Where was Teddy right now? Was he frightened? What had Dallie told him? She had heard enough stories from Holly Grace to know that when Dallie was angry, he was unpredictable-even dangerous. But no matter how much he might have changed over the years, she couldn't believe he would hurt a

little boy.

What he might do to her, however, was another matter.

Chapter 25

Teddy stared at Dallie's back as the two of them stood in line at the counter of a McDonald's off 1-81. He wished he had a red and black plaid flannel shirt like that, along with a wide leather belt and jeans

with a torn pocket. His mother threw out his jeans as soon as they got the tiniest little hole in the knee, just when they were starting to feel soft and comfortable. Teddy stared down at his leather play

sneakers and then ahead at Dallie's scuffed brown cowboy boots. He decided to put cowboy boots on

his Christmas list.

As Dallie picked up the tray and walked toward a table at the back of the restaurant, Teddy trotted along behind him, his small legs taking two quick skips, trying to keep up. At first when they'd been heading out of Manhattan into New Jersey, Teddy had tried asking Dallie a few questions about whether he had a cowboy hat or rode a horse, but Dallie hadn't said much. Teddy had finally fallen silent, even though he had a million things he wanted to know.

For as long as Teddy could remember, Holly Grace had told him stories about Dallie Beaudine and Skeet Cooper- how they'd met up on the road when Dallie was only fifteen after Dallie had escaped from the evil clutches of Jaycee Beaudine, and how they'd traveled the interstates hustling the rich boys at the country clubs. She'd told him about bar fights and playing a round of golf left-handed and miraculous eighteenth-hole victories snatched from the jaws of defeat. In his mind, Holly Grace's stories had gotten mixed up with his Spiderman comic books and Star Wars and the legends he read in school about the wild West. Ever since they'd moved to New York, Teddy had begged his morn to let him meet Dallie when he came to visit Holly Grace, but she always had one excuse or another. And now that it had finally happened, Teddy knew this should be just about the most exciting day of his life.

Except that he wanted to go home now because it wasn't turning out anything like he'd imagined.

Teddy unwrapped the hamburger and lifted the top off the bun. It had ketchup on it. He wrapped it back up. Suddenly Dallie turned in his seat and looked right across the table into Teddy's face. He stared at him, just stared without saying a word. Teddy began to feel nervous, like he'd done something wrong. In his imagination, Dallie would have done things like reach over and slap him ten, the way Gerry Jaffe did. Dallie would say, "Hey, pardner, you look like the kind of man me and Skeet might like to have on the road with us when things get tough." In his imagination, Dallie would have liked him a whole lot more.

Teddy reached for his Coke and then pretended to study a sign over on the side of the room about eating breakfast at McDonald's. It seemed funny to him that Dallie was taking him so far away to meet his mother-he hadn't even known that Dallie and his mom knew each other. But if Holly Grace had told Dallie it was all right, he guessed it was. Still, he wished his mom was with them right now.

Dallie spoke so abruptly that Teddy jumped. "Do you always wear those glasses?"

"Not always." Teddy slipped them off, carefully folded in the stems, and put them on the table. The sign about eating breakfast at McDonald's blurred. "My mom says it's important what's inside a person, not what's outside-like if they wear glasses or not."

Dallie made some kind of noise that didn't sound very nice, and then nodded his head toward the hamburger. "Why aren't you eating?"

Teddy pushed at the package with the end of his finger. "I said I wanted a plain hamburger," he

muttered. "It's got ketchup."

Dallie's face got a funny, tight look. "So what? A little bit of ketchup never hurt anybody."

"I'm allergic," Teddy replied.

Dallie snorted, and Teddy realized that he didn't like people who didn't like ketchup or people who had allergies. He thought about eating the hamburger anyway, just to show Dallie he could do it, but his stomach was already feeling funny, and ketchup made him think about blood and guts and eating

eyeballs. Besides, he would end up with an itchy rash all over his body.

Teddy tried to think of something to say that would make Dallie like him. He wasn't used to having to think about making grown-ups like him. With kids his own age, sometimes they thought he was a jerk or he thought they were jerks, but not with grown-ups. He chewed on his bottom lip for a minute, and then he said, "I've got an I.Q. of one hundred sixty-eight. I go to gifted class."

Dallie snorted again, and Teddy knew he'd made another mistake. It had sounded like he was bragging, but he'd just thought Dallie might be interested.

"Where did you get that name-Teddy?" Dallie asked. He said the name funny, like he was trying to

get rid of it fast.

"When I was born, my mom was reading a story about some kid named Teddy by this famous writer-

J. R. Salinger. It's short for Theodore."

Dallie's expression grew even more sour. "J. D. Salinger. Doesn't anybody call you Ted?"

"Oh, yeah," Teddy lied. "About everybody. All the kids and everything. I mean, just about everybody except Holly Grace and Mom. You can call me Ted if you want to."

Dallie reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Teddy saw something frozen and hard in his face. "Go on up and get yourself another hamburger fixed the way you want it."

Teddy looked at the dollar bill Dallie was holding out and then back down at his hamburger. "I guess this'll be all right." He slowly pushed back the wrapper.

Dallie's hand slammed down over the hamburger. "I said go get another one, dammit."

Teddy felt sick. Sometimes his mom yelled at him if he made a fresh remark or didn't do his chores, but it never made his stomach feel all wiggly like this, because he knew his mom loved him and didn't want him to grow up to be a jerk. But he could tell that Dallie didn't love him. Dallie didn't even like him. Teddy's jaw set in a small, rebellious line. "I'm not hungry, and I want to go home."

"Well, that's just too damned bad. We're going to be on the road for a while, just like I told you."

Teddy glared at him. "I want to go home. I have to go to school on Monday."

Dallie got up from the table and jerked his head toward the door. "Come on. If you're going to act like a spoiled brat, you can do it while we're on the road."

Teddy lagged behind on the way out the door. He didn't care anymore about all Holly Grace's dumb old stories. As far as he was concerned, Dallie was a big old butt-wipe. Slipping his glasses back on, Teddy tucked his hand in his pocket. The switch comb felt warm and reassuring as it settled against his palm.

He wished it was real. If Lasher the Great was here, he could take care of old Dallie Butt-Wipe Beaudine.

As soon as the car moved onto the interstate, Dallie punched the accelerator and shot into the left lane. He knew he was acting like a real son of a bitch. He knew, but he couldn't stop himself. The rage wouldn't leave him, and he wanted to hit something about as badly as he'd ever wanted anything in his life. His anger kept eating away at him, growing bigger and stronger until he could hardly contain it. He felt as if some of his manhood had been stripped away. He was thirty-seven years old and he didn't have a goddamn thing to show for it. He was a second-rate pro golfer. He'd been a failure as a husband, a goddamn criminal as a father. And now this.

That bitch. That goddamn selfish, spoiled little rich-girl bitch. She'd given birth to his child and never said a word. All those stories she'd told Holly Grace-those lies. He'd believed them. Christ, she'd gotten back at him all right, just like she'd said she would the night they'd had that fight in the Roustabout parking lot. With a snap of her fingers, she'd given him the most contemptuous fuck-you a woman could give a man. She'd taken away his right to know his own son. Dallie glanced over at the boy sitting in the passenger seat next to him, the son who was the flesh of his body just as surely as Danny had been. Francesca must have discovered by now that he had disappeared. The thought gave him a moment's bitter satisfaction.

He hoped she was hurting real bad.


* * *

Wynette looked very much as Francesca remembered it, although some of the stores had changed. As

she studied the town through the windshield of her rental car, she realized that life had carried her in a huge circle right back to the point where everything had really begun for her.

She hunched her shoulders in a futile attempt to relieve some of the tension in her neck. She still didn't know if she'd done the right thing by leaving Manhattan to fly to Texas, but after three unbearable days

of waiting for the phone to ring and dodging reporters who wanted to interview her about her relationship with Stefan, she had reached the point where she had to do something.

Holly Grace had suggested she fly to Wynette. "That's where Dallie always heads when he's hurting," she had said, "and I guess he's hurting pretty bad right now."

Francesca had tried to ignore the accusation in Holly Grace's voice, but it was difficult. After ten years of friendship, their relationship was seriously strained. The day Francesca had returned from London, Holly Grace had announced, "I'll stick by you, Francesca, because that's the way I'm made, but it's going to be a while before 1 trust you again."

Francesca had tried to make her understand. "I couldn't tell you the truth. Not as close as you are to Dallie."

"So you lied to me? You fed me that stupid story about Teddy's father in England, and I believed it all these years." Holly Grace's face had darkened with anger. "Don't you understand that family means something to Dallie? With other men it might not matter, but Dallie isn't like other men. He's spent all his life trying to create a family around him-Skeet, Miss Sybil, me, all those strays he's picked up ever the years. This is going to just about kill him. His first son died, and you stole his second one."

A wave of anger had shot through Francesca, all the sharper because she had felt a prick of guilt. "Don't you judge me, Holly Grace Beaudine! You and Dallie both have some awfully freewheeling ideas of morality, and I won't have either of you shaking your finger at me. You don't know what it's like to hate who you are-to have to remake yourself. I did what I needed to do at the time. And if I had to go through it again, I'd do exactly the same thing."

Holly Grace had been unmoved. "Then you'd be a bitch twice over, wouldn't you?"

Francesca blinked her eyes against tears as she turned onto the street that held Dallie's Easter egg house. She was heartsick over Holly Grace's inability to understand that Dallie's long-ago affair with her hadn't been anything more than a small sexual diversion in his life-certainly nothing to justify the kidnapping

of a nine-year-old child. Why was Holly Grace taking sides against her? Francesca wondered if she was doing the right thing by not involving the police, but she couldn't bear the idea of seeing Teddy's name smeared all over the tabloids. "Love Child of Television Personality Kidnapped by Golf Pro Father." She could see it now- photographs of all of them. Her relationship with Stefan would become even more public, and they would dig up all the old stories about Dallie and Holly Grace.

Francesca remembered all too well what had happened after "China Colt" had made Holly Grace famous. Every detail of her unusual marriage to one of professional golf's most colorful players had suddenly become fodder for the media, and as one wild story followed another, neither of them could go anywhere without being dogged by paparazzi. Holly Grace handled it better than Dallie, who was accustomed to sports reporters but not the sensationalis-tic press. It hadn't taken him long to start throwing his fists, which had eventually attracted the attention of the PGA commissioner. Following a particularly nasty altercation in Albuquerque, Dallie had been suspended from tournament play for several months. Holly Grace had divorced him soon after to try to make both their lives more peaceful.

The house still bore its lavender trim and chain of leaping jackrabbits, although the tangerine paint had been touched up by a less skillful hand than Miss Sybil's. The old schoolteacher met Francesca at the door. It had been ten years since they'd seen each other. Miss Sybil had shrunk in size and her shoulders were more stooped, but her voice hadn't lost its authority.