Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(41)

“Stop it!” She stamped her foot in the dirt. “Just stop it! I don't have any idea what you're talking about, and even a blind idiot could see that I can't possibly get out of this dress by myself, and if you ask me, the person who talks too much around here is you!”

He grinned, and she suddenly forgot her misery under the force of that devastating smile, crinkling the corners of his mouth and eyes. His amusement seemed to come from a place deep inside, and as she watched him she had the absurd feeling that an entire world of funniness had somehow managed to pass her by. The idea made her feel more out of sorts than ever. “Hurry up, will you?” she snapped. “I can barely breathe.”

“Turn around, Francie. Undressing women is one of my particular talents. Even better than my bunker shot.”

“You're not undressing me,” she sputtered, as she turned her back to him. “Don't make it sound so sordid.”

His hands paused on the hooks at the back of her dress. “What exactly would you call it?”

“Performing a helpful function.”

“Sort of like a maid?” The row of hooks began to ease open.

“Rather like that, yes.” She had the uneasy feeling that she'd just taken another giant step in the wrong direction. She heard a short, vaguely malevolent chuckle that confirmed her fears.

“Something about you is sort of growin’ on me, Francie. It's not often life gives you the opportunity to meet living history.”

“Living history?”

“Sure. French Revolution, old Marie Antoinette. All that let-them-eat-cake stuff.”

“What,” she asked, as the last of the hooks fell open, “would someone like you know about Marie Antoinette?”

“Until a little over an hour ago,” he replied, “not much.”

They picked Skeet up about two miles down the road, and as Dallie had predicted, he wasn't happy. Francesca found herself banished to the back seat, where she sipped from a bottle of something called Yahoo chocolate soda, which she'd taken from the Styrofoam cooler without waiting for an invitation. She drank and brooded, remaining silent, as requested, all the way into New Orleans. She wondered what Dallie would say if he knew that she didn't have a plane ticket, but she refused even to consider telling him the truth. Picking at the corner of the Yahoo label with her thumbnail, she contemplated the fact that she didn't have a mother, money, a home, or a fiancé. All she had left was a small remnant of pride, and she desperately wanted the chance to wave it at least once before the day was over. For some reason, pride was becoming increasingly important to her when it came to Dallie Beaudine.

If only he weren't so impossibly gorgeous, and so obviously unimpressed with her. It was infuriating... and irresistible. She had never walked away from a challenge where a man was concerned, and it grated on her to be forced to walk away from this one. Common sense told her she had bigger problems to worry about, but something more visceral said that if she couldn't manage to attract the admiration of Dallie Beaudine she would have lost one more chunk of herself.

As she finished her chocolate soda, she figured out how to get the money she needed for her ticket home. Of course! The idea was so absurdly simple that she should have thought of it right away. She looked over at her suitcase and frowned at the scratch on the side. That suitcase had cost something like eighteen hundred pounds when she'd bought it less than a year before. Flipping open her cosmetic case, she riffled through the contents looking for a cake of eye shadow approximately the same butternut shade as the leather. When she found it, she unscrewed the lid and gently dabbed at the scratch. It was still faintly visible when she was done, but she felt satisfied that only a close inspection would reveal the flaw.

With that problem out of the way and the first airport sign in sight, she returned her thoughts to Dallie Beaudine, trying to understand his attitude toward her. The whole problem—the only reason everything was going so badly between them—was that she looked so awful. This had temporarily thrown him into the superior position. She let her eyelids drift shut and played out a fantasy in her mind in which she would appear before him well rested, hair freshly arranged in shining chestnut curls, makeup impeccable, -clothes wonderful. She would have him on his knees in seconds.

The current argument, in what seemed to be an ongoing series between Dallie and that horrid companion of his, distracted her from her reverie.

“I don't see why you're so hell-bent on making Baton Rouge tonight,” Skeet complained. “We've got all day tomorrow to get to Lake Charles in time for your round Monday morning. What difference does an extra hour make?”

“The difference is I don't want to spend any more time driving on Sunday than I have to.”

“I'll drive. It's only an extra hour, and there's that real nice motel where we stayed last year. Don't you have a dog or something to check on there?”

“Since when did you give a damn about any of my dogs?”

“A cute little mutt with a black spot over one eye, wasn't it? Had some kind of a bad leg.”

“That was in Vicksburg.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. Listen, Skeet, if you want to spend tonight in New Orleans so you can go over to the Blue Choctaw and see that red-haired waitress, why don't you just come out and say it instead of beating around the bush like this, going on about dogs and bad legs like some kind of goddamn hypocrite.”