Fancy Pants

Chapter 27

Francesca pulled Teddy away from Holly Grace. With her son clasped to her side, she led him out of the hallway and toward the front of the house, intent on taking him upstairs, packing her things, and getting out of Wynette forever. But as she walked through the archway into the living room, she came to a dead stop.

The entire world seemed to have gathered to watch her life fall apart. Skeet Cooper stood by the window eating a piece of chocolate cake. Miss Sybil sat next to Doralee on the couch. The cleaning lady hired to help Miss Sybil had just come in through the front door. And Gerry Jaffe paced back and forth across the carpet.

Francesca turned to confront Holly Grace with Gerry's presence only to see that her best friend was preoccupied with wrapping her arm around Dallie's waist. If there had ever been any question in her

mind about where Holly Grace's loyalties lay, her protective attitude toward Dallie had just answered it. "Did you have to bring the entire world down here with you?" Francesca snapped.

Holly Grace looked past Francesca and, spotting Gerry for the first time, uttered an oath that Francesca would just as soon Teddy had not overheard.

Gerry looked like a man who could use a good night's sleep, and he immediately walked toward Holly Grace. "Couldn't you have called me and told me what was going on?"

"Called you?" Holly Grace shouted. "Why should I have called you, and what in the hell are you doing here?"

The cleaning lady took her time hanging up her coat while she regarded them all with ill-concealed curiosity. Dallie studied Gerry with a combination of hostility and interest. This was the only man besides himself who had been able to send the beauteous Holly Grace Beaudine into a tailspin.

Francesca felt a nagging ache start up at her temples.

"What do you mean, what the hell am I doing here?" Gerry said. "I called Naomi from Washington and found out that Teddy had been kidnapped and that you were all upset. What did you expect me to do? Stay in Washington and pretend nothing was wrong?"

The argument between Holly Grace and Gerry accelerated and then the telephone rang. Everyone, including the cleaning woman, ignored it. Francesca felt as if she was suffocating. All she could think about was that she had to get Teddy out of here. The telephone continued to ring and the cleaning lady finally began to move toward the kitchen to answer it. Holly Grace and Gerry abruptly lapsed into angry silence.

At that moment, Dallie looked over at Doralee. "Who's that?" he asked, his tone displaying little more than mild curiosity.

Skeet shook his head and shrugged.

Miss Sybil rummaged through her needlepoint bag for her canvas.

Holly Grace shot Francesca a disgusted glare.

Following the direction of his ex-wife's gaze, Dallie turned his head toward Francesca for an explanation.

"Her name is Doralee," Francesca informed him stiffly. "She needs a place to stay temporarily."

Dallie thought for a moment, and then nodded pleasantly. "Howdy, Doralee."

Sparks flashed in Holly Grace's eyes and her lips pursed ominously. "I don't believe the two of you! Haven't you got enough trouble without looking for more?"

The cleaning lady stuck her head back in the living room from the kitchen. "There's a phone call for

Miss Day."

Francesca ignored her. Although her head had begun to pound in earnest, she decided she'd taken enough abuse from Holly Grace. "You just be quiet, Holly Grace Beaudine. I want to know what you're doing here. All of this is awful enough without you showing up to flap your wings around Dallie like some sort of ridiculous mother hen. He's a grown man! He doesn't need you to fight his battles. And he certainly doesn't need you to protect him from me."

"Maybe I didn't just come here for him, did you ever think of that?" Holly Grace retorted. "Maybe I didn't trust either one of you to have enough common sense to handle this situation."

"I've heard enough about your common sense," Francesca answered just as angrily. "I'm sick of hearing about-"

"What should I do about this telephone call?" the cleaning lady asked. "The man says he's a prince."

"Mom!" Teddy wailed, scratching the rash on his stomach and glaring daggers at Dallie.

Holly Grace thrust her pointed finger toward Doralee. "There's a perfect example of what I'm talking about! You never think. You just-"

Doralee jumped up. "I don't have to listen to this shit!"

"This is really none of your business, Holly Grace," Gerry interrupted.

"Mom!" Teddy wailed again. "Mom, my rash itches! I want to go home!"

"Are you going to talk to this prince fellow or not?" the cleaning lady demanded.

A jackhammer went off inside Francesca's skull. She wanted to scream at all of them to leave her alone. Her friendship with Holly Grace was crumbling before her eyes; Doralee looked as if she was going to attack; Teddy was ready to cry. "Please…" she said. But no one heard her.

No one except Dallie.

He leaned toward Skeet and said quietly, "How about holding on to Teddy for me?" Skeet nodded and moved closer to the boy. The angry voices grew louder. Dallie stepped forward and, before anyone

could stop him, hoisted Francesca over his shoulder. She gasped as she found herself upended.

"Sorry, folks," Dallie said. "But y'all are gonna have to wait your turn." And then, before any of them could stop him, he carried her out the door.

"Mom!" Teddy shrieked.

Skeet caught hold of Teddy before he could run after Francesca. "Now, don't get yourself riled, boy.

This is the way your mama and Dallie always carry on when they're together. You might as well get

used to it."

Francesca shut her eyes and leaned her head against the window of Dallie's car. The glass felt cool

against her temple. She knew she should be filled with righteous outrage, lambasting Dallie for his high-handed macho theatrics, but she was too glad to be away from all those demanding, censorious voices. Abandoning Teddy upset her, but she knew Holly Grace would settle him down.

A Barry Manilow tune began to play softly on the radio. Dallie reached forward to punch the button,

and then, glancing over at her, stopped himself and left it alone. Several miles slipped by, and she began to feel calmer. Dallie didn't say anything to her, but considering what they'd been through, the silence

was relatively restful. She'd forgotten how quiet Dallie could be when he wasn't talking.

She shut her eyes and let herself drift until the car turned into a narrow lane that ended in front of a two-story stone house. The rustic little house was set in a grove of chinaber-ry trees with a line of old cedars forming a windbreak along the side and a row of low blue hills in the distance. She looked over

at Dallie as they pulled up to the front walk. "Where are we?"

He turned off the ignition and got out without answering her. She watched warily as he walked around

the front of the car and opened her door. Resting one hand on the roof of the car and the other on the

top of the door frame, he leaned in toward her. As she gazed into those cool blue eyes, something

strange happened in the vicinity of her middle. She suddenly felt like a hungry woman who had just been presented with a tempting dessert. Her moment of sensory weakness embarrassed her, and she frowned.

"Damn, you're pretty," Dallie said softly.

"Not half as pretty as you," she snapped, determined to squash whatever strangeness was lurking in the air between them. "Where are we? Whose house is this?"

"It's mine."

"Yours? We can't be more than twenty miles from Wynette. Why do you have two houses so close together?"

"After what happened back there, I'm surprised you can even ask that question." He stood aside to let

her out.

She stepped from the car and gazed thoughtfully toward the front porch. "This is a hideaway, isn't it?"

"I guess you might call it that. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anybody that I brought you here. They all know about this place, but so far they've kept their distance. If they find out you've been here, though, it'll be open season and they'll be lining up with sleeping bags and knitting needles and coolers

full of Dr Pepper."

She walked toward the front step, curious to see the inside, but before she could get there he touched

her arm. "Francie? The thing of it is, it's my house, and we can't fight in it."

His expression was as serious as she had ever seen it. "What makes you think I want to fight?" she inquired.

"I guess it's pretty much in your nature."

"My nature! First you kidnap my son, then you kidnap me, and now you have the nerve to say that

I want to fight!"

"Call me a pessimist." He sat down on the top step.

Francesca clutched her arms, uncomfortably aware that he'd gotten the best of her on that exchange.

And then she shivered. He'd carried her out of the house without her jacket, and it couldn't be much

more than forty degrees. "What are you doing? Why are you sitting down?"

"If we're going to have it out, let's do it right here, because once we go inside that house, we have to be real polite to each other. I mean it, Francie, that house is my retreat, and I'm not going to have it spoiled by the two of us going after each other."

"That's ridiculous." Her teeth began to chatter. "We have things to talk about, and I don't think we're going to be able to do it without getting upset."

He patted the step next to him.

"I'm freezing," she said, thumping down at his side, but even as she complained, she found herself secretly pleased by the idea of a house where no arguments were allowed. What would happen to

human relationships if there were more houses like this one? Only Dallie could have thought of

something so interesting. Surreptitiously, she moved closer to his warmth. She'd forgotten how good he always smelled-like soap and clean clothes. "Why don't we sit in the car?" she suggested. "You only have on a flannel shirt. You can't be all that warm yourself."

"If we stay here, we'll get done quicker." He cleared his throat. "First of all, I apologize for making that smarmy remark about your career being more important to you than Teddy. I never said I was perfect, but still, that was a low blow and I'm ashamed of myself."

She pulled her knees closer to her chest and hunched into them. "Do you have any idea what it does

to a working mother to hear something like that?"

"I wasn't thinking," he mumbled. Then he added defensively, "But damn, Francie, I wish you wouldn't

fly off the handle every time I say the slightest little thing wrong. You get too emotional."

She dug her fingers into her arms in frustration. Why did men always do this? What made them think they could say the most outrageous-the most painful-things to a woman, and then expect her to keep silent? She thought of a number of pointed comments she wanted to make, but bit them back in the interest of getting into the house. "Teddy marches to the beat of his own drummer," she said firmly.

"He's not like me and he's not like you. He's completely himself."

"I can see that." His knees were spread. He propped his forearms on them and stared down at the step for a few moments. "It's just that he's not like a regular kid."

All her maternal insecurities jangled like bad music. Because Teddy wasn't athletic, Dallie didn't approve of him. "What do you want him to do?" she countered angrily. "Go out and beat up some women?" He stiffened beside her, and she wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

"How are we going to work this out?" he asked quietly. "We fight like cats and dogs the minute we get within sniffing distance of each other. Maybe we'd be better off if we turned this over to the bloodsuckers."

"Is that really what you want to do?"

"All I know is that I'm getting tired of fighting with you, and we haven't even been together for a whole day."

Her teeth had begun to chatter in earnest. "Teddy doesn't like you, Dallie. I'm not going to force him to spend time with you."

"Teddy and I just rub each other the wrong way is all. We'll have to work it out."

"It won't be that easy."

"Lots of things aren't easy."

She looked hopefully toward the front door. "Let's stop talking about Teddy and go inside for a few minutes. Then after we get warmed up we can come back out and finish."

Dallie nodded his head, then stood and offered his hand. She accepted it, but the contact felt much too good, so she let go as quickly as she could, determined to keep the pressing of flesh between them to a minimum. For a moment he looked as if he'd read her thoughts, and then he turned to unlock the door. "You got a real challenge for yourself with that Doralee," he remarked. Stepping aside, he gestured her into a terra-cotta hallway lit by an arched window. "How many strays you figure you picked up in the

last ten years?"

"Animal or human?"

He chuckled, and as she walked into the living room, she remembered what a wonderful sense of humor Dallie had. The living room held a faded Oriental rug, a collection of brass lamps, and some overstuffed chairs. Everything was comfortable and nondescript-everything except the wonderful paintings on the walls. "Dallie, where did you get these?" she asked, walking over to an original oil depicting stark mountains and bleached bones.

"Here and there," he said, as if he wasn't quite sure.

"They're wonderful!" She moved on to study a large canvas splashed with exotic abstract flowers. "I didn't know you collected art."

"I don't collect it so much as just nail up a few things I like."

She lifted an eyebrow at him so he'd know his country-bumpkin act wasn't fooling her for a minute. Hayseeds didn't buy paintings like these. "Dallas, is it remotely possible for you to carry on a

conversation that's not loaded down with manure?"

"Probably not." He grinned and then gestured toward the dining room. "There's an acrylic in there you might like. I bought it at this little gallery in Carmel after I double-bogeyed the seventeenth at Pebble Beach two days in a row. I got so depressed I either had to get drunk or buy me a painting. I got another one by the same artist hanging in my house in North Carolina."

"I didn't know you had a house in North Carolina."

"It's one of those contemporaries that sort of looks like a bank vault. Actually, I'm not too crazy about

it, but it's got a pretty view. Most of the houses I been buying lately are more traditional."

"There are more?"

He shrugged. "It got so I could hardly stand staying in motels anymore, and since I started finishing in the money at a few tournaments and picking up some decent endorsements, I needed something to do with my cash. So I bought a couple of houses in different parts of the country. You want something to drink?"

She realized that she'd had nothing to eat since the night before. "What I'd really like is food. And then I think I'd better get back to Teddy." And call Stefan, she thought to herself. And meet with the social worker to discuss Doralee. And talk to Holly Grace, who used to be her best friend.

"You coddle Teddy too much," Dallie commented, leading her toward the kitchen.

She stopped in her tracks. The fragile truce between them was broken. It took him a moment to realize she wasn't following him, and then he turned to see what was holding her up. When he spotted the expression on her face, he sighed and reached for her arm to lead her to the front porch. She tried to

pull away, but he held her fast.

A chilly blast hit her as he pushed her outside. She spun around to confront him. "Don't make judgments about my mothering, Dallie. You've spent less than a week with Teddy, so don't start imagining you're

an authority on raising him. You don't even know him!"

"I know what I see. Damn, Francie, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but he's a disappointment to me is all."

She felt a sharp stab of pain. Teddy-her pride and joy, blood of her blood, heart of her heart-how could he be a disappointment to anyone? "1 don't really care," she said coldly. "The only thing that bothers me is what a disappointment you apparently are to him."

Dallie stuffed one of his hands in the pocket of his jeans and looked out toward the cedar trees, not

saying anything. The wind caught a lock of his hair, blowing it back from his forehead. Finally he spoke quietly. "Maybe we'd better get back to Wynette. I guess this wasn't such a good idea."

She looked out at the cedars herself for a few moments before she nodded slowly and walked toward

the car.

The house was empty except for Teddy and Skeet. Dallie went back out without saying where he was going, and Francesca took Teddy for a walk. Twice she tried to introduce Dallie's name, but he resisted her efforts and she didn't push him. He couldn't say enough, however, about the virtues of Skeet Cooper.

When they returned to the house, Teddy ran off to get a snack and she went down to the basement where she found Skeet putting a coat of varnish on the club head he'd been sanding earlier. He didn't look up as she came into the workroom, and she watched him for a few minutes before she spoke. "Skeet, I want to thank you for being so nice to Teddy. He needs a friend right now."

"You don't have to thank me," Skeet replied gruffly. "He's a good boy."

She propped her elbow on top of the vise, taking pleasure in watching Skeet work. The slow, careful movements soothed her so that she could think more clearly. Twenty-four hours before, all she had wanted to do was to get Teddy away from Dallie, but now she toyed with the idea of trying to bring them together. Sooner or later, Teddy was going to have to acknowledge his relationship to Dallie. She couldn't bear the idea of her son growing up with emotional scars because he hated his father, and if freeing him

of those scars meant she would have to spend a few more days in Wynette, she would simply do so.

Her mind made up, she looked over at Skeet. "You really like Teddy, don't you?"

" 'Course I like him. He's the kind of kid you don't mind spending time with."

"It's too bad everybody doesn't feel that way," she said bitterly.

Skeet cleared his throat. "You give Dallie time, Francie. I know you're the impatient type, always

wanting to rush things, but some things just can't be rushed."

"They hate each other, Skeet."

He turned the club head to inspect it and then dipped his brush in the varnish can. "When two people

are so much alike, it's sometimes hard for them to get along."

"Alike?" She stared at him. "Dallie and Teddy aren't anything alike."

He looked at her as if she were the stupidest person he'd ever met, and then he shook his head and

went back to varnishing the club head.

"Dallie's graceful," she argued. "He's athletic. He's gorgeous-"

Skeet chuckled. "Teddy sure is a homely little cuss. Hard to figure how two people as pretty as you and Dallie managed to produce him."

"Maybe he's a little homely on the outside," she replied defensively, "but he's a knockout on the inside."

Skeet chuckled again, dipped his brush, and then looked over at her. "I don't like to give advice, Francie, but if I were you I'd concentrate more on nagging Dallie about his golf than on nagging him about Teddy."

She looked at him in astonishment. "Why ever should I nag him about his golf?"

"You're not going to get rid of him. You realize that, don't you? Now that he knows Teddy's his boy,

he's going to keep popping up whether you like it or not."

She'd already come to the same conclusion, and she nodded reluctantly.

He stroked the brush along the smooth curve of the wood. "My best piece of advice, Francie, is that

you use those brains of yours to figure out how to get him to play better golf."

She was completely mystified. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"Just exactly what I said, is all."

"But I don't know anything about golf, and I don't see what Dallie's game has to do with Teddy."

"The thing about advice is-you can either take it or leave it."

She gave him a searching look. "You know why he's being so critical of Teddy, don't you?"

"I got a few ideas."

"Is it because Teddy looks like Jaycee? Is that it?"

He snorted. "Give Dallie credit for having more sense than that."

"Then what?"

He propped the club head on a rod to dry and put the brush in a jar of mineral spirits. "You just concentrate on his golf is all. Maybe you'll have better luck than I've had."

And he wouldn't say anything more than that.

When Francesca went upstairs, she spotted Teddy playing with one of Dallie's dogs in the yard. An envelope lay on the kitchen table with her name scrawled across it in Gerry's handwriting. Opening it,

she read the message inside.

Baby, Sweetie, Lamb Chop, Love of My Life,

How's about you and me tie one on tonight? Pick you up for dinner and debauchery at 7:00. Your best friend is the queen of the morons, and I'm the world's biggest chump. I promise not to cry on your shoulder for more than most of the evening. When are you going to stop being so lily-livered and put me on your television show?

Sincerely, Zorro the Great

P.S. Bring a birth control device.

Francesca laughed. Despite their rocky beginning on that Texas road ten years ago, she and Gerry had formed a comfortable friendship in the two years since she'd moved to Manhattan. He had spent the first few months of their acquaintance apologizing for having abandoned her, even though Francesca told him he'd done her a favor that day. To her astonishment, he had produced an old yellowed envelope containing her passport and the four hundred dollars that had been in her case. She had long ago given Holly Grace the money to repay Dallie what she owed him, so Francesca had treated the three of them

to a night on the town.

When Gerry came to pick her up that evening, he was wearing his leather bomber jacket with dark brown trousers and a cream-colored sweater. Sweeping her into his arms, he gave her a friendly smack on the lips, his dark eyes sparkling with wickedness. "Hey, gorgeous. Why couldn't I have fallen in love with

you instead of Holly Grace?"

"Because you're too smart to put up with me," she said, laughing.

"Where's Teddy?"

"He conned Doralee and Miss Sybil into taking him to see some horrid movie about killer grasshoppers."

Gerry smiled and then sobered, looking at her with concern. "How're you really doing? This has been rough on you, hasn't it?"

"I've had better weeks," she conceded. So far, only her problem with Doralee was any closer to solution. That afternoon Miss Sybil had insisted on taking the teenager to the county offices herself, telling Francesca in no uncertain terms that she intended to keep Doralee until a foster family could be found.

"I spent some time with Dallie this afternoon," Gerry said."

"You did?" Francesca was surprised. It was difficult to imagine the two of them together.

Gerry held the front door open for her. "I gave him some not-so-friendly legal advice and told him if he ever tried anything like this with Teddy again, I would personally bring the entire American legal system down on his head."

"I can just imagine how he reacted to that," she replied dryly.

"I'll do you a favor and spare you the details." They walked toward Gerry's rented Toyota. "You know, it's strange. Once we stopped trading insults, I almost found myself liking the son of a bitch. I mean, I hate the fact that he and Holly Grace used to be married, and I especially hate the fact that they still care so much about each other, but once we started talking, I had this weird feeling that Dallie and I had known each other a long time. It was crazy."

"Don't be fooled," Francesca said, as he opened the car door for her. "The only reason you felt comfortable with him is because being with him is a lot like being with Holly Grace. If you like one of them, it's pretty hard not to like the other one."

They ate at a cozy restaurant that served wonderful veal. Before they had finished the main course, they were once again embroiled in their standard argument about why Francesca wouldn't put Gerry on her television show.

"Just put me on once, gorgeous, that's all I ask."

"Forget it. I know you. You'd show up with fake radiation burns all over your body or you'd announce

on the air that Russian missiles are on their way to blow up Nebraska."

"So what? You have millions of complacent androids watching your show who don't understand that we're living on the eve of destruction. It's my job to shake up people like that."

"Not on my program," she said firmly. "I don't manipulate my viewers."

"Francesca, these days we're not talking about a little thirteen-kiloton firecracker like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. We're talking megatons. If twenty thousand megatons hits New York City, it's going to do more than ruin one of Donald Trump's dinner parties. It'll send fallout over a thousand square miles, and eight million fried bodies will be left rotting in the gutters."

"I'm trying to eat, Gerry," she protested, setting down her fork.

Gerry had been talking about the horrors of nuclear war for so long that he could demolish a five-course meal while he described a terminal case of radiation poisoning, and he dug into his baked potato. "Do you know the only thing that has any chance of surviving? The cockroaches. They'll be blind, but they'll still be able to reproduce."

"Gerry, I love you like a brother, but I won't let you turn my show into a circus." Before he could launch his next round of arguments, she changed the subject. "Did you talk to Holly Grace this afternoon?"

He put down his fork and shook his head. "I went over to her mother's house, but she ducked out the back door when she saw me coming." Pushing away his plate, he took a sip of water.

He looked so miserable that Francesca was torn between the desire to comfort him and the urge to smack some sense into him. Gerry and Holly Grace obviously loved each other, and she wished they would stop camouflaging their problems. Although Holly Grace hardly ever talked about it, Francesca knew how badly she wanted a child, but Gerry wouldn't even discuss the matter with her.

"Why don't the two of you try to come up with some sort of compromise?" she offered tentatively.

"She doesn't understand the word," Gerry replied. "She's got it in her head that I've been using her

name, and-"

Francesca groaned. "Not this again. Holly Grace wants a baby, Gerry. Why won't either of you admit what the real problem is? I know it's none of my business, but I think you'd make a wonderful father, and-"

"Christ, have you and Naomi been taking nagging lessons together or what?" He abruptly pushed his

plate away. "Let's go on over to the Roustabout, okay?"

The Roustabout was the last place she wanted to go. "I don't really-"

"The high school sweethearts are sure to be there. We'll walk in, pretend we don't see them, and then have sex on top of the bar. What do you say?"

"I say no."

"Come on, gorgeous. The two of them have been tossing a ton of shit our way. Let's toss a little back."

True to form, Gerry ignored every one of her protests and hustled her from the restaurant. Fifteen minutes later, they were walking through the door of the honky-tonk. The place looked much as Francesca remembered, although most of the neon Lone Star beer signs had been replaced with signs

for Miller Lite, and video games now occupied one corner. The people were the same, however.

"Well, look who just walked through the door," a throaty female voice drawled from a table twenty feet to their right. "If it isn't the queen of England herself with the king of the Bolsheviks walking right next to her." Holly Grace sat with a beer bottle in front of her, while at her side Dallie sipped a glass of club soda. Francesca felt another of those queer little jumps in her middle at the sight of those cool blue eyes studying her over the rim of the glass.

"No, I'm wrong," Holly Grace went on as she took in the black and ivory print Galanos dress Francesca was wearing with an oversize cinnabar red jacket. "She's not the queen of England. She's that lady mud wrestler we saw down in Medina County."

Francesca grabbed Gerry's arm. "Let's go."

Gerry's full lips were growing thinner by the minute, but he refused to move. Holly Grace tilted back the brim of her Stetson, studiously ignoring him while she scrutinized Francesca's outfit. "Galanos in the Roustabout. Shit. You're liable to get us all kicked out. Don't you get tired always being the center of attention?"

Francesca forgot about Gerry and Dallie and looked at Holly Grace with genuine concern. She really was acting bitchy. Letting go of Gerry's arm, she walked over to her and slipped into the chair at her side. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Holly Grace scowled into her beer glass, but otherwise remained silent.

"Let's go to the bathroom so we can talk," Francesca whispered, and when Holly Grace didn't respond, she added more forcefully, "Right now."

Holly Grace gave her a rebellious look that resembled Teddy at his worst. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm still mad at you for not telling me the truth about Teddy." She turned to Dallie. "Dance with me, baby."

Dallie had been regarding them both with interest. Now he unwound himself from his chair and looped

his arm over Holly Grace's shoulders as she stood up. "Sure, honey."

The two of them began to walk away, but Gerry took a step forward, blocking their path. "Isn't it interesting the way they grab on to each other?" he said to Francesca. "It's the most fascinating case of arrested development I've ever seen."

"You go ahead and dance, Holly Grace," Francesca said quietly, "but while you're doing it, think about the fact that I might need you right now just as much as Dallie does."

For a moment Holly Grace hesitated, but then she turned into Dallie's arms and together they moved out onto the dance floor.

At that moment, one of the patrons of the Roustabout came up to ask Francesca for her autograph, and before long she was surrounded by fans. She chatted with them while inwardly she was filled with frustration. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gerry talking to a buxom young thing at the bar. Holly Grace danced past with Dallie, the two of them moving together like one single, graceful body, their casual intimacy so absolute they seemed to shut out the rest of the world. Her cheeks began to ache from smiling. She signed more autographs and acknowledged more compliments, but the patrons of the Roustabout refused to let her go. They were accustomed to having the star of "China Colt" in their midst, but seeing the glamorous Francesca Day was something else entirely. It wasn't long before she spotted Holly Grace slipping out the back door by herself. A hand touched her from behind.

"Sorry, folks, but Francie promised me this dance. You still remember the two-step, honey?"

Francesca turned toward Dallie and, after a moment's hesitation, went into his arms. He caught her against him, and she had the unsettling feeling that she'd been pitched back ten years to the time when

this man had formed the center of her world.

"Damn, it feels funny to be dancing with somebody who's wearing a dress," he said. "You got shoulder pads in that jacket?"

His tone was soft, gentle with amusement. It felt so good to be close to him. Much too good.

"Don't you let Holly Grace hurt your feelings," he said quietly. "She just needs some time."

Dallie's sympathy, under the circumstances, surprised her. She managed to reply, "Her friendship means

a lot to me."

"If you ask me, the way that old commie lover has taken advantage of her is bothering her more than anything."

Francesca realized that Dallie didn't understand the true nature of the trouble between Holly Grace and Gerry, and she decided it wasn't her place to enlighten him.

"Sooner or later, she'll come around," he went on. "And I know she'd appreciate it if you'd be there waiting for her. Now, how 'bout you stop worrying about Holly Grace and concentrate on the music so we can get down to some serious dancing?"

Francesca tried to oblige, but she was so aware of him that serious dancing was beyond her. The music slowed into a romantic country ballad. His jaw brushed the top of her head.

"You look awful pretty tonight, Francie."

His voice held a trace of huskiness that unnerved her. He drew her infinitesimally closer. "You're such

a tiny little thing. I forgot how little you are."

Don't charm me, she wanted to plead as she felt the warmth of his body seep through into her own. Don't be sweet and sexy and make me forget everything that's standing between us. She had the disconcerting sense that the sounds around them were fading, the music growing still, the other voices disappearing so that it seemed as if the two of them were alone on the dance floor.

He pulled her closer and their rhythm subtly changed, no longer quite a dance but something closer to an embrace. His body felt hard and solid against hers, and she tried to summon the energy to fight her attraction to him. "Let's- let's sit down now."

"All right."

But instead of letting her go, he tucked their clasped hands between their bodies. His other hand slipped under her jacket so that only the thin silk of her dress separated her skin from his touch. Somehow her cheek seemed to find his shoulder. She leaned into it as if she had come home. Drawing in her breath,

she shut her eyes and drifted with him.

"Francie," he whispered into her hair, "we're going to have to do something about this."

She thought about pretending that she didn't understand what he meant, but at that moment coquetry

was beyond her. "It's-it's just a simple chemical attraction. If we ignore it, it'll go away."

He pulled her closer. "You sure about that?"

"Absolutely." She hoped he didn't hear the slight quaver in her voice. She was suddenly frightened, and she found herself saying, "Gracious, Dallie, this has happened to me hundreds of times before. Thousands. I'm sure it's happened to you, too."

"Yeah," he said flatly. "Thousands of times." Abruptly he stopped moving and dropped his arms. "Listen, Francie, if it's all the same to you, I don't feel too much like dancing anymore."

"Fine." She gave him her best cocktail party smile and busied her hands by straightening the front of her jacket. "That's fine with me."

"See you later." He turned to walk away.

"Yes, later," she said to his back.

Their parting was cordial. No angry words had been spoken. No warnings had been issued. But as she watched him disappear into the crowd, she had the vague feeling that a new set of battle lines had been drawn between them.