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They all turned to look at her. Ted offered up his public Jesus smile, but the fires of hell burned in his eyes. “Meg, if you wouldn’t mind . . .”
“What did I do?”
Mark quickly pulled her aside and explained that letting a couple of golf clubs rattle together during a player’s swing was this big, whoppin’ crime against humanity. Like polluting streambeds and screwing up wetlands didn’t count.
After that Ted did his best to get her alone, but she managed to avoid him until the third hole when a crappy drive put him in a fairway sand trap—a bunker, they called it. The whole subservient routine of lugging his bag and being instructed to call him “sir”—which she’d so far managed to avoid—made it imperative that she strike first.
“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t gotten me fired from the inn.”
He had the audacity to look outraged. “I didn’t get you fired. It was Larry Stellman. You woke him up from his nap two days in a row.”
“That five hundred dollars you offered me is in the top pocket of your bag. I’ll expect some of it back as a very generous tip.”
He clenched his jaw. “Do you have any idea how important today is?”
“I was eavesdropping on your conversation last night, remember? So I know exactly what’s at stake and how much you want to impress your hotshot guest today.”
“And yet here you are.”
“Yes, well, this is one disaster you can’t blame on me. Although I can see you’re going to.”
“I don’t know how you managed to talk your way into caddying, but if you think for one minute—”
“Listen up, Theodore.” She slapped one hand on the edge of his bag. “I was coerced into this. I hate golf, and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. None whatsoever, got it? So I suggest you try really hard not to make me any more nervous than I already am.” She stepped back. “Now stop talking and hit the damned ball. And this time I’d appreciate it if you hit it straight so I don’t have to keep walking all over the place after you.”
He gave her a murderous look totally out of place with his saintly reputation and yanked a club from his bag, proving he was perfectly capable of dealing with his own equipment. “As soon as this is over, you and I are going to have our final reckoning.” He struck the ball with a massive, rage-fueled swing that sent sand flying. The shot bounced ten yards in front of the green, rolled up the slope to the pin, hung on the lip of the cup, and dropped in.
“Impressive,” she said. “I didn’t know I was such a good golf coach.”
He threw the club at her feet and stalked away as the other players called out their congratulations from across the fairway.
“How ’bout you toss some of that luck my way?” Skipjack’s Texas drawl couldn’t be genuine, since he was from Indiana, but he was clearly a man who liked to be one of the boys.
On the next green, she was the caddy closest to the flag. As Ted lined up his putt, Mark sent her a subtle nod. She’d already learned her lesson about not making sudden moves, so even though everybody started to yell, she waited until Ted’s ball hit the flag and dropped in before she pulled the pin from the cup.
Dallie groaned. Kenny grinned. Ted lowered his head, and Spencer Skipjack crowed. “Looks like your caddy just took you out of this hole, Ted.”
Meg forgot she was supposed to be mute—along with efficient, cheerful, and subservient. “What did I do?”
Mark had gone pale from his forehead to his polo shirt logo. “I’m really sorry about that, Mr. Beaudine.” He addressed her with grim patience. “Meg, you can’t let the ball hit the pin. It’s a penalty.”
“The player gets penalized for a caddy’s mistake?” she said. “That’s stupid. The ball would have gone in anyway.”
“Don’t feel bad, honey,” Skipjack said cheerfully. “It could have happened to anybody.”
Because of his handicap, Skipjack got an extra stroke, and he didn’t try to hold back his glee after they’d all putted out. “Looks like my net birdie just won us the hole, partner.” He slapped Kenny on the back. “Reminds me of the time I played with Bill Murray and Ray Romano at Cypress Point. Talk about characters . . .”
Ted and Dallie were now one hole down, but Ted put a good public face on it—no surprise. “We’ll make it up on the next hole.” The private glare he shot her sent a message she had no trouble interpreting.
“This is a ridiculous game,” she muttered a little over twenty minutes later after she once again took Ted out of competition by violating another ridiculous rule. Trying to be a good caddy, she’d picked up Ted’s ball to clean off some muck only to discover she wasn’t allowed to do that until it was on the green and marked. Like that made any sense.
“Good thing you birdied one and two, son,” Dallie said. “You sure do have some bad luck going for us.”
She saw no sense in ignoring the obvious. “I’m the bad luck.”
Mark shot her a warning glare for violating the no-talking rule and not calling Dallie “sir,” but Spencer Skipjack chuckled. “At least she’s honest. More than I can say for most women.”
It was Ted’s turn to send her a warning glare, this one forbidding her to comment on the idiocy of a man stereotyping an entire gender. She didn’t like the way Ted was reading her mind. And she really didn’t like Spencer Skipjack, who was a blowhard and a name-dropper.
