Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(133)

“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.