Free Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

down, and propped her back against the door. She would just have to spend the night here. Bending her knees, she folded her arms and rested her cheek on top. If only he'd given her a real kiss  .  .  . Her eyes drifted shut.
    With a soft exclamation, she fell backward as the door opened behind her. Scrambling to her feet, she turned to face Bobby Tom. Since he didn't seem particularly surprised to see her, she suspected he had been spying through the peephole, waiting for her to walk away.
    “What do you think you're doing?” he asked with exaggerated patience.
    “I'm trying to sleep.”
    “You are not spending the night outside my door.”
    “If anybody sees me, they'll just think I'm one of your groupies.”
    “They'll think you're a crazy person is what they'll think!”
    For someone who was so amiable with everyone else, he had certainly gotten prickly with her. She knew she sometimes did that to people.
    “If you give me your word of honor that you won't drive off without me tomorrow, I'll get my own room.”
    “Gracie, I don't even know what I'll be doing an hour from now, let alone tomorrow.”
    “Then I'm afraid I'll have to stay here.”
    He rubbed his chin with his thumb, a gesture that she'd already figured out meant he had made up his mind about something but wanted it to look as if he were still mulling things over.
    “Tell you what. It's too early to turn in. You can keep me entertained until bedtime.”
    Even as she nodded her agreement, she wondered what constituted entertainment in his mind.
    He set her suitcase inside the suite and shut the door. As she entered the suite, she took in the spacious living room, which was decorated in peach and green. “This is beautiful.”
    He looked around as if he were seeing it all for the first time. “I guess it is pretty nice. I hadn't noticed.”
    How could he not notice something so wonderful? A cluster of deep-seated couches and inviting chairs occupied the center of the room. A rectangular parquet table sat before a wall of windows, and a silk flower arrangement exploded with color on a bombé chest. She gazed at it all with delight.
    “How could you not notice something like this?”
    “I've spent so much of my life in hotels I guess I've gotten kind of numb.”
    She barely heard him as she rushed over to the windows and gazed out at the dark water and twinkling lights. “That's the Mississippi River out there.”
    “Uh-huh.” He took off his Stetson and went into the bedroom.
    Wonder filled her as she tried to absorb the fact that she was staying in a hotel room that overlooked such a marvelous sight. She moved around the living area, testing the comfort of the sofa and wing chairs, opening the desk drawers to touch the stationery, peering into the towering armoire that held the television. Her eyes automatically scanned the movie schedule for the week and stopped on something called Red Hot Cheerleaders.
    The words leaped out at her. On the few occasions she had stayed in hotels, she had been tempted to view one of these adult movies, but the idea of having it show up on her bill where anybody could see it had always discouraged her.
    “You want to watch something?”
    Her head shot up as Bobby Tom appeared behind her.
    She dropped the movie schedule. “Oh, no. It's too late. Much too late. We should really— We need to get up early and—”
    “Gracie, were you looking at the dirty movie schedule?”
    “Dirty movies? Me?”
    “You were. That's exactly what you were doing. I'll bet you never saw a dirty movie in your life.”
    “Of course I have. Lots of them.”
    “Name a few.”
    “Well, Indecent Proposal was quite erotic.”
    “Indecent Proposal? Is that your idea of a dirty movie?”
    “It is in New Grundy.”
    He grinned and glanced down at the TV schedule. “Pit Stop for Passion just started. You want to take a look at it?”
    Her sense of propriety barely won out over her curiosity. “I don't approve of that sort of