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Authors: Marie Force

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BOOK: Georgia On My Mind
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Her request was greeted with total silence.

“Is that a problem?” she finally asked.

“That
Caldwell
boy got to you, did he?” Bill asked, his eyes dancing with delight.

You have no idea.
“Not at all. He makes a good point, though. You can leave the bags by the back door, and I’ll take them to the
Rec
Center
in the morning.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Gus assured her. “Go on now. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, you guys,” Georgie said with genuine appreciation. Taking the bag of corn and tomatoes, she walked out of the center a few minutes later and enjoyed a deep breath of fresh, summer air. On the short ride home, she tried her best to clear her mind and relax. Aching from head to toe, the first thing she planned to do was take a long bubble bath in the tub in her mother’s bathroom, and then she would sleep—maybe until tomorrow morning.

Her cell phone rang, and Georgie reached for it while trying to keep her eyes open and on the road. She bit back a groan when she heard the voice of her boss—her
real
boss, the one in
Atlanta
. “How are you,
Lorraine
?”

“Overworked and under appreciated. Nothing new here.”

“How’s everything in the office?”

“Well, that’s why I’m calling.”

Georgie’s heart began to beat faster. She had been anticipating this call from
Atlanta
.
Lorraine
and Doug must have been in conspiracy. Time was running out on both fronts.

“I need to know when you’re coming back,”
Lorraine
said without further ado.

“I wish I could say for sure. The city is trying to hire a replacement for my mother, and I have to appear in probate court next week for her estate.”

“I admire what you’re doing up there. I really do.”

“They’ll close the center if they can’t find anyone,” Georgie said, reminding herself as well as
Lorraine
. “My mother founded the place, gave it everything she had for more than twenty years. I can’t let them close it down. I just can’t. The people would be lost without it.”

“I understand the predicament you’re in, but I’m in one myself. We’ve got the fall lines coming in this week. You know how busy this time of year is. I need you, Georgie. Your staff needs you. They seem aimless without your leadership.”

Georgie pulled onto
Dean Avenue
, which was deserted for once, and grabbed a spot in front of the house. “I need another couple of weeks, at the very least.”

“Two,”
Lorraine
said. “That’s the best I can do. I’m sorry, Georgie.”

Georgie knew it was highly unlikely that she would be free of her obligations in
Newport
in two weeks’ time. “I’ll do my best.”

“I’d hate to lose you.”

Georgie hated being lost. “I’ll be in touch.” She closed her phone, rested her head on the seat, and closed her eyes. With every passing day, her carefully crafted life in
Atlanta
slipped further away from her, and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.

She sat there for a long time considering her options, none of which was all that appealing. Finally, she decided to take action. Flipping open her phone, she called the city’s recreation director.

“Mr. Andrews is in a meeting right now, Ms. Quinn. May I take a message?”

“Yes, tell him this: he can either talk to me now, or I’m going to camp outside his office until he does.”

After a long pause, the assistant said, “Please hold.”

At least three minutes passed before Richard’s smarmy voice came booming through the phone. “Georgie, how lovely to hear from you. I do hope you and your sister are holding up well.”

“We’re fine, thank you, but I need to know what’s being done to find a replacement for my mother at the center.”

“We’ve had the ad running for a month now, with only that one candidate. I never did hear what happened when she visited the center. All I know is she stopped returning my calls.”

The dirty old men happened
, Georgie thought, as it dawned on her all of a sudden that they’d run the woman off on purpose so Georgie would stay. The realization took her breath away.
Oh my God! They’ll never let me go!

“Georgie?”

“You have to do more,” Georgie said in what she hoped was a firm and authoritative tone. “I’m going back to
Atlanta
in two weeks, with or without a replacement for my mother.”

“If you do that, we’ll have to close the center,” Richard said. He’d said the same thing two months earlier when he convinced her to take the job “temporarily.” With her mother terminally ill, Georgie had been unwilling to watch her life’s work fade away like it meant nothing.

“Two weeks, Richard. After that, it’s not my responsibility anymore.” Tomorrow she would tell the old men the same thing. They were
not
going to hold her hostage forever.
 

Chapter 6
 

Georgie straightened up her bedroom, folded the clothes she had strewn about the night before, and summoned the courage to open the door to her mother’s bedroom.

“I can’t put this off forever,” she said as she stood in the hallway staring at the door for a long time. One of these days, she had to get busy cleaning out her mother’s clothes and belongings. Not today, though.

With her hand resting on the doorknob, she finally took a deep breath and turned it. Here, more than anywhere else in the big house, she found her mother. Her scent, her clothes, the framed photos on her dresser, her jewelry box, her bathrobe. The memories and the pain hit Georgie like fists to the stomach, and she had to pause to absorb them before she could step into the room.

On an impulse, she took her mother’s burgundy chenille robe with her into the bathroom to turn on the Jacuzzi tub her mother had installed a few years ago when she renovated and updated the bathroom.

Georgie soaked in the tub for close to an hour, and only when she began to doze did she rinse off the bubbles and snuggle into her mother’s robe. With her hair wrapped in a towel, Georgie emerged from the bathroom and eyed the big four-poster bed.

So many nights as a child she had taken refuge there after bad dreams or thunderstorms. Before her mother had founded the center when Georgie was in first grade, they had whiled away many an afternoon in that bed reading Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins books that had cemented Georgie’s life-long love of a good mystery.

Wondering if the bed would provide the same comfort without her mother, Georgie slid under the covers and pressed her face to the pillow where her mother’s fragrance still lingered. Georgie could almost feel her mother’s strong arms around her.

Despite her best efforts to relax, her mind raced with worries about the center, her job and apartment in
Atlanta
, what would become of the seniors if she left them, and what to do about the big house that needed constant care. She needed to get in touch with the attorney about the probate hearing next week, needed to pack up her mother’s things, needed to do so much she was exhausted just thinking about it.

Not wanting to think about any of that right now, she allowed her thoughts to drift to Nathan. All her worries seemed to disappear as she relived her night with him—his tender touch and gentle kisses, how he had seemed to know just what she needed without being told. As she finally drifted off to sleep, she hoped he would bring those earrings to her soon. Then she would tell him it was over, really over.

Her ringing cell phone interrupted Georgie’s nap. The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere far away, and for a moment, Georgie couldn’t remember where she was. Then it came back to her in a rush of pain—her mother’s death, her mother’s room, her mother’s bed. In the days since her mother’s death, waking up and remembering it all over again had been some of the most painful moments.

Clearing the sleep from her throat, she reached for her phone. “Hello.”

“Georgie.”

“Al?” At the sound of her sister Alison’s voice, Georgie sat up in bed. After what they’d been through together in the last few months, Georgie could tell with one word that something wasn’t right with her sister. “What’s wrong?”

“Georgie…”

“Are you
crying
?
What? What is it? Is it Mom?”

“The blood test.”

Georgie’s entire body went cold, and she began to tremble. “No… No, I can’t hear this.”

Ali’s sobs echoed through the phone from upstate
New York
to
Newport
. “I’m having the surgery. Next week.”

“You need a second opinion! Maybe they made a mistake!”

“It’s no mistake. Two labs have confirmed it.”

“You didn’t tell me about the second test—or the results of the first one.”

“You’ve had so much to deal with there with the house and the center. I couldn’t add to that.” Ali sniffled. “You have to have the test, Georgie.
You have to
.”

“No.” She said the word softly even though she wanted to shriek. Since their mother’s diagnosis, the sisters had learned their family was cursed with faulty genes that made them much more likely than the general population to contract breast and ovarian cancer. If Georgie never again heard the BRCA acronym, it would be too soon for her.

“Mom had it, I have it,” Ali said. “Grandma and Aunty Joan probably had it, too. Wouldn’t you rather know, Georgie?”

“No! I would
not
rather know!” The thought of having her perfectly healthy breasts removed was so outrageous that Georgie had refused to even entertain the possibility. “Bonnie didn’t have it,” she said, referring to a cousin neither of them liked. “You shouldn’t rush into anything. Maybe if you wait a year, they’ll know more.”

“I have two young children to consider. I’m not taking any chances that they’ll have to grow up without a mother.”

“But you’re only thirty-five! Mom was sixty.
Come on
, Al! It doesn’t have to happen right now.”

“You heard the oncologist say that it’s striking decades earlier in every generation of our family. I’m not risking it.”

Georgie wiped tears from her cheeks. “What does Joe say?”

“That he’d rather live without my breasts than without me,” Ali said, her voice catching on a sob.

“Are we ever going to wake up from this nightmare?” Georgie whispered. Ever since she’d gotten the call about her mother’s diagnosis of advanced breast cancer three months ago, Georgie’s life had spun out of control. And now this…

“Yes, we are. We’re going to wake up and go on with our lives knowing we did everything we could to keep it from happening to us, too.”

“It’s different for me. You have a husband who worships you. What guy will want me if I have to have my breasts removed?” Georgie finally gave voice to her greatest fear—ending up sick and alone. She refused to allow herself to think about Nathan and what he might have to say about the matter.

“Any man who would value your breasts over your health isn’t good enough for my baby sister.”

“I’ll come there,” Georgie said, resigned. “When you have the surgery. I’ll come and take care of the kids.”

“No, you won’t. I have Joe, and his mother will be with the kids. You’ve got enough to contend with there. I’ll be okay.”

“Ali…”

“It’s all going to be fine,” Ali said firmly. Georgie wondered who her sister was trying to convince. “I promise.”

Georgie wished with all her heart that she could believe her sister. She had a feeling that things were going to get a whole lot worse before they got better.

“You’ll think about having the test?” Ali asked.

“Yes,” Georgie said, telling her sister what she needed to hear. She planned to put it out of her mind the minute they hung up.

“I’ll have Joe call you after the surgery.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Georgie said. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Nathan sat at his desk, asleep with his eyes open. The day had been a total disaster, and all he could think about was going home for a quick nap before he went over to Georgie’s to let her know this was
not
going to be a one-time thing.

Despite the intimacy they had shared, he barely knew her. But he wanted to. He wanted to know why she had come home to
Newport
, why she was working at the center, what her life was like in
Atlanta
, and if there was another man in the picture.
No
.
If she was seeing someone else, she wouldn’t have slept with me. Well, slept is not exactly the operative word here
.

As a detective, he knew he could find the answers to many of his questions by making a few phone calls. After all, he worked for the same city that ran the senior center. But as he reached for the phone, he stopped himself. He wanted her to tell him herself.

He had felt something different for her the first day he ran by the big white house and saw the four women having coffee on the porch. Construction on
Lower Thames
had forced him to alter his usual route, and the detour led him right to their doorstep. He never had gone back to his old route. Since he was trained to notice everything and file away pieces of information that could be used to make cases later, the four lovelies had caught his attention right away. He liked knowing that they thought he never looked at them. Hell yeah he looked, and hell yeah he liked what he saw.

Thanks to Georgie’s descriptions of them over dinner the night before, he could now put names to the other three. On his morning runs, Cat had caught his attention first with her spiky red hair, pierced eyebrow and well, those breasts were quite something. He
was
only human. He had also caught a hint of a tattoo. Fascinating. Tess had an almost ethereal beauty about her, and Georgie’s sister Ali was striking, too. But he hadn’t spent much time looking at any of the others after his eyes landed on Georgie. Remembering that first moment of impact—for that’s what it had felt like—Nathan tried to recall the last time he’d had that kind of reaction to a woman.

Never, if he was being honest, just like he’d never had sex quite like what he’d had with her. He hadn’t known he could be so free and uninhibited—nor had he ever encountered such a generous and willing partner. It was like he had found his perfect match. The thought made him sit up straighter in his desk chair. What if she was his perfect match? What if he discovered she was all that and more? What would he do when she went back to
Atlanta
?

“This is crazy,” he muttered. “She said one night, and you’re thinking about chasing her to
Atlanta
?”

“Talking to yourself, Caldwell?” his partner, Andy Hughes, asked as he plopped a file on Nathan’s desk.

“What’s up?”

“We’ve got a possible runaway. Sixteen, history of beating feet, but the parents claim she’s turned over a new leaf lately. They don’t think she went wherever she is willingly.”

Nathan swallowed a yawn as he flipped through the report.

“What’s with you today?” Andy asked. “You’re like a zombie.”

“Didn’t sleep well last night.” Since the happily married Andy was forever after Nathan to get a love life, he wished he could tell his partner the truth. But if there was one thing Nathan Caldwell didn’t do it was kiss and tell.

“Why don’t you head out? I’ll go talk to the parents. It’s on my way home.”

Nathan looked up at him. “You’re sure you don’t mind?” Normally, Nathan would have jumped all over the case, but tonight he didn’t have the energy.

“Nah. The uniforms said it sounds like a runaway, so I can handle the parents myself and then pass it to second shift. I’ll let you know what comes of it.”

“Thanks. I’m about to drop.”

“I can see that. Talk to you in the morning, if not before.”

Nathan didn’t waste any time getting out of there. Unlocking his dark gray hybrid, he decided he was too old, even at just thirty-three, for an all-night sex fest. Without some sleep—and soon—he would probably keel over in the street.

On his way home, he tried to call the cell phone he had gotten his brother Ben so he could keep closer tabs on him, but as usual, Ben didn’t answer. Frustrated, Nathan closed his phone and tossed it into the passenger seat.

The phone rang, and thinking it might be Ben calling him back, Nathan lunged for it. “
Caldwell
.”

“Hey,” his brother Ian said. “Any word from Ben?”

“No,” Nathan said, dejected.

“What time was he due back?”

“I think they were taking the three-thirty ferry.”

“I’m sure he’ll turn up in the next couple of hours.”

“I hope so.”

“If he doesn’t, give me a call. I’ll help you look for him.”

“Aren’t you playing tonight?” Nathan asked.

“Nope. I’m off the next few nights to give my voice a rest. I’ll be around if you need me, Nate.”

“Thanks. I’m beat, so I’m gonna crash for a while. If you don’t hear from me, he’s home.”

“Got it.”

“Later.” Nathan ended the call but kept the phone in his hand. He appreciated Ian checking in. Their whole family was worried about Ben, who had been badly injured in
Iraq
just over a year ago and was having trouble getting his life back together.

Nathan resisted the urge to drive by Georgie’s house on his way home and trudged into his own house, unclipped the badge from his belt, and shrugged off his shoulder holster on the way upstairs. In his bedroom, he stashed the gun and badge in the bedside table drawer and found Georgie’s earrings. He picked them up and let the metal slide through his fingers, remembering the way they had dangled from her delicate earlobes.

As he put them back on the table, he wondered if she’d discovered yet that she had left them. He had known women who would leave a souvenir behind to ensure a follow-up call, but Georgie wasn’t like that. Besides, she had been adamant that theirs was a one-night stand, so why would she bait him by leaving her earrings?

He reached up to unbutton his shirt, and the memory of her doing it for him the night before stopped him in his tracks as it became clear to him that one night with her wasn’t going to be enough. In fact, he feared a month of nights might not be enough to work her out of his system.

BOOK: Georgia On My Mind
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