A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) by Suzie Quint Page B

bar.
    She took another sip, letting the Baileys
linger on her tongue, savoring the sweetness.
    “How come you women have to be so damned
difficult?”
    She swallowed to clear her mouth. “We’re
no more difficult than you men.”
    He looked at her hard for several
seconds. “Yeah, well, I guess I’ll give you that. You were married to Sol.
Still . . .”
    “Still what?”
    “Still, you didn’t even try to tough it
out. You were out of there like you was shot from a cannon. What’d you last?
Two weeks?”
    Small towns. No one ever forgot anything.
“Six.” Which was something she normally didn’t mention.
    “See? You didn’t even try to work out
whatever was wrong.”
    “I tried,” Georgia said, her tone more
defensive than she’d have liked.
    “How hard could you have tried in only
six weeks?”
    She really didn’t need this. Stopping off
for a drink instead of going home made her feel guilty enough. She didn’t need
to pile old guilt on top of the new. “It’s not like I stopped trying the moment
I walked out. Sometimes you walk out in an attempt to get their attention.”
    “Did it work?” His tone said he already
knew the answer. Which she supposed he did.
    “Not as well as I’d hoped.” Not well at
all. But that’s what happened when you were barely eighteen and an idiot. Young
and stupid. They went together like peanut butter and jelly.
    A scream of laughter erupted from Missy’s
table.
    He shot another look their way. “Well, it
got my attention when Missy moved out.”
    “And how’s that working out for you?”
    “Not so well.”
    “She’s got you jealous, though, doesn’t
she?”
    His mouth drew tight. “Sol ever get
jealous?”
    “Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?”
    His mouth quirked again. “Still?”
    “God, yes. I don’t think he knows how to
let go of anything, let alone a woman he thought he had branded.”
    “What about you? You ever get jealous of
him?”
    She shook her head. “Not for a long time.”
    “Guess you don’t care, then, that he went
out with Missy after she left me.”
    Georgia blinked at him. Sol had gone out with Missy? Missy, who’d been everyone’s
goodtime girl in school? The carnival ride behind the bleachers? That Missy?
    She glanced at their table in time to see
one of the guys slip his hand around the back of Missy’s neck and pull her into
a kiss. Even from the bar, Georgia could see she was frenching him. Had she
kissed Sol like that? Probably. Sol and Tommy hadn’t liked each other much in
school, so Sol wouldn’t worry about Tommy’s feelings. Had he slept with Tommy’s
slut of a wife?
    Georgia looked back at Tommy, who was watching her with a tight focus as though he
could shut out what was happening at the pool tables. She was willing to bet he
knew exactly how many breaths the kiss lasted. And there wasn’t a doubt in her
mind Missy had come into The Lariat with every intention of flaunting her date
in front of Tommy. That was how some women thought. Her heart broke a little
for him.
    “Why would I care? He’s a free man.”
    “Yeah.” The skepticism in Tommy’s voice
said he hadn’t missed that telltale moment when she’d wanted to pull every
single bleached blonde hair out of Missy’s head.
    Georgia took a gulp of her drink.
    “She always liked Sol.”
    Georgia almost spit the drink at Tommy. She forced herself to swallow. “She did?”
    “Oh, yeah. She had a thing for him in
school, but Sol was kind of oblivious to girls.”
    Georgia made a disparaging sound. “Sol was never oblivious.” Having been “the girl with
the boobs” back then, she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt which boys had been
oblivious. Sol had not been one of them.
    “Yeah, well . . . Maybe he
just hadn’t figured out what to do with them yet.”
    She smiled, remembering how much she’d
wanted Sol to kiss her and how long it had taken him.
    Tommy’s mouth tightened. “Of course, he’s
figured it out since then.”
    Dismay