The screen door banged, and Dallie came out. He walked to her side and held out her purse. "Hey, Francie," he said quietly.

"Hey, Dallie." She took the purse and looked up at the night sky spangled with floating stars.

"You did real fine in there."

She gave a soft, bitter laugh.

He inserted a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. "No, I mean it. Once you realized you'd made a jackass of yourself, you behaved with a little dignity for a change. No scenes on the dance floor, just a quiet exit. Everybody was real impressed. They want you to come back in."

She deliberately mocked him. "Not hardly."

He chuckled just as the screen door banged and two men appeared. "Hey, Dallie," they called out.

"Hey, K.C., Charlie."

The men climbed into a battered Jeep Cherokee and Dallie turned back to her. "I think, Francie, that I don't not like you as much as I used to. I mean, you're still pretty much a pain in the ass most of the time and not, strictly speaking, my kind of woman, but you do have your moments. You really went after that warthog story in there. I liked the way you gave it everything you had, even after it was pretty obvious that you were digging a real deep grave for yourself."

A clatter of dishes sounded from inside as the jukebox launched into the final chorus of "Behind Closed Doors." She dug the heel of her sandal into the hard-packed gravel. "I want to go home," she said abruptly. "I despise it here. I want to go back to England where I understand things. I want my clothes and my house and my Aston Martin. I want to have money again and friends who like me." She wanted her mother, too, but she didn't say that.

"Feeling real sorry for yourself, aren't you?"

"Wouldn't you if you were in my position?"

"Hard to say. I guess I can't imagine being real happy living that kind of sybaritic life."

She didn't precisely know what "sybaritic" meant, but she got the general idea, and it irritated her that someone whose spoken grammar could most charitably be described as substandard was using a word

she didn't entirely understand.

He propped his elbow on the side of the pickup. "Tell me something, Francie. Do you have anything remotely resembling a life plan stored away in that head of yours?"

"I intend to marry Nicky, of course. I've already told you that." Why did the prospect depress her so?

He pulled out the toothpick and tossed it away. "Aw, come off it, Francie. You don't any more want to marry Nicky than you want to get your hair mussed up."

She rounded on him. "I don't have much choice in the matter, do I, since I don't have two shillings left to rub together! I have to marry him." She saw him opening his mouth, getting ready to spew out another one of his odious lower-class platitudes, and she cut him off. "Don't say it, Dallie! Some people were brought into this world to earn money and others were meant to spend it, and I'm one of the latter. To be brutally honest, I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to support myself. You've already heard what happened when I tried acting, and I'm too short to make any money at fashion modeling. If it comes down to a choice between working in a factory and marrying Nicky Gwynwyck, you can bloody well be certain which one I'm going to choose."

He thought about that for a moment and then said, "If I can make two or three birdies in the final round tomorrow, it looks like I'll pick up a little spare change. You want me to buy you that plane ticket home?"

She looked at him standing so close to her, arms crossed over his chest, only that fabulous mouth visible beneath the shadowing bill of his cap. "You'd do that for me?"

"I told you, Francie. As long as I can buy gas and pick up the bar tab, money doesn't mean anything to me. I don't even like money. To tell you the truth, even though I consider myself a true American patriot, I'm pretty much a Marxist."

She laughed at that, a reaction which told her more clearly than anything that she'd been spending too much time in his company. "I'm grateful for the offer, Dallie, but as much as I'd love to take you up on it, I need to stay around a bit longer. I can't go back to London like this. You don't know my friends. They'd dine out for weeks on the story of my transformation into a pauper."

He leaned back against the truck. "Nice batch of friends you've got there, Francie."

She felt as if he'd rapped his knuckles on a hollowness inside her, a hollowness she had never permitted herself to dwell on. "Go back inside," she said. "I'm going to stay out here for a while."

"I don't think so." He turned his body toward her, so that his T-shirt brushed against her arm. A yellow bug light by the screen door cast a slanted ochre shadow across his face, subtly changing his features, making him look older but no less splendid. "I think you and I have something more interesting to do tonight, don't we?"

His words produced an uncomfortable fluttering in the pit of her stomach, but being coy was as much a part of her as the Serritella cheekbones. Even though one part of her wanted to run back to hide in the Cajun Bar and Grill rest room, she gave him her most innocently inquisitive smile. "Oh? What's that?"

"A little tag team wrestling maybe?" His mouth curled in a slow, sexy smile. "Why don't you just climb into the front seat of the Riviera so we can be on our way."

She didn't want to climb into the front seat of the Riviera. Or maybe she did. Dallie stirred unfamiliar feelings in her body, feelings she would have been all too happy to act upon if only she were one of those women who was really good at sex, one of those women who didn't mind all the mess and the thought of having someone else's perspiration drip on her body. Still, even if she wanted to, she could hardly back out now without looking a total fool. As she walked over to the car and opened the door, she tried to convince herself that, since she didn't perspire, a man as gorgeous as Dallie just might not either.

She watched as he walked around the front of the Riviera, whistling tunelessly and digging the keys out of his back pocket. He seemed in no particular hurry. There wasn't any macho swagger to his stride, none of the cock-of-the-walk strut she'd noticed in the sculptor in Marrakech before he'd taken her to bed. Dallie acted casual, ordinary, as if going to bed with her were an everyday occurrence, as if it didn't matter all that much to him, as if he'd been there a thousand times before and she was just one more female body.

He got into the Riviera, turned on the ignition, and began fiddling with the radio dial. "Do you like country music, Francie, or is easy listening more your speed? Damn. I forgot to give Stoney that pass for tomorrow like I promised him." He opened the door. "I'll be back in a minute."

She watched him walk across the parking lot and noticed that he still wasn't moving with any urgency. The screen door opened and the golfers came out. He stopped and talked to them, sticking a thumb in the rear pocket of his jeans and propping his boot up on the concrete step. One of the golfers drew an imaginary arc through the air, and then a second one right below it. Dallie shook his head, pantomimed a golf swing, and then drew two imaginary arcs of his own.

She slumped dejectedly down in the seat. Dallie Beaudine certainly didn't look like a man swept away by unbridled passion.

When he finally got back to the Riviera, she was so rattled she couldn't even look at him. Were the women in his life so gorgeous that she was merely one of the crowd? A bath would fix everything, she told herself as he started the car. She would run the water as hot as she could stand it so that the bathroom would fill with steam and the humidity would make her hair form those soft little tendrils around her face. She would put on a touch of lipstick and some blusher, spray the sheets with perfume, and cover one of the lamps with a towel so the light would fall softly, and-

"Something wrong, Francie?"

"What makes you ask?" she replied stiffly.

"You've pretty much laminated yourself to that door handle over there."

"I like it here."

He fiddled with the radio dial. "Suit yourself. So what's it going to be? Country or easy listening?"

"Neither. I like rock." She had a sudden inspiration, and she immediately acted upon it. "I've loved rock for as long as I can remember. The Rolling Stones are my very favorite group. Most people don't know it, but Mick wrote three songs for me after we spent some time together in Rome."

Dallie didn't look particularly impressed, so she decided to embellish. After all, it wasn't too much of a lie, since Mick Jagger certainly knew her well enough to say hello. She lowered her voice into a breathless, confiding whisper. "We stayed in this wonderful apartment that overlooked the Villa Borghese. Everything was absolutely super. We had complete privacy, so we could even make love outside on the terrace. It didn't last, of course. He has this terrible ego- not to mention Bianca-and I met the prince." She paused. "No, that's not right. I met Ryan O'Neal, and then I met the prince."

Dallie looked over at her, gave his head a slow shake as if he were clearing water from his ears, and then returned his attention to the road. "You like making love outside, do you, Francie?"

"Of course, don't most women?" Actually, she couldn't imagine anything worse.

They drove for several miles in silence. Suddenly he swung the wheel to the right and turned off the highway onto a narrow dirt road that headed directly into a stand of bald cypresses hung with beards of Spanish moss. "What are you doing? Where are you going!" she exclaimed. "Turn the car around this minute! I want to go back to the motel."

"I think you might like this spot, being such a sexual adventuress and all." He pulled in among the cypresses and turned off the ignition. Strange insect sounds drifted through the open window on his side.

"That looks like a swamp out there," she cried desperately.

He peered through the windshield. "I believe you're right. We'd better not get too far from the car; most 'gators seem to feed at night." He pulled off his cap, set it on the dashboard, and turned to her. He waited expectantly.

She pushed herself a little more closely against the door handle.

"Do you want to go first, or do you want me to?" he finally asked.

She kept her reply cautious. "Go first doing what?"

"Warming up. You know-foreplay. Since you've had all those big-time lovers, you've got me a little intimidated here. Maybe you'd better set the pace."

"Let's-let's forget this. I-I think maybe I made a mistake. Let's go back to the motel."

"Not a good idea, Francie. Once you make that crossover into the Promised Land, you can't really turn back without making things awkward."

"Oh, I don't think so. I don't think it'll be awkward at all. It wasn't actually the Promised Land, just a small flirtation. I mean, it certainly won't be awkward for me, and I'm positive it won't be awkward for-"

"Yes, it will. It'll be so awkward I probably won't even be able to play half-decent golf tomorrow. I'm a professional athlete, Francie. Professional athletes have fine-tuned bodies, like well-oiled engines. One little speck of awkwardness'll throw everything off stride. Like dirt. You could cost me a good five strokes tomorrow, darlin'."

His accent had gotten unbelievably thick, and she suddenly realized she was being conned. "Damn it, Dallie! Don't do this to me. I'm nervous enough as it is without your making fun of me."

He laughed, put his arm around her shoulder, and pulled her close in a friendly sort of hug. "Why don't you just say you're nervous instead of going through all that fancy stuff of yours? You make everything so hard on yourself."

It felt nice being in his arms, but she couldn't quite forgive him for teasing. "That's easy for you to say. You're obviously comfortable in every conceivable sort of bed, but I'm not." She took a breath and spit out exactly what was on her mind. "Actually… I don't even like sex." There. She'd said it. Now he could really laugh at her.

"Now, why's that? Something that feels as good as sex and doesn't cost any money should be right up your alley."

"I'm just not an athletic person."

"Uh-huh. Well, that explains it, all right."

She couldn't entirely forget the swamp. "Could we go back to the motel, Dallie?"

"I don't think so, Francie. You'll be closing yourself up in the bathroom and worrying about your makeup and reaching for that perfume bottle of yours." He lifted the hair on the side of her neck and, leaning over, nuzzled his lips against her skin. "You ever necked in the back seat of a car before?"