She’d slept for two and a half hours and felt more tired than before. She remembered passing the bathroom earlier and reached for her overnight case on the floor next to the bed. “I need a few minutes,” she said, and avoided looking at herself in the mirror as she passed the dresser. “I shouldn’t be too long,” she added as she approached the doorway.
“Good. We’re about to sit down,” John informed her, although he didn’t appear in a hurry to move. His shoulders practically filled the doorframe, forcing her to stop.
“Excuse me.” If he thought she was going to squeeze past him, he’d better come up with a new plan. Georgeanne had figured out that game in the tenth grade. She felt a vague disappointment that John should belong to the caliber of sleazy men who thought they had the right to rub up against women and peer down their blouses, but when she looked up into his blue eyes, relief washed over her. A wrinkle appeared between his dark brows and he gazed at her mouth, not her breasts. He reached toward her and brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. He was so close, she could smell his Obsession, and after working with perfumes and colognes for a year, Georgeanne knew her fragrances.
“What’s this?” he asked, and turned his hand to show her a smudge of chocolate on his thumb.
“My lunch,” she answered, and felt a little flutter in her stomach. Looking up into his deep blue eyes, she realized that he wasn’t frowning at her for a change. She ran the tip of her tongue along her lip and asked, “Better?”
Slowly he lowered his arms to his sides and raised his gaze to hers. “Better than what?” he asked, and just when Georgeanne thought he might smile and show her his dimple again, he turned and headed down the hall. “Ernie wants to know if you want beer or ice water with dinner,” he said over his shoulder. The buns of his jeans were worn a lighter blue than the rest, and a wallet bulged one pocket. On his feet he wore a pair of cheap rubber thongs just like his grandfather.
“Water,” she answered, but would have preferred iced tea. Georgeanne made her way to the bathroom and repaired the damage to her makeup. As she reapplied her burgundy lipstick, a smile curved her lips. She’d been right about John. He wasn’t a jerk.
By the time she had arranged the curls about her shoulders and made her way to the small dining room, John and Ernie were already seated at the oak pedestal table. “Sorry I took so long,” she said, noticing that they were so bad-mannered as to have begun without her. She sat across from John and reached for a paper napkin stuck in an olive green holder. She placed it on her lap, looked for her spoon, and found it on the wrong side of the bowl.
“Pepper’s right there.” Ernie motioned with his spoon to a red and white can in the middle of the table.
“Thank you.” Georgeanne looked at the older man. She didn’t really care for pepper, but after her first bite of creamy white chowder, it became obvious that Ernie did. The soup was thick and rich, and despite the pepper, it was delicious. A glass of ice water sat next to her bowl and she reached for it. As she took a sip, she glanced about the room and noticed the sparse decoration. In fact, the only other thing in the room besides the table was a large china hutch filled with trophies. “Do you live here year-round, Mr. Maxwell?” she asked, taking it upon herself to start the dinner conversation.
He shook his head, drawing her attention to his thinning white crew cut. “This is one of John’s houses. I still live in Saskatoon.”
“Is that close by?”
“Close enough to see my share of games.”
Georgeanne set the glass on the table and began to eat. “Hockey games?”
“Of course. I see most of ‘em.” He turned his gaze to John. “But I could still kick myself in the ass for missing that hat trick last May.”
“Quit worrying about it,” John told him.
Georgeanne knew next to nothing about hockey. “What’s a hat trick?”
“It’s when a player scores three goals in one game,” Ernie explained. “And I missed that damn Kings game, too.” He paused to shake his head, his eyes filling with pride as he gazed at his grandson. “That candy-assed Gretzky rode the pines for a good fifteen minutes after you checked him into the boards,” he said, genuinely delighted.
Georgeanne didn’t have the faintest idea what Ernie was talking about, but getting “checked into the boards” sounded painful to her. She’d been born and raised in a state that lived for football, yet she hated it. She sometimes wondered if she was the only person in Texas who abhorred violent sports. “Isn’t that bad?” she asked.
“Hell no!” the older man exploded. “He went up against The Wall and lived to regret it.”
One corner of John’s mouth lifted upward, and he smashed several crackers into his chowder. “I guess I won’t be winning the Lady Bying any time soon.”
Ernie turned to Georgeanne. “That’s the trophy given for gentlemanly conduct, but screw that.” He pounded the table with one fist and raised his spoon to his mouth with the other.
Personally, Georgeanne didn’t think either of them was in danger of winning an award for gentlemanly conduct. “This is wonderful chowder,” she said in an effort to change the subject to something a little less volatile. “Did you make it?”
Ernie reached for the beer next to his bowl. “Sure,” he answered, and raised the bottle to his mouth.
“It’s delicious.” It had always been important to Georgeanne that people like her-never more than now. She figured her friendly overtures were wasted on John, so she turned her considerable charm on his grandfather. “Did you start with a white sauce?” she asked, looking into Ernie’s blue eyes.
“Yeah, sure, but the trick to good chowder is in the clam juice,” he informed her, then between bites, he shared his recipe with Georgeanne. She gave him the appearance of hanging on his every word, of concentrating on him fully, and within seconds, he dropped into the palm of her hand like a ripe plum. She asked questions and commented on his choice of spices, and all the while she was very aware of John’s direct gaze. She knew when he took a bite, raised the beer bottle to his lips, or wiped his mouth with a napkin. She was aware when he shifted his gaze from her to Ernie and back again. Earlier, when he’d woken her from her nap, he’d been almost friendly. Now he seemed withdrawn.
“Did you teach John how to make chowder?” she asked, making an effort to pull him into the conversation.
John leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “No,” was all he said.
“When I’m not here, John goes out to eat. But when I am here, I make sure his kitchen is good and stocked. I like to cook,” Ernie provided. “He doesn’t.”
Georgeanne smiled at him. “I truly believe that people are born either hating it or loving it, and I can just tell that you”-she paused to touch his wrinkled forearm-“have a God-given talent. Not everyone can make a decent white sauce.”
“I could teach you,” he offered with a smile.
His skin felt like warm waxed paper beneath her touch, filling her heart with warm childhood memories. “Thank you, Mr. Maxwell, but I already know how. I’m from Texas and we cream everything, even tuna.” She glanced at John, noticed his frown, and decided to ignore him. “I can make gravy out of just about anything. My grandmother was famous for her redeye, and I’m not talking about a late-night flight, if you know what I mean. When one of our friends or relatives took their final journey to heaven, it was understood that my grandmother would bring the ham and redeye gravy. After all, Grandmother was raised on a hog farm near Mobile, and she was famous on the funeral circuit for her honeyed hams.” Georgeanne had spent her life around elderly people, and talking to Ernie felt so comfortable she leaned closer to him and her smile brightened naturally. “Now, my aunt Lolly is famous as well, but unfortunately not in a flattering way. She’s known for her lime Jell-O because she’ll throw anything into the mold. She got really bad when Mr. Fisher took his final journey. They’re still talking about it at First Missionary Baptist, which in no way should be confused with the First Free Will Baptists, who used to foot-wash, but I don’t believe they practice-”
“Jeez-us,” John interrupted. “Is there a point to any of this?”
Georgeanne’s smile fell, but she was determined to remain pleasant. “I was getting to it.”
“Well, you might want to do that real soon because Ernie isn’t getting any younger.”
“Stop right there,” his grandfather warned.
Georgeanne patted Ernie’s arm and looked into John’s narrowed eyes. “That was incredibly rude.”
“I get a lot worse.” John pushed his empty bowl aside and leaned forward. “The guys on the team and I want to know, can Virgil still get it up, or was it strictly his money?”
