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More like sexy, vulnerable, and likely to leave scratch marks. If Carlene was a cocker spaniel, Georgia was a mountain lion.
And deep down under his profession of what he liked in a woman was the admiration for such a wild spirit. Georgia would never greet him at the door wearing an apron and stirring batter for a cake... and he liked that about her.
So asking her to the barbeque made no sense, but when she gave him a not-so-sweet smile from those delicious lips, he didn’t care.
He smiled back and then nearly fell off Amigo when the horse sidestepped.
He glanced back as they made the next turn around the square and caught her laughing at him.
Yeah, that’s what she did to him.
Knocked him totally off-balance.
Chapter Eight
The Double H annual barbeque had always been well attended but since it also served as a celebration of Mary Catherine’s marriage, it felt like everyone in town was milling around eating brisket and laughing over the same ol’ stories.
The terra-cotta adobe of the courtyard was lit with torches, and somehow despite it being December, the fuchsia bougainvillea still spilled down the walls. A huge bonfire split the night sky just beyond the paddock. A ring of merrymakers surrounded the flames, some holding wieners and marshmallows on sticks for the kids circling like planes at DFW International.
“Crowded,” Reed remarked as they accepted an icy longneck from one of the ranch hands manning the temporary bar setup in the old covered wagon the Hollys kept solely for this purpose.
“Haven’t been to a barbeque since I left, but I remember this being quite the social event of the year,” Georgia said, glancing around, feeling a bit claustrophobic.
Or maybe just trapped in the past.
Reed looked at her, blue eyes bright in the flare of the nearby torch. “You look nice tonight.”
“Just nice?” she asked, taking a swallow of Texas-brewed beer, embracing the fire she intended on playing with tonight... and it wasn’t flickering behind Reed. No, it was packaged in the hot man in front of her. He looked good in his tight jeans and pearl-buttoned shirt. Pair that with the fact that as of four o’clock that afternoon she was officially jobless, Georgia felt reckless.
Not a good combo.
“Truthfully? You look so sexy I could bend you over—” He stopped midsentence, looking appalled at what he was about to utter. Totally adorable.
Georgia wiggled her leather-clad rump and teased, “Wow, McCormick. Who knew you were so into leather.”
Cooter chose that moment to sling an arm around her and blow out the desire flaring between them. “What kinda big-city dance you doing over here, coz?”
She looked Reed straight in the eye. “Oh, I’m not dancing. I’m seducing.”
Cooter gave a hoot. “Yeah, that’s my George. Good having you home, girl.”
“I’d say it was good to be here, but—”
“You hate Holly Hills?” Cooter cackled.
Georgia laughed but then felt like a fraud. She didn’t really hate Holly Hills. Coming home hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought. Everyone seemed happy to see her, recalling her awesome spikes against the Center Roughriders, the time she and Mary Catherine rolled the high school in toilet paper, and the day she signed her scholarship with University of Texas. No one mentioned how she used food stamps at the grocery store or wore shoes from the charity bin at church. No one remembered the girl she’d once been. They were fooled by her expensive car and plastered-on smile.
And then there was Reed.
“It’s not that bad.”
“Well, I gotta go find Carlene and be nice if I want to get a little somethin’-somethin’ tonight. She’s still mad as a wet hen that I danced with Maddie Simmons at Thirsty’s.”
“Good Lord, Cooter,” Georgia said, punching him on the arm.
He hooted again and toddled off, calling out to friends as he wound through the crowd. Georgia caught the eye of a few people she knew—they smiled and waved as if to prove all her ill thoughts about the town wrong.
“Want to go out to the bonfire? I see Mary Catherine out there,” Reed asked, taking her elbow.
