A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) (5 page)

“Sol, I’m a teacher still paying off
student loans, not Ivanka Trump. I can’t afford the kind of car you want me to
drive.”

“I know that.” He also knew the teachers
where Georgia worked weren’t subject to the teachers’ union, so they weren’t
paid as well as public schools teachers, but wasn’t that another reason she
should let him help? He let his annoyance have free rein. “But you haul my
daughter around in it, so why won’t you let me help you buy a better car?”

Her lips thinned, undoubtedly clamping down
on some sarcastic response that would ignite his temper and turn their sniping
into a full-blown conflagration.

He almost felt sorry for needling her.
She was obviously having a tough time with her folks. Then he looked down at
the way her generous breasts pulled at her tank top, felt his cock strain
against his jeans, and wished he could think of something that would start the
kind of fight that would keep them from talking to each other for the next
twenty years.

Too bad all the blood had migrated south
from his brain.

###

“You’ll stay to supper,” Sol’s mama said
as soon as they had Eden settled in Hannah and Leah’s room.

“I can’t,” Georgia objected. She’d known
Ruth would invite her, but as soon as Sol started in about the car, she’d seen
how he was going to be. “Daddy barely knows how to turn on the oven, and
Grams—well, Grams is too absent-minded.”

It would be a relief to spend even a
little time someplace where she wasn’t expected to wait on someone but not if
Sol was going to be critical. Why couldn’t he just put his arms around her and
make her feel as though he was there for her?

Ruth McKnight snorted. “Men can be so
helpless.” Georgia appreciated the moral support, though she knew Ruth had
taught her boys to be as self-sufficient as the girls. “Next week, then. You’ll
throw something in a Crock-Pot. Something your daddy only has to dish up.”

“That would be nice,” Georgia agreed. It would be even nicer if Sol wasn’t there since he couldn’t be supportive.

She hugged Eden, promised to see her
soon, and waved good-bye as she got into her car. It growled when she started
it.
God, please don’t let anything be wrong with the car.
She couldn’t
afford it, financially or emotionally. If the car went belly-up, she’d be
tempted to let Sol make good on his offer. And he would. If she believed it was
about keeping Eden safe, she’d have let him help buy a better car but it wasn’t.
It was about keeping her tied to him, about him being more than just her
ex-husband.

He was a stubborn man who should have
married a nice, compliant Betty Crocker type, not a woman who could match him
stubborn for stubborn.

###

“Hey, monster.” Sol sat down on the porch
step next to his daughter. Her lips were already stained blue from the Popsicle
his mama had given her after supper. “What’s that thoughtful look on your face
about? You missin’ your mama already?” She’d been gone only a couple of hours,
but Eden and Georgia were close.

Eden
leaned against his shoulder with a solid bump. “I wish she could stay here,
too. Grandma and Grandpa are always grumpy.”

“People usually are when they don’t feel
good. Your grandma’s going to take a while to get better, and that’s got
everyone frustrated.”

“But that’s not Mama’s fault.”

Sol slid his arm around her. “I know. It
ain’t nobody’s fault. It just is.”

Eden
seemed to think about that for a several seconds before asking, “Then why’s
Aunt Beth mad at a Mama?”

“Is she?” Sol pulled back to look at his
daughter.

Eden
shrugged. “She says she’s done her share and now it’s Mama’s turn. She says she’s
got too much to do at home. But Mama came as soon as she could.”

That surprised Sol. Sure, Georgia’s younger sister had three kids, but she’d always been one for pitching in. He
couldn’t imagine her not helping, even if she couldn’t be there full time. Then
again, he was probably biased. He liked Bethany. She was the only one of Georgia’s family who always acted happy to see him when he ran into her in town. Then
again, grumpiness was contagious. If she’d been taking care of her folks since
the stroke, Bethany was probably infected, too.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,”
Sol said. “Sisters fight sometimes. Then they get over it. You’re sharing a
room with Hannah and Leah, so you’ll see. And if Bethany doesn’t help your
mama, then we’ll have to.”

Eden
frowned. “They don’t like you neither. Grandma and Grandpa, I mean. And not
just when they’re not feeling good.”

Of course they didn’t. He was the one who’d
ruined their daughter’s life. “I know, honey. It don’t matter. But I don’t mean
just you and me. All of us McKnights’ll help.”

Eden
nodded solemnly. “That’d be good.” She offered him a lick on her Popsicle. Sol
took it then planted a blue kiss on his daughter’s forehead.

Maybe Sol will be in a better mood after
a week with Eden,
Georgia
thought as she drove the last stretch of road to her
ex-in-laws.

Though they talked every day, Georgia wasn’t getting much more than a light sketch of her daughter’s day before some activity with
one of Sol’s younger siblings pulled Eden from the phone. She was glad her
daughter was having a good time with Sol’s family, but it got lonely hearing, “Mom,
I’ve got to go. Hannah’s going to do my nails.” Or “Mom, I’ve got to go.
Grandma’s letting me collect the eggs.” Or “Mom, I’ve got to go. We’re riding
to that old house up the road. Leah says it’s haunted.”

She wished she could grab her daughter
and go all the way back to Dallas.

Earlier, while she’d waited for her
mother to finish her therapy, Georgia had called Daniel. Commiserating on the
phone with him about their absent children was a comfort. Like Georgia, he talked to his daughter every day on the phone and had even spoken to his ex a
few times.

“Is that weird for you?” Georgia had asked.

“Kind of,” he’d admitted. “She seems more
like the woman I married. I keep waiting for her to blind-side me with her Mr.
Hyde personality, but . . .” He took a deep breath. “So far,
Deanne seems happy to be with her.”

“And what would you do if she wasn’t?”

“I’d bring Deanne home,” he said without
a moment’s hesitation. “Whether that’s fair to Tracy or not. Deanne comes
first.”

That was the answer Georgia wanted to hear. Daniel was exactly the kind of man she wanted Eden to model her ideal man
after.
He
would never consider doing something as stupid as riding a
bull.

Georgia
had already decided heating things up over the phone was a bad idea. She needed
to be able to see him, to read the clues on his face that would tell her
whether he was willing to go where she wanted. If he thought it was yucky, as
the girls would say, she needed to know when to stop, so she didn’t embarrass
herself as well as him. But maybe she could risk laying a little groundwork. “I’ve
been thinking . . .”

“What?”

“It’s just . . . I’d
really like Eden to have a live-in daddy. I think it’s important to give her
that.”

There was a slight pause before he asked,
“Are you thinking about getting back with Sol?”

“What? Sol? Oh, no!” Damn. That wasn’t
supposed to be his go-to thought on the subject. But then there’d been that
little pause before he’d asked. Maybe he was worried she’d fall back into Sol’s
arms. “That’s a mistake I don’t need to make again.” There. That should
reassure him.

“I hear you.”

That was enough risk-taking, Georgia thought, so she’d let the conversation drift to other topics.

She wished, not for the first time, that
she could be sure Daniel would welcome turning their friendship into a romantic
relationship. Would it irrevocably damage the friendship? That would be awkward
since their daughters were so close.

And one incident of kissing and groping
didn’t necessarily mean anything more than that Daniel was a guy and he’d felt
the need for some comfort. Heck, alcohol had even been involved.

She pulled into the McKnights’ ranch
yard, parked her car in front of the house, and decided to stop thinking so
much about Daniel and what might be. Living with her parents and taking care of
her mother was all she could deal with at the moment.

Georgia
checked her makeup in the rearview mirror before getting out of the car. When
she got to the back porch, she saw Ruth in the garden behind the house and went
out there instead. They exchanged greetings and the obligatory “how’s everyone”
updates.

“Sure wish it would rain,” Ruth said as
she took a hoe to one of the trenches that ran between the rows of tomato plants.
“I get tired of watering this here garden.”

“Daddy says he’s worried he’ll have a
poor yield on the hay as dry as it’s been,” Georgia said.

Ruth nodded. “Us, too. It’s been so dry,
the trees been chasing the dogs.” She sighed. “I wish we hadn’t bought that
land from the Gundersons. We could use that cash if we have to buy feed for the
cattle.”

Sol had mentioned his daddy’s “land lust”
more than once.

Ruth leaned on her hoe. “Eden’s watching Gideon shoe a horse for Daisy. Why don’t you head on over to the smithy?”

“I’ll do that,” Georgia said, eager to see her daughter.

She found Eden holding the halter while
Sol’s brother Gideon braced the horse’s foreleg between his knees as he fit the
shoe on the hoof.

“Hey, Mama,” Eden said softly.

“Hey, sugar dumplin’.” Though she wanted
to wrap Eden in her arms, Georgia knew better than to startle the horse. She
sat down on the rough plank bench next to Daisy. “How’s it feel to be a free
woman?” she asked Sol’s dark-haired sister who had graduated high school in May.

“It feels great,” Daisy put down the
latest
Horse & Rider
magazine. “Hard to believe I ain’t got to go
back in the fall.”

Georgia
repressed a smile. Daisy was fully capable of speaking grammatically correct
English, but she shared that rebel streak that ran through the McKnight clan
and liked to express it as poor grammar.

“You’re not going to college?” She didn’t
know why she even asked. Daisy was the eighth of the thirteen McKnight kids,
and so far, only Jake had gone on to college. Even so, he wasn’t going to
escape the ranch. In his second year of veterinary school, he’d be through
before she knew it.

Daisy wrinkled her nose. “I’m tired of
school.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Horses,” Daisy said with her usual
confidence. “I’m going to train barrel racers.”

She should have known. Cut a McKnight,
and they bled rodeo.

“Did you know a proven barrel racer will
go for fifty thousand dollars?” Daisy asked. “Sometimes even more.”

“Yes, but a newly trained horse isn’t a
proven racer.”

“Everyone starts somewhere. And if the
trainer’s got a good enough reputation and puts out winners, they can make a
nice living. I’m gonna get there. Just like Aunt Del.”

“Aunt Del?” Georgia hadn’t been married
to Sol long enough to get to know his extended family.

“Daddy’s sister. Aunt Del’s been training
barrel racers for nearly twenty years. She trained all Cissy O’Keefe’s horses
when she rode the circuit.”

As hard as Georgia ignored rodeo, she
still recognized Cissy O’Keefe’s name. The three-time World Barrel Racing
Champion had retired a few years back. Georgia hadn’t known about the
connection to the McKnights, but sometimes it seemed as though the six degrees
of separation that supposedly connected everyone on the planet got chopped in
half with rodeo people.

“You’d rather train than ride?” Georgia asked.

“Yeah. Aunt Del says I got the right
attitude. She’s been coaching me. I’m going to be as good as she is.”

Georgia
didn’t dare doubt it. Daisy had always been determined. Sol called her
stubborn. It was two sides of the same coin in Georgia’s opinion, and it was a
McKnight family trait. “So who’ll ride these horses that are going to build
your reputation?”

“Leah wants to. I told her she could ride
the one I’m training now as long as she works hard and doesn’t get too attached
to the horses.”

Leah was only fourteen, but apparently
she was already showing signs of the family’s obsession.

“I’ve been helping, Mama,” Eden said.

“What?” Georgia’s heart plummeted,
leaving an empty spot in her chest. No way did she want her daughter seduced
into the rodeo life.

“And a great help you’ve been, too,”
Daisy said. To Georgia she added, “Eden’s been getting up early and feeding
Spitfire and mucking out her stall.”

Georgia
’s
heart returned to its proper location. Daisy was determined but she was also
notoriously hard to get out of bed in the morning. It wouldn’t hurt Eden to do chores for her aunt. How long would it take her daughter to figure out she was
the grunt labor?

While they’d been talking, Gideon had
been tapping nails into the horseshoe. Another McKnight who hadn’t been
interested in college, he’d trained as a farrier. With blacksmithing, a little
welding, and some experience floating horses’ teeth thrown in, he had a solid
customer base among the local ranchers. If the boys kept choosing ranch-related
occupations, the McKnights soon wouldn’t need to call in any outside help.

“Where’s Sol?” Georgia asked.

“He’s over at the Blake place,” Gideon
said, still focusing on the horse’s hoof. “They wanted that bull we bought a
while back to cover the cows they got in heat. Sol and Zach took the bull over
there. Don’t know if they’ll be back for supper. Old Man Blake’s quite a
yakker.”

Georgia
tried to suppress her smile. Everyone was a yakker compared to Gideon.

No slouch at yakking himself when the
subject was bulls and breeding, maybe Sol would stay away late enough that she
wouldn’t see him at all.

###

Sol dropped Zach off at the modular home
his brother shared with Maddie and their two kids half a mile from their folks’
place. The aftertaste of his own failed marriage had caused Sol some concern
when Zach had brought Maddie home, but she was damn near the perfect rancher’s
wife. She understood about things like being late to supper.

He slowed approaching the ranch driveway.
Yup, there was Georgia’s tin can. Sol shifted gears and drove past. He’d clean
up at his trailer and go into town to eat at The Road Kill Cafe. Maybe stop off
at The Lariat for a drink. That sounded like a better plan than having Georgia ruin his mood with her don’t-touch attitude.