to help out someone else.
“This is Bobby Tom Denton’s car, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. I’m his assistant, Gracie Snow.”
“Hello, Gracie Snow. I’m Way Sawyer.”
Her eyes widened ever so slightly as she remembered the conversations she’d overheard on the car phone between Bobby Tom and Mayor Baines. So this was the man everyone in Telarosa was talking about. She realized this was the first time she’d heard Way Sawyer’s name without the words “that sonovabitch” in front of it.
“I take it you’ve heard of me,” he said.
She sidestepped. “I’ve only been in town a little over a day.”
“Then you’ve heard of me.” He grinned and tilted his head toward Elvis, who had once again begun to squirm in his seat. “Is that your baby?”
“Oh, no. He belongs to Natalie Brooks, the actress. I’m baby-sitting.”
“This sun’s in his eyes,” he said. “You’d better get back on the road. Nice meeting you, Gracie Snow.” With a nod, he turned away and began walking back to his car.
“Nice meeting you, too, Mr. Sawyer,” Gracie called after him. “And thanks for stopping. Not everyone would have.”
