Rachel Gibson - Simply Irresistible

“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 always liked her. From what she’d noticed of him so far, he wasn’t a gentleman either. He used profanity with a frequency bordering on habitual, and he didn’t apologize. The southern men she knew swore, of course, but they usually begged pardon afterward. John didn’t strike her as the type of man to beg pardon for anything.

She turned to look at his profile and set about charming John Kowalsky. “Are you from Seattle originally?” she asked, determined that he would like her by the time they reached their destination. It would make things so much easier if he did. Because he might not realize it yet, but John was going to offer her a place to stay for a while.

“No.”

“Where are you from?”

“Saskatoon.”

“Where?”

“Canada.”

Her hair blew about her face, and she gathered it all in one hand and held it by the side of her neck. “I’ve never been to Canada.”

He didn’t comment.

“How long have you played hockey?” she asked, hoping to drag a little pleasant conversation out of him.

“All of my life.”

“How long have you played for the Chinooks?”

He reached for his sunglasses sitting on the dash and put them on. “A year.”

“I’ve seen a Stars game,” she said, referring to the Dallas hockey team.

“Bunch of candy-assed pussies,” he muttered as he unbuttoned the white cuff above his driving hand and folded it up his forearm.

Not exactly pleasant conversation, she decided. “Did you go to college?”

“Not really.”

Georgeanne had no idea what he meant by that. “I went to the University of Texas,” she lied in a effort to impress him into liking her.

He yawned.

“I pledged a Kappa,” she added to the lie.

“Yeah? So?”

Undaunted with his less-than-enthusiastic response, she continued, “Are you married?”

He stared at her through the lenses of his sunglasses, leaving little doubt she’d touched on a sore subject. “What are you, the friggin‘ National Enquirer?”

“No. I’m just curious. I mean, we will be spending a certain amount of time together, so I thought it would be nice to have a friendly chat and get to know each other.”

John turned his attention back to the road and began to work on his other cuff. “I don’t chat.”

Georgeanne pulled at the hem of her dress. “May I ask where we’re going?”

“I have a house on Copalis Beach. You can get in touch with your aunt from there.”

“Is that near Seattle?” She shifted her weight to one side and continued to yank at the hem of her dress.

“Nope. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re headed west.”

Panic surged through her as they sped farther from anything remotely familiar. “How in the heck would I know that?”

“Maybe because the sun is at our backs.”

Georgeanne hadn’t noticed, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have thought to judge direction by looking at the sun. She always messed up that whole north-south-east-west thing. “I assume you have a phone at your beach house?”

“Of course.”

She’d have to make a few long-distance telephone calls to Dallas. She had to call Lolly, and she needed to phone Sissy’s parents and tell them what had happened and how they could get in touch with their daughter. She also needed to call Seattle and find out where to send Virgil’s engagement ring. She glanced at the five-carat diamond solitaire on her left hand and felt like crying. She loved that ring but knew she couldn’t keep it. She was a flirt, and maybe even a tease, but she did have scruples. The diamond would have to go back, but not now. Now she needed to calm her nerves before she fell apart. “I’ve never been to the Pacific Ocean,” she said, feeling her panic easing a bit.

He made no comment.

Georgeanne had always considered herself the perfect blind date because she could talk water uphill, especially when she felt nervous. “But I’ve been to the Gulf many times,” she began. “Once when I was twelve, my grandmother took me and Sissy in her big Lincoln. Boy, what a boat. That car must have weighed ten tons if it weighed an ounce. Sissy and I had just bought these really cool bikinis. Hers looked like an American flag while mine was made of a silky bandanna material. I’ll never forget it. We drove all the way into Dallas just to buy that bikini at J.C. Penney’s. I’d seen it in a catalog and I was just dying to have it. Anyway, Sissy is a Miller on her mother’s side, and the Miller women are known throughout Collin County for their wide hips and piano ankles-not very attractive, but a lovely family just the same. One time-”

“Is there a point to all of this?” John interrupted.

“I was getting to it,” she told him, trying to remain pleasant.

“Any time soon?”

“I just wanted to ask if the water off the coast of Washington is very cold.”

John smiled and cast a glance at her then. For the first time, she noticed the dimple creasing his right cheek. “You’ll freeze your southern butt off,” he said before looking down at the console between them and picking up a cassette. He popped it in the tape player and a wailing harmonica put an end to any attempt at further conversation.

Georgeanne turned her attention to the hilly landscape dotted with fir and alder trees and painted with smears of blue, red, yellow, and of course, green. Up until now, she’d done fairly well at avoiding her thoughts, afraid they would overwhelm and paralyze her. But with no other distraction, they rolled over her like a Texas heat wave. She thought about her life and about what she’d done today. She’d left a man at the altar, and even though the marriage would have been a disaster, he hadn’t deserved that.

All of her things were packed into four suitcases in Virgil’s Rolls-Royce, except the carry-on sitting on the floor of John’s car. She’d packed the little suitcase with essentials the night before in preparation for her and Virgil’s honeymoon trip.

Now all she had with her was a wallet filled with seven dollars and three maxed-out credit cards, a liberal amount of cosmetics, a toothbrush and hairbrush, comb, a can of Aqua Net, six pairs of French-cut underwear with matching lace bras, her birth control pills, and a Snickers.

She had hit an all-time low, even for Georgeanne.

Flashes of blue and crystal sunlight, waving sea grass, and a salty breeze so thick she could taste it welcomed Georgeanne to the Pacific coast. Goose bumps broke out on her arms as she strained to catch glimpses of rolling blue ocean and foamy whitecaps.

The squall of seagulls pierced the air as John steered the Corvette up the driveway of a nondescript gray house with white shutters. An old man in a sleeveless T-shirt, gray polyester shorts, and a pair of cheap rubber thongs stood on the porch.

As soon as the car rolled to a stop, Georgeanne reached for the door handle and got out. She didn’t wait for John to assist her-not that she believed he would have helped her anyway. After an hour and a half of sitting in the car, her merry widow had became so painful she thought she might get sick after all.

She tugged the hem of her pink dress down her thighs and reached for her overnight case and shoes. The metal stays in her corset dug into her ribs as she bent to shove her feet into her pink mules.

“Good God, son,” the man on the porch growled in a gravelly voice. “Another dancer?”

A scowl creased John’s forehead as he led Georgeanne to the front door. “Ernie, I’d like you to meet Miss Georgeanne Howard. Georgie, this is my grandfather, Ernest Maxwell.”

“How do you do, sir.” Georgeanne offered her hand and looked into the aged face, which bore a striking resemblance to Burgess Meredith.

“Southern… hmmm.” He turned and walked back into the house.

John held the screen door open for Georgeanne, and she stepped inside a house furnished in plush blues, greens, and light browns, giving the impression that the view outside the large picture window had been brought into the living room. Everything appeared to have been chosen to blend with the ocean and sandy beach-everything but the black Naugahyde recliner patched with silver duct tape and the two broken hockey sticks placed like a sideways X above a packed trophy cabinet.