Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars #2)(117)

Bobby Tom approached the microphone and launched into a routine that would have done a stand-up comic proud. As he poked fun at his friends’ golf games and his own poor score, she thought she’d never seen him more entertaining. His eyes fairly glowed with happiness, and his grin would have done justice to a toothpaste model. She had the dismal thought that he couldn’t have found a better way to let the crowd know that he wasn’t the one suffering from a broken heart.

He finished recognizing the athletes, and she waited for him to step back from the mike so she could slip away. Instead, he looked over at her. “Before we start the dancing again, I have one more announcement to make…”

A trickle of alarm slithered down her spine.

“Some of you might have heard that Gracie and I broke our engagement. You might also have noticed that she’s pretty mad at me right now.” Once again his mouth curled in a grin so engaging that it was impossible to imagine anyone other than the world’s most unreasonable person ever being upset with him.

She prayed for him to stop. She couldn’t bear the idea that he was going to somehow hold up her private misery in front of this crowd for everyone to see, but he continued to talk.

“The thing of it is, there are engagements and then there are engagements, and it turns out Gracie and I were only engaged to be engaged. But now it’s time to do this right. Bring Gracie over here, Luther, because she’s still mad at me, and I doubt she’s going to come on her own.”

She would never forgive him for this, she thought, as Luther gave a hearty chortle and pulled her forward. She looked down at Terry Jo, at Natalie and Toolee Chandler all standing before her in the crowd, wordlessly begging one of them to help her, but they were all smiling. Bobby Tom’s friends seemed to be enjoying this, too.

He wrapped his arm around her and gazed down into her stricken face. “Gracie, right here in front of God, the hometown crowd, and all these gym rats that I call my friends, I’m asking you to do me the honor of becoming my wife.” He put his palm over the microphone and leaned down to whisper, “I love you, honey, and this time’s for real.”

An awful shudder ripped through her. She never imagined anything could hurt this badly. The crowd laughed and clapped. These were the people he’d grown up with, the men who were his friends, and there was no way in the world he could tolerate any of them seeing him as a loser. He’d lied when he said he loved her. Lies came easily to him, and to save his reputation, he was willing to destroy her.

Her soft, choked words were for his ears alone. “I can’t marry you, Bobby Tom. I deserve something better.”

Only as her voice came back to her, amplified by the speakers, did she realize he’d removed his hand from the microphone before she spoke. The laughter of the audience abruptly stopped. There were a few nervous chuckles, and then as people realized she was serious, utter silence.

Bobby Tom’s face had gone pale. Stricken, she gazed into his eyes. She hadn’t wanted to humiliate him, but the words were spoken and she wouldn’t take them back because they were true.

She waited for him to come up with some sort of wisecrack to defuse the situation, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, backing away. “I’m really sorry.” She turned and rushed off the platform.

As she pushed through the stunned, silent crowd, she waited to hear his lazy drawl, his endearing chuckle amplified by the microphone for the hometown crowd. In her mind, she could even hear the words he would choose.

Whooee! Now that, folks, is one mad little lady. Bet it’s gonna cost me more than a bottle of champagne and a night on the town to get her settled down.

She pushed forward, stumbling once on the hem of her long dress, and then she heard his voice, just as she’d known she would. But instead of the words she had imagined, the loudspeakers crackled with rage and hostility.

“Go on, Gracie! Get out of here! We both know I was just trying to do you a favor. Shit; Why the hell would I want to marry somebody like you? Now get out of here! Get the hell out of my life, and don’t ever let me see your face again!”

She was sobbing, humiliated. She plunged blindly forward, not knowing where she was going, not caring, only knowing she had to get away.

A hand closed on her arm, and she saw Ray Bevins, the Blood Moon cameraman. “Come on, Gracie. I’ll drive you.”

The loudspeakers shrieked behind her with the deafening sound of feedback from the microphone.

She ran.





24




Bobby Tom Denton turned out to be a mean drunk. He destroyed most of the interior of the Wagon Wheel, kicked the windows out of a brand-new Pontiac, and broke Len Brown’s arm. Bobby Tom had been in fights before, but not with somebody like Len and not with Buddy Baines, who’d only been stealing the keys to Bobby Tom’s truck to keep him from driving drunk. Nobody could have imagined a day when the people of Telarosa would be ashamed of their favorite son, but that night they all shook their heads.

When Bobby Tom woke up, he was in jail. He tried to roll over, but it hurt too much to move. His head throbbed and every muscle in his body ached. As he attempted to open his eyes, he realized that one of them was swollen shut. At the same time, his stomach felt like he had a bad case of the flu.

He winced as he slowly lowered his legs over the side of the cot and dragged himself into a sitting position. Even after a particularly brutal game, he’d never felt this bad. Dropping his head into his hands, he let despair wash over him. A lot of people didn’t remember what they did when they were drunk, but he remembered every miserable moment. Even worse, he remembered what had led up to it.