Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(46)

“Hey!” he yelled, rubbing the spot where she'd landed. “I'm on your side... I guess.”

“Dallie!” She threw herself into his arms. “Oh, Dallie, Dallie, Dallie! My wonderful Dallie! I can't believe it's you!”

He pulled her off. “Easy, Francie, you're not out of here yet. Why the hell—”

He never finished. Someone who looked like an extra in an old Steve Reeves movie came at him with a right hook, and Francesca watched in horror as Dallie sprawled on the floor. Spotting her cosmetic case sitting in splendid isolation on the jukebox, she snatched it up and banged it into the side of the awful man's head. To her horror, the clasp gave way, and she watched helplessly as her wonderful blushers and shadows and creams and lotions flew about the room. A box of her specially blended translucent powder sent up a scented cloud that soon had everyone coughing and sliding and quickly put a damper on the fight.

Dallie staggered to his feet, threw a couple of punches of his own, and then grabbed her arm. “Come on. Let's get out of here before they decide to eat you for a bedtime snack.”

“My makeup!” She scrambled toward a cake of frosted peach eye shadow, even though she knew it was a ridiculous thing to do with her blouse falling off, a bloody scratch on her neck, two fingernails broken, and her very life in danger. But recovering the eye shadow suddenly became more important to her than anything in the world, and she was willing to fight them all to get it back.

He whipped his arm around her waist and lifted her feet off the floor. “To hell with your makeup!”

“No! Put me down!” She had to have the eye shadow. Little by little, every single item she owned was being taken away from her, and if she let just one more thing disappear, one more possession slip out of her life, she might very well disappear herself, fading away like the Cheshire cat until nothing was left, not even her teeth.

“Come on, Francie!”

“No!” She fought Dallie as she'd fought the rest, flailing her legs in the air, kicking his calves, screaming out, “I want it! I have to have it.”

“You're gonna get it, all right!”

“Please, Dallie,” she begged. “Please!”

The magic word had never failed her before, and it didn't now. Muttering under his breath, he leaned forward with his arm still around her and snatched up the eye shadow. As he straightened, she grabbed it from him and then reached out, just managing to grasp the open lid of her cosmetic case before he pulled her away. By the time she had snapped the lid shut, she'd lost a bottle of almond-scented moisturizer and broken a third fingernail, but she had managed to avoid spilling out her calfskin handbag along with its three hundred and fifty dollars. And she had her precious frosted peach eye shadow.

Skeet propped the door open and Dallie carried her through. As he set her down on the pavement, she heard sirens. He immediately snatched her back up and dragged her toward the Riviera.

“Can't she even walk by herself?” Skeet asked, catching the keys that Dallie pitched to him.

“She likes to argue.” Dallie glanced toward the flashing lights that weren't all that far away. “Commissioner Deane Beman and the PGA are only going to put up with so much from me this year, so let's get the hell out of here.” Shoving her none too gently into the back seat, he jumped in after her and closed the door.

They rode in silence for sèveral minutes. Her teeth began to chatter from the aftereffects of the fight, and her hands shook as she tried to pull the front of her blouse together and tuck some of the torn ends into her bra. It didn't take her long to realize the task was hopeless. A lump lodged in her throat. She hugged her arms over her chest and yearned for some expression of sympathy, some concern for her condition, a small sign that someone cared about her.

Dallie reached under the seat in front of him and pulled out an unopened bottle of scotch. After breaking the seal with his thumbnail, he unscrewed the top, took a long swallow, and then looked thoughtful. Francesca prepared herself for the questions to come and made up her mind to answer each one with as much dignity as possible. She bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

Dallie leaned toward Skeet. “I didn't see anything of that red-haired waitress. Did you get a chance to ask about her?”

“Yeah. The bartender said she went off to Bogalusa with some guy who works for the power company.”

“Too bad.”

Skeet glanced into the rearview mirror. “Seems the guy only had one arm.”

“No kidding? Did the bartender tell you how a thing like that happened?”

“Industrial accident of some kind. A few years back the guy worked for a tool and die outfit up near Shreveport and got his arm caught in a press. Crushed that sucker flatter than a pancake.”

“Guess it didn't make any difference to his love life with that waitress of yours.” Dallie took another swallow. “Women are funny ‘bout things like that. Take that lady we met last year in San Diego after the Andy Williams—”

“Stop it!” Francesca cried, unable to hold back her outcry. “Are you so callous that you don't have the simple decency to ask me if I'm all right? That was a barroom brawl back there! Don't you realize that I could have been killed?”

“Probably not,” Dallie said. “Somebody most likely would've put a stop to it.”