Georgie on His Mind (8 page)

"Listen to me, Brad. You don't have anything to worry
about, okay? When I spoke to Georgie earlier today, she
seemed to have quite a level head on her shoulders." If you
took the whole condom fiasco out of the equation, that is. The
woman could be reasoned with too. After all, she'd listened
to him and hadn't entered that date contest. That was one crisis Brad wouldn't have to deal with.

Brad nodded, but looked as depressed as a six-year-old
who'd just found out Santa had been run over by a disgruntled Rudolph. "All right," he said, playing with the tab on his
beer can. "I guess you're right. Maybe I should give her a
little more credit."

Brad hardly sounded grateful, but Walt forced himself not
to give in. Instead he went into the kitchen and grabbed Brad
another beer. It was the least he could do for a guy who had
been there for him after his parents' divorce all those years
ago. Walt appreciated him all the more and was sorry he
couldn't help his friend out, but he had to draw the line at being Georgie's chaperone. His less-than-brotherly reaction to
her earlier today told him if he didn't keep himself in check, he could get himself into some serious trouble. Which only
meant the more distance he created away from "his little
sister," the better off his friendship with Brad would be.

Georgie had lasted this long without a personal bodyguard. Brad needed to chill out and stop worrying. She could
run her own life. After all, what kind of problems could she
possibly cause for herself?

The next morning Georgie woke before her alarm clock
went off. She slowly stretched in bed, smiling at the Good
Samaritan act she had performed for her brother last night.
Brad was going to be so surprised when he found out about
the date contest. Maybe if he won and got out a little more,
he'd start acting more like a brother and less like a mother hen.

Georgie had stopped at Dee's house last night after work,
and they'd celebrated their cleverness with Dee's husband
over a glass of wine and some chocolate fondue. Surprisingly, Brad hadn't called to check up on her when she hadn't
come home. He was acting less like a prison warden already.
Maybe that was because he was too busy entertaining Walt
Somers.

Georgie quickly buried her head under her pillow with a
groan. Up until that point, she'd forgotten Walt was even
staying with them. The man was probably putting his feet up
on their coffee table, slurping up the last of the coffee, and
thumbing through her new Pharmacy Today magazine right
about now, just waiting for the opportunity to bring up their
embarrassing encounter at the store yesterday. Suddenly, the
idea of calling in sick became quite attractive. There was nothing better she wanted to do than to avoid Walt and his smug
little "sit tight and don't do anything rash" comments.

She glanced at the clock. It was almost eight. Brad would be at work by now since he was on day shifts this week at the
police department, which meant he wouldn't be available to
be a buffer between her and Walt. Oh well. No use putting
off the inevitable. She climbed out of bed, gathered her hair
into a high ponytail and sauntered out of her bedroom, hoping Walt had somehow found a place of his own already.
Like that miracle was going to happen anytime soon.

Something smelled wonderful as soon as she stepped into
the living room. Not the usual kind of wake-up call she was
used to, not since her parents had died. Brad wasn't really a
cook. But then again, neither was she. She supposed if she
ever truly wanted to master the whole independent-woman
principle she was so gung ho about, she would have to learn
one day.

Her nose led her toward the kitchen where the aroma of
eggs and bacon became stronger, and her stomach grumbled. She turned the corner, and that's when she saw Walt
standing in front of the stove. And she froze.

He's hot. But it's only Walt, she tried to remind herself as
she quickly realigned her gaze toward the white paint-cracked
ceiling.

Yes, it was only Walt. The same Walt who'd locked her in
the bathroom when she was eleven, then pretended to her
family he hadn't seen her. Yeah, remember that, brain? That
Walt. Besides, he was only frying eggs. A normal, everyday
activity. No big deal.

She took a few deep, calming breaths. Confident with her
regained composure, she allowed her gaze to slowly travel
downward again.

Ah. See? No big deal. Walt cooking breakfast was no big
deal. Except ...

The man was cooking breakfast there in her kitchen wearing low-cut jeans-very low-cut jeans-and nothing else. She
tried to avert her eyes again, but something about the "nothing else" part of Walt's ensemble would not be ignored a
second time. Not when his beefcake arms and bare broad
chest looked as good as his did right then.

Down, girl.

Walt looked over at her and laughed. "I take it you're
hungry."

She snapped her mouth shut and brushed by him to get to
the refrigerator. She was being silly. It's not like she'd never
seen a man without his shirt before. She lived in a beach resort for goodness sakes! Besides, Walt didn't look that perfect. His tan even looked a bit marred. Obviously, he was
going a little easy on the sunscreen, due to the redness she
saw around his navel, just above ...

Oh, who was she kidding? Marred tan or not, Walt couldn't
have looked more delicious if he were wearing those bacon
and eggs he was so proficiently cooking.

"I'm not hungry at all," she said, proud of the way she
didn't gargle her words due to the excess amount of drool in
her mouth. "What you're cooking isn't on my diet anyway."

"Diet? Oh, come on. You shouldn't want to lose any
weight. You look-" He turned and slid his gaze down her
body and those scruffy cheeks of his turned bright pink, just
as they had the other day at the store when she'd asked if
he'd carried condoms. He jerked his head away and fumbled
for a bagel. "Here"-he said, dangling it out for her-"be a
good girl and eat something."

"Thanks," she said, plucking the bagel from his hand. She
couldn't help but grin. There was something about an attractive thirty-one-year-old man blushing at her body that was
kind of ... cute.

"I'll only eat half. A woman's got to work a little harder
than a girl to keep her figure, you know."

"Enjoy," he mumbled, turning away and giving his eggs a
little flip. "You know, I shouldn't even be cooking for myself
today."

She sliced her bagel and looked up. "What do you mean?"

"Don't you remember? You were supposed to cook me
breakfast in exchange for not telling Brad about that whole
condom mix-up. Forget about that already? I wonder what
Brad would say when he hears about you trying to take over
his job of law enforcement?"

Georgie put the knife down slowly-before she used it on
something other than her bagel. She knew it. She knew Walt
wouldn't let go what happened the other day. Reining in her
anger, she poured herself a glass of juice and took a long,
thoughtful sip.

Scratch all that likeable mumbo jumbo she'd just thought
about him. Walt didn't want to play nice, and he seemed to
take a sudden interest in making her life downright miserable. No matter how attractive he happened to be when he
blushed, he was back on her hit list. "You know you're a rat,
don't you?"

"You mentioned that yesterday."

"Well, I don't think it sunk in."

He chuckled, and she couldn't help but notice how the
green in his hazel eyes lit up. "Okay, I'm sorry," he said.
"Really I am. You're just so easy to rile up I can't resist teasing you. Whenever I see you, it's like when you were little."
When she was little.

Her heart sank. She turned away and went back to lightly
buttering her bagel. It seemed as though everyone had a hard
time accepting she wasn't the same little girl anymore, except maybe a few friends. The little girl-sister box people kept
putting her in was stifling. She wasn't sure how much more
she could take of it. She needed out.

"Clay Hayes won't think of me as someone's little sister,"
she blurted, then bit her lip. She didn't know why she felt
like throwing Clay Hayes in Walt's face again, or why she
even felt she had something to prove to him in the first place,
but the way Walt's cheek muscle twitched when she mentioned Clay's name satisfied a small sadistic part of her.

Walt carefully removed the frying pan from the burner
and folded his arms. "Clay Hayes? I thought we already discussed him yesterday."

She shrugged her shoulders and tried for an innocent
look. "I suppose we did."

"So why did you bring him up again then? You don't plan
on trying to find out where his house is around here like one
of his groupies, do you?"

"Of course not. I guess I just don't see what your problem
is with me going out with a handsome TV star."

Walt clucked his tongue. "Oh, come on, Georgie. Take
a look at yourself."

She continued to look at him instead. She assumed, like
Dee, he wasn't being literal, so she resisted the urge to snap
her head down and stare at her faded Red Sox sleep shirt.

"My problem is," he continued, "the guy is a goodlooking-no, an okay-looking-television star, and you
would be spending the day with him. Probably at his beach
house. Alone. Catch my drift? Why do you think celebrities
have contests like this? To prey on innocent starstruck
women. It's a good thing you listened to me, and you didn't
enter."

A good thing she listened to him?

Walt was doing it again, telling her what to do. How dare he suggest the Clay Hayes contest was a fraud. She grabbed
her bagel and took a huge bite, shooting him daggers with her
eyes as she chewed. Who made him the end-all-be-all-datecontest authority anyway?

Her silence must have alerted him to what she had done,
because his face took on a dubious expression. "Georgie,
you ... you didn't enter that contest, right?"

Would have served you right if I had. She swallowed and
waited until she felt the bagel reach her stomach before answering, just to let him stew a little while longer. "No, as a
matter of fact I did not enter-"

"Thank God," he breathed.

"-because I entered Brad."

Walt raised his eyebrows, staring at her as if she'd just
told him she'd poisoned someone and needed suggestions on
where to hide the body. When he finally became capable of
moving again, he took her hand and shook it. "Well, it's been
nice knowing you, because when Brad finds out he's going
to skin you alive."

A twinge of alarm shot to the core of her stomach. Funny
how she had only briefly thought Brad might have a negative
reaction to the contest news. Hearing the words come from
Walt's mouth made it sound like more than a good possibility her hide would be filleted, doused with gasoline, and set
on fire. Eeww. She should have listened to her gut instincts.
Darn her impetuousness! She only wanted to see her brother
get out more and have some fun. Was that so wrong? Wrong
enough to get skinned alive for?

"Oh my gosh, you're right! Don't tell him!" she begged.
"He'll never have to know if he doesn't win anyway, right?"

"And what if he does win, Einstein?"

She scrunched her face and thought. There was still a slim
chance Brad would appreciate her thoughtfulness, right? She had been so desperate to get her brother off her back, she
hadn't bothered to think that far ahead.

"Well, if he wins ... he'll be too ecstatic to yell at me?"
she squeaked.

He made an annoying buzzer sound, and she flinched.
"Wrong."

"Well, this is all your fault," she snapped, poking him in his
bare chest with her index finger and trying not to notice how
taut his muscles felt. "Maybe if you hadn't been so highhanded, ordering me to listen to you, and if you would have
encouraged Brad to get out more instead of moping in front
of the TV, I wouldn't have been forced to enter him."

"Forced to enter him?" Walt stepped back, rubbing his
hands all over his face in frustration. "I've been in town less
than thirty hours and you're blaming me? Oh, that's nice.
That's just great. Honestly, Georgie, I don't know whether to
laugh or to ... to..

"Cry?" she supplied.

"Spank you"

She would have snorted, but the flicker of heat in Walt's
eyes stopped her cold. There was something laced in his
comment and expression that didn't have anything to do with
treating her like a child. If she didn't know better, she would
have thought in that moment Walt even regarded her as someone more than Brad's little sister. A phenomenon in its own
right, considering the way everybody acted toward her lately.
But then, Walt turned away with a chuckle, and she was certain she had made a mistake in thinking that. A big mistake.

"All right," he said, shaking his head, "seeing how this is
somehow all my fault, I won't tell Brad what you did. I'm
sure nothing will come out of it anyway. I mean, what are
the odds, right? He'd probably have a better chance of winning the lottery."

Yeah, the odds were bad. Part of Walt's words relieved her,
and also depressed her at the same time. She had hoped the
contest would be the perfect diversion for her brother and
would get her some breathing room. "I guess you're right.
But I really wanted him to go on that date. I felt so sorry for
him."

"You felt sorry for Brad so you entered him in a contest to
win a date with a TV star?" He rolled his eyes toward the
ceiling. "I hope you never get any of those compassionate
feelings toward me."

She gave him a tight-lipped smile. "Don't worry. You're
more than safe"

With her stomach now in knots, she tossed her bagel on
the counter. "The only reason I entered Brad was because I
think he's lonely. He needs someone to occupy his thoughts.
With the way he's been overly concerned with me, I'd say he
has way too much time on his hands. His actions are not only
affecting my life but his too." She bit her lip and hesitated
a moment more before letting Walt in on her plan B. "You
know, um, I was even hoping, um, since you were back in
town that-"