Heaven, Texas (Chicago Stars #2)(8)

Her words had caught the attention of the guests nearest her, and she saw that her plans for a private conversation were rapidly dissolving. She lowered her voice until it was barely more than a whisper.

“There’s been a terrible misunderstanding. Can’t you see that I don’t look like a stripper?”

He slipped the unlit cigar between his teeth and, letting his eyes slide over her in a leisurely fashion, spoke in a normal voice. “As to that, sometimes it’s hard to tell. Last one came in here dressed like a nun, and the one before that was pretty much a dead ringer for Mick Jagger.”

Someone had shut off the music, and an unnatural silence had fallen over the crowd. Despite her determination to hold onto her self-control, she could no longer keep her voice steady. She snatched up the suit jacket she had discarded earlier. “Please, Mr. Denton. Could we go somewhere private?”

He sighed and uncoiled from the boulder. “I s’pose we’d better. But you’ve got to give me your word you’ll keep your clothes on. It wouldn’t be fair for me to see you naked when my guests can’t.”

“I promise, Mr. Denton, that you will never see me naked!”

He looked doubtful. “I don’t mean to question your good intentions, honey, but judging from my past history, it might not be that easy for you to resist.”

The size of his ego flabbergasted her. As she stared at him, he gave a slight shrug. “I suppose we’d better go in my study, then, and have that private conversation you’re so set on.” Taking her arm, he led her down off the platform.

As they crossed the floor of the grotto, she remembered that he hadn’t seemed the slightest bit surprised by her announcement that she wasn’t a stripper. He was too cool, too calm, too openly amused with the whole situation. Before she had time to carry this thought to its logical conclusion, the red-haired football player who’d spoken with her earlier stepped out of the crowd and gave Bobby Tom a playful punch in the arm.

“Damn, Bobby Tom. I hope this one isn’t pregnant, too.”





2




“You knew all along I wasn’t a stripper, didn’t you?”

Bobby Tom closed the study door after them. “Not for certain.”

Gracie Snow was nobody’s fool. “I believe you did,” she said firmly.

He gestured toward her blouse, and once again she saw the laugh lines crinkling at the corners of his lady-killer eyes. “You’ve got your buttons mixed up there a little bit. You want me to help—? No, I guess you don’t.”

Nothing was going the way she’d planned. What had Bobby Tom’s friend meant when he’d said he hoped this one wasn’t pregnant, too? She recalled a remark she’d overheard Willow make about one of their actors who’d been involved in several paternity suits a few years ago. They must have been talking about Bobby Tom. Apparently he was one of those loathsome men who preyed on vulnerable women and then abandoned them. It grated her to admit someone so immoral had fascinated her even momentarily.

She turned away to straighten her buttons and gather her composure. While she put herself together, she took in her surroundings and found herself facing the most colossal display of ego she had ever witnessed.

Bobby Tom Denton’s study was a shrine to the football career of Bobby Tom Denton. Blown-up action photographs hung on every surface of the marbleized gray walls. Some of them showed him in the uniform of the University of Texas, but in most of them, he wore the sky blue and gold of the Chicago Stars. In several of the photographs, he was off the ground, toes pointed, his lean body curved in a graceful C as he snatched a ball out of the air. There were close-ups of him in a sky blue helmet emblazoned with three gold stars, shots of him diving for the goal line or maneuvering down the sidelines, one foot positioned in front of the other as gracefully as a ballet dancer’s. Shelves displayed trophies, commendations, and framed certificates.

She watched him settle with lazy grace into a sling-shaped leather chair behind a granite-topped desk that looked as if it belonged in a Flintstones cartoon. A sleek gray computer sat on top, along with a high-tech telephone. She chose a tub chair resting beneath a group of framed magazines covers, several of which depicted him standing on the sidelines kissing a glamorous blonde. Gracie recognized her from an article she’d seen in People magazine, as Phoebe Somerville Calebow, the beautiful owner of the Chicago Stars.

His eyes drifted over her and the corner of his mouth curled. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, honey, but speaking as something of an expert, it seems only right to tell you that, if you’re looking for a night job, you might think more on the lines of clerking at a 7-Eleven than taking off your clothes professionally.”

She’d never been very good at icy glares, but she did her best. “You deliberately set out to embarrass me.”

He worked equally hard at looking crestfallen. “I wouldn’t do that to a lady.”

“Mr. Denton, as I suspect you know very well, I’m here on behalf of Windmill Studios. Willow Craig, the producer, sent me to—”

“Uh-huh. You want a glass of champagne or a Coke or something?” The phone began to ring, but he ignored it.

“No, thank you. You were supposed to be in Texas four days ago to begin shooting Blood Moon, and—”

“How about a beer? I’ve noticed a lot more women are drinking beer than used to.”