“Did I?” Georgeanne was flattered that he would recall the color of her dress. “I’m surprised you remember.”
Dmitri smiled and little creases appeared in the corners of his eyes. “I remember. I wear no gold chainz now.”
Georgeanne glanced at Mae, who shrugged and looked up at a grinning Hugh. “That’s right. I had to explain to Dmitri that American women don’t like to see jewelry on men.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mae disagreed. “I know of several men who look fierce in pearl chokers and matching earrings.”
Hugh pulled Mae against his side and kissed the top of her head. “I’m not talking about drag queens, honey.”
“Is this your little girl?” Mark asked Georgeanne.
“Yes, she is.”
“What happened to your eye?” Lexie handed Georgeanne her plate, then pointed her last strawberry at Mark.
“The Avalanche caught him in the corner and gave him a pounding,” John answered from behind Georgeanne. He picked Lexie up with one arm and lifted her until they were eye level. “Don’t feel bad, he probably deserved it.”
Georgeanne glanced at John. She wanted to ask him about Virgil’s parting comment to her, but she would have to wait until they were alone.
“Maybe he shouldn’t have goosed Ricci with his stick,” Hugh added.
Mark shrugged. “Ricci broke my wrist last year,” he said, and the conversation turned to which man had suffered the most injuries. At first Georgeanne was appalled by the list of broken bones, torn muscles, and number of stitches. But the longer she listened, the more she found it morbidly fascinating. She began to wonder how many men in the room had their own teeth. Not many by the sounds of things.
Lexie placed her hands on the sides of John’s head, turning his face toward her. “Did you get hurt last night, Daddy?”
“Me? No way.”
“Daddy?” Dmitri looked at Lexie. “Iz yours?”
“Yes.” John turned his gaze to his teammates. “This little worrywart is my daughter, Lexie Kowalsky.”
Georgeanne waited for him to say that he hadn’t known about Lexie until recently, but he didn’t. He didn’t offer any explanation for his daughter’s sudden appearance in his life. He just held her in his arms as if she’d always been there.
Dmitri glanced at Georgeanne, then looked back at John. He raised a questioning brow.
“Yes,” John said, leaving Georgeanne to wonder about the silent byplay between the two men.
“How old are you, Lexie?” Mark asked.
“Six. I had my birthday, and now I’m in first grade. I gots a dog now, too, ‘cause my daddy gave him to me. His name is Pongo, but he’s not very big. He doesn’t got a lot of hair either, and his ears get cold. So I made him a hat.”
“It’s purple,” Mae told John. “It looks like a dunce cap.”
“How do you get the hat on your dog?”
“She pins him down between her knees,” Georgeanne answered.
John glanced at his daughter. “You sit on Pongo?”
“Yeah, Daddy, he likes it.”
John doubted Pongo liked anything about wearing a stupid hat. He opened his mouth to suggest that maybe she shouldn’t sit on her little dog, but the band struck up a few chords, and he turned his attention to the stage. “Good evening,” the lead singer said into his microphone. “For the first song of the night, Hugh and Mae have asked that everyone join them on the dance floor.”
“Daddy,” Lexie said barely above the music. “May I have a piece of cake?”
“Is it okay with your mom?”
“Yes.”
He turned to Georgeanne and lowered his mouth to her ear. “We’re heading to the banquet table. Do you want to come with us?”
She shook her head, and John looked deep into her green eyes. “Don’t go anywhere.” Before she had a chance to reply, he and Lexie headed across the room.
“I want a big piece,” Lexie informed him. “With lots of frosting.”
“You’ll get a tummy ache.”
“No I won’t.”
He set her on her feet beside the table and waited long, frustrating minutes for her to choose just the right piece of cake with purple roses only. He found her a fork and a place to sit at a round table beside one of Hugh’s nieces. When he turned to look for Georgeanne, he spotted her out on the dance floor with Dmitri. Normally he liked the young Russian, but not tonight. Not when Georgeanne wore a short little dress, and not when Dmitri looked at her as if she were a serving of beluga caviar.
John wove his way through the crowded dance floor and placed a hand on his teammate’s shoulder. He didn’t have to say anything. Dmitri looked at him, shrugged, and walked away.
“I don’t think this is a very good idea,” Georgeanne said as he gathered her into his arms.
“Why not?” He pulled closer, fitting her soft curves against his chest and moving their bodies to the mellow music. You can have your career with the Chinooks, or you can have Georgeanne. You can’t have both. He thought about Virgil’s warning, and he thought about the warm woman in his arms. He’d already made his decision. He’d made it days ago in Detroit.
“Because Dmitri asked me to dance, for one thing.”
“He’s a commie bastard. Stay away from him.”
Georgeanne leaned back far enough to look up into his face. “I thought he was your friend.”
“He was.”
A frown creased her forehead. “What happened?”
“We both want the same thing, only he isn’t going to get it.”
“What do you want?”
There were a lot of things he wanted. “I saw you talking to Virgil. What did he say?”
“Not a lot. I told him I was sorry for what happened seven years ago, but he wouldn’t accept my apology.” She appeared puzzled for a moment, then shook her head and looked away. “You said he’d moved on, but he’s still very bitter.”
John slid his palm to the side of her throat and lifted her chin with his thumb. “Don’t worry about him.” He stared into her face, then raised his eyes to the old man staring back at him. His gaze found Dmitri and a half dozen other men who’d taken shifty-eyed glances at Georgeanne’s bustline. Then he lowered his face and his lips took possession of hers. He possessed her with his mouth and tongue and his hand moving from her back to her behind. The kiss was deliberate, long, hard. She clung to him, and when he finally lifted his mouth, she was breathless.
“Cryin‘ all night,” she whispered.
“Now, tell me about Charles.” Her gaze was a little glassy and a bit dazed. The passion in her eyes made him think of tangled bedsheets and soft flesh.
“You want to know about Charles?”
“Lexie told me you’re thinking of marrying him.”
“I told him no.”
Relief washed over him. He wrapped his arms tight around her and smiled into her hair. “You look beautiful tonight,” he said into her ear. Then he pulled back and looked at her face, at her luscious mouth, and said, “Why don’t we find someplace where I can take advantage of you? How big is the counter in the women’s bathroom?”
He recognized the spark of interest in her eyes before she turned her head and tried to hide her smile. “Are you high on drugs, John Kowalsky?”
“Not tonight,” he laughed. “I listened to Nancy Reagan and just said no. How about you?”
“Of course not,” she scoffed.
The music ended and a faster song began. “Where’s Lexie?” she asked above the noise.
John looked over at the table where he’d left her and pointed her out. Her cheek rested in her palm and her lids were lowered to half-mast. “She looks like she’s about to pass out.”
“I better take her home.”
John slid his hands from her back up to her shoulders. “I’ll carry her out to your car.”
Georgeanne thought about his offer for a moment, then decided to let him. “That would be great. I’ll get my purse and I’ll meet y
ou out there.” His grasp on her arms tightened a fraction, then he released her. She watched him walk toward Lexie, then turned to find Mae.
There was definitely something different in his touch tonight. Something in the way he held her and kissed her. Something hot and possessive as if he were reluctant to let her go. She cautioned herself not to read too much into it, but a warm little glow had settled about her heart.
She quickly retrieved her purse and bid Mae and Hugh good-bye. When she walked outside, night had fallen, and the parking lot was illuminated by streetlights. She spotted John leaning his behind against her car. He’d wrapped Lexie in his wool jacket and held her against his chest. His white shirt stood out in the dark parking lot.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she heard him tell Lexie. “You can’t name yourself. Someone else has to start calling you something, and the name just sticks. Do you think Ed Jovanovski chose to call himself ‘Special Ed’?”
“But I want to be ‘The Cat.’ ”
“You can’t be ‘The Cat.’ ” He looked up at Georgeanne and pushed away from the car. “Felix Potvin is ‘The Cat.’”
“Can I be a dog?” Lexie asked, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t think you really want people to call you Lexie ‘The Dog’ Kowalsky, do you?”
Lexie giggled into the side of his neck. “No, but I want to have a name like you do.”
“If you want to be a cat, how about a cheetah? Lexie ‘The Cheetah’ Kowalsky.”
“Okay,” she said through a yawn. “Daddy, do you know why animals don’t play cards in the jungle?”
Georgeanne rolled her eyes and fit her key into the lock.
“Because there are too many cheetahs,” he answered. “You told me that joke about fifty times already.”
“Oh, I forgot.”
“I didn’t think you ever forgot anything.” John chuckled and placed Lexie in the passenger seat. The car’s dome light glistened in his dark hair, and illuminated his blue and red paisley suspenders. “I’ll see you at the hockey game tomorrow night.”
Lexie reached for her seat belt and buckled it. “Give me some sugar, Daddy.” She pursed her lips and waited.
Georgeanne smiled and walked to the driver’s side of the car. The way John cared for Lexie touched a tender spot in her heart. He was a great father, and no matter what happened between Georgeanne and John, she would always love him for loving Lexie.
“Hey, Georgie?” His voice called to her like a warm touch on the chilled night air.
She looked across the roof of the car and into John’s face, partially hidden in nighttime shadows.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Well, home, of course.”
He chuckled deep within his chest. “Don’t you want to give Daddy some sugar?”
Temptation taunted her weak will and self-control. Heck, who was she kidding? Where John was concerned, she had no self-control at all. Especially after that kiss he’d given her. She yanked open the driver’s-side door before she had a chance to even consider his alluring proposition. “Not tonight, stud boy.”
“Did you just call me stud boy?”
She placed one foot on the doorframe. “It’s an improvement over what I called you last month,” she said, and slipped inside the car. She started the engine, and with John’s laughter filling the night, she drove out of the parking lot.
On the way home, she thought about the difference in him. Her heart wanted to believe it all meant something wonderful, like maybe he’d gotten hit in the head with a hockey puck, and he’d suddenly come to his senses and realized that he couldn’t live without her. But her experiences with John told her different. She knew better than to project her feelings onto him and look for hidden motives. Trying to decipher his every word and touch was nutty. Whenever she let her guard down with him, she always got hurt.
After she put Lexie to bed, Georgeanne hung John’s suit jacket on the back of a kitchen chair and kicked off her shoes. A light rain pattered her windows as she brewed water for a cup of herbal tea. She moved to the chair and smoothed her fingers across the shoulder seam of John’s jacket, recalling exactly how he’d looked standing across the aisle at the church, his blue eyes staring into hers. She remembered the scent of his cologne and the sound of his voice. Why don’t we find someplace where I can take advantage of you, he’d said, and she’d been tempted.
Pongo let loose with a string of yapping seconds before the doorbell rang. Georgeanne dropped her hand to her side and scooped up the dog on her way to the entrance. She wasn’t really surprised to find John on her front steps, raindrops glistening in his dark hair.
“I forgot to give you the tickets to tomorrow night’s game,” he said, and held out an envelope.
Georgeanne took the tickets, and against her better judgment, she invited him inside. “I’m making tea. Would you like some?”
“Hot?”
“Yep?”
“Do you have any iced tea?”
“Of course, I’m from Texas.” She walked back into the kitchen and deposited Pongo on the floor. The dog ran over to John and licked his shoe.
“Pongo is getting to be a pretty good watchdog,” she told him as she reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of tea.
“Yeah. I can see that. What would he do if someone broke in, lick the man’s toe?”
Georgeanne laughed and shut the door. “Probably, but he’d bark like mad first. Having Pongo around is better than installing a house alarm. It’s kind of weird, but I feel safer when he’s in the house.” She placed the envelope on the counter and filled a glass.
“Next time I’ll buy you a real dog.” John took a few steps toward her and reached for the tea. “No ice. Thanks.”
“There better not be a next time.”
“There’s always a next time, Georgie,” he said, and raised the glass to his lips, his eyes watching her as he took a long drink.
“Are you sure you don’t want some ice?”
He shook his head and lowered the tea. He sucked moisture from his lips as his gaze slid over her breasts to her thighs, then traveled back up to her face. “That dress has been driving me crazy all day long. It reminds me of that little pink wedding dress you had on the first time I saw you.”
She looked down. “This is nothing like that dress.”
“It’s short and it’s pink.”
“That dress was a lot shorter, strapless, and so tight I couldn’t breathe.”
“I remember.” He smiled and leaned one hip against the counter. “All the way to Copalis, you kept pulling at the top and yanking at the bottom. It was seductive as hell, like an erotic tug-of-war. I kept watching to see which half would win.”
Georgeanne rested one shoulder against the refrigerator, and folded her arms. “I’m surprised you remember all of that. As I recall, you didn’t like me very much.”
“And as I recall, I liked you more than was wise.”
“Only when I was naked. The rest of the time, you were fairly rude.”
He frowned at the tea in his hand, then looked back at her. “I don’t remember it quite that way, but if I was rude to you, it wasn’t personal. My life was a pile of shit back then. I was drinking way too much and doing all I could to ruin my career and myself.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Do you remember when I told you that I was married before?”
“Of course.” How could she possibly forget about DeeDee and Linda?
“Well, what I didn’t tell you was that Linda killed herself. I found her dead in our bathtub. She’d sliced her wrists with a razor blade, and for a lot of years, I blamed myself.”
Shocked speechless, Georgeanne stared at him. She didn’t know what to say or do. Her first impulse was to wrap her arms around his waist and tell him she was sorry, but she held back.
He took another drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The truth of it is, I didn’t love her. I was a lousy husband, and I only
married her because she was pregnant. When the baby died, there wasn’t anything holding us together anymore. I wanted out of the marriage. She didn’t.”
An ache tightened her chest. She knew John, and she knew he must have been devastated. She wondered why he was telling her about it now. Why would he trust her with something so painful? “You had a baby?”
“Yeah. He was born premature and died a month later. Toby would be eight now.”
“I’m sorry,” was the only thing she could think to say. She couldn’t even imagine losing Lexie.
He set the glass on the counter beside Georgeanne, then he took her hand in his. “Sometimes I wonder what he’d be like if he’d lived.”
She looked into his face and once again felt that warm little glow about her heart. He cared for her. Maybe trust and caring could turn to something more.
“I wanted to tell you about Linda and Toby for two reasons. I wanted you to know about them, and I want you to know that even though I’ve been married twice, I’m not going to make the same mistakes. I won’t marry again because a child is involved, or because of lust. It will be because I’m crazy in love.”
His words doused Georgeanne’s warm little glow like a bucket of ice water, and she pulled her hand from his. They had a child together, and it was no secret John was attracted to her physically. He’d never promised her anything but a good time, but she’d done it again. She’d let herself hope for things she couldn’t have, and knowing it hurt so much the backs of her eyes stung. “Thank you for sharing, John, but I just can’t appreciate your honesty right now,” she said as she moved toward the front door. “I think you better leave.”
“What?” He sounded incredulous as he followed close behind her. “I thought I was getting somewhere.”
“I know you did. But you can’t come over here whenever you feel like sex and just expect me to tear off my clothes and oblige you.” She failed to control her trembling chin as she pulled the front door open. She wanted him gone before she fell apart completely.
“Is that what you think? That you’re just a lay?”
Georgeanne tried not to flinch. “Yes.”
“What the hell is happening here?” He yanked the door out of her grasp and slammed it shut. “I spill my guts and you jump up and down on my insides! I’m honest with you, and you think I’m trying to get in your pants.”
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