“This just keeps getting better.” He laughed without humor and turned to look at her sitting there as if she’d been gift wrapped just for him. “Your family is here for the wedding, right?”
Again she shook her head.
John frowned. “Naturally.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
Jumping out of the car, John ran to the other side. If she was going to vomit, he’d prefer she didn’t do it in his new classic ‘vette. He opened her door and grabbed her around the waist, and even though John was six foot five, weighed two twenty-five in his birthday suit, and could easily body-check any player against the boards, hauling Georgeanne Howard from his car was no easy task. She was heavier than she looked, and beneath his hands, she felt like she’d sealed herself up in a soup can. “Are you going to puke?” he asked the part in the top of her head.
“I don’t think so,” she answered, and looked up at him with pleading eyes. He’d been around enough women to spot a house cat when one landed in his lap. He recognized the “love me, feed me, take care of me” breed. They purred and rubbed, and other than making a man yowl, weren’t good for anything else. He’d help her get where she needed to go, but the last thing he wanted was the care and feeding of the woman who’d jilted Virgil Duffy. “Where can I drop you off?”
Georgeanne felt like she’d swallowed dozens of butterflies and had difficulty catching her breath. She’d cinched herself into a dress two sizes too small and could only suck air into the top of her lungs. She looked way up into dark blue eyes surrounded by thick lashes and knew she’d rather slit her wrists with a butter knife than get sick in front of a man so outrageously good-looking. His thick lashes and full mouth should have made him look a little feminine, but didn’t. The man exuded too much masculinity to be confused for anything but one hundred percent heterosexual male. Georgeanne, who stood five ten and weighed one hundred forty-on good days when she wasn’t retaining water-felt almost small next to him.
“Where can I drop you off, Georgie?” he asked her again. A lock of rich brown hair curved over his forehead, drawing her attention to a thin white scar running through his left brow.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. For months now she’d lived with a horrible heaviness in her chest. A weight she’d been so sure a man like Virgil could make go away. With Virgil, she would have never had to dodge bill collectors or angry landlords again. She was twenty-two and had tried to take care of herself, but as with most things in her life, she’d failed-miserably. She’d always been a failure. She’d failed in school and at every job she’d ever had, and she’d failed to convince herself that she could love Virgil Duffy. That afternoon, as she’d stood before the cheval mirror studying her reflection, studying the wedding dress he’d chosen for her, the heaviness in her chest threatened to choke her and she’d known she couldn’t marry Virgil. Not even for all that wonderful money could she go to bed with a man who reminded her of H. Ross Perot.
“Where’s your family?”
She thought of her grandmother. “I have a great-aunt and uncle who live in Duncanville, but Lolly can’t travel because of her lumbago, and Uncle Clyde had to stay home and take care of her.”
The corners of his mouth turned downward. “Where are your parents?”
“I was brought up by my grandmother, but she took her final journey to heaven several years ago,” Georgeanne answered, hoping he wouldn’t ask about the father she’d never known or the mother she’d seen only once at her grandmother’s funeral.
“Friends?”
“She’s at Virgil’s.” Just the thought of Sissy made her heart palpitate. She’d been so careful to make sure everyone matched the lavender punch. Now coordinating dresses and dyed pumps seemed trivial and silly.
A frown bracketed his mouth. “Naturally.” He removed his big hands from her waist and ran his fingers through the sides of his hair. “It doesn’t sound to me like you have a real firm plan.”
No, she didn’t have a plan, firm or otherwise. She’d grabbed her vanity case and had run out of Virgil’s house without a thought to where she was going or how she planned to get there.
“Well, hell.” He dropped his hands to his sides and looked down the road. “You might want to think up something.”
Georgeanne had a horrible feeling that if she didn’t come up with an idea within the next two minutes, John would jump back in his car and leave her on the side of the road. She needed him, at least for a few days until she figured out what to do next, and so she did what had always worked for her. She placed one hand on his arm and leaned into him a little, just enough to make him think she was open to any suggestion he might make. “Maybe you could help me,” she said in her smoothest bourbon-soaked voice, then topped it off with a you’re-such-a-big-ol‘- stud-and-I’m-so-helpless smile. Georgeanne might be a failure at everything else in her life, but she was an accomplished flirt and a bona fide success when it came to manipulating men. Lowering her lashes modestly, she gazed up into his beautiful eyes. One corner of her lips tilted in a seductive promise she had no intention of keeping. She slid her palms to his hard forearms, a gesture made to seem like a caress but that was purely a tactical maneuver to guard against quick hands. Georgeanne hated it when men pawed her breasts.
“You’re real tempting,” he said, placing a finger beneath her chin and lifting her face. “But you’re not worth what it’d cost me.”
“Cost you?” A cool breeze picked up several spiral curls and sent them dancing about her face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he began, then glanced pointedly at her breasts pressed against his chest, “that you want something from me and you’re willing to use your body to get it. I like sex as much as any man, but, honey, you’re not worth my career.”
Georgeanne pushed away from him and batted her hair from her eyes. She’d been in several intimate relationships in her life, but as far as she was concerned, sex was highly overrated. Men seemed to really enjoy it, but for her, sex was just plain embarrassing. The only good thing she could say about it was that it only lasted about three minutes. She raised her chin and looked at him as if he’d just hurt and insulted her. “You’re mistaken. I’m not that kind of girl.”
“I see.” He looked back at her as if he knew exactly what kind of girl she was. “You’re a tease.”
“Why don’t you cut the bullshit and just tell me what you want.”
“Okay,” she said, changing tactics. “I need a little help, and I need a place to stay for a few days.”
“Listen,” he sighed, and shifted his weight to one foot. “I’m not the type of man you’re looking for. I can’t help you.”
“Then why did you tell me you would?”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer.
“Just for a few days,” she pleaded, desperate. She needed time to think of what to do now-now that she’d royally messed up her life. “I won’t be any trouble.”
“I doubt that,” he scoffed.
“I need to get in touch with my aunt.”
“Where’s your aunt?”
“Back in McKinney,” she answered truthfully, although she didn’t look forward to her conversation with Lolly. Her aunt had been extremely pleased with Georgeanne’s choice in a husband. Even though Lolly had never been so tactless as to come right out and say so, Georgeanne suspected that her aunt envisioned a series of expensive gifts like a big-screen TV and a Craftmatic Adjustable Bed.
John’s hard stare pinned her for several long moments. “Shit, get in,” he said, and turned to walk around the front of the car. “But as soon as you get in touch with your aunt, I’m dropping you off at the airport or bus depot or wherever the hell else you’re going.”
Despite his less-than-enthusiastic offer, Georgeanne didn’t waste any time. She jumped back in the car and slammed the door.
Once John was behind the wheel, he shoved the Corvette into gear, and the car shot back onto the highway. The sound of tires hitting the pavement filled an awkward silence between them-at least it felt awkward to Georgeanne. John didn’t seem bothered by it at all.
For years she’d attended Miss Virdie Marshall’s School of Ballet, Tap, and Charm. Although she’d never been the most coordinated girl, she’d outshined the others with her ability to charm anyone, anywhere, any time of the day. But this day she had a slight problem. John didn’t seem to like her, which perplexed Georgeanne because men
