by Erin Wright
Georgia shrugged again. “I realized a long time ago that if I’m gonna let that sort of thing get under my skin, I’d be crazy within the month. I just keep my head down and work hard and let them think whatever they want to think. The head of Goldfork Credit Union over in Franklin – he likes me and he knows that a lot of the complaints I get stem from my gender. I’m lucky to have a decent boss.”
And with that, she let out a jaw-cracking yawn, looking across the booth at him with a bleary-eyed gaze. The food and coffee had given her a little bit of a pick-me-up, but there was nothing she needed now more than sleep.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Moose said, sliding out of the booth and waving Chloe down. He paid for breakfast, swallowing hard at the unexpected hit to his budget, and then guided a swaying Georgia out the front door.
Just by her elbow. Like a proper gentleman would.
“I feel like I hit a brick wall,” she mumbled. “I was fine, and then…” She waved her hand in the air. “Now I’s tired.”
Moose let loose with a belly laugh at that. Georgia wasn’t exactly an English schoolmarm, but her grasp of the English language tended to be pretty good overall. He was willing to bet next month’s paycheck that she’d never said the word “I’s” before.
He helped her into the passenger seat and then hurried over to the driver’s side. He’d told her that he’d drive her out to her car after they ate breakfast, but looking at her doing the jelly-necked bob, he didn’t trust her to drive at this point. All she’d need to do is crash her car while trying to drive it home. That’d just make this week complete.
“What’s your apartment number?” he asked, heading towards the Golden Ridge Condos. He knew she lived in there somewhere, but couldn’t remember which condo exactly.
“Eleven,” she mumbled, curling up against the passenger side door. He could only hope that she actually heard and understood the question and was telling him her condo number, and not telling him how many times she’d read Harry Potter in high school. She always had her nose buried in one of those books, it seemed.
Or she could be telling him how many times she got into a fight with her parents in the 10th grade. Or how many times it took her to learn how to spell Mississippi. Or how many times she’d made love to Levi.
His smile instantly dropped from his face and he felt a little sick. Not at the idea of Georgia and Levi having sex – although undoubtedly the number was much higher than eleven, and no, that thought didn’t exactly bring him joy – but because Levi was still in love with her.
Levi wouldn’t cop to it; he might not even truly believe it. But if Levi knew how much Moose enjoyed being with Georgia; how much he loved her…
Moose shoved the thought away with all his might. He didn’t love Georgia. He couldn’t. For the 98,281st time, he was marrying Tennessee. He had no choice in the matter. Georgia wasn’t an option now, or later, or ever.
End of story.
He pulled up in front of her condo and then riffled through her backpack sitting in the bed of the truck, finally pulling her keys out triumphantly. He’d been taught to never go through a woman’s things without her permission, but since Georgia was currently snoring up a storm, he figured he could be forgiven this one time. He zipped the backpack closed and slung it onto his back.
He opened up the passenger side door carefully, catching Georgia’s limp body as she began to fall out, and slid her into his arms. She was short and petite, but that shouldn’t fool a person; she was all muscle. She weighed more than she looked like she should, but after hefting tractor tires and parts around for years…hell, she was barely bigger than a mite.
He juggled the keys and her, finally getting the front door open and her inside. She snored a little and then nestled closer to him, completely oblivious to the world around her…
And completely oblivious to what she was doing to him.
He began hurrying through the house, pushing doors open with the toe of his boot as he went, wanting to put her down before he made a complete jackass out of himself. Despite the fact that she was dirtier than a hobo on a three-week bender, despite the fact that she was out for the count, it was still Georgia.
And holding her in his arms like this was the purest, most amazing form of torture he’d ever lived through.
Finally, after discovering her office, her library, and a guest bedroom, he found her room – large and cheerful, a four-poster bed sat in the middle with a small overstuffed chair in the corner by the window. A stack of books sat on the small end table next to the chair, and more were piled on both nightstands on either side of the king bed. His eyes skittered over the spines, unconsciously searching for Harry Potter titles, and then he stopped himself. He’d already broken into Georgia’s apartment after riffling through her backpack without permission. He was not going to go pawing through her books next out of curiosity.
He gently laid her down on top of what appeared to be a handmade quilt and then studied her soot- and ash-covered body. He could take her clothes off – it’d have to be more comfortable than sleeping in those dirt-encrusted things – but he instinctively knew that Georgia would rather not sleep well than have him strip her naked.
Not to mention that he really wasn’t sure if his self-control could take it.
So he settled on removing her beat-up tennis shoes and then pulling a lap blanket from the end of the bed and draping it over her.
Quietly backing out of the room, he dropped her keys and backpack next to the entryway stand and headed out the front door.
It was time to go home, take a shower, and then he was off to work. Unlike Georgia, he didn’t get to take a day off, and anyway, he didn’t need one. He’d slept better last night with her in his arms than he had—
He stopped himself right there. Their little break from the world, where the rules didn’t matter and he could look at her with the longing that he felt…it was gone. Done. Behind him, disappearing in the rearview mirror. They’d rejoined society, and he needed to come to grips with that.
Chapter 12
Georgia
She came awake slowly, stretching luxuriously and then stopping with a jerk halfway through the stretch. Hold on, what smelled so bad? Her eyes popped open and she took a tentative sniff of her armpit.
Oh Lord above, I stink!
She rolled out of bed and headed straight for the shower. She didn’t even look at herself in the mirror as she went, because she didn’t want to see what disaster was lurking in it. If she didn’t look, then it wasn’t real, and she didn’t have to face the fact that she’d sat in a booth down at Betty’s Diner, in public, looking like she’d just wandered in off the streets after surviving for years in the wilderness without running water or electricity.
No siree bob, she did not want to know what she looked like, thankyouverymuch.
She let the hot water pound down on her until she felt a little more like herself, scrubbing away at the dirt, watching it swirl down the drain. It was strangely satisfying to watch the dirt disappear and she was smiling to herself when it hit her all over again.
She sank to her knees at the base of the shower, panic and terror shooting through her, sobbing as the realization washed over her of just how close she’d come to dying in that damn fire. She let a cascade of tears wash down the drain along with the suds and the ash and the dirt.
She’d never, ever thought something like that could happen to her. With just the slightest change in the wind direction, Moose would’ve found a charred corpse instead of her and Sparky.
She was shaking uncontrollably at the thought.
I wanna call my mom…
It was amazing, in a way, how she could be 26 years old, but when it all boiled down to the basics, she still wanted her mother when things went sideways. There was something about a mom that just couldn’t be found elsewhere. Not in Tripp, not in Tenny, certainly not in her aunt or uncle, not even in Moose.
Not that she’d call Moose. The little interlude, where she
got to pretend for a minute that it was she and Moose against the world, and it was okay for her to like how his eyes wrinkled in the corners when he laughed, and how his shoulders rippled with muscles when he did the simplest of tasks, and…
All of that was done now. Even though she now knew that Tennessee didn’t actually want to marry him, that didn’t change a damn thing. Her cousin wasn’t willing to stand up to her parents and tell them no, and Georgia couldn’t exactly do it for her. This was between Tenny and Moose (well, and her aunt and uncle and Moose’s parents) and they all got to decide what to do and how to do it. Georgia had no say in it, and never would.
The two sets of parents would never be okay with Georgia marrying Moose. She was the daughter of the poor Rowland brother; the one who’d inherited nothing at all. It was okay for Georgia to date and even marry Levi. It was okay for Georgia to run the credit union. It was okay for Georgia to care about who she married, and make the choice for herself…
As long as that choice wasn’t Moose. That wasn’t okay in any universe, alternate or otherwise.
Finally, all wrung out and cleaned up, she turned off the now-lukewarm water and toweled herself off, pushing herself up from the floor of the tub to stand on unsteady legs. Her desire to call her mom hadn’t diminished one bit, but her mother worked as a lunch lady and playground monitor during the school year to bring in a little extra cash, so she’d still be at the school, and Georgia wasn’t about to show up at the elementary school to sob into her mother’s hairnet.
And anyway, she was pretty well trapped at home. Moose had driven her back here instead of out to her car, which meant she had to convince someone to take her out there to retrieve her car. She enjoyed a good marathon as much as the next person, but she didn’t exactly feel up to a 20-miler today.
She took a quick look at her clock on her bathroom wall. Three o’clock in the afternoon?! She hadn’t realized it was so late, but not late enough, dammit. The bank wouldn’t close for another two and a half hours. She could wait for Tripp to get off and have him take her, but she was antsy, the desire to just do something roiling around in her.
After she got dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt, she looked around her spotless house, trying to find a project to occupy her time. She rinsed out the bowl and spoon in the sink from breakfast the day before, and put away the basket of laundry waiting in her laundry room.
And…she was now officially out of things to do. She looked at the clock again. Twenty-one minutes had passed.
She closed her eyes and groaned. Normally, she’d curl up with a book and while away the afternoon with Tessa Dare’s latest, but the thought just held no appeal today. She felt electricity shooting through her, an unsettled desire to do, to be, to move, keeping her from settling down.
She ignored the obvious thought pushing at the edges of her mind – that this was a sexual energy humming through her from being around Moose for two days straight – and decided instead to go for a walk. In fact, she could walk on down to the fire station which was only on the other side of town, and see if anyone there could drive her out to pick up her car.
Nobody in particular, of course, just…somebody.
Plus, then she could check up on Sparky. Maybe Troy needed help with her. Not that Troy would ask for help if his hair was on fire, but she could go check it out for herself just to make sure.
She curled her hair and put on some makeup before deciding to change out of her yoga pants and t-shirt. She shuffled through her closet, picking out one of her favorite blouses that did its best to emphasize her not-so-generous curves and a pair of tight jeans that showed off her best asset – her ass. She studied herself in the mirror, deciding that she looked good enough.
Of course you look good enough. You’re just going to go pick up your car. You don’t need to get dolled up to drive a car.
She pushed the thought away. After wandering through town looking like a runaway who hadn’t seen the inside of a shower in months, it was only right for her to look nicer now. She had an image to uphold as the credit union manager, after all.
Nothing more than that.
She slung her purse over her shoulder, grabbed her keys from the entryway table where Moose had thoughtfully left them, and headed out. She walked the two blocks up to Main Street and then took a left, heading towards Boise…that is, if she kept walking for another week. Which she obviously wasn’t going to do.
As she passed the Muffin Man Bakery, her stride slowed a little as she took in the carnage. From what she’d heard around town, Gage was still working on collecting the insurance money on it so he could start to rebuild.
Insurance companies…they were quick to collect their money, and slow to pay it out. If they didn’t get a move on it soon, he should probably hire a lawyer to push them along. It’d been a month today since the fire had started; that was more than enough time for an insurance company to cut a check.
Seeing the soot-blackened walls and front windows sent a shiver down her spine in the bright sunshiny day. Sugar and Gage almost died in this fire; Georgia almost died in the wildfire. What was up with Sawyerites and fires lately? She let out a light laugh to herself. It made for a more exciting world than Sawyer usually occupied, that was for damn sure.
And then the laughter was gone and she was back in it again. She felt panic well up inside of her as flashbacks from yesterday’s horror washed over her. Pinned between Sparky and the cliff wall, trying not to breathe in too deep, listening to the crackle and pop of the fire as it raged up the hill, just sure it would take her out too…
She stepped into a narrow alleyway and leaned up against the cool brick of the building, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, pushing the panic down, shoving it into oblivion, not allowing it to wreck her composure.
She couldn’t let the flashbacks affect her like this. She’d lived. She was fine. She had nothing to complain about. She could stop being a pansy-ass on the topic right-damn-now.
She pushed away from the brick wall and continued down the street, shoulders back, head held high as she walked.
She was fine. She was totally fine. It was about damn time she started acting like it.
Chapter 13
Moose
Moose was in the middle of pulling out a sickle bar when his cell phone vibrated against his hip, letting out two soft bell tones that indicated whoever was calling, they were on his contact list.
Shit. He was already in deep trouble with his father for being hours late to work that morning; as he’d pessimistically expected, his father hadn’t considered trying to save Georgia’s life as being a valid excuse for Moose’s tardiness. Moose had been keeping a low profile ever since, trying to stay out of the line of fire and out of sight of his father; all he needed now was to be caught standing around, jawing on the phone while he was supposed to be working.
But on the other hand, it was someone he knew; not just a telemarketer or salesman…
He snatched the phone out of the holder and swiped to answer before it could go to voicemail.
“This is Moose,” he said, ducking behind a combine as he did so. Maybe he’d luck out and could hide from his father’s eagle eyes.
“Hey, it’s Jaxson. I have a favor to ask of you – Georgia is down here, hoping to catch a ride out to her car. I’m the only one here, or I’d have someone else take her, and I can’t do it because I need to go home and check on Sugar. She keeps telling me that she’s okay, but I think she’d say that even if one of her limbs had been somehow chopped off, Monty-Python-and-the-Holy-Grail style. ‘It’s just a flesh wound,’” he said in an atrocious English accent, mimicking the famous fight scene from the cult classic.
Moose let out a snort of laughter at that. He knew Sugar real well – they’d graduated from Sawyer together – and he figured that Jaxson just about had her pegged.
He could also replace the name “Sugar” with the name “Georgia,” and be just as correct.
Women…
“An
yway,” Jaxson continued, “I know you were late to work this morning and all, but I figured your dad understood under the circumstances, so I’m hoping he’ll be okay with you taking some time off this afternoon. It should be a quick trip.”
There was a rustle and some whispering, as if Jaxson had covered up the mic on his phone and was now chatting with Georgia, and then he whispered back, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” His mouth moved back to the phone and he said to Moose, “You good to head over here?”
Moose wasn’t sure whether to laugh or curse or cry or scream or…or thank God above because he had an excuse to go spend more time with Georgia. Of course, if he did this, there was a very good chance that his father wouldn’t be talking to him by the end of the day.
Somehow, in that moment, he just couldn’t seem to make himself care.
“Sure, sure, I’ll be right over,” he said, and hung up before he could change his mind.
Just as his finger was hitting the red button to end the call, he heard Jaxson saying, “I told y—” and then he was gone.
Moose would’ve laughed if he wasn’t so damn nervous. Georgia knew better than to ask him to leave work early, especially after coming to work late, but Jaxson…he probably thought that with Moose working for his father and all, he could skip in and out of work any ol’ time he wanted to.
And Moose wasn’t about to inform him otherwise. It was embarrassing enough to have a father who worked him like a slave. He wasn’t about to go advertising that fact to others.
He paused for a minute, considering tracking his father down and telling him that he was headed out the door, but he just couldn’t.
It wasn’t okay to sneak out the door. It wasn’t okay to leave a job half-done. Mr. Hoffmeister wanted his combine back, like, yesterday.
