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“What the hell’s he talking about?”
Ted gave him a pitying look, as if he were thirty-three and Kenny twenty-two. “Just what he’s been saying for years, is all. That some things are more important than golf.”
What kind of answer was that? Kenny was so frustrated he wanted to scream, but he couldn’t do that, so he gritted his teeth, grabbed his seven iron, and proceeded to hit his ball five yards over the green.
Emma, in the meantime, continued to ignore him. She smiled at Ted, laughed at one of Dallie’s jokes, regarded Skeet warily, and chatted away with Francesca. The few times she looked at Kenny, she had this closed-up expression on her face, as if she’d sealed herself away from him. It made Kenny feel guilty, which made him even madder.
He sweated through another glove, and his shirt was soaked as he pulled his second shot on number eighteen and ended up in heavy rough. He couldn’t let Dallie beat him. If that happened, it would be as if everything Dallie believed about him was right, as if, somehow, the suspension could be justified. In all his life, Kenny’d only done one thing really well, and now even that had deserted him.
Dallie’s second shot was a perfect lay-up in the middle of the fairway. Kenny wiped the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve and tried to ignore the cattle stampede that had started in his stomach. He had to dig this one out of the rough to get it close to the pin. One great shot. That’s what he needed to wipe the smug expression off Dallie’s face. One great shot.
Ted handed him his wedge. Kenny took his stance and drew back the club, but as he was about to connect, Emma sneezed. It distracted him just enough that he got too far under the ball, which caught the front of the green and came to a stop a good thirty feet below the pin.
He slammed the club head into the ground, an act of temper he hadn’t displayed on the golf course since he was seventeen. Then, Dallie had taken away the abused club, snapped it in half, and shoved it into Kenny’s bag. Guess you won’t be needing that club anymore.
“You got it a little fat,” Ted poin
ted out unnecessarily.
Dallie didn’t say a thing.
Francesca asked Emma if she’d steal Patrick’s recipe for lemon pound cake. Why wouldn’t they go away! Why wouldn’t those women take that damn, noisy, rattling golf cart and, even more important, the straw hat with its bobbing cherries, and get out of here!
Kenny threw the wedge back at Ted and marched toward the green. This was Emma’s fault! If she hadn’t shown up, he’d have been able to pull himself back together. But here she was sucking everything right out of him. Just like his mother used to do.
And then the miracle happened. Dallie’s approach shot, which was dead on line, caught a gust of wind that blew it long. The ball ended up nearly as far above the pin as Kenny was below it.
“Well, now, weren’t those two sorry excuses for golf shots,” Dallie said, as if it didn’t matter all that much.
It mattered to Kenny. Each of them had long putts, but Dallie’s was tougher, and Kenny had one of the steadiest putting strokes on tour. For the first time since the round had begun, Kenny began to feel some confidence. He was going to make this putt.
Dallie pointed to the small wooden bridge that led to the eighteenth green and reminded Francesca that she couldn’t take her cart across. “That’s all right,” she replied. “Emma and I need to stretch our legs anyway, don’t we?”
Emma said nothing, and he wondered if she had any idea what was at stake right now. As she got out of the cart, the gold wedding band he’d slipped on her finger caught the sun. He remembered the expression on her face when they’d spoken their vows, an endearing combination of earnestness and apprehension that had made him want to wrap her in his arms and tell her he wouldn’t ever let anything hurt her.
Behind him, the women’s sandals tapped on the wooden bridge as they crossed to the green. Kenny heard Francesca explain that it was the last hole, and the men were tied, and after all this time the entire match was coming down to a putting contest, and wasn’t golf the most ridiculous game.
He couldn’t argue with that. He whipped off his sodden glove and shoved it in his pocket, but even though his shirt was sticking like glue to his skin, he felt his old confidence surge back as he took his putter from Ted and approached the green. Over the years he’d played in more high-pressure rounds than he could count, and he wasn’t going to let Dallie psych him out like this.
He glanced at Emma, and when he saw the way she was watching him, a rush of adrenaline shot through his veins. This was the first time she’d seen him play, and, by damn, she wasn’t going to watch him lose to a man nearly twenty years his senior.
He finally felt as if he were in control. His stomach quieted, his mind settled, and, right then, he knew he had it. Nothing on earth was going to stop him from making this putt. Dallie Beaudine was about to learn that suspending Kenny Traveler had been the biggest mistake of his life.
He smiled to himself and looked over at Dallie, who had folded his arms over his chest and was studying the position of the two balls, one at the top of the green, one at the bottom, the pin in the center.
Then Dallie grinned. “Let’s have ourselves some real fun, Kenny, and leave this match up to the ladies.”
Kenny stared at him. “What?”
“Our wives. Let’s let them finish up for us.”
If Dallie had been speaking Greek, Kenny would have understood him better. “Our wives?”
“Sure.” Dallie turned and smiled down at the women, who were standing near a live oak tree. “Francie! Lady Emma! Kenny and I are tied up here. Just to make it interesting, we’ve decided we’re going to let the two of you putt out for us. Nobody’s playing behind us, so you can take all the time you need.”
Emma’s eyes widened, and Kenny exploded. “Bull! We’re not doing any such thing!”
The acting PGA commissioner turned to stare at him, his Newman-blue eyes icy. “I’ve decided that we are.”
