“No.” The single word nearly exploded out of her. “No, please stay here. Paige…Paige is somewhere making sure they do what they need to do. And looking for my dad whenever he gets here.” She gripped the back of his shirt. “Please don’t go.”
Wyatt’s head shook without a moment’s consideration. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She gave a jerky nod before laying her head back down on his shoulder. He stroked his fingers up and down her spine, the movement comforting him just as much as he hoped it would comfort her. His eyes fell on the older woman in the bed, and his own heart clenched. He remembered her grandmother with the same fire and determination that was passed down to Gigi’s mom that gave her the will to fight cancer much longer than doctors expected. And the same grit and strength that Gigi possessed to get her through that decline and loss.
And now she’s going through it again.
The realization tightened his hold on her, and she pressed impossibly deeper into his embrace. A tenuous peace descended and lasted until the door opened again. Barry Marsh somehow managed not to change much over the past dozen years, perhaps a bit thinner and sporting just a touch more gray at the temples, but otherwise the same rather imposing figure Wyatt respected and mildly feared in his youth.
But his eyes were a mixture of exhaustion and fear. Nearly identical to what they were when he cared for his wife.
Gigi lifted her head and abandoned both Wyatt’s embrace and her grandmother’s bedside to launch into her father’s open arms. “I shouldn’t have left her.”
“Whoa, wait.” Barry gripped her biceps and held her away from him. “Do you think you could have prevented this? How, by sitting beside her bed and staring at her for hours to run and grab her at the first movement?” He shook his head and pressed his lips together. “She got out of bed for who knows what reason, and Paige was at her side in less than ten seconds when she fell. You couldn’t have done any better than that.”
“But—”
He dipped his chin and pinned her with a look Wyatt was grateful to not be on the receiving end of. “But nothing. Now, I’m going to go find Paige and the doctors and see what the hell is going on.” With that, he kissed her forehead and turned to leave. He paused at the door before turning around to stick a hand out with a weary smile. “Good to see you back, Wyatt. Sorry we had to meet like this.”
Wyatt shook the older man’s hand with two firm pumps. “Nice to see you again, sir.”
Gigi gripped the bedrail and stared at her grandmother. The woman turned her head to where Gigi and Wyatt stood and blinked three times. On the last blink, a smile spread across her face. “Oh, Wyatt, did you come to take Georgie out on a date?”
A strangled sound from Gigi met her question, but Wyatt ignored it and bent slightly over the rail to hold her grandmother’s hand. “Yes, ma’am, I did.”
Her silver head nodded, and her eyes slowly closed just as a low, barely discernible string of curses left Gigi’s mouth.
Wyatt bent his head and put his mouth next to her ear. “Now you don’t want your grandmother to hear you talking like that, do you, Angel?”
With one last look at her grandmother’s now slumbering form, Gigi turned around and pinned him with a narrow stare. “I spend every day with her. The good ones and the bad ones and she can’t remember who I am. You’re back for five minutes and she’s falling all over the Rhinestone Cowboy again.”
He swallowed back the highly inappropriate laugh that wanted to escape, released the older woman’s hand, and pulled Gigi to him again. “Sorry ’bout that, Angel.”
She rolled her eyes and dropped her forehead on his chest. “I still hate you,” she mumbled into the cotton.
This time a small chuckle broke free. “I know. I love you too.”
***
Georgia
Georgia wasn’t certain if the call from Ryan came at the perfect time or the perfectly wrong time as she sat in the waiting room for the doctor to emerge from the OR to update them on her grandmother. The distraction from the nauseatingly slow tick of the clock was welcome, but she feared the moment she left the room would be the exact one that the surgeon chose to come in.
By the time her phone vibrated for a third time, she finally made up her mind to answer and gave Wyatt’s hand a squeeze before stepping into the hall. “Hey, Ryan, what did you find?”
“Holy hell, Georgia, this is a mess.” His loud, nasal voice made her wince. “This guy has been getting fleeced for the past decade. I can’t believe he never caught on.”
Anger rose within her and pulled her spine into a perfectly straight line. “He trusted the people around him. That isn’t a crime. Do you know who is behind Integrity Investments?”
She had a suspicion. From the first moment she began reviewing Wyatt’s paperwork and statements and accounts, she had a gut instinct she knew exactly who it was, but she hadn’t breathed a word, knowing the betrayal Wyatt was certain to feel if her suspicions were right. She needed proof and hoped Ryan would be able to give her that.
“James Adamson.” Ryan spoke the name of the man she’d had in her sights from the beginning.
Her molars ground, and she peered through the glass just as the doctor walked in from the opposite direction. “Listen, Ryan, I owe you one for this. A big one, but I’ve got to go. Thanks.”
She clicked off the line and stepped back into the waiting room just as Wyatt rose to his feet.
He held out a hand to bring her to his side. “I was just coming to get you.”
Georgia managed a weak smile, her mind and heart being pulled in two vastly different directions. She turned to the doctor, clad in baby blue scrubs. “How did she do?”
Crinkles formed at the corners of the other man’s eyes. “Better than many of my much younger patients. She’s in recovery, and as soon as she’s stable, they’re going to take her back to her room and you can meet her there.” His face sobered. “But she’s also eighty-two with a brand new hip. She’s going to require in-patient physical therapy for a period of time and then some more once she’s discharged home. With her mental status, this will require a great deal of care and time.”
The doctor ran through a few more comments on the different facilities and physical therapists that he worked closely with before leaving them alone in the waiting room once more.
Georgia’s father turned to her just as the door closed. “I can do mornings and we can get home healthcare to cover afternoons if you can manage the evenings so I can schedule clients and dinners.” The flexibility that came along with her father owning his own modestly successful insurance agency had been a luxury both with her mother and grandmother. “I can take the time she’s in rehab to move things around to set up a firmer schedule.”
She nodded and ran her tongue along the roof of her mouth. Dates, meetings, and already scheduled commitments running through her mind. The majority were in the near enough future nothing would be impacted, but—
“I can help too.”
So lost in her own thoughts she’d nearly forgotten his presence until his voice cut through the litany of things she mentally tallied. “That’s not necessary. We have this covered.”
As soon as she turned back to her father, Wyatt’s hand closed around her shoulder, pivoting her back to face him. “I’m here and I want to help.”
Her nostrils flared, and unexpected anger welled in her chest. She and her father had been doing just fine for the past year and half without the freaking Rhinestone Cowboy showing up with misplaced intentions, and they’d handle this setback just as well without him. She needed consistency and reliability, and those were words that weren’t in Wyatt Carlisle’s vocabulary, no matter how desperately she wished they were and no matter how much she wanted to take him up on the offer.
And the fact she couldn’t only served to amplify the burning resentment racing along her veins.
Barry picked that moment to take a step back from Wyatt and Georgia, his eyes darting back and fort
h between them. “I’m going down to the cafeteria to get a bite to eat. Want anything?”
Georgia folded her arms across her aching chest and shook her head. “No thanks, Dad. I’m good.”
“Yeah, me too.” Wyatt’s brow furrowed, but his lips stayed pressed firmly together until the door shut behind her father’s back. “What the hell, Gigi? I’m trying to be here for you. I’m trying to prove that I’m not going anywhere and I can handle…whatever you need. I know I screwed up, and I’ve apologized in ten different ways, but I can’t show you that you can trust me if you won’t give me the chance.”
“I’m done giving chances.” She held both hands up, palms facing him. “I gave you a chance when I was eighteen, and you walked away. The first man I managed to trust enough to have a relationship with longer than six months decided that hiding a wife and kids from me was a good idea until two weeks after he proposed, when I needed his support when Gram was diagnosed.”
She ran her fingers through her hair and paced in front of the row of linked chairs in the thankfully empty waiting room. “And just when I start letting you back in, you did it again.”
His face turned to a sickly shade of green. “Did what again?”
Georgia ran her tongue along her suddenly parched lips and allowed all the hurt and anger she’d bottled up for a dozen years to pour out. “You took me away from my responsibilities and my family to spend time with you. You made everything all about you, and because I wasn’t there, Gram fell and needed surgery. Just like you did with my mom.”
The corners of her eyes burned with unshed tears. “By the way, it was your manager, Jim. He embezzled hundreds of thousands from you. You need a good attorney.”
His jaw dropped, but she pushed past him, fleeing the room and the building before he could say a word. Her fingers flew across the glass screen of her smartphone as she descended to the ground floor in the elevator. Within seconds, Paige responded to her plea with confirmation she’d pick her up in five minutes.
She stood on the far side of the hospital waiting for her best friend and hiding from the view of the front entrance so Wyatt couldn’t spot her on his way out. She didn’t have time in her life for a part-time boyfriend or strength in her heart to recover if he disappeared again.
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Wyatt
Twelve Years Earlier
Her lids had only been shut for a precious few moments when the doorbell chimed again and she jumped beneath his arm. Another condolence. Another offer of help. Another casserole. The table overflowed with them. Southern manners at their shining best. Gigi’s grandmother flitted about the kitchen, looking for containers and muttering about not having enough room to store the plethora of food, all in between crying jags. His heart ached for the family he’d come to love almost as much as his own, but he focused all his attention on the one nestled against his ribcage.
Gigi blinked up at him, her hazel eyes clouded with confusion briefly before reality sank in once more. He hated seeing her remember over and over the loss that shook her world. “It’s okay, you can go back to sleep. Just more food.”
Her chin quivered, and she leaned impossibly closer to his side on the sofa. “I don’t think I can sleep anymore.”
In any other scenario, he would have rolled his eyes. At any other time, he would have told her that fifteen-minute cat naps didn’t constitute sleep. But he banked every drop of his swagger and somewhat pushy personality. “Then how about you try to eat something?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Wyatt pressed his lips to her forehead. “I didn’t ask if you were hungry. I said you should try to eat something.”
In the slightly more than twenty-four hours since her mother passed, she’d eaten exactly ten crackers, a third of a bowl of cereal, and one chocolate chip cookie. He’d been counting. Even though grief was clouding her brain and distracting her from anything but the all-consuming pain, his mind was in laser-sharp focus, and he took it as his personal duty to make sure she was as taken care of as possible.
He stood and held out a hand, helping her to her feet. She stood in front of him with dark rims beneath her lids and pale cheeks that were naturally far too close to the pasty color she normally applied.
His arms wound around her waist, and he dropped his forehead to rest against hers. “Please, Angel. Something little, but you need to eat something.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Fine.”
It was a small victory, but one he’d gladly take. He led her to the kitchen and pulled out a chair for her before dancing around her still grumbly and weepy grandmother to warm up a bowl of the beef vegetable soup his mother had sent with him on his brief return home for a quick shower and change before rejoining Gigi.
Both his parents had been less than thrilled with the amount of time their second eldest had spent away from home, especially the nights, but assurances from both Gigi’s father and Wyatt himself that they were well monitored and never really alone allowed him a privilege he was grateful for. The chance to take care of his girlfriend.
He set the bowl down in front of her and held a spoon out. “We’ll start here.”
She pursed her lips and gave him a half-hearted glare before taking the proffered utensil and lifting a spoonful of the hearty soup to her mouth. Wyatt plopped down in a seat beside her and grinned when a small, expected moan escaped her mouth. His mother was a damn good cook.
“This…this is pretty good.”
He chuckled as she downed several more bites in rapid succession. Within a few minutes, she tossed her spoon into the empty bowl. She sat back in the chair and folded her hands across her abdomen.
Wyatt quirked a brow. “Dessert?”
She shook her head slowly. “No, I…” Her words trailed off as fresh tears filled her eyes. “Isn’t this wrong?”
He reached forward and pulled her hands apart, lacing his fingers through hers. “Isn’t what wrong, Angel?”
A fat drop trailed down her cheek. “Being happy. Enjoying food. Enjoying…anything.”
The deep crack his heart carried since he witnessed her unravelling at the news of her mother’s passing widened with the statement. He cursed his brain for not having the right answer immediately. Or at all. “I don’t know.” The truth was all he had. “I’ve never lost anyone as close to me as you were to your mom. I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. But I know your mom loved you, and I’m pretty sure she’d want you to take care of yourself.”
She blinked, and he held his breath. Finally she nodded. “Maybe another chocolate chip cookie.”
***
Georgia
Empty.
Hollow.
Broken.
Georgia stared sightlessly as the gleaming cherry surface was lowered into the nearly perfect rectangle carved into the dark soil. Her father sat beside her, silent tears streaking down his face. Beside him, her grandfather held her much more vocal grandmother, whose loud sobs echoed through the valley and lanced through Georgia’s no longer beating heart.
Dead. She might as well be lying in the coffin beside her mother because she certainly couldn’t survive this.
A warm hand encircled hers and drew her attention to the abnormally hat-free head of her boyfriend. She blinked three times. He had been present every day since the call. Unwavering in his support and tender care of her. Their barbs traded for silence, tears, and sleepless nights spent curled around each other with the surprising blessing of her father.
As long as they remained uncomfortably ensconced on the sofa in the living room. A communal room his own grief-induced insomnia often pulled him toward at unspeakable hours.
His eyes lifted from their joined hands and penetrated the dam she’d erected to make it through the day without succumbing to another headache manifested from the countless tears she’d cried. Love and compassion poured from his gaze and shattered the final wall of her resistance. Her entire body shook from the consuming
sobs, and she melted into his waiting embrace.
The voice of the minister performing the final portion of the service fell on deaf ears as Georgia allowed her stupid freaking cowboy to shoulder her pain. When they stood to leave, her knees buckled, and she crumpled against him.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he hooked an arm beneath her legs and scooped her up, holding her tightly to his chest. The dark cloud of grief held her in an alternate reality, suspended from any awareness of the activity swirling around her. By the time the fog lifted enough for her to find some consciousness of her surroundings, she was sitting squarely on Wyatt’s lap in her backyard, Roxy and Roscoe obediently at his feet.
A new emotion overcame her as she looked in his face, and she trembled with its ferocity.
Wyatt pushed a wet strand of hair back from her face. “Can I get you something, Angel?”
Her molars ground together, and thick, violent rage coursed through her veins. “This is your fault.”
His brows knitted together beneath that stupid hat he once again had planted on his head. “What’d you say?”
Georgia jumped off his lap, her breaths coming in short, shallow gasps. “I said,” she ground the words out from between clenched teeth, “that this is all your fault.”
The color drained from his face, and for a brief moment, hurt flickered in his sapphire depths. His lids closed, and when they opened, the understanding and patience had returned to his steady gaze. “You’re not thinking logically right now. I know that deep down you don’t mean this.”
A mirthless laugh strangled her throat. “Just because my mother is d—” The single word caught in her throat, as if speaking it would somehow make this all more real. “Just because my mother is gone, you think I’m being irrational and ridiculous? Try again, Cowboy.”
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