“I like him.” Her dad nodded as if that settled everything.
Except nothing was settled. Not inside Georgie. “You just met him and barely spent more than five minutes together.”
“But I saw how he was with you all night,” he argued. “And I talked to him this morning. He’s taking me to the Once Was Barn later.”
Zach had been attentive, considerate and protective. He’d been everything she could’ve asked for in a fake boyfriend. He’d been everything she could’ve wanted in a real partner. If she’d wanted a relationship. She couldn’t simply set her own goals and career aside for a man she’d only just met. She couldn’t simply follow her heart. She’d never followed her heart. “He’s a good guy.”
“That’s all I ever wanted for you,” her dad said.
“Someone to take care of me,” she said.
He straightened and considered her. “You don’t need anyone to take care of you, Georgie. You need someone to challenge you.”
Was that what drew her to Zach? He never acted as though he was intimidated by her degree. Instead, he’d pushed her to use what she’d learned to help her family. He hadn’t let her retreat and observe. Not once. “You know that I’m happy on my own, don’t you?”
“I do.” Her dad sighed. “I also know that having a partner and strong foundation allows you to stretch further than you ever thought possible.”
“Did Mom do that for you?” she asked.
“Every single day,” he admitted. “She made me a better man. A better person.”
“And a better father.”
“That, too.” His smile barely creased his mouth. “I was never quite sure what I was doing, but I tried. I hope you think I was a good father.”
She leaned across the sofa and hugged him. “You were the best dad I could’ve asked for.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.” He took her hands and looked her in the eyes. “You need to talk to Thomas.”
“Can I wait for Peyton and Amanda to arrive this afternoon?” she asked.
Her dad shook his head. “You’ll retreat to the corner, let your sisters take control and only join in if you sense someone needs your help.”
How well he knew her. “There’s nothing wrong with helping.”
Her dad tensed his grip on her hands. His voice serious. “There’s also nothing wrong with listening to the man who gave me the gift of raising five daughters as my own.”
Not a burden, but a gift. Thomas Blackwell had also given Georgie a gift: the ability to call Rudy Harrison her dad. “I’ll talk to him for you, Dad.”
“You and Thomas are more alike than you know.” He released her hands and rose. “I think I’m going to head to the dining hall. Dorothy mentioned brisket and warm apple pie for lunch.”
“Keep it to one piece,” Georgie ordered. “There’s going to be more good food tonight at the Ugly Sweater Bash.”
Her dad tugged a knit hat over his ears, pretended he hadn’t heard and disappeared outside. Georgie’s phone buzzed on the kitchen island. Tyler’s name flashed on her incoming-call screen.
Twenty minutes later, Georgie hung up, set her hands flat on the kitchen counter and inhaled around her surge of unease. A knock came from the back door. She called out, “Come in. It’s open.”
The door opened and closed. Footsteps tapped across the mudroom into the kitchen. “Is this a bad time?”
Georgie turned and found Thomas Blackwell standing on the other side of the island. He regarded her with the same hazel eyes she saw in her own reflection every morning.
“I saw Rudy in the dining hall,” he said. “He told me to come up to the house. Now was a good time to see you.”
“It’s fine.” Georgie motioned to the coffee maker. “Would you like something to drink?”
“I’m okay.” He rubbed his hand over his chin. “Are you sure you are?”
He’d trimmed his full beard to a close shave and stood several inches taller than her dad. He was handsome, but it was the keen insight in his warm gaze that made him approachable. Relatable. “I just spoke to Tyler. They’re taking Hadley in for an unplanned C-section now. The baby is in distress.”
“Hadley and Tyler are exactly where they need to be,” he said. “They’ll get the care and treatment they need at the hospital.”
Georgie exhaled, but her breath still stuttered. “I know. I just keep thinking what would’ve happened if they’d been trapped here.” With Georgie—an inexperienced doctor.
“You would’ve found them the help they needed.” Certainty claimed his words.
“How can you know that?”
His grin came and disappeared just as quickly. “It’s what I would’ve done.”
“You think you know me?” She couldn’t clip the curt tone from her voice. Or the hurt.
“I wouldn’t presume to know anything about you.” He held his hands behind his back, in the relaxed military stance her dad often slipped into. “We’ve only just met.”
“But you claim to know I would’ve helped them and saved the baby.” His calm demeanor was like tinder on her frustration and sudden anger.
“It’s what we do. You’re a doctor.” He regarded her. His face was expressionless, his gaze intent. “I’m a retired medic. When someone needs help, we answer that call.”
Resentment pulsed, shaking her core. She sat on a stool at the island. “Except Mom was pregnant, with four young daughters, and she needed help. Yet you never answered that call. You walked away.”
“I was deployed overseas and had recently re-upped when I learned your mom was pregnant.” He never flinched. Never moved. “I had a duty to serve my country.”
“You’d also vowed to love our mom until death do you part,” she charged. Vows were supposed to mean something. Vows were supposed to be sacred. Not something easily discarded like yesterday’s leftovers.
“I never stopped loving your mom.” His voice thickened. A sheen covered his eyes. His jaw flexed. “If you hear only one thing I tell you today, hear this. I never stopped loving your mom or you.”
“But you abandoned us.” She slapped her palm on the island, caught sight of her mother’s bracelet dangling on her wrist. Tears pooled in her eyes. She wanted to cry for the mother she’d lost. For the father she’d never known. Her voice cracked. “That’s not love. You have to know that’s not love.”
She wasn’t an authority on love. But she understood that much.
He paced toward the kitchen sink, paused and stared out the window. His shoulders remained set. But his chin dipped once toward his chest, as if he’d been given silent orders and agreed just as silently to follow them. He turned back to face her. “Your mom sent the divorce papers to me while I was overseas.”
“Why would she do that?” Georgie curved her fingers over her mother’s bracelet, as if protecting herself and her mother from his allegations.
“She hadn’t wanted me to continue serving.” His gaze slipped away from her and fixed on a spot past Georgie’s shoulder. “I thought serving was the only way I could survive and protect my family.”
“You make it sound like you wanted to protect us from yourself.” She watched his jaw tense and relax, his gaze narrow, then his cheeks soften. And she knew the truth: that was exactly what he’d been doing.
“I served in active combat as a medic.” His voice lowered as if weighted down by his confession. “I was good at my job and with my men. Very good. Work kept the memories and nightmares in their place. As long as I worked, I was untouchable. The past couldn’t get to me.”
Georgie crossed her arms over her chest, blocking out a sudden chill.
“I came home on leave,” he continued. “Came to see you.”
“We never saw you,” she whispered.
“By then your mother was dating Rudy. She was in a better place. You all wer
e.” His gaze connected with hers. Quiet and sincere in its intensity. “That’s when I walked away.”
But not to abandon his family. To give them a different future. One he thought would be better. “What did you do?”
“Re-upped again.” He shrugged one shoulder. One corner of his mouth tipped into the smallest smile. “And fortunately, my commanding officer saw what your mother had seen all along. I needed help and couldn’t fix myself on my own.”
“How are you now?” she asked.
“I go to a therapy group once a week.” Pride framed his grin. “I lead the group.”
“Why did you never find us?” she asked. “Never try to see us again?”
“I thought about it. So many times, I’ve played it out in my head.” He rolled his shoulders back. “But every version ended in hurting your mother. Hurting you all. I’d already done enough of that.”
“What now?”
“That’s up to you and your sisters,” he said.
“Well, my dad says you and I are a lot alike.” Georgie released her wrist and her mother’s bracelet. Something inside her shifted and opened. “I’d like to find out if he’s right.”
Thomas smiled. His first real smile since she’d met him. “I’d really like that, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“SIMON, PUT THAT DOWN.” Georgie watched Fee’s boyfriend until he put the barrel-shaped glass jar back on the table beside the other two. Georgie and Dorothy had filled the extra-large jars for one of their Ugly Sweater Bash games. One contained an assortment of colored bells. Another was filled with round ornaments. And the one Simon had picked up held green-, red-and silver-wrapped chocolate candies. The game was simple. Guess the number inside each one and win.
“He should be disqualified.” Amanda jabbed her elbow into Simon’s side, setting the pair of Santa’s boots attached to Simon’s ugly sweater swaying. Her laughter lifted her eyebrows. “The sign clearly states no touching.”
“But you picked up the ornament jar earlier.” Fee’s snow-globe sweater—a clear plastic bag stuffed with cotton balls and wrapped over her green sweater—prevented her from pointing to Simon and Blake, Amanda’s boyfriend. Still, she gleefully outed her sister. “We all watched you, Amanda.”
“It doesn’t matter what you guys do. Carry it around the dining hall if you must.” Blake wrote on a piece of paper and held it up over his head. “I guessed correctly on all three. You all are going to lose.”
Blake’s declaration resulted in several hands reaching for his piece of paper and demands to reveal his guesses.
Georgie shook her head at her family. Family. She touched her mother’s bracelet, saw her mom’s smile in Fee’s radiant grin. Heard her mom’s laugh in Amanda’s joy. She sighed, starting to understand Iris’s and Estelle’s full hearts.
A rogue bell rolled against her boot. Georgie bent and held the bell up. “Anyone lose this?”
Rosie, Poppy, Abbey and Gen giggled. The young Blackwell cousins stood together behind Matteo’s son, Gino. The group gathered at the bell-toss game.
Gino lifted his hand. “Sorry. That was mine.”
“Can I try?” Georgie stepped up to the line they’d taped on the floor.
“Adults have to toss from back here.” Rosie tugged on her, nudging her back to the second line.
“How many chances do I get?” Georgie looked at the kids. They shuffled their feet and avoided looking at each other. Georgie straightened. “What’s going on?”
The others urged Rosie forward, who said, “Pops and Grandma Dot declared we can have as many tries as we want.”
“What about me?” Georgie asked.
“Three.” Gino tapped his foot against a handwritten rules sign. “That’s what it says.”
“Who do I need to speak to about this?” Georgie whispered, attempting to look offended.
The kids pointed at the massive fireplace. Alice Gardner and Conner’s mom, Karen, sat in the rocking chairs near it, each one cradling one of Jon and Lydia’s sleeping twin boys. Dorothy and Pops sat nearby. A crate of wrapped prizes for the bell-toss competitors was on the floor between their chairs.
“Don’t try to change the rules now.” Pops shook his finger at Georgie. He wore a knit cap rather than his usual cowboy hat. The end of a bandage was visible beneath it. Pops had already promised he’d be talking to Georgie when he first arrived. “Kids, make sure Georgie doesn’t step over the line.”
The cousins took Pops’s orders to heart and ordered Georgie to step back on her second toss. Georgie played four rounds, then declared defeat and claimed the kids were clearly the experts at the bell toss.
“I lost already.” Peyton unwrapped a candy cane and aimed it at the table next to her.
Chance dealt from a deck of cards to Lydia, Jon, Ben, Rachel and Matteo. Five candy canes rested in the center of their table. No one spoke. Gazes remained fixed on their individual hands.
“You didn’t win one hand?” Georgie murmured.
“Not one single round.” Peyton bit off a chunk of candy cane and crunched down on the hard candy. “This group is ruthless.”
Ben frowned across the table at them. “Peyton, can you chew a little quieter?”
“We really need to concentrate.” Matteo lifted his head. His grin refused to remain hidden.
Peyton faux huffed and raised her voice. “Ruthless. I’m telling you.”
Rachel reached into the center of the table and grabbed a candy cane. The others quickly followed. Rachel laughed and raised the candy in triumph. “You just have to have really good reflexes.”
Georgie snapped off a piece of Peyton’s candy cane. Once again, her chest felt full. Her smile stretched.
Peyton yanked her hand away. “Hey. Not you, too.”
“You’ll get them next time.” Georgie laughed, hugged her sister and made her way to the table where spiked hot apple cider was being served.
Two glasses in hand, she wove around Conner’s friends, entertaining Lily with an amusing childhood story about her groom. Their joint laughter interrupted the retelling, causing the story to stop and start in spurts.
Georgie wedged herself between Thomas and Zach, handing one cider to Zach. Rudy and Big E faced them. The Harrison beach-themed tree stood between Thomas and Rudy like an honored guest.
Last week, she’d arrived at Blackwell as a stranger. Tonight, friends and family surrounded her. Joy and delight infused the hall, elevating the celebration into one that would be remembered in detail decades from now. Her smile refused to dim. She edged into Zach’s side. His arm settled around her back, drawing her even closer, exactly where she wanted to be.
Grateful and content on a ranch in Montana, beside a cowboy, accepted by family. Such an outcome hadn’t been included in her original scheme. Yet she wanted nothing to change.
Lily and Conner, linked arm in arm, joined them. Fee and Simon followed. Again, Georgie’s smile expanded like her mom’s used to during their annual Harrison holiday party. Her mom had greeted and hugged every arriving guest as if they’d been the only ones she’d been waiting for. Come in. Come in and enjoy. We’re thrilled you came.
And Georgie was thrilled, too. For her sisters and the love they’d found. She sipped her cider and curved her arm around Zach’s waist. One more time, she let her gaze track over the crowd, collecting the moment like her mom had reminded her to do.
“Zach, ever have a ride like that?” Rudy asked.
Her dad’s question drew her into the conversation. She hadn’t paid attention to Big E’s story, wasn’t certain what ride her father referenced.
Zach laughed. “More times than I can count.”
“But you’ve succeeded, too, and that’s the difference between you and me, son.” Respect bolstered Big E’s words. “Even garnered all-around winner last month at the Legacy Pro Rodeo Days. No s
mall feat.”
“Is that the rodeo where you two met?” Fee rested her head on Simon’s shoulder. “Where was that again?”
Zach’s arm tensed around Georgie’s waist. “Kingston.”
At the very same time, Georgie blurted, “Kingstown.”
Then she cringed. She’d heard the first part of Zach’s town and reached for the only name she recognized in North Carolina.
“There isn’t a rodeo in Kingstown—at least, not the size of Legacy Pro.” Thomas smoothed his hand over his chin. “I’ve driven through that town many times. It could use a rodeo to bolster the local economy.”
Georgie stared into her cider cup, ignoring her sisters’ probing gazes.
“They met on an airplane.” Big E swept both hands back and forth as if clearing smoke from the air. “Never mind all that. When is Ethan heading to Colorado? Zach can’t earn another all-around title without his horse.”
Georgie coughed as if she’d inhaled a mouthful of smoke. Airplane? How had her grandfather…?
“Colorado?” Ethan handed Eli and the toy train the pair had been playing with over to Grace. “Big E, what are you talking about?”
“How else are you going to treat Rain Dancer?” Big E set his hands on his hips. “Man can’t compete without his horse.”
Ethan confronted Zach. His gaze narrowed. Accusation was clear in his tone. “You’re that Zach Evans.”
Zach released Georgie and lifted his hand, palm out. “I didn’t know about Butterscotch until I arrived.”
The entire room quieted, as if Zach had cursed. Or worse, had broken a law. More specifically, a Blackwell family rule. Georgie’s contentment dissolved. Her smile wavered and weakened.
“Did Big E tell you to come here?” Ethan’s voice darkened. Anger rolled across his face. “Promise he’d take care of everything for you and your horse?”
Zach never backed down. “I just met Big E.”
“I paid for Zach’s ticket and seated him beside Georgie on the airplane.” Big E stepped into the fray. No remorse. No apology. Then he aimed his wry grin at Georgie. “You’re welcome, my dear.”
Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set Page 20
