AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ugh, Texas men.”
“I’m from California,” he called back.
“Well, you could have fooled me.”
Twenty minutes later, Georgia set the roaster on a hot pad in the middle of Reed’s dining room table and lifted the lid. Luscious steam curled up toward the wagon wheel chandelier, unleashing a delicious smell.
Reed sank onto one of the chairs and eyed the spread before him—fried cornbread, turnip greens, fresh-sliced tomatoes, and the traditional Sunday roast with red potatoes and carrots surrounding. The apple pie still in the oven had looked as if it belonged on a magazine cover... even if the crust was store bought.
“I can’t believe you can cook like this,” Reed breathed, snagging a piece of cornbread and biting into it. “Mmm... this is—”
“Good. Yes, I know,” she said with a smile. “My paw paw’s family came from Louisiana and they were cooks. I make a damn good jambalaya, too.”
“You don’t look like you cook.”
“Why? Because I once walked the catwalk in Barcelona?”
His eyes widened. “You were a model?”
Georgia rose and used her best strut to fetch the sweet tea she’d left in the kitchen. Perfecting a turn, she stalked back, setting the tea on the table. “Did that make you want to buy Chanel?”
She sank down and took his plate, filling it with all the food she’d cooked for the past two hours.
“You don’t have to serve me,” he said.
Georgia looked up. “I know I don’t.”
“Tell me all about growing up in Texas and why you don’t like being back,” he said, accepting the plate and tucking the paper towel napkin in his lap. She hadn’t seen any cloth napkins.
“I don’tnotlike being back.”
“Cooter said you hate it and ever since I’ve met you, you’ve implied you’d rather be clipping your toenails than be back home.”
So Georgia told him about her mother and the drug problem, how she didn’t know who her father was and likely never would. She told him about growing up in a dirt front yard with holes in her shoes. About how her grandfather and Aunt Minnie had done their best, but what they had to work with wasn’t much to begin with. She told him about being the cootie girl in the schoolyard, the time she got head lice, and how when she started her period on the church trip to Camp Winnekoba, Claire Campbell had found her crying in the bathroom, wondering if she were dying.
“That’s rough stuff, Georgia,” Reed said, using the last of his cornbread to sop up the brown gravy on his plate.
“Yeah, it is. Growing up dirt poor ain’t”—she cleared her throat—“isn’t easy for anyone. But I didn’t have anyone to teach me to fight... but myself. I also didn’t have any friends until Mary Catherine and Claire took pity on me... and that was likely only because we were at church camp and they’d given their lives to Jesus for the second time that week.” She gave a humorless laugh.
“Nah, they saw in you what I see.”
Georgia hooked an eyebrow. “And what is that? A great, tight ass?”
“Well, there’s that, but I was thinking about the generosity you bury beneath a façade of indifference.”
“Here you go getting all Dr. Phil on me again,” she said, but she smiled. Because he saw inside to the squishy part of herself she hid from nearly everyone. Because he saw the vulnerability.
Because she let him see her vulnerability.
And she didn’t know why.
Reed grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry a lid off your feelings. Just understand you better.”
Georgia cleared her throat again as if doing so would take away the sudden emotion. “Why?”
“Because I...” He stopped and shook his head, swallowing down whatever he’d started to say. He smiled. “Because you’re fascinating. And funny. And so damn sexy in those shorts and cowboy boots that it’s a wonder I could manage to eat before tossing you over my shoulder and finding that pile of hay.”
Of course.
