Lady Be Good (27 page)

Kenny slapped the mat. “That’s right! Faster.”

Peter slowed.

“Pick it up, Petie. Let’s go!”

The baby came to a dead stop. Wrinkled his forehead. Plopped back on his bottom.

Kenny held out his arms. “Come on, Petie! Don’t stop now. You’ve got the lead.”

Peter stuck his fingers in his mouth and looked up at the cheering spectators. Kenny’s knee inched forward across the finish line.

Two lanes over, the baby in the androgynous clothes dropped to the mat and began a lazy sideways scoot.

“Let’s go, Petie! Let’s go!” Kenny slapped the mat again as his other knee crept over the finish line.

Peter’s bottom lip sagged in a pathetic quiver.

The red-haired bruiser let out a howl and darted back to the starting line.

Kenny’s brows shot together. “You’ve got it now, Petie! The big man’s DQed!”

Peter’s eyes filled with tears.

“No, no! Don’t do that!”

The chocolate-colored twins moved into the same lane and rolled on top of each other.

“They’re dropping like flies! You can take it, Petie! Only a little farther.”

Peter’s small chest shook with a sob.

“Shake it off! Shake it off and come to Kenny.” He crept farther into the lane.

Peter let out an earsplitting howl.

“No crying, buddy! Don’t ever let ’em see you cry. Come on! I’m right here.”

Frozen, Peter sat on the mat and sobbed.

The little girl in the lacy yellow romper shot across the finish line to win the race, but Kenny was too busy inching forward on his own hands and knees to notice.

“Don’t quit! Nobody remembers a loser. Come on, Petie! You can’t quit!”

Emma couldn’t take any more. She hurried forward onto the mat and snatched the sobbing little boy up into her arms. “It’s all right, luv. I won’t let that crazy man get you.”

Kenny came out of a trance and looked up. For the first time he seemed to realize where he was.

On his hands and knees.

A third of the way down the lane.

In the middle of a baby race.

Quiet fell over the small crowd. Kenny turned red and shot to his feet. The quiet intensified. Then a grizzled man in a John Deere cap gave Kenny an admiring salute.

“Now,
that’s
the way you turn a kid into a champion.”

K
enny couldn’t breathe as the ghosts of his past crashed
on top of him. Emma was clutching Petie to her breast. She gazed across the mat and gave Kenny a look that seemed tinged with pity. He couldn’t tolerate it, and he rushed forward.

“Let me have him.”

Petie screamed and gripped Emma’s neck more tightly. “Just give him a minute,” she said.

But he didn’t have a minute. He jerked his wallet from his pocket, thrust it toward her, and grabbed Peter. “Buy yourself something. I’ll be back.”

He quickly left her behind and carried the screaming baby to his car. He could never let her witness this.

Accompanied by the sound of Petie’s earsplitting shrieks coming from the car seat, he jumped behind the wheel and peeled out of the parking lot. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.”

He blinked his eyes and raced toward the edge of town. The baby’s screams didn’t subside. Finally, he found the privacy he needed, a narrow lane that led toward a patch of trees. He parked his car in the exact place he’d hidden his bike when he was a kid coming apart inside.

“Why’d you beat me up, Kenny? I didn’t do anything to you.”

As he retrieved the hysterical baby, Petie arched his spine, trying to get away. His shrieks hurt Kenny’s ears, but the look of betrayal in the baby’s eyes broke Kenny’s heart.

“I’m sorry, fella. I’m so sorry.” Pressing his lips to his brother’s hot, damp temple, he carried him into the trees toward the rushing sound of the river. “Shhh . . . don’t cry. Don’t cry, scout. It’s all over.”

As he rocked and crooned, the baby’s sobs gradually subsided. He walked him along the riverbank, stroking his little back, humming and talking nonsense, letting the rush of the river soothe the baby as it used to soothe him when he came here to recover from some piece of nastiness he’d unleashed on Torie or one of his schoolmates. Finally, Petie quieted enough for Kenny to settle down in the shade of a bigtooth maple. He leaned against the trunk and propped the baby on his lap.

“I know, Petie. I know. . . .”

The little boy reared back his head, and Kenny saw a whole world of hurt in his eyes.

“I won’t ever do that to you again. I promise. The old man’s going to be bad enough. You don’t need it from me, too.”

Petie stuck out a trembly lip. He’d been betrayed, and he wasn’t going to forgive too easily.

Kenny used the bottom of the baby’s bright blue T-shirt to wipe his small, drooly chin. “You don’t have to win a race for me to love you, buddy. Do you understand? Despite what happened back there, I’m not like the old man. I don’t care if you’re last every time, if you stink at team sports. Even if the worst happens and you hate golf, it doesn’t matter. You understand me? We’re brothers forever.” He drew the baby up to his face and kissed his slobbery cheek. “You might have to win the old man’s love, scout, but I promise you won’t ever have to win mine.”

Emma stood in the middle of the crowd staring down at the wallet Kenny had thrust in her hand. After last night, she felt as if she’d been slapped.

Just as she was looking around for some privacy, she saw Ted Beaudine approaching. He gave her his shy smile. “I heard you were here, Lady Emma. Where’d Kenny go?”

“He left with Peter.”

“You look a little upset.”

Those old man’s eyes of his saw too much. “A little.” She opened her purse to slip in the wallet only to have him take it from her hand.

“Is this Kenny’s?”

“He shoved it at me right before he ran off.” She couldn’t stop herself from adding, “He told me I should
buy
something for myself.”

“No kidding.” Ted’s mouth curled in a slow smile. “My daddy’s rich, my ma’s good-looking, and this is my lucky day.”

Emma frowned as he tucked the wallet in his back pocket. “Your mother’s rich, too; I’ve heard your father looks like a movie star. And give that back to me.”

His hazel eyes crinkled at the corners. “Come on, Lady Emma. I’m a semi-impoverished twenty-two-year-old who just graduated from college and doesn’t have a job. Kenny, on the other hand’s, got more money than he has the energy to count. Let’s go enjoy ourselves.”

“Ted, I really don’t think—”

But he was already moving. Catching her arm, he led her toward the parking lot and a rather battered open-topped red Jeep with black roll bars. “If any of you see Kenny,” he called out to a group of teenagers, “tell him Lady Emma’s at the Roustabout.”

Emma found herself being driven away in a car with a set of golf clubs rattling in the back and a graduation tassel swinging from the rearview mirror. “Maybe you should let me have that wallet,” she said as the Roustabout came into view.

“I will. Later. After we use what’s in it.”

“We’re not spending Kenny’s money, no matter how much of it he has. It isn’t right.”

“Texas women wouldn’t see it that way. Women down here like their revenge. Do you know my parents once had a fight in this very parking lot? People still talk about it.”

“I suppose public arguments can get a little nasty.”

“Oh, this wasn’t an argument. It was a fight. Physical.” He chuckled. “I’d of loved to have seen that.”

“Bloodthirsty boy. And I don’t believe a word of it. Your parents have a wonderful marriage.”

“Now they do, but it took them a while to get there. My dad didn’t even know I existed till I was nine. They both had a lot of growing up to do.”

Coming from any other twenty-two-year-old, the comment would have been humorous, but there was something about Ted Beaudine that made her a believer.

As they got out of the car and walked toward the Roustabout, she said, “I’m surprised you don’t have a job yet. From what Torie and Kenny said, you have an excellent academic record.”

“Oh, I’ve had lots of offers, but I want to stay near Wynette.”

“You grew up here, didn’t you?”

“I grew up all over, but this is the place my family calls home, and I’m pretty attached to it.” He held the door open for her. “That limits me to two companies.”

“TCS and Dexter’s father’s company.”

“Both of them have done everything they could to hire me. Unfortunately, that’s turned me into the prize in another one of their range wars. The situation’s gotten a little ugly, so I’m stalling until I see whether Torie’s ever going to figure out what a great guy Dexter is.”

“If the merger happens, you don’t have a problem anymore, is that it?”

“Exactly. In the meantime, though, I’m just about flat broke. And neither of my parents, being self-made people, is sympathetic.” He slipped Kenny’s wallet from his back pocket. “Which is why this is a gift from the gods.”

Before she could stop him, he’d taken out one of Kenny’s credit cards and turned to the crowd of businesspeople, ranchers, and housewives who’d gathered for lunch. Although he barely raised his voice, the crowd quieted to hear him.

“I’ve got an announcement to make. You’ll all be happy to know that lunch is on Kenny. And he wants you to order whatever you like, so don’t hurt his feelings by being chintzy.”

As he passed the credit card over to the bartender, one of the ranchers called out, “Lions Club’s meeting in the back room.”

“Kenny’s always been a real big supporter of the Lions,” Ted said.

“You can’t do this!” she hissed under her breath.

He gave her that dim-witted look the gorgeous men of Wynette must have perfected in the cradle just to drive women crazy. “Why not?”

“Because it isn’t right.”

“Was it right for Kenny to leave you stranded?”

“No.”

“Then we don’t have a problem, do we?”

For a quiet young man, he was surprisingly assertive, and she found herself being led to a booth. As she slid into the padded seat, she decided he had a point, and a few minutes later when the waitress approached, she defiantly ordered extra cheese on her turkey sandwich.

The day wasn’t turning out anything like she’d hoped. She’d imagined herself and Kenny together, perhaps holding hands and smiling at each other. Her fantasies were silly. She decided to fight them off with food.

Just as she was trying to decide between chocolate fudge cake and a brownie sundae, she saw the burly man walk into the Roustabout. He glanced around the room, then stopped as he spotted her. When he realized she’d noticed, he looked away.

She was so confused. Was he Beddington’s spy or not? If he was the spy, why hadn’t he told Hugh about everything she’d bought at the drugstore? Just yesterday she’d concluded that she’d made a mistake and had the wrong person, but she was no longer so certain. This man definitely had more than a casual interest in her.

While Ted conducted a friendly flirtation with a cute redhead who’d come up to their table, Emma tried to puzzle it out. She noticed that the burly man was watching her in a mirror advertising beer, and her indecision fled. Beddington’s man. Definitely.

She picked up her purse, opened it in her lap, and reached for the salt and pepper shakers. With a curl of her arm, she swept them inside. She turned to make certain he’d noticed and saw by his appalled expression that he had. She suppressed the urge to jump from her seat, march over to him, and order him to write down exactly what he’d seen so he wouldn’t forget to report it.

Unfortunately, the burly man wasn’t the only one who’d witnessed her thievery.

“What in Sam Hill do you think you’re doing?”

She’d been so caught up that she hadn’t noticed Kenny approaching. He was by himself, so he must have dropped Peter off. As he drew closer, the Roustabout’s patrons began calling out to him.

“Hey, there, Kenny. Thanks for lunch.”

“Much appreciate it, Kenny. The sirloin was real good.”

She couldn’t believe it. Once again, he’d caught her at a disadvantage. And this was
his
day to be in the wrong. He’d terrorized his baby brother and deserted her without warning. He was the sinner. Why did all the black marks keep showing up on her side of the ledger?

“Kenny, the Lions Club said to tell you thanks,” a middle-aged waitress called out.

“Me and Deever, too,” added a florid-faced heart attack in the making. “You should try some of that pecan pie yourself.”

Kenny frowned. “What are they talking about?”

“You treated everybody to lunch,” Ted explained. “And we all appreciate it. Joe’s got your credit card.”

Kenny shrugged, slid into the booth next to her, and reached for her purse. She tried to hold on to it, but he took it away. “I swear you get stranger by the day,” he growled.

As Ted watched with interest, Kenny pulled out the salt and pepper shakers and set them back on the table. “Let me guess. You decided to put on another show for the duke.”