Chapter Five Georgia
I don’t need a hammer to fall on my head. I can take a hint.
It’s clear that Douglas Wickstaff just wants to be left alone. He’ll be leaving after this wedding, and that’s fine with me.
It’s not like I’m lying here at 3 AM, wide awake, wondering why my whole body feels like it’s on fire and I can’t stop thinking about him.
Why don’t I believe in mindless sex? I know there are a few guys in town who would gladly be my stress relief with no strings attached and no questions asked.
“Grr!” I growl into my pillow as I flip to my other side for the hundredth time since I got home and collapsed into bed.
What really sucks is that I need to be up and at the coffee shop by six.
“Horniness ruins sleep,” I mumble to my ceiling. It’s not like I don’t have some useful stuff in the bedside drawer that would help me take the edge off. One of them is even green, but... I don’t want something else touching me.
Yes. I’m stupidly obsessed over a pointless crush. Aren’t I too old to have this juvenile, all-consuming desire just based on a few minutes with a guy?
I just have to let him go. It’s stupid to chase someone who is about to fly to the other side of the ocean. And yet...
I sit up and swing my feet out of bed, heading for the kitchen to start my day with coffee, sleep be damned. I’ll make up for it tonight.
“The thing is,” I yawn, “I know it’s time.” My hand rests on my stomach. The instant, all-consuming attraction to Douglas wasn’t just about the physical. It was primal. It was... I rub my stomach again, a guilty blush on my cheeks. It was like I could see my future in two seconds, not like dating—like mating. That man was supposed to be mine—but there was a mix-up in the Divine Dating Department. Some lucky woman got to be his bride, and her passing broke his heart. He’s not ready for me—maybe not ready for anyone.
My thoughts loop back. He may not be ready, but I am. For years, I didn’t date and didn’t care. Lately—I care. It’s not just that I feel like the old maid as all my friends get married and I stay single—it’s that lately I’ve been feeling less and less like myself. It’s like part of me is missing—maybe that’s why people have a soul mate? Someone’s got a little piece of their essence. (If someone has mine, he’s been real slow about returning it, and I’m getting pissed!)
I don’t know. I know it sounds very anti-feminist to say I need a man in my life—and I don’t want a man just to have another person around, like some sort of crutch or the cool new toy all the other kids are getting. No, I want someone because I need to shake off this heavy feeling that’s “muting” me, making me 90% Georgia and 10% shadow puppet, someone just going through the motions without substance while this anxious emptiness inside keeps growing.
“ I’m ready.” The coffee maker slurps and burbles as it makes the elixir of life, and I talk back to it as if each hiccup is an intelligible response. “Maybe Mom was right earlier. There are plenty of men and monsters around. If being with someone is so important, then I’ll find someone. It doesn’t have to be some big, crazy love. It just has to be...enough.”
The words don’t feel right. I know I want more than just to settle for someone I’m fond of, someone I can tolerate. I remember what I told Mom. I want that all-consuming, instant “knowing.”
My guy must not be over here. I haven’t left town in years, so maybe it’s my fault I haven’t met Mr. Right. The right Orc has to be out there somewhere. With Claire, Diana, Georgie, and now Claire’s best friend Cindy helping to run the shop and the new bakery expansion, I can finally take a vacation. I can go somewhere where there are plenty of Orcs looking for brides. I’ll go to the Hebrides, to the Highlands. I’ll find my mate, even if I have to cross an ocean to hunt him down.
“Splork!” The coffee maker spits brown liquid into my mug and gurgles happily, almost like it’s laughing at me. I get the irony. Douglas Wickstaff, AKA my fantasy man, is going back to Scotland in a few days, and I’m thinking about heading across the Atlantic, too.
“It’s not like that!” I argue with no one. “Not like that at all.”
Stupid libido.
“Not like I can go right away. I have to at least wait until Georgie and Claire get back from their honeymoon. I’ve been waiting for thirty years. I can wait a little longer.”
When I leave the kitchen, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window over the sink.
I’m sticking my tongue out over the coffee maker I’m arguing with.
“Shit. Is that a sign that I really need a man—or that I’m so not mature enough to consider a relationship?”