pockets of his jeans. The sleeves of his denim shirt were rolled up his forearms, and the setting sun cast him in a fiery glow, making him appear bigger than life. When she entered the room, he turned to face her.
“I need to talk to you about something,” she said as she walked toward him, bracing herself for an argument.
“I know what you’re going to say, and if it will keep that scowl off your pretty forehead, then you can pick up the check next time.”
“Oh.” She stopped in front of him. She’d won before she’d begun, and felt somewhat deflated. “How did you know that’s what I wanted to talk about?”
“You’ve been frowning at me since the waitress placed the check by my plate. For a few seconds I thought you really were going to leap across the table and wrestle me for it.”
For a few seconds she had thought of it, too. “I would never wrestle in public.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” In the gray wash of approaching night, she saw a corner of his mouth lift slightly. “‘Cause I could take you.”
“Maybe,” she said, unwilling to concede. “Do you have a pair of tweezers?”
“What are you going to do, pluck my eyebrows?”
“No. I have a sliver.”
John walked into the dining room and flipped on the light above the pedestal table. “Let me see it.”
Georgeanne didn’t follow. “It’s no big deal.”
“Let me see it,” he repeated.
With a sigh, she gave up and walked into the dining room. She held out her hand and showed him her middle finger.
“That’s not too bad,” he announced.
She leaned closer for a better look, and their foreheads almost touched. “It’s huge.”
A frown lowered his brows. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and left the room, only to return with a pair of tweezers. “Have a seat.”
“I can do it myself.”
“I know you can.” He turned a chair backward and straddled it. “But I can get it out easier because I can use both hands.” He placed his forearms on the top rung and motioned to another chair. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Warily she took a seat and shoved her hand toward him, purposely keeping an arm’s length between them. John closed the short distance by scooting his chair until her knees touched the back of the wooden seat, so close that she had to press her legs together so they wouldn’t brush the insides of his thighs. She leaned back as far as she could, He took her hand in his palm and squeezed the pad of her middle finger.
“Ouch.” She tried to pull free, but he tightened his grasp.
He glanced up at her. “That didn’t hurt, Georgie.”
“Yes, it did!”
He didn’t argue, but he didn’t let go either. He lowered his gaze and poked at her skin with the tweezers.
“Ouch.”
Once again he lifted his gaze and looked at her over their joined hands. “Baby.”
“Jerk.”
He laughed and shook his head. “If you weren’t such a girly girl, this wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Girly girl? What’s a girly girl?”
“Look in the mirror.”
That didn’t tell her much. She tried to pull her hand back again.
“Just relax,” he said as he continued to work at the sliver. “You look like you’re about to jump out of your chair. What do you think I’m going to do, stab you with a pair of tweezers?”
“No.”
“Than relax, it’s almost out.”
He didn’t look up, just shrugged and said, “I haven’t told my grandfather or my mother yet.”
Georgeanne was surprised. Seven years ago she’d thought John and Ernie were close. “Why?”
“Because both of them have been bothering me to get married again and start a family. When they find out about Lexie, they’ll shoot to Seattle faster than a smoker from the sweet spot. I want time to get to know Lexie first, before I’m blitzed by my family. Besides, we agreed to wait to tell her, remember? And with my mother and Ernie hanging around, staring, it might make Lexie uncomfortable.”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
He let go of her hand and placed the tweezers on the table. “Before I met you.”
Georgeanne looked at her finger, and the sliver was gone. She wondered which meeting he was referring to. “The first time?”
“Both times.” He grasped the top rung of the chair, leaned back, and frowned a little.
Georgeanne was confused. “Both times?”
“Yep. But I don’t think the second marriage really counts.”
She couldn’t help it. She felt her brows raise and her jaw drop. “You were married twice?” She held up two fingers. “Two times?”
His brows lowered and he drew his mouth into a straight line. “Two isn’t that many.”
To Georgeanne, who’d never been married, two sounded like a lot.
“Like I said, the second time didn’t count anyway. I was only married as long as it took to get a divorce.”
“Wow, I didn’t know you were ever married at all.”
She began to wonder about these two women who’d married John, the father of her child. The man who’d broken her heart. And because she couldn’t stand not knowing, she asked, “Where are these women now?”
“My first wife, Linda, died.”
“I’m sorry,” Georgeanne uttered lamely. “How did she die?”
He stared at her for several prolonged moments. “She just did,” he said, subject closed. “And I don’t know where DeeDee Delight is. I was real drunk when I married her. When I divorced her, too, for that matter.”
“She was a stripper,” he said blandly.
Even though Georgeanne had guessed as much, it was a shock to hear John actually confess to marrying a stripper. It was so shocking. “Really! What did she look like?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Oh,” she said, her curiosity unsatisfied. “I’ve never been married, but I think I’d remember. You must have been
“I said I was.” He made an exasperated sound. “But you don’t have to worry about Lexie around me. I don’t drink anymore.”
“Are you an alcoholic?” she asked, the question slipping out before she thought better of it. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer such a personal question.”
“It’s okay. I probably am,” he answered more candid than she would have suspected. “I never checked into Betty Ford, but I was drinking pretty heavily and turning my brain to shit. I was pretty much out of control.”
“Was it hard to quit?”
