Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(163)

He turned to Francesca, and once again her pretty lips formed that one word: please.

As tired as he was, Dallie didn't have the heart to disappoint her.





Chapter

33



Dallie's arms shot up in the air, one fist holding his putter aloft like a medieval standard of victory. Skeet was crying like a baby, so overcome with joy that he couldn't move. As a result, the first person who reached Dallie was Jack Nicklaus.

“Great game, Dallie,” Nicklaus said, putting his arm over Dallie's shoulders. “You're a real champion.”

Then Skeet was hugging him and pounding him on the back, and Dallie was hugging back, except his eyes were moving the whole time, searching the crowd until he found what he was looking for.

Holly Grace broke through first; then Francesca, with Teddy in tow. Holly Grace rushed toward Dallie on her long-stemmed legs—legs that had first won fame as they ran the bases at Wynette High, legs that had been American-designed for both speed and beauty. Holly Grace ran toward the man she had loved just about all her life, and then she stopped cold as she saw those blue eyes of his slip right past her and come to rest on Francesca. A spasm of pain went through her chest, a moment of heartbreak, and then the pain eased as she felt herself let him go.

Teddy nudged up next to her, not quite ready to join in such extravagant emotion. Holly Grace slipped her arm around his shoulders, and they both watched as Dallie lifted Francesca high off the ground, hoisting her by the waist so that her head was higher than his. For a fraction of a moment, she hung there, tilting her face into the sun and laughing at the sky. And then she kissed him, brushing his face with her hair, battering his cheeks with the joyous swaying of her silly silver earrings. Her little red sandals slid from her toes, one of them balancing itself on top of his golf shoe.

Francesca turned away first, searching for Holly Grace in the crowd, holding out her arm. Dallie set Francesca down without letting go of her and held out his arm, too, so that Holly Grace could join them. He hugged them both—these two women who meant everything to him—one the love of his boyhood, the other the love of his manhood; one tall and strong, the other tiny and frivolous, with a marshmallow heart and a spine of tempered steel. Dallie's eyes sought out Teddy, but even in his moment of victory, he saw the boy wasn't ready and he didn't press him. For now it was enough that they could exchange smiles.

A UPI photographer caught the picture that was to grace the front pages of the nation's sports sections the next day—a jubilant Dallie Beaudine lifting Francesca Day up off the ground while Holly Grace Beaudine stood to one side.

Francesca had to be back in New York the next morning, and Dallie needed to perform all the duties that fell to the winner immediately following a major championship. As a result, their time together after the tournament was much too short and all too public. “I'll call you,” he mouthed as he was swept away.

She smiled in answer, and then the press engulfed him.

Francesca and Holly Grace traveled back to New York together, but their flight was delayed and they didn't reach the city until late. It was past midnight by the time Francesca had tucked Teddy into bed, too late to expect a call from Dallie. The following day, she attended a briefing on the upcoming Statue of Liberty citizenship ceremony, a luncheon for women in broadcasting, and two meetings. She left a series of phone numbers with her secretary, making certain that she wasn't out of contact anywhere she went, but Dallie didn't call.

By the time she left the studio, she had worked herself into a froth of righteous indignation. She knew he was busy, but he certainly could have spared a few minutes to call her. Unless he'd changed his mind, a little voice whispered. Unless he'd had second thoughts. Unless she'd misread his feelings.

Consuelo and Teddy were gone when she got home. She set down her purse and briefcase, then slipped wearily out of her jacket and headed down the hallway to her bedroom, only to come to a halt in the doorway. A crystal and silver trophy nearly three feet long lay in the exact center of her bed.

“Dallie!” she screeched.

He came out of her bathroom, hair still wet from the shower, one of her fluffy pink towels wrapped around his hips. Grinning at her, he hoisted the trophy off the bed, walked over to her, and deposited it at her feet. “Was this pretty much what you had in mind?” he asked.

“You wretch!” She threw herself into his arms, almost knocking over both him and the trophy in the process. “You darling, impossible, wonderful wretch!”

And then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him, and they were holding each other so tightly it seemed as if the life force from one body had poured into the other. “Damn, I love you,” Dallie murmured. “My sweet little Fancy Pants, driving me half crazy, nagging me to death.” He kissed her again, long and slow. “You're almost the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Almost?” she murmured against his lips. “What's the best?”

“Being born good-looking.” And then he kissed her again.

Their lovemaking was full of laughter and tenderness, with nothing forbidden, nothing withheld. Afterward, they lay face to face, their naked bodies pressed together so they could whisper secrets to each other.

“I thought I was going to die,” he told her, “when you said you wouldn't marry me.”

“I thought I was going to die,” she told him, “when you didn't say you loved me.”