by Quint, Suzie
“Honey, I think we swapped enough spit last night that it won’t hurt me to find yours on my toothbrush.”
It felt as if there should be a flaw in his logic, but she couldn’t find it. A toothbrush was so . . . so personal.
“Besides, after where you just had your mouth, you can have anything of mine you want. And if you want something that’s not mine, I’ll steal it for you.”
She smiled at his willingness to commit felonies on her behalf, swallowed her reluctance, and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth.
A minute later, he followed her. Naked. He lifted the toilet seat and relieved himself. God, it feels like we’re still married. Then he stepped up behind her, folded his arms around her, under her breasts, and hunkered down to rest his chin on her shoulder. Their eyes met in the mirror as she brushed her teeth. She had another Twilight Zone moment of déjà vu. Georgia glanced down, half expecting to see a wedding ring on her finger. When she looked back up and caught the contented, bemused look in Sol’s eye, she was almost sorry it wasn’t there.
She leaned over, spat in the sink, then filled the plastic cup and rinsed her mouth. Sol’s hand caught hers as she started to put the toothbrush back in its bracket. He lifted it from her hand and reached for the toothpaste.
It was too much for Georgia. She ducked under his arm and fled, leaving him on his own.
She needed coffee.
It had been years since she’d been inside Sol’s trailer, and she’d been too distracted the night before to notice any differences. The old, broken-down couch Georgia remembered had been replaced with an ugly, green-plaid hide-a-bed, but not much else had changed. To Georgia’s disgust, Sol still had the same old aluminum percolator in the kitchen. It made terrible coffee. She wavered but it was that or nothing.
She filled it with water, added grounds to the discolored aluminum basket, and plugged it in. There was no cream or even creamer. Sol probably still drank milk straight from the carton, but since she’d just used his toothbrush, she couldn’t justify getting squeamish over the milk. And she’d need it to mask how horrible the coffee was.
When he joined her in the kitchen wearing a pair of jeans, she felt underdressed in only his blue work shirt and panties. She tugged on the edge of the shirt, making sure it covered her butt.
Humming softly, Sol fit two slices of bread into the toaster. “Do you want breakfast? I’ve got eggs.”
She knew him well enough to know that if she didn’t eat breakfast with him, he’d take her home and never get back around to breakfast. He worked too hard to skip meals. The responsibility descended on her, bringing with it all the others she’d managed to forget for a few hours. They felt like an anvil pressing down on her chest. She opened the fridge and reached for the egg carton. “Have you got any bacon or sausage to go with it?” When she turned away from the fridge, he was there. She felt crowded, but he just took the eggs from her.
“You sit down. I’ll cook.”
The anvil lightened a little.
She sat down and watched as he pulled out a couple of skillets. He was humming again. It only took four notes to name that tune: Georgia on My Mind. Once upon a time, back in the dark ages of their brief marriage, Sol had sung it to her often.
Last night had been an interlude, she reminded herself. They had no future together. So why did the sound of Sol’s near-baritone humming make her feel homesick?
The toast popped up. Sol buttered both slices, took a bite of one, and gave her the other on a saucer. “Let me know if that don’t tide you over.”
When the coffee was done, she poured them both a cup. Mr. Cast-Iron Stomach took his black. She thinned hers with a generous slug of milk.
As she turned away from the counter, cup in hand, Sol sidestepped in front of her. His hand caught her waist as his mouth lowered to hers. The kiss was soft and wet with lots of tongue.
Georgia’s knees went weak, and all the sore places in her body tingled. He lifted his head and smiled down at her. She couldn’t help smiling back. She reached up and brushed a crumb from his mustache. He stepped out of her way to tend to breakfast.
She sat down at the Formica table and took a sip of the coffee. Yup. Just as bad as she remembered. She smiled anyway and checked out the way Sol’s jeans hugged his ass.
###
Sol set her plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. Georgia had lifted one foot to rest it on the seat of her chair. She’d always had trouble sitting with both feet on the floor. As he sat down with his own plate, Sol dipped his head and caught a flash of the crotch of her lavender lace panties. He couldn’t help wanting to spread her legs and have her for breakfast, but she caught him looking and dropped her foot to the floor, blushing.
Halfway through breakfast, there was a knock on his door. They looked at each other like they’d been busted in the middle of a class-A felony.
“Stay there,” Sol said as he went to answer the door.
He opened it to a rush of heat. Damn, it had to be ninety degrees already. Gideon stood on his front step.
“Hey, Sol. You ain’t answering your phone.”
“What do you mean? It hasn’t rung.” The light bulb in his head was obviously on a delayed switch as he realized a moment later what the problem was. “Oh, sorry. I musta let the battery die.”
“I figured. Daddy sent me up to see if you overslept.”
Damn. He was supposed to be moving the new bull into the north pasture.
Sol stepped out and shut the door behind himself, forcing Gideon back to give him room.
“Tell Daddy I’ll be up to help him before lunch.”
Gideon’s eyes flickered to Sol’s bare chest then down to his equally bare feet. “You got a reason you want me to pass on?”
“Uh, sure. Tell him my knee’s bothering me.” His knee did sometimes. Usually when it was going to rain.
Gideon stuck his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans and looked up at the sky as though scanning for clouds. “You, uh, want me to lie to him?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. I mean . . . uh . . .”
“What’s up, Sol?”
Sol stepped down onto the packed, bare earth. With one hand on Gideon’s shoulder, he turned his brother away from the door. “Georgia’s inside.”
One of Gideon’s eyebrows shot up. “You trying to get back with her?”
“No. Well, may— Hell, I don’t know. It hasn’t come up.”
“It will,” Gideon said in that assured way he had.
Sol loved his brother, but there were times when Gideon gave him the creeps. The weak flicker of hope in his heart overrode that, though, and made him ask, “Will she say yes?”
Gideon shrugged but there was a hitch in the motion that made Sol ask, “What?”
Gideon looked at him as though weighing what he should say.
“What?” Sol asked, his tone harsh.
“She’s going to get married again.”
Sol’s throat closed up on him, and there was a pain in his chest. His normal skepticism fled. This was what he dreaded. In those rare moments when denial took a vacation, he’d always expected it. He still worked his ass off to keep it at bay.
“When?” he croaked.
“Ow.”
Sol looked down to find his hand wrapped around his brother’s biceps, his fingers digging deep. He forced himself to let go.
“When?”
Gideon rubbed his arm. His brow furrowed as though he was trying to puzzle something out. After a few moments, he said, “Less than a year.”
Too soon. Then he thought, This is nuts. I don’t really believe this, do I? But he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Who is he?”
Gideon shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s not settled yet.”
“That makes no sense at all. How can she be planning to get married without knowing who she’s marrying?”
“See?” Gideon pointed a finger at Sol. “This is why I don’t say nothing about stuff. Y’all don’t hear
what I say. Oh, y’all think you do but you don’t. So go on back in there and tell yourself I’m jerking you around ‘coz you didn’t show up to help Daddy this morning, but for the record, I didn’t say she was planning on doing it. I said she was gonna do it. Hell, Sol, she wasn’t planning to marry you for more than a few days before y’all lit out for Vegas.” Having said his piece, Gideon turned back to his truck. “I’ll tell Daddy to expect you when he sees you.”
“You do that.” Sol turned back toward the trailer. What had he been thinking? Of course Gideon was jerking him around, and then he’d got his nose all out of joint when Sol didn’t buy what he said. Georgia wasn’t getting married again. At least not anytime soon. Not if Sol had anything to say about it.
He let himself back inside.
“I’ll be home soon,” Georgia said into her cell phone as Sol shut the door. He could hear the tension back in her voice. Damn.
She was standing at the kitchen counter, her back toward him. Her long, bare legs hanging out under the hem of his shirt. And just like that, he wanted her again. She turned and saw him. “I’ve got to go, Daddy.”
But her father must have kept talking because she didn’t hang up. Sol picked up his cup and poured a refill. With the pot in his hand, he looked inquiringly at Georgia, but she shook her head and sat back down at the table, one leg cocked so her foot rested on the seat. Sol leaned against the counter and sipped his coffee, appreciating the view.
###
Georgia listened to her daddy complain about having to fix his own breakfast and knew her interlude was over. “Daddy, I’ll fix breakfast as soon as I get home.”
She ignored the look Sol shot at her. The one that said, Stop babying them. But she had to atone for making her mama cry. Not to mention the chore cleaning the kitchen was bound to be if her father so much as tried to make toast. “I’ll be home soon. Just wait for me.”
She flipped the phone closed and looked at Sol. “Daddy’s going to freak when you drop me off.”
Sol’s gaze slid guiltily away from hers as though it were his fault her parents didn’t like him.
“It doesn’t matter,” Georgia said. “My life can’t get much worse than it already is.”
He still didn’t meet her eyes. “You don’t need me to drive you home. Your car’s ready.”
“What?” She couldn’t keep the razor edge out of her voice. He didn’t answer right away, but she didn’t wait long. “When did you finish it?”
When he met her gaze dead-on, she thought, He’s going to try to brazen through with a lie.
“I was finishing up when you called last night.”
“Really?” Why did he have to do this? Why ruin the wonderful night they’d had by making her wonder if she’d paid for the work he’d done on her car with her body? “Where’s the receipt for the parts?”
He shrugged. “You don’t gotta pay me for it. It’s only an alternator.”
“Where’s the receipt?” Georgia repeated, her tone stern.
“Up at the ranch. In the shop.”
“Good. Then you can give it to me when we get my car.” And she could check the date. She headed into the bedroom for her clothes.
He followed her but he was smart enough not to try to touch her as they dressed. On the short drive to his parents’ place, she sat on her own side of the bench seat well away from him.
The smell of dirt and grease mingled with that of old feathers from the chicken coop next to the shop. On one wall, assorted belts and pulleys and other tools hung from hooks on a large pegboard. Catchall wooden shelves held a menagerie of supplies and equipment that included things like a motorcycle battery, cans of spray paint, copper tubing, spools of soldering wire, replacement headlights, and multiple cans of WD-40. In one corner, a heavy engine puller rested. Gideon’s portable welder occupied one stall. Beside it, in the other stall, was her car, not only drivable, but washed, waxed, and probably gassed up.
It was a nice gesture, and she fiercely hoped the receipt backed Sol’s story, even though it would make her feel like a bitch for suspecting him. But she was too used to him trying to control everything to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Where’s the receipt?” she asked, keeping her tone cool.
Sol made a show of looking on the workbench and in the trash barrel, but he didn’t find it. “Gideon must have cleaned up after I left.”
“Sure he did.” She let her voice convey her disbelief. The keys were in the ignition, so Georgia slid in and started it.
Sol laid his hand on the bottom of the open window frame. His brows were drawn together over his scowl. “Why are you so determined to believe I’m lying?”
“Because you always do this, Sol. It’s all about what you want. If you can’t talk me into seeing it your way, you manipulate me or try to trick me. I—”
He cut her off. “I didn’t trick you into spending the night with me. I gave you every opportunity to say no. You’re the one who said, ‘Come get me, Sol.’ It was you that said, ‘Take me home with you, Sol.’“ His eyes blazed and his jaw had that stubborn set she knew so well.
“And if I’d had my car, I wouldn’t have needed to call you.”
“Yeah, you never did need me,” he said in a churlish voice.
Georgia didn’t like his tone. She shoved open the car door, forcing him back as she got out to face him toe to toe. “No, I didn’t. Idiot that I was, I wanted you. Idiot that I was, I fell in love with you. But that wasn’t enough for you. Because you never loved me. If you had, you wouldn’t have tried to turn me into a clone of your mama.”
His eyes blazed even hotter. “I did so love you. And there ain’t nothing wrong with my mama!”
“I didn’t say there was. But I’m not her. I don’t want thirteen children. I don’t want to suffocate out here on the ranch, living in your shadow.”
“Living in my shadow? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you walking out every morning and going to work on the ranch or off to ride in a rodeo and me sitting in that damned trailer with no one to talk to and nothing to do but think about what to make for supper and raising a bunch of snot-nosed kids.”
“Yeah, so instead of having kids with me, you went off to babysit a bunch of other peoples’ kids.”
“Sol, I teach third grade.”
“The way city folks raise their kids, it’s the same thing.”
She poked him in the chest, punctuating her anger. “A hell of a lot you know. What you know about raising a kid you could fit on the head of that pin with all those dancing angels. You can’t even make simple decisions where Eden’s concerned.”
She’d finally gone too far. Georgia could see it in the way all expression washed off his face and the momentary flash of hurt in his eyes before he shuttered them. She tried holding on to her anger, but she felt as though she’d stabbed him through the chest. There’d been times in their long, battered relationship when she had thought wounding him would feel good. It didn’t. But she couldn’t catch back the words and unsay them.
His voice was soft and filled with pain. “Christ, Georgia, I’d’ve learned. I’d’ve been a good daddy.”
Her knife might have been in his heart, but it twisted in hers. “You are a good daddy, Sol,” she said softly. It wasn’t a big lie; Eden adored him. There was just so much more to being a parent than he knew.
He looked away, but it was too late; she’d already seen the pain.
“You’d better get on home. Your daddy’s waiting for his breakfast.”
There was nothing she could do that wouldn’t result in more harsh words, so she got in the car and left.
Chapter Eleven
“Dammit all to hell!” Sol yelled as the barbed wire slipped from the notch in the claw hammer. As the wire sprang back toward him, Zach yelped and jumped back, not quite fast enough. A barb tore through the sleeve of his shirt and the skin underneath. He clutched his arm and cursed.
Sol whacked
the wooden fence post then threw the hammer down in disgust. The breeze blew away the plume of soft dirt the hammer stirred up when it hit a gopher mound. He pulled off his heavy leather work gloves, threw them after the hammer, and went to look at Zach’s arm.
“It ain’t that bad.” His brother pushed him away. “Just stings like hell.” Zach glared at Sol. “Christ, who put the burr under your saddle?”
“Nobody. And there ain’t no burr under my saddle.” And Georgia was not getting married again.
“The hell there ain’t,” Zach muttered as he reached for the coil of wire to untangle it.
“There ain’t,” Sol said firmly, like a little kid playing did so–did not.
Zach threw the loose coil of tangled wire away from him. “Then what the hell is your problem? You been acting like a scalded cat all morning. I’d rather run wire with Daisy than you.”
“Then maybe I should go get her!”
“Maybe you should. She’s less likely to scar me.”
They stood on the east edge of the new pastureland, squared off like they were about to go at it.
Sol was ready. At that moment, he hated Zach for having a good woman to go home to every night. Hitting someone, feeling the crunch of bone under his fist, would feel so good. They hadn’t scuffled since they were teenagers, but the way his brother was glaring with his fists clenched at his sides, Zach was ready to give back anything Sol wanted to throw at him.
They glowered at each other for a while before Sol decided that fighting would only prove Zach was right about that burr. He unclenched his fists and let his shoulders drop. “You stretch the wire for a while.”
###
The speech therapist was wonderful with Georgia’s mother. Always encouraging and upbeat and lavish with her praise for her mother’s efforts. The sessions wore her mother out, but they also put her in a good mood—well, a better mood—and kept her hopeful. Or at least as hopeful as a glass-half-empty person could be under the circumstances.
Weekends were a different story. Her mother couldn’t seem to understand that Georgia wasn’t trained for that kind of work. Who would have thought a group of eight-year-olds was easier to cope with than one fifty-eight-year-old woman? But then, it was always easier to deal with a situation you weren’t too close to. Georgia had too much baggage with her mama, and too often, they pushed each other’s buttons, even when they didn’t mean to. She didn’t know what she would have done if Grams weren’t there to cushion the two of them.
