Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars #2)(32)

He still couldn’t quite explain why he hadn’t gotten rid of Gracie back in Memphis, except that she’d kept surprising him. She was one crazy lady, he thought, remembering the way she’d sabotaged his car and thrown herself in front of the wheels. But she was nice, too. The best thing about having Gracie along was that no matter how mad she made him, she didn’t wear him out like a lot of other people.

When he was with her, he didn’t have to use up all his energy just trying to be himself. She also amused the hell out of him, and right now in his life, that counted for a lot.

Where the hell was she? Between her innocence and her damned curiosity, she’d probably already landed herself in a mess. According to Willow, no one knew how she had gotten into town, only that she’d picked up her paycheck at the hotel and disappeared. He still had her suitcase in his trunk. Not that there was anything in it that shouldn’t be burned for the greater good of mankind. Except for her underwear. During her striptease and that vault she’d made over his car door, he hadn’t failed to notice that Gracie did have herself some nice underwear.

Tossing his legs over the side of the chaise, he got up and began to dress. He didn’t want people in Telarosa to think he’d gotten a big head, so he bypassed his Levi’s for a pair of Wranglers, then pulled on a baby blue T-shirt, a sleeveless black denim vest, and a pair of boots. Just before he left the room, he grabbed a straw cowboy hat from his closet. So far he’d managed to avoid going into town, but with Gracie missing, he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer.

With a combination of despair and resignation, he walked over to a small painting of a ballerina, opened it by pulling back on the gilded frame, and entered the combination on the wall safe behind. When the lock released, he extracted a royal blue velvet jeweler’s box and flipped it open with his thumb.

Inside lay his second Super Bowl ring.

The team logo of three interlocking gold stars in a sky blue circle had been replicated on the top of the ring, with the points of the stars executed in white diamonds while three larger yellow diamonds formed the centers. More diamonds spelled out the Super Bowl roman numeral designation and the year of the game. It was big and flashy, which was pretty much a requirement for Super Bowl rings.

Bobby Tom’s lips tightened as he slipped it on his right hand. Although he’d always had an aversion to gaudy masculine jewelry, his reaction wasn’t based on aesthetics. Instead, wearing the ring made him feel like so many of the retired players he’d known over the years, men who were still trying to live out their glory days long after they should have put the past behind them and gotten on with their lives. As far as Bobby Tom was concerned, once he’d blown out his knee, he hadn’t ever wanted to touch this ring again. Wearing it was a reminder that the best days of his life were behind him.

But he was in Telarosa now—the favorite son of a dying town—and what he wanted didn’t matter all that much. In Telorosa he had to keep the ring on his finger, just as he’d worn its predecessor, because he knew how much it meant to everybody who lived here.

He walked into the living room and headed toward a round table nestled between two gilt chairs. The table’s overskirt was printed with pink-and-lavender flowers and streamers of green ribbon. A small cut glass bowl filled with dry rose petals sat on top, along with a white marble statue of Cupid and a bone china pitcher bearing clusters of violets. Bobby Tom picked it up and tilted out the keys to his pickup truck.

After replacing the pitcher, he gazed around the living room and began to smile. As he took in the pastel wallpaper, the lace curtains caught back with candy-striped bows, the plump chintz sofas and overstuffed easy chairs with deep ruffles that brushed the carpet, he reminded himself never again to give a lady who was pissed off at him the job of decorating one of his houses.

Everything was either lace, pink, covered with flowers, or had a ruffle on it. Sometimes all four at once, although his former girlfriend/decorator had been careful not to overdo. Since he didn’t fancy the idea of having his buddies bust a gut laughing at him, he had never permitted any of the decorating magazines to photograph the interior of this particular house. Ironically, it was the only one he really liked. Although he’d never admit it to a soul, this silly little candy box of a house relaxed him. He had spent so much of his life in exclusively masculine enclaves that entering this place always made him feel as if he were taking a short vacation from his life. Unfortunately, the minute he walked out the front door, the vacation was over.

The spacious freestanding garage that sat behind the house held his Thunderbird along with his black Chevy pickup. He’d turned the area above it into a weight room for himself as well as a small apartment where he could tuck away all the visitors who didn’t think twice about dropping in on him without warning. A retired couple from town took care of everything when he wasn’t here, which was most of the time, because being in this place he loved more than any other spot on earth was sometimes more than he could bear.

He maneuvered the pickup down the gravel drive to the highway. Across the road, he could see part of the landing strip he’d built on some additional acreage he owned. The Baron was tucked into a small hangar set back from the highway amidst the mesquite and prickly pear.

A truck loaded with pigs blew by. After it had passed, he turned out onto the asphalt. He remembered all those summer nights when he and his friends used to run drag races on this very road. Then they’d go down to the South Llano, where he’d drink too much and throw up. By the time he was seventeen, he’d already figured out that he didn’t have the stomach for hard liquor, and he’d been a light drinker ever since.