Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars #2)(30)

“I’m sorry. I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Suzy Denton.”

Gracie tried to sort it out. Could this woman be his sister? Even as the notion flickered through her mind, she remembered the wedding band on her finger. A married sister wouldn’t have the same last name.

Her stomach plummeted. That lying snake! And after all his talk about football quizzes.

Fighting dizziness, she said, “Bobby Tom didn’t tell me he was married.”

Suzy gazed at her with kind eyes. “I’m not his wife, dear. I’m his mother.”

“His mother?” Gracie couldn’t believe it. Suzy Denton looked much too young to be his mother. And much too respectable. “But you’re not a—” She cut herself off in midsentence as she realized what she’d almost let slip out.

Suzy’s wedding ring clicked against the steering wheel as she gave it a hard smack. “I’m going to kill him! He’s been telling that hooker story again, hasn’t he?”

“Hooker story?”

“You don’t have to worry about sparing my feelings. I’ve heard it before. Did he tell you the one about me showing up drunk at all his high school games or the one where I proposition his coach on the practice field in front of his teammates?”

“He—uh—didn’t mention a coach.”

Suzy shook her head in annoyance and then, to Gracie’s surprise, the corners of her mouth began to curl. “It’s my fault. I know he’d stop if I insisted, but—” A trace of wistfulness had crept into her voice. “I’ve just always been so very respectable.”

They reached an intersection, and Suzy put on the brakes at a stop sign punctured by a bullet hole. At the base of the hills off to their right, Gracie saw several low industrial buildings marked by a black-and-bronze sign reading ROSATECH ELECTRONICS.

“For the record, I was happily married to Bobby Tom’s father for thirty years until he was killed in an automobile accident four years ago. When my son was growing up, I was his Cub Scout den mother, his homeroom mother, and team mother. Contrary to the stories he puts about, Bobby Tom had an entirely conventional upbringing.”

“You don’t look nearly old enough to be his mother.”

“I’m fifty-two. Hoyt and I were married a week after I graduated from high school, and Bobby Tom was born nine months later.”

She looked nearly ten years younger. As always, being with someone so different from herself piqued Gracie’s curiosity, and she couldn’t resist a little gentle probing.

“Did you ever regret getting married so young?”

“Never.” She gave Gracie a knowing smile. “Bobby Tom is the image of his father.”

Gracie understood completely.

Although Suzy was doing her best to conceal her curiosity, Grace could almost see her wondering how a plain mouse with dowdy clothes and bad hair had gotten tangled up with her lady-killer son. But now that Gracie knew with whom she was speaking, she could hardly complain about his behavior.

They crossed a set of railroad tracks and entered the downtown area. Gracie saw right away that Telarosa was doing its best to hide its troubles from the world. To conceal the fact that too many of its stores were empty, civic groups were using the windows for display. She saw craft projects in what had been a shoe store and posters advertising a car wash in an abandoned bookstore. The marquee over the empty movie theater announced HEAVENFEST, THIS OCTOBER THE WORLD COMES TO T’ROSA! On the other hand, several of the stores looked new: an art gallery with a Southwestern motif, a jeweler advertising handcrafted silver, a Victorian house that had been turned into a Mexican restaurant, complete with wrought-iron tables on the porch.

“It’s a pretty town,” Gracie observed.

“The economy has hurt Telarosa, but we’ve had Rosatech Electronics to keep us stable. We passed the plant coming into town. Unfortunately, the new owner seems determined to close it and move the work to another plant near San Antonio.”

“What will happen then?”

“Telarosa’s going to die,” Suzy said simply. “The mayor and the city council are trying to promote tourism to keep that from happening, but we’re so isolated that it’s going to be difficult.”

They passed a park with neat flower beds and an ancient live oak shadowing the statue of a war hero. Gracie felt incredibly selfish. Her problems seemed small compared with the disaster facing this pleasant town.

The road curved and Suzy pulled up to the entrance of the Cattleman’s Hotel. She shifted her car into park and removed her foot from the brake. “Gracie, I don’t know what happened between you and Bobby Tom, but I do know that he isn’t unjust. If he’s wronged you, I’m sure he’ll want to make amends.”

Not likely, Gracie thought. When Bobby Tom found out she’d been fired, he was going to click his heels and treat everyone in town to a steak dinner.





6




Bobby Tom pulled off his Stetson, ran his fingers through his hair, and then put it back on as he regarded Willow with cool, level eyes. “Let me make sure I understand this. You fired Gracie because I didn’t make it here by Monday morning.”

They were standing next to the production trailer. It was just past six o’clock, and they had finished shooting for the day. Bobby Tom had spent most of the time either standing around sweating in the heat or having somebody fuss with his hair. Neither activity appealed to him, and he was hoping the work would get more interesting tomorrow. So far the only acting he’d done had involved coming out of the back door of the house, dunking his head in a bucket of water, and walking over to the corral. They’d photographed him from every possible angle, and David Givens, the Blood Moon director, seemed happy.