“You done?” he questioned.
“I am, and I have to say, you don’t look like Sean Connor, who was my first love. He had red hair and green eyes. Although, they can do wonders with surgery these days, and name changing happens all the time, I believe.”
“I got the feeling from Buster and Jake you’d be a handful,” the Texan said.
“A handful? Are you serious? You were the one who walked up spouting all that rubbish about first loves, Mr. Gelderman, and I’m not entirely sure why.”
“Ethan,” he corrected her, “and that little gathering just looked plain awkward, so I took pity on you.”
“Do you know Macy Reynolds, or should I say Reynolds-Delray, that poor man’s wife? The woman standing there dressed like a model?” Branna looked around the supermarket. If she was in the city, she’d have been nudged and shoved a dozen times by now, but here she was able to walk and browse, or had been until a large, way too handsome man had intercepted her.
“Can’t say as I’ve met her before today,” he drawled.
“Think fake everything, right down to her personality, and you’ll understand,” Branna, said.
“Now that I understand, darling. I’m from Texas, after all.”
“And you love those kinds of women?” Branna added, looking at his perfect bone structure. The man was a walking advertisement for what women wanted in their men. Tall, built, devastating smile, and could talk a pair of panties down without breaking a sweat.
“You talk funny,” he said, hustling her up to the checkout by putting a hand on her back.
“I’m Irish.”
“Jake said you’d lived in the U.S. for years, but occasionally you spout out something from your homeland.”
“Sounds like you and Jake had a nice little chat about me.”
“He may have misled me about just how damned hot you are, but I’ll take that up with him when I see him.”
Branna rolled her eyes, because men like Ethan Gelderman the 5thhad learned to flirt in the birth canal.
“Morning.” The young girl at the checkout gave the man behind her an interested look before returning her attention to Branna. She had short white hair spiked with bright green tips. She had piercings through her lip and brow.
“Morning,” Branna said, as she started to load her stuff on the counter. The Texan tried to help, but she slapped his hand, which kept him out of her cart.
“I learned to drive in your car,” the girl added, as she started to scan the groceries and put them in a bag.
“Did you?”
“Name’s Jilly, and Georgie taught plenty of the local children to drive in Geraldine. She was kind of the local driving instructor.”
“She was a special person, that’s for sure,” Branna said, still loading her things onto the counter.
“She baked cookies for us too.”
Branna thought again of the anonymity she had in Washington; she’d still rather be here though, because when the interest in her died down, she could live in peace and be left alone to write her stories.
“I liked the vanilla ones the best,” Jilly said.
“Absolutely, they were the best. Although, the double chocolate was a close second.”
Jilly made a humming sound of appreciation.
Walking out with her bags and a large Texan a few minutes later, Branna realized that most people just wanted to talk about Georgie. They didn’t want anything from her, like she’d first thought they would, only to keep the memory of the woman they all loved alive.
“So, Sir Galahad, I think your good deed has been done for the day. I release you,” Branna said, after they’d loaded her van. Out here in the sun, his eyes were amazing, like a clear blue lake and surrounded by long black lashes. His hair shone, and he had the look of a fit, healthy man who was quite happy with the human he had become, a bit like his friend McBride had once been.
“You owe me a coffee for saving you from humiliation.”
