spookiest thing. Sometimes the two of you give me the willies.'
'Now, why's that?'
She tossed her purse down on a white leather couch. 'You're not going to believe this, but you have
these strange similarities. I mean, you and me, we're like two peas in a pod, right? We look alike, we
talk alike. We have just about all the same interests-sports, sex, cars.'
'Is there a point in here somewhere, because I'm starting to get hungry.'
'Of course there's a point. You and Francesca don't like any of the same things. She loves clothes, cities, fancy people. Her stomach gets queasy if she sees somebody sweat, and her politics are definitely getting more liberal all the time-I guess maybe because she's an immigrant.' Holly Grace perched one hip on the back of the couch and looked at him thoughtfully. 'You, on the other hand, don't care much about fancy stuff, and you lean so far to the right on the political spectrum that you're just about ready to fall off. Looking at the surface, two people couldn't be any more different.'
'I guess that's pretty much an understatement.' The Springsteen tape had reached 'Darlington County' again, and Dallie tapped out the rhythm with the toe of his shoe while he waited for Holly Grace to get
to the point.
'Except you're alike in the most peculiar ways. The first thing she said when she saw this apartment was that it reminded her of a doctor's office. And, Dallie, that girl just about has you beat when it comes to picking up strays. First it was cats. Then she branched off into dogs, which was interesting because she's scared to death of them. Finally, she began picking up people-teenage girls, fourteen, fifteen years old, who'd run away from home and were selling their wares on the street.'
'No kidding,' Dallie said, his interest finally caught. 'What does she do with them once she-' But then he stopped as Holly Grace pulled off her coat and he caught sight of the bruise on her neck. 'Hey, what's that? It looks like a sucker bite.'
'I don't want to talk about it.' She hunched up her shoulders to cover the mark and escaped into the kitchen.
He followed her. 'Damn, I haven't seen one of those things in years. I remember when I put a few of those on you myself.' He propped himself in the doorway. 'You feel like telling me about it?'
'You'll only start yelling.'
Dallie gave a snort of displeasure. 'Gerry Jaffe. You saw your old commie lover again.'
'He's not a commie.' Holly Grace yanked a Miller Lite from the refrigerator. 'Just because you don't happen to agree with somebody's politics doesn't mean you should go around calling him a commie. Besides, you're not half as conservative as you try to make people believe.'
'My politics don't have anything to do with it. I just don't want to see you get hurt again, honey.'
Holly Grace deflected the conversation by curving her mouth into a syrupy sweet smile. 'Speaking of old lovers, how's Bambi? Has she learned to read those movie magazines yet without moving her lips?'
'Aw, come on, Holly Grace…'
She looked at him with disgust. 'I swear to God I would never have divorced you if I'd known you were going to start dating women with names that end in i.'
'Are you finished yet?' It aggravated him when she teased him about Bambi, even though he pretty much admitted the girl had been a low point in his amorous career. Still, Holly Grace didn't have to rub it in. 'For your information, Bambi's getting married in a few weeks and moving to Oklahoma, so I'm currently looking for a replacement.'
'Are you interviewing applicants yet?'
'Just keeping my eyes open.'
They heard a key turn in the door and then a child's voice, shrill and breathless, rang out from the foyer. 'Hey, Holly Grace, I did it! I climbed every step!'
'Good for you,' she called out absentmindedly. And then she sucked in her breath. 'Damn, Francie will kill me. That's Teddy, her little boy. Ever since she moved to New York, she's made me promise I wouldn't let the two of you get together.'
Dallie was offended. 'I'm not exactly a child molester. What does she think I'm going to do? Kidnap him?'
'She's embarrassed is all.'
Holly Grace's response told Dallie exactly nothing, but before he could question her, the boy burst into the kitchen, his auburn hair standing up at the cowlick, a small hole in the shoulder seam of his Rambo T-shirt.
'Guess what I found on the stairs? A really cool bolt. Can we go to the Seaport Museum again sometime? It's really neat and-' He broke off as he spotted Dallie standing to the side, one hand resting on the countertop, the other lightly balanced on his hip. 'Gee…' His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish's.
'Teddy, this is the one and only Dallas Beaudine,' Holly Grace said. 'Looks like vou finally got your chance to meet him.'
Dallie smiled at the boy and held out his hand. 'Hey, Teddy. I've heard a lot about you.'
'Gee,' Teddy repeated, his eyes widening with awe. 'Oh, gee…' And then he rushed forward to return Dallie's handshake, but before he got there, he forgot which hand he was supposed to put out, and he stopped.
Dallie rescued him by reaching down and grabbing the right hand for a shake. 'Holly Grace tells me you two are buddies.'
'We watched you play on television about a million times,' Teddy said enthusiastically. 'Holly Grace
has been telling me all about golf and stuff.'
'Well, that's real good.' The boy certainly wasn't anything to look at, Dallie thought, amused by Teddy's awestruck expression-as if he'd just landed in the presence of God. Since his mama was drop-dead beautiful, old Nicky must have been three-quarters ugly.
Too excited to stand still, Teddy shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes never leaving Dallie's face. His glasses slid down on his nose and he reached up to push them back, but he was too distracted by Dallie's presence to pay any attention to what he was doing, and he knocked the frames askew with his thumb. The glasses tilted toward one ear and then went flying.
'Hey, there…' Dallie said, reaching down to pick them up.
Teddy reached, too, so that they both crouched down. Their heads drew close together, the small auburn one and the larger blond one. Dallie got to the glasses first and held them out toward Teddy. Their faces were so close, less than a foot apart. Dallie felt Teddy's breath on his cheek.
On the stereo in the living room, the Boss was singing about being on fire and a knife that was cutting a six- inch valley through his soul. And for that small space of time while the Boss sang about knives and valleys, everything was still all right in Dallie Beaudine's world. And then, in the next space of time, with Teddy's breath falling like a whisper on his cheek, the fire reached out and grabbed him.
'Christ.'
Teddy looked at Dallie with puzzled eyes and then lifted his glasses back toward his face.
Dallie's hand slashed out and grabbed Teddy's wrist, making the child wince.
Holly Grace realized something was wrong and stiffened at the sight of Dallie staring so chillingly into Teddy's face. 'Dallie?'
But he didn't hear her. Time had stopped moving forward for him. He had tumbled back through the years until he was a kid again, a kid gazing into the angry face of Jaycee Beaudine.
Except the face wasn't large and overpowering, with unshaven cheeks and clenched teeth.
The face was small. As small as a child's.
Prince Stefan Marko Brancuzi had bought his yacht, Star of the Aegean, from a Saudi oil sheik. As Francesca stepped aboard and greeted the Star's captain, she had the uneasy sensation that time had slipped away and she was nine years old again, coming aboard Onassis's yacht, the Christina, with bowls of caviar lying in wait along with vacuous people who had too much time on their hands and nothing worthwhile to do with it.
She shivered, but it might very well have been a reaction to the damp December night. The sable definitely would have been more appropriate for the weather than her fuchsia shawl. A steward led her across the afterdeck toward the welcoming lights of the lounge. As she stepped inside the opulent room, His Royal Highness, Prince
