Point of Attraction (26 page)

For a long moment, no one said
anything. Georgie pushed at her food then looked to Nick. When he
lifted his gaze and met hers, he glanced at Mason, who was also
looking at him.

“What?” Nick laughed quietly as he
leaned back, the chair squeaking with his weight shift. “You want
me to call the President and ask him what’s up?”

Mason said nothing and set his sight on
the last of his food. If it weren’t so ridiculous Georgie would
have pursued that nagging scenario she and Sam had played with
regarding Nick. She started to get up, but Nick shook his head, his
hand over hers.

“No,” he said, indicating the food.
“You eat that. I’m not having you undernourished. Eat.”

When she silently pleaded
that she couldn’t, he gave her his infamous
puppy-dog
eyes and pleaded back,
“For me, please.”

Georgie indulged him, but each bite was
hard to swallow. There was no telling if it was last night’s
tequila or the events. The meal seemed never ending, the eggs
perfect, but cold; the bacon nice and crisp though also cold.
Finally, quiet and still deep into her thoughts, Georgie picked up
their plates, scraped them free of what could go down the disposal,
then put them in the dishwasher. She went to the laundry room.
Daisy and Max were quick, ran ahead of her, and scooted out their
pet door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nick
asked.

“I’m going to clean Daisy’s
droppings.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Nick, I’m not crawling in a hole and
hiding,” she said. Her words circled her mind, and she wondered if
she meant them. “Things have to go on.”

“I’ll do it. Let me get my
jacket.”

“
You’re
going to pick up Daisy’s
poop?”

“Trust me. It wouldn’t be the first
time I scooped up shit.”

“On another day,” she said, “I would
ask you to elaborate, but not today?” She sat back down.

After Nick got his jacket and went
outside, Mason cleared his throat and leaned forward in his chair.
“You know, any other man would be very skeptical of a guy hanging
around and spending the night with the woman he’s interested
in.”

All Georgie could do was
search his face, eyes, all the little shadows and lines that make
us who we are.
Interested
was an interesting word in itself; non-committal,
no laying out of one’s heart or soul for the possibility of
stomping.

“I am interested, in case I haven’t
made it plain enough.”

After a moment, Georgie
smiled.

“Ah, so you have noticed.”

“I’ve noticed,” she half whispered.
“But there’s interest and there’s interest. Do you think if this
were being written into a novel it would be too many
interests?”

“Most definitely,” he said. He waited
and she knew her evasion wasn’t getting past him.

“Nick is Cassie. Cassie is
Nick,” Georgie said. “For one reason or another, we were each an
only child, lonely. I moved in between them and within a year, we
became the best of friends and each other’s siblings, so to speak.
No one and nothing will ever put that asunder... ever. When my
mother died, then later my dad... Nick and Cassie were there for
me. When Nick’s mom and dad were killed in a plane crash, Cassie
and I were there for him. Nick and I helped Cassie with her
father’s death and her mom’s Alzheimer.” She took in a deep breath.
“April must accept the fact that Nick and I will always be in
Cassie’s life, just as you would have to accept Nick in my
life...
if
you’re
that interested, I mean.”

All Mason did was nod slowly, his eyes
refusing to release her. Georgie caught her lower lip between her
teeth before getting up to look out the window at Nick. He was
picking up dog poop, and obviously muttering something to Daisy as
she ran all over the yard, front paws prancing, while Max, as
always, sat and watched from the patio table. Three kids, was
Gorgie’s first thought, and smiled, seeing Nick toss the bags in
the trash can then pull up his collar against the wind and spitting
rain whipping across the yard. He cupped his ear a moment then put
something in his pocket.

Reality check, Georgie sighed. Yes, a
reality check was needed here. Those three out there, plus Cassie
and April, Paula and Steven were a fact. No trauma had brought them
together and into her realm. The natural course of life
had.

“Mason,” she said, still looking out at
her three dependants. “Emotions in this type of situation can run
awry, you know... mix you up.”

“Oh, stop.”

“Hear me out, please.”

He came to stand behind her, his hands
rubbing affectionately up and down the length of her arms. Even
through her thick sweatshirt, the touch was electric, and she
leaned back into him, then moved forward to break the contact,
wanting to keep a clear head. They were being pulled into a
swirling vortex and one of them needed to grab hold of something,
give them time to think, to reason.

“I’d like you to think
about something before you say anything more about your
interest
in me,” she
forced herself to say. “Can you do that?”

“Okay,” he said, taking a step
back.

She turned around, her back against the
sink, but she couldn’t look at him. She would lose her nerve if she
did. “I don’t want you to confuse me and this... this thing that’s
going on around me with what happened to Jenny. It would be cruel
to both of us.”

“You think that’s what this
is?”

“I’m saying everything is... crazy
right now... complicated.”

When he moved away to the
chair holding his jacket, she was overwhelmed with the hurt, his
and hers. It was as though she had slapped him, and she wanted to
take it back. But watching him slip into his jacket, now a heavy
load on his shoulders, she accepted there was no undoing it. This
was something that could not be deleted, and it had needed saying.
They had to know who they were falling in love with. Yes.
The
love
word.
What else could she call this feeling growing inside her for this
man? But committing to a lie would be too horrible for both of
them, the scar ugly and too long lasting.

“Nick hanging around for a while?”
Mason asked from the door.

She nodded with an added shrug. “Or, at
least until the moment he leaves.” She smiled, but it felt stiff,
fake, lipstick put on wrong.

“You shouldn’t be alone right now. I
mean that. No confusing you with anyone else. Just be
safe.”

“Mason, I...”

“No,” he said. “You’re right. Life was
easier when I was just BADGE 747. But... no matter what you say. We
can’t go back to that.”

“No. I don’t want to go back to that.
But when we go forward I want it to be without ghosts, and for the
right reason.”

“At least you said
when
and not
if
.” He opened the door,
but didn’t go through. He turned. “If I find out anything else from
Roberts, I’ll let you know. If Nick leaves, will you call me?” When
she hesitated, he added, “Or at least call Cassie or one of your
kids. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’ll call you.” When he turned to
leave, she said, “Mason. I don’t have your number.”

“I can fix that,” he said, and handed
her his card. “I thought you were never going to ask. My cell
number is written on the back. Put it in your speed
dial.”

“Don’t you want my cell number?” she
asked when he was about to close the door.

This time, he grinned, wide and
perfect. “Nick’s not the only one with certain abilities.” He
pointed a finger and added, “Remember that.” He reached around the
door, turned the lock, and closed it.

Georgie had no clue how long she stood
there staring at the closed door, its lock set.

“That Mason’s car leaving?” Nick asked,
coming in from the cold.

“You know it is.”

“What did you do to make him
leave?”

“What makes you think it was something
I did?” she demanded to know, putting soap in the dishwasher, then
closed the washer door. She flinched at her slamming of
it.

“Because I know you.”

“You know me.” This was new, she
thought, taking the dish-sponge to wipe off the table. “How could
you possibly know me, Mr. Never Around?”

“I know you because I know you. You’re
getting too comfortable in your life alone. You can’t play it safe
all your life. That little safe harbor of yours will get iced in
and very lonely.”

“It was nothing like that.” She wished
she had bitten her tongue before uttering one word. Damn him,
anyway! And she wiped the clean surface with angry
swipes.

“So you admit it was something you
said.”

“No. Yes. I guess.” She had to swallow
and take a deep breath to keep from crying. “I don’t want to be a
remedy or a replacement.”

“What the hell are you talking
about?”

The evaporating moisture left by the
sponge on the table surface held her focus until the breeze outside
scraped a shrub twig across the window. “You know how his wife
died?” she asked.

“9/11, plane out of Boston” he said, as
though it was something everyone knew.

Mouth open, she turned to stare at him,
surprised, yet not surprised. “How the fuck do you know these
things?!”

“Oh, you are worked up,” he said, and
went over to tap her head. “Don’t use that word. It doesn’t sound
right coming from you.”

“Oh, and it sounds better coming from
you? Don’t think so.”

“Back to the subject here.”

There was no getting the words out.
Each time she tried, they gagged her until she let herself drop
into the chair. “She died on 9/11!” The words spewed from her like
vomit of guilt. “She died... on 9/11. And he could do nothing.
Nothing. He carries the weight of the powerlessness... that he
could do nothing.”

The obvious question hung out there,
but she could see Nick was not seeing the problem. How could he be
so smart yet so damned dense? She motioned for him to catch up here
and see her maelstrom, offer her a lifeline, tell her she was
right.

His light brown eyes peered at her in a
side-glance while his head shook in quandary. “Okay, I’m confused.
What am I missing here? He wasn’t screwing around on her or she on
him. The woman is tragically dead, Georgie Girl. It’s the fault of
the fucking terrorists, not yours, not Mason’s. What is the
problem?”

Her reasoning seemed almost silly now,
and she didn’t want him laughing at her. She was close to laughing
at herself. “Jenny, his wife, died on the plane coming out of
Boston. He said so himself he could not protect the one closest to
him. Is he trying to save me as a replacement? His penance and
mistaking it for... love. I don’t want to live in her shadow,
always wondering.”

“You think it’s easy for Dudley
Do-Right to step into Sam’s place?”

“What? It’s not the same,” she told
him. It wasn’t. How could he compare the two? And yet. She felt a
stab to a place that nearly made her double over with an
outcry.

She sucked in air, saw herself running
through the ER, looking for Sam, a police officer motioning her to
a room, the smell of sterilizers and antiseptics nearly gagging
her. When she found him, he was sleeping in a room with gauze and
gloves strewn all over, machines all quiet, no beeping lights. She
talked to him, his cheek cold against hers, telling him everything
would be fine, until a nurse came rushing in with Steven and Paula
to tell her, Sam had died minutes before she got there. She had
been home sleeping in a chair waiting for him, while he lay
dying... until the police notified her and brought her to the
ER.

“I wasn’t there when he needed me
most,” she whispered, and the tears she thought had long ago dried
up, began to flow. Strong arms circled her tightly. “I wasn’t
there, and he died among strangers!”

“Yeah, you were, Georgie Girl,” Nick
whispered. “You were there.”

Chapter twenty-two

The familiar train whistle made its way
into Georgie’s dreams, the darkness giving way to daylight, but it
turned out to be Nick opening the drapes. She had cried herself to
sleep in the recliner. There was no memory of leaving the kitchen
or sitting, only the raving cries for things that can’t be undone,
and she breathed deeply under the warmth of the afghan. A high
pitch crackling made her turn. Nick had started a fire in the
fireplace. Its heat felt good, homey. The hearth had been dormant
too long.

“That was dumb of me,” she said to
Nick. “Sorry I put you through that. How long was I
out?”

“No, it wasn’t dumb. And it was way
overdue. You’ve been asleep about an hour or so.” Deep furrows
formed across his forehead as he pointed a finger at her, while
letting his mouth twitch into that half-scolding grin of his. “If
you hadn’t chased Mason away, he would have been here for
you.”