marry a woman he hadn’t known more than a few hours if he hadn’t been drunk, no matter how great her body. And DeeDee’s body had been great.
A dark scowl turned John’s mouth downward. His eyes followed Georgeanne as she played in the surf, then with a foul curse on his lips, he stormed into the kitchen and poured out his beer.
The last thing he needed was to wake up in the morning with a pounding headache and married to Virgil’s fiancйe.
Chapter Three
Georgeanne flinched each time a frigid wave rose up her thighs. A shudder shook her shoulders, but despite the cold, she dug her feet into the sand and grabbed ahold of the large rock shaped like a loaf of bread. Bending forward slightly, she planted her hand on the jagged stone. For several moments she stared, fascinated, at the numerous purple and orange starfish fastened to the rock. Then like a woman reading braille, she lightly ran her fingers across the lines of a hard, rough back. The five-carat diamond solitaire on her left hand caught the evening sun and shot blue and red fire across her knuckles.
The surf pounding in her ears, and the view before her eyes, kept her head clear-clear of everything- everything but the simple pleasure of experiencing the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
When she’d first walked down to the beach, her dark thoughts had threatened to overwhelm her. Her destitution, the day’s unfortunate wedding catastrophe, and her dependency on a man like John, who didn’t seem to possess two ounces of compassion, weighed heavy on her shoulders. But worse than her money problems, John, or Virgil was the feeling that she was so incredibly alone in a vast world where nothing felt familiar. She was surrounded by trees and mountains, and everything was so green. The textures were different here, the sand coarser, the water colder, and the wind harsher.
As she’d stood staring out at the ocean, feeling like the only person alive, she’d fought the panic swelling within her, but she’d lost the battle. Like a high-rise building experiencing blackout, Georgeanne had felt and heard the familiar click-click-hum of her brain shutting down. From as far back as she could remember, her mind had always gone blank when she felt overwhelmed. She hated when it happened, but was powerless to prevent it. The events of the day had finally caught up with her, and she was so overloaded, it had taken longer than usual for the lights to come back on. When they had, she’d closed her eyes, taken deep, cleansing breaths, then pushed the day’s troubling thoughts from her head.
Georgeanne was good at clearing her mind and refocusing on one certain thing. She’d had years of practice. She’d had years to learn to cope with a world that danced to a different beat-a beat she didn’t always know or understand. But a beat she’d learned to fake. Since the age of nine, she’d worked hard to make it appear as if she were in perfect step with everyone else.
Since that afternoon twelve years ago when her grandmother had told her she had a brain dysfunction, they’d tried to hide her disability from the world. She’d been enrolled in charm and cooking schools, yet she’d never been taken to a scholastic tutor. She understood design compositions and could make beautiful flower arrangements with her eyes closed, yet she could not read past the fourth-grade level. She hid her problems behind charm and flirtations, behind her beautiful face and body. Even though she now knew she was dyslexic rather than retarded, she still hid it. And even though she felt tremendous relief with the discovery, she was still too embarrassed to seek help.
A large wave hit the front of her thighs and soaked the bottom of her shorts. She braced her feet wider apart and dug her toes even deeper into the sand. Close to the top of Georgeanne’s list of life’s rules, right under making sure people liked her, and directly above being a good hostess, was her determination to appear just like everyone else. As a result, she tried to learn
Moving her hand to a lime green sea anemone, she lightly brushed the edge. The sticky tentacles closed around her fingers. Startled, she jumped back. Another large wave hit her thighs, her knees buckled, and she splashed backward into the surf. A breaker pushed her away from the rock, flipped her several times, and propelled her toward the shore. Icy cold ocean slapped her chest and sucked her breath away. Salt water and sand filled her mouth as she kicked and clawed to keep her head above the surface. A piece of slimy seaweed wrapped around her neck and an even larger wave caught her from behind and shot her up the beach like a torpedo. By the time she finally came to a stop, the surf was already rushing back out to meet the next wave. With one hand she pushed herself to her feet and scrambled up the beach. When she reached the safety of the shore, she dropped to her hands and knees and took several deep breaths. She spit sand from her mouth, grabbed the seaweed from around her neck, and tossed it aside. Her teeth began to chatter, and when she thought of all the plankton she’d just swallowed, her stomach pitched like the Pacific behind her. She could feel grit in very uncomfortable places and looked toward John’s house, hoping her misadventure had gone unobserved.
It hadn’t. Sunglasses shading his eyes and his rubber thongs kicking up sand, John strolled toward her looking good enough to lick up one side and down the other. Georgeanne wanted to crawl back into the ocean and die.
Above the sound of the surf and seagulls, his rich, deep laughter reached her ears. In a flash she forgot about the cold, the sand, and the seaweed. She forgot about her appearance and wanting to die. Red-hot rage shot through her veins and ignited her temper like a blowtorch. She’d worked all of her life to avoid ridicule, and there was nothing she
“That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” he said with a flash of his straight white teeth.
Georgeanne’s anger rumbled in her ears, blocking even the sound of the ocean. Her fists closed around two clumps of wet sand.
“Damn, you should have seen yourself,” he told her with a shake of his head. The breeze ruffled the dark hair about his ears and forehead as he roared with laughter.
Rising to her knees, Georgeanne threw a handful of sandy mud, hitting him in the chest with a satisfying splat. She’d never been particularly coordinated or light on her feet, but she’d always been a good shot.
His laughter died instantly. “What the hell?” he swore, and looked down at the front of his tank top. When he raised his stunned gaze, Georgeanne nailed him on the forehead. The sand glob knocked his Ray-Bans askew before the sand fell to his feet. Over the top of the black frames his blue eyes stared back at her, promising retribution.
Georgeanne smiled and reached for another handful. She was beyond fearing anything John might do. “Why aren’t you laughing now, you stupid jock?”
He slid the sunglasses from his face and pointed them at her. “I wouldn’t throw that.”
She stood and, with a brisk toss of her head, flipped a hunk of soggy hair out of her face. “Afraid of a little dirt?”
One dark brow rose up his forehead, but otherwise, he didn’t move.
“What are you going to do?” she taunted the man who suddenly represented every injustice and insult ever inflicted on her. “Something really macho?”
John smiled, then before Georgeanne could utter a scream, he moved like the athlete he was and body-checked her to the ground. The sand flew from her hand. Stunned, she blinked and looked into his face only a few inches from hers.
“What in the hell is the matter with you?” he asked, sounding more incredulous than angry. A dark lock of hair fell over his forehead and touched the white scar running through his brow.
“Get off of me,” Georgeanne demanded, and socked him on the upper arm. His warm skin and hard muscle felt good beneath her clenched fist, and she punched him again, venting her rage. She hit him for laughing at her, for insinuating she’d planned to marry Virgil for money, and for being right. She struck out against her grandmother, who’d died and left her alone-alone to make bad choices.
“Jesus, Georgie,” John cursed, grabbed her wrists, and pinned them to the ground next to her head. “Stop it.”
She looked up into his handsome face, and she hated him. She hated herself, and she hated the moisture
