A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) (12 page)

###

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.

“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.

Saturday was especially trying, and by
the time supper was over, Georgia felt as if she’d repaid her mother for every
minute of distress she’d caused from her mother’s first labor pain.

Sunday would be more of the same with the
added bonus of getting her mother dressed for church in the morning, a chore
made all the worse because she didn’t get her mother’s concept of church-chic.

Every week after services, everyone was
so solicitous, complimenting her mama in exaggerated detail about how much she’d
improved since the prior week and talking to her as if she chose not to talk
instead of couldn’t. Her mama was all smiles for them. It made Georgia want to shriek, “She’s not like this at home.”

Saturday evening, as Georgia was putting the last of the supper dishes in the drainer beside the sink, her phone trilled.
She checked the number, hoping it was Daniel, but the number wasn’t one she
recognized. She answered to find Maddie on the other end.

After they exchanged greetings, Maddie
said, “I know this is last minute, but some of the boys dropped by, and I was
hoping you might want to get out for a while. I could definitely use some more
estrogen to counteract all the testosterone in this house right now.”

“Well . . .” Georgia looked around. She could hear the TV in the living room, which meant her daddy was
settled for the night. All she had left to do was to get her mama ready for
bed, but that was an hour away. She’d planned to hole up in her room with the
latest Courtney Milan romance, hoping it would transport her somewhere else,
but the idea of physically transporting herself sounded even better. “Is Sol
there, too?”

“Yes, but don’t let that stop you. You
can’t spend your life avoiding the rest of us because of him.”

Maddie was right. And Georgia had overreacted about the car. Repressed guilt did that. The important thing was the car was
fixed, which meant she could go wherever she wanted when her mama didn’t need
her. “Will it be too late if I don’t make it for an hour or so?”

“Oh, no. An hour’s fine.”

Georgia
could hear the smile in Maddie’s voice.

“This feels like one of those
get-togethers that’ll go into the wee hours,” Maddie said.

“I’ll try to make it, then, at least for
a while.” She made a mental note to stop off for a half rack of beer to
contribute.

An hour later, her mama was in bed, and Georgia bent to kiss her father’s forehead. “I’m going out, Daddy.”

He caught her hand. “At this hour?”

“I know it’s late. Maddie—Zach’s
wife—invited me over for an impromptu get-together.”

Her father tugged on her hand, and Georgia sat down on the edge of the green Naugahyde footstool.

“How’re you doing? I mean . . .
this is different, what with you here and Eden out there with her daddy.”

Her daddy’s gentle concern touched her. “I’m
doing okay. Eden’s happy at the ranch, and Sol and I are getting along. For the
most part.”

Her daddy nodded absently. “You be kind
to him, Georgia.”

What?
Her father hated Sol. Okay, maybe
hate
was too
strong a word. He didn’t like Sol. He never had. So when had he decided Sol
deserved any consideration? Georgia opened her mouth, but her confusion had
shut down the diplomatic section of her brain.

“I know, I know,” her daddy said, reading
her mind—or perhaps her face. “I ain’t never liked Sol much. I didn’t like the
way he swooped in and tried to make off with my little girl.” He took a deep
breath and let it out in one big heave. “But I’ve been watching him for enough
years now and he’s steady. You could do a whole heap worse.”

She didn’t wonder why this conversation
was happening now. Her daddy wasn’t a fool. He’d have guessed where Georgia was the night she didn’t come home. “Not that I’m interested in getting back with
Sol, but . . . has Mama changed her mind, too?”

Her daddy snorted. “You’re mama ain’t
never gonna change her mind. Sol’s a bull rider, and you know how your mama
feels about that. I ain’t sure she’s ever even really seen Sol for who he is.
Or his family either for that matter. She looks at him riding them bulls, and
she’s ten years old again and finding out her daddy ain’t never coming home.
You need to remember that her heart’s in the right place. She don’t want you
getting hurt the way she did.”

“I know.” And she did. She remembered the
year her parents had split up. It felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her
world. The things she’d thought were set in stone suddenly weren’t, and she
hadn’t known how to fix it.

On top of her daddy’s leaving, that was
the year she’d gotten her period
and
breasts. The latter development had
led to attention from the boys. So many changes had left her confused and
vulnerable. More than anything, she’d wanted her daddy, and he hadn’t been
there.

So yes, she understood her mama’s fears.
Understood and, to some degree, shared them because, even though her daddy came
home, Georgia wasn’t sure she’d ever felt completely safe again. She never
forgot that the trapdoor that had opened underneath her when she was twelve
could open again when she least expected it. She’d learned, too, that some things,
like marriages, never completely mended after a serious breach.

She stood and kissed her daddy’s
forehead. After all this time, she didn’t know why he’d decided to forgive his
former son-in-law, and it didn’t change anything between her and Sol, but it
made her messy, complicated life a little simpler, and she was all for that.

###

“How’d you get such a houseful?” Georgia set the twelve-pack of Lone Star she’d brought on the counter in Maddie’s kitchen.
Like so many country people, Zach and Maddie had little use for their front
door. Everyone was parked near the back door that entered onto the kitchen, so
that was where Georgia had knocked. “Who all’s here?”

“Ah, more beer. Just what we needed.”
Maddie shoved the half rack to the back of the counter. “Gideon and Ephram
showed up first with a couple of six packs. They called Sol, I think. Then Jake’s
on summer break from college, so he showed up with a girl.”

Georgia and Maddie exchanged looks,
complete with raised eyebrows. Jake always seemed to have a girl.

“Barbie or Bobbie.” Maddie made a face. “Or
maybe it’s Bonnie. Something that starts with a
B.
I can’t keep track of
all the girls he dates.” She turned toward the fridge. Almost an entire shelf
was dedicated to Lone Star. “I hope beer works for you because that’s all we’ve
got, unless you want to drink one of Gideon’s Cokes.”

“Beer for me.” Georgia peeked into the
living room. Jake sat on the floor, his back against the far end of the couch.
Between his bent legs, his girlfriend-of-the-hour leaned back against his
chest. “Mothers should lock up their daughters when Jake’s around.”

“The mothers probably would if they
thought they’d have a shot at him. That boy’s got some serious pheromones going
on,” Maddie said. “Have you noticed how he’s filled out? Even his shoulders
seem broader. And I’ve only known him a little over a year.”

Maddie was right. Jake had always been
cute, but he was turning into something more. He was, oh Lord, a hunk.

“I called Daisy, too,” Maddie said. “The
testosterone was so thick in here, I nearly couldn’t breathe, and she’s old
enough now to be included.”

“So five of them, four of us.” Georgia grinned. “We can take ‘em.”

Maddie laughed as she handed Georgia a longneck Lone Star. “I hope so. They’ve been shooting the shit, mostly about
ranch stuff”—Maddie affected a yawn—”so I’m trying to shake things up a bit.
Are you with me?”

“Lead the way.”

Daisy sat cross-legged on the floor near
the chairs Ephram and Gideon had brought in from the kitchen. Gideon straddled
his chair, his arms resting on the chair’s yoke. The only open spot was on the
couch next to Sol. Gee, could they be any more obvious?

As Georgia settled beside Sol, she
considered apologizing for her harshness when she’d gotten her car back, but
she knew she didn’t have to. As long as she pretended it hadn’t happen, Sol
would let the whole thing die a quiet death. Georgia felt a little guilty; she
owed him the apology, but experience told her that bringing it up could
reignite the battle. It was easier—and safer—to let it go.

“Okay, then.” Maddie sounded like she was
picking up the thread of a conversation Georgia’s arrival had interrupted. “We
were going to vote on playing Truth or dare.”

Georgia
felt her eyebrows go up. Was Maddie nuts? Georgia hadn’t been part of the
McKnight clan for a long time, but she distinctly remembered that the boys were
not above blackmailing each other with personal information. Their lives were a
perpetual game of Truth or dare.

“We can vote,” Ephram said, “but it don’t
matter. We still outnumber y’all.”

Maddie shot him an
Oh really
look
with one dark eyebrow hiked. “Okay, all in favor of Truth or dare, raise your
hands.”

Georgia
had promised her support, so she raised her hand, as did Barbie/Bobbie/Bonnie.
Maddie shot a look at Daisy, who shrugged and lifted her hand.

“Yup, that’s what I figured,” Sol said. “Five
to four against.” He turned toward Ephram and started to ask a question, but
Maddie apparently had a streak of bulldog in her. Hand still raised, she turned
and looked pointedly at her husband.

“Ah, no,” Zach groaned. He sighed heavily
and, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, raised his hand.

The objections came loud and fast, but
Maddie just smiled smugly.

“Turncoat,” Sol muttered.

“So who wants to go first?” Maddie asked.

“I’ll go,” Sol said, surprising not only Georgia, but from their expressions, everyone else in the room.

“Zach. Truth or dare?”

Zach laid his head on the back of the
loveseat and stared at the ceiling. “Truth.” His tone was resigned.

“When’d you get so pussy whipped?”

Zach’s head snapped up. Then a little
smile tugged at his lips. “When I stopped getting blowjobs from you, Sol.”