"I'm not so much of an alley cat that I'd still be sleeping with you if I didn't like you a whole lot better than I used to. Damn, I love this song."
She had hoped for a somewhat more romantic declaration, but with Dallie she'd learned to settle for what she could get. She also didn't share his enthusiasm for the song he kept playing on the jukebox. Although she couldn't understand all of the lyrics, she gathered that the part about tramps like us who were born to run might be what Dallie liked so much about the song. The sentiment didn't fit well with her own vision of domestic bliss, so she shut out the lyrics and concentrated on the music, matching her body movements to Dallie's as she was learning to do so well in their own deep night bedroom dance. He looked into her eyes and she looked into his, and the music swept up around them. She felt as if some kind of invisible lock had snapped them together, and then the mood was broken as her stomach gave one of its queer pitches.
She wasn't pregnant, she told herself. She couldn't be. Her doctor had told her very clearly that she couldn't get pregnant until she started having her menstrual periods again. But her recent nausea had worried her enough that the day before at the library she'd looked through a Planned Parenthood pamphlet on pregnancy when Miss Sybil wasn't watching. To her dismay, she had read the exact opposite and she found herself desperately counting back to that first night she and Dallie had made love. It had been almost a month ago exactly.
They danced again and then went back to their table, the palm of his hand cupped over the small of her back. She enjoyed his touch, the sensation of a woman being protected by the man who cared about her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she actually was pregnant, she thought as she sat down at the table. Dailie wasn't the kind of man who would slip her a few hundred dollars and drive her to the local abortionist. Not that she had any desire to have a baby, but she was beginning to learn that everything had a price. Maybe pregnancy would make him commit himself to her, and once he made that commitment everything would be wonderful. She would encourage him to stop drinking so much and apply himself more. He would begin to win tournaments and make enough money so they could buy a house in a city somewhere. It wouldn't be the sort of fashionable international life she'd envisioned for herself, but she didn't need all that running about anymore, and she knew she would be happy as long as Dallie loved her. They would travel together, and he would take care of her, and everything would be perfect.
But the picture wouldn't quite crystallize in her mind, so she took a sip from her bottle of Lone Star.
A woman's voice with a drawl as lazy as a Texas Indian summer penetrated her thoughts. "Hey, Dallie," the voice said softly, "make any birdies for me?"
Francesca sensed the change in him, an alertness that hadn't been there a moment before, and she lifted her head.
Standing next to their table and gazing down at him with mischievous blue eyes stood the most beautiful woman Francesca had ever seen. Dallie jumped up with a soft exclamation and enveloped her in his arms. Francesca had the sensation of time frozen in place as the two dazzling blond creatures pressed their heads together, beautiful American thoroughbreds in home-grown denim and worn cowboy boots, superhumans who suddenly made her feel incredibly small and ordinary. The woman wore a Stetson pushed back on a cloud of blond hair that fell in sexy disarray to her shoulders, and she'd left three buttons on her plaid shirt unfastened to reveal more than a little of the impressive swell of her breasts. A wide leather belt encircled her small waist, and tight jeans fit her hips so closely they made a V at her crotch before clinging in a smooth line down a nearly endless expanse of long, trim leg.
The woman looked into Dallie's eyes and said something so quietly only Francesca overheard. "You didn't think I'd leave you alone for Halloween, did you, baby?" she whispered.
The fear that had seemed like a cold fist clutching Francesca's heart abruptly eased as she realized how much alike they looked. Of course… she shouldn't have been so startled. Of course they looked alike. This woman could only be Dallie's sister, the elusive Holly Grace.
A moment later, he confirmed her identity. Releasing the tall blond goddess, he turned to Francesca. "Holly Grace, this is Francesca Day. Francie, I'd like you to meet Holly Grace Beaudine."
"How do you do?" Francesca extended her hand and smiled warmly. "I would have recognized you as Dallie's sister anywhere; you two look so much alike."
Holly Grace pulled the brim of the Stetson forward a bit on her head and studied Francesca with clear blue eyes. "Sorry to disappoint you, honey, but I'm not Dallie's sister."
Francesca regarded her quizzically.
"I'm Dallie's wife."
Chapter 15
Francesca heard Dallie call out her name. She began to move faster, her eyes nearly blinded with tears. The soles of her sandals slipped on the gravel as she ran through the parking lot toward the highway.
But her short legs were no match for his long ones, and he caught up with her before she could reach
the road.
"You mind telling me what's going on here?" he shouted, catching her shoulder and spinning her around. "Why'd you run out, cussing at rne like that and embarrassing yourself in front of all those people who were starting to think you were a real human being?"
He was yelling at her as if she were the one at fault, as if she were the liar, the deceiver, the treacherous snake who'd turned love into betrayal. She drew back her arm and slapped his face as hard as she could.
He slapped her back.
Although he was mad enough to hit her, he wasn't mad enough to hurt her, so he struck her with only a small portion of his strength. Still, she was so small that she lost her balance and bumped into the side
of a car. She grabbed the sideview mirror with one hand and pressed the other to her cheek.
"Jesus, Francie, I hardly touched you." He rushed over and reached out for her arm.
"You bastard!" She spun on him and slapped him again, this time catching him on the jaw.
He grabbed both of her arms and shook her. "You settle down now, do you hear me? You settle down before you get hurt."
She kicked him hard in the shin, and the leather of his oldest pair of cowboy boots didn't protect him from the sharp edge of her sandal. "Goddammit!" he yelped.
She drew back her foot to kick him again. He thrust out his uninjured leg and tripped her with it, sending her down into the gravel.
"Bloody bastard!" she screamed, tears and dirt mingling on her cheeks. "Bloody, wife-cheating bastard! You'll pay for this!" Ignoring the stinging in the heels of her hands and the dirty scratches on her arms, she began to push herself back up to go after him again. She didn't care if he hurt her, if he killed her.
She hoped he would. She wanted him to kill her. She was going to die anyway from the horrible pain spreading inside her like a deadly poison. If he killed her, at least the pain would be over quickly.
"Stop it, Francie," he yelled, as she staggered to her feet. "Don't come any closer or you'll really get hurt."
"You bloody bastard," she sobbed, wiping her nose on her wrist. "You bloody married bastard! I'm going to make you pay!" Then she went after him again-a pampered little British house cat charging a full-grown, free-roaming ail-American mountain lion.
Holly Grace stood in the middle of the crowd that had gathered outside the front door of the Roustabout to watch. "I can't believe Dallie didn't tell her about me," she said to Skeet. "It doesn't usually take him more than thirty seconds to work my existence into any conversation he has with a woman he's attracted to."
"Don't be ridiculous," Skeet growled. "She knew about you. We talked about you in front of her a hundred times-that's what's making him so mad. Everybody in the world knows the two of you've been married since you was teenagers. This is just one more example of what a fool that woman is." Worry etched a frown between his shaggy eyebrows as Francesca landed another blow. "I know he's trying to hold her off without hurtin' her too much, but if one of those kicks lands too close to his danger zone, she's gonna find herself in a hospital bed and he's gonna end up in jail for assault and battery. See what