Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars #2)(50)

She gazed at a queen-size bed with shiny gilt posts and the most incredible canopy she had ever seen. Layer upon layer of gossamer white lace tumbled in a frothy waterfall caught up in swags with nosegays of pink-and-lavender satin ribbon.

Her eyes sparkled. “Do you have to wait for the prince to kiss you every morning before you can wake up?”

He laughed. “I keep meaning to get rid of it, but I never seem to get around to it.”

The fairy-tale room with its canopy bed, gilded chests, pink-and-lavender throw pillows, and ruffled chaise lounge looked as if it belonged in Sleeping Beauty’s castle. After years of living inside institutional beige walls and walking on hard tile floors, she wished she could stay here for the rest of her life.

The phone began to ring in his office, but he ignored it. “There’s a little apartment over the garage where you can stay. My weight room’s up there, too.”

She gazed at him with astonishment. “I’m not staying here.”

“Of course you are. You can’t afford to stay anyplace else.”

For a fraction of a moment, she didn’t know what he was talking about, and then she remembered her stilted conversation with Willow that morning. Windmill Studios had been responsible for her room and board when she worked on location as a production assistant, but Willow had made a point of stating that her new position had no provision for a living allowance. Gracie had been so upset by everything else that had happened, she hadn’t considered the problem that presented.

“I’ll find an inexpensive motel,” she said firmly.

“On your salary, it’d have to be more than inexpensive; it’d have to be free.”

“How do you know what my salary is?”

“Willow told me. And it made me wonder why you don’t just buy yourself a bottle of Windex, so you could stand at a traffic light and do windshields instead. I guaran-damn-tee you, you’d earn more money.”

“Money isn’t everything. I was willing to make a small sacrifice until I proved myself with the studio.”

Once again the phone began to ring, and once again he ignored it. “In case you’ve forgotten, the two of us are supposed to be engaged. People around here know me too well to believe you’d be living anyplace but close by.”

“Engaged?”

His lips tightened in annoyance. “I distinctly remember that you were standing right next to me when I told all of those ladies in the trailer that you’d passed the football quiz.”

“Bobby Tom, those women didn’t take you seriously. Or at least they won’t when they start thinking about it.”

“That’s why we’ve got to be aggressive about this.”

“Are you telling me that you seriously want people to believe the two of us are engaged?” Her voice caught on a high, squeaky note as her hopes blossomed, only to be firmly squelched by her instincts for self-protection. Fantasies were meant to be dreamed, not lived. It would all be a game to him, but not to her.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it? Contrary to what you may think, I don’t talk just to hear the sound of my voice. For the rest of our stay in Telarosa, you’re the future Mrs. Bobby Tom.”

“I most certainly am not! And I wish you’d quit saying that. Mrs. Bobby Tom! As if the woman who marries you isn’t anything more than your appendage!”

He released a long, put upon sigh. “Gracie…Gracie…Gracie…. Every time I think the two of us have our communication channels open, you do something to prove me wrong The most important part of your job as my personal assistant is to make certain I get some peace and quiet while I’m here. Exactly how do you expect that to happen when every Tom, Dick, and Harriet who’s known me since I was born has an unattached female they want me to meet?”

As if to prove his point, the doorbell began to chime. He ignored it the same way he ignored his telephone. “Let me explain something to you. Right this very moment there are at least a dozen women between here and San Antone who are trying to memorize the year Joe Theismann played in the Pro Bowl and figure out how many yards a team gets penalized if the captain doesn’t show up for the coin toss. That’s just the way things are around here. Without even looking, I can pretty much guarantee that’s a female at the door now, or someone who’s got one in tow. This isn’t Chicago, where I’ve got some control over the women I see. This is Telarosa, and these people own me.”

She tried to appeal to his sense of reason. “But no one in their right mind is going to believe you’d marry me.” Both of them knew it was true, and it might as well be said. The ringing stopped and pounding took its place, but he didn’t move. “Once I get you fixed up a little bit, they will.”

She regarded him warily. “What do you mean ‘fixed up’?”

“Just what I said, is all. We’re going to do one of those whadyacall—One of those make-overs, like they do on the ‘Oprah’ show.”

“What do you know about the ‘Oprah’ show?”

“You spend as many days sittin’ in hotel rooms as I’ve spent, you get to know daytime TV pretty well.”

She heard the amusement in his voice. “You’re not serious about this at all. You’re just getting even with me for letting those women into your motor home.”