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He abruptly shoved back the covers and got out of bed wearing nothing more than his white cotton briefs. She let herself enjoy the sight of those tight muscles rippling across his shoulders and the strength in the backs of his thighs. She wondered what man had first come up with the notion that women didn't enjoy looking at men's bodies. Probably some egghead Ph.D. with four chins and a potbelly.
Dallie turned and caught her studying him. He scowled, even though she knew he probably enjoyed it. “I've got to locate Skeet and make sure he gave her money for a plane ticket home. If she roams around by herself for too long, she's bound to get into more trouble than she can handle.”
Holly Grace looked at him more closely, and an unaccustomed pang of jealousy hit her. It had been a long time since she'd minded Dallie having other women, especially since she collected more than her fair share of good-looking men. But she didn't like the idea of having him care too much about any woman who didn't meet with her approval, which showed exactly what kind of narrow-minded Christian she was. “You really liked her, didn't you?”
“She was all right,” he replied noncommittally.
Holly Grace wanted to know more, like how good Miss Fancy Pants could really be in bed after Dallie had already had the best. But she knew that he would call her a hypocrite, so she set aside her curiosity for the moment. Besides, now that he was finally awake, she could tell him her really important news. Moving to a cross-legged position in the middle of the bed, she filled him in on her morning.
He reacted just about the way she had expected he would.
She told him he could go straight to hell.
He said he was glad about the job, but her attitude bothered him.
“My attitude is my own damn business,” she retorted.
“One of these days you're going to learn that happiness isn't wrapped up in a dollar bill,
Holly Grace. There's more involved than that.”
“Since when did you get to be such an expert on happiness? It should be pretty much apparent to anyone who isn't half brain-dead that rich is better than poor and that just because you intend to be a failure all your life doesn't mean I'm going to be one, too.”
They kept on hurting each other like that for a while, then they spent a few minutes stomping around the bedroom without talking. Dallie made a phone call to Skeet; Holly Grace went into the bathroom and got dressed. In the old days they would have broken their stony silence with angry lovemaking, trying unsuccessfully to use their bodies to solve all the problems that their minds couldn't handle. But now they didn't touch each other, and gradually their anger ran out of steam. Finally, they went downstairs together and shared the rest of Miss Sybil's coffee.
The man behind the wheel of the Cadillac frightened Francesca, although he was handsome in a scary sort of way. He had curly black hair, a compact body, and dark, angry eyes, which kept darting nervously toward the rearview mirror. She had an uncomfortable feeling that she'd seen that face someplace before, but she couldn't remember where. Why hadn't she stopped to think more clearly when he'd offered her a ride instead of just jumping into the Cadillac? Like a fool, she had barely looked at him; she'd just climbed in. When she had asked him what he'd been doing in front of Dallie's house, he had said he was a chauffeur and that his passenger didn't need him any longer.
She tried to shift her feet out from under the cat, but he planted his weight more firmly across them and she gave up. The man looked over at her through a cloud of cigarette smoke and then glanced again into the rearview mirror. His nervousness bothered her. He was. acting like some sort of fugitive. She shivered. Maybe he wasn't really a chauffeur. Maybe this was a stolen car. If only she'd let Skeet drive her to the airport in San Antonio this wouldn't have happened. Once again she'd made the wrong choice. Dallie had been right every one of the dozen times he'd told her she didn't have any common sense.
Dallie... She bit her lip and pulled her cosmetic case closer to her hip. While she had sat numbly in the kitchen, Miss Sybil had gone upstairs and gotten her things together for her. Then Miss Sybil had handed her an envelope containing enough money to buy an airplane ticket to London, along with a little extra to tide her over. Francesca had stared down at the envelope, knowing that she couldn't take it, not now that she had begun to think about things like pride and self-respect. If she took the envelope she would be nothing more than a whore being paid off for services rendered. If she didn't take it...
She had taken the envelope and felt as if something bright and innocent had died forever inside her. She couldn't meet Miss Sybil's eyes as she slipped the money inside her case. The lock clicked and her stomach rebelled. Dear God, what if she really was pregnant? Only by swallowing hard could she prevent herself from losing the slice of toast Miss Sybil had forced her to eat. The elderly woman's voice had been kinder than usual as she said that Skeet would drive her to the airport.
Francesca had shaken her head and announced in her haughtiest voice that she had already made plans. Then, before she could further humiliate herself by clinging to Miss Sybil's thin chest and begging her to tell her what to do, she had grabbed her case and run out the door.
The Cadillac hit a rut, jolting her to one side, and she realized that they had left the highway. She stared out at the rutted, unpaved road that lay like a dusty ribbon across the flat, bleak landscape. They had left the hill country behind some time before. Shouldn't they be close to San Antonio by now? The knot in her stomach twisted tighter. The Cadillac bounced again, and the cat shifted its weight on her feet and looked up at her with a baleful glare, as if she were personally responsible for the bumpy ride. After several more miles had slipped by, she said, “Are you certain this is right? This road doesn't look very well traveled.”
The man lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of his old one, then snatched up the map that lay on the seat between them.
Francesca was wiser now than she had been a month before, and she studied the shadows thrown by a few scraggly mesquite. “West!” she exclaimed after a few moments. “We're going west. This isn't the way to San Antonio.”
“It's a shortcut,” he said, tossing down the map.
She felt as if her throat were closing up. Rape... murder... an escaped convict and a mutilated female body left at the side of the road. She couldn't take any more. She was heartsick and exhausted, and she had no resources left to deal with another catastrophe. She fruitlessly searched the flat horizon for the sight of another car. All she could see was the tiny skeletal finger of a radio antenna standing miles in the distance. “I want you to let me out,” she said, trying to keep her tone normal, as if being murdered on a deserted road by a crazed fugitive were the furthest thing from her mind.
“I can't do that,” he said. And then he looked over at her, his eyes hard black marbles. “Just stay with me till we get closer to the Mexican border, and then I'll let you go.”
Dread coiled like a snake in the pit of her stomach.
He took a deep drag on the cigarette. “Look, I'm not going to hurt you, so you don't have to get nervous. I'm a completely nonviolent person. I just need to get to the border, and I want two people in the car instead of one. There was a woman with me earlier, but while I was waiting for her, this cop car turned onto the street. And then I saw you walking down the sidewalk with that suitcase in your hand....”
If he had meant to reassure her with his explanation, it didn't work. She realized that he truly was a fugitive, just as she'd feared. She tried to suppress the hysteria creeping through her, but she couldn't control it. As he slowed the car for another rut, she grabbed for the door handle.
“Hey!” He hit the brake and caught her by the arm. The car skidded to a full stop. “Don't do that. I'm not going to hurt you.”
She tried to twist away from him, but his fingers bit into her arm. She screamed. The cat jumped up from the floor, landing with its rump on her leg and its front paws on the seat. “Let me out!” she screeched.
He held her fast, talking with the cigarette clamped in his mouth. “Hey, it's okay. I just need to get nearer the border before—”
