A Ring for Rosie. Maggie Wells

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Rosie’s heart rate started to slow when she saw genuine concern overtake the annoyance etched between Georgie’s perfectly ached brows. The thin silver ring in her left brow winked in the overhead lights. Once again, Rosie marveled at the joy Georgie brought into a room. No surprise this unconventional woman had won the heart of the world’s most conventional man. For a short time, Georgie and Mike Simmons’s love affair had given Rosie a sliver of hope. If stuffy, uptight Mike could fall for a free-spirited woman like Georgie, then the object of Rosie’s own affections might wake the hell up and smell her coffee.

      But he hadn’t.

      He never would.

      Rosie needed to give up on this impossible love once and for all.

      She couldn’t quite give him up, because no matter how many times she’d been there for him, James had never been hers.

      Unable to muster even the most basic of greetings, she pointed. “Gimme one of those.”

      Georgie blinked once, then followed the tip of Rosie’s trembling finger to the case where the trays of pink-glazed cookies shaped like penises sat on display. Understanding broke like dawn over the other woman’s face. Without a word, she popped a sheet of waxed paper from the box on the counter, wrapped the scrap around the base of the cookie cock, and handed the victim over the counter.

      Rosie strained not to snatch the cookie from her hands. She wasn’t as successful at masking the relish with which she chomped down, breaking the shaft in half. She tipped her head back and cupped the hand holding the remainder of the cookie in her hand to her mouth, making sure she didn’t drop a morsel. She wanted to devour—consume—take from him the same way he’d gobbled up everything she’d given him over the years.

      “You okay?” Georgie asked, her voice gentle.

      Unsure she’d be able to give a civil answer to such an inane question, she shook her head.

      Heaving a heavy sigh, Georgie extracted another cookie from the tray and offered it to her. “Of course you’re not. Stupid question.”

      Rosie stared at the other woman’s blue-polished nails. She hadn’t used waxed paper this time, or even foodservice gloves. Georgie’s bare-fingered grip on the cookie violated any number of health codes. Rosie had enough family members working the restaurant business to know the drill. But, when she looked up, she saw the worry in the baker’s eyes and knew this wasn’t an attempt to tempt a customer into buying another cookie but the gesture of a friend.

      She chewed fast and swallowed before taking the cookie. “Thank you,” she managed to croak at last.

      Georgie acknowledged the thanks with a brisk nod, then moved to the cooler of cold drinks near the cash register. Without asking, she pulled two bottles of chilled water from a shelf.

      Rosie finally found the ability to blush. “I’m sorry. This is rude of me.”

      She hated when her voice came out all quiet and deferential. It was her mother’s voice, but not flavored with a bit of the accent Maria could never lose. Every once in a while, it slipped out of Rosie’s mouth, unbidden.

      “No need to apologize.” Georgie thrust one of the bottles into Rosie’s hand. “Does this have something to do with the baby mama?”

      Rosie stared in surprise. Georgie was dead-on, but Rosie hadn’t seriously expected to find an ally when she burst into the Getta Piece bakery. She’d only wanted to find a pair of cajones to crush. After all, the baby mama in question was Mike’s sister and Georgie’s potential sister-in-law, Megan Simmons.

      Also known as Megan the Moocher. Megalomaniac Megan. Or, Rosie’s personal favorite, Megan the Malignancy.

      “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

      “You know, you have bit of an accent when you get mad,” Georgie commented, cutting her apology off neatly.

      The heat in her cheeks kicked up a notch. Rosie shook her head, but the gesture was more reluctant acceptance than denial. “It’s not really mine. I borrow it.”

      Georgie gave a short laugh and uncapped the other water bottle. “Borrow it?”

      “From my mother.” She gave a wry twist of her lips. “I was born in Humboldt Park, grew up near North Avenue and Pulaski.” She paused. “Your father was not very popular there.”

      This time Georgie laughed for real. Her father, the former mayor of Chicago, had been beloved by the city’s Irish, Italian, and Polish enclaves but never quite connected with the Latino population of their fair city. More than one candidate from her old neighborhood had challenged his incumbency, but none succeeded. No, Gerald Carson, legendary operator of the Chicago machine, had been brought down by internal factions and his own hubris.

      “True, but Gerry is doing well there.” Georgie was referring to her brother’s campaign to be elected to the city’s highest office, of course. “I think the English-to-Spanish dictionary I bought him for Christmas really paid off.”

      Rosie couldn’t help but laugh when she pictured perfectly groomed Gerry Carson sweating and tugging at his thick chestnut hair as he laboriously translated his speeches from his diction-perfect English to the rapid-fire mutation of Spanglish of her childhood. “I guess it did.” Rosie studied Georgie for a long moment. “You are a good sister.”

      “He’s a good brother.”

      Georgie’s eyes shone with sympathy. “What did James do?”

      “What? How did you—”

      “You’re here, chomping on shortbread peens and fuming over Megan, Queen of Mayhem. I’m no mathematician, but…”

      Until that moment, Rosie hadn’t given much thought to the fact that the bane of her existence was also Mike’s sister. She needed to watch what she said. Despite her color-by-numbers hair and funky style, Georgie wasn’t as freewheeling as she might like the world to believe. If what Mike said about her was true, Georgie cared deeply about the people around her, even if she did everything in her power to pretend she was tough as nails.

      Rosie exhaled through her nose and the tension seeped from her bones. She and Georgie were on the same side. Of course they were. Georgie and Mike had been tripping along calmly before Hurricane Megan blew into town and tried to shake her brother’s confidence in his relationship with Georgie. At a children’s birthday party, no less. Georgie and Mike had a good thing going, even if Mike was too cautious for his own good. Their relationship was getting deeper, more real. Even from her seat on the sidelines, Rosie could see the connection between them. And Megan had seen the opportunity to get into his head.

      Now she would get into James’s head. And the boys. What about the boys? Could they survive their mother’s intrusion in their young lives?

      “She moved in with him.”

      “James took her in, huh?”

      Georgie’s question jolted her from her thoughts and plopped her right back down in reality. Sighing, Rosie bit the tip off the second cookie and chewed methodically as she nodded. “He did.”

      “But what was he supposed to do, right?” Georgie turned to a rack of treats СКАЧАТЬ