Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars #2)(46)

“I’ve been studyin’, too,” her friend Marsha piped in. “The library’s entire collection of football books was picked clean the minute word got around that you were comin’ back.”

He’d reached the end of his patience, and with a sigh of pure regret, he placed a hand on each woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to do this to you, ladies, but truth is, Gracie passed the quiz just last night and consented to be Mrs. Bobby Tom.”

A deep silence fell over the trailer. Gracie froze in place, the half gallon of Neapolitan ice cream beginning to drip in her hands.

The women’s eyes flew back and forth between the two of them, and Colleen’s mouth flopped like a guppy’s. “Gracie?”

“That Gracie?” Mary Louise said, her eyes cataloging every one of Gracie’s fashion and grooming mistakes.

Bobby Tom gave his intended the best facsimile of a tender smile he could manage to bestow on someone he planned to murder in cold blood. “This sweet lady right here.” He squeezed through the Reba McEntire hairdos to get to her side. “I told you we weren’t going to be able to keep it a secret for long, darlin’.”

Slipping his arm around her shoulders, he hauled her against his bare chest where he did his best to smear dirt and baby oil all over the side of her face. “I’m tellin’ you, ladies, Gracie knows more Super Bowl history than any woman I ever met. Lordy, but she is pure magic when it comes to quoting postseason game records. The way you called out those passing percentages last night, sweetheart, just ‘bout brought tears to my eyes.”

She was making funny little strangling sounds against his chest, and he squeezed her tighter. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Passing Gracie off as his fiancée was the perfect way to buy himself some peace and quiet during his stay in Telarosa.

He shifted her across his body so he could smear up the other side of her face, then sucked in his breath as a frigid half gallon of Neapolitan hit him square in the stomach.

Mary Louise Finster looked as if she’d swallowed a chicken bone. “But, Bobby Tom, Gracie isn’t—She’s real nice and all, but she isn’t exactly—”

He inhaled sharply against the cold and dug his fingers into the hair on the back of Gracie’s head where nobody could see. “Shoot, are you talkin’ ‘bout the way Gracie looks right now? She just dresses like this sometimes ‘cause I ask her to. Otherwise, she gets too much attention from men, isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

Her response was lost against his chest as she tried to ram the carton into his side. He tightened his grip on her hair and jiggled her head up and down while he smiled to beat the band. “Some of those boys on the crew look sort of wild, and I’m afraid they might get too worked up around her.”

Just as he’d hoped, the announcement of his engagement took away the girls’ party spirit. Doing his best to ignore the leaking ice cream, he kept Gracie close to his side while he said good-bye to his visitors. When the trailer door finally shut behind the last of them, he released her and looked down.

Dirt and oil smeared her face and most of the front of her raccoon tail dress, while melting ice cream sloshed out from under the lid of the squashed container and ran in muddy chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla trickles over her fingers.

He waited for an outburst of indignation, but instead of exhibiting anger, her eyes narrowed with determination. Just as he remembered that Gracie hardly ever reacted in a predictable fashion, her hand shot out and she grabbed the V-shaped opening at the top of his jeans. Before he could react, she had dumped melting ice cream down the front of his pants.

He yowled and leaped straight up in the air.

She dropped the carton to the floor with a splat and crossed her arms over her chest. “That,” she said, “is for making me buy condoms in front of your mother!”

It was hard to yell, hop up and down, cuss, and laugh at the same time, but Bobby Tom somehow managed it.

While he suffered, Gracie stood in a spreading pool of melting Neapolitan and watched. Fairness compelled her to admire his attitude. He had been wrong to bait her, she had retaliated, and, with the exception of an excess of vulgar language, he was being a remarkably good sport about it.

At that precise moment, Gracie saw his hand move to his zipper and knew she had allowed herself to relax too soon. She took an instinctive step away from him only to feel her heel catch on the ice cream carton. The next thing she knew, she was lying flat on her back looking up at him.

“Well, now, what do we have here?” A diabolical gleam sparkled in his eyes as he gazed down at her, one hand still on his zipper, the other on his hip. Cold slapped the bare backs of her thighs where her skirt had ridden up. She planted the heels of her hands on the linoleum so she could scramble to her feet only to have Bobby Tom drop down on his knees next to her.

“Not so fast, sweetheart.”

She regarded him warily while she tried to scoot away. “I don’t know what you’ve got on your mind, but whatever it is, forget it right now.”

One corner of his mouth curled malevolently. “Oh, it’ll take me a long time to forget something like that.”

She gave a hiss of alarm as his gooey hands settled on her shoulders and he flipped her over onto her stomach. Her cheek squished into a mound of melting vanilla and she yelped. Before she could scramble back up, something that felt very much like his knee settled into the small of her back.