Georgia Meets Her Groom

Georgia Meets Her Groom
Elizabeth Bevarly

“I Was Hoping We Could Be Alone,” (#u89580abb-6e82-5e13-906c-adfb44c0c7cd)Letter to Reader (#u3def9b00-46de-57ce-99f2-43ee0dfca62d)Title Page (#u2cbdaf7b-cd9e-5465-a15e-4a41dc289e55)About the Author (#ucba824d2-10cd-55f8-a0f0-44b17ff64b11)Dedication (#u1dd2d50d-dfd4-5648-90af-71fceabac20e)Prologue (#u24f3c27c-f248-5d3d-8afe-892a82d3886f)Chapter One (#u3e13d73c-ac4f-5ea8-a493-afd26847e6e8)Chapter Two (#uc608c900-89a1-5575-ae64-6913f3294ec8)Chapter Three (#u805b2108-c804-5523-8c7f-4ad9fe4d600e)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“I Was Hoping We Could Be Alone,”

Georgia admitted.

Jack nodded slowly. “Just you and me,” he said. “Like old times.”

Well, not quite like old times, she thought. There was that small matter of countless hours of unbridled sex she was hoping for now that had been totally absent from their relationship before.

“Just like old times,” she agreed a little breathlessly. Except that you wouldn’t believe what kind of underwear I have on under this autfit...nothing like the white cotton stuff I used to wear. Which he’d never seen anyway. So how was he going to know how much trouble she’d gone to today?

He’d know, she assured herself. Oh, yeah.

He’d know.

Dear Reader,

THE BLACK WATCH returns! The men you found so intriguing are now joined by women who are also part of this secret organization created by BJ James. Look for them in Whispers in the Dark, this month’s MAN OF THE MONTH.

Leanne Banks’s delightful miniseries HOW TO CATCH A PRINCESS—all about three childhood friends who kiss a lot of frogs before they each meet their handsome prince—continues with The You-Can’t-Make-Me Bride. And Elizabeth Bevarly’s series THE FAMILY McCORMICK concludes with Georgia Meets Her Groom. Romance blooms as the McCormick family is finally reunited.

Peggy Moreland’s tantalizing miniseries TROUBLE IN TEXAS begins this month with Marry Me, Cowboy. When the men of Temptation, Texas, decide they want wives, they find them the newfangled way—they advertise!

A Western from Jackie Merritt is always a treat, so I’m excited about this month’s Wind River Ranch—it’s ultrnsensuous and totally compelling. And the month is completed with Wedding Planner Tames Rancher!, an engaging romp by Pamela Ingrahm. There’s nothing better than curling up with a Silhouette Desire book, so enjoy!

Regards,

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Georgia Meets Her Groom

Elizabeth Bevarly

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

ELIZABETH BEVARLY is an honors graduate of the University of Louisville and achieved her dream of writing full-time before she even turned thirty! At heart, she is also an avid voyager who once helped navigate a friend’s thirty-five-foot sailboat across the Bermuda Triangle. “I really love to travel,” says this self-avowed beach burn. “To me, it’s the best education a person can give to herself.” Her dream is to one day have her own sailboat, a beautifully renovated older model forty-two footer, and to enjoy the freedom and tranquillity seafaring can bring. Elizabeth likes to think she has a lot in common with the characters she creates, people who know love and life go hand in hand. And she’s getting some firsthand experience with motherhood, as well—she and her husband welcomed their firstborn, a son, two years ago.

For Ana Sofia

The score is now: Girls 3, Boys 1

So who’s going to go next?

Prologue

He knew her only by sight, knew that her name was Georgia Lavender and that her daddy practically owned the whole damned town. Carlisle, Virginia, even if it was a thriving beach resort in the summer, was barely a smudge on the map the rest of the year. And just as everybody knew that Georgia was rich, everybody knew she was smart—the kid who’d been skipped a couple of grades back in elementary school, and who, just shy of fourteen, was the youngest member of the sophomore class.

Just as everybody knew he was the oldest at almost seventeen, having been held back twice—once in sixth grade and once in seventh. They also knew it hadn’t been because he was stupid so much as it had been because he was such a troublemaker.

And hell, he wasn’t even from Carlisle. This just happened to be the most recent place the state had dumped him, after he’d been exiled from yet another group home because of what the social workers had politely called “antisocial behavior.” In spite of being the new kid in town, though, it had taken him no time at all to acquire a reputation.

Jack McCormick strode across the school parking lot and watched with veiled interest as Georgia Lavender made her way reluctantly toward her father, who was leaning against an expensive, late-model car. Her clothes suggested she had a modest disposition—a tan skirt and white blouse, white knee socks and plain brown shoes. Jack had heard Susie Morris and some of the other girls laughing about Georgia’s clothes pretty often, but he’d never really paid much attention until now.

She wore glasses, too, their huge frames and thick lenses giving her the appearance of some kind of small, timid animal whose eyes had outgrown the rest of its body. Her hair was sort of a medium everything—medium red, medium long, medium curly—but he noted it was touched with splashes of gold when she was out in the sunlight this way.

She wasn’t much of a looker, Jack reflected. But then, at the moment, neither was he. Gingerly he brushed a knuckle over his left cheekbone, where he knew the purple discoloration was still present. His foster father had backhanded him but good yesterday as soon as he’d gotten a load of Jack’s report card. Nothing much new in that, but Jack wished just once he could escape the house without having to dodge the old man’s fist.

Brushing back an errant length of black hair that had fallen over one eye, he glanced over at Georgia and her father again. She had slowed down and was warily studying the man by the car. Inexplicably, Jack slowed his own pace, taking his time as he unlocked the door of his old, battered Nova and tossed his books into the back seat. He squared his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling tense and edgy for no reason he could name.

“Georgia,” the man said in a voice that chilled Jack’s blood. With that one word he had managed a greeting, an insult and a threat. It made no sense, but Jack became immediately defensive, his fingers curling reflexively into fists.

“Georgia,” the man repeated in much the same voice. “Why didn’t you show me your report card last night?”

She came to a halt precisely one foot in front of her father. Jack would never have done that. He always made it a point to keep out of swinging distance.

When she didn’t reply, her father pushed himself away from the car to tower over her. “Why, Georgia?”

Without looking up, she replied so quietly that Jack had to strain to hear her. “You weren’t home.”

“You knew I was working late. Why didn’t you leave it on the table the way I instructed?”

She glanced up once very quickly, then dropped her head in submission again. “I—I’m sorry, Daddy. I—I forgot.”

“You forgot.”

She nodded silently.

“Well, I didn’t forget. And just for your information, between the mattress and box springs is a terrible hiding place. It was the first place I looked.”

His voice oozed disdain, and Georgia flinched as if he had slapped her.

“You got a B, Georgia. A B!” His voice surged from condemnation to contempt in one syllable. “In chemistry, for God’s sake! How the hell are you going to get into a university like MIT with grades like that?”

Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Her old man was upset because she’d received a better grade than he could ever have hoped for, in a class he wasn’t even allowed to take because of his lousy academic record. What was the guy—nuts?

“I’m sorry, Daddy, I—”

“You’re sorry,” her father jeered. “I’ll say you’re sorry. A sorry excuse for a human being. If you ever get another grade like this one on your report card, I swear I’ll...”