Simply Irresistible (38 page)

Mae laughed. “Okay, no Elvis.”

“Good. You’re going to have a beautiful wedding,” she predicted, then went in search of her day planner.

Together she and Mae got down to business. They called the caterer Mae wanted to use, then jumped in Georgeanne’s car and drove up to Redmond.

Over the next week, they talked to a florist and looked at a dozen wedding dresses. Between Heron’s, her work on the television program, Lexie, and the rapidly approaching wedding, Georgeanne had no time for herself. The only hours she had to sit and relax were the Monday and Wednesday nights when John picked up Lexie and Pongo and took them to puppy-training classes. But even then she couldn’t relax. Not when John walked into her house, tall and handsome and smelling like a late summer breeze. She would see him and her stupid heart would flutter, and when he turned to leave, her chest would ache. She’d fallen in love with him again. Only this time it felt more wretched than the last. She’d thought she was finished loving people who couldn’t love her back, but apparently not. Even though he broke her heart, she would probably always love John. He’d taken her love and her child, leaving her empty. Mae was getting married and moving ahead with her life. Georgeanne felt left behind. Her life was filled with things she enjoyed, yet the people she loved were moving in directions she couldn’t follow.

In a few short days, Lexie would spend her first weekend with John and meet Ernie Maxwell and John’s mother, Glenda. Her daughter belonged to a family that Georgeanne couldn’t give her. A family she wasn’t a part of, nor would ever belong to. John could give Lexie everything she would ever want and need, and Georgeanne was left out and pushed aside.

Ten days before the wedding, Georgeanne sat in her office at Heron’s alone, thinking about Lexie and John and Mae, and feeling lonely. When Charles called and suggested she meet him for lunch at McCormick and Schmick’s, she jumped at the chance to get away for a few hours. It was Friday afternoon, she had a big job to cater that evening, and she needed a friendly face and pleasant conversation.

Over clams and soft-shell crabs, she told Charles all about Mae and the wedding. “It’s a week from this coming Thursday,” she said as she wiped her hands on a linen napkin. “With such short notice, they were lucky to get a small nondenominational church in Kirkland and a banquet hall in Redmond for the reception afterward. Lexie is the flower girl and I’m the maid of honor.” Georgeanne picked up her fork and shook her head. “I still haven’t found a dress to wear. Thank goodness this will all be over soon, and I won’t have to go through it again until Lexie gets married.”

“Don’t you plan to get married someday?”

Georgeanne shrugged and looked away. When she thought of getting married, she always pictured John as he’d looked in that formal tuxedo the day of the
GQ
photo shoot. “I haven’t really thought about it much.”

“Well, why don’t you think about it?”

Georgeanne looked back at Charles and smiled. “Are you proposing?”

“I would if I thought you’d accept.”

Her smile slowly fell.

“Don’t worry,” he said, and tossed a clamshell onto a pile on his plate. “I won’t embarrass you right now by asking, and I won’t subject myself to your rejection. I know you’re not ready.”

She stared at him, this wonderful man who meant a lot to her, but whom she didn’t love as a wife should love a husband. Her head wanted to love him, but her heart loved someone else.

“Don’t reject the idea out of hand. Just think about it,” he said, and she did. She thought about how marriage to Charles would solve some of her problems.

He could provide a comfortable life for her and Lexie, and together they would be a family. She didn’t love him as she should, but given more time, maybe she could. Maybe her head could convince her heart.

John tossed his T-shirt on the heap of socks and running shoes on the bathroom floor. Dressed only in a pair of jogging shorts, he covered his lower face with shave cream. As he reached for his razor, he looked up into the mirror in front of him and smiled. “You can come in and talk to me if you want to,” he told Lexie, who stood behind him, peeking into the bathroom.

“What are you doing?”

“Shaving.” He placed the razor beneath his left side-burn and scraped it down.

“My mom shaves her legs and her pits,” she mentioned as she moved to stand next to him. She wore her pink and white striped nightgown, and her hair was messy from sleep. Last night was the first time she’d stayed with him alone, and after he’d killed the spider in her bedroom for her, everything had gone real smooth. After he’d smashed the insect with a book, she’d looked at him as if he walked on water.

“I get to shave when I’m in the seventh grade,” she continued. “I’ll probably be really hairy by then.” She peered up at him through the mirror. “Do you think Pongo will ever get hairy?”

John rinsed his blade and shook his head. “Nope. He’ll never get much hair.” When he’d picked up Lexie the night before, that poor little dog had been wearing a new red sweater with jewels glued all over it and a matching stocking cap. When he’d entered the house, the dog looked at him and ran into another room to hide. Georgeanne had speculated that he might be afraid of John’s height, but John figured that poor Pongo hadn’t wanted another male to see him looking like such a sissy.

“How did you get that big ouchie in your eyebrow?”

“This little thing?” He pointed to his old scar. “When I was about nineteen, a guy shot a puck at my head and I didn’t duck in time.”

“Did it hurt?”

It had hurt like a son of a bitch. “Nah.” John raised his chin toward the ceiling and shaved beneath his jaw. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Lexie watch him. “Maybe you should get dressed now. Your grandma and great-grandpa Ernie will be here in about a half hour.”

“Will you do my hair?” She held up one hand and showed him a hairbrush.

“I don’t know how to do little girls’ hair.”

“You could put it in a ponytail. That’s real easy. Or maybe a side pony. Just make sure it’s high, ‘cause I don’t like low ponies.”

“I’ll try,” he said, rinsed shave cream and stubble from the razor, then went to work on his other cheek. “But if you look like a wild child, don’t blame me.”

Lexie laughed and laid her head against his side. Her fine hair brushed his skin. “If my mommy marries Charles, will my name still be Kowalsky like yours?”

The razor came to an abrupt halt at the corner of John’s mouth. His gaze slid down the mirror to Lexie’s upturned face. Slowly he lowered the blade away from his face and held it under the hot water. “Is your mother planning on marrying Charles?”

Lexie shrugged. “Maybe. She’s thinking about it.”

John hadn’t really given serious thought to Georgeanne marrying. The thought of it now, of another man touching her, tied his stomach up in a twist knot. He quickly finished shaving and turned the faucet off. “Did she tell you that?”

“Yep, but since you’re my daddy, I told her to think about marrying you.”

He reached for a towel and dabbed at the white cream beneath his left ear. “What did she say?”

“She laughed and said it wouldn’t happen, but you could still ask her, couldn’t you?”

Marry Georgeanne
? He couldn’t marry Georgeanne. Even though they’d gotten along fairly well after the Pongo incident, he wasn’t convinced she would ever like him.

He could honestly say that he liked her. Maybe too much. Every time he went to pick up Lexie, he envisioned her without clothes, but lust wasn’t enough to support a lifetime commitment. He respected her, too, but respect wasn’t enough either. He loved Lexie and wanted to give her everything she needed to be happy, but he’d learned years ago not to marry a woman because of a child.

“Couldn’t you just ask? Then we could have a baby.”

She gazed up with the same pleading look she’d used to get her puppy, but this time he wasn’t about to give in. If, and when, he ever married again, it would be because living without the woman was hell. “I don’t think your mommy likes me,” he said, and tossed the towel on the counter next to the sink. “How are we going to do that ponytail?”

Lexie handed him the brush. “You comb out the tangles first.”

John got down on one knee and carefully ran the bristles through the back of Lexie’s hair. “Am I hurting you?”

She shook her head. “My mommy likes you.”

“Did she tell you she does?”

“She thinks you’re handsome and nice, too.”

John chuckled. “I know she didn’t tell you that.”

Lexie shrugged. “If you kiss her, she’ll think you’re handsome. Then you can have a baby.”

Although the idea of kissing Georgeanne had always been one hell of a temptation for him, he doubted one kiss would work like magic and solve their problems. He didn’t even want to think about making a baby.

He turned Lexie to the side and lightly brushed a tangle beneath her left ear. “It looks like you have food stuck in your hair,” he said, careful not to pull too hard.

“Probably pizza,” Lexie told him unconcerned, then they sat in silence while John combed the fine strands, fearing he was doing more harm than good. Lexie remained quiet, and John was relieved that the subject of Georgeanne and kissing and babies was over.

“If you kiss her, she’ll like you more than Charles,” Lexie whispered.

John pushed aside the drapes and gazed out at the Detroit night. From his room at the Omni Hotel, he could see the river looking like a long oil slick. He felt restless and edgy, but that was nothing new. It usually took him several hours to come back down after a game, especially after a match with the Red Wings. Last year the team from Motown had barely edged the Chinooks out of the play-offs with a one-goal backhanded fake by Sergei Fedorov. This year the Chinooks started the long season with a 4—2 victory over their rivals. The win had been a nice way to start the season.

Most of the team was in the bar downstairs, celebrating. Not John. He was restless and edgy and too stoked to sleep, but he didn’t want to be around people. He didn’t want to eat bar peanuts, talk shop, or fend off rink bunnies.

Something was wrong. Except for the blindside hit he’d given Fetisov, John had played textbook hockey. He was playing his game the way he liked to play it, with speed, strength, skill, and hard body checking. He was doing what he loved to do. What he’d always loved to do.

Something was wrong. He wasn’t satisfied.
You can have your career with the Chinooks, or you can have Georgeanne. You can’t have both
.

John dropped the drape back into place and glanced at his watch. It was midnight in Detroit, nine in Seattle. He walked to the table next to the bed, picked up the telephone receiver, and dialed.

“Hello,” she answered after the third ring, stirring something deep within him.

If you kiss her, she’ll think you’re handsome. Then you can have a baby
. John closed his eyes. “Hi, Georgie.”

“John?”

“Yep.”

“Where are ... What are you ... ? Cryin‘ all night, I’m watching you right now on the television.”

He opened his eyes and looked across the room at the closed curtains. “It’s a delayed telecast on the West Coast.”

“Oh. Did you win?”

“Yes.”

“Lexie will be glad to hear it. She’s in the living room watching you.”

“What does she think?”

“Well, I believe she really liked it until that big red guy knocked you down. Then she got upset.”

The “big red guy” happened to be an enforcer for Detroit. “Is she okay now?”

“Yes. When she saw you skate around again, she was okay. I think she really likes watching you. It must be genetic.”

John glanced down at the notepad by the telephone.

“What about you?” he asked, and wondered why her answer felt so important to him.

“Well, I don’t normally like to watch sports. Don’t tell anyone, because as you know, I am from Texas,” she drawled, “but I like to watch hockey more than football.”

Her voice made him think of dark passion, reflections in windows, and hot sex.
If you kiss her, she’ll like you more than Charles
. The thought of her kissing her boyfriend made him feel as if he’d taken a boomer to the chest. “I’ve got tickets for you and Lexie to the game on Friday. I really want you both to come.”

“Friday? The night after the wedding?”

“Is that a problem? Do you have to work?”

She paused for a few long moments before she answered, “No, we can be there.”

He smiled into the phone. “The language gets a little salty sometimes.”

“I think we’re used to it by now,” she said, and he could hear the laughter in her voice. “Lexie is right here. I’ll let you talk to her now.”

“Wait, there’s one more thing.”

“What?”

Wait until I get home before you decide to marry your boyfriend. He’s a wimp and a weenie and you deserve someone better
. He sat down heavily on the side of the bed. He didn’t have any right to demand anything. “Never mind. I’m really tired.”

“Is there something else you needed?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “No, put Lexie on.”

Chapter Eighteen

Lexie strolled down the aisle as if she were born to play the part of a flower girl. Curls bounced at her shoulders and rose petals fluttered from her gloved hand to the carpet of the small nondenominational church. Georgeanne stood on the left side of the minister and resisted the urge to pull at the hemline of the pink satin and crepe tank dress resting two inches above her knees. Her gaze was fixed on her daughter as Lexie sashayed down the aisle dressed in white lace and beaming as if she were the reason the small group had assembled in the tiny church. Georgeanne couldn’t help beaming a little herself. She was extremely proud of her little drama queen.

When Lexie reached her mother’s side, she turned and smiled at the man standing across the aisle in a navy blue Hugo Boss. She raised three fingers off the handle of her basket and wiggled them. One side of John’s mouth lifted, and he waved two fingers back at her.