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to race well beyond his grasp.
"You're sorry you kissed me?" she asked quietly. "You're sorry for the way
you...you touched me?"
And then he understood. In a few quick, easy strides he had crossed to her, and he
lifted his hand, fingers curled, to stroke her warm cheek with the backs of his
knuckles. Her eyes widened in response, her blush deepened, and when he raked the
pad of his thumb lightly across her lower lip, she drew in a shivery breath.
"Oh, no, Geo," he said softly. "I'm not sorry for that. Not for any of that. I'm not
sorry it happened I'm sorry it happened the way it did. The first time for us...it
should be more...unhurried. It should be special."
"Then you think there's going to be a first time?" she asked, her voice coming out
weak and shaky.
Why deny it? Jack thought. "Yeah. I do. And probably a second and a third time,
too." He smiled. "And if we're really lucky, maybe there will eventually be a four
million five thousand and eighty-seventh time, too."
She smiled back at that. "And I bet it will be just as special as the first."
''Which brings us to..."
She eyed him questioningly. "Yes?"
He glanced down the hall toward Evan's room, where the boom boom boom of a
hard rock song from the seventies, one that Jack actually recognized, effectively
overruled anything he might say to Georgia.
"The first time," he said frankly. "What are your plans for tomorrow?''
She emitted a quick, nervous sound. "I...uh...I have to work at the hospital in the
morning, but I'll be free by noon."
He nodded. "Good. Meet me in The Bluffs lobby at 12:30."
"For lunch?" she asked, her voice squeaking a bit on the final word.
"Among other things," he told her.
And he thought it was probably best to ieave it at that. At least, for now.
Seven
She was scheduling sex.
That was the only thought winding through Georgia's mind as she lay in bed that
night. Two days ago she hadn't even been able to claim a sex life. Now, less than
forty-eight hours later, she had an appointed time of day to meet a man at his hotel
so she could have sex with him.
From the day she'd met him, she had somehow known Jack McCormick would be
responsible for changing her life. But this was just a little more than she'd anticipated.
Of course, they'd be having lunch, too, she tried to comfort herself. But the
reassurance only made her feel foolish. Lunch. Right. Like she was supposed to
convince her libido that that was all there was to it, when all her libido was doing was
revving up for tomorrow afternoon. Sure. No problem. Piece of cake.
She rolled restlessly over onto her side and stared at the glowing red numerals on her
clock. One-thirty, and she was still wide awake. This from a woman who normally
fell into a profound and dreamless sleep within fifteen minutes of pulling the blanket
up to her chin. Usually Georgia was in bed by eleven, exhausted to the point of
distraction. Tonight, however, she'd had to sit up and read until after midnight to try
to calm herself down enough to even think about sleeping. Yet here she lay, still wide
awake, questioning her moral equilibrium.
Across the hall, the bass line of queasy guitar music still played in Evan's room, but
much less loudly than it had before Georgia had turned in. She knew the music
would go on for another hour at least, and she'd have to beg and plead and promise
him tacos for dinner to get him out of bed in the morning. Her son was a night owl,
plain and simple. Just as Jack McCormick had been when he was a teenager.
The two of them were so much alike, it was almost scary. Maybe that was part of
the reason for the clear and quick animosity that had risen between them. Funny,
twenty years ago it had been her father challenging Jack's intentions. Now it was her
son. She couldn't help but wonder if things would turn out differently this time, or if
history really was destined to repeat itself in some form or another.
Would Jack wind up leaving Carlisle as he had so many years ago? Just as before,
he made no secret that his presence here was only temporary. And when he left this
time, would he do so without saying goodbye? Without a single regret? Without
asking Georgia if she wanted to go along?
She honestly didn't know. He had a thriving business and life in Washington, which
in the scheme of things wasn't so very far away. But her life was here. It always had
been, and it always would be. With or without her father's presence in her life,
Carlisle was Georgia's home. It was where she intended to grow old, Where she
wanted to be buried when all was said and done.
And it was Evan's home now, too. Even though he'd grown up first in Richmond,
and then on the streets, he was as satisfied with his life in Carlisle as Georgia was.
She wasn't willing to sacrifice what the two of them had worked so hard to build
together, just because Jack had come back and things were different between them.
How could she know if things would work out between her and Jack? And what
would she do if they didn't?
She rolled more restlessly to her other side and stared at the moon beyond the
salt-mottled glass of her bedroom window. What would she do if they didn't?
* * *
At one-thirty in the morning Jack was seated at the desk in his hotel suite, adding a
column of numbers in a ledger and listening to static from the telephone nestled
between his shoulder and ear. It wasn't the middle of the night in Singapore, and he
had some business there. Unfortunately, at the moment, he was on hold, and had
been for some time. Feeling oddly impatient, and unwilling to wait any longer, he
slammed the receiver down into its cradle, and glared at the numbers that refused to
tally the same way twice.
He was distracted, which wasn't like him at all. Distracted from the business at hand.
Distracted by thoughts of Georgia. And how the two of them were going to react to
each other the following day.
Make that today, he corrected himself immediately. He glanced down at his watch,
frowned at the time, then reached his hands high above his head in a lengthy stretch.
Just what the hell had happened tonight? he wondered, his body stirring to life as he
replayed the events in his mind. Last night, he then amended. How had things
between them changed so completely, so quickly? And just what was he going to do
about it?
He tried to tell himself it had been an aberration. The result of too much wine last
night and too little social life lately. Alcohol was a powerful aphrodisiac for some
people. He'd been horny, and Georgia had been handy.
But the moment the thought materialized, he knew it wasn't true. Yeah, he'd been
horny. But Georgia had never been handy. If he'd been turned on, it was by her
specifically. No other woman had even come close to making him feel the way he'd
felt last night, wine or no wine.
Absently, he reached for the tattered baseball that traveled with him wherever he
went and was never far from his reach, and he began to roll it from one hand to the
other. Despite the way he'd been shifted and shunted around in his life, Jack had
always held on to the baseball. Why? He really couldn't say. Through the years he'd
lost or let go of everything else he'd ever owned as a child and a young man. Yet for
some reason he'd always held fast to the baseball.
In times of planning or contemplation or stress, he found himself rolling the ball from
hand to hand, just as he was doing now. The activity brought him closer to himself
somehow, took him back to his roots, back to what he might have been if his life [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]