A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) (4 page)

Grams stopped in front of the dresser and
plucked a five-by-seven sterling silver frame from the mementos crowding the
top. She gazed at the picture for a moment before she handed it to Georgia. “That’s your granddaddy in Oklahoma City,” she said as though Georgia didn’t already know. “He was twenty-six years old.”

Georgia
sat on the edge of the bed. Frozen in time, her grandfather, in full cowboy
regalia, held up the gold buckle he’d won. He had smiling eyes and an infectious
grin that had surely caught the attention of every buckle bunny west of the Mississippi. “He was a good-looking man, Grams.”

“That he was.” Grams sat beside her and
smiled at the picture fondly. “Good in bed, too.”

Georgia
tried to suppress her gasp and ended up choking instead. Grams patted her back.
“There, there, child. Shocked you, did I? Well, your generation didn’t invent
sex, you know.”

“I know,” Georgia said in a thin voice.
She held the picture between her hands as Grams reached over and lovingly drew
her finger down the image of the man she’d married.

“He was a good man, but he had a need to
live his life at full speed. Sometimes I think he knew he wouldn’t make old
bones, so he packed every moment as full as he could get it.” She sighed. “But
that’s silliness. That’s me trying to be poetic about his life. He was who he
was, and I loved him like the devil.”

Georgia
knew the pitfalls of romanticizing someone who wasn’t around. It seemed to be a
weakness for the women in her family.

“How come you never remarried, Grams?”

“Oh, I thought about it.” She bumped
shoulders with Georgia. “Don’t tell your mama, but I came real close to doing
it once.”

Georgia
felt her eyebrows lift. Grams was a regular firecracker. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because he was a nice man. Nice and
steady. He’d have taken good care of me, and I’d have been bored out of my
skull married to him.”

Georgia
let the picture drop to her lap.

“It never pays to settle, honey.” Grams
took the picture from her and gazed at the love of her life. “Without passion,
you’ll never get through life’s rough spots.”

It was a nice sentiment, but Georgia wasn’t convinced. She and Sol had had passion, but it hadn’t saved their marriage.
The easiness she felt when she and Daniel took the girls to the pool or skating
was nicer. Passion was . . . messy. Intense. She didn’t have the
energy for it.

And she wanted her daughter to break the
pattern. “Grams, what were your parents like?”

“My mama was good people, but she died
before she should have. I think you were three when a stroke took her. I don’t
remember my daddy. He died young. A submariner in WW2. The Japs sank his boat
in the Pacific.”

So out of the past four generations,
three women had raised their children by themselves. Repetition compulsion. The
sins of the father. Or in this case, the sins of the mothers who’d chosen
husbands who died too soon. If she didn’t want that for Eden, it was up to her
to break the pattern. Georgia prayed it wasn’t too late. Even if was, she had
to try.

###

While her mother saw her physical
therapist and then her speech therapist, Georgia met with her mother’s doctor.

The discovery that her mother’s doctor
had retired wasn’t that surprising. He’d been as old as the hills when Georgia was young. What shocked her was that her mama’s new doctor was not only a Yankee
from one of the Great Lakes states but a woman as well.

Dr. Ackerman was on the far side of
forty. She wore glasses but looked over them more than through them and spoke
in clipped phrases. The only reason Georgia could figure out that her mother
hadn’t found another doctor was that having a Yankee woman for a doctor gave
her two things to gripe about for the price of one. It probably killed her that
the stroke kept her from complaining about it.

“Has anyone spoken to you about your
mother’s therapy?” Dr. Ackerman asked.

Georgia
shook her head.

“Your mother. She’s a lucky woman. The
stroke impaired her right side, but I’ve seen worse. She’s not that steady on
her feet. That might be the result of the stroke. Or it might be preexisting.
Family doesn’t always want to see physical deterioration. The therapy will help
her get her sense of balance back. Her coordination, too. The biggest thing—I’m
sure you’ve noticed—is her speech. She understands what you say, but she can’t
find the words she wants.”

Georgia
had figured that out half an hour after she’d gotten home.

“Your mother . . .” Dr.
Ackerman tapped her pen against her bottom lip as though looking for an
inoffensive way to phrase her thoughts. “Well, I’m going to be straight with
you. She’s manipulative.”

Now there was a news flash. Georgia barked a laugh then covered her mouth, embarrassed. Her mother could teach a master’s
level course in guilt and manipulation.

“You’ll need to be patient. She’s going
to get discouraged. So will you. Don’t let the pity party get out of hand.”

Dr. Ackerman consulted the medical file
in front of her. “She’s scheduled for therapy three times a week,” Doctor
Ackerman continued. “That’s three hours of physical therapy and three hours of
speech therapy.”

“That seems like a lot,” Georgia said.

“It’s on the heavy side, but the sooner
she sees results, the less discouraged she’ll get. We don’t want her giving up.”
She lifted a sheet in the file and scanned the page below it. “We’d like to see
her in group therapy. That will help her frame of mind. It gives the speech
therapy a boost as well, but so far, your mother has refused.”

Georgia
wasn’t surprised. Her mama wouldn’t want strangers staring at her in the shape
she was in. Georgia figured she’d have to insist. That wasn’t going to be
pretty.

They went on to talk about the challenges
her mother faced with her daily self-care functions, such as dressing, bathing,
feeding, and toileting.

“She needs to do as much as she can for
herself,” the doctor said. “If you do it for her, she’ll expect it. I’ve seen
it before. Some people give up because it’s easier to let others do it for
them.”

Georgia
suppressed a groan. This was going to be the summer from hell.

###

Sol should have been out mending fences with
his daddy. Zach had gone instead, leaving Sol to work in the barn, so he’d be
there when Eden showed up.

It was a valid excuse. After all, Eden was his kid, and he didn’t get to see her nearly as much as he wanted to. That was
true, but it wasn’t the whole story.

He dropped the small toolbox beside the
mechanical bull set up in the back of the barn. Old Taurus had already been
used hard when Sol finagled a deal for it back in high school, and it took
regular maintenance to keep it going. He didn’t ride it himself anymore, but
some of his younger brothers practiced their balance on it, and they
occasionally rented it out to one of the local bars.

He pulled off the work glove and tried to
flex his hand inside the Ace bandage. The hand had been giving him fits for a
couple of months, but he’d felt something pop at the last rodeo. It felt like
the bones were scraping against each other, and he could practically hear the
fingernails-on-the-blackboard squeal that should go with it.

It wasn’t bad as bull-riding injuries
went. He probably wasn’t even going to feel the rain coming on in his hand as
he got older the way he already did in his left knee, but he couldn’t grip hard
with it, which meant no riding until it healed.

He wasn’t a patient man, but he tried not
to be stupid. It would really suck to get bucked off and hurt bad because he
was too impatient to give his hand a couple of weeks to heal. Hell, it wasn’t
like sitting on the sidelines for a few weeks was going to cost him his big
break. That had come and gone two years ago. At least with Eden there, he
wouldn’t mind being grounded so much.

He’d finished checking all Taurus’ gears
and hydraulics when he heard, “Is he workin’?”

Sol glanced over his shoulder to find his
youngest brothers, Aaron and Tobias, eyeing the bull. “You ready to ride?”

At fourteen and thirteen, they should
have been past the stage where they acted like puppies climbing over each other
to be first, but Sol still saw it in them at times. They both had aspirations
to make the Professional Bull Riders Tour as he had for that too-brief time.
Sol hoped they lasted there longer than he had.

He moved the thick mats back around the
bull, so no one would get hurt if they fell off, then went to glance out the
open barn door before he put the tools away. No sign of Georgia and Eden yet.

He went back and watched his brothers. He
could practically see the stars sparkling in their eyes as they pretended they
were big shots like Ty Murray or Chris Shivers.

That dream had been hard to give up. No
high compared with getting on the back of a one-ton critter whose goal in life
was to throw you off as fast as he could. And if the bulls at the nearby rodeos
weren’t quite as challenging as those he’d ridden for the few weeks he’d made
it in the PBR, well, they could still surprise him once in a while. When they
did, his blood pumped faster, colors were brighter, and in those eight seconds,
he was alive and that hollow corner in his heart melted away.

And yet there were moments when, for two
cents, he’d give it up altogether. In spite of the example set by three-time
PBR Champion Adriano Moraes, who’d ridden until he was thirty-eight, thirty was
old for bull rider. More often, though, Sol felt as though he was losing the
heart for riding.

Maybe he just needed something outside
rodeoing to give him the push he needed to make the leap to retired bull rider.
Something to fill the gap. Something to give his life new meaning.

His daughter was almost enough, except he
didn’t have her that often. Even if he had, she was growing up. Growing away.
He could see it already. Soon, she’d prefer hanging around with her friends
instead of her daddy. Then she’d be dating.

Sol’s stomach clenched. He wasn’t looking
forward to that. Some young buck would come along far too soon, and she’d be
gone. And Sol’s already minor role in her life would shrink even more. He
pushed that away, determined not to worry about it yet.

He went back to look out at the ranch
yard again. Dammit. What the hell was taking Georgia so long?

He’d barely managed to sleep the night
before, thinking about her being back and wondering how long she’d stay. Lying
there, lonely in his bed—the same bed they’d shared in their all-too-brief
marriage—Sol knew she’d screwed up his life. Again.

Just by appearing, she’d torpedoed any
chance of him finding another woman and settling down. And probably for six
months after she disappeared, if experience was anything to go by. It happened
any time he spent more than a few minutes around her, and thanks to Eden, it was a constantly recurring cycle.

It was late afternoon when Georgia’s blue Kia Rio pulled in. Sol walked out of the barn as the car crunched to a stop
on the gravel. His daughter, a ten-year-old—ten? Or was she eleven? No, she
couldn’t be that eleven yet—pigtailed version of her blonde mother, bounced out
of the car, squealing, “Daddy!” in an octave almost too shrill for human ears.

She’d grown again in the month since he’d
last seen her. All long legs and skinny arms, like a new colt, the last growth
spurt seemed to have stretched her, making her look as thin as a blade of
grass. Sol caught her in his arms, swinging her around once, her legs dangling
above the ground. Her sneaker-clad feet banged against his shins.

“How’s my best girl?”

“I’m great! Mama says I get to stay for
the summer.”

“You can stay as long as you want. You
know that,” Sol said into his daughter’s smiling face. As soon as he heard his
words, he looked toward Georgia to see if he was in trouble for making such a
rash promise, but she was still in the car, gathering Eden’s things. Sol let go
of a relieved breath.

“They’re here!” Sol’s eighteen-year-old
sister, Daisy, yelled into the house from the back porch, and Eden was off
again, racing to greet her aunt.

Wishing he could keep his distance even
as he was drawn to the car to help Georgia with Eden’s things, Sol’s heart
skipped a couple of beats. Georgia leaned into the back hatch, her shorts
exposing her long, tanned legs. As though that wasn’t enough, the fabric pulled
tight across her heart-shaped ass. Sol had a momentary fantasy that involved
taking her from behind, pounding his flesh unmercifully into hers. Doing the
most mundane things, she always managed to give him a hard-on; it was only fair
he give it back to her.

He stifled a groan along with the thought
and took the case she’d pulled out of the car. “God, I hate this car.”

“Don’t start on the car, Sol.” Her voice
was tired, and now that she’d turned toward him, he saw the weariness in her
face.

But fighting was good. Anything that kept
him from doing something stupid, like putting his arms around her, was good. “It’s
too small, Georgia,” he said for the thousandth time since she’d bought the car
used. “It’ll crumple like an old beer can if you get into a tussle with
anything bigger ‘n a thimble.”