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“I invited you today,” Mary Catherine quipped, disappearing through the sliding glass door.
“What’s wrong with her?” Georgia asked Claire.
“I don’t know. She’s distanced herself, like she’s preparing for battle. Guess being a bride is tough.”
“Yeah, is there any more wine?”
Claire rose and rummaged through the monogrammed beach bag they’d bought in South Carolina during one of their girls’ trips and pulled out a bottle of Pinot Noir. “Here you go.”
Georgia uncorked the bottle and poured another half-glass, her mind tripping back to the last few days. Being with Reed had been wonderful. They’d watched old black-and-white movies, cooked dinner each night, and walked his spread, him pointing out different varieties of birds.
Georgia had taken him out to her paw paw’s land, where the old house had fallen into ruin.
“What are y’all going to do with this?” he’d asked, looking around at the fifteen acres and dilapidated house covered in vines.
“Dunno,” Georgia said, kicking an old garden hose rotting in the high grass. Memories flooded her. Her in the yard, skinny, knees dark with dirt, swinging in the old tire tied to the big pecan tree. Her learning to ride her bike over the knobby roots of the tree. Paw Paw sitting in his coveralls on the porch, chaw in his mouth, spitting into the spindly azalea bushes. Yet the house had always worn a new coat of paint, the yard had been trimmed and beyond the small brick house a huge garden had grown, elevated sprinklers shushing above the glossy cornstalks and creeping bean stalks. It hadn’t been all bad.
“Who takes care of it now?”
“Cooter comes out and bushhogs every now and then. House is closed up. Guess when Paw Paw passes, we’ll sell the place.”
Reed nodded. “This place doesn’t seem so bad.”
Georgia laughed as she walked along the back fence that was half-drunk and tilting. “But not good either. We lived on well water that dried up one summer. Everything died, and we went on welfare. That killed my grandfather. Bad year that year.”
He wisely didn’t say anything. She knew what he tried to do. He wanted to make her past not so horrible... but why? So she’d consider a future here? But she wouldn’t.
She couldn’t.
Holly Hills wasn’t the place for her with its cute brick streets and town square. She’d always both love and hate it, but how could she come back here like a whipped pup, no job, no goals, the same as she once was?
But then again, the thought of leaving Reed made her ache like the flu. She’d spent the last four days and nights falling for him. They clicked both in and out of bed... and she couldn’t imagine packing her suitcase and driving away, never looking back.
She felt like Meryl Streep in that movie with Clint Eastwood. The one with the covered bridges, where the two characters had one week to love a lifetime. She, Claire, and Mary Catherine had once rented the movie at the beach, and Georgia had slipped off to her bedroom and cried buckets because she hadn’t wanted her friends to know romance lay buried inside her.
But, yeah, that’s what this thing with Reed felt like—a never-can-be—and it hurt like hell to dwell on it.
Mary Catherine came back outside carrying a bowl of tortilla chips and a cup of salsa, jarring Georgia from her thoughts about what couldn’t be.
“Maria made her famous hot sauce today. Have at it,” Mary Catherine said, setting down the bowl. “Oh, and Georgia, your old coach called for you. Thought you were staying here with me instead of at the Imperial. Hey, why aren’t you staying here?”
Georgia gave her a flat stare. “You know why.”
“She’s not been too bad. Too preoccupied with creating the perfect seating arrangement for the reception.”
“No, thanks.” The bill from the Imperial would be steep, but Georgia would deplete the last of her endorsement money before she spent two weeks with Marilyn Holly. “Was it Coach Bowman?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s still involved with coaching or something. Anyway, she left her number and asked that you call her.” Mary Catherine passed a piece of paper to Georgia and sank into a patio chair, propping her UGG-booted feet on the table.
“Thanks,” Georgia said, noting the way Claire kept staring out at the paddock and barn. Georgia wanted to ask Claire about Tyler but wasn’t sure it would be a good idea. Her friend had vacillated between sugary happiness and quiet pensiveness the week before. Tonight, she looked plumb sad.
“Hey, girls,” Mary Catherine said, interrupting the quiet.
Claire jerked around, the red in her hair catching the sunlight, making her face seem even more pale. “What?”
“Tomorrow night’s the rehearsal dinner,” Mary Catherine said, staring into the salsa, “and I want y’all to do me a favor.”
“Anything,” Claire said.
