Simply Irresistible by Rachel Gibson Read Free Book Online Page A

his money?”
    Georgeanne could feel her eyes widen and her cheeks burn. The idea that her relationship with Virgil had been fodder for locker-room jock talk was beyond humiliating.
    “That’s enough, John,” Ernie ordered. “Georgie is a nice girl.”
    “Yeah? Well, nice girls don’t sleep with men for their money.”
    Georgeanne opened her mouth, but words failed her. She tried to think of something equally hurtful, but she couldn’t. She was sure a perfectly witty and sarcastic response would come to her later, long after she needed it. She took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. It was a sad fact of her life that when she became flustered, words flew from her head—simple words like door, stove , or—as was the case earlier when she’d had to ask John for help— corset . “I don’t know what I’ve done to make you say such cruel things,” she said, placing her napkin on the table. “I don’t know if it’s me, if you hate women in general, or if you’re just terminally bad-tempered, but my relationship with Virgil is none of your business.”
    “I don’t hate women,” John assured her, then deliberately lowered his gaze to the front of her T-shirt.
    “That’s right,” Ernie broke in. “Your relationship with Mr. Duffy isn’t our business.” Ernie reached for her hand. “The tide is almost out. Why don’t you go on down and look for some tide pools near those big rocks down there. Maybe you can find something from the Washington coast to take back to Texas with you.”
    Georgeanne had been raised to respect her elders too much to argue or question Ernie’s suggestion. She glanced at both men, then stood. “I’m truly sorry, Mr. Maxwell. I didn’t mean to cause trouble between y’all.”
    Without taking his eyes from his grandson, Ernie answered, “It’s not your fault. This has nothing to do with you.”
    It certainly felt like her fault, she thought as she stepped behind her chair and slid it forward. As Georgeanne walked through the narrow, foam green kitchen toward the multipaned back door, she realized that she’d let John’s good looks impair her judgment. He wasn’t pretending to be a jerk. He was one!
     
    Ernie waited until he heard the back door close before he said, “It’s not right for you to take out your bad temper on that little girl.” He watched one brow rise up his grandson’s forehead.
    “Little?” John planted his elbows on the table. “By no stretch of the imagination could you ever mistake Georgeanne for a ‘little girl.’ ”
    “Well, she can’t be very old,” Ernie continued. “And you were disrespectful and rude. If your mother were here, she’d give your ear a good hard twist.”
    A smile curved one corner of John’s mouth. “Probably,” he said.
    Ernie stared into his grandson’s face and pain wrenched his heart. The smile on John’s lips didn’t reach his eyes—it never did these days. “It’s no good, John-John.” He placed his hand on John’s shoulder and felt the hard muscles of a man. Before him, he recognized nothing of the happy boy he’d taken hunting and fishing, the boy he’d taught to play hockey and drive a car, the boy he’d taught everything he’d known about being a man. The man before him wasn’t the boy he’d raised. “You have to let it out. You can’t hold it all in, walking around blaming yourself.”
    “I don’t have to let anything out,” he said, his smile disappearing altogether. “I told you that I don’t want to talk about it.”
    Ernie looked into John’s closed expression, into the blue eyes so much like his own had been before they’d clouded with age. He’d never pressed John about his first wife. He’d figured John would come to terms with what Linda had done on his own. Even though John had been a dumbass and married that stripper six months ago, Ernie had hopes that he’d begun to work things out in his own mind. But tomorrow marked the first anniversary of her death, and John