Georgia Meets Her Groom

He nodded. “I know. I just didn’t expect...”

“What?”

He shook his head and left his statement unfinished.

“He’s dead, you know.”

Georgia couldn’t imagine what made her blurt out the news that way—the words just tumbled out without her even having planned to say them. A muscle twitched once in Jack’s jaw, but he offered no other indication that he’d even heard what she said.

“Buck, I mean,” she added softly. She hadn’t uttered the name of Jack’s foster father for two decades, but it still left a bad taste in her mouth when she did. “He died about three years ago. Finally drank himself to death. Faye is dead, too. About six months ago.”

“I knew Buck was dead, but I hadn’t heard about Faye,” Jack said, a complete absence of any kind of emotion in his voice at the mention of his former foster parents. “Can’t say that I’m sorry to hear it, though.”

Georgia nodded. Although his foster mother hadn’t beaten him up the way his foster father had, she’d never done anything to stop the abuse, either. It was easy to understand why Jack couldn’t forgive either of them.

No other words passed between them for several moments, then Georgia remembered she was playing hostess to someone she hadn’t seen in ages. “Would you like some coffee?” She gestured at the fireplace behind her. “I could switch on the fire. We could spend the whole afternoon catching up on everything that’s happened since we saw each other last.”

“That could take a lot longer than one afternoon,” Jack told her with a sad smile.

She shrugged again, a little more anxiously this time. “Then we’ll just have to give it more than one afternoon.”

He said nothing in reply to that, and Georgia nibbled her lower lip fretfully. This was just too weird. Although she had never forgotten. Jack McCormick, he was frozen in her mind as a boy of barely eighteen. A surly, angry boy at that, one who’d had no money, no prospects and no hope when he’d left Carlisle. The man who stood before her now was like a stranger. He looked like Jack, kind of, and he spoke like Jack, in a way, and he moved like Jack, a bit, but he wasn’t Jack. Not the Jack she remembered, anyway.

That other Jack had been such a big part of her life at a time when she’d needed someone badly. For one full year in her young life Georgia had had someone to care for, someone who had cared for her in return. For one full year she’d felt like a human being, and it had been enough to generate the strength she’d needed to start pulling away from her father’s bullying.

But after one year, just when things were starting to look up—for her, at least—Jack had disappeared from her life completely, and she’d been left alone again.

Not that she hadn’t expected him to leave. From that first afternoon when he’d driven her away from her father’s wrath, Jack had made no secret of the fact that the day he turned eighteen, when he was no longer answerable to the state of Virginia, he was hightailing it from Carlisle forever. He’d made clear, too, that he’d never again—not in a million, trillion years—set one foot in any of the towns where he’d been placed as a kid.

And Georgia had never doubted that he would stick to that vow as if it were sacred. However, she’d always thought he might consider taking her with him when he left Carlisle, even if she wasn’t of legal age. Or that he might come back for her when she turned eighteen, too. At the very least, she had thought he would tell her goodbye before he left.

But none of those things had happened. Back then, she had told herself she would be prepared for Jack’s departure when it came, and that she would somehow manage without him once he was gone. And she had. Although it had been painful to lose him, Jack’s determination to survive and thrive in the face of adversity had infected Georgia enough to keep her going, even after he was gone.

And now he was back, a man full grown, driving a car that cost more than most houses, self-assured, successful, dynamic. He was no longer surly, but there still seemed to be an unmistakable anger about something simmering just beneath his surface. Evidently, these days he had plenty in the way of money and prospects. As for hope, however...

“I’m not going to be in town for very long,” he said in response to her earlier suggestion that they give it more than one afternoon, scattering her ruminations.

“So why did you come back?” she asked again. “You don’t honestly expect me to believe you’re here because I was the only person you could talk to, and I just so happen to still be in Carlisle.”

“Something that surprises me, quite frankly,” he remarked, once again avoiding a response to her real question.

She shrugged. “This is my home, Jack. It’s where I grew up. I have a business here, and people know me. I even have a few friends these days. I like Carlisle,” she told him simply. “In spite of...everything else.”

“And just what’s your father up to these days?” he asked.

That was Jack, she remembered as a ripple of tension seared her belly. Always straight to the point. “I assume he’s the same as always. We don’t see too much of each other. Not deliberately, anyway.”

“Why not?”

She gazed at him blandly. “You, above all people, should know the answer to that question.”

He shook his head. “I just thought you might have patched things up between the two of you by now.”

She expelled a sound of disgust. “Not likely.”

He nodded, as if the information were no surprise at all. The silence stretched between them until it became an almost palpable thing. Georgia stared at Jack, and Jack stared at Georgia. Both of them obviously had a lot on their minds. So why weren’t they talking about much of anything?

“Jack,” she finally said when she could no longer tolerate the quiet, “for the last time, what are you doing back in Carlisle?”

She thought she detected a slight hesitation before he told her, “I have some business here.”

Georgia nodded, resignation coiling like a chunk of ice in her midsection. So it wasn’t she who had brought him back to town, after all. “What kind of business?”

“Long story. But obviously having to come to Carlisle reminded me of you. And then I got the news about my brother and sister, and...” He inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “I wanted to see you, Geo. I’ve wanted to see you for a long time now.”

Geo. It was the nickname Jack alone had used for her. A term of endearment. A term of affection. And hearing it again for the first time in more than twenty years made Georgia want to cry for some reason. She turned hastily, recalling that she had been about to make coffee, and crossed quickly to the kitchen. Unfortunately, with the layout of the small house being what it was, the kitchen was pretty much just an extension of the living room, so she was still well within Jack’s view.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about you for the last few days,” he continued. “I’ve needed someone to talk to, and you were really the only person I could ever open up to, you know?”

She nodded, the motion jerky and fast, but kept her back to him as she filled the coffeemaker with the dark, fragrant powder.

“I...it’s—”

He bit off the statement immediately after beginning it, and she detected something in his voice then that was troubled and wary. Quickly she completed her task and gathered her thoughts, then returned to the living room to join him while the coffee brewed. He had moved away from the windows, and now occupied the place where she had last been standing herself. She gestured toward the sofa, but he declined the invitation without even acknowledging it. So Georgia dropped down to seat herself there instead.

“It’s what?” she asked.

Instead of answering, Jack moved back to the chair where he had draped his coat, then withdrew a slender white envelope from the inside pocket. Wordlessly, he crossed the room again and handed the letter to Georgia, and she eyed him with puzzlement as she extended her hand for it.

“Just read it,” he said softly.

She scanned the Washington, D.C., return address—evidently a private investigation firm—and looked back at Jack, still confused. When he nodded silently, she withdrew the letter from inside and read:

Dear Mr. McCormick,

I represent a brother and sister, the former Stephen and Charlotte McCormick, now named Spencer Melbourne and Lucy Cagney, originally of Richmond, Virginia, and now living in Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia, respectively. The matter concerns their search for an older brother, Jack William McCormick, from whom they have been separated for more than thirty years. Through my investigative endeavors, I have reason to believe you are that brother....

“Oh, Jack,” Georgia said as she glanced up at him again. “You’ve found them.”

He shook his head, his expression a mixture of joy and terror. “No, they’ve found me.”

She dropped her gaze back to the letter and read through to the end, marveling at how much this must mean to him. “Have you contacted them yet?” she asked when she completed the missive.

He shook his head again.

“Why not?”

“I’m not ready yet.”