Lady Be Good (Wynette, Texas #2)(40)

“Hey, Ted. How you doin’?” Torie took a seat at the table without waiting for an invitation, then gestured toward the empty chair on the other side for Emma.

“Can’t complain. How about you?”

“Same old. Same old. This is Lady Emma.”

As Emma nodded, the man named Ted glanced at her tattoo, then gave her a lazy, meandering smile that made her wish she were ten years younger. “Ma’am.”

“He’s only twenty-two,” Torie said, as if she were reading Emma’s mind. “Isn’t that a major crime for us older women?”

Ted smiled and ducked his head to study his beer bottle.

“You seen Kenny?” Torie asked.

“He was here a minute ago.”

The fact that Kenny had gone out on the town without inviting her was annoying. Apparently she was going to have to drop Francesca’s name again to remind him who was in charge.

As if she’d conjured him, Kenny came ambling across the room. He had a beer bottle in one hand and a golf club swinging loosely from the other. He tossed it to the bartender, who tucked it away.

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he saw Emma, then he looked at Ted. “The next lesson in the alley’s on you. Randy Ames keeps wanting me to fix his slice, but he won’t do a thing I tell him. Maybe you’ll have more luck.”

“Are you a golfer, too?” Emma asked Ted, deliberately ignoring Kenny as he took the chair next to her.

“I’ve been known to play a little.” Although Ted phrased his sentences like a Texan, he didn’t have any drawl. Curious.

Kenny snorted. “Ted here was the top amateur in the state three years running. Second best golfer UT’s ever had play for them.”

“There’s some debate about that.” Torie shot her brother a sly look. “Ted did manage to win three NCAA individual titles, instead of somebody I could mention who only won two. Plus, Ted also managed to graduate, something else a certain person I could mention seems to have neglected.”

“College is hard.” Kenny scratched his chest. “And the debate over who’s the best is resolved as far as I’m concerned.” He regarded Ted smugly. “Only one of us had the guts to turn pro.”

Ted smiled his shy smile.

Torie turned to Emma. “See, Ted’s this egghead genius, so all his life he’s been torn between golf and nerd stuff. Around here people consider him sort of a genetic freak. Even his own parents.”

Instead of taking offense, Ted nodded. “That’s so.”

“He’s just finished his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the same time.” Kenny’s pride was visible, and Emma could see there was something special about the relationship between these two men. “Playing varsity golf slowed down his academic career or he’d have finished up a lot earlier.”

“Didn’t see any need to hurry.”

“Exactly what I told you,” Kenny said with satisfaction.

Emma pretended to sip from her drink as the three of them chatted with the ease of people who’d known each other for a long time. It was Torie who introduced the subject of Kenny’s suspension. “It’s so unfair,” she said. “Anybody who knows Kenny knows he wouldn’t hit a woman on purpose. He’ll drive ’em crazy and screw around on ’em, but he won’t hit them.”

Kenny looked aggravated. “That’s not why I was originally suspended, and I never screwed around on a woman I cared about in my life, at least not since I was sixteen.” He glanced over at Ted. “I swear, somebody needs to swat her.”

“Don’t look at me. I’m scared of her.”

Torie leaned over and kissed Ted’s cheek. “If you were just a couple years older, sonny boy, I’d show you the time of your life.”

“I doubt I’d survive it.”

“You ask me,” Kenny said, “the Antichrist is going through some kind of midlife crisis. Sonovabitch turns fifty this year. I think it’s twisted his mind.”

Ted tilted his chair back and stretched out his legs. “He’s just pissed off at you is all.”

“Abuse of power,” Kenny grumbled. “Thinks he’s the damned President of the United States.”

Ted smiled.

“I’m serious,” Kenny went on. “Everybody who belongs to the PGA expects the commissioner to be fair. Even though he only has the job temporarily, he should at least pretend to be impartial.”

At that moment, Emma spotted the man in the floral shirt who’d followed them into the bar and realized he was watching her quite closely from across the room. A rush of excitement went through her. He really was Beddington’s watchdog!

She knew she had to make the most of the moment, but all she could think to do was grab her gin and tonic and take a healthy slug. As a scandalous act, it was fairly pathetic, but she couldn’t think of anything else. And then another idea occurred to her, although she didn’t want to do it. Still, she wanted to be married to Hugh even less.

Steeling herself, she rose out of her chair, looped her arm around Kenny’s neck, and planted herself in his lap.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Have I missed something?”

She curled her mouth into what she hoped was a seductive smile and tried to speak without moving her lips. “Kiss me at once.”