Simply Irresistible Read online

  Last night she’d tried to tell Virgil she couldn’t marry him. She’d tried to call it off, but he hadn’t listened to her. She felt horrible for what she’d done, but she didn’t know how to fix it.

  Letting go of the tears she’d held back all day, she quietly sobbed into John’s pillow. She cried for the mess she’d made of her life, and the emptiness she felt inside. Her future loomed before her, terrifying and uncertain. Her only relatives were an elderly aunt and uncle who lived off Social Security and whose lives revolved around I Love Lucy reruns.

  She had nothing and knew no one besides a man who’d told her not to expect kindness from him. Suddenly she felt like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire. She’d seen every Vivien Leigh movie ever made, and she thought it a little eerie, and more than coincidental, that John’s last name was Kowalsky.

  She was scared and alone, but she also felt a sense of relief that she wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. She wouldn’t have to pretend to like Virgil’s awful taste in clothes and the trashy things he liked for her to wear.

  Exhausted, she cried herself to sleep. She hadn’t realized she’d dozed off until she woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed.

  “Georgie?”

  One side of her hair fell over her left eye as she turned toward the sunlit doorway and looked into a face she was sure she’d dreamed off one of those studs calendars. His hands gripped the frame just above his head, and he wore a silver wristwatch turned so the face rested against his pulse. He stood with one hip higher than the other, and for several moments she stared at him, disoriented.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  She blinked several times before it all came back to her. John had changed his clothes into a pair of worn Levi’s with a shredded hole in one knee. A white Chinooks tank top stretched across his powerful chest, and fine hair shadowed his armpits. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d changed in the room while she slept.

  “If you’re hungry, Ernie’s fixing chowder.”

  “I’m starving,” she said, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “What time is it?”

  John lowered one hand and glanced at his wrist. “Almost six.”

  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?”

  Georgeanne could feel her eyes widen and her cheeks burn. The idea that her relationship with Virgil had been fodder for locker-room jock talk was beyond humiliating.

  “That’s enough, John,” Ernie ordered. “Georgie is a nice girl.”

  “Yeah? Well, nice girls don’t sleep with men for their money.”

  Georgeanne opened her mouth, but words failed her. She tried to think of something equally hurtful, but she couldn’t. She was sure a perfectly witty and sarcastic response would come to her later, long after she needed it. She took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. It was a sad fact of her life that when she became flustered, words flew from her head-simple words like door, stove, or-as was the case earlier when she’d had to ask John for help-corset. “I don’t know what I’ve done to make you say such cruel things,” she said, placing her napkin on the table. “I don’t know if it’s me, if you hate women in general, or if you’re just terminally bad-tempered, but my relationship with Virgil is none of your business.”

  “I don’t hate women,” John assured her, then deliberately lowered his gaze to the front of her T-shirt.

  “That’s right,” Ernie broke in. “Your relationship with Mr. Duffy isn’t our business.” Ernie reached for her hand. “The tide is almost out. Why don’t you go on down and look for some tide pools near those big rocks down there. Maybe you can find something from the Washington coast to take back to Texas with you.”

  Georgeanne had been raised to respect her elders too much to argue or question Ernie’s suggestion. She glanced at both men, then stood. “I’m truly sorry, Mr. Maxwell. I didn’t mean to cause trouble between y’all.”

  Without taking his eyes from his grandson, Ernie answered, “It’s not your fault. This has nothing to do with you.”

  It certainly felt like her fault, she thought as she stepped behind her chair and slid it forward. As Georgeanne walked through the narrow, foam green kitchen toward the multipaned back door, she realized that she’d let John’s good looks impair her judgment. He wasn’t pretending to be a jerk. He was one!

  Ernie waited until he heard the back door close before he said, “It’s not right for you to take out your bad temper on that little girl.” He watched one brow rise up his grandson’s forehead.

  “Little?” John planted his elbows on the table. “By no stretch of the imagination could you ever mistake Georgeanne for a ‘little girl.’ ”

  “Well, she can’t be very old,” Ernie continued. “And you were disrespectful and rude. If your mother were here, she’d give your ear a good hard twist.”

  A smile curved one corner of John’s mouth. “Probably,” he said.

  Ernie stared into his grandson’s face and pain wrenched his heart. The smile on John’s lips didn’t reach his eyes-it never did these days. “It’s no good, John-John.” He placed his hand on John’s shoulder and felt the hard muscles of a man. Before him, he recognized nothing of the happy boy he’d taken hunting and fishing, the boy he’d taught to play hockey and drive a car, the boy he’d taught everything he’d known about being a man. The man before him wasn’t the boy he’d raised. “You have to let it out. You can’t hold it all in, walking around blaming yourself.”

  “I don’t have to let anything out,” he said, his smile disappearing altogether. “I told you that I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Ernie looked into John’s closed expression, into the blue eyes so much like his own had been before they’d clouded with age. He’d never pressed John about his first wife. He’d figured John would come to terms with what Linda had done on his own. Even though John had been a dumbass and married that stripper six months ago, Ernie had hopes that he’d begun to work things out in his own mind. But tomorrow marked the first anniversary of her death, and John seemed just as angry as the day he’d buried her. “Well, I think you need to talk to someone,” Ernie said, deciding that maybe he should force the issue for John’s own good. “You can’t keep it up, John. You can’t pretend nothing happened, yet at the same time drink to forget what did.” He paused to remember what he’d heard on the television the other day. “You can’t use booze to self-medicate. Alcohol is just a symptom of a greater disease,” he said, pleased that he remembered.

  “Have you been watching Oprah again?”

  Ernie frowned. “That isn’t the point. What happened is eating a hole in you, and you’re taking it out on an innocent girl.”

  John leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not taking anything out on Georgeanne.”

  “Then why were you so rude?”

  “She gets on my nerves.” John shrugged. “She rambles on and on about absolutely nothing.”

  “That’s because she’s a southerner,” Ernie explained, letting the subject of Linda drop. “You just have to sit back and enjoy a southern gal.”

  “Like you were? She had you eating out of the palm of her hand with all that white sauce and funeral bullshit.”

  “You’re jealous,” Ernie laughed. “You’re jealous of an old guy like me.” He slapped his hands on the table
and slowly stood. “I’ll be damned.”

  “You’re crazy,” John scoffed, snagging his beer as he stood also.

  “I think you like her,” he said, and turned toward the living room. “I saw the way you were looking at her when she didn’t know you were looking. You may not want to like her, but you’re attracted to her, and it’s pissing you off.” He walked into his bedroom and stuffed a few things in a duffel bag.

  “Where are you going?” John asked from the doorway.

  “I’m gonna stay with Dickie for a few days. I’m just in the way here.”

  “No you’re not.”

  Ernie glanced back at his grandson. “I told you, I saw the way you were eyeing her.”

  John shoved one hand in the front pocket of his Levi’s and leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. With his other hand, he impatiently tapped the beer bottle against his thigh. “And I told you, I’m not going to have sex with Virgil’s fiancйe.”

  “I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.” Ernie zipped the duffel bag closed and reached for the straps with his left hand. He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing by leaving. His first instinct was to stay and make sure his grandson didn’t do anything he might regret in the morning. But Ernie had done his job. He’d helped raise John already. There was nothing he could do now. There was nothing he could do to save John from himself. “Because you’ll end up hurting that girl and damaging your career.”

  “I don’t plan to do either.”

  Ernie looked up and smiled sadly. “I hope not,” he said, unconvinced, and strode toward the front door. “I sure as hell hope not.”

  John watched his grandfather leave, then he walked back into the living room. His bare feet sank into the thick beige carpet as he moved toward the picture window. He owned three houses; two were on the West Coast. He loved the ocean, the sounds and smells of it. He could lose himself in the monotony of the waves. This house was a haven from life. Here, he didn’t have to worry about contracts or endorsements or anything attached to being one of the most talked about centers in the NHL. He found a peace here that he couldn’t find anywhere else.