Page 25 of Call Me Irresistible (Wynette, Texas 6)

She couldn’t let him have the last word. “That was an interesting scene I walked in on Saturday at the inn. Were you screwing around on Lucy through all of your engagement or only part of it?”

He turned back and let his eyes slip over her, deliberately lingering on the happy printing company logo across her breasts. “I’ve always screwed around on Lucy. But don’t worry. She never suspected a thing.”

He disappeared down the stairs. A few moments later, the church went dark and the front door snapped closed behind him.

She drove bleary-eyed to her job the next morning, the money burning a radioactive hole in the pocket of her revolting new khaki Bermuda shorts. With Ted’s five hundred dollars, she could finally get back to L.A. where she could hole up in a cheap motel while she landed a job. Once her parents saw that she was capable of working hard at something, surely they’d relent and help her get a genuine fresh start.

But no. Instead of making a run for the city limits with Ted’s money, she was sticking around to begin a dead-end job as a country-club drink-cart girl.

At least the uniform wasn’t as bad as her polyester maid’s dress, although it ran a close second. At the end of her interview, the assistant manager had handed over a preppy yellow polo shirt bearing the country-club logo in hunter green. She’d been forced to use her precious tip money to buy her own regulation-length khaki shorts as well as a pair of cheap white sneakers and some odious pom-pom sneaker socks she couldn’t bear looking at.

As she turned into the club’s service drive, she was furious with herself for being too stubborn to grab Ted’s money and run. If the cash had come from anyone else, she might have, but she couldn’t tolerate taking a penny from him. Her decision was all the more lamebrained because she knew he’d do his best to get her fired as soon as he discovered she was working at the club. She could no longer pretend, even to herself, that she knew what she was doing.

The employee parking lot was emptier than she’d expected at eight o’clock. As she headed into the club through the service entrance, she reminded herself she had to keep Ted and his cronies from spotting her. She made her way to the assistant manager’s office, but it was locked and the club’s main floor deserted. She went back outside. A few golfers were on the course, but the only employee in sight was a worker watering the roses. When she asked where everyone was, he replied in Spanish, something about people being sick. He pointed her toward a door on the club’s lower level.

The pro shop was decorated like an old English pub with dark wood, brass fixtures, and a low-pile navy-and-green-plaid carpet. Pyramids of golf clubs stood guard between racks of neatly organized golf clothes, shoes, and visors bearing the club logo. The shop was empty except for a clean-cut guy behind the counter who was frantically punching at his cell. As she came closer, she read his name tag. mark. He wasn’t quite her height, in his mid- to late twenties, with a slight build, neatly cut light brown hair, and good teeth—a former frat boy who, unlike her, was at home in a polo shirt emblazoned with a country-club logo.

As she introduced herself, he looked up from his cell. “You picked a heck of a day to start work here,” he said. “Tell me you’ve caddied before, or at least play the game.”

“No. I

’m the new cart girl.”

“Yeah, I understand. But you’ve caddied, right?”

“I’ve seen Caddy Shack. Does that count?”

He didn’t possess a great sense of humor. “Look, I don’t have time to screw around. A very important foursome is going to be here any minute.” After last night’s conversation, she didn’t need to think hard to identify the members of that important foursome. “I’ve just found out that all but one of our caddies is laid up with food poisoning, along with most of the staff. The kitchen put out some bad coleslaw yesterday for the employee lunch, and believe me, somebody’s going to lose a job over that.”

She didn’t like the direction of this conversation. Didn’t like it at all.

“I’m going to caddy for our VIP guest,” he said, coming out from behind the counter. “Lenny—he’s one of our regular loopers—hates coleslaw, and he’s on his way in now. Skeet’s caddying for Dallie, as usual, so that’s a big break. But I’m still short one caddy, and there’s no time left to find anybody.”

She swallowed. “That nice man watering the roses by the flagpole . . .”

“Doesn’t speak English.” He began steering her toward a door in the rear of the pro shop.

“Surely there’s somebody else on the staff who didn’t eat the coleslaw.”

“Yeah, our bartender, who has a broken ankle, and Jenny in billing, who’s eighty years old.” As he opened the door and gestured her through it, she felt him assessing her. “You don’t look like you’ll have any trouble carrying a bag for eighteen holes.”

“But I’ve never played golf, and I don’t know anything about it. I don’t even respect the game. All those trees chopped down and pesticides giving people cancer. It’ll be a disaster.” More than he could imagine. Only minutes earlier, she’d been contemplating how she’d stay out of Ted Beaudine’s sight. And now this.

“I’ll talk you through it. You do well, and you’ll earn a lot more than you can driving the drink cart. The fee for a beginning caddy is twenty-five dollars, but all these men are big tippers. You’ll get at least forty more.” He held the door open for her. “This is the caddy room.”

The cluttered space held a sagging couch and some metal folding chairs. A bulletin board displaying a no gambling sign hung above a folding table scattered with a deck of cards and some poker chips. He turned on the small television and pulled a dvD from the shelf. “This is the training video we show the kids in the junior caddy program. Watch it till I come back to get you. Remember to stick close to your player, but not close enough to distract him. Keep your eye on the ball, his clubs clean. Carry a towel at all times. Fix his divots on the fairway, his ball marks on the green—watch me. And don’t talk. Not unless one of the players talks to you.”

“I’m not good at not talking.”

“You’d better be today, especially when it comes to your opinions about golf courses.” He stopped at the door. “And never address a club member as anything other than ‘sir’ or ‘mister.’ No first names. Ever.”

She slumped onto the sagging couch as he disappeared. The training video came on. No way was she calling Ted Beaudine “sir.” Not for all the tip money in the world.

Half an hour later, she stood outside the pro shop with a nauseating hip-length green caddy bib tied over her polo shirt, doing her best to make herself invisible by hiding behind Mark. Since she had him by at least two inches, it wasn’t going well. Fortunately, the approaching foursome was too engrossed in a conversation about the breakfast they’d just finished and the dinner they planned to consume that night to notice her.

With the exception of a man she assumed to be Spencer Skipjack, she recognized them all: Ted; his father, Dallie; and Kenny Traveler. And with the exception of Spencer Skipjack, she couldn’t remember ever seeing so much male perfection grouped together, not even on a red carpet. None of these three gods of golf showed signs of hair transplants, shoe lifts, or subtle dabs of bronzer. These were Texas men—tall, lean, steely-eyed, and rugged—manly men who’d never heard of male moisturizers, chest waxes, or paying more than twenty dollars for a haircut. They were the genuine article—the archetypal American hero civilizing the West with a set of golf clubs instead of a Winchester.

Other than possessing the same height and build, Ted and his father didn’t look much alike. Ted had amber eyes, while Dallie’s were a brilliant blue, undimmed by the passing years. Where Ted had angles, Dallie’s edges had been smoothed. His mouth was fuller than his son’s, almost feminine, and his profile softer, but they were both stunners, and with their easy strides and confident bearing, no one could mistake them for anything other than father and son.

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