Elizabeth Bevarly - Georgia Meets Her Groom

The moment stretched taut, until the back door careened open on the winter wind, and a male voice shouted out, “Georgia! I’m home!”

Georgia and Jack spun abruptly around toward the announcement in time to see a young boy in his middle teens burst into the kitchen and slam the door good-naturedly behind himself. He heaved a stack of school books onto the counter and moved immediately to the refrigerator, yanking open the door to study its contents for a moment before snatching a soda and popping the top with a quick pffft. He was relaxed and unconcerned and clearly quite at home in his surroundings.

Until he looked up and saw Jack. And that’s when the boy snapped to wary attention.

Immediately his gaze shifted to Georgia, his expression a silent question mark. She smiled as she rose from the sofa, then made her way around it and into the kitchen, pulling the boy into a fierce bear hug. Then she stood beside him with her hand roped around his waist, and he draped his arm casually over her shoulder.

But he continued to eye Jack with suspicion, a reaction that Georgia had hoped Evan would be over by now. Still, she supposed he had a reason and a right to be cautious. And maybe someday he wouldn’t be so quick to mistrust.

She gave him another affectionate squeeze, then turned to Jack to make introductions. “Jack,” she said with a proud smile, “I’d like you to meet my son. Evan.”

Three

Her son? Jack echoed to himself, the small word nearly choking off his breath. Georgia had a son? How the hell had that happened? Well, of course, he could pretty well figure out how it had happened, but when? And with whom? And why?

Why? That was the question that stuck in his head most profoundly. Not so much Why does she have a son? but rather Why cou/dn’t she have waited for me? And then he asked himself further just what the hell he was thinking by asking himself that. Before the incongruity of all those questions had time to jell in his brain, he shook them off—both mentally and physically—with one quick, imperceptible gesture.

Then he studied the boy more closely, only to find that Evan was just as intent on studying him right back. For one long, silent moment, the two men sized each other up in the way men do when both of them care deeply about the same woman. While Evan considered Jack, Jack considered Evan. Looking at the boy was like seeing himself too many years ago to consider. He towered a good four inches over Georgia, his dark, shoulder-length hair unruly, his casually hooded gaze from piercing blue eyes hiding anything he might be feeling, his menacing stance announcing to the world that he was ready for any and all takers.

Evan narrowed his eyes even more angrily at Jack and demanded, “Who the hell are you?”

“Evan!” Georgia cried as she took a step away to glare at the boy. “That was completely uncalled for. You apologize to Mr. McCormick right now.”

For Jack it was the proverbial déjà vu all over again. A quarter century melted away, and he was standing back in the parking lot of Carlisle High School East, getting to know Georgia’s family for the first time, up close and personal. And he was seeing all over again, too, just how badly he measured up to the standards of the other man in her life. Only this time it wasn’t Georgia’s father who found him so lacking. It was Georgia’s son.

“Name’s Jack McCormick,” he retorted in much the same way he had to Gregory Lavender that day two decades ago. He would have tacked on another Who the hell are you? as well, but seeing as how Georgia had just introduced the boy as her son, it wasn’t exactly necessary.

Nevertheless, he felt compelled to add, “Not that it’s any of your business.”

This time Georgia pivoted to glare at him. “Jack...” she said softly, her voice edged with warning.

She turned back to her son. Her son, for God’s sake. “Evan,” she began again, her tone stern, “Jack is an old friend of mine who used to live in Carlisle. I will not tolerate you speaking to him in such a way. Apologize to him.”

Evan met Jack’s gaze levelly, but no apology was forthcoming.

“Now,” Georgia told the boy.

“Sorry.” Evan spat it out without an ounce of contrition.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jack told him, certain the admonition was completely unnecessary. Evan didn’t seem the type who was likely to lose any sleep over his transgressions.

Georgia shook her head at both of them, as if trying to figure out what she’d done to deserve being saddled with two such men in one lifetime. “You want coffee?” she asked the room at large.

“Yeah,” both men chorused as one.

She nodded, and when she went to pick up Jack’s mug, he remembered that he hadn’t even touched his coffee yet. “Just top mine off,” he told her.

She looked down at the full mug. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Fine.”

“I’ll take mine back to my room,” Evan told her, his gaze still fixed on Jack. “I have an exam tomorrow, and I have to work tonight. So I need to spend the afternoon studying.”

“Fine,” Georgia reiterated, her vocabulary now fully reduced to single-syllable words.

“On second thought,” Jack told her, still watching Evan, “don’t bother topping me off. I need to get going.”

From the corner of his eye he saw her whip around to stare at him. “But I thought—”

“I have a dinner date, and I need to get back to the hotel to shower and change before I go.”

He had deliberately chosen the word date instead of the word appointment—which would have been much more accurate—because he specifically wanted to give Georgia the wrong impression. Although he knew it was childish, he wanted to get back at her for having a son, even if his retaliation was lame and unfounded. And evidently his ruse had worked, because when he glanced over at her again, she looked stricken and hurt.

“Okay,” she muttered. “No problem. Maybe we can get together for lunch tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “I’m pretty booked up for the duration of my visit.”

“But you said you wanted to—”

“I’m going to be busy.” He cut her off.

When he turned to retrieve his jacket, his gaze inevitably fell on Evan, and he realized immediately that Georgia’s son understood exactly what had just passed between the two adults. Oh, he might not have known the particulars of the situation, but Evan was obviously smart enough to see it for what it was, and he glared murderously at Jack as a result.

And, really, Jack couldn’t blame him. If someone—some interloper from the past—had just gone out of his way to hurt the woman he loved, Jack would feel pretty homicidal, too. Good thing he didn’t love Georgia, he told himself. At least, not like that.

“Where are you staying?” he heard her ask as he jammed his arms into the sleeves of his jacket.

“At The Bluffs,” he told her.

The Bluffs was the local nickname for The Carlisle Inn, a historic cliffside resort overlooking the Atlantic, a hotel that drew only the wealthiest, most elite vacationers. It was where Jack had worked as a busboy when he and Georgia were teenagers.

“Oh, great,” Evan said. “Then I guess I’ll be seeing more than enough of you.”

“Evan...” Georgia said, her voice laced with warning.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the boy, but Georgia was the one to enlighten him. “Evan works at The Bluffs,” she said softly. “As a busboy.”

Jack nodded, but kept his gaze trained on Georgia’s son. “I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

Georgia took a few steps forward to stand between them, shaking her head once again at both men. But instead of commenting on the animosity burning up the air between them, she only instructed Evan to take his coffee back to his room and hit the books. As he moved to follow her instructions, she turned to Jack.