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Dallie looked up from the floor. “Are you telling me the truth? No His and Hers? No long-term plans?”
“Of course I'm telling the truth.”
“Are you sure? There's something funny in your face when you look at me.”
She tossed herself down into a chair and gazed around the room as if the caramel-colored walls and floor-to-ceiling bookcases were far more interesting than the man in front of her. “Fascination, darling,” she said airily, draping a bare leg over the arm of the chair and arching her foot. “You are, after all, rather one of a kind.”
“It's nothing more than fascination?”
“Gracious, Dallie. I don't mean to insult you, but I'm hardly the kind of woman who would fall in love with an impoverished Texas golf pro.” Yes, I am, she admitted silently. I'm exactly that kind of woman.
“Now, you do have a point there. To tell you the truth, I can't imagine you falling in love with an impoverished anybody.”
She decided the time had come to salvage another small remnant of her pride, so she stood and stretched, revealing the bottom edge of the black silk underpants. “Well, darling, I think I'll leave, since you seem to have other things to occupy your time.”
He looked at her for a minute as if he were making up his mind about something. Then he gestured toward the opposite side of the room with his putter. “Actually, I thought you might want to help me out here. Go on and stand over there, will you?”
“Why?”
“Just you never mind. I'm the man. You're the woman. You do what I say.”
She made a face, then did as he asked, taking her time as she moved.
“Now slip off that T-shirt,” he ordered.
“Dallie!”
“Come on, this is serious, and I don't have all night.”
He didn't look at all serious, so she obediently pulled off the T-shirt, taking her time and feeling a warm rush through her body as she revealed herself to him.
He took in her bare breasts and the silky black bikini underpants. Then he gave an admiring whistle. “Now, that's nice, honey. That is real inspiring stuff. This is going to work out even better than I thought.”
“What's going to work out?” she inquired warily.
“Something all us golf pros do for practice. You arrange yourself lying down in the position of my choice on the carpet right there. When you're ready, you slip off those panties, call out some specific part of your body, and I see how close I can get with my putt. It's the best exercise in the world for improving a golfer's concentration.”
Francesca smiled and planted one hand on her bare hip. “And I can just imagine how much fun it is to fetch the balls when you're done.”
“Damn, but you British women are smart.”
“Too smart to let you get away with this.”
“I was afraid you'd say that.” He propped his putter up against a chair and began to walk toward her. “Guess we'll just have to find something else to occupy our time.”
“Like what?”
He reached out and pulled her into his arms. “I don't know. But I'm thinking real hard.”
Later, as she lay in his arms drowsy from lovemaking, she considered how strange it was that a woman who had turned down the Prince of Wales had fallen in love with Dallie Beaudine. She tilted her head so that her lips touched his bare chest and gave his skin a soft kiss. Just before she drifted off to sleep, she told herself that she would make him care for her. She would become exactly the woman he wanted her to be, and then he would love her as much as she loved him.
Sleep didn't come so easily to Dallie—either that night or for the next few weeks. He could feel Halloween beating down on him, and he lay awake trying to distract himself by playing a round of golf in his head or thinking about Francesca. For a woman who painted herself as one of the world's great sophisticates just because she'd run around Europe eating snails, Miss Fancy Pants would have learned à hell of a lot more, in his opinion, if she'd spent a few half-times on a stadium blanket under the bleachers at Wynette High.
She didn't seem to have logged enough hours between the bedposts to really relax with him, and he could see her worrying about whether she had her hands in the right place or whether she was moving in a way that would please him. It was hard for him to enjoy' himself with all that single-minded dedication coming his way.
He knew she had half convinced herself she was in love with him, even though it wouldn't take her more than twenty-four hours back in London before she would have forgotten his name. Still, he had to admit that when he finally got her on that plane, part of him was actually going to miss her, despite the fact that she was a feisty little thing who wasn't giving up her stuck-up ways easy. She couldn't pass a mirror without spending a day and a half looking at herself, and she left a mess everywhere she went, as if she expected some servant to come along after her and clean up. Even so, he had to admit that she seemed to be making an effort. She ran errands into town for Miss Sybil and took care of that damned walleyed cat and tried to get along with Skeet by telling him stories about all the movie stars she'd met. She'd even started reading J. D. Salinger. More important, she finally seemed to be getting the idea that the world hadn't been created just for her benefit.
One thing he knew for sure. He would be sending old Nicky back a hell of a better woman than the one Nicky'd sent him.
