Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(128)

“Yes, sir, “ Teddy mumbled sullenly. And then he looked toward Skeet. “How much longer till I get to see my mom?”

“Not too long now,” Skeet replied. “Why don't you dig in that cooler there and see if you can find yourself a can of Dr Pepper?” As Teddy busied himself with the cooler, Skeet reached for the radio and flipped the sound to the rear speakers so he couldn't be overheard from the back seat. Sliding a few inches closer to Dallie, he remarked, “You're acting pretty much like a sumbitch, you know that?”

“Stay out of this,” Dallie retorted. “I don't even know why I called you and told you to meet me.” He fell silent for a moment, and his knuckles tightened on the wheel. “You see what she's done to him? He goes around talking about his I.Q. scores and his allergies. And look what happened at the motel when I tried to throw the football around with him a little bit. He's the clumsiest kid I ever saw in my life. If he can't handle something the size of a football, you can just imagine what he'd do with a golf ball.”

Skeet thought about that for a minute. “Sports isn't everything.”

Dallie lowered his voice. “I know that. But the kid acts funny. You can't tell what he's thinking behind those glasses, and he pulls his pants up to his armpits. What kind of kid wears his pants high like that?”

“He's probably afraid they'll fall down. His hips aren't much bigger than your thigh.”

“Yeah? Well, that's another thing. He's puny. You remember how big Danny was, right from the beginning.”

“Danny's mama was a lot taller than Teddy's.”

Dallie's jaw set in a hard, straight line, and Skeet didn't say any more.

In the back seat, Teddy closed one eye and peered down into the depths of his Dr Pepper can with the other. He scratched the rash on his stomach underneath his T-shirt. Although he couldn't hear what they were saying in the front, he knew they were talking about him. And he didn't care, either. Skeet was neat, but Dallie was a big jerk. A great big butt-hole.

The depths of the Dr Pepper can clouded in his vision, and he felt like he had a big green slimy frog caught in his throat. Yesterday he'd finally stopped pretending to himself that everything was all right, because he knew it wasn't. He didn't believe his mom had told Dallie to take him away from New York like this, no matter what Dallie said. He thought maybe Dallie had kidnapped him, and he tried not to be scared. But he knew something was wrong, and he wanted his mom.

The frog swelled up in his throat. It made him mad to be crying like some jerky baby, so he glanced toward the front seat. When he was satisfied that Dallie's attention was on his driving, his fingers crept to his seat-belt buckle. Soundlessly, he slipped it open. No butt-hole was going to tell Lasher the Great what to do.

Francesca dreamed about Teddy's science project. She was caught in a glass cage with insects crawling all over her, and someone was using a giant pin, trying to spear the bugs to mount them. She was next. And then she saw Teddy's face on the other side of the glass, calling out to her. She tried to get to him, to reach him....

“Mom! Mom!”

She jerked awake. With her mind still foggy from sleep, she felt something small and solid fly across the bed at her, tangling itself in the covers and the sash from her robe. “Mom!”

For a few seconds, she was caught between her dream and reality, and then she felt only a piercing sense of joy. “Teddy? Oh, Teddy!” She caught his small body and pulled him to her, laughing and crying. “Oh, baby...” His hair felt chilly against her cheek, as if he'd just come in from outside. She pulled him up in the bed and caught his face between her hands, kissing him again and again. She rejoiced in the familiar feeling of his small arms around her neck, his body pressed against hers, that fine hair, his little-boy smell. She wanted to lick his cheeks, just like a mother cat.

She was vaguely aware of Dallie leaning just inside the door of the bedroom watching them, but she was too caught up in the exquisite joy of having her son back to care. One of Teddy's hands was in her hair. He'd buried his face in her neck, and she could feel him trembling. “It's all right, baby,” she whispered, tears sliding down her own cheeks. “It's all right.”

When she lifted her head, her eyes inadvertently met Dallie's. He looked so sad and so alone that, for a second, she had a crazy urge to hold out her hand and beckon him to join the two of them on the bed. He spun around to walk away, and she was disgusted with herself. But then she forgot about Dallie as Teddy claimed all of her attention. It was some time before either of them could calm down enough to talk. She noticed that Teddy was covered with dull red blotches, and he kept scratching himself with stubby fingernails. “You ate ketchup,” she scolded gently, reaching under his T-shirt to stroke his back. “Why did you eat ketchup, baby?”

“Mom,” he murmured, “I want to go home.”

She dropped her legs over the side of the bed, still holding on to his hand. How was she going to tell Teddy about Dallie? Last night while she'd been lining drawers and baking cakes, she had decided it would be best to wait until they were back in New York and events had returned to normal. But now, looking at his small, wary face, she knew postponement wasn't possible.

As she'd raised Teddy, she had never permitted herself to utter those convenient little lies most mothers told their children to buy themselves peace. She hadn't even been able to manage the Santa Claus story with any degree of conviction. But now she had been caught out in the one lie she had told him, and it was a whopper.