by Quint, Suzie
Georgia looked straight ahead, wishing she didn’t have to listen to this.
“Do I look stupid?” Missy’s date asked.
Georgia wanted to say, Uh yeah, now that you mention it, but she bit her tongue. These guys wouldn’t understand. All they cared about was whether or not they were getting laid.
“Hey, Georgia.” Tommy slid a couple of ones across the bar at her. “Why don’t you feed the jukebox for me?”
Why hadn’t she thought of that? She smiled her thanks at Tommy and left the morons at the bar.
When she returned, Missy’s friends were back at the pool table, Garth had just started singing Friends in Low Places, and a fresh drink awaited her.
Tommy seemed helpless to look away from the poolroom where Missy was thanking the guys—both of them—for the drinks the only way she seemed to know how. Maybe the only one who wouldn’t get laid tonight was her frigid, little girlfriend.
Georgia would have enjoyed her catty thoughts if Tommy hadn’t been so obviously miserable. That look on his face was enough to bring back how alone she’d felt when she’d left Sol. Not that her family hadn’t been supportive. They’d taken her in, after all, but the way her mother had focused on the mistake she’d made marrying Sol in the first place with comments about how Georgia should have set her sights higher or the way she had of sighing whenever Georgia showed any softness toward Sol, the support had felt more like punishment than love.
Tommy looked as though he didn’t even have that. No one could cure the hurt he felt, but a friend who understood would at least make him feel like someone was on his side. She could at least do that for him.
“You sure you don’t want a little revenge?” he asked softly.
She sympathized. In the name of friendship, she might even have agreed to help him out if she wasn’t so sure Sol would flip out.
“Why don’t you just move on, Tommy? Find yourself somebody new.”
He shook his head. “I’m not ready. It wouldn’t be fair to whoever she was.”
Wow. He’d really grown up since high school. Too bad she couldn’t say the same for certain other people.
He was still watching his soon-to-be ex. “I wouldn’t mind getting a little myself.”
For a second, she wasn’t sure if he was talking about revenge or sex.
His eyes came back to her and focused in. “I just need a partner to help me out.”
Revenge, she decided. But he probably wouldn’t turn down sex. He was still a guy, after all.
She was almost willing to help him out with the former, but the latter was out of the question.
Maybe he should run a personals ad, she thought as she sipped on her drink.
###
Sol parked beside Georgia’s tin can. What was she doing at The Lariat?
She might be a native of Hero Creek, but she hadn’t lived there for a long time. The regulars might well see her as fresh meat. She’d be a lone gazelle on a plain full of lions.
He spotted her as soon as he walked in. Sitting right at the bar as though she was looking to get picked up by some local yokel. He’d fix that.
His cock stiffened as though volunteering for the job. Down, Obie.
As he came up behind her, he saw she had some creamy, chick drink on ice in front of her. He propped one cowboy boot on the bar’s brass foot rail, braced a forearm on the bar, and leaned on it. Without greeting her, he picked up her glass between forefinger and thumb and took a sip. “Whoa!” He ran his tongue across his lips, sucking a stray drop from the fine hairs of his mustache. “Tasty way to drink whiskey.” Not quite the chick drink he’d expected.
She didn’t look surprised to see him. “That’s not whiskey. It’s Baileys Irish Cream.”
“Honey, I know whiskey when I taste it.” How could she not know she’d been drinking whiskey? “You put it in a milkshake, it’s still whiskey.” Sol studied her, evaluating. Georgia had never been a big drinker. She didn’t look drunk now except for the sheen in her eyes, as if they weren’t focusing quite as well as they should. “How many of these have you had?”
“A few.”
His erection got stiffer. Opportunistic Bastard. If he let her drink a few more, she’d be easy to get into bed. “Okay, it’s not whiskey,” he said, happy to humor her. “Let me buy you another.”
“It’s not whiskey. It’s a liqueur.”
“I ain’t arguing with you.” He gestured to the bartender. “Tommy, get the lady another. On me. And get me a barley pop.”
Tommy brought a Lone Star with Georgia’s Baileys. “When did you start drinking those?” Sol asked as he watched her take a sip.
“About a year. A guy I dated introduced me to it.”
A guy she dated? Fuck. “Pretty pansy drink for a guy.”
Georgia’s eyes narrowed. “You think so?”
Sol took a swallow of his beer. “Yeah, I think so.”
Her foot slipped as she tried to stand on the brass foot rail, but she got it repositioned and leaned over the bar. “Tommy! C’mere.”
Tommy responded quickly, and Sol wondered if Tommy had been trying to make time with her before he’d walked in.
“I want two shot glasses, Tommy. Half Baileys, half Jameson’s Irish Whiskey.”
Sol’s eyebrow twitched as Tommy turned to make the drinks. “Shooters?”
She looked disdainfully at him. “Of course. You don’t sip out of a shot glass.”
“This concoction got a name?”
“A shillelagh.”
When Tommy put the shot glasses in front of them, Georgia threw hers down in one quick motion. Sol felt a smile trying to pull at his lips as he calculated how many it would take to get her loose enough to go home with him.
She looked up at him. Her beautiful baby blues sloe-eyed. Still glazy. “Come on, tough guy. You’re not afraid of little pansy drink, are you?”
“Nothing in a shot glass is a pansy drink,” Sol said, and he picked his up and threw it back. He licked his lips then rolled his lower lip up over the edge of his mustache as he peered into the empty glass. The sweet of the Bailey’s on the flat of his tongue and the whiskey burn on the edges made an interesting combination.
“Not bad.” He pushed his cowboy hat back on his head. “Tommy, set up a couple more.”
When the drinks were in front of them, Georgia reached for her glass, but Sol put his hand on her wrist. He held his drink up and waited for her to raise hers. “To women and horses . . . And the men that ride them.” Then he threw the drink down his throat.
Chapter Six
When his empty hit the bar, she was still holding her full glass, glaring at him through slit eyes.
“Too pansy for you?” he asked with a smirk.
“Too misogynistic,” she said then drank.
Damn, I hate when she uses them two-dollar words.
He walked over to the jukebox and fed in a couple of dollars. Did she still like Garth Brooks? He punched in several numbers. The Dance started as he walked back to bar.
Georgia held on to the bar and leaned back, swaying to the slow strains of the song with her eyes closed.
“Careful, honey.” Sol put a hand against her back in case she lost her grip.
“I love this song.”
“I know.”
“Dance with me?”
He fought to keep the surprise off his face. How many did she have before I got here? “Sure.”
He led her to the open space by the jukebox and opened his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned against him. He didn’t even try to lead; all he really wanted to do anyway was hold her.
They didn’t get through the first chorus before he knew this was a bad idea. At this close proximity, he wasn’t going to be able to hide his body’s response to her. But even though she couldn’t possibly miss his erection pressed up against her, she didn’t pull back. She was, in fact, rubbing against it every time they swayed back and forth, making it worse by the minute.
; He dropped a hand to cup her ass and pull her closer. She didn’t protest and, for the first time, he thought he really might have a shot at getting her to go home with him.
Don’t be stupid, he told himself. But she felt so right in his arms, the way no other woman ever had. And he was sick of missing her.
“Sol.”
“Yes, honey?”
“Sol.”
“What, baby?”
“Sol.”
He pulled back to look at her. She looked green around the gills.
“I think I’m going to puke.”
He grabbed her wrist and dragged her toward the ladies’ room, shoving her through the door when they got there.
So much for taking her home.
He leaned against the wall next to the door to wait.
Several minutes passed. He knew she hadn’t passed out because he could hear faint retching noises.
“Hey, Sol,” Missy said as she passed him on her way into the ladies’ room.
“Hey, Missy.”
Nearly five minutes later, the door opened again. Missy had Georgia by the arm.
“This what you’re waiting for?”
Georgia jerked her arm out of Missy’s grasp. The movement spun her around. Sol grabbed her, hands on her hips, stabilizing her.
“Yup.”
Missy gave him a sympathetic look. “See ya ‘round.”
He nodded and pulled back to look closer at Georgia. She was the kind of pale he’d seen in people who’d just upchucked their socks.
“It’s time you go home,” Sol said.
“I don’t want to.”
“Well, you’re done drinking for tonight.”
She started to step around him but misjudged and tripped over the toe of his boot, falling into him instead. He caught her in his arms. Yup. I shoulda figured.
The few times he’d seen her drunk, it had always ended like this, with the liquor smashing into her as suddenly as a runaway train. He held her in one arm as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. She didn’t struggle to right herself.
“Yup.” Zach answered on the second ring.
“It’s Sol. I’m at The Lariat. Georgia’s here but she ain’t fit to drive herself home. Come get me at her folks’, will you?”
“I’ll be there.” Zach hung up without a good-bye.
“C’mon, honey. Let’s go pour you into your car.”
“I don’t wanna go home.”
“Then where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere but there.”
Was it that bad?
“Take me home with you,” she said as though she’d been struck with the inspiration, and his cock got hard again.
“Sweet Jesus,” he swore softly. If she were just a little less drunk.
Of course, if she were a little less drunk, she wouldn’t think it was such a great idea.
As Sol buckled her in to the passenger seat of her car, he reflected that this was the story of his life.
###
Sol walked Georgia to her parents’ door, making sure she didn’t stumble on the way, then sat on the steps to wait for Zach. The worst of the heat had dissipated with the fall of night, allowing him to relax as he gazed up at the star-strewn sky. The Big Dipper, the North Star, and Orion’s Belt were the only stars he knew well enough to pick out, but that didn’t matter. Looking for patterns in the sky was too much of a distraction anyway. He just liked the way it all shimmered, so cold and distant. All silent and peaceful.
How could Georgia stand living in the city where it took a power outage to see stars like this? He did some of his best thinking staring up at stars, letting them put his troubles in perspective.
And Georgia was trouble for him. She had been since the day she’d left.
Over the years, he’d tried to move on any number of times, but it never worked. It seemed he was like a goose. Mated for life.
Georgia, unfortunately, was not a goose.
Over the years, he’d done some pretty shitty things to make sure she stayed single. Things he should regret, but he couldn’t find an ounce of sincerity for it. As far as he was concerned, Georgia was his, and she had been since their first kiss.
He could get her into bed; he’d done it before. It was only a first step, but if she stayed the whole summer, he’d have time to work on the rest of the plan. Getting her back in his life. For good this time.
Now if he could only figure out how to do that. He was pretty sure whatever strategy he came up with would involve curbing his idiot streak.
A pickup slowed near the road and turned into the ranch yard in front of the house. Sol dusted off the seat of his jeans and walked to the idling truck.
“So Georgia got drunk,” Zach said in lieu of a greeting as Sol settled in. “Was that your fault?”
“Nope. Not this time,” Sol said as they pulled back out onto the road. “Taking care of her parents has her stressed.”
“Huh. I’m not surprised. Her daddy’s not too bad, but her mom’s kinda snooty. She’s always made me feel like us McKnights are a wad of gum stuck to her shoe.”
“That’s just ‘coz you’re related to me. She’s probably not like that with other folks.”
Zach shot him a skeptical look. After a few moments of silence, he asked, “So how long you gonna keep riding?”
Sol shot him a long look, wondering what had prompted his brother’s question. “I don’t know. This season’s kinda screwed, but there’s always next year.”
“Huh.”
“Why? You think I’m too broke down for another season?”
“No, I don’t think that. I’ve just been thinkin’ about our stock business. I could use some help.”
Zach needed help with the breeding program like Sol needed another hole in his head. No matter how Zach phrased it, it would be a pity job. Something to make him feel useful on the ranch. Not that what he did when he wasn’t off riding wasn’t useful, but any of his brothers could do it just as well. He’d have to accept being just another interchangeable cog in that wheel soon enough, but he wasn’t interested in rushing it.
“You do just fine without me,” he said as they turned onto the road that would take them back to his rig, glad that the trip was too short for his brother to make a concentrated attack.
###
Georgia woke up in the clothes she’d worn the night before with a headache pounding against her temples and a mouth tasting as sour as moldy limes. She wobbled down the hallway to the bathroom, found her toothbrush, pumped too much toothpaste on it, and started brushing her teeth. She cringed when she looked in the mirror. Her hair looked like an abandoned rat’s nest.
Bits of the previous night started coming back to her. Had Sol been there? She stopped brushing, the red handle of her toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, to stare into the mirror. Aw, hell. She’d danced with him. And she’d . . . Had she really rubbed up against him like a cat in heat? She was pretty sure she had. She could damn near still feel his erection.
A knock sounded on the door. “Hey, Georgia,” her daddy said through the thin panel. “You gonna fix breakfast?”
She took the toothbrush out of her mouth and tried to answer without spraying foam everywhere. “In a minute, Daddy.”
“We want eggs. Over easy. Toast. Ham. Maybe some strawberry jam.”
Like she couldn’t remember from one day to the next. The only thing that ever changed was the jam. “Yes, Daddy. I’ll be done in a minute.”
Adversity builds character. She told Eden that sometimes when things didn’t go the way her daughter wanted them to. At this rate, Georgia was going to have so much character, no one would be able to stand her.
###
Sunday morning, on the way back from church with her parents, Georgia’s car lost power three miles from home. After coasting to the side of road, she called her sister.
“I’m in the middle of fixing Sunday dinner,” Bethany complained.
Georgia walked away from the car, not
wanting her parents to hear them arguing. “We only need a ride home, Bethany. Mama can’t walk twenty feet without getting her feet tangled. There’s no way she’ll make it home. It’s not like I’m asking you to carry her on your back. Send Carl if you’re too busy, but we need a ride.”
“Why don’t you walk home and get their car?” Bethany suggested.
Through gritted teeth, Georgia said, “Get your ass in your car and come get us. Now!”
Bethany’s husband showed up ten minutes later. Georgia’s daddy smiled when he saw Carl. Her parents liked their son-in-law almost as much as they detested Sol.
Georgia didn’t understand it. Because of Carl, Bethany hadn’t gone to college. She hadn’t done anything but become a farmer’s wife, but for some unfathomable reason, their parents didn’t hold that against Carl the way they had when Sol had wanted to turn her into a house frau.
Georgia couldn’t help resenting it.
She refused to ask Carl to look at her car, and he didn’t offer. It still took her another hour to work up to calling Sol.
When she finally did, she was relieved he said only that he’d be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. She hadn’t really expected him to bitch about the car. When the chips were down and she really needed him, he was always there. And he left his bad attitude at home. It was only when she asked him to stand back and not get involved that he griped at her.
When he pulled into the farmyard, Georgia’s father said, “You called Sol? Why don’t you have him bring your car here? I’ll fix it for you.”
“It’s okay, Daddy. You’ve got enough to do. Sol can help me with this.” She grabbed the car keys and ran out to Sol’s truck before her father could argue with her.
Sol didn’t greet her when she slammed the passenger door after her. When they pulled onto the road, she said, “Thanks for helping me.”
“Ain’t no big deal. I should be thanking you for calling before your daddy works on it.”
“I know. And I’m sorry about that,” she said, remembering the last time she’d had mechanical problems at her parents’ house.
She watched him hook a chain to the undercarriage behind her front bumper then she got in her car to steer and brake as he towed her to the McKnight ranch. The set-up was illegal as hell, but everybody did it. They’d be fine as long as they stuck to back roads.
