Simply Irresistible (6 page)

“You’re jealous,” Ernie laughed. “You’re jealous of an old guy like me.” He slapped his hands on the table and slowly stood. “I’ll be damned.”

“You’re crazy,” John scoffed, snagging his beer as he stood also.

“I think you like her,” he said, and turned toward the living room. “I saw the way you were looking at her when she didn’t know you were looking. You may not want to like her, but you’re attracted to her, and it’s pissing you off.” He walked into his bedroom and stuffed a few things in a duffel bag.

“Where are you going?” John asked from the doorway.

“I’m gonna stay with Dickie for a few days. I’m just in the way here.”

“No you’re not.”

Ernie glanced back at his grandson. “I told you, I saw the way you were eyeing her.”

John shoved one hand in the front pocket of his Levi’s and leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. With his other hand, he impatiently tapped the beer bottle against his thigh. “And I told you, I’m not going to have sex with Virgil’s fiancée.”

“I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.” Ernie zipped the duffel bag closed and reached for the straps with his left hand. He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing by leaving. His first instinct was to stay and make sure his grandson didn’t do anything he might regret in the morning. But Ernie had done his job. He’d helped raise John already. There was nothing he could do now. There was nothing he could do to save John from himself. “Because you’ll end up hurting that girl and damaging your career.”

“I don’t plan to do either.”

Ernie looked up and smiled sadly. “I hope not,” he said, unconvinced, and strode toward the front door. “I sure as hell hope not.”

John watched his grandfather leave, then he walked back into the living room. His bare feet sank into the thick beige carpet as he moved toward the picture window. He owned three houses; two were on the West Coast. He loved the ocean, the sounds and smells of it. He could lose himself in the monotony of the waves. This house was a haven from life. Here, he didn’t have to worry about contracts or endorsements or anything attached to being one of the most talked about centers in the NHL. He found a peace here that he couldn’t find anywhere else.

Until today.

He stared out the big window at the woman who stood at the edge of the surf, the breeze whipping her dark hair about her head. Georgeanne definitely disturbed his peace. He brought the bottle of beer to his lips and took a long pull.

An unwitting smile tugged one corner of his mouth as he watched her tiptoe cautiously into the cold waves. Without a doubt, Georgeanne Howard was a walking fantasy. If it weren’t for her irritating habit of rambling, and if she weren’t Virgil’s fiancée, John didn’t think he’d be in such a hurry to get rid of her.

But Georgeanne was entangled with the owner of the Chinooks, and John had to get her out of town as soon as possible. He figured he’d take her to the airport or bus depot in the morning, which still left the long night ahead.

He hooked one thumb in the waistband of his faded jeans and turned his gaze to a pair of kids flying a kite down the beach. He wasn’t worried that he’d end up in bed with Georgeanne. Because contrary to what Ernie believed, John thought with his head, not his dick. As he raised the beer to his mouth again, his conscience took the opportunity to remind him of his asinine marriage to DeeDee.

Slowly he lowered the bottle and looked back at Georgeanne. He never would have done anything so stupid as marry a woman he hadn’t known more than a few hours if he hadn’t been drunk, no matter how great her body. And DeeDee’s body had been great.

A dark scowl turned John’s mouth downward. His eyes followed Georgeanne as she played in the surf, then with a foul curse on his lips, he stormed into the kitchen and poured out his beer.

The last thing he needed was to wake up in the morning with a pounding headache and married to Virgil’s fiancée.

Chapter Three

Georgeanne flinched each time a frigid wave rose up her thighs. A shudder shook her shoulders, but despite the cold, she dug her feet into the sand and grabbed ahold of the large rock shaped like a loaf of bread. Bending forward slightly, she planted her hand on the jagged stone. For several moments she stared, fascinated, at the numerous purple and orange starfish fastened to the rock. Then like a woman reading braille, she lightly ran her fingers across the lines of a hard, rough back. The five-carat diamond solitaire on her left hand caught the evening sun and shot blue and red fire across her knuckles.

The surf pounding in her ears, and the view before her eyes, kept her head clear—clear of everything— everything but the simple pleasure of experiencing the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

When she’d first walked down to the beach, her dark thoughts had threatened to overwhelm her. Her destitution, the day’s unfortunate wedding catastrophe, and her dependency on a man like John, who didn’t seem to possess two ounces of compassion, weighed heavy on her shoulders. But worse than her money problems, John, or Virgil was the feeling that she was so incredibly alone in a vast world where nothing felt familiar. She was surrounded by trees and mountains, and everything was so green. The textures were different here, the sand coarser, the water colder, and the wind harsher.

As she’d stood staring out at the ocean, feeling like the only person alive, she’d fought the panic swelling within her, but she’d lost the battle. Like a high-rise building experiencing blackout, Georgeanne had felt and heard the familiar click-click-hum of her brain shutting down. From as far back as she could remember, her mind had always gone blank when she felt overwhelmed. She hated when it happened, but was powerless to prevent it. The events of the day had finally caught up with her, and she was so overloaded, it had taken longer than usual for the lights to come back on. When they had, she’d closed her eyes, taken deep, cleansing breaths, then pushed the day’s troubling thoughts from her head.

Georgeanne was good at clearing her mind and refocusing on one certain thing. She’d had years of practice. She’d had years to learn to cope with a world that danced to a different beat—a beat she didn’t always know or understand. But a beat she’d learned to fake. Since the age of nine, she’d worked hard to make it appear as if she were in perfect step with everyone else.

Since that afternoon twelve years ago when her grandmother had told her she had a brain dysfunction, they’d tried to hide her disability from the world. She’d been enrolled in charm and cooking schools, yet she’d never been taken to a scholastic tutor. She understood design compositions and could make beautiful flower arrangements with her eyes closed, yet she could not read past the fourth-grade level. She hid her problems behind charm and flirtations, behind her beautiful face and body. Even though she now knew she was dyslexic rather than retarded, she still hid it. And even though she felt tremendous relief with the discovery, she was still too embarrassed to seek help.

A large wave hit the front of her thighs and soaked the bottom of her shorts. She braced her feet wider apart and dug her toes even deeper into the sand. Close to the top of Georgeanne’s list of life’s rules, right under making sure people liked her, and directly above being a good hostess, was her determination to appear just like everyone else. As a result, she tried to learn
and
remember two new words a week. She rented movie adaptations of classic literature, and she owned the video of what she considered the best movie ever put on celluloid,
Gone with the Wind
. She owned the book, too, but had never read it. All those pages and all those words were just too overwhelming.

Moving her hand to a lime green sea anemone, she lightly brushed the edge. The sticky tentacles closed around her fingers. Startled, she jumped back. Another large wave hit her thighs, her knees buckled, and she splashed backward into the surf. A breaker pushed her away from the rock, flipped her several times, and propelled her toward the shore. Icy cold ocean slapped her chest and sucked her breath away. Salt water and sand filled her mouth as she kicked and clawed to keep her head above the surface. A piece of slimy seaweed wrapped around her neck and an even larger wave caught her from behind and shot her up the beach like a torpedo. By the time she finally came to a stop, the surf was already rushing back out to meet the next wave. With one hand she pushed herself to her feet and scrambled up the beach. When she reached the safety of the shore, she dropped to her hands and knees and took several deep breaths. She spit sand from her mouth, grabbed the seaweed from around her neck, and tossed it aside. Her teeth began to chatter, and when she thought of all the plankton she’d just swallowed, her stomach pitched like the Pacific behind her. She could feel grit in very uncomfortable places and looked toward John’s house, hoping her misadventure had gone unobserved.

It hadn’t. Sunglasses shading his eyes and his rubber thongs kicking up sand, John strolled toward her looking good enough to lick up one side and down the other. Georgeanne wanted to crawl back into the ocean and die.

Above the sound of the surf and seagulls, his rich, deep laughter reached her ears. In a flash she forgot about the cold, the sand, and the seaweed. She forgot about her appearance and wanting to die. Red-hot rage shot through her veins and ignited her temper like a blowtorch. She’d worked all of her life to avoid ridicule, and there was nothing she
hated
more than being
laughed
at.

“That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” he said with a flash of his straight white teeth.

Georgeanne’s anger rumbled in her ears, blocking even the sound of the ocean. Her fists closed around two clumps of wet sand.

“Damn, you should have seen yourself,” he told her with a shake of his head. The breeze ruffled the dark hair about his ears and forehead as he roared with laughter.

Rising to her knees, Georgeanne threw a handful of sandy mud, hitting him in the chest with a satisfying splat. She’d never been particularly coordinated or light on her feet, but she’d always been a good shot.

His laughter died instantly. “What the hell?” he swore, and looked down at the front of his tank top. When he raised his stunned gaze, Georgeanne nailed him on the forehead. The sand glob knocked his Ray-Bans askew before the sand fell to his feet. Over the top of the black frames his blue eyes stared back at her, promising retribution.

Georgeanne smiled and reached for another handful. She was beyond fearing anything John might do. “Why aren’t you laughing now, you stupid jock?”

He slid the sunglasses from his face and pointed them at her. “I wouldn’t throw that.”

She stood and, with a brisk toss of her head, flipped a hunk of soggy hair out of her face. “Afraid of a little dirt?”

One dark brow rose up his forehead, but otherwise, he didn’t move.

“What are you going to do?” she taunted the man who suddenly represented every injustice and insult ever inflicted on her. “Something really macho?”

John smiled, then before Georgeanne could utter a scream, he moved like the athlete he was and body-checked her to the ground. The sand flew from her hand. Stunned, she blinked and looked into his face only a few inches from hers.

“What in the hell is the matter with you?” he asked, sounding more incredulous than angry. A dark lock of hair fell over his forehead and touched the white scar running through his brow.

“Get off of me,” Georgeanne demanded, and socked him on the upper arm. His warm skin and hard muscle felt good beneath her clenched fist, and she punched him again, venting her rage. She hit him for laughing at her, for insinuating she’d planned to marry Virgil for money, and for being right. She struck out against her grandmother, who’d died and left her alone—alone to make bad choices.

“Jesus, Georgie,” John cursed, grabbed her wrists, and pinned them to the ground next to her head. “Stop it.”

She looked up into his handsome face, and she hated him. She hated herself, and she hated the moisture blurring her vision. She took a deep breath to keep herself from crying, but a sob caught in her throat. “I hate you,” she whispered, and ran her tongue over her salty lips. Her breasts heaved with the effort to keep her tears inside.

“At the moment,” John said, his face so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek, “I can’t say that I’m real fond of you either.”

The heat from John’s body penetrated her anger, and Georgeanne became acutely aware of several things at once. She became aware of his right leg crammed snugly between both of hers and his groin shoved intimately into her inner thigh. His wide chest covered her, but his weight wasn’t at all unpleasant. He was solid and incredibly warm.

“But damn if you don’t give me ideas,” he said, a smile twisting one corner of his mouth. “Bad ideas.” He shook his head as if he were trying to convince himself of something. “Real bad.” His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist as his gaze drifted across her face. “You shouldn’t look this good. You’ve got dirt on your forehead, your hair is a damn mess, and you’re as wet as a drowned cat.”

For the first time in days, Georgeanne felt as if she’d been plopped down on familiar ground. A satisfied little smile curved her lips. No matter how he behaved to the contrary, John liked her after all. And with a little tactical maneuvering, he might be willing to let her stay at his house until she figured out what to do with her life. “Please let go of my wrists.”

“Are you going to punch me again?”

Georgeanne shook her head, mentally calculating exactly how much of her considerable charm to use on him.

One of his brows lifted. “Throw sand?”

“No.”

He released his hold but didn’t move to get off her. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” She placed her palms on his shoulders, and beneath her hands his hard muscles bunched, reminding her of his strength. John didn’t strike her as the type of man to force himself on a woman, but she
was
staying in his house. That fact alone could give a man the wrong idea. Before, when he hadn’t seemed to even like her, it hadn’t occurred to her that John might expect more than gratitude. It occurred to her now.