AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Last time I was in Vegas, I ran into Michael Jordan in one of the private rooms . . .”
She managed to survive the seventh hole without breaking any more rules, but her shoulders ached, her new sneakers were rubbing a blister on her little toe, the heat was getting to her, and she had eleven miserable holes to go. Being forced to lug around a thirty-five-pound bag of golf clubs for a six-foot-two athletic champion, who was perfectly capable of doing the job himself, seemed increasingly ludicrous. If these healthy, strong-bodied men were too lazy to carry their own clubs, why didn’t they take golf carts? The whole caddying thing made no sense. Except . . .
“Fine shot, Mr. Skipjack. You really nailed that one,” Mark said with an admiring nod.
“Way to play the wind, Mr. Traveler,” Lenny said.
“You spun that like a top,” Skeet Cooper offered up to Ted’s father.
As she listened to the caddies praise the players, she concluded this was all about ego. About having your personal cheering squad. She decided to test her theory. “Wow!” she exclaimed on the next tee after Ted hit. “Cool drive. You really hit that far. Very far. All the way . . . down there.”
The men turned to stare at her. There was a long pause. Finally, Kenny spoke. “I sure wish I could hit a ball like that.” Another long pause. “Far.”
She vowed not to say another word, and she might have been able to stick to that vow if Spencer Skipjack hadn’t liked to talk so much. “Pay attention, Miz Meg. I’m gonna use a little tip I picked up from Phil Mickelson to set this one right next to the pin.”
Ted tensed up just as he’d been doing whenever Skipjack addressed her. He expected her to sabotage him, and she definitely would have if only his happiness and well-being were at stake. But something else hung in the balance.
She was facing an impossible dilemma. The last thing the planet needed was another golf course sucking up its natural resources, but it was obvious even to her how much the tow
n was suffering. Each issue of the local paper reported another small business closing or one more hard-pressed charity unable to keep up with an increased demand for its services. And how could she be judgmental of others when she was living a life that was anything but green, starting with her gas-guzzling car? No matter what she did now, she’d be a hypocrite, so she followed her instincts, abandoned a few more of her principles, and played the good soldier for the town that hated her. “Watching you hit a golf ball is pure pleasure, Mr. Skipjack.”
“Naw. I’m only a hacker compared to these boys.”
“But they get to play golf full-time,” she said. “You have a real job.”
She thought she heard Kenny Traveler snort.
Skipjack laughed and told her he wished she was his caddy, even though she didn’t know a damn thing about golf and he’d need more than seven strokes to make up for her mistakes.
When they stopped at the clubhouse between the ninth and tenth holes, the match was even—four holes for Ted and Dallie, four for Kenny and Spencer, one hole tied. She got a short break—not the nap she dreamed of, but enough time to splash cold water on her face and tape up her blisters. Mark pulled her aside and dressed her down for getting too familiar with the members, making too much noise on the course, not sticking close enough to her player, and shooting Ted dirty looks. “Ted Beaudine is the nicest guy in the club. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. He treats everybody on the staff with respect, and he gives big tips.”
Somehow she suspected that might not apply to her.
As Mark walked off to suck up to Kenny, she approached Ted’s big navy bag with loathing. The gold head covers matched the bag’s stitching. Only two head covers. Apparently she’d already lost one. Ted came up behind her, frowned at the missing head cover, then at her. “You’re getting way too cozy with Skipjack. Back off.”
So much for playing the good soldier. She kept her voice low. “I grew up in Hollywood, so I understand ego-driven men like him better than you ever will.”
“That’s what you think.” He jammed the ball cap he was carrying on her head. “Wear a damn cap. We’ve got real sun here, not that watered-down California crap you’re used to.”
On the back nine, she knocked Ted and his father out of another hole because she yanked up a couple of weeds to give Ted a better shot. Yet even with the three holes she’d cost them—and Ted’s occasional errant shot when he tried too hard to conceal how pissed off he was at her—he was still highly competitive. “You’re playin’ a strange game today, son,” Dallie said. “Glimpses of brilliance paired with some mind-bogglin’ lunacy. I haven’t seen you play this good—or this bad—in years.”
“Heartbreak’ll do that to a man.” Kenny putted from the edge of the green. “Makes ’em go a little crazy.” His ball stopped a few inches short of the cup.
“Plus the humiliation of everybody in town still feeling sorry for him behind his back.” Skeet, the only caddy allowed to be on familiar terms with the players, brushed away some debris that had fallen on the green.
Dallie stepped up to his putt. “I tried to show him by example how to hold on to a woman. Kid didn’t pay attention.”
The men seemed to delight in poking fun at one another’s vulnerabilities. Even Ted’s own father. A test of manhood or something. If her girlfriends had gone after one another the way these guys did, somebody would have ended up in tears. But Ted merely delivered his leisurely smile, waited his turn, and sank his putt from ten feet away.
As the men walked off the green, Kenny Traveler, for a reason she couldn’t fathom, decided to tell Spencer Skipjack who her parents were. Skipjack’s eyes lit up. “Jake Koranda’s your father? Now that is really something. Here I thought you were caddying for money.” He shot a look between her and Ted. “You two a couple now?”
“No!” she said.
“Afraid not,” Ted said easily. “As you might guess, I’m still trying to recover from my broken engagement.”
“I don’t think they call it a broken engagement when you get dumped at the altar,” Kenny pointed out. “That’s more commonly known as a catastrophe.”
How could Ted be so worried about her embarrassing him today when his own friends were doing the job so well? But Skipjack seemed to be having the time of his life, and she realized their insider chatter made him feel as if he were one of them. Kenny and Dallie, for all their dumb-ass, good ol’ boy ways, had his number.
