Georgia Meets Her Groom

To Jack, the unuttered threat sounded a lot scarier than the graphic warnings he received from his foster father on a regular basis. He shook his head silently. Grown-ups were such jerks. He started to get into his car, but when he heard Georgia’s father start up again, he turned around, wondering why the old guy couldn’t drop the subject.

“I’ve had it with you, Georgia. You’d better straighten up and fly right, because what do you think will happen to you if you don’t get into college? Certainly you won’t get married. Look at you—what man would want you? And I won’t have you being a burden on me for the rest of my life.”

As her father berated her, Georgia simply stood still with her head bowed and listened. Jack, on the other hand, grew angrier and angrier with every word the man spoke. Before he realized his intention, he was marching over to stand behind her. Then, without a word, he cupped his hands over her shoulders and gently pushed her aside, stepping in front of her to shield her.

Where Georgia’s father had been looking down to shout at her, he was forced to tilt his head back to look at Jack. For one tense moment, no one said a word. Finally, the older man broke the silence.

“Who the hell are you?”

Jack twisted his mouth into a sneer, an expression that always preceded the first punch he threw in a fight. “Name’s Jack McCormick. Who the hell are you?”

Georgia’s father was clearly taken aback. “I’m Gregory Lavender, Georgia’s father. Now step aside.”

Jack shook his head slowly. “Georgia and I have plans.”

Gregory Lavender narrowed his eyes in outrage. “Now, you listen to me—”

“No, you listen to me.” Jack cut him off, tilting his head down toward Gregory Lavender’s with the express purpose of getting in the guy’s face. “You wanna whale into somebody, you try whaling into me and see what it gets you. But leave Georgia alone. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

The old man poked a finger against Jack’s breastbone—hard. “This is none your business, boy.”

Jack effortlessly shoved the finger away. And although his gaze remained fixed on Gregory Lavender’s, he directed his next words to the man’s daughter, dismissing the man himself. “Come on, Georgia, let’s go.”

He took her hand and tugged gently, urging her toward his car. But she didn’t follow him. When he turned around to look at her, she was staring at him with huge, disbelieving eyes, her lower lip trembling with utter terror.

“Georgia?” he said softly. “You coming?”

She clasped her books tightly to her chest, her knuckles almost white where they gripped her binder. With one quick glance at her father, she took a slow step toward Jack. Then another. Then another.

“Georgia...” her father warned her.

“I won’t be late, Daddy,” she said in a quivering voice. “I’ll be home in plenty of time for supper, I promise.”

“Georgia, we are not fin—”

“Hey, old man, she told you she’d be home in time for supper,” Jack interrupted as he led Georgia away, his steps, unlike hers, never faltering. “What’s the problem?”

He was amazed that Georgia’s father didn’t respond to his taunt, didn’t suppress the small act of rebellion on the spot. He hoped she wouldn’t be in for a rough time when she got home. But for now, he’d helped her win this one battle, and in doing so had given himself a little boost, too.

From now on, he thought, Gregory Lavender would know that his daughter had a champion to rally whenever she felt threatened by dragons. And maybe, just maybe, that would make a difference in her life. And hell, who knew? he thought further. Maybe it would make a difference in Jack’s life, too.

He opened the passenger door of his car and helped her in, then went around to seat himself behind the wheel. Gunning the engine in the way teenage boys do, he turned to her and smiled.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, yourself,” she rejoined.

His smile broadened. “I’m Jack McCormick.”

“I know,” she replied with a shaky smile. “I’ve always...”

Her voice trailed off and she shrugged anxiously, pushing her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose with her index finger. Innocently, and not a little awkwardly, she lifted her hand to cup his jaw, rubbing her thumb gently across his cheekbone where his skin was still tender beneath the bruise.

“I know,” she repeated quietly. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

One

Jack McCormick sat behind his big, executive, mahogany desk, staring blindly at his big, executive mahogany-paneled office. A crisp white sheet of stationery and a torn envelope marked Confidential sat neglected on the blotter before him, the tidy black letterhead on both stating, among other things, Roxanne Matheny Investigations, Inc. He had read the letter four times already. But he could still hardly believe what it said.

Scarcely thinking about what he was doing, he tugged open the top right-hand drawer of his desk and extracted a battered baseball that was more innards than out. He curled his fingers comfortably over the worn leather and rubber, palming the sphere with affection the way he would a lover’s breast. It was the only thing he owned that had been with him forever. All else had been lost at some point along the way. Until now.

He gazed at the letter again, his eyes feasting on the message it bore. They’d found him. Finally. Before he’d even had a chance to look for them.

A soft rap of knuckles on his office door brought Jack out of his deep ruminations, and he lifted his head toward it. “Come in,” he called ouL

Adrian Chavez, his highest-ranking associate, nudged the door open and strode confidently through. But when he observed his employer’s expression, he hesitated.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

Jack shook his head slowly and gripped the baseball more firmly, but he didn’t elaborate. “What’s the word?” he asked instead.

Adrian extended a hefty accordion folder toward him. “The Lavender acquisition. As it currently stands, anyway.”

Jack clamped his jaw shut rigidly and set the baseball aside, then reached for the record his associate offered, his attention suddenly focused tighter than it had been for some time. “And what did Gregory Lavender have to say today?”

Adrian paused, eyeing his boss thoughtfully, then linked his fingers together behind his back. “Not much that he hasn’t already said over the last few months.” Clearly restless, he then brought his arms forward, crossing them negligently over his chest, as if giving another matter much thought.

“What?” Jack asked, grinning with satisfaction. “Did he have something else to add this time?”

“Yeah,” Adrian told him. “As a matter of fact, he did have something else to say about you.”

“I can only imagine what.”

Adrian studied his employer with something akin to admiration. “Gregory Lavender said he’d see you dead before he turned his company over to you. Especially after what you did to his daughter.”

Jack expelled an errant breath of air that almost—almost—sounded like a chuckle. “Yeah, I’ll just bet he would.”

Adrian rocked back on his heels. “So...just what did you do to his daughter?”

Jack glanced up and narrowed his eyes at his associate. “I freed her.”

Adrian nodded. “Sounds like fun.”

Jack emitted another rough sound. “Actually, it was more like...”

He inhaled a deep breath, and left his thought unfinished. More than twenty years had passed since he’d seen Gregory Lavender’s daughter. But scarcely a day had passed that he hadn’t thought about her. He’d freed her? he asked himself. Hell, more like she had been the one to free Jack.

Adrian simply continued to gaze at his employer, not pressing the issue of Georgia Lavender. “So what do we do now?” he asked instead.