Simply Irresistible (26 page)

Georgeanne watched John leave and reached for Lexie’s shoes. She dressed Lexie in her pajamas and put her to bed. Then she went in search of John. She wanted to ask him about tweezers for the sliver in her finger, and she needed to talk to him about the money he was spending on her and Lexie. She wanted him to stop. She could pay for herself. And she could pay for Lexie, too.

She found John standing at the bank of windows, staring out at the ocean. His hands were shoved in the front pockets of his jeans. The sleeves of his denim shirt were rolled up his forearms, and the setting sun cast him in a fiery glow, making him appear bigger than life. When she entered the room, he turned to face her.

“I need to talk to you about something,” she said as she walked toward him, bracing herself for an argument.

“I know what you’re going to say, and if it will keep that scowl off your pretty forehead, then you can pick up the check next time.”

“Oh.” She stopped in front of him. She’d won before she’d begun, and felt somewhat deflated. “How did you know that’s what I wanted to talk about?”

“You’ve been frowning at me since the waitress placed the check by my plate. For a few seconds I thought you really were going to leap across the table and wrestle me for it.”

For a few seconds she had thought of it, too. “I would never wrestle in public.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” In the gray wash of approaching night, she saw a corner of his mouth lift slightly. “‘Cause I could take you.”

“Maybe,” she said, unwilling to concede. “Do you have a pair of tweezers?”

“What are you going to do, pluck my eyebrows?”

“No. I have a sliver.”

John walked into the dining room and flipped on the light above the pedestal table. “Let me see it.”

Georgeanne didn’t follow. “It’s no big deal.”

“Let me see it,” he repeated.

With a sigh, she gave up and walked into the dining room. She held out her hand and showed him her middle finger.

“That’s not too bad,” he announced.

She leaned closer for a better look, and their foreheads almost touched. “It’s huge.”

A frown lowered his brows. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and left the room, only to return with a pair of tweezers. “Have a seat.”

“I can do it myself.”

“I know you can.” He turned a chair backward and straddled it. “But I can get it out easier because I can use both hands.” He placed his forearms on the top rung and motioned to another chair. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Warily she took a seat and shoved her hand toward him, purposely keeping an arm’s length between them. John closed the short distance by scooting his chair until her knees touched the back of the wooden seat, so close that she had to press her legs together so they wouldn’t brush the insides of his thighs. She leaned back as far as she could, He took her hand in his palm and squeezed the pad of her middle finger.

“Ouch.” She tried to pull free, but he tightened his grasp.

He glanced up at her. “That didn’t hurt, Georgie.”

“Yes, it did!”

He didn’t argue, but he didn’t let go either. He lowered his gaze and poked at her skin with the tweezers.

“Ouch.”

Once again he lifted his gaze and looked at her over their joined hands. “Baby.”

“Jerk.”

He laughed and shook his head. “If you weren’t such a girly girl, this wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Girly girl? What’s a girly girl?”

“Look in the mirror.”

That didn’t tell her much. She tried to pull her hand back again.

“Just relax,” he said as he continued to work at the sliver. “You look like you’re about to jump out of your chair. What do you think I’m going to do, stab you with a pair of tweezers?”

“No.”

“Than relax, it’s almost out.”

Relax
? He was so close he took up all the space. There was only John with his callused palm cupping her hand and his dark head bent over the tips of her fingers. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his thighs through his jeans and the thin cotton of her kiwi-colored dress. John had such a strong presence that relaxing with him so close was impossible. She raised her gaze from the side part in his hair and looked across the living room. Ernie and his big blue fish stared back at her. Her memories of John’s grandfather were of a nice older gentleman. She wondered about him now, and she wondered what he thought of Lexie. She decided to ask.

He didn’t look up, just shrugged and said, “I haven’t told my grandfather or my mother yet.”

Georgeanne was surprised. Seven years ago she’d thought John and Ernie were close. “Why?”

“Because both of them have been bothering me to get married again and start a family. When they find out about Lexie, they’ll shoot to Seattle faster than a smoker from the sweet spot. I want time to get to know Lexie first, before I’m blitzed by my family. Besides, we agreed to wait to tell her, remember? And with my mother and Ernie hanging around, staring, it might make Lexie uncomfortable.”

Married again
? Georgeanne hadn’t heard anything he’d said after he’d uttered those two words. “You were married?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

He let go of her hand and placed the tweezers on the table. “Before I met you.”

Georgeanne looked at her finger, and the sliver was gone. She wondered which meeting he was referring to. “The first time?”

“Both times.” He grasped the top rung of the chair, leaned back, and frowned a little.

Georgeanne was confused. “Both times?”

“Yep. But I don’t think the second marriage really counts.”

She couldn’t help it. She felt her brows raise and her jaw drop. “You were married twice?” She held up two fingers. “Two times?”

His brows lowered and he drew his mouth into a straight line. “Two isn’t that many.”

To Georgeanne, who’d never been married, two sounded like a lot.

“Like I said, the second time didn’t count anyway. I was only married as long as it took to get a divorce.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you were ever married at all.”

She began to wonder about these two women who’d married John, the father of her child. The man who’d broken her heart. And because she couldn’t stand not knowing, she asked, “Where are these women now?”

“My first wife, Linda, died.”

“I’m sorry,” Georgeanne uttered lamely. “How did she die?”

He stared at her for several prolonged moments. “She just did,” he said, subject closed. “And I don’t know where DeeDee Delight is. I was real drunk when I married her. When I divorced her, too, for that matter.”

DeeDee Delight?
She stared at him, at a compete loss.
DeeDee Delight? Cryin‘ all night in a bucket?
She had to ask. She simply couldn’t help it. “Was DeeDee a ... a ... an entertainer?”

“She was a stripper,” he said blandly.

Even though Georgeanne had guessed as much, it was a shock to hear John actually confess to marrying a stripper. It was so shocking. “Really! What did she look like?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Oh,” she said, her curiosity unsatisfied. “I’ve never been married, but I think I’d remember. You must have been
real
drunk.”

“I said I was.” He made an exasperated sound. “But you don’t have to worry about Lexie around me. I don’t drink anymore.”

“Are you an alcoholic?” she asked, the question slipping out before she thought better of it. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer such a personal question.”

“It’s okay. I probably am,” he answered more candid than she would have suspected. “I never checked into Betty Ford, but I was drinking pretty heavily and turning my brain to shit. I was pretty much out of control.”

“Was it hard to quit?”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t easy, but for my physical and mental well-being, I’ve had to give up a few things.”

“Like what?”

He grinned. “Alcohol, loose women, and the Macarena.” He moved forward and hung his wrists over the top rung of the chair. “Now that you know the skeletons in my closet, answer something for me.”

“What?”

“Seven years ago, when I bought you a ticket home, I was under the impression you were broke. How did you live, let alone start a business?”

“I was very lucky.” She paused a moment before adding, “I answered a help wanted ad for Heron’s.” Then because he’d been so truthful with her—and because nothing she’d ever done could equal marrying a stripper—she added a little fact about her life that no one knew but Mae. “And I was wearing a diamond that I sold for ten thousand dollars.”

He didn’t bat an eye. “Virgil’s?”

“Virgil gave it to me. It was mine.”

A slow smile, which could have meant anything, worked the corners of his mouth. “He didn’t want it back?”

Georgeanne folded her arms beneath her breasts and tilted her head to one side. “Sure he did, and I’d planned to give the ring back, too, but he’d taken my clothes and donated them to the Salvation Army.”

“That’s right. He had your clothes, didn’t he?”

“Yep. When I left the wedding, I left everything but my makeup. All I had was that stupid pink dress.”

“Yes. I remember that little dress.”

“When I called him to ask about my things, he wouldn’t even talk to me. He had his housekeeper tell me to drop the ring off at his offices and leave it with his secretary. The housekeeper wasn’t very nice about it either, but she did tell me what he’d done with my stuff.” Georgeanne wasn’t especially proud of selling the ring, but Virgil was partly to blame. “I had to buy all my clothes back at four and five dollars a pop, and I didn’t have any money.”

“So you sold the ring.”

“To a jeweler who was happy to get it for half of what it was worth. When I first met Mae, her catering business wasn’t doing real well. I gave her a lot of that ring money to pay off some of her creditors. That money might have given me a little help, but I’ve worked my tail off to get where I am today.”

“I’m not judging you, Georgie.”

She hadn’t realized that she sounded so defensive. “Some people might, if they knew the truth.”

Amusement appeared in the corners of his eyes. “Who am I to judge you? Jesus, I married DeeDee Delight.”

“True,” Georgeanne laughed, feeling a little like Scarlett O’Hara unburdening her dishonorable deeds to Rhett Butler. “Does Virgil know about Lexie yet?”

“No. Not yet.”

“What do you think he’ll do when he finds out?”

“Virgil is a smart businessman, and I’m his franchise player. I don’t think he’ll do anything. It’s been seven years, and it’s water under the bridge, anyway. Now, I’m not saying he’ll be real happy when I tell him about Lexie, but he and I work together fairly well. Besides, he’s married now and seems happy.”

Of course, she’d known he’d married. Local papers had reported on his marriage to Caroline Foster-Duffy, director of the Seattle Art Museum. Georgeanne hoped John was right and that Virgil was happy. She harbored him no ill will.

“Answer me something else?”

“No. I answered your question, it’s my turn to ask you.”

John shook his head. “I told you about DeeDee and my drinking. That’s two skeletons. So you owe me one more.”

“Fine. What?”

“The day you brought the pictures of Lexie to my houseboat, you mentioned being relieved that she didn’t struggle in school. What did you mean?”

She didn’t really want to talk about her dyslexia with John Kowalsky.

“Is it because you think I’m a dumb jock?” He gripped the top rung of the chair and leaned back.

His question surprised her. He looked calm and cool as if her answer didn’t matter one way or the other. She had a feeling it mattered more than he wanted her to know. “I’m sorry I called you dumb. I know what it’s like to be judged for what you do or how you look.” A lot of people suffered from dyslexia, she reminded herself, but knowing that famous people like Cher, Tom Cruise, and Einstein endured it also didn’t make it any easier to reveal herself to a man like John. “My concern for Lexie had nothing to do with you. When I was a child, I struggled in school. The three Rs gave me bit of trouble.”

Except for a slight crease between his brows, he remained expressionless. He said nothing.

“But you should have seen me in ballet and charm school,” she continued, forcing levity into her voice and attempting to coax a smile from him. “While I may have been the worst ballerina to have ever leaped across a stage, I do believe I excelled at charm. In fact, I graduated at the head of my class.”

He shook his head and the crease disappeared from his forehead. “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

Georgeanne laughed and let down her guard a bit. “While other children memorized their multiplication tables, I studied table settings. I know the correct positions for everything, from shrimp forks to finger bowls. I read silver patterns while some girls read Nancy Drew. I had no problem distinguishing between luncheon silver and dinner silver, but words like
how
and
who
, and
was
and
saw
, gave me fits.”

His eyes narrowed a little. “You’re dyslexic?”

Georgeanne sat up straighten “Yes.” She knew she shouldn’t feel ashamed. Still, she added, “but I’ve learned to cope. People assume that someone who suffers from dyslexia can’t read. That’s not true. We just learn a little differently. I read and write like most people, but math will never be my forte. Being dyslexic doesn’t really bother me now.”

He stared at her for a moment, then said, “But it did as a child.”

“Sure.”

“Were you tested?”

“Yes. In the fourth grade I was tested by some sort of doctor. I don’t really remember.” She scooted back her chair and stood, feeling resentment build inside of her. Resentment toward John for forcing her problem into the open as if it were his business. And she felt the old bitterness toward the doctor who’d turned her young life upside down. “He told my grandmother I had a brain dysfunction, which isn’t altogether a misstatement, but it is a rather harsh term and a blanket diagnosis. In the seventies, everything from dyslexia to mental retardation was considered a brain dysfunction.” She shrugged her shoulders as if none of it really mattered and forced a little laugh. “The doctor said I’d never be real bright. So I grew up feeling a little retarded and a bit lost.”