by Quint, Suzie
Chapter Five
“Supper’s on!” Ruth yelled from the back door.
When Georgia walked into the kitchen, Ruth was insisting Zach’s wife, Maddie, stay and eat.
“But Zach’ll be home soon,” Maddie protested. “I should have his supper ready.”
“Nonsense.” Ruth nudged Maddie toward a chair. “Your young ‘uns are fed, and there ain’t no point in you cooking for just you and Zacharia. If you ain’t home when he gets there, he’ll know where to look for you.”
Georgia couldn’t help smiling. She’d never had any difficulty picturing Ruth at the front of a smoky room saying, “I’m Ruth and I’m a food pusher.” Except Ruth didn’t see that as a flaw, so there’d be no twelve-step program in her future.
“Georgia, honey, you sit right here.”
“But this is Sol’s—”
“Sol’s name ain’t engraved on that chair,” Ruth set a platter of biscuits in the middle of the table. “If he makes it in time for supper, he’ll sit where I tell him.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Georgia slid into the seat next to Maddie.
With thirteen children and only three who didn’t live within a mile of their childhood home, the McKnights ate in shifts. With the younger children—the ones still in school—already fed and sent off to play or to do their evening chores, the adults sat down to enjoy a more civilized meal. Everyone clasped their hands and bowed their heads as Sol’s daddy, Jebediah, said grace.
Ever since her first meal at the McKnights’ table, Georgia had defined a split second as the time between everyone’s echoed “Amen” and the moment the reaching began: reaching for chicken fried steak and fresh corn on the cob, reaching for mashed potatoes and corn muffins; reaching for gravy for the steak and the potatoes; reaching for home-churned butter for the corn and honey for the muffins. And it all tasted so wonderful, Georgia couldn’t figure out how Ruth ever managed to have leftovers. Especially the way this family ate.
But the best part was that Georgia hadn’t had to cook it herself.
Jebediah asked about her folks as he heaped mashed potatoes onto his plate. Georgia gave him the rundown.
“Well, you let us know if you need anything. We’ll be glad to help.”
“I will,” Georgia promised, but she couldn’t imagine what it would take for her to ask the McKnights. In spite of everything Sol’s family did to make her feel welcome, she didn’t feel comfortable asking for their help. Eden was family to them, but Georgia had given up the right to lean on them when she’d walked out on Sol.
When the conversation moved on to a bull they thought would do well on the rodeo circuit, Georgia leaned closer to Maddie. In an undertone, she said, “You didn’t really think Ruth would let you leave without eating, did you?”
Maddie snorted softly. “Of course not. I had her number before Zach and I even got married. But it makes her happy to strong-arm people into sitting at her table, so I let her bully me into staying.”
Georgia chuckled. “Yeah, I see those bruises on your arm from where you were fighting her off.”
Maddie smiled, amusement lighting her eyes. Then she sobered. “I thank God for her and the rest of the family every day. With Zach gone mostly from sunup to sundown these days, I’d be a basket case, trying to cope without their help.”
Besides their own infant, Maddie and Zach were raising Maddie’s orphan nephew, Jesse, who at eighteen months was extremely mobile. The thought of having two babies in diapers at the same time made Georgia shudder.
Her own mama had made Georgia feel like an inadequate mother every time anyone else had changed Eden’s diaper. Maddie’s situation was a hundred and eighty degrees different; she had the entire McKnight clan begging to help with the first grandchild since Eden. They even treated Jesse as if he belonged to them.
Zach came in as dessert was being served: blackberry cobbler, homemade vanilla ice cream optional, at least in theory. He kissed Maddie on the cheek, squeezed a chair in between her and Gideon, and loaded a plate, playing catch-up.
They were finishing dessert when the screen door behind Jebediah creaked open and the McKnight’s youngest boy came in. The door fell shut behind him with a loud slap.
“Tobias, how many times do I have to tell you—” Ruth started.
At thirteen, Tobias was too old to cry over skinned knees or scraped knuckles, but even Georgia could see he was struggling to master his tears. Whatever the problem was, it was more than a little bruise or a scraped knee.
Jebediah twisted in his seat. “What’s the matter, boy?”
Tobias made snuffling noises and held out his hand. Georgia suspected if he’d tried to say anything, he’d have wailed, and he was old enough to find that unbecoming behavior. Jebediah caught his wrist and turned the hand to see it better. At least an inch of splintered wood stuck out from his palm. Looking at it made Georgia’s nerve endings shriek. Beside her, Maddie hissed in a pained breath.
“Aw, it’s not so bad,” Jebediah said. “I’ve done cut myself worse ‘n this shaving.” But the look he shot down the table said a mother’s care was called for. “You go down to your mama now. She’ll take care of you. You’ll be fine as frog’s hair when she’s done.”
As though Tobias’ appearance heralded the end of the meal, the men, except for Zach, who was starting dessert, pushed their plates aside and got up to attend to the ranch’s never-ending chores. Maddie and Georgia shared an amused glance.
With an unspoken agreement, Georgia ran water into the sink as Maddie gathered up the dishes. Zach scarfed his cobbler, gathered up their kids, kissed Maddie again, and told her he’d see her at home.
Georgia hadn’t had much opportunity to get to know Maddie, yet she found working beside her comfortable as they finished clearing away the remnants of supper. Even so, she decided she’d better start a conversation before it got awkward. The problem was . . . well, she didn’t really know Maddie.
She did know that, sometimes, when Sol got really irritated, he ranted about her. Georgia had seen it a time or two herself, and it wasn’t pretty. She wished she knew if Maddie’s opinion of her was already tainted. More than likely, Georgia decided. Even if Sol had never said a word, Maddie would certainly have gotten Zach’s opinion of his ex-sister-in-law, and that probably wasn’t much better than Sol’s.
“So you’ve been a full-fledged McKnight for a while now.” Georgia slipped dishes into the sudsy water.
“Almost a year.”
“A year already. Wow.” Georgia tried to sound as though a year spent in close proximity to family didn’t sound like cruel and unusual punishment. “How are you planning to celebrate your anniversary?”
“We’re not doing anything fancy. Zach’s taking me dancing at The Lariat.”
“You’re breast feeding, aren’t you?”
Maddie nodded.
“Sucks, doesn’t it? He gets to have a beer but you have to abstain.”
Maddie shrugged then grinned. “It’s okay. I was never that crazy about beer anyway. I am crazy about Abbie.”
Georgia smiled. She could relate. She was still crazy about Eden.
“You should join us,” Maddie said. “Sol and a bunch of the others will be there.”
“On your anniversary? Why would you want everyone around? Wouldn’t you rather be alone with your husband?”
“Oh, we’ll get to be alone. Ruth’s keeping my babies overnight.” The wicked smile on Maddie’s face morphed into a lustful grin. “And then we get to sleep as late as we want.”
“Oh, God,” Georgia moaned. “I remember how much I craved a full night’s sleep when Eden was a baby. That’s another thing that sucks. There’s no putting them down with a bottle when you’re the kitchen.”
“Zach does his share. I just put breast milk in a bottle.”
“I wish I could have done that.” She handed the first clean plate to Maddie for drying.
“Sol didn’t help?” Maddie asked.
“Uh—”
> “Oh, that’s right. I forgot.” Maddie’s cheeks grew pink. “You and Sol split up before Eden was born. Sorry.” She bumped the heel of her hand against her forehead as though trying to jar something loose. “I have these moments where I’m brain dead.”
“Ah, yes. The lingering effects of pregnancy,” Georgia said. “I remember it well.”
“So that’s normal? The feeling that half your brain’s been anesthetized.”
“Normal?” Georgia shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but I do remember a few times wondering if I’d had a stroke because I’d said or done something really stupid. Something I knew better than.” Like the times she’d taken Eden out to Sol’s trailer, so he could see her, and ended up spending the night in his bed. Yeah, that qualified. Definitely had to have been a stroke.
Maddie laughed. “You’ve just described my life lately. I’m fully capable of opening my mouth and sticking my foot in all the way up to my hip. Say you’ll come help us celebrate. Please. It’s only two weeks away. I need someone there who understands and can leap across the table to clap their hand over my mouth if my brain disengages while I’m talking.”
“I’d like to but it’ll depend on how Mama’s doing.”
By the time they finished the dishes, Georgia figured Sol had found his supper elsewhere. It annoyed her that he’d missed spending the evening with his daughter to . . . do what? Was it her he was avoiding or was he seeing someone who was happy to feed him? Not that she cared about that except for how it affected their daughter.
As she pulled out of the ranch driveway, the depression about having to go back to her folks’ place set in. With every mile, she felt the weight of it falling heavier on her shoulders.
The Lariat was just outside the town limits. A drink sounded really good. On impulse, she pulled in. It felt like a death-row reprieve.
###
“Hey, Georgia,” Tommy Mulligan greeted her from behind the bar as she slid onto a stool. “What can I get you?”
She and Sol had gone to school with Tommy, who had been the star quarterback the year they graduated. If he hadn’t blown out his knee in the last game of the season, he’d have had a full scholarship to the University of Texas and a spot on the Longhorns football team.
Hero Creek’s school was small enough that not only did everyone know everyone else, most felt a camaraderie from those years. Particularly if they’d gone there since first grade as Georgia, Sol, and Tommy had.
She hadn’t hung out with Tommy’s crowd—if you could actually have “crowds” in a class of forty students—and the one time they’d gone out in their junior year, he’d been all hands. But then so were most boys at that age. It was ancient history now, and Georgia saw no reason to hold a grudge.
“I’ll have a Baileys on the rocks,” she said.
He filled a glass with ice then upended a bottle, letting the liqueur flow from the spout. “I heard you was in town helping out your mama.”
She grimaced. “Yeah, looks like I’m stuck here for the summer.”
His eyebrows rose as he returned the bottle to the glass shelf on the wall behind the bar.
“Sorry. My folks are getting to me.” She laid a twenty on the bar.
He swapped her drink for the twenty. “Family has a way of doing that.” He stepped over to the cash register to make change.
Georgia took a sip. Damn, it tasted good. She took another, longer drink. Mmm. Baileys’ biggest drawback was how easy it went down.
“So how’ve you been?” she asked.
He shot a glance toward the pool tables at the far end of the bar. Two vertical creases appeared between his eyebrows. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.”
She turned her head to see what the problem was. The crowd was thin, even for a Sunday night. On the one pool table that was busy, two couples were playing a partners game of eight ball. One of the women was Missy Mulligan née Stevens, another Jefferson High School alumna and, according to Bethany’s Hero Creek Update, Tommy’s estranged wife.
Georgia met Tommy’s gaze. “Tough times, huh?”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Yeah.” He picked up a towel and started wiping down the bar.
She took another sip, letting the Baileys linger on her tongue, savoring the sweetness.
“How come you women have to be so damned difficult?”
She swallowed to clear her mouth. “We’re no more difficult than you men.”
He looked at her hard for several seconds. “Yeah, well, I guess I’ll give you that. You were married to Sol. Still . . .”
“Still what?”
“Still, you didn’t even try to tough it out. You were out of there like you was shot from a cannon. What’d you last? Two weeks?”
Small towns. No one ever forgot anything. “Six.” Which was something she normally didn’t mention.
“See? You didn’t even try to work out whatever was wrong.”
“I tried,” Georgia said, her tone more defensive than she’d have liked.
“How hard could you have tried in only six weeks?”
She really didn’t need this. Stopping off for a drink instead of going home made her feel guilty enough. She didn’t need to pile old guilt on top of the new. “It’s not like I stopped trying the moment I walked out. Sometimes you walk out in an attempt to get their attention.”
“Did it work?” His tone said he already knew the answer. Which she supposed he did.
“Not as well as I’d hoped.” Not well at all. But that’s what happened when you were barely eighteen and an idiot. Young and stupid. They went together like peanut butter and jelly.
A scream of laughter erupted from Missy’s table.
He shot another look their way. “Well, it got my attention when Missy moved out.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
“Not so well.”
“She’s got you jealous, though, doesn’t she?”
His mouth drew tight. “Sol ever get jealous?”
“Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?”
His mouth quirked again. “Still?”
“God, yes. I don’t think he knows how to let go of anything, let alone a woman he thought he had branded.”
“What about you? You ever get jealous of him?”
She shook her head. “Not for a long time.”
“Guess you don’t care, then, that he went out with Missy after she left me.”
Georgia blinked at him. Sol had gone out with Missy? Missy, who’d been everyone’s goodtime girl in school? The carnival ride behind the bleachers? That Missy?
She glanced at their table in time to see one of the guys slip his hand around the back of Missy’s neck and pull her into a kiss. Even from the bar, Georgia could see she was frenching him. Had she kissed Sol like that? Probably. Sol and Tommy hadn’t liked each other much in school, so Sol wouldn’t worry about Tommy’s feelings. Had he slept with Tommy’s slut of a wife?
Georgia looked back at Tommy, who was watching her with a tight focus as though he could shut out what was happening at the pool tables. She was willing to bet he knew exactly how many breaths the kiss lasted. And there wasn’t a doubt in her mind Missy had come into The Lariat with every intention of flaunting her date in front of Tommy. That was how some women thought. Her heart broke a little for him.
“Why would I care? He’s a free man.”
“Yeah.” The skepticism in Tommy’s voice said he hadn’t missed that telltale moment when she’d wanted to pull every single bleached blonde hair out of Missy’s head.
Georgia took a gulp of her drink.
“She always liked Sol.”
Georgia almost spit the drink at Tommy. She forced herself to swallow. “She did?”
“Oh, yeah. She had a thing for him in school, but Sol was kind of oblivious to girls.”
Georgia made a disparaging sound. “Sol was never oblivious.” Having been “the girl with the boobs” back then, she knew beyond the shadow of a d
oubt which boys had been oblivious. Sol had not been one of them.
“Yeah, well . . . Maybe he just hadn’t figured out what to do with them yet.”
She smiled, remembering how much she’d wanted Sol to kiss her and how long it had taken him.
Tommy’s mouth tightened. “Of course, he’s figured it out since then.”
Dismay washed over her. She hoped it didn’t show on her face.
“But you don’t get jealous over old Sol,” Tommy mocked.
Apparently, it did show on her face.
It wasn’t until Tommy set a fresh drink in front of her that Georgia realized she’d finished the first one. She took a sip.
“You wouldn’t be interested in extracting a little revenge, would you?”
“Revenge? For what? I don’t own Sol. Besides, I’ve got enough on my plate. The last thing I need is Sol jealous. He gets completely irrational.”
“Really? What’s he done?”
“What hasn’t he done? Do you know that one time he told a guy I was dating that we adopted Eden because I couldn’t have children?” She took a breath, allowing a dramatic pause. “The reason I couldn’t have children was because the name on my birth certificate was George.”
“George?” Tommy laughed. “Nice implants, George.”
“It’s not funny. I liked that guy.”
“Well, it’s kinda funny,” Tommy said, still smiling.
“Yeah, maybe you should try telling that to the guy inspecting Missy’s tonsils with his tongue.”
“Hey!” The reminder wiped the smile off Tommy’s face.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pour salt in your wounds.”
His gaze went past her. Georgia swiveled enough to see the two guys from Missy’s table approaching.
“Another round, tarbender.”
Without a word, Tommy started pouring drinks.
The one Missy had been climbing as if he were a jungle gym said to his buddy, “Man, that Missy’s a hot number. Looks like I’m rolling sevens tonight.”
“I wish mine would loosen up a little,” his buddy said. “She’s not nearly as friendly as yours. I don’t suppose you wanna swap?”
