Georgie's Heart (20 page)

Georgeanne promptly turned the color of ripe tomatoes and wished for a tornado that would pluck her bodily out of Zane's living room. She made a sound somewhere between those made by deflating balloons and dying ducks.

“There she goes again, Zane,” Hunter said, deeply interested. “I didn't know women could still blush like that.”

Georgeanne grabbed for her slipping dignity with all her might. “I'm probably the only one left. That's a very peculiar career goal, Hunter. I thought you made your living being a macho career soldier with a tender but carefully hidden heart.”

“I've ditched the action-adventure stuff. I'm now into playing neurotic New Yorkers.”

“Is that the sort of man you figure will convince Fritzi Field that love is never having to fake it again?” Zane asked.

“I wish you'd stop laughing like that,” Hunter complained. “You're going to ruin my new career goal.”

“Sorry.” Zane looked at Georgeanne, still chuckling. “If he starts playing neurotic New Yorkers, I'm quitting the movies.”

Georgeanne said nothing and ate a handful of cinnamon-flavored popcorn. Under the circumstances, she considered it the only viable option.

“On the other hand, maybe I'll get a part in one of those television doctor-and-hospital dramas.” Hunter remained in the kitchen door, leaning against the doorframe. “That would give me plenty of opportunity to address this book.”

“Now that you're making a lot of money in the movie business, maybe you can write your own book,” Zane said. “You could take a year off and hire a ghost writer. What about it, Georgie? You'd probably do a great job as Hunt's ghost writer.”

Georgeanne thought about it for precisely one-one-hundredth of a second. “I'm not a writer. I'm a secretary-receptionist at a medical clinic.”

“Whether you know it or not, you're a writer,” Zane informed her. “You write magazine articles, don't you? And you write killer sales letters about the Saturday Children's Clinic.”

She caught her breath, all too conscious of Hunter's interested stare.

“She really writes magazine articles?” Hunter asked.

“I'm in the process of getting a collection of them,” Zane said. “She had one in this month's
Women's Journal
.”

“That's fantastic, Georgie.” Hunter grew more enthusiastic by the minute. “It's time to change our lives for the better and become famous authors. I'll dictate and you can put everything I say about
Faking It
into more erudite terms. What do you say?”

Georgeanne wondered what kind of prison term she would get if she shoved Zane's copy of
Faking It
down Hunter Howell's throat. “I say, where's my Mexican dinner? A person could starve to death thinking about all that work.”

Hunter laughed and vanished back into the kitchen.

“Sorry about Hunt's sense of humor.” Zane draped his arm around her shoulders and leaned back, pulling her with him.

“You should encourage him to take college classes,” she said. “He can always attend an online college.”

“True. I'll mention it to him.” Zane brushed his lips over her cheek. “What about you, Georgie? Are you still cherishing dreams of going back to school?”

Georgeanne allowed herself to sink back into Zane's embrace. “I thought I'd like to practice clinical psychology, but that was before I — ” She broke off and felt the telltale heat flood her cheeks.

“Before you what?” Zane asked.

“That was before I realized what a heavy burden giving people advice would be.”

If she had realized the weight of that burden before sending
Faking It
off to a publisher, would she have sent it?

Georgeanne honestly could not answer that question.

Georgeanne ate the Mexican dinner Hunter served up and reflected that she had been so busy dodging repercussions from her unexpected success as Fritzi Field, it hadn't occurred to her that she now had the money to get the extra training she needed in order to practice as a clinical psychologist. She could afford to stop working and go to graduate school.

The idea sounded … depressing. Naturally, the depression registered in full glory on her face.

“Georgie, are you all right?” Zane asked.

“I'm fine,” Georgeanne said. “I was just thinking about graduate school.”

She didn't want to go back to school. Georgeanne exercised great control to keep from gasping at the enormity of this blasphemy.

“When are you going to have time?” Zane asked. “You work hard enough already.”

“I have a lot of energy,” Georgeanne said absently.

If she didn't want to go to graduate school, which had been the biggest immediate goal she nurtured, then just what did she want to do?

“I like that,” Hunter said. “She has a lot of energy.”

“She doesn't know it yet, but she's going to start conserving her energy,” Zane said.

Hunter laughed. “Enjoy yourself, brother. Something tells me you're fighting an uphill battle. Say, Georgie, why don't you consider medical school?”

“Maybe
you
should consider medical school,” Georgeanne returned, smiling at him.

“She makes it sound so easy,” Hunter said, to Zane.

Georgeanne cautiously examined her future, while Zane and Hunter discussed medical school. She hadn't thought about it before, but she now had the money to quit her job and do whatever she wanted to do.

Oddly enough, the only interesting thing that occurred to her was to buy a yellow bikini and a convertible. Picturing herself with both, Georgeanne had to smother laughter.

Her life had once been reasonably simple. She worked at her clinic job while she railroaded Dr. Baghri's idea to completion and wrote about whatever interested her. Why had her long-time dream of graduate school evaporated now that she finally had the money to go?

“Georgie, you're a thousand miles away,” Zane said.

“I know.” She looked up and smiled at him. “I've just realized I don't want to go to graduate school. After all this time spent wishing I could go, it's something of a shock to realize I've changed my mind.”

He laughed and hugged her against him. “You'd be wasted as a psychologist. Your talents are so much broader and more valuable.”

Georgeanne turned sparkling dark-brown eyes on him. “I'm glad you think so, because I'm now thinking about leaving the Gant Clinic and applying for a position in your front office.”

Zane whistled. “If you worked for me, I can assure you I'd get very little work done.”

Hunter laughed. “Very good, Georgie. You've now reduced him to a pile of ashes. Maybe you'd better consider another clinic.”

Zane frowned. “She's not allowed to work for any single male doctors, or any male doctor under the age of fifty, or any male — ”

“We get the picture,” Hunter interrupted. “Okay, Georgie, so now that you've decided graduate school isn't for you, what is it you'd really, really like to do?”

Zane looked at her. “I like her the way she is now, busy with her community projects and her job.”

Georgeanne stared at Zane, so like his twin brother, but so uniquely hers. Hunter didn't make her feel as if a thousand candles were lit beneath her skin, or cause her breath to catch in her throat when she looked at him.

“Years ago, I wanted to be a pop psychologist like Joyce Brothers and write books telling people how to live happy lives,” she said, before she realized how much the statement revealed.

“Like Fritzi Field?” Zane asked, casting her a grin.

Georgeanne hoped no one noticed the inevitable whitening of her complexion. “Something like that. It was my dream to write a bestselling book on some new theory of love and life.”

Writing
Faking It
had been the most challenging, most difficult project she'd ever undertaken, and her every emotion got involved. She'd emerged from the task limp and drained, but with a paradoxically reinvigorated spirit.

“Of course, that was before I — ” She choked and coughed while she altered her sentence. “Before I realized that I first needed something valuable to say.”

About the time she recovered from
Faking It
and began contemplating a new writing project, bestseller-dom struck. Suddenly, she felt as if she stood in a crowd on the street while all her clothes disintegrated off her body.

“Come on, Georgie,” Zane said. “What is it you were really about to say?”

Georgeanne thought fast. “I was going to say, that was before I realized how prideful the whole idea was that I could give people advice.”

“You're the least proud person I know.” Zane regarded her in silence a moment. “You've sold almost twenty magazine articles. I've got a librarian hunting them for me.” Before Georgeanne could recover from the surprise of this, he asked, “Have you ever thought about writing a book?”

“As a matter of fact, I have.” She sucked in her breath. Now she'd done it.

“What about?”

Inspiration failed her. She couldn't think of a single thing to say that wouldn't sound silly.

Hunter chimed in. “I still think we ought to do a book that proves Fritzi Field is a quack. What do you say, Georgie? You provide the expertise and I'll do the talk shows. We'll be a bigger hit than Fritzi. You can bank on it.”

*

Zane noted that Georgeanne's complexion fluctuated so rapidly, if he saw it in one of his young patients, he'd likely call in a vascular specialist for a consult.

“First, you'd have to supply me with all the good reasons why Fritzi is a quack,” she said, with admirable composure, considering the way she went from absolutely white to fire-truck red within two seconds. “And there had better be enough of them for me to expound on and fill a whole book.”

“We have a physician right here in our midst.” Hunter indicated Zane. “He'll provide the scientific reasons, I'll provide the general commentary, and you'll provide all the real work.” He appealed to Zane. “Doesn't that sound like a fair split of responsibilities to you?”

“I think our main writer just went on strike for a bigger share of the profits.” Zane noted that Georgeanne's hand lay in a relaxed-looking position on the sofa arm, but in reality her fingers clutched the fabric in a death grip. “Let's put on a movie so poor Georgie can relax. All this talk about Fritzi Field is getting to her.”

“But it's so fascinating,” Hunter protested. “I'm supposed to spend the next two weeks hitting all the New York talk shows to publicize
Breaking Even
, and it doesn't take a nuclear scientist to see that nobody is going to be interested in
Breaking Even
when they can host fights about
Faking It
.”

Zane noted that Georgeanne turned perfectly white, then flushed deep red even as she said, “In that case, maybe you'd better skim the book and formulate your own learned opinion on it so you can still dominate the talk shows.”

Hunter grinned. “Why don't you save me the trouble by formulating a good opinion for me? My own opinion would probably be uneducated and Neanderthal in nature.”

If possible, Georgeanne reddened even more. “In that case, you'd better stick to
Breaking Even
. Otherwise, you'd have to read the book and see what the author is trying to say.”

“And just what is it you think the author trying to say?” Zane asked, genuinely curious.

Interestingly, Georgeanne whitened. “The author is telling a specific, small group of women one way they can save their marriages.” She hesitated, flushed with fiery color, and added in a barely audible voice, “I'll bet she never expected the book to become a bestseller, or that other people besides those the book was written for would read it.”

Zane realized several things in that instant. One was that Georgeanne had nailed the author's intent with deadeye accuracy. And he also knew that Georgeanne spoke for the author when she said she never expected the book to sell millions of copies to people outside the book's core audience.

Zane studied at her profile in wondering silence. Georgeanne Hartfield — the mysterious and reclusive Fritzi Field? That would certainly explain her complexion's behavior every time the book was mentioned.

Suddenly, a vision arose in Zane's mind of two large cardboard boxes sitting on Georgeanne's living room floor that bore the logo of the publisher of
Faking It
.

“You sound like you know Fritzi Field,” Hunter said in accusing tones. “Come on, Georgie. Confess.”

Zane turned his head to look at his brother. Hunter had also picked up on Georgeanne's uncanny knowledge of the author's mind.

“Not me.” Georgeanne gave Hunter a firm smile and shook her head. “If she wants to stay out of the public eye, I'd be the last person to rat her out, even if I knew her identity.”

“If you ask me, you do know her identity.” Hunter leaned forward, staring at her. “What do you think, brother? Got any truth serum in that black bag of yours?”

“I don't need truth serum to check out Georgie's veracity.” Zane couldn't help but grin. “All I have to do is monitor the state of her complexion.”

“In that case,” Georgeanne said, with enormous dignity, “you may as well shoot me now. My complexion condemns me of any and all accusations at any and all times.”

“I have a feeling that wasn't always true,” Zane said in his gentlest voice. “Only in the past few weeks, maybe, since
Faking It
hit the bestseller lists.”

Sure enough, Georgeanne's face went dead white, then red, and she cast a single startled glance at him before focusing once more on the boxes of flavored popcorn on his coffee table. She said nothing, but Zane saw the white-knuckled grip she acquired on her own hands.