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“Here you are,” Claire said, plopping into the chair opposite Georgia. “Booze? It’s not even eleven o’clock.”
“It’s five o’clock somewhere and Bloody Marys are the breakfast of champions... and losers. Whichever.”
Claire’s hazel eyes narrowed. “Are you okay?”
“Does a woodchuck chuck wood?”
“I don’t know, but you’re acting weird.”
Georgia didn’t want to talk about her failure. Admitting she’d effed up to her old friends, to the people who remembered when she stank of desperation and poverty, felt like digging a knife into a cut. Or pouring salt into a gash. Or cutting off her damn arm. “I’m fine. Did you settle on the dress that shows off your magnificent tits?”
“Really, George? Diversion by obscenity? Tacky.”
“What? I’m trash, remember?”
“How about you grow the heck up and stop thinking about yourself. We’re celebrating MC and the new life she’s about to start. So snap out of it. No one cares who you were. Most of them didn’t care back then. You’re wearing your insecurity on your sleeve.”
Georgia jerked the drink out of the waitress’s hand and took a big gulp, trying to ignore the shame searing her stomach. She was being a bitch and couldn’t apologize. Because if she did, she may sprout actual tears of humiliation. And that was unthinkable. “I’m not trying to steal MC’s thunder. I just think she’s screwing up by marrying lame-ass Brad. He’s not the right guy for her.”
Claire’s mouth pressed into a mulish line. “Not our decision to make. She’s a big girl, and you can stop pushing me away by acting ugly.”
Georgia slammed the drink onto the table. A spatter of tomato juice landed on her hand. “You think you know me so well.”
Claire smiled. “Yeah, I do.”
Inside her stomach the hard knot loosened. This was Claire Bear. Always on her side. She’d seen the ugliness of Georgia’s life and loved her anyway. She and Mary Catherine thought Georgia was worthy of friendship, worthy of being one of them. “I’m sorry.”
“I know. You’re all bark and rarely leave teeth marks.”
“Not on you.”
Claire accepted the water the waitress handed her. Lifting it she said, “To MC and happy ever afters. Maybe they do exist.”
Georgia clinked her glass against her friend’s. “If you say so.”
“I do. I have to believe.”
Georgia took a swallow of her drink, wishing she could swallow down the bullshit Claire was shoveling just as easily.
Hightowers didn’t believe in happily ever after. Wasn’t in their DNA. Cheap beer, dirty fingernails, and single-wide trailers were in their DNA... not rose-tinted dreams.
And who was Georgia to think she could change who she was.
Chapter Six
Reed had spent all day out in the fields helping Harvey Stephenson inoculate his prized Brahmans. He wore a layer of grit and probably some other things he didn’t want to think about, but he had to go by the post office, so that meant a trip into town. And since he was there, and Tumbleweeds had a Monday night beef tips and gravy special, he didn’t hurry home to his empty house.
He’d just sopped the last of the gravy off his plate with the homemade biscuits Darla Travers made from scratch daily, when his long-legged wet dream pushed through the diner door. Bells rang out—not celestial ones—but rather the Christmas ones tied with red velvet ribbon to the door handle.
Georgia didn’t see him as she slid into one of the worn booth benches and picked up a plastic-coated menu.
He’d thought about her and that kiss all weekend... and most of the morning before the bulls got rambunctious and required all his attention. He didn’t know why he couldn’t shake her. She was like a film coating his mouth, one that tasted of decadence, one that made him hunger.
The source of the ache in his gut looked up as the waitress approached, pen poised. “Oh, hey, Georgia. It’s me. Haley Anne. We played softball together.” The waitress had bleach-blond hair, an extra fifty pounds on her frame and a genuineness that set everyone at ease.
“Oh, hey. I remember. You played second base,” Georgia said, brushing her hair back from her eyes and summoning a smile. She looked weary and worried.
“You back in town for the wedding, huh? Can’t believe Mary Catherine and Brad are finally getting hitched. Took them long enough.”
