“We’ll drive you back and forth, then.” Cassie was adamant.
“I can’t ask—”
Jolie squeezed her hand. “You aren’t asking. We’re volunteering. We watched the press conference this morning. Good gracious. The way Clay looks at you. I’ve never seen him look at anyone that way.”
“And that makes you family, Georgie. Our family. No way in hell you’re going through this alone. Comprende?”
Not trusting her voice, Georgie nodded and then hugged both women. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Now, I’m thinking we girls need a spa day on Thursday to get ready for Friday’s shindig. You off, Jolie?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m off Thursday and Friday. No way am I going to miss seeing Deacon Tate on stage!”
Cassie pressed her hand to her chest and pretended to swoon. “I swear, if I’d met that man before Chance—”
“You’d do what, woman?”
Amid guilty giggles, the three women turned to face the men standing at the arched entry to the kitchen. “Chance, you know I have a major crush on your cousin.”
Jolie nodded vigorously. “I second that swoon and raise you a deep feminine sigh.”
The men rolled their eyes. The women laughed and pushed back from the table. Jolie and Cass hugged Georgie and winked. Cass wagged a finger at Clay. “Georgie is ours on Thursday. We’re doin’ the works. Mani-pedi, facials, massage and hair. Y’all work or go play golf or something.”
This pronouncement elicited snorts from the men as Chance wrangled Cassie, and Cord reeled Jolie to his side. Georgie followed Clay to see them off. They stood on the porch, hand in hand, waving as the other couples departed. Georgie leaned against Clay and gave him a squeeze with the arm she had looped around his waist.
“I like your family.”
“Good. Because they like you, too. At least this bunch of them.”
Georgie didn’t want to think about the rest of Clay’s family. She figured his father despised her and she worried about his two youngest brothers. She’d watched the family dynamics for ten years, had seen how Mr. Barron played his sons against each other. In fact, she couldn’t believe Cyrus hadn’t already intervened. She’d been amazed when first Chance and then Cord stood up to him, threatening mutiny in the face of their love for the women they married. She glanced up at Clay and he kissed her temple, almost as if he’d read her mind.
“We can deal with whatever gets thrown at us, Georgie. Even the old man. As long as we’re together. Yeah?”
She answered without hesitation. “Yeah.”
* * *
Tuesday consisted of a flurry of appearances on the network morning shows, all done remotely from the various local affiliates in Oklahoma City. Hunt chauffeured them between each station, Clay holding her hand in the SUV, walking with her to the studio with his arm around her shoulders, then reclaiming her hand as they sat together for the on-camera interviews. The afternoon brought conference calls and Skype meetings with party officials in various states and a few of the campaign fund bundlers, and a follow-up with Chase’s video people, all from the new campaign office opened on the ground floor of Barron Tower in downtown Oklahoma City. They worked late into the night, finally getting back to Clay’s house around midnight.
They changed, climbed into bed and though Clay tried to hold her close, she rolled away, turning her back to him. Her brain was too busy, too filled with what-ifs she couldn’t process.
Her first oncology appointment. Ten o’clock Wednesday morning couldn’t come soon enough. Ten o’clock Wednesday morning could never come. Georgie lay stiff and staring at the shadowed wall of Clay’s bedroom. He needed his sleep.
“Sweet pea?” He didn’t sound sleepy at all.
She didn’t reply. What was there to say? His finger traced down her spine, creating shivers in its wake. With a gentle grip on her shoulder, he rolled her to her back and propped up on one elbow, he gazed down at her. “Don’t pull away, Georgie. Don’t shut me out. Talk to me.”
She almost snorted at that. Her girlfriends complained incessantly about how men never talked. How did she end up with the only one who did?
“I’m scared.” The words, whispered as softly as a night breeze in a pine tree, hung in the air between them.
“Me, too.”
She blinked at that then her eyelids shuttered half-closed as he leaned down to brush her lips with his. “You are?”
“Hell yeah, Georgie.” He lay back down and snugged her against his side, so that her head was nestled against his shoulder. “I’ve finally realized how important you are to me, how much you mean to me.” He kissed the spot on her forehead where the hair of her slight widow’s peak met her skin. “How much I care about you. I don’t want you to be sick. I don’t want you to hurt. I want to make all that go away. But I can’t.”