12-Alarm Cowboys (45 page)

Her eyes were beginning to sting. She had to leave.

Do not cry.

Georgie hugged him and then slid back across the truck and opened the door. “Good luck, Tanner. You’ll be a great chief for the fire department.” When she stood outside the truck, she leaned back in to say, “No need to get out. As you’ve pointed out, no reason to prolong the inevitable.”

She grabbed her bag from the back seat, tossed it into the bed of her truck, climbed in, and drove away, all the while leaving Tanner sitting behind his steering wheel.

The minute she turned the corner out of Tanner’s eyesight, the dam burst. Hot, salty tears poured down her face and dripped off her chin onto her shirt. Her chant changed from
do not cry
to
do not wreck
. It was like driving in a torrential downpour, except she didn’t have adequate wipers for her eyes. Didn’t matter what the speed limit, she tore home like the devil himself was behind her…but then, maybe he was.

Zack’s truck was in her drive when she got home. She hastily wiped her face on the hem of her shirt and then ran her fingers through her hair. Before she got out, Zack was on her porch.

“Hey,” he shouted. “You’re home earlier than I thought you’d be. Why you sitting in there? Come on in. I’ll get my stuff together to leave.”

Georgie waited until his back was turned to exit. After retrieving her bag, she slowly walked up her stairs and in to the house.

“Sorry,” he shouted from the guest room. “I would have been long gone if I’d thought you’d be home at six but you know how it is with parents and siblings…any chance for some alone time.”

“No,” she replied. “Don’t know how it is.”

“Do what?” He popped his face around the door facing. “What’d you say? Ohmygod, Georgie. What’s wrong?”

Zack hurried back to the living room where she stood, still holding her luggage in one hand.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Wh…what…makes…you…” she sniffed, “think…­something…­happened?” And the carefully reconstructed dam broke again. She dropped her luggage to the floor and covered her face.

“Oh man.” Zack wrapped her in his arms. “What did my fool of a brother do?”

“He broke up with me,” she cried.

“Do what? Are you kidding? Has he gone totally crazy?”

“I…I…don’t know.”

Zack patted her on the back. “He’s an idiot. Really. A total idiot.”

“It’s okay,” she said through tears, and continued sniffing. “We were going to end things anyway when I left, or that’s what we said. He just caught me off-guard tonight.”

Zack held her away from him. “The two of you had already planned a breakup? You had it scheduled?” He shook his head in disbelief. “And I thought I was the screwed up one.”

She chuckled and pushed away. “I just didn’t think he’d do it like that.” She walked to the open kitchen and began searching through cabinets.

He followed her. “Now what are you doing?”

Holding up a bottle of unopened bourbon, she said, “I’m gonna get drunk.”

“It’s not right for a lady to get drunk alone.”

“You want a glass?” she asked as she filled a tumbler.

“Hit me.”

She smiled and pulled a second glass down, which she filled. “Salute.” She tapped her glass against his and shot the first drink down.

Closing her eyes, she allowed the fiery liquid to scald her throat as it rolled toward her stomach, where it landed with a splash. When she reopened her eyes he was watching her.

“I thought we were going to drink,” she said.

He nodded and threw back his shot. “Damn. That’s some fine whiskey.”

“Hell, yeah. Only drink the best. I learned that from one of my foster dads.” She picked up the bottle. “Let’s adjourn to the living room. You can continue telling me what an ass your brother is.”

They drank and talked for hours. Even in her inebriated state, Georgie knew there was no way Zack could drive home. When he fell asleep, or more actually passed out, she stretched him out on the couch and covered him with a blanket. And then she staggered to her own bed.

*

On his back,
feet crossed at his ankles, his arms behind his head, Tanner stared at his ceiling. The rock that’d formed in his gut made it impossible to eat dinner. The elephant sitting on his chest made breathing difficult. For a while, he wondered if he was having a heart attack. He was a little young for one for sure, but damn, he’d never hurt like this, not even when he fell off a ladder during training. He even considered driving to the hospital emergency room. In the end, he had to accept what his brain kept telling him…breaking it off with Georgina was the dumbest move he’d ever made.

Sure, they’d agreed on a limited time period to see each other. And maybe it did start off as something to bide his time and keep him sane while his parents were gone. But somewhere along the way, he’d fallen for her…lock, stock and barrel. Whether he could get over her wasn’t even the issue. He didn’t
want
to get over her. He wanted her back, with him, for as long as possible.

As that thought crawled through his head, he realized what he was telling himself…he had found the woman he wanted in his life for the rest of his life. He wanted to marry Georgina.

The big question was…did she want to marry him?

Had she fallen for him too? His first response was yes, of course she had, but that could be his ego speaking. Hell, it probably was his ego. He’d never had a girlfriend walk away from him like she’d done tonight.

If he was being honest, he’d thought she’d put up some argument about ending things so abruptly but no. She jumped in her truck and raced out of the lot as though on the starting line for the Daytona 500.

He sat upright. If he did not tell her how he felt and, instead, let her walk away, he’d never forgive himself. He’d always wonder
what if?

The time reflected on his ceiling from his clock read four-thirty. He could be at her place by five and catch her before work. He had to tell her the truth before he left for Maryland.

Besides, she said she had some time off when she was done. She could stay here and they would be back together in no time.

After taking a quick shower and getting dressed, he stopped long enough in the kitchen to fill a travel mug with fresh coffee. Thank goodness for his mother and the automatic timer inventor for the coffee pot.

When he wheeled up to Georgina’s house, he had to slam his brakes to keep from rear-ending Zack’s truck. What the hell was Zack doing here?

Tanner flew from his truck up the front steps and pounded on the front door. “Zack!” he shouted. “Open this damn door.” He continued to beat on the door and shout until his brother answered.

“What?”

Zack stood there in a pair of wrinkled sweat pants, a T-shirt, no socks and a definite case of bedhead hair. He scratched his head. “What?” he asked, his eyes at half-mast.

Tanner shoved his way inside, red-hot rage pumping through his veins in place of blood. “What are you doing here? Where’s Georgina?”

“Georgie? She’s here. Probably still in bed.” His brother had the audacity to yawn.

Grabbing his brother’s T-shirt, Tanner jerked him toward him. “What the hell are you doing here? Did you sleep with my woman?”

“What is all the yelling?” Georgina came from her bedroom, still pulling on a long robe. “Tanner? What are you doing here?”

Instead of answering Georgina, Tanner shook his brother. “You knew Georgina was my gal.”

“Look, asshole,” Zack said with a sneer and jerking free from Tanner’s hold. “You tossed her over. Can I help it if she would rather be with me?”

Tanner made a fist and slammed it upside his brother’s face. Zack’s head rocked back from the force. He stumbled backwards and then hit the floor.

“Tanner. What’s wrong with you?” Georgina cried, hurrying over to where Zack lay sprawled on the floor. She dropped to her knees by his head. “Are you okay?” She touched the growing red spot on his face and then glared up at Tanner. “Have you lost your mind?”

A black hole developed in Tanner’s chest where his heart used to reside. “Well, you wasted no time replacing me. What? You’ve got three weeks left so you figured fucking one Marshall is as good as another?”

Her eyes popped wide. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Zack shook his head. “You have really fucked up this time, Tanner.”

Tanner gave a snort of derision. “Yeah, I know. I showed up unexpectedly.” He whirled on his boot heel. “I’ll just leave you two lovebirds alone.”

He slammed the front door so hard, the glass panes in the front windows rattled, not that he gave a shit. Hell, be fine with him if he broke one, or all, of them.

Throwing rocks and dirt, he whipped out of her drive and headed home. He wasn’t waiting around for a gloating Zack to come home.

Within an hour of arriving back at the ranch, he had his truck packed and was ready to hit the road.

“Why wait?” he’d said to his parents. “I can get an early start and not have to drive at night.”

His worthless, piece-of-shit brother was pulling up the drive as he was leaving. With all the maturity of a ten-year-old, Tanner gave Zack the finger and kept on going.

Fuck him.

And her too, now that he thought about it.

Pushing himself to get as far away from his treacherous brother and the duplicitous woman he’d fallen in love with, he’d driven Monday until his vision blurred and hallucinations appeared in his peripheral vision, only stopping long enough to nap in an interstate rest stop. He needed thousands of miles between himself and them.

How could they do this to him?

He loved Georgina. He loved his brother. But they had ripped his heart out and stomped on it. He wasn’t sure he could ever go home again.

‡

H
ell was not
just a place preachers talked about on Sunday. Tanner was sure because he was in hell every day. Not the classes. Losing himself in the information and soaking up all he could about leadership, arson, and wild fire management were the only things that kept him sane. The nights were the worst. Sleep, when it came, was restless. Dreams of Zack and Georgina—nightmares really—where they laughed and pointed at him plagued him. A couple of times, a flash of auburn hair made him believe Georgina was there, but it never was her.

Damn, he missed her.

On the second week of classes, his phone rang. It was almost six in the evening. He’d only been home about fifteen minutes and had left his phone in a coat jacket. Now he ran across the room to answer.

“Hello?”

“Hi, honey. I hope I’m not interrupting your dinner,” Janet Marshall said.

“Nope. Haven’t started yet. Is something wrong?” He carried the phone to the small sofa in the hotel unit and sat.

“No, nothing’s wrong. I just haven’t talked to you in a few days. Your father and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Everything’s fine.”

“How are classes?”

“Good. Some of it’s review, some of it’s new.”

“Well, that’s good. We sure miss you here.”

Yeah, he’d bet. Zack was probably gone all the time with Georgina and not pulling his fair share of work around the ranch.

“Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Have you talked to Zack?”

Zack, the traitor you mean?

“No. Why?”

“He’s got a new girlfriend.”

Tanner’s heart squeezed and he lost his breath. “Oh? Anyone we know?”

He must be a glutton for punishment. Did he really want to hear her say Georgina’s name?

“Not really,” his mother said. “A townie named Delene.”

“Delene? Delene Younger?”

“Yes, that’s her. Do you know her?”

“Not well. Are you sure you got the name right?”

“Of course. He brought her to dinner this week. Seems like a nice girl.”

“She is nice. I knew he’d been out with her a few times, but it’s not like Zack to settle down with one girl.”

“He’s getting older and—oh, hold on. Here, say hi,” his mother said.

He heard rattling as the phone receiver changed hands.

“Hello?”

The voice was a direct strike to his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him.