Simply Irresistible by Rachel Gibson

stone fireplace. John didn’t think Ernie would mind the use of the horseshoes, but why Georgeanne would drag all that crap to the table was beyond him.
    “Would you like some butter?”
    He looked across the table into her seductive green eyes and shoved a bite of warm biscuit and sausage gravy in his mouth. Georgeanne Howard was a tease, but she was also one hell of a good cook. “No.”
    “How was your shower?” she asked, and gave him a smile as soft as her biscuits.
    Since he’d sat down at the table ten minutes ago, she’d tried her hardest to engage him in conversation, but he wasn’t in an obliging mood. “Fine,” he answered.
    “Do your parents live in Seattle?”
    “No.”
    “Canada?”
    “Just my mother.”
    “Are your parents divorced?”
    “Nope.” Her deep cleavage drew his gaze to the front of the black robe.
    “Where’s your father?” she asked as she reached for her orange juice. The front of the robe gaped, exposing the scalloped edge of green lace and the swell of smooth white skin.
    “Died when I was five.”
    “I’m sorry. I know how it feels to lose a parent. I lost both of mine when I was quite young myself.”
    John glanced back up into her face, unmoved. She was gorgeous. Curvy and soft in an overblown, breathy sort of way. Her long legs were beautifully shaped, and she was exactly the type of woman he preferred naked and in bed. Earlier today he’d accepted the fact that he couldn’t have Georgeanne. That didn’t bother him all that much, but it bugged the hell out of him that she only pretended she couldn’t wait to get her hot little hands all over his body. When he’d told her they couldn’t make love, her pouty little mouth had ooohed and cooed her disappointment, but her eyes had sparked with utter relief. In fact, he’d never seen such relief on a woman’s face.
    “It was a boating accident,” she informed him as if he’d asked. She took a sip of orange juice, then added, “Off the coast of Florida.”
    John stabbed a bite of ham, then reached for his coffee. Women liked him. Women shoved their phone numbers and underwear in his pockets. Women didn’t look at John as if sex with him were tantamount to root canal.
    “It was a miracle that I wasn’t with them. My parents hated to leave me, of course, but I’d contracted the chicken pox. So reluctantly they’d left me with my grandmother, Clarissa June. I remember ...”
    Tuning out her words, John lowered his gaze to the soft hollow of her throat. He wasn’t a conceited man, or at least he didn’t think he was. But the fact that Georgeanne found him so totally resistible irritated him more than he liked to admit. He set his coffee mug on the table and folded his arms across his chest. After his shower, he’d changed into a clean pair of jeans and a plain white T-shirt. He still planned to go out. All he had to do was grab his shoes and go.
    “But Mrs. Lovett was as cold as a Frigidaire,” Georgeanne continued, leaving John to wonder how the subject had shifted from her parents to refrigerators. “And tacky... cryin‘ all night, she was tacky. When LouAnn White got married, she gave her”— Georgeanne paused, her green eyes sparkling with animation—“a Hot Dogger. Can you believe it? Not only did she give an appliance, she gave a little machine that electrocutes weenies!”
    John tilted his chair back on two legs. He distinctly remembered a conversation he’d had with her about rambling. He guessed she just couldn’t help herself. She was a tease and a chatter hound.
    Georgeanne pushed her plate to the side and leaned forward. The robe parted as she confided, “My grandmother used to say that Margaret Lovett was just too tacky for Technicolor.”
    “Are you doing that on purpose?” he asked.
    Her eyes rounded. “What?”
    “Flashing me your breasts.”
    She looked down, eased away from the table, and clutched the robe to her throat. “No.”
    The front legs of the chair hit the floor as