Page 128 of Lady Be Good (Wynette, Texas 2)

She regarded him stonily. “I haven’t understood you since the day we met.”

It wasn’t the most encouraging response, but he risked brushing another kiss over those stiff lips. “Yes, you have, sweetheart. You understand me better than anybody I’ve ever known.” He began backing toward the door. “Please, just stay right there.”

He whipped around, rushed into the pro shop without bothering to knock the dirt off his shoes, and raced for the locker room, moving faster than anybody at Windmill Creek, or the entire town of Wynette for that matter, had ever seen him move.

His hands were shaking, and he had trouble with the lock on his locker, but even so he didn’t leave her alone more than two minutes. By the time he got back, however, she’d disappeared.

There was only one explanation. The Beaudines had her. Those rotten, perverse Beaudines! The same Beaudines who were coming toward the clubhouse right now from the eighteenth green, with Ted driving the cart, and Dallie and Francesca strolling behind, their arms around each other.

“What did you do with her!” he shouted, even as he realized that she wasn’t with them, so they couldn’t have done anything with her.

Dallie looked amused, Francesca distressed. “Oh, Kenny, you can’t have lost her already.”

He spun around and ran toward the parking lot. Emma didn’t have a car, and she was in a snit, so she’d decided to walk, that was all. She’d be right out there on the highway, marching along the white line like a drill sergeant, probably picking up litter on the way and God help anybody who spit out the window of his pickup.

He raced down a row of cars toward the entrance, his worry mounting because she was too mad at him to pay one bit of attention where she was going. And he didn’t even know why she was mad. Except he did know. He’d been so slippery with her right from the beginning that she didn’t trust his feelings for her.

He stopped running when he reached the entrance to the parking lot and looked up and down the highway, but he didn’t see anything except an old blue Dodge heading in one direction and a Park Avenue heading the other. Maybe he was wrong, maybe she hadn’t come this direction at all. Maybe she’d gone inside the clubhouse and headed for the Wagon Wheel Room to get something cold to drink.

He spun on his heel and ran back across the parking lot, past the Beaudines, and into the club house. But she wasn’t in the Wagon Wheel Room. She wasn’t anywhere.

Emma leaned against the fence and stared at Torie’s emus pecking away at the ground. She was no longer furious; s

he was simply numb. Once again, Kenny had used her emotions against her. But this would be the last time.

She had no idea what had motivated his display on the eighteenth green; she only knew that she had once again been manipulated. Somehow Kenny had decided to use her as a pawn in his get-even scheme against Dallie Beaudine. Well, she’d finally had enough. She couldn’t bear having her emotions spun about in the whirlwind that made up Kenny Traveler’s life any longer.

What an idiot she’d been! Like every other woman in history who’d fallen in love with the wrong man, she’d imagined that she could change him, but that wasn’t going to happen. And today, with his false declaration of love, he’d finally and forever broken her heart.

One of the larger emus lifted his head to study her. Nothing had ever been more welcome to her than the sight of Shelby and Torie rounding the corner of the clubhouse just as Kenny had disappeared inside. They’d taken one look at her face, thrust her into Torie’s BMW, and brought her here.

On the way, they’d picked and prodded at her in their typically American way, demanding that she give up her secrets and tell them everything. She’d evaded them, but when they’d gotten to the Traveler house, they’d started questioning her all over again.

She knew their probing was well-intentioned. In their minds, they couldn’t help her if they didn’t know what was wrong, but she couldn’t tell them. The truth made her seem too pitiful—the dotty, dear thing who’d unwisely fallen in love with a gorgeous, violet-eyed rogue who couldn’t commit.

Besides, she understood something about them that Kenny couldn’t seem to comprehend. Despite all their protests that they’d never speak to him again because he’d upset her, he was theirs, and they’d do anything for him.

It was Torie who finally seemed to realize how much she needed to be alone, and she’d suggested Emma wander down to the emu pen to see her “critters.” Now, as Emma propped her hands on the wooden fence post and gazed at the ungainly birds, she knew it was time to do what she should have done on Sunday. It was time to get on a plane and go home.

Kenny charged through the front door and nearly ran into his father, who was coming down the stairs into the foyer. “Where is she?”

“Where’s who?”

“Don’t you dare try to hide her! Torie already called and told me she’s here.”

“I just walked in the door,” Warren replied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do.” Shelby came into the foyer from the back of the house. As she spotted Warren, she smiled at him like a high school cheerleader looking at the hero of the football team. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Even through his distress, Kenny noticed the way the old man’s eyes lit up as he gave Shelby a light kiss. “I was just coming out to find you. Where’s Petie?”

“On the patio.”

Kenny interrupted the love fest. “Somebody’d better tell me where Emma is.”

“Let’s talk about it on the patio,” Shelby said.

“I don’t want to go out to the patio. I want—”

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