Heaven, Texas (32 page)

A number of Bobby Tom's athlete friends had danced with her this evening, and most of them had been amused by her ignorance of who they were rather than being annoyed. Unfortunately, she' had discovered that they had somehow learned she was the one who had broken off with Bobby Tom, instead of the other way around. Women would have been sympathetic if they heard their friend had been dumped, but Bobby Tom's friends seemed to think this was unbelievably funny, and she was certain they'd been ribbing him about it all evening. She knew what kind of blow this would be to his pride, and a vague sense of apprehension settled around her pain.

Luther picked up the glass fishbowl containing the stubs of the raffle tickets that she'd given him earlier and gestured for her to approach. “Before Bobby Tom recognizes our guests tonight, we're going to draw for the beautiful quilt the folks at Arbor Hills Nursing Home are raffling off. Most of you folks know Gracie Snow. We sure are going to miss her after she leaves and let's give her a big round of applause for all the hard work she's done.”

Enthusiastic applause broke out, accompanied by some loud whistles. She reached into the fishbowl to draw out the winner.

“Number one-three-seven.”

The ticket, as it turned out, was the one the crew members had bought for Elvis, who awakened as his mother brought him forward. Gracie handed over the quilt to Natalie and gave the winner a special hug and kiss, realizing, as she did, how much she was going to miss this sweet-tempered baby. With the drawing completed, she tried to step down off the platform only to discover that Luther was in the way.

Bobby Tom approached the microphone and launched into a routine that would have done a stand-up comic proud. As he poked fun at his friends' golf games and his own poor score, she thought she'd never seen him more entertaining. His eyes fairly glowed with happiness, and his grin would have done justice to a toothpaste model. She had the dismal thought that he couldn't have found a better way to let the crowd know that he wasn't the one suffering from a broken heart.

He finished recognizing the athletes, and she waited for him to step back from the mike so she could slip away. Instead, he looked over at her. “Before we start the dancing again, I have one more announcement to make  .  .  .”

A trickle of alarm slithered down her spine.

“Some of you might have heard that Gracie and I broke our engagement. You might also have noticed that she's pretty mad at me right now.” Once again his mouth curled in a grin so engaging that it was impossible to imagine anyone other than the world's most unreasonable person ever being upset with him.

She prayed for him to stop. She couldn't bear the idea that he was going to somehow hold up her private misery in front of this crowd for everyone to see, but he continued to talk.

“The thing of it is, there are engagements and then there are engagements, and it turns out Gracie and I were only engaged to be engaged. But now it's time to do this right. Bring Gracie over here, Luther, because she's still mad at me, and I doubt she's going to come on her own.”

She would never forgive him for this, she thought, as Luther gave a hearty chortle and pulled her forward. She looked down at Terry Jo, at Natalie and Toolee Chandler all standing before her in the crowd, wordlessly begging one of them to help her, but they were all smiling. Bobby Tom's friends seemed to be enjoying this, too.

He wrapped his arm around her and gazed down into her stricken face. “Gracie, right here in front of God, the hometown crowd, and all these gym rats that I call my friends, I'm asking you to do me the honor of becoming my wife.” He put his palm over the microphone and leaned down to whisper, “I love you, honey, and this time's for real.”

An awful shudder ripped through her. She never imagined anything could hurt this badly. The crowd laughed and clapped. These were the people he'd grown up with, the men who were his friends, and there was no way in the world he could tolerate any of them seeing him as a loser. He'd lied when he said he loved her. Lies came easily to him, and to save his reputation, he was willing to destroy her.

Her soft, choked words were for his ears alone. “I can't marry you, Bobby Tom. I deserve something better.”

Only as her voice came back to her, amplified by the speakers, did she realize he'd removed his hand from the microphone before she spoke. The laughter of the audience abruptly stopped. There were a few nervous chuckles, and then as people realized she was serious, utter silence.

Bobby Tom's face had gone pale. Stricken, she gazed into his eyes. She hadn't wanted to humiliate him, but the words were spoken and she wouldn't take them back because they were true.

She waited for him to come up with some sort of wisecrack to defuse the situation, but he didn't say anything.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, backing away. “I'm really sorry.” She turned and rushed off the platform.

As she pushed through the stunned, silent crowd, she waited to hear his lazy drawl, his endearing chuckle amplified by the microphone for the hometown crowd. In her mind, she could even hear the words he would choose.

Whooee! Now that, folks, is one mad little lady. Bet it's gonna cost me more than a bottle of champagne and a night on the town to get her settled down.

She pushed forward, stumbling once on the hem of her long dress, and then she heard his voice, just as she'd known she would. But instead of the words she had imagined, the loudspeakers crackled with rage and hostility.

“Go on, Gracie! Get out of here! We both know I was just trying to do you a favor. Shit; Why the hell would I want to marry somebody like you? Now get out of here! Get the hell out of my life, and don't ever let me see your face again!”

She was sobbing, humiliated. She plunged blindly forward, not knowing where she was going, not caring, only knowing she had to get away.

A hand closed on her arm, and she saw Ray Bevins, the
Blood Moon
cameraman. “Come on, Gracie. I'll drive you.”

The loudspeakers shrieked behind her with the deafening sound of feedback from the microphone.

She ran.

B
obby Tom Denton turned out to be a mean drunk. He destroyed most of the interior of the Wagon Wheel, kicked the windows out of a brand-new Pontiac, and broke Len Brown's arm. Bobby Tom had been in fights before, but not with somebody like Len and not with Buddy Baines, who'd only been stealing the keys to Bobby Tom's truck to keep him from driving drunk. Nobody could have imagined a day when the people of Telarosa would be ashamed of their favorite son, but that night they all shook their heads.

When Bobby Tom woke up, he was in jail. He tried to roll over, but it hurt too much to move. His head throbbed and every muscle in his body ached. As he attempted to open his eyes, he realized that one of them was swollen shut. At the same time, his stomach felt like he had a bad case of the flu.

He winced as he slowly lowered his legs over the side of the cot and dragged himself into a sitting position. Even after a particularly brutal game, he'd never felt this bad. Dropping his head into his hands, he let despair wash over him. A lot of people didn't remember what they did when they were drunk, but he remembered every miserable moment. Even worse, he remembered what had led up to it.

How could he have stood up there at that microphone and talked to Gracie like that, no matter how humiliated he'd been by her rejection? The glimpse he'd had of her face as she'd run away would stay with him for the rest of his life. She'd believed every damning word he'd uttered, and the knowledge filled him with shame. At he same time, the echo of her words to him was scalded in his brain.

I can't marry you, Bobby Tom. I deserve something better.

And she did. God help him, she did. She deserved a man, not a boy. She deserved someone who loved her more than he loved his own legend. His
legend.
For the first time in his life, the thought filled him with disgust. Whatever legend he'd had his behavior last night had destroyed, and he didn't even care. All he cared about was getting Gracie back.

He was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of panic. What if she'd already left town? Her moral fiber was the toughest thing about her, and now that it was too late, he understood how important her principles were to her. Gracie always meant what she said, and once she'd made up her mind she was right about something, she didn't change it.

She'd said she loved him, and that counted for a lot with her, but by playing fast and loose with her affections and not respecting her feelings, he'd put her in a position where she couldn't back down. When he'd looked into her face last night and heard her say she couldn't marry him, she'd meant every word, and not even a public declaration of his love had been good enough to keep her.

A whole range of alien emotions bombarded him, but the most unfamiliar was desperation. After a lifetime of easy female conquests, he realized he'd lost his confidence. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been so certain that once she got away, he'd never get her back, but now he knew he was going to lose her forever. If he hadn't been able to win her on his home field, how could he hope to earn her love anywhere else?

“Well, well. Seems like the hometown boy got himself in a speck of trouble last night.”

He lifted his head and gazed through bleary eyes at Jimbo Thackery, who was standing outside his cell with a nasty smirk on his face.

“I'm not up to trading insults with you right now, Jimbo,” he muttered. “What do I have to do to get out of here?”

“The name's Jim.”

“Jim, then,” he said dully. Maybe it wasn't too late, he thought. Maybe she'd had a chance to think things over, and he could get her to change her mind. He swore before God Almighty that if she'd marry him, he'd buy her her very own nursing home for their first wedding anniversary. Before that, however, he had to find her. Then he had to convince her that he loved her more than he'd ever even thought about loving any other woman. He'd do whatever it took to make her forgive him.

He sat up straight on the edge of the bed. “I have to get out of here.”

“Judge Gates hasn't set bond yet,” Jimbo said, taking open pleasure in his misery.

He pushed himself painfully to his feet, ignoring the acid churning in his stomach and the fact that his bad knee throbbed like a son of a bitch.

“When will he?”

“Sooner or later.” Jimbo pulled a toothpick from his shirt pocket and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. “Judge doesn't like it when I call him too early in the morning.”

Bobby Tom could just make out the wall clock on the other side of the bars. “It's almost nine o'clock.”

“I'll call him when I get a chance. It's a good thing you're rich because you're facing some serious charges: battery, disorderly conduct, criminal damage to property, resisting arrest. Judge isn't gonna be too happy with you.”

Bobby Tom was feeling more desperate by the second.

Every moment he spent behind bars meant Grade was slipping farther away from him. Why had he behaved like such an ass last night? Why hadn't he swallowed his pride and gone after her right then, gotten down on his knees if he'd had to and told her he was sorry. Instead, he'd wasted all that time acting tough and talking trash so he wouldn't lose face with his buddies, something that had been a hopeless proposition from the beginning after his sickening performance at that microphone. He could no longer even remember why he'd cared so much about their opinion. He enjoyed his friends, but they weren't the ones he wanted to live his life with or bear his children.

He couldn't hide his agitation as he limped over to the bars. “I'll do whatever I have to, but just not right now. I only need a couple of hours. I have to find Gracie before she can leave town.”

“I never thought I'd see the day that you'd make a fool of yourself over a woman,” Jimbo sneered, “but you sure did last night. Fact is, she doesn't want you, B.T., and everybody knows it now. I guess those Super Bowl rings of yours weren't enough for her.”

Bobby Tom grabbed the bars. “Just let me out of here, Jimbo! I've got to find her.”

“Too late.” With one last smirk, he flicked his toothpick at Bobby Tom's chest. His heels clicked on the hard tile floor as he made his way to the door and disappeared through it.

“Come back here, you sonovabitch!” Bobby Tom shoved his face between the bars. “I know my rights, and I want a lawyer! I want a lawyer right now!”

The door stayed firmly closed.

His eyes flew to the clock. Maybe she wasn't planning to leave today. Maybe she'd stay around. But he didn't believe it. He'd hurt her too much last night, and she'd get away as soon as she could.

“I've got to make a phone call!” he yelled.

“Shut up over there.”

For the first time he realized he wasn't alone. The city jail held only two small cells, and the bed in the next one was occupied by a seedy-looking character with red eyes and a scraggly beard.

Bobby Tom ignored him and kept on shouting. “I get a phone call! I want it now!”

No one answered.

He began limping frantically around the cell. His bad knee protruded through a jagged tear in his jeans, most of the buttons on his shirt were missing, along with part of a sleeve, and his knuckles looked as if they'd been through a meat grinder. He returned to the bars and began calling out again, but the drunk in the next cell was the only one who responded.

The minutes ticked by on the clock. He knew how much pleasure Jimbo was getting out of seeing him like this, but he didn't care. His voice grew hoarse, but he couldn't keep quiet. He tried to tell himself his behavior was foolish, that there was no logic behind this sense of urgency, but his panic wouldn't abate. If he didn't get to Gracie right away, he'd lose her forever.

Nearly half an hour elapsed before the door that led out to the main room of the station opened again, but this time Dell Brady, Jimbo's good-looking black deputy, walked through. Bobby Tom had never been so glad to see anybody in his life. He'd played ball with Dell's brother, and the two of them had always gotten along.

“Damn, B.T., you're about yelling the place down. Sorry I couldn't get in here earlier, but I had to wait for Jim to leave.”

“Dell! I've got to make a phone call. I know I've got the right to make one phone call.”

“You made it last night, B.T. You called old Jerry Jones himself and told the owner of the Dallas Cowboys you wouldn't play for his team if it was the last one on earth.”

“Shit!”
Bobby Tom slammed his fists against the bars, sending shafts of pain shooting up his arms.

“Nobody ever saw you so drunk,” Dell went on. “You about destroyed the Wagon Wheel, not to mention what you did to Len.”

“I'll take care of all that later, and I promise I'll settle up with Len. But right now I have to get to a phone.”

“I don't know, B.T. Jim's really got it in for you. Ever since you and Sherri Hopper—”

“That was fifteen years ago!” he shouted. “Come on. Just one call.”

To his relief, Dell reached for the keys on his belt. “All right. I guess as long I've got you locked up again before Jim comes back from the coffee shop, what he don't know won't hurt him.”

Dell took so long fumbling with the keys that Bobby Tom wanted to grab him by the throat and yell at him to hurry up. Finally, however, he was out of the cell and walking through the door that led into the main room of the police station. Just as he got there, Rose Collins, who'd been working for the department for as long as he could remember and whose grass he used to mow, looked up at him and held out her telephone.

“It's for you, Bobby Tom. It's Terry Jo.”

He snatched the phone from her. “Terry Jo! Do you know where Gracie is?”

“She's renting a car from Buddy right this minute so she can drive to San Antone. She can't see me—I'm in the back room—but she told Buddy she's got an early-afternoon flight. He's making me call you, even though I swore to him last night that I was never going to speak to you again as long as I lived. I never knew you could be such a bastard. Not only what you did to Gracie—she's wearing sunglasses and I know she's been crying—but you should see Buddy's face. His jaw's all swole up twice its size, and—”

“Tell Buddy not to rent her that car!”

“He has to or he'll lose his franchise. He's tried to stall her, but you know how she is. Looks like he's giving her the keys right now.”

He cursed and shoved his hand through his hair, wincing when he hit a gash near his temple. “Call Judge Gates right now and get him over here. Tell him—”

“There's no time; she's climbing in the car now. It's a blue Grand Am. She's a pretty cautious driver, B.T. You can take her easy as long as you get going now.”

“I'm in jail!”

“Well, get out!”

“I'm trying! In the meantime, you've got to stop her.”

“It's too late. She's pulling out now. You're going to have to catch up with her on the highway.”

Bobby Tom slammed down the phone and turned to Rose and Dell, who had been listening with open interest. “Gracie's just left Buddy's Garage. She's on her way to San Antone, and I need to catch her before she reaches the interstate.”

“What the hell's he doing out of that cell?”
Jimbo Thackery came storming through the door, donut crumbs on his shirt and his swarthy face mottled with anger.

“Gracie's leaving town,” Dell began to explain, “and Bobby Tom needs to get to her before—”

“He's under arrest!” Jimbo shouted. “Lock him up right now!”

Dell turned reluctantly toward Bobby Tom. “Sorry, B.T., I'm afraid I'm going to have to put you back in the cell.”

Bobby Tom held out his hands, and his voice was low with warning. “Don't come any nearer, Dell. I'm not going back in that cell until I've had a chance to talk to Gracie. I don't want to hit you, but I will if 1 have to.”

Dell studied Bobby Tom for a moment, then turn to glare at Jimbo. “What's the harm in giving him an hour or so to take care of his love life, especially since you been playing fast and loose with his civil rights ever since you arrested him?”

Jimbo curled his lip, and his shaggy brows met in the middle. “Lock him up, goddammit, or you're fired!”

None of the Bradys had ever liked being pushed around, and Dell was no exception. “You can't fire me; Luther won't let you! If you want him in there so bad, you lock him up yourself!”

Jimbo went apoplectic. With a roar of rage, he lunged forward. Bobby Tom grabbed a chair from behind the nearest desk and fired it across the tile floor, where it caught Jimbo in the knees and sent him sprawling.

Bobby Tom raced to the door before the police chief could get back up, calling out to Rose as he ran. “I need a car!”

She snatched up a ring of keys from her desk and threw them at him. “Take Jimbo's. It'll be right by the door.”

He ran outside and jumped into the nearest vehicle, the police chief's shining white squad car. Tires squealing, he peeled out of the parking lot and set off down Main Street. It only took him a few seconds to find the controls that activated the siren and the flashing red lights.

Back inside the police station, Rose Collins grabbed for her telephone to spread the news that Bobby Tom Denton had just broken out of jail.

H
EAVEN
, T
EXAS

A P
LACE IN THE
H
EART

The colorful banner that had been hung at the city limits grew smaller in Gracie's rearview mirror until she could no longer see it. She reached for one of the tissues crumpled in her lap, and as she blew her nose, she wondered if she was going to cry all the way to San Antonio. Last night she'd been dry-eyed and stricken while Ray had taken her back to her apartment to pack her belongings and then driven her to the motel where she'd spent the night. But she hadn't slept. Instead, she'd lain in bed and replayed Bobby Tom's damning words over and over again.

We both know I was just trying to do you a favor  .  .  . why the hell would I marry you?.  .  . don't ever let me see your face again!

What had she expected? She had humiliated him in front of everyone who was important to him, and he had struck back viciously.

She pushed a tissue beneath her sunglasses and blotted her swollen eyes. The new owner of Shady Acres was going to send someone to pick her up at the airport in Columbus and drive her to New Grundy. Shady Acres was where she belonged, and by this time tomorrow morning, she'd make certain she was so busy that she wouldn't have time to brood.

She'd known this had to end, but she had never imagined it ending this badly. She had wanted him to remember her fondly as the one woman who had never taken anything from him, but last night had destroyed any possibility, of that happening. Not only had she taken his money, but without intending to, she'd ended up taking something much more important to him, his reputation. She tried to find comfort in knowing it was his own arrogance that had ultimately brought that about, but she still loved him, and she would never take pleasure in seeing him hurt.

She heard a siren behind her, and as she looked into her rearview mirror saw the flashing light of a police car fast approaching on the two-lane highway. A glance at the speedometer reassured her that she was driving well within the speed limit, and she edged over to the right to let the car pass. It drew closer, but instead of moving to the left, it came up behind her.

The siren made a rude sound, ordering her to pull over. Disturbed, she looked more closely into the mirror and couldn't believe what she saw. The man behind the wheel was Bobby Tom! She pulled off her sunglasses. So far, she'd held herself together by the strength of her will, but she couldn't endure another confrontation with him. Setting her jaw with determination, she sped up, only to have him do the same.

A battered pickup truck loomed in front of her. Her knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as she swung into the left lane to pass. The speedometer crept to sixty, and Bobby Tom stayed right with her.

How could he do this? What kind of town would let one of its private citizens take a police car to chase down an innocent person? The needle crept to sixty-five. She hated driving fast, and she was perspiring. He hit the siren again, further rattling her. She gave a hiss of alarm as he came up so close behind her she was afraid he was going to bump into her. Dear God, he intended to run her right off the road!

She didn't have a choice. He was a born daredevil, and while he might be perfectly comfortable playing bumper tag at seventy miles an hour, she certainly wasn't. Anger consumed her as she lifted her foot off the accelerator and gradually slowed to pull over to the side of the road. As soon as she stopped the car, she threw the door open.

He got out of the squad car before she'd taken more than four or five steps, and she faltered in her tracks. What had happened to him? One of his eyes was swollen shut and the other looked wild. His clothes were ripped and his ever-present Stetson was missing, while the ugly gash crusting near his temple made him look primitive and dangerous. She remembered what she'd done to him, and, for the first time since they'd met, she was afraid of him.

He advanced toward her. She panicked and whirled around with a half-baked notion of climbing back into the car and locking the door, only to discover she had waited a fraction of a second too long to move.

“Gracie!”

In her peripheral vision, she saw him reach out for her, and she jerked away just in time. Acting purely on instinct, she began to run. The smooth soles of her sandals slipped on the gravel, nearly sending her to her knees. She stumbled but somehow managed to right herself and keep going. She flew down the white line on the side of the road, running as fast as she could. Any second she expected him to grab her, and when he didn't, she risked a peek over her shoulder.

He was gaining on her, but limping so badly it had slowed him down considerably. She pressed her advantage by pushing herself even faster, and as she did, the story Suzy told her of the nine-year-old boy who had been publicly punished for hitting a girl raced through her mind.

After all these years of treating women politely, something inside him had snapped.

Her foot missed the edge of the asphalt, and she slipped into the gravel on the shoulder, then stumbled into the weeds. The sandy soil poured into her sandals. Terror swept through her as she heard him right behind her.

“Gracie!”

She screamed as he brought her down in the weeds with a bone-jarring tackle. She twisted as she fell, and when she landed she was looking up at him. For a moment, she knew nothing but pain and fear. Then she began to gasp for air.

She had lain beneath him many times before, but they had been making love and she'd felt nothing like this. His brutal, unrelenting weight imprisoned her against the ground. The unfamiliar smells of stale beer and sweat clung to him, and .his unshaven jaw abraded her cheek,

“God damn it!” he shouted, pushing himself up on his arms. He grabbed her, and lifted her shoulders from the ground just far enough so he could shake her as if she were a rag doll. “Why are you running away from me?”

The veneer of facile charm and relentless affability had peeled away, leaving a violent, angry man who had been pushed over the edge.

“Stop!” she sobbed. “Don't—”

He pulled her into his arms, clutching her so tightly she couldn't breathe. She was dimly aware of the shrill sound of a siren in the background. His chest heaved against her, and his uneven breathing battered her ear.

“You can't  .  .  . Don't  .  .  . leave.” His mouth moved against her temple, and then, abruptly, she was free of him.

For a few seconds, the sun blinded her and she couldn't tell what had happened. Then she saw Bobby Tom being hauled roughly to his feet by Chief Thackery. As she scrambled up herself, the police chief brutally twisted his arms behind his back, and slapped on a pair of handcuffs.

“You're under arrest, you son of a bitch!”

Bobby Tom paid no attention to him. All his concentration was riveted on her, and she felt an urgent need to cup his poor, battered face in her hands.

“Don't go, Gracie! You can't go. Please! We have to talk.”

His features looked ravaged, and her eyes filled with tears. In the background she heard the sounds of tires squealing and doors slamming, but she paid no attention. Shaking her head, she backed away from him before she could give in to her weakness.

“I'm sorry, Bobby Tom. I never imagined anything like this would happen.” A strangled sob rose in her throat. “I have to go. I can't take any more.”

Thackery sneered. “The lady doesn't seem to want you.

He twisted Bobby Tom around and shoved him toward the squad car. Bobby Tom's bad knee gave way, and he went down. Gracie gasped and rushed forward, only to watch in horror as Thackery jerked on his arms to bring him upright.

Bobby Tom gave a groan of pain, then caught the police chief in the side with his shoulder, unbalancing him just long enough so he could spin back toward Gracie.

“You said you wouldn't take anything from me!” he cried.

Thackery bellowed with rage and slammed Bobby Tom's bent arms up into his back, nearly pulling them from their sockets.

Bobby Tom let out a howl of despair that came all the way from the very depths of his soul.
“I love you! Don't leave me!”

She stood stunned and watched as he began to fight like a wild man. With a growl, Thackery pulled out his nightstick.

She didn't wait a moment longer. Screaming with rage, she hurled herself through the air at the police chief. “Don't you dare hit him! Don't you dare!” She butted Thackery with her head and pummeled him with her fists, forcing him to let go of Bobby Tom to protect himself.

“You stop that right now!” He began to swear as the edge of her sandal caught him in the shin. “Stop it! Stop or I'll arrest you, too!”

“What the hell is going on here?” Luther Baines roared. All three of them turned their heads to see the mayor running toward them, waddling a bit on his stubby legs, with Dell Brady by his side, and his squad car parked at a crazy angle across the highway. Behind the two men, tires squealed as more cars began pulling up. Terry Jo and Buddy tumbled out of their Explorer, and Buddy, who had a split lip and swollen jaw, ran forward. Connie Cameron hopped out of her Sunbird.

Luther whacked Jimbo Thackery in the arm, forcing him to take another step backward. “Have you lost your mind? What in the sam hill do you think you're doing?”

“Bobby Tom!” Suzy screamed her son's name as she ran down the blacktop with Way Sawyer at her side.

Thackery glared at Luther. “He broke out of jail. And she attacked me. I'm arresting them both!”

“Like hell you are!” Buddy cried in outrage.

Luther shoved his index finger into Thackery's chest. “You couldn't be satisfied with being an amateur asshole, could you, Jimbo! You had to go and turn
pro
on me!”

Thackery's face grew florid. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut and took another step back. Suzy rushed forward only to have Way detain her as he saw Gracie's arms wrapped protectively around his future son-in-law's chest.

“Everybody get away from him!” Gracie shouted, her copper hair glinting in the sunlight, her expression as fierce as an Amazon warrior. “Nobody touches him, do all of you hear me? Nobody touches him!”

Bobby Tom, his wrists still cuffed behind his back, looked down at her, his expression faintly bemused.

The fact that he no longer seemed to be in imminent danger didn't make Gracie relax her vigilance. Anyone trying to hurt him was going to have to get through her first.

She felt his cheek press against the top of her head, and he began to murmur the most wonderful things in a voice so low that only those close to them could hear.

“I love you so much, sweetheart. Tell me you're going to forgive me for last night? Everything you said about me is tight, I know; I'm insensitive, selfish, egotistical, a lot of other things. But I'm going to change. I swear it. If you marry me, I'll change. Just don't leave me, because I love you too much.”

Someone must have unfastened his handcuffs because suddenly his arms were around her. 'She looked up into his eyes and saw that even the swollen one glistened with tears. He meant every word he was saying, she realized with a sense of wonder. This outpouring of love had nothing to do with injured pride or getting even. He was speaking to her from the bottom of his heart.

“Tell me you're going to give me another chance,” he whispered, cupping her cheek in his palm. “Tell me you somehow still love me after everything.”

Her throat squeezed tight with emotion. “It's my weakness.”

“What is?”

“Loving you. I love you, Bobby Tom Denton; and I always will.”

She felt his chest convulse. “You'll never know how glad I am to hear that.” For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut as if he were gathering his courage. When he opened them again, his lashes were moist and spiked. “You're going to marry me, aren't you, sweetheart? Tell me you're going to marry me.”

The uncertainty she heard in his voice made her love him all the more, and her own eyes filled. “Oh, I'm going to marry you, all right. You can bet on it.”

For a few moments, they forgot everyone around them. They were alone at the side of the Texas highway with a bright sun shining down on them and a brighter future shining ahead, one filled with laughter, children, and an abundance of love. He kissed her with his poor, swollen mouth, and she kept her lips gentle against his. Suzy finally ended their embrace by touching her son's battered face to make certain he wasn't badly hurt, while Way hugged Gracie as Bobby Tom released her. Gradually, they all grew aware of the car doors that continued to slam as more of Telarosa's citizens drew up to block the highway and witness Bobby Tom's jailbreak. Gracie spotted Toolee Chandler and Judy Baines, along with Pastor Frank and Suzy's bridge club.

Jimbo Thackery had moved off to the side, where Connie Cameron seemed to be giving him a piece of her mind. Luther looked suspiciously pleased with himself as he eyed Bobby Tom, who was once again holding on to Grade.

“I'm going to give you a couple of hours to straighten yourself out with Gracie here, and then me and you are going to have a nice long meeting with Judge Gates. They don't call him the hanging judge for nothing, B.T., and before this is over, I can just about predict that you're going to find yourself faced with a heap of fines and a real expensive community service project. This escapade is going to cost you a pretty penny, boy.”

Gracie couldn't resist peering across Bobby Tom's chest to offer her own opinion. “The senior citizens center could use a bus with a motorized ramp.”

Luther gave her a proud smile. “Excellent idea, Grade. How 'bout you come along to that meeting in case me and Judge Gates need some inspiration.”

“I'd be happy to.”

Bobby Tom's eyebrows rose in indignation. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

It took her a moment to respond because she was envisioning all the good work the Bobby Tom Denton Foundation would be doing in the future. “Since I'm going to be a citizen of this town, I have a duty to the community.”

If anything, he looked even more indignant. “Who says we're going to live here?”

She smiled all her love up at him and thought that, for an intelligent man, he could certainly be obtuse. She wondered how long it would take him to figure out that he would never be truly happy anywhere else.