Simply Irresistible (16 page)

Lexie’s smile lifted the milk mustache at the corners of her mouth, and she nodded vigorously, flipping her ponytail up and down.

Georgeanne returned her daughter’s smile as she brushed at crumbs with her little finger. Seven years ago she’d pointed her flimsy mule shoes toward the future, and she rarely looked back. She’d done pretty well for herself and Lexie. She co-owned a successful business, paid mortgage on her own home, and just last month she’d bought a new car. Lexie was healthy and happy. She didn’t need a daddy. She didn’t need John.

“When you’re finished, go see if your pink chiffon dress still fits you,” Georgeanne said as she picked up her plate and carried it to the sink. She’d never known her daddy and she’d survived. She’d never known what it was like to curl up on her father’s lap and hear his heart beating beneath her ear. She’d never known the security of her daddy’s arms or the reassuring timbre of his voice. She’d never known and she’d done just fine.

Georgeanne looked out the window above the sink and stared into the backyard. She’d never known, but many times she’d tried to imagine.

She remembered peeking through fences to watch the neighbors barbecue chicken on burn barrels cut lengthwise. She remembered riding her blue Schwinn with the silver banana seat down to Jack Leonard’s gas station to watch him change tires, fascinated by the big, filthy hands he always wiped on a greasy towel hanging from the back pocket of his dirty gray coveralls. She remembered the nights she’d sit on the hard, age-pocked porch at her grandmother’s house, a confused and curious little girl with a dark ponytail and red cowboy boots, watching the men in her neighborhood return from work and wishing she had a daddy, too. She had watched and waited and the whole time wondered. She had wondered what daddies did when they came home. She had wondered because she hadn’t known.

The sound of Lexie’s bootheels on the kitchen linoleum pulled Georgeanne from her memories. “All finished?” she asked as she turned to take the dirty plate and empty glass from Lexie’s hands.

“Yep. Tomorrow can I serve the petit fours?”

“Yes, you may,” Georgeanne answered as she placed the plate and glass in the sink. “And I think you’re old enough to pour the tea now.”

“All right!” Lexie clapped her hands with excitement, then wrapped her thin arms around Georgeanne’s thighs. “I love you,” she gushed.

“I love you, too.” Georgeanne looked down at the top of her daughter’s head and placed her palm on Lexie’s back. Her grandmother had loved her, but her love hadn’t been enough to fill the empty places inside. No one had been able to fill the holes in her soul until Lexie.

Georgeanne rubbed her hand up and down Lexie’s spine. She was very proud of all she’d accomplished. She’d learned to live with the disability of dyslexia rather than hide from it. She’d worked hard to improve herself, and everything she had, everything she’d become, she’d done on her own. She was happy.

Still, she wanted more for her daughter. She wanted better.

Chapter Eight

Muscle and bone and gritty determination collided, hockey sticks slapped the ice, and the roar of thousands of frenzied fans filled John’s living room. On the big-screen television, the “Russian Rocket,” Pavel Bure, high-sticked Ranger defenseman Jay Wells in the face, dropping the bigger New York player to the ice.

“Damn, you’ve got to admire a guy Bure’s size mixing it up with Wells.” A smile of admiration tilted John’s lips as he cast a glance at his three guests: Hugh “The Caveman” Miner, Dmitri “Tree” Ulanov, and Claude “The Undertaker” Dupre.

His three teammates had originally dropped by John’s houseboat to watch the Dodgers play the Atlanta Braves on his huge television. The game had lasted two innings before they’d shaken their collective heads as if to say, “And they make more money than I do for that!” and had slipped a tape of the 1994 Stanley Cup Championships into the VCR.

“Have you seen Bure’s ears?” Hugh asked. “He’s got great big goddamn ears.”

As blood ran from Jay Wells’s broken nose, Pavel, with his shoulders slumped, skated from the rink, ejected on a game misconduct.

“And girly curls,” added Claude in his soft French-Canadian accent. “But not as bad as Jagr. He’s a sissy.”

Dmitri tore his eyes from the television screen as his fellow countryman, Pavel Bure, was escorted to the locker room. “Jaromir Jagr iz sissy?” he asked, referring to the Pittsburgh Penguin’s star winger.

Hugh shook his head with a grin, then paused and looked at John. “What do you think, Wall?”

“Nah, Jagr hits too hard to be a sissy,” he answered with a shrug. “He’s no pansy-ass.”

“Yeah, but he does wear all those gold chains around his neck,” argued Hugh, who was famous for talking trash just to get a reaction. “Either Jagr is a sissy-man or a fan of Mr. T.”

Dmitri bristled and pointed to the three gold necklaces around his neck. “Chains does not mean sissy.”

“Who’s Mr. T?” Claude wanted to know.

“Didn’t you ever watch
The A-Team
on television? Mr. T is the big black dude with the Mohawk and all the gold jewelry,” Hugh explained. “He and George Peppard worked for the government and blew up stuff.”

“Chains does not mean sissy,” Dmitri insisted.

“Maybe not,” Hugh conceded. “But I know for a fact that wearing a lot of chains has something to do with the size of a guy’s dick.”

“Bullsheet,” Dmitri scoffed.

John chuckled and stretched his arm along the back of the beige leather couch. “How do you know, Hugh? Have you been peeking?”

Hugh rose to his feet and pointed an empty Coke can at John. His eyes narrowed and a smile curved his mouth. John knew that look. He’d seen it hundreds of times just before “The Caveman” went for the kill and verbally kicked the guts out of any opposing player who dared to skate too close to the goalie crease. “I’ve showered with guys all my life, and I don’t have to peek to know that the guys who are weighed down with gold are compensating for lack of dick.”

Claude laughed and Dmitri shook his head. “Not true,” he said.

“Yes it is, Tree,” Hugh assured him as he walked toward the kitchen. “In Russia lots of gold chains might mean you’re a real stud, but you’re in America now and you can’t just walk around advertising something like a small dick. You have to learn our ways if you’re not going to embarrass yourself.”

“Or if you want to date American women,” John added.

The doorbell rang as Hugh passed the entry. “Do you want me to get that?” he asked.

“Sure. It’s probably Heisler,” John answered, referring to the Chinooks’ newest forward. “He said he might drop by.”

“John.” Dmitri got John’s attention and scooted to the edge of the leather chair in which he sat. “Iz true? American woman think chains mean no deek?”

John fought to hold back his laughter. “Yes, Tree. It’s true. Have you been having trouble finding dates?”

Dmitri looked perplexed and scooted back into his chair again.

Losing the fight, John burst into laughter. He glanced at Claude, who found Dmitri’s confusion hilarious.

“Ahh, Wall. It’s not Heisler.”

John glanced over his shoulder, and his laugher died instantly when he saw Georgeanne standing in the entry to his living room.

“If I’m interrupting y’all, I could come back another time.” Her gaze darted from one male face to the next, and she took several steps backward toward the door.

“No.” John quickly jumped to his feet, shocked by her sudden appearance. He reached for the remote control on the coffee table, then cut the power to the television. “No. Don’t go,” he said as he tossed the remote on the couch.

“I can see that you’re busy and I should have called.” She glanced at Hugh, who stood beside her, then she looked back at John. “I did call actually, but you didn’t pick up. Then I remembered that you said you never answer your phone, so I took the chance and drove here, and... well, what I wanted to say was ...” Her hand fluttered at her side and she took a deep breath. “I know that arriving uninvited is incredibly rude, but may I have a few moments of your time?”

She was obviously rattled at finding herself the object of four big hockey players’ interest. John almost felt sorry for Georgeanne. Almost. But he couldn’t forget what she’d done. “No problem,” he said as he rounded the couch and walked toward her. “We can go upstairs to the loft or outside on the deck.”

Once again Georgeanne looked at the other men in the room. “I think the deck would be best.”

“Fine.” John motioned to a pair of French doors across the room. “After you,” he said, and as she walked past, he let his gaze take a slow journey down her body. Her sleeveless red dress buttoned around her throat, exposed her smooth shoulders, and hugged her breasts. The dress brushed her knees, and wasn’t especially tight, or revealing. But she still managed to look like his favorite selection of sins all wrapped up in one convenient snack pack. Annoyed that he should notice her appearance at all, he shifted his gaze from the big, soft curls touching her shoulders to Hugh. The goalie stared at Georgeanne as if he knew her but just couldn’t recall when they’d met. Even though Hugh sometimes played as if he were dense, he wasn’t, and it wouldn’t take long before he remembered her as Virgil Duffy’s runaway bride. Claude and Dmitri hadn’t played for the Chinooks seven years ago and hadn’t been at the wedding, but they’d probably heard the story.

John moved to the doors and opened one side for Georgeanne. When she walked outside, he turned back to the room. “Make yourselves at home,” he told his teammates.

Claude stared after Georgeanne with a smile twisting one corner of his mouth. “Take your time,” he said.

Dmitri didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to. The conspicuous absence of his gold chains spoke louder than the dopey look on his young Russian face.

“I shouldn’t be long,” John said through a frown, then stepped outside and shut the door behind him. A slight breeze ruffled the blue and green whale banner hanging from the rear balcony while waves softly slapped the side of John’s twenty-three-foot runabout tied to the deck. The bright evening sun shimmered on the ripples cut from a sailboat slicing peacefully through the water. The people on the boat called to John, and he waved automatically, but his attention was focused on the woman who stood near the water’s edge with one hand raised to her brow, gazing out onto the lake.

“Is that Gas Works Park?” she asked, and pointed across to the other shore.

Georgeanne was beautiful and seductive and so malicious that he had visions of tossing her into the water. “Did you come to see my view of the lake?”

She dropped her hand and looked over her shoulder. “No,” she answered, then turned to face him. “I wanted to talk to you about Lexie.”

“Sit down.” He pointed to a pair of Adirondack chairs, and when she sat, he took the chair facing her.

With his feet spread wide, his hands on the armrests, he waited for her to begin.

“I really did try to call you.” She glanced at him briefly, then slid her gaze to his chest. “But your answering machine picked up and I didn’t want to leave a message. What I want to say is too important to leave on an answering machine, and I didn’t want to wait until you returned from your trip to talk to you. So I took a chance that you might be home and I drove here.” Again she glanced at him, then looked over his left shoulder. “I really am sorry if I’m interrupting something important.”

At the moment John couldn’t think of anything more important than what Georgeanne had to say to him. Because whether or not he would like what she had to say, it would have a big effect on his life. “You aren’t interrupting anything.”

“Good.” She finally looked at him as a tiny smile flitted across her lips. “I don’t suppose you would reconsider leaving Lexie and me alone?”

“No,” he answered flatly.

“I didn’t think so.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I want what is best for my daughter.”

“Then we want the same thing. Only I don’t think we will agree on exactly what is best for Lexie.”

Georgeanne looked down at her lap and took a deep breath. She felt jumpy and as nervous as a cat looking at a big Doberman pinscher. She hoped John hadn’t noticed her anxiety. She needed to take command, not only of her emotions but of the situation as well. She couldn’t allow John and his lawyers to control her life or dictate what was best for Lexie. She couldn’t let things get that far. Georgeanne, not John, wanted to dictate terms. “You mentioned this morning that you planned to contact an attorney,” she began, and moved her gaze up his gray Nike T-shirt, over his strong chin darkened by a five-o’clock shadow, and into his deep blue eyes. “I think we can come to a reasonable compromise without involving lawyers. A court battle would hurt Lexie, and I don’t want that. I don’t want lawyers involved.”

“Then give me an alternative.”

“Okay,” Georgeanne said slowly. “I think Lexie should get to know you as a family friend.”

One dark brow lifted up his forehead. “And?”

“And you can get to know her, too.”

John looked at her for several long seconds before he asked, “That’s it? That’s your ‘reasonable compromise’?”

Georgeanne didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to say it, and she hated John for forcing her. “When Lexie knows you well, and is comfortable with you, and when I think the time is right, I’ll tell her you are her father.”
And my child will probably hate me for the lie
, she thought.

John tilted his head slightly to one side. He didn’t look real happy with her proposition. “So,” he said. “I’m supposed to wait until
you
think it’s the right time to tell Lexie about me?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me why I should wait, Georgie.”

“No one calls me Georgie anymore.” She didn’t tease and flirt to get what she wanted these days. She wasn’t Georgie Howard now. “I would prefer that you call me Georgeanne.”

“I don’t care what you prefer.” He folded his arms across his wide chest. “Now, why don’t you tell my why I should wait,
Georgeanne
.”

“This is bound to be a great shock to her, and I think it should be done as gently as possible. My daughter is only six, and I’m sure a custody battle would hurt and confuse her. I don’t want my daughter hurt by a court—”