Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(149)

Old table! Francesca stared at Dallie while he and madame exchanged pleasantries. She'd done it again. Once more she'd let herself buy into the image Dallie had created for himself and forgotten that this was a man who had spent the best part of the last fifteen years hanging out in the most exclusive country clubs in America.

“The scallops are especially good tonight,” madame announced, as she led them down Lutèce's narrow brick hallway to the antegarden.

“Just about everything's good here,” Dallie confided after they were settled in the wicker chairs. “Except I make sure to get an English translation of anything that looks suspicious before I eat it. Last time they almost stuck me with liver.”

Francesca laughed. “You're a wonder, Dallie, you really are.”

“Now, why's that?”

“It's hard to imagine too many people who are just as comfortable at Lutèce as they are in a Texas honky-tonk.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “It seems to me you're pretty comfortable both places.”

His comment knocked Francesca slightly off balance. She had grown so accustomed to musing over their differences that it was hard to adjust to the suggestion that they had any similarities. They chatted about the menu for a while, with Dallie making irreverent observations about any item of food that struck him as overly complex. All the time he talked, his eyes seemed to be drinking her up. She began to feel beautiful in a way she had never felt before—a visceral kind of beauty that came from deep within. The softness of her mood alarmed her, and she was glad of the distraction when the waiter appeared to take their order.

After the waiter left, Dallie swept his eyes over her again, his smile slow and intimate. “I had a good time with you that night.”

Oh, no, you don't, she thought. He wasn't going to win her over that easily. She had played games with the best of them, and this was one fish who would have to wiggle on the hook for a while. She widened her eyes innocently, opening her mouth to ask him what night he was talking about, only to find herself smiling at him instead. “I had a good time, too.”

He reached across the table and squeezed her hand, but then let go of it almost as quickly as he had touched it. “I'm sorry about yelling at you like that. Holly Grace got me pretty upset. She shouldn't have busted in on us. What happened wasn't your fault, and I shouldn't have taken it out on you.”

Francesca nodded, not actually accepting his apology, but not quite throwing it back in his face, either. The conversation drifted in safer directions until the waiter appeared with their first course. After they were served, Francesca asked Dallie about his meeting with the network. He was guarded in his reply, a fact that interested her enough to make her probe a little deeper.

“I understand that if you sign with the network, you'll have to stop playing in most of the bigger tournaments.” She extracted a snail from a small ceramic pot where it lay bathed in a buttery sauce rich with herbs.

He shrugged. “It won't be long before I'm too old to be competitive. 1 might as well sign the deal while the money's good.”

The facts and figures of Dallie's career flashed through her head. She sketched a circle on the tablecloth and then, like an inexperienced traveler cautiously setting foot in a strange country, commented, “Holly Grace told me you probably won't play in the U.S. Classic this year.”

“Probably not.”

“I wouldn't think you'd let yourself retire until you'd won a major tournament.”

“I've done all right for myself.” His knuckles tightened ever so slightly around the glass of club soda he'd picked up. And then he began telling her how well Miss Sybil and Doralee were getting along. Since Francesca had just spoken with both women on the telephone, she was far more interested in the way he had changed the subject than in what he was saying.

The waiter arrived with their entrées. Dallie had selected scallops served in a rich dark sauce of tomatoes and garlic, while she had chosen a flaky pastry stuffed with an aromatic mixture of crabmeat and wild mushrooms. She picked up her fork and tried again. “The U.S. Classic is becoming almost as important as the Masters, isn't it?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Dallie captured one of the scallops with his fork and dredged it through the thick sauce. “You know what Skeet told me the other day? He said as far as he's concerned you're the most interesting stray we ever picked up. That's quite a compliment, especially since he didn't used to be able to stand you.”

“I'm flattered.”

“For a long time he was holding out for this one-armed drifter who could burp 'Tom Dooley,' but I think you changed his mind during your recent memorable visit. Of course, there's always a chance he'll reconsider.”

He rattled on and on. She smiled and nodded and waited for him to run down, disarming him with the easiness of her manner and the attentive tilt of her head, lulling him so completely that he forgot he was sitting across the table from a woman who had spent the last ten years of her life prying out secrets most people wanted to keep hidden, a woman who could go in for the kill so skillfully, so guilelessly, that the victim frequently died with a smile on his face. Gently she decapitated a stalk of white asparagus. “Why don't you wait until after the U.S. Classic before you go into the announcers' booth? Whatever are you afraid of?”