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“I think so,” Georgia said, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I can’t even think about loading up and leaving without crying.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“Oh my goodness,” Claire said, looking at Mary Catherine. “She’s serious.”
“I can’t stay here, can I? I never wanted to live here. Never wanted to be that girl in flip-flops with ragged fingernails.” The image of her wearing an ugly discount sweatshirt and shower shoes, chasing around a snot-nosed kid, with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth popped into her mind. Just like Aunt Minnie fussing after Cooter all those years ago.
“We have a nail salon and I like flip-flops,” Claire said with a small laugh. “You act like Holly Hills is hell on earth.”
“It isn’t?” Georgia drawled.
“Not if you’re with the man you love, building a future together,” Claire said softly.
Georgia swallowed. “But what would everyone think if I came back? I feel like such a complete failure. I didn’t do what I set out to do.”
“Are you shitting me?” Claire said.
“Uh-oh, Claire just swore,” Mary Catherine said.
“Why do you care what people in this town think anyway?” Claire asked, her voice taking an elementary-teacher tone. “No one thinks anything. They’d be happy to have a successful, beautiful woman moving back. No matter what you may think, you’re loved here. By Cooter. By the Hollys. By me. And unless my eyes have deceived me, by Reed. And that man has had women chasing him up one side of Main Street and down the other. But they never caught him. You know why?”
Georgia shook her head.
“He was waiting on you.”
Her friend’s words were like an ice pick chipping away the remaining reservations frozen to her heart.
Reed loved her. Just as she was. Not as she’d been.
“I’m an idiot,” Georgia said, swiping the dampness from her cheeks. “I’ve been fighting against something wonderful because I didn’t want to be a failure. But if I run from Reed and Texas, I’m letting go of something that could be my destiny.”
Claire laughed and pulled a quarter out of her pocket. “Here. Make a wish, Georgia.”
Georgia took the quarter, twisting it back and forth in the moonlight. She picked up the forgotten tequila bottle and took a last swig, gasping as the liquid shot down her throat. Then she flipped the coin to Mary Catherine and scrabbled to her feet.
“Why are you giving it to me?” Mary Catherine asked.
“Because I don’t need any wishes. What I want is right in front of me, and I’m not going to run away or hang on to a plan for the sake of proving something to myself. I’d rather have love.”
“Yay, Georgia.” Claire clapped.
“Where are you going?” Mary Catherine said as Georgia climbed the embankment leading back to the path.
“I’m going to rope myself a cowboy,” she said.
“You know he’s not a cowboy,” Mary Catherine called back.
“He’s my cowboy,” Georgia returned, her long legs taking her toward a tomorrow she never thought she’d want. But deep down in the place she ignored most of the time—that spot that had sighed when she’d rolled back into Texas—she knew choosing Reed and a life back in Holly Hills was the right choice to make... if she could convince Reed to let go of his plan for the perfect wife and settle for her.
Chapter Fourteen
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
Reed groaned and rolled over, pulling his pillow with him.
Why in the hell did Mojo want to go outside at—he cracked an eye open, catching the red numbers on the clock—12:34? He took a deep breath and struggled to free himself from the clutches of sleep.
Then the doorbell rang.
Okay, Mojo couldn’t ring a doorbell.
