Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(167)

Francesca felt a set of sharp fingernails digging into the sleeve of her silk shantung jacket. “Oh, my God,” Holly Grace whispered.

The eyes of every onlooker—as well as those of the network television cameras—were glued to the banner and the message it carried:

MARRY ME, HOLLY GRACE

Although he was concealed inside a helmet and a white jumpsuit, the parachutist could only be Gerry Jaffe.

“I'm going to kill him,” Holly Grace said, venom dripping from every syllable. “This time he's gone too far.” And then the wind shifted and the banner's other side was visible.

It held a drawing of a barbell.

Naomi came up next to Holly Grace. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I tried to talk him out of it, but he loves you so much, and he refuses to do anything the easy way.”

Holly Grace didn't reply. She kept her eyes glued on the descent. The parachutist dropped closer to the island and then began to drift. Naomi let out a small squeak of alarm, and Holly Grace's fingers dug deeper into Francesca's arm. “He's going into the water,” Holly Grace cried. “Oh, God, he'll drown. He'll get tangled in his parachute or that stupid banner—” She broke away from Francesca and began running toward the seawall, shrieking for all she was worth. “You stupid commie! You dumb, stupid—”

Dallie draped his arm over Francesca's shoulder. “You got any idea why he has a picture of two doorknobs on that banner?”

“It's a barbell,” she replied, holding her breath as Gerry just cleared the seawall and landed on the lawn about fifty yards away.

“Holly Grace is really going to give him hell for this,” he commented, thoroughly enjoying himself. “Damn, she's mad.”

“Mad” wasn't the word for it. Holly Grace was furious. She was so enraged she could barely contain herself. While Gerry struggled to gather up the parachute, she screamed every foul word at him that she could think of.

He balled the parachute and the banner together and threw them down on the grass so that he finally had two hands free to deal with her. When he saw her flushed face and felt the heat of her fury, he realized he was going to need both of them.

“I'll never forgive you for this,” she cried, taking a punch at his arm, to the delight of the network cameramen. “You don't have enough experience to make a jump like that. You could have been killed. I wish you had been!”

He pulled off his helmet, and his curly hair was as disheveled as a dark angel's. “I've been trying to talk to you for weeks, but you wouldn't see me. Besides, I thought you'd like it.”

“Like it!” She nearly spit at him. “I've never been so humiliated in my life! You've made a spectacle out of me. You don't have an ounce of common sense. Not one single ounce.”

“Gerry!” He heard Naomi call out and from the corner of his eye, he saw the statue's security people running toward him.

He knew he didn't have much time. What he had done was definitely illegal, and he didn't doubt for a moment that they were going to arrest him. “I just publicly committed myself to you, Holly Grace. What more do you want from me?”

“You publicly made a fool of yourself. Jumping out of an airplane and almost drowning with that stupid banner. And why did you put a dog bone on it? Do you mind telling me what you meant by that?”

“Dog bone?” Gerry threw up his arms in frustration. No matter what he did, he couldn't seem to please this woman, and if he lost her this time, he would never get her back. Just the thought of losing her gave him a cold chill. Holly Grace Beaudine was the one woman he'd never been able to bring to heel, the one woman who made him feel that he could conquer the world, and he needed her the same way he needed oxygen.

The security people had almost reached him. “Are you blind, Holly Grace? That wasn't a dog bone. Jesus, I just made the most terrifying commitment of my entire life, and you missed the whole point.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It was a baby rattle!”

The first two security men grabbed him.

“A baby rattle?” Her fierce expression melted in surprise and her voice softened. “That was a baby rattle?”

A third security officer pushed Holly Grace aside. Apparently deciding Gerry wasn't going to give them any real trouble, the officer cuffed Gerry's hands in front of his body.

“Marry me, Holly Grace,” Gerry said, ignoring the fact that his rights were being read to him. “Marry me and have my baby—have a dozen of them! Just don't ever leave me.”

“Oh, Gerry...” She stood looking at him with her heart in her eyes, and the love he felt for her swelled in his chest until he ached. The security people didn't want to look like bad guys in front of the press, so they let him lift his cuffed wrists and slip his arms over her head. He kissed her so intently that he forgot to make sure they were turned to face the network television cameras.

Luckily, Gerry had a partner who wasn't as easily distracted by females.

Far overhead, from a small window in the crown of the Statue of Liberty, another banner began to unfurl, this one a bright canary yellow. It was made from a synthetic material that had been developed for the space program—a material that was lightweight and could be compacted for portability into a package not much bigger than a wallet, and then would generously expand once it was released. The canary yellow banner slipped down over Lady Liberty's forehead, unrolled along the length of her nose, and gradually opened as it came to a stop at the base of her chin. Its message was clearly legible from the ground, simply printed in seven thick black letters.