989

The night before Virgil Duffy’s wedding, a summer storm pounded the Puget Sound. But by the next morning, the gray clouds were gone, leaving in their place a view of Elliot Bay and the spectacular skyline of downtown Seattle. Several of Virgil’s wedding guests glanced up at the clear sky and wondered if he controlled Mother Nature the same way he controlled his shipping empire. They wondered if he could control his young bride as well or if she was just a toy like his hockey team.

While the guests waited for the ceremony to begin, they sipped from fluted champagne glasses and speculated as to how long the May-December marriage would last. Not long was the general consensus.

John Kowalsky ignored the buzz of gossip around him. He had more pressing concerns. Raising a crystal tumbler to his lips, he drained the hundred-year-old scotch as if it were water. An incessant thud pounded his head. His eye sockets throbbed and his teeth ached.

He must have had one hell of a good time last night. He just wished he could remember.

From his position on the terrace, he looked down on a cross-cut emerald lawn, immaculate flower beds, and sputtering fountains. Guests dressed in Armani and Donna Karan drifted toward rows of white chairs facing an arbor festooned with flowers and ribbon and some sort of pink gauzy stuff.

John’s gaze moved to a cluster of his teammates looking out of place and uncomfortable in their matching navy blazers and scuffed loafers. They didn’t look like they wanted to be stuck in the middle of Seattle society any more than he did.

To his left, a skinny woman in a flowing lavender dress with matching shoes sat down at her harp, leaned it back against her shoulder, and began to pluck the strings just slightly louder than the noises rolling off the Puget Sound. She looked up at him and gave him a warm smile he instantly recognized. He wasn’t surprised by the woman’s interest and purposely let his gaze travel down her body, then back up again. At the age of twenty-eight, John had been with women of all shapes and sizes, economic backgrounds, and differing levels of intelligence. He wasn’t averse to taking a swim in the groupie pool, but he didn’t particularly like bony women. Although some of his teammates dated models, John preferred soft curves. When he touched a woman, he liked to feel flesh, not bone.

The harpist’s smile grew more flirtatious, and John looked away. Not only was the woman too skinny, but he hated harp music just about as much as he hated weddings. He’d been through two of his own, and neither had been real blissful. In fact, the last time he’d been this hung-over had been in Vegas six months ago when he’d woken up in a red velvet honeymoon suite suddenly married to a stripper named DeeDee Delight. The marriage hadn’t lasted much longer than the wedding night. And the real bitch of it was, he couldn’t remember if DeeDee had been all that delightful.

“Thanks for coming, son.” The owner of the Seattle Chinooks approached John from behind and patted him on the shoulder.

“I didn’t think any of us had a choice,” he said, looking down into Virgil Duffy’s lined face.

Virgil laughed and continued down the wide brick steps, the picture of wealth in his silver-gray tuxedo. Beneath the early afternoon sun, Virgil appeared to be exactly what he was: a member of the Fortune 500, owner of a professional hockey team, and a man who could buy himself a young trophy wife.

“Did you see him last night with the woman he’s marrying?”

John glanced across his right shoulder at his newest teammate, Hugh Miner. Sportswriters had compared Hugh to James Dean in looks and reckless behavior on and off the ice. John liked that in a man. “No,” he answered as he reached beneath his blazer and pulled a pair of Ray-Bans from the breast pocket of his oxford shirt. “I left fairly early.”

“Well, she’s pretty young. Twenty-two or so.”

“That’s what I hear.” He shifted to one side and let a group of older ladies pass on their way down the stairs. Being a practicing womanizer himself, he’d never claimed to be a self-righteous moralist, but there was something pathetic and just a little sick about a man Virgil’s age marrying a woman nearly forty years younger.

Hugh poked John in the side with his elbow. “And breasts that could make a man sit up and beg for buttermilk.”

John slipped the sunglasses up the bridge of his nose and smiled at the ladies who glanced back at Hugh.

He hadn’t been real quiet with his description of Virgil’s fiancée. “You were raised on a dairy farm, right?”

“Yep, about fifty miles outside of Madison,” the young goalie said with pride.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that buttermilk thing too loud, if I were you. Women tend to get real pissed off when you compare them to cows.”

“Yeah.” Hugh laughed and shook his head. “What do you think she sees in a man old enough to be her grandfather? I mean, she isn’t ugly or fat or anything. In fact, she’s real good-lookin‘.”

At the age of twenty-four, Hugh was not only younger than John but obviously naive. He was on his way to being the best damn goalie in the NHL, but he had a real bad habit of stopping the puck with his head. In view of his last question, he obviously needed a thicker mask. “Take a look around,” John answered. “The last I heard, Virgil’s worth over six hundred million.”

“Yeah, well, money can’t buy everything,” the goalie grumbled as he started down the steps. “Are you coming, Wall?” He paused to ask over his shoulder.

“Nope,” John answered. He sucked an ice cube into his mouth, then tossed the tumbler into a potted fern, showing the same disregard for the Baccarat as he had shown for the scotch. He’d put in an appearance at the party last night, and he’d shown his face today. He’d played his part, but he wasn’t staying. “I’ve got one bitch of a hangover,” he said as he descended the stairs.

“Where are you going?”

“My house in Copalis.”

“Mr. Duffy isn’t going to like it.”

“Too bad,” was his unconcerned comment as he walked around the side of the three-story brick mansion toward his 1966 Corvette parked in front. A year ago, the convertible had been a present to himself after he’d been traded to the Chinooks and had signed a multimillion-dollar contract with the Seattle hockey team. John loved the classic Corvette. He loved the big engine and all that power. He figured once he got on the freeway, he’d open the Corvette up.

As he shed his blue blazer, a flash of pink at the top of the wide brick steps caught his attention. He tossed his jacket in the shiny red car and paused to watch a woman in a light pink dress slip through the massive double doors. A beige overnight case banged against the hardwood, and a breeze tossed dozens of dark corkscrew curls about her bare shoulders. She looked like she’d been shrink-wrapped in satin from armpit to midthigh. The large white bow sewn to the top of the bodice did little to hide her centerfold bosom. Her legs were long and tan, and she wore a pair of flimsy strapless high heels on her feet.

“Hey, mister, wait a minute,” she called to him in a slightly breathless, distinctly southern voice. The heels of her ridiculous shoes made tiny click-click sounds as she bounced down the stairs. Her dress was so tight, she had to descend sideways, and with each hurried step, her breasts strained and swelled against the top of the dress.

John thought about telling her to stop before she hurt herself. Instead he shifted his weight to one foot, folded his arms, and waited until she came to a halt on the opposite side of his car. “Maybe you shouldn’t run like that,” he advised.

From beneath perfectly arched brows, pale green eyes stared at him. “Are you one of Virgil’s hockey players?” she asked, stepping out of her shoes and leaning down to pick them up. Several glossy dark curls slid over her tanned shoulder and brushed the tops of her breasts and the white bow.

“John Kowalsky,” he introduced himself. With her full, kiss-me-daddy lips and tilty eyes, she reminded him of his grandfather’s favorite sex goddess, Rita Hayworth.

“I need to get out of here. Can you help me?”

“Sure. Where are you headed?”

“Anywhere but here,” she answered, and tossed her overnight case and shoes on the floor of his car.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he slid into the Corvette. He hadn’t planned on having company, but having Miss January jump in his car wasn’t such a bad fate. Once she sat in the passenger’s seat, he pulled out of the circular drive. He wondered who she was and why she was in such a hurry.

“Oh God,” she moaned, and turned to stare at Virgil’s rapidly disappearing house. “I left Sissy there all by herself. She went to get her bouquet of lilac and pink roses and I ran out!”

“Who’s Sissy?”

“My friend.”

“Were you supposed to be in the wedding?” he asked. When she nodded he assumed she was a bridesmaid or some sort of attendant. As they sped past walls of fir trees, rolling farmland, and pink rhododendrons, he studied her out of the corner of his eye. A healthy tan tinted her smooth skin, and as John looked at her, he noticed that she was prettier then he’d first realized—younger, too.

She turned to face the front again, and the wind picked up her hair and sent it dancing about her face and straight shoulders. “Oh, God. I’ve really messed up this time,” she groaned, drawing out the vowels.

“I could take you back,” he offered, wondering what had happened to make this woman run out on her friend.

She shook her head and her pearl drop earrings brushed the smooth skin just below her jaw. “No, it’s too late. I’ve done it now. I mean, I’ve done it in the past... but this... this beats all with a stick.”

John turned his attention to the road. Female tears didn’t really bother him much, but he hated hysterics, and he had a real bad feeling she was about to get hysterical on him. “Ahh... what’s your name?” he asked, hoping to avoid a scene.

She took a deep breath, tried to let it out slowly, and grabbed at her stomach with one hand. “Georgeanne, but everyone calls me Georgie.”

“Well, Georgie, what’s your last name?”

She placed one palm on her forehead. Her sculpted nails were painted light beige on the bottom and white at the ends. “Howard.”

“Where do you live, Georgie Howard?”

“McKinney.”

“Is that just south of Tacoma?”

“Cryin‘ all night in a bucket,” she groaned, and her breathing quickened. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”

“Are you going to get sick?”

“I don’t think so.” She shook her head and gulped air into her lungs. “But I can’t breathe.”

“Are you hyperventilating?”

“Yes—no—I don’t know!” She looked at him with nervous, wet eyes. Her fingers began to claw at the pink satin covering her ribs, and the hem of her dress slipped farther up her smooth thighs. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,” she wailed between big, hiccuping breaths.

“Put your head between your knees,” he instructed, glancing briefly at the road.

She leaned slightly forward, then fell back against the seat. “I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

“My corset is too tight... Good Lord!” Her southern drawl rose. “I’ve done it up good this time. I can’t believe it...” she continued with her now familiar litany.

John began thinking that helping Georgeanne was not the best idea. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor, propelling the Corvette across a bridge spanning a narrow strip of the Puget Sound, quickly leaving Bainbridge Island behind. Shades of green sped past as the Corvette chewed up highway 305.

“Sissy is never going to forgive me.”

“I wouldn’t worry about your friend,” he said, somewhat disappointed to find that the woman in his car was as flaky as a croissant. “Virgil will buy her something nice, and she’ll forget all about it.”

A wrinkle appeared between her brows. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“Sure he will,” John argued. “He’ll probably take her someplace real expensive, too.”

“But Sissy doesn’t like Virgil. She thinks he’s a lecherous old leprechaun.”

A real bad feeling tweaked the back of John’s neck. “Isn’t Sissy the bride?”

She stared at him with her big green eyes and shook her head. “I am.”

“That’s not even funny, Georgeanne.”

“I know,” she wailed. “I can’t believe I left Virgil at the altar!”

The tweak in John’s neck shot to his head, reminding him of his hangover. He stomped on the brake as the Corvette swerved to the right and stopped on the side of the highway. Georgeanne fell against the door and grasped the handle with both hands.

“Jesus H. Christ!” John shoved the car into park and reached for the sunglasses on his face. “Tell me you’re joking!” he demanded, tossing the Ray-Bans on the dash. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if he were caught with Virgil’s runaway bride. But then, he really didn’t have to think about it too hard, he knew what would happen. He knew he’d find himself traded to a losing team faster than he could clear out his locker. He liked playing for the Chinook organization. He liked living in Seattle. The last thing he wanted was a trade.

Georgeanne straightened and shook her head.

“But you’re not wearing a wedding dress.” He felt tricked and pointed an accusing finger at her. “What kind of bride doesn’t wear a damn wedding dress?”

“This is a wedding dress.” She grasped the hem and tried to yank it modestly down her thighs. But the dress hadn’t been made for modesty. The more she tugged it toward her knees, the farther it slid down her breasts. “It’s just not a traditional wedding dress,” she explained as she grabbed the big white bow and pulled the bodice back up. “After all, Virgil has been married five times, and he thought a white gown would be tacky.”

Taking a deep breath, John closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. He had to get rid of her—fast. “You live south of Tacoma, right?”

“No. I’m from McKinney—McKinney, Texas. Until three days ago, I’d never been north of Oklahoma City.”

“This just keeps getting better.” He laughed without humor and turned to look at her sitting there as if she’d been gift wrapped just for him. “Your family is here for the wedding, right?”

Again she shook her head.

John frowned. “Naturally.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

Jumping out of the car, John ran to the other side. If she was going to vomit, he’d prefer she didn’t do it in his new classic ‘vette. He opened her door and grabbed her around the waist, and even though John was six foot five, weighed two twenty-five in his birthday suit, and could easily body-check any player against the boards, hauling Georgeanne Howard from his car was no easy task. She was heavier than she looked, and beneath his hands, she felt like she’d sealed herself up in a soup can. “Are you going to puke?” he asked the part in the top of her head.

“I don’t think so,” she answered, and looked up at him with pleading eyes. He’d been around enough women to spot a house cat when one landed in his lap. He recognized the “love me, feed me, take care of me” breed. They purred and rubbed, and other than making a man yowl, weren’t good for anything else. He’d help her get where she needed to go, but the last thing he wanted was the care and feeding of the woman who’d jilted Virgil Duffy. “Where can I drop you off?”

Georgeanne felt like she’d swallowed dozens of butterflies and had difficulty catching her breath. She’d cinched herself into a dress two sizes too small and could only suck air into the top of her lungs. She looked way up into dark blue eyes surrounded by thick lashes and knew she’d rather slit her wrists with a butter knife than get sick in front of a man so outrageously good-looking. His thick lashes and full mouth should have made him look a little feminine, but didn’t. The man exuded too much masculinity to be confused for anything but one hundred percent heterosexual male. Georgeanne, who stood five ten and weighed one hundred forty—on good days when she wasn’t retaining water—felt almost small next to him.

“Where can I drop you off, Georgie?” he asked her again. A lock of rich brown hair curved over his forehead, drawing her attention to a thin white scar running through his left brow.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. For months now she’d lived with a horrible heaviness in her chest. A weight she’d been so sure a man like Virgil could make go away. With Virgil, she would have never had to dodge bill collectors or angry landlords again. She was twenty-two and had tried to take care of herself, but as with most things in her life, she’d failed—miserably. She’d always been a failure. She’d failed in school and at every job she’d ever had, and she’d failed to convince herself that she could love Virgil Duffy. That afternoon, as she’d stood before the cheval mirror studying her reflection, studying the wedding dress he’d chosen for her, the heaviness in her chest threatened to choke her and she’d known she couldn’t marry Virgil. Not even for all that wonderful money could she go to bed with a man who reminded her of H. Ross Perot.

“Where’s your family?”

She thought of her grandmother. “I have a great-aunt and uncle who live in Duncanville, but Lolly can’t travel because of her lumbago, and Uncle Clyde had to stay home and take care of her.”

The corners of his mouth turned downward. “Where are your parents?”

“I was brought up by my grandmother, but she took her final journey to heaven several years ago,” Georgeanne answered, hoping he wouldn’t ask about the father she’d never known or the mother she’d seen only once at her grandmother’s funeral.

“Friends?”

“She’s at Virgil’s.” Just the thought of Sissy made her heart palpitate. She’d been so careful to make sure everyone matched the lavender punch. Now coordinating dresses and dyed pumps seemed trivial and silly.

A frown bracketed his mouth. “Naturally.” He removed his big hands from her waist and ran his fingers through the sides of his hair. “It doesn’t sound to me like you have a real firm plan.”

No, she didn’t have a plan, firm or otherwise. She’d grabbed her vanity case and had run out of Virgil’s house without a thought to where she was going or how she planned to get there.

“Well, hell.” He dropped his hands to his sides and looked down the road. “You might want to think up something.”

Georgeanne had a horrible feeling that if she didn’t come up with an idea within the next two minutes, John would jump back in his car and leave her on the side of the road. She needed him, at least for a few days until she figured out what to do next, and so she did what had always worked for her. She placed one hand on his arm and leaned into him a little, just enough to make him think she was open to any suggestion he might make. “Maybe you could help me,” she said in her smoothest bourbon-soaked voice, then topped it off with a you’re-such-a-big-ol‘-stud-and-I’m-so-helpless smile. Georgeanne might be a failure at everything else in her life, but she was an accomplished flirt and a bona fide success when it came to manipulating men. Lowering her lashes modestly, she gazed up into his beautiful eyes. One corner of her lips tilted in a seductive promise she had no intention of keeping. She slid her palms to his hard forearms, a gesture made to seem like a caress but that was purely a tactical maneuver to guard against quick hands. Georgeanne hated it when men pawed her breasts.

“You’re real tempting,” he said, placing a finger beneath her chin and lifting her face. “But you’re not worth what it’d cost me.”

“Cost you?” A cool breeze picked up several spiral curls and sent them dancing about her face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he began, then glanced pointedly at her breasts pressed against his chest, “that you want something from me and you’re willing to use your body to get it. I like sex as much as any man, but, honey, you’re not worth my career.”

Georgeanne pushed away from him and batted her hair from her eyes. She’d been in several intimate relationships in her life, but as far as she was concerned, sex was highly overrated. Men seemed to really enjoy it, but for her, sex was just plain embarrassing. The only good thing she could say about it was that it only lasted about three minutes. She raised her chin and looked at him as if he’d just hurt and insulted her. “You’re mistaken. I’m not that kind of girl.”

“I see.” He looked back at her as if he knew exactly what kind of girl she was. “You’re a tease.”

Tease was such an ugly word. She thought of herself more as an actress.

“Why don’t you cut the bullshit and just tell me what you want.”

“Okay,” she said, changing tactics. “I need a little help, and I need a place to stay for a few days.”

“Listen,” he sighed, and shifted his weight to one foot. “I’m not the type of man you’re looking for. I can’t help you.”

“Then why did you tell me you would?”

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer.

“Just for a few days,” she pleaded, desperate. She needed time to think of what to do now—now that she’d royally messed up her life. “I won’t be any trouble.”

“I doubt that,” he scoffed.

“I need to get in touch with my aunt.”

“Where’s your aunt?”

“Back in McKinney,” she answered truthfully, although she didn’t look forward to her conversation with Lolly. Her aunt had been extremely pleased with Georgeanne’s choice in a husband. Even though Lolly had never been so tactless as to come right out and say so, Georgeanne suspected that her aunt envisioned a series of expensive gifts like a big-screen TV and a Craftmatic Adjustable Bed.

John’s hard stare pinned her for several long moments. “Shit, get in,” he said, and turned to walk around the front of the car. “But as soon as you get in touch with your aunt, I’m dropping you off at the airport or bus depot or wherever the hell else you’re going.”

Despite his less-than-enthusiastic offer, Georgeanne didn’t waste any time. She jumped back in the car and slammed the door.

Once John was behind the wheel, he shoved the Corvette into gear, and the car shot back onto the highway. The sound of tires hitting the pavement filled an awkward silence between them—at least it felt awkward to Georgeanne. John didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

For years she’d attended Miss Virdie Marshall’s School of Ballet, Tap, and Charm. Although she’d never been the most coordinated girl, she’d outshined the others with her ability to charm anyone, anywhere, any time of the day. But this day she had a slight problem. John didn’t seem to like her, which perplexed Georgeanne because men always liked her. From what she’d noticed of him so far, he wasn’t a gentleman either. He used profanity with a frequency bordering on habitual, and he didn’t apologize. The southern men she knew swore, of course, but they usually begged pardon afterward. John didn’t strike her as the type of man to beg pardon for anything.

She turned to look at his profile and set about charming John Kowalsky. “Are you from Seattle originally?” she asked, determined that he would like her by the time they reached their destination. It would make things so much easier if he did. Because he might not realize it yet, but John was going to offer her a place to stay for a while.

“No.”

“Where are you from?”

“Saskatoon.”

“Where?”

“Canada.”

Her hair blew about her face, and she gathered it all in one hand and held it by the side of her neck. “I’ve never been to Canada.”

He didn’t comment.

“How long have you played hockey?” she asked, hoping to drag a little pleasant conversation out of him.

“All of my life.”

“How long have you played for the Chinooks?”

He reached for his sunglasses sitting on the dash and put them on. “A year.”

“I’ve seen a Stars game,” she said, referring to the Dallas hockey team.

“Bunch of candy-assed pussies,” he muttered as he unbuttoned the white cuff above his driving hand and folded it up his forearm.

Not exactly pleasant conversation, she decided. “Did you go to college?”

“Not really.”

Georgeanne had no idea what he meant by that. “I went to the University of Texas,” she lied in a effort to impress him into liking her.

He yawned.

“I pledged a Kappa,” she added to the lie.

“Yeah? So?”

Undaunted with his less-than-enthusiastic response, she continued, “Are you married?”

He stared at her through the lenses of his sunglasses, leaving little doubt she’d touched on a sore subject. “What are you, the friggin‘ National Enquirer?”

“No. I’m just curious. I mean, we will be spending a certain amount of time together, so I thought it would be nice to have a friendly chat and get to know each other.”

John turned his attention back to the road and began to work on his other cuff. “I don’t chat.”

Georgeanne pulled at the hem of her dress. “May I ask where we’re going?”

“I have a house on Copalis Beach. You can get in touch with your aunt from there.”

“Is that near Seattle?” She shifted her weight to one side and continued to yank at the hem of her dress.

“Nope. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re headed west.”

Panic surged through her as they sped farther from anything remotely familiar. “How in the heck would I know that?”

“Maybe because the sun is at our backs.”

Georgeanne hadn’t noticed, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have thought to judge direction by looking at the sun. She always messed up that whole north-south-east-west thing. “I assume you have a phone at your beach house?”

“Of course.”

She’d have to make a few long-distance telephone calls to Dallas. She had to call Lolly, and she needed to phone Sissy’s parents and tell them what had happened and how they could get in touch with their daughter. She also needed to call Seattle and find out where to send Virgil’s engagement ring. She glanced at the five-carat diamond solitaire on her left hand and felt like crying. She loved that ring but knew she couldn’t keep it. She was a flirt, and maybe even a tease, but she did have scruples. The diamond would have to go back, but not now. Now she needed to calm her nerves before she fell apart. “I’ve never been to the Pacific Ocean,” she said, feeling her panic easing a bit.

He made no comment.

Georgeanne had always considered herself the perfect blind date because she could talk water uphill, especially when she felt nervous. “But I’ve been to the Gulf many times,” she began. “Once when I was twelve, my grandmother took me and Sissy in her big Lincoln. Boy, what a boat. That car must have weighed ten tons if it weighed an ounce. Sissy and I had just bought these really cool bikinis. Hers looked like an American flag while mine was made of a silky bandanna material. I’ll never forget it. We drove all the way into Dallas just to buy that bikini at J.C. Penney’s. I’d seen it in a catalog and I was just dying to have it. Anyway, Sissy is a Miller on her mother’s side, and the Miller women are known throughout Collin County for their wide hips and piano ankles—not very attractive, but a lovely family just the same. One time—”

“Is there a point to all of this?” John interrupted.

“I was getting to it,” she told him, trying to remain pleasant.

“Any time soon?”

“I just wanted to ask if the water off the coast of Washington is very cold.”

John smiled and cast a glance at her then. For the first time, she noticed the dimple creasing his right cheek. “You’ll freeze your southern butt off,” he said before looking down at the console between them and picking up a cassette. He popped it in the tape player and a wailing harmonica put an end to any attempt at further conversation.

Georgeanne turned her attention to the hilly landscape dotted with fir and alder trees and painted with smears of blue, red, yellow, and of course, green. Up until now, she’d done fairly well at avoiding her thoughts, afraid they would overwhelm and paralyze her. But with no other distraction, they rolled over her like a Texas heat wave. She thought about her life and about what she’d done today. She’d left a man at the altar, and even though the marriage would have been a disaster, he hadn’t deserved that.

All of her things were packed into four suitcases in Virgil’s Rolls-Royce, except the carry-on sitting on the floor of John’s car. She’d packed the little suitcase with essentials the night before in preparation for her and Virgil’s honeymoon trip.

Now all she had with her was a wallet filled with seven dollars and three maxed-out credit cards, a liberal amount of cosmetics, a toothbrush and hairbrush, comb, a can of Aqua Net, six pairs of French-cut underwear with matching lace bras, her birth control pills, and a Snickers.

She had hit an all-time low, even for Georgeanne.