"I know that," Dallie replied quietly.

"If you make the safe shot-go around the lake-you've got a good chance at tying Nicklaus."

"I'm tired of safe shots," Dallie said. "I'm going for the flag." Jaycee had been dead for years, and

Dallie didn't have a damned thing left to prove to that bastard. Francie was right. Not trying at all was a bigger sin than failing. He took a last look over toward Francesca, wanting her respect more than he'd ever wanted anything. She and Holly Grace were clutching each other's hands as if they were getting ready to fall off the edge of the world. Teddy's legs had gotten tired and he was sitting on the grass, but the look of determination hadn't faded from his face.

Dallie focused all his attention on what he had to do, trying to control the rush of adrenaline that would harm him more than it would help.

Hogan couldn't carry the lake, the Bear whispered. What makes you think you can?

Because I want it more than Hogan ever did, Dallie answered back. I just plain want it more.

When he lined up for the ball and the spectators realized what he was going to do, they emitted a

murmur of disbelief. Nicklaus's face was as expressionless as ever. If he thought Dallie was making a mistake, he kept it to himself.

You'll never do it, the Bear whispered.

You just watch me, Dallie replied.

His club lashed through the ball. It shot into the sky on a high, strong trajectory and then faded to the right so that it hung over the water-over the center of the lake that had claimed Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer and so many other legends. It sailed through the sky for an eternity, but it still hadn't cleared the lake when it began to come down. The spectators held their breath, their bodies frozen into position like extras in an old science-fiction movie. Dallie stood like a statue watching the slow, ominous descent. In the background, a flag with the number 18 printed on it caught a puff of breeze and lifted ever so slightly, so that in all the universe only that flag and the ball were moving.

Screams went up from the crowd, and then an ear-splitting wall of sound struck Dallie as his ball cleared the edge of the lake and hit the green, bouncing slightly before it came to a dead stop ten feet from the flag.

Seve put his ball on the green and two-putted, then shook his head dejectedly as he walked off onto the fringe. Jack's heroic sixty-foot putt lipped the cup, but didn't drop. Dallie stood alone. He only had a ten-foot putt, but he was mentally and physically exhausted. He knew that if he made the putt he would win the tournament, but if he missed it he would be tied with Jack.

He turned to Francesca, and once again her pretty lips formed that one word: please.

As tired as he was, Dallie didn't have the heart to disappoint her.

Chapter 33

Dallie's arms shot up in the air, one fist holding his putter aloft like a medieval standard of victory. Skeet was crying like a baby, so overcome with joy that he couldn't move. As a result, the first person who reached Dallie was Jack Nicklaus.

"Great game, Dallie," Nicklaus said, putting his arm over Dallie's shoulders. "You're a real champion."

Then Skeet was hugging him and pounding him on the back, and Dallie was hugging back, except his

eyes were moving the whole time, searching the crowd until he found what he was looking for.

Holly Grace broke through first; then Francesca, with Teddy in tow. Holly Grace rushed toward Dallie

on her long-stemmed legs-legs that had first won fame as they ran the bases at Wynette High, legs that had been American-designed for both speed and beauty. Holly Grace ran toward the man she had loved just about all her life, and then she stopped cold as she saw those blue eyes of his slip right past her and come to rest on Francesca. A spasm of pain went through her chest, a moment of heartbreak, and then the pain eased as she felt herself let him go.

Teddy nudged up next to her, not quite ready to join in such extravagant emotion. Holly Grace slipped

her arm around his shoulders, and they both watched as Dallie lifted Francesca high off the ground, hoisting her by the waist so that her head was higher than his. For a fraction of a moment, she hung there, tilting her face into the sun and laughing at the sky. And then she kissed him, brushing his face with her hair, battering his cheeks with the joyous swaying of her silly silver earrings. Her little red sandals slid from her toes, one of them balancing itself on top of his golf shoe.

Francesca turned away first, searching for Holly Grace in the crowd, holding out her arm. Dallie set Francesca down without letting go of her and held out his arm, too, so that Holly Grace could join them. He hugged them both-these two women who meant everything to him-one the love of his boyhood, the other the love of his manhood; one tall and strong, the other tiny and frivolous, with a marshmallow heart and a spine of tempered steel. Dallie's eyes sought out Teddy, but even in his moment of victory,

he saw the boy wasn't ready and he didn't press him. For now it was enough that they could exchange smiles.

A UPI photographer caught the picture that was to grace the front pages of the nation's sports sections

the next day-a jubilant Dallie Beaudine lifting Francesca Day up off the ground while Holly Grace Beaudine stood to one side.

Francesca had to be back in New York the next morning, and Dallie needed to perform all the duties that fell to the winner immediately following a major championship. As a result, their time together after the tournament was much too short and all too public. "I'll call you," he mouthed as he was swept away.

She smiled in answer, and then the press engulfed him.


* * *

Francesca and Holly Grace traveled back to New York together, but their flight was delayed and they didn't reach the city until late. It was past midnight by the time Francesca had tucked Teddy into bed, too late to expect a call from Dallie. The following day, she attended a briefing on the upcoming Statue of Liberty citizenship ceremony, a luncheon for women in broadcasting, and two meetings. She left a series of phone numbers with her secretary, making certain that she wasn't out of contact anywhere she went, but Dallie didn't call.

By the time she left the studio, she had worked herself into a froth of righteous indignation. She knew he was busy, but he certainly could have spared a few minutes to call her. Unless he'd changed his mind, a little voice whispered. Unless he'd had second thoughts. Unless she'd misread his feelings.

Consuelo and Teddy were gone when she got home. She set down her purse and briefcase, then slipped wearily out of her jacket and headed down the hallway to her bedroom, only to come to a halt in the doorway. A erystal and silver trophy nearly three feet long lay in the exact center of her bed.

"Dallie!" she screeched.

He came out of her bathroom, hair still wet from the shower, one of her fluffy pink towels wrapped around his hips. Grinning at her, he hoisted the trophy off the bed, walked over to her, and deposited

it at her feet. "Was this pretty much what you had in mind?" he asked.

"You wretch!" She threw herself into his arms, almost knocking over both him and the trophy in the process. "You darling, impossible, wonderful wretch!"

And then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him, and they were holding each other so tightly it seemed as if the life force from one body had poured into the other. "Damn, I love you," Dallie murmured. "My sweet little Fancy Pants, driving me half crazy, nagging me to death." He kissed her again, long and slow. "You're almost the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Almost?" she murmured against his lips. "What's the best?"

"Being born good-looking." And then he kissed her again.

Their lovemaking was full of laughter and tenderness, with nothing forbidden, nothing withheld. Afterward, they lay face to face, their naked bodies pressed together so they could whisper secrets to each other.

"I thought I was going to die," he told her, "when you said you wouldn't marry me."

"I thought I was going to die," she told him, "when you didn't say you loved me."

"I've been afraid so much. You sure were right about that."

"I had to have the best from you. I'm a miserable, selfish person."

"You're the best woman in the world."

He began telling her about Danny and Jaycee Beaudine and the feeling he'd gotten early in life that he wasn't going to amount to much. It was easier not to try too hard, he had discovered, than to have all

his shortcomings proven to him.

Francesca said that Jaycee Beaudine sounded like a perfectly odious person and Dallie should have had enough sense early on to realize that the opinions of unsavory people like that were completely unreliable.

Dallie laughed and then kissed her again before he asked when they were getting married. "I won you

fair and square," he said. "Now it's time for you to pay up."


* * *

They were dressed and sitting in the living room when Consuelo and Teddy returned several hours later. The two of them had spent a wonderful evening at Madison Square Garden, where Dallie had sent them earlier with a pair of ringside tickets to see the Greatest Show on Earth. Consuelo took in Francesca's and Dallie's flushed faces and wasn't fooled for a minute about what had been going on while she and Teddy were watching Gunther Gebel-Williams tame tigers. Teddy and Dallie eyed each other politely but warily. Teddy was still pretty sure Dallie was only pretending to like him because of his mom, while Dallie was trying to figure out how to undo all the damage he'd inflicted.

"Teddy, how about taking me to the top of the Empire State Building tomorrow after school?" he said. "I'd sure like to see it."

For a moment Dallie thought Teddy was going to refuse. Teddy picked up his circus program, rolled it into a tube, and blew through it with elaborate casualness. "I guess it'd be okay." He turned the tube into

a telescope and looked through it. "As long as I get back in time to watch The Goonies on cable TV."


* * *

The next day the two of them went up to the observation platform. Teddy stopped well back from the protective metal grating at the edge because heights made him dizzy. Dallie stopped right at his side because he wasn't all that crazy about heights himself. "It's not clear enough today to see the Statue of Liberty," Teddy said, pointing toward the harbor. "Sometimes you can see it over there."

"Did you want me to get you one of those rubber King Kongs they're selling at the concession stand?" Dallie asked.

Teddy liked King Kong a lot, but he shook his head. A guy wearing an Iowa State windbreaker recognized Dallie and asked for his autograph. Teddy was an old hand at waiting patiently while grown-ups gave autographs, but the interruption irritated Dallie. When the fan finally walked away,

Teddy looked at Dallie and said wisely, "It goes with the territory."

"How's that again?"

"When you're a famous person, people feel like they know you, even though they don't. You have a certain obligation."

"That sounds like your mama talking."

"We get interrupted a lot."

Dallie looked at him for a moment. "You know these interruptions are only going to get worse, don't you, Teddy? Your mama'll be upset if I don't win a few more golf tournaments for her, and whenever the three of us go out, there'll be that many more people looking at us."

"Are you and my mom getting married?"

Dallie nodded his head. "I love your mama a lot. She's about the best lady in the world." He took a deep breath, charging in just as Francesca would have. "I love you, too, Teddy. I know that might be hard for you to believe after the way I've been acting, but it's true."

Teddy pulled off his glasses and submitted the lenses to an elaborate cleaning on the hem of his T-shirt. "What about Holly Grace?" he said, holding the lenses up to the light. "Does this mean we won't see Holly Grace anymore, because of how you and her used to be married?"

Dallie smiled. Teddy might not want to acknowledge what he'd just heard, but at least he hadn't walked away. "We couldn't get rid of Holly Grace even if we tried to. Your mama and I both love her; she'll always be part of our family. Skeet, too, and Miss Sybil. Along with whatever runaways your mom manages to pick up."