A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) (3 page)

“Sol.” His name came out of Georgia’s mouth harsh and demanding.

He lifted his gaze to meet hers, but he
looked dazed as though he couldn’t see her through the image of himself Lydia imprinted on his mind.

“Can I bring Eden out to the ranch
tomorrow?”

His response came slowly as though he’d
had to process the question one word at a time. “Yeah. Sure. Bring her out.
Mama will want you to stay to supper.”

“Well, I—”

But Lydia was tugging Sol away,
chattering once more about how impressed she was by his courage.

Whoever said the way to a man’s heart was
through his stomach had never tried flattery. “Oh, you’re so brave,” Georgia simpered sarcastically but not loud enough for anyone to hear.

God, men were such fools.

###

Lydia
was one of those smooth women, Sol decided, who could be a lot of fun until you
went up against them. Instinct told him he was no match for her; ten minutes in
her company proved it. He wasn’t quite sure how she roped him into shooting
partners pool with her, but rope him she did, no less capably than a champion
bulldogger.

She played helpless until somehow he
found himself leaning over her back, his hands on hers, showing her how to line
up a shot, her denim-covered backside pressed, to any bystander’s eyes,
innocently against his groin. What he carried in his pants didn’t care that she
wasn’t who he would have chosen to have pressed up against him. She shifted her
feet, resetting her stance, her bottom wiggling against his loins in short,
quick motions that had him all but swallowing his tongue.

He didn’t think for a minute it was
anything but intentional. He backed off as if she were a hot branding iron,
snatching his cowboy hat off his head to hold casually in front of his groin.

Lydia
shot and the ball slammed into the corner pocket. She let out a delighted yelp,
spun on the ball of one foot, wrapped her free arm around his neck, and kissed
him, oh so spontaneously. Once more, Sol suspected her of feminine guile, but
his mouth responded without asking his brain’s permission.

A white cowboy hat floated past the end
of the pool table. Under the hat, Georgia scowled at him.

What the hell had he done wrong now? Sol’s
gut twisted the way it always did when she got mad at him. She was the one who’d
introduced him to her predatory girlfriend, yet somehow he was the one in the
wrong.
Screw her,
he thought. Trying to please her never had paid off.
Maybe this time, he’d push the memory of her aside and focus on the girl who
did want him.

It would serve Georgia right if he took Lydia home with him. Let her see how she liked that.

He basked in his bravado until she walked
out the door. In the end, he knew he wouldn’t do it. He had never been that big
a fool.

Georgia
let herself into her parents’ house through the back door. They were both
already in bed, but Eden was still up, watching an old movie. The picture
flickered in the darkened living room, illuminating her daughter sprawled on
the floor on her stomach. The sound was down so low, Georgia could barely hear
it across the room.

She grabbed a bag of Doritos from the
stash in the bedroom they shared and sat cross-legged on the floor by her
daughter. “Hey, sugar butt.”

Eden
rolled onto her side. “Hi, Mama. I waited up.”

“I see that.” She held out the open bag
of chips.

Eden
grabbed a huge handful then rolled onto her back, so she could lay them on her
stomach.

“Did you have a good time with your
cousins?”

Eden
crinkled her nose. “It was okay.”

Bethany
’s kids were all significantly younger than Eden, so her lack of enthusiasm wasn’t surprising.

“Did you see Daddy?” Eden asked.

“I did.” Georgia looked at the TV. Fred
Astaire was dancing with Audrey Hepburn in a Paris park. Audrey was graceful in
her full-skirted white dress and veil. “Oh,
Funny Face!
Good choice.”
She’d passed her love of classic films on to her daughter. Who said repetition
compulsion had to be only the bad stuff?

Eden
wasn’t having any of her mother’s delaying tactics. “And?” she prompted.

“And what?” Georgia asked, her eyes glued
to the screen.

“What did Daddy say?”

“Oh, just what I expected he’d say.”

“Mama!”

Georgia
flashed a grin at her daughter. “You’re going to the ranch tomorrow.”

All too aware of her parents in their
rooms, Georgia hushed her daughter, and Eden bit off her joyous screech.
Together they picked up the chips that had bounced off Eden’s stomach, so they
wouldn’t hear about the mess when Georgia’s daddy got up in the morning. The
lack of playmates wasn’t the only reason Georgia was eager to get Eden out to the ranch.

“Can we go in the morning?” Eden asked.

Georgia
shook her head. “After Mama’s speech therapy.”

Eden
wrinkled her nose. “But that’ll be late.”

“You’ll be there in time for supper. Why
don’t you go on to bed? After tomorrow, you won’t have to worry about anyone’s
nose getting out of joint if you want to sleep late.”

Eden
sighed. “Okay.” She got onto her knees and kissed Georgia’s cheek. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Eden
headed for the bedroom. “Brush your teeth,” Georgia stage whispered after her. Eden looped back toward the bathroom, but she stopped in the doorway.

“Oh, I nearly forgot. Deanne called.”

Of course she had. Tomorrow was the day
Deanne would go to her mother’s. “Is she still excited about seeing her mama?”

“Yeah. She’s kinda nervous though, too.”

Georgia
nodded. It wouldn’t be normal if Deanne wasn’t a little apprehensive.

“Oh, and her daddy said to say ‘hi.’“ Eden grinned. “Deanne says Tink sleeps with him.”

Georgia
smiled as she picked Doritos crumbs off her shirt. She’d known Daniel’s
complaints about Tinker Bell were all bluster.

“Mama.” Eden lingered in the bathroom
doorway, the toes of one foot curled on top of her other foot, a frown on her
face. “Do you think Deanne’s parents will get back together?”

The question surprised Georgia, though it shouldn’t have. Kids’ minds were constantly weighing possibilities. “Is that what
Deanne’s hoping for?”

Eden
shrugged. “She’s excited about seeing her mama. It’s just . . . if
they got back together, Mr. Thomas could decide to move back to Houston.”

Ah. Eden didn’t want her friend to move
away. “I don’t think that’s likely, sugar bear.”

Eden
gave her mama a tight-lipped smile.

“Is there something else worrying you?”

Eden
looked down, watching her feet intently as she jiggled the top foot back and
forth. “Deanne and me, we were kinda hoping, well, that you and Mr. Thomas
liked each other.”

“Oh.”
Great.
This had to come up
now?
Two months ago, Georgia would have known what to say. Had, in fact, thought it
through and practiced the sentences in her head until she had them down cold
because with all the time they spent together and as close as the two girls
were, she’d expected this to come up sooner or later. But that was before she
and Daniel had kissed.
And groped. Don’t forget the groping.
And before
she’d rethought the life example she wanted to set for her daughter.

“Well, sugar . . . I do
like Mr. Thomas.” That was from her script. Could she use more? “We’re friends.”

Eden
raised her eyes and Georgia rushed to say more. “But you’re
talking about a special kind of liking and I . . .” What should
she say? She wasn’t sure enough of her position to get Eden’s hopes up. Too
flustered to think of something appropriately vague, Georgia fell back on her
rehearsed speech. “You shouldn’t count on it.”

Eden
sighed and Georgia hoped the conversation was over.

“Couldn’t you maybe try?”

Oh hell.
Now what was she supposed to say? “We’ll
see.”
Another tried and true cliché.

Eden
’s
mouth stretched as if she were trying to keep the corners from turning down. “Yeah,
I know what that means.”

No, she didn’t, Georgia thought. Though Eden would normally have been right thinking it meant no, this time it meant . . .
we’ll see.

“Brush your teeth, sugar lips, and go to
bed,” Georgia turned off the TV and dropped her collection of Doritos crumbs in
the wastebasket. In the kitchen, she busied herself cleaning the counters until
she heard the bedroom door close behind Eden; then she swiped one of her daddy’s
beers from the refrigerator. Leaning back against the counter, she opened it,
took a long draw, and checked the messages on her cell to discover Eden wasn’t the only one who’d gotten a call from Dallas. Judging from the time, Daniel
had called while she was in the bar, looking for Sol. As noisy as it had been,
she’d missed hearing it ring.

His voice sounded like sanity, she
thought as she listened to his message.

“Was hoping to catch you when Deanne
called, but I guess we missed you this time. I hope things are going well with
your parents and that your ex isn’t giving you too hard a time.”

Georgia
had told him early in their friendship about Sol’s antics. She regretted that
now because any sane man would think twice about getting involved with a woman
whose ex-husband acted as crazy as Sol did when he scented another man around
her.

“Give me a call sometime and let me know
how it’s going. Oh, and your cat’s doing fine, but she may be declawed by the
time you get her back.”

Georgia
giggled. She wished it wasn’t too late to call him. He was the one person who
would understand how much she’d miss her daughter when Eden went out to the
ranch.

She didn’t want to think about that, so
instead she contemplated making her own family with him. It was so perfect. Their
girls would be delighted to officially be sisters.

And being married to Daniel would be so
different from being married to Sol.

Daniel was devoted to his daughter. Sol
was . . . Okay, Sol was devoted to Eden, too. A point for each.

Daniel was a practiced parent. He’d had
sole responsibility for Deanne for almost four years. Sol was a part-time
father. Okay, so that wasn’t his fault. She’d made that choice for him. No
points for either of them.

But parenting skills weren’t what was
lacking in Eden’s life. What Georgia wanted for her daughter was the example of
a functional marriage where two people were kind and considerate of each other
and disagreements were solved with compromise and logic.

Daniel was a good fit for that role. They
already had a supportive friendship that would translate to a solid
partnership, and their night of kissing and groping convinced her Daniel would
be a thoughtful and satisfying lover who wouldn’t be irrationally jealous.

It would be nothing like it had been with
Sol.

She and Sol had been . . .
combustible. They’d burned hot for the short time they’d been married. It had
been fun and exciting while it lasted, but it had also been terrifying. Sol was
a risk taker
and
a control freak. Georgia had spent most of her time
either worried sick about him killing himself on those damned bulls or fighting
to keep from being smothered. In between, there’d been moments of utter bliss.
Okay, there’d been a lot of those moments.

He’d made her feel as though she was as
vital to him as the air he breathed. His kisses had been heady stuff, and their
sex life . . . well,
satisfying
seemed too mild a word to
describe it. It had been wild and passionate and intense. No. It had been more
than that. It had been toe-curling, mark-him-with-her-nails, forget-her-own-name
crazy-good. And loud. Heaven help her, it had been loud. He’d gotten very, very
good at making her scream his name.

Not really the kind of sex you wanted to
have with your child in the bedroom down the hall.

She was older now. Old enough to know
other things were more important than the physical chemistry that still
sometimes made her hormones run wild around her ex.

So what if Daniel as potential husband
material wouldn’t have occurred to her if it hadn’t been for the night of the
kiss-and-grope? Sex alone never held a marriage together. She and Sol were
living proof of that. Daniel was right. Sometimes the four of them felt like a
family, and that was what she wanted for Eden.

As she took another sip of her beer, a
soft scuffing sound came from her right.

“Grams?”

Her grandmother shuffled into the
kitchen.

“It’s late. What are you doing up?”

“Us old folk don’t sleep much. You’ll
find that out when you get to be my age.”

“I don’t think I want to live to be your
age,” Georgia said. She’d hate having to rely on others to take care of her.

“You’ll change your mind when you realize
how fast it all goes by.” Grams lowered herself into a chair at the kitchen
table. “Seems like I was your age just day before yesterday. You gonna share a
beer with your granny, or you gonna to bogart ‘em all?”

Georgia
smiled to herself as she opened the fridge for another beer. Grams’ hands were
gnarled with arthritis, so Georgia opened it before setting it on the table.
She took a chair as her grandmother took her first sip.

“Ah,” Grams said with heartfelt
satisfaction before she focused on Georgia. “So Eden’s going out to the
McKnights?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s good. You got enough on your
plate.”

“No more than you did at my age.” Grams
had been widowed young and raised three kids alone. Reminding herself of that
kept Georgia from grumbling too much, but it also brought back the school nurse’s
comments about repetition compulsion. Georgia’s own parents were together but
that had been a near thing, and their marriage wasn’t exactly the model she
wanted her daughter repeating.

“Oh, it wasn’t easy,” Grams said, “especially
with your uncle Ray. If I’d had someone like the McKnights to help out, you can
bet I’d’ve been all over it like a duck on a June bug. The McKnights are good
people. You won’t have to worry about Eden.”

“I know.”

Grams cocked her head. “But?”

“But what?”

“I thought I heard a but coming. What’s
got you worried, girl child?”

Georgia
took another pull on her beer while she decided how much to unload. “It’s just . . .
they’re so focused on rodeo. Every year, they put more resources into breeding
bulls. I don’t want Eden sucked into that.”

“Oh, honey.” Grams patted her hand. “Rodeo’s
their business.”

“It’s a business that kills people.” Georgia pressed her fingers to her mouth as if she could push the words back in. She’d been
thinking about Sol and forgotten for a moment that Grams was the last one who
needed reminding about the dangers of bull riding.

Grams brushed her hand through the air as
though it didn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t anymore. “Car accidents kill people,
too, but does that mean we should stop riding in ‘em?”

“No, of course not. But at least cars do
something for you. They get you where you’re going. Rodeo’s just entertainment.”

Grams smiled in that way she had when she
was thinking she’d neglected to educate her children—or, in this case,
grandchild—properly. Georgia jumped up to help when Grams pushed herself up
from her chair. Beer bottle in one hand, she flapped the other, encouraging Georgia to follow her into her small bedroom.