Chapter 15

"WHAT DOES it mean?" Toni repeated over the phone. "It means you're falling for the cop."

"No, no, no," Georgia said, shaking her head. "Wrong answer." She sat down on her coffee table and put her feet up on her couch. "Just because I have a couple of harmless little fantasies about the guy doesn't mean I'm falling for him."

"If they were so harmless, then why are you making such a fuss?"

Good question.

"And what about the kiss?"

She was beginning to regret telling her friend everything. "The kiss happened in the heat of the moment—completely unplanned. It meant nothing."

"If it meant nothing, then why are you in such an uproar?"

"Because I feel guilty!"

"If you've done nothing to be ashamed of, you shouldn't feel guilty."

"You aren't Catholic. And I have this fear that Rob will run into Ken in the gym, and Ken will casually mention that we kissed in the park."

"So when you see Rob at the wedding today, tell him about it and let him know it didn't mean anything."

Georgia blinked back sudden tears and made choking sounds.

"It did mean something, though, didn't it?"

She dropped her forehead into her hand. "Maybe," she whispered, sniffing.

"Georgia," Toni said, her voice incredulous. "Meeting someone who makes you feel extraordinary is something to celebrate, not cry over."

"But what about Rob? Things were just starting to go so well."

"I think your interest in the cop simply means you're not ready to settle down right now. It's not a crime, and Rob might be hurt, but he'll live."

Georgia lifted her chin. "You're absolutely right."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I have no idea."

* * *

"I DON'T know what's wrong with it," Georgia told the clerk, then scooted a box full of the phone, message recorder and wires across the counter. "But the only message I've gotten in a week was the mechanical one about adjusting the volume."

The kid scratched his head and gave her a sullen expression. "You're returning this phone system because no one ever calls you?"

She smiled sweetly—he was obviously the author of the manual. " No. I'm returning this phone system because a friend of mine said she left at least two messages I never received."

"Got your receipt, lady?"

She slid it across the counter.

His hand disappeared below the counter to scratch someplace she couldn't see. "One of our repair guys will have to take a look at it tomorrow. Can we call you?"

She leaned forward, pushed back the straw hat she had bought for today, and enunciated very clearly. "That would be fine, except now I don't have a phone. Why don't you tell me what time tomorrow I can come back?"

They negotiated a time, and Georgia exited the store, aware she was garnering a few strange looks because not everyone in the electronics store wore a long sheer dress, a straw hat, and white wedge espadrilles and carried a huge wrapped package with a big silver bow.

She caught a bus at the corner of the shopping center, then walked a half block to the church, replaying her conversation with Toni. She was right, of course. If Georgia was so distracted by Ken Medlock, she wasn't making herself wholly available to Rob. It was the pushing and pulling that was making her crazy. The prudent thing to do was to suggest to Rob that they take a break from seeing each other.

She entered the church from the back and followed the sound of raised voices and female laughter down a hallway to the room where the bride and bridesmaids were dressing for their photos. She'd never seen so much clutter—clothes, shoes, makeup bags, hair appliances. Stacey looked ethereal in ivory. Her mother fussed with her train while another older woman worked on the bride's chin-length red hair. Toni was one of four bridesmaids dressed in long, straight-skirted gowns in a deep coral color.

"You look beautiful," Georgia said.

Her friend blushed prettily and handed Georgia a curling iron. "Will you curl the back of my hair?"

She helped to arrange Toni in front of a mirror and set to work.

"I don't suppose Rob is here yet?"

Georgia shook her head. "He said he might get hung up at the office since he's so behind from being sick." She couldn't decide whether she wanted to get the breakup over with or put it off another day.

"You'll look back on this someday and laugh," her friend offered.

"Think so?"

"Yeah, when you and the cop have six kids."

Georgia laughed good-naturedly. What she hadn't told Toni was that while she was planning to break off with Rob, she wasn't planning to go out with Ken Medlock.

"Too bad you couldn't have broken up with Rob before and asked that yummy uniform to bring you to the wedding."

She gave a noncommittal nod. She was taking a hiatus from men—dating them, even merely looking at them, had awakened her dark side. She needed time and space to regain her perspective.

Toni kept glancing in Stacey's direction with a wistful expression. "Think you or I will ever be brides, Georgia?"

An amusing question, since Toni was two years younger. "Probably. Someday. How goes it with Dr. Baxter?"

Toni made a face. "I haven't told him my name yet."

"Toni!"

"I can't help it. He calls me Terri Strawberry now. How cute is that?"

"How sexist is that?"

"I know, I know. I'm going to tell him, no matter how embarrassing it is."

"Good."

Georgia finished curling her hair, sliding her own envious glances toward the glowing Stacey—not because the woman was getting married, but because she was marrying someone she was head over heels for. And Neil seemed to be head over heels for her, too. Georgia looked around the room, surveying the happy, fretting women, taking in the buzz of conversation and hair dryers, acknowledging the charge in the air. Excitement. Happiness. Optimism.

She wanted it. She wanted true love and all the trappings of giddiness. And someday she'd have it... if these overactive hormones of hers didn't get in the way.

Georgia smiled and nodded at another bridesmaid who needed an extra hand with her hair. She dreaded the talk with Rob, but she was grateful for one thing—she'd left Ken Medlock yesterday in the park with a stern rejection, and if she mailed the pictures of his dog, she couldn't imagine a reason she'd ever run into him again.

* * *

KEN WALKED past the job postings bulletin board a half dozen times, each time promising himself he would not look. And he didn't. Not until the seventh time. Then, just to satisfy his own morbid curiosity, he quickly scanned the list for churches and businesses in need of traffic control and security for the day.

St. Michael's Church, ]anus-Baker wedding, 10:30 a.m. Alexander-Childers wedding, 3:30 p.m. Piper-Matthews wedding, 7:30 p.m. Two officers, two hours for each event.

Georgia would be at the Alexander-Childers wedding in the afternoon. Maybe if he could see Georgia and her boyfriend together, see the way she looked at Trainer, see how the man adored her, he could shake this compulsion to be around Georgia. It was the guilt, he told himself, which triggered a burning need to know how she drank her coffee in the morning, if she left the top off the toothpaste tube, if she painted her toenails.

Telling himself he would bow to Providence and write Georgia Adams out of his life if the jobs were already taken, he walked up to the clerk who assisted in linking off-duty cops with community needs.

"Is St. Michael's all filled up today?" he asked casually.

The young man ran his finger down a grid. "There's one slot left for the evening wedding, seven-thirty. Interested?"

Disappointed beyond words. Ken stood stock still. He'd promised to heed whatever the schedule dictated. He would eventually get Georgia out of his mind. It was just a simple physical attraction, albeit a strong one. Things had worked out for the best—he liked being a bachelor, and she was obviously looking for a more serious relationship.

I try to be an honest person... just as I expect the man I'm seeing to be honest with me.

His track record on honesty took him out of the running anyway, Ken noted wryly.

"Medlock?" the guy asked, waving a hand to recapture his attention. "You want it?"

Disgusted with himself for caring about a woman who'd made it abundantly clear she wasn't interested in him, he nodded. "Sure, I'll take the seven-thirty slot. Gratis, for the church."

The clerk pursed his mouth as he made a note. "Mighty nice of you." Then he grinned. "Penance to pay?"

Ken smirked, then grabbed a cup of coffee and returned to his desk, feeling somewhat better. The one upside of not dating Georgia—he would never have to confess he'd been the man who'd taken the sexual pleasures she'd intended for her boyfriend. He drank deeply of the coffee, still marveling over the week's events. Considering how quickly the situation had snowballed, he should be thanking his lucky stars to have escaped relatively unscathed.

He sat back in his chair with a resigned nod. Yes—lucky, lucky, lucky.

"Hey, Medlock."

Ken turned and jerked his chin up to acknowledge a colleague approaching his desk. "Yeah, Booker?"

"I'm in a bind. I signed up for the three-thirty wedding at St Michael's, and I just remembered I'm supposed to take my father-in-law golfing. Don't suppose you'd—"

"Absolutely."