Page 28 of Frosted and Sliced

“I have to get breakfast.” She might have yelled it. She couldn’t be sure because she wasn’t wearing her hearing aids. Her fingers touched the shells of her ears. Where were they? She realized Burke was talking and squinted, trying to make herself focus as she read his lips. It was harder, without being able to hear him and put the pieces of sounds and lip formations together.

Burke gave his head an exasperated little shake and reached to a chair beside the bed that apparently functioned as a nightstand. He held out his hand to Georgette, indicating she should open her palm. When she did, he dropped her hearing aids into it and then waited until she’d applied them and turned them on before he spoke.

“I already served breakfast. All the guests have checked out.”

She blinked at him. Her only experience with men was Brody and his friends. She imagined the type of breakfast he would serve her guests, sugar cereal and black coffee, but made herself speak calmly. “What did you serve?”

He withdrew his phone, flicked open a picture, and swiveled it to face her. Georgette leaned in and saw a fruit salad, an assortment of pastries she’d previously stashed in the freezer for emergencies, a rasher of bacon, and a large bowl of fluffy scrambled eggs. It was served on the antique sideboard, like usual, along with crystal decanters of juice and water, and an assortment of coffee, creamers, and tea. In short, it looked exactly like every other breakfast she’d served.

“I…I…” she stuttered, unable to know what to say or how to continue. “How?” was what she eventually landed on.

Burke shrugged. “Basically I fried bacon and scrambled some eggs, then set everything out on fancy trays. You keep them all in the same place, and I also know where you keep all the extra pastries in the freezer.” He poked her. “You should ask for help once in a while. You’re not the only person who can keep the ship afloat, Admiral.”

Georgie’s eyes stung with tears she refused to let fall, but why? For his gesture of kindness? For her inability to ask or receive help? Or was it what lay behind those things, the reasons she was so capable and self-sufficient?Because I had to be,she thought. She’d had her brother, in the most technical sense. Brody would have dropped whatever to help take care of her, and he had, but it had cost him his dreams. Georgie had always known what he gave up to be her guardian, and she never wanted to add to his burden. So after their parents died she’d tried to become as small, needless, and capable as possible, so as not to bother him, so as not to bother anyone. She’d succeeded, but at what cost?

“Fancy taking a little ride with me?” Burke asked, cocking his head to study her. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who picked up on a woman’s unshed tears, but the way he watched her made her wonder. He looked very…concerned.

“I can’t figure you out,” she blurted. Every time she thought she had him pegged, he morphed into something else.

“Why? I’m the simplest person you’ve ever met,” he protested, and he sounded like he meant it, like he didn’t think he was complex at all. He was, though not in a way Georgie could articulate. “Can you be ready in ten minutes?”

“The girly part of me wants to say no, but the pragmatic part of me knows I can make it in five,” she said, already hopping up and heading toward the bathroom. She didn’t intend to pause when she reached the door, but she turned and caught sight of Burke. “What?” He stared at her with that inexplicable expression again, like worry but not quite.

“Nothing,” he said, pasting on an unnatural smile. “Meet you downstairs.”

“Okay,” she agreed and took the stairs at a sprint, pausing in her bathroom to wash her face and hands, brush her teeth, reapply deodorant, and finagle her hair into some acceptable arrangement. Later she vowed to shower and make herself more presentable, but this would do for a car ride with Burke, unless they ended up somewhere fancy, but that was hard to fathom. Burke wasn’t the fancy sort. He was the… She paused and regarded herself in the mirror. What sort was he?

Snapping to attention, she sprinted down the back stairs to the kitchen, pausing at the base to regard the sparkling clean horizon. It gleamed. Everything had been put away and washed, with no traces of the bridal party that departed earlier. Once again Georgie felt tears prick her eyes and once again she pushed them back, denying their release. Was she really so damagedthat a simple act of kindness like washing the dishes could push her over the edge? Apparently yes.

Huffing a deep breath, she made her way through the kitchen and to the front door because even though she couldn’t get a complete make on Burke she knew this much about him: he didn’t like to be late.

CHAPTER 13

“Where are we going?”

It seemed like they had been driving a long time, which wasn’t unusual since Maine was huge and most of it was uninhabited. Once you ventured away from the dotted coastline, you really felt the vastness. Though she was a resident, Georgie didn’t venture out of her small town too much. It was nice to get away, even if she had no idea where she was headed, and she took a while to stare out the window and appreciate the scenery before she spoke. Would he even tell her? Burke was so mysterious, so secretive. Or was that only her imagination because she knew he used to be a spy?

“We’re going to see The Oracle,” he replied.

Georgie sputtered a laugh that was so unexpected it sounded like someone stepped on a donkey’s foot. She pressed her hand over her mouth, trying to push back the ridiculous sound, but Burke merely smiled and tossed her an amused glance.

“Why is that funny?” he demanded.

“You never say what I think you’ll say.”

“Why would you think you’d know what I’ll say? I never know what you’re going to say. It’s always a surprise.”

Georgie stared at his profile. The question had been rhetorical. He didn’t actually expect an answer, but her brain tried to think of one anyway. Why did she believe she knew what Burke would say? Based on character traits she’d assigned him?

Her world was tiny and always had been, made that way by her profound hearing loss. Not by Georgie’s choice, and that was unfair. She’d always liked people, but few were willing to take the extra steps necessary to be her friend. Previously she’d always thought this was her fault. Why should people go out of their way for her? But Burke made her challenge that sentiment. All she asked was that people look at her while talking to her. Was that so much?

When people failed to do so, Georgie reacted by shrinking into herself. As a result, her world shrunk, too. Until recently it had consisted of Brody and her friends from culinary school, none of whom lived nearby.

But then Elyse showed up, and she hadn’t treated Georgie differently than she treated anyone else, hadn’t acted as if facing her when she spoke was something she even had to think about, let alone didn’t want to do. And then Burke who, while not exactly warm and cozy, had certainly never made Georgette feel less than because of her hearing loss. Rather he seemed annoyed with humanity in general. But who was Burke, and what was he to her?

Most of what Georgie knew about life she’d gleaned from books and magazines. She was the girl with her face pressed to the glass of life, observing others, never participating. She’d learned to categorize people and then judge them based on that category. It was a highly flawed system, notably biased by her limited experience and understanding. Real people were never like they were in fiction. Perhaps that accounted for so much of Georgie’s disappointment: unmet expectations. No one ever matched the version of them she created in her head.

Enter Burke.

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