Janelle Taylor (10 page)

“Well, you said you were going to take me to the zoo. I don’t want to stay in this dumb house any more. It’s boring here!”

“You don’t have to stay in the house,” Beau heard himself say.

He could feel Jordan’s dismayed, questioning gaze on him.

“We can go for a ride,” he suggested, turning to look at her.

“Aride where?” Spencer asked, eyes narrowed shrewdly, as if he were weighing the possibility against another tantrum.

Beau sensed that this was out of character for him. He wasn’t a bratty little kid. He was afraid, and homesick, and trapped in a strange place with strangers. The poor little guy only wanted his mommy, and he wanted to go home. Who could blame him for acting up?

“We can’t go for a ride,” Jordan said firmly, her hazel eyes flashing a warning look at Beau, as if to say,
how could you?

“Why can’t we?” Spencer whined.

“Because … it’s so hot out, and … and …” She faltered, shaking her head, silently begging Beau to bail her out.

“It
is
hot out, but my car’s air-conditioned,” he told her. “We don’t even have to get out of it,” he added meaningfully.

“We’re not going to get out of the car?” Spencer protested. “But—”

“Look, we can’t stay here in the apartment all day,” Beau said reasonably, to both of them. “So let’s take a ride around the city. I haven’t had a chance to see all the sights yet, and I bet Jordan would be a good tour guide for both of us, Spence.”

“I want to get out of the car,” he grumbled.

“We’ll see,” Beau said lightly, bending over to tussle the child’s hair. “Why don’t you go find some shoes to wear, fella? Maybe there’s a drive-through ice cream place around here someplace.”

“I’ll be right back!” Spencer took the stairs two at a time.

Jordan turned on Beau, green eyes flashing. “How could you? We can’t go out with him! What if someone sees him?” she hissed.

“I have tinted windows,” he said reasonably. “Look, the poor kid is going stir-crazy, Jordan. It’s not doing anybody any good for the two of you to stay cooped up here all day. Let’s get him out and make him happy, before he finds out…”

He trailed off.

She nodded. Sadness swooped over her like an understudy who had been waiting in the shadowy wings.

Beau saw her lip begin to tremble as she wiped quickly at her eyes, averting her gaze. She was obviously distraught over her friend’s sudden, violent death. She wouldn’t get over that for a long time—if ever.

A wave of pain washed over Beau as he remembered his own tragic loss. Would there ever come a day when he wouldn’t think of his wife and son and feel soul-searing anguish?

“Look, I know you hurt,” he said softly. “And I know you’re scared. It’s going to be all right. Spencer’s going to come out of this okay, and so are you.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked, looking up at him.

He couldn’t allow himself to answer her truthfully.

Instead, he found himself reaching toward the errant strands of hair that grazed her cheekbone. It wasn’t a conscious gesture; it was as though his hand belonged to somebody else—as though he had no control over the movement.

As he made contact with the silky wisps, his fingers brushed her skin as well. A soft gasp escaped Jordan’s lips, but she didn’t flinch beneath his touch; nor did she back away.

He dared to let his hand linger there against her cheek; allowed his thumb to trace her jawline downward. When he tucked his thumb beneath her chin and lifted her face so that he could look into her eyes, he found something utterly unexpected in them.

A smoldering spark of attraction.

She was as drawn to him as he was to her.

Maybe this was the wrong time, the wrong place, but Beau couldn’t tear himself away. Not now that he had
seen that her need for him went beyond the emotional, that it was physical, and as real as his own sudden, fierce longing.

He closed his eyes briefly, knowing that when he opened them it would be gone, that the shared passion would prove to have been his imagination.

But when he looked down at Jordan again, there was no denying the electricity that darted between her gaze and his. He felt the warmth of desire pooling low in his belly in response, and then, before he knew what he was doing, he dipped his head and he kissed her.

Her cry of protest transformed into a moan of pleasure when his lips came down on hers.

It was a fleeting, blazing kiss, one that told him all he needed to know.

Jordan Curry was dangerous.

“Hey! How come you’re kissing her?”

Startled by the voice from somewhere above them, Beau sprang back from Jordan, who instantly pressed her hand against her lips as though she’d been branded.

They both looked up to see Spencer standing at the top of the flight of stairs, a pair of black rubber sport sandals dangling from one hand.

The look of
ugh, girl germs!
disgust on his face might have struck Beau as funny if Spencer’s interruption hadn’t already plunked him solidly down in stark reality once more.

There was nothing the least bit amusing about reality.

Luckily, Spencer didn’t wait for an answer to his question. He bounded down the flight of steps and immediately asked Beau for help putting on his shoes, turning his back completely on Jordan.

“I’ll… I’ll go change my clothes,” she murmured.
Turning, she fled up the stairs. Beau heard a door slam somewhere above.

He resents her,
Beau realized as he stooped to help the little boy adjust the Velcro straps around his ankles.
He resents her because she isn’t his mother, and he resents her because I was paying attention to her.

It was like one of those old movies gone awry, he thought as, sandals fastened, he helped Spencer to his feet. The kind of movie where the anguished orphan acts out his grief, tormenting his caregiver until a kindly parental figure steps in and melts the caregiver’s and the orphan’s hearts. Instant family.

But this wasn’t a movie. There would be no instant family, Beau acknowledged grimly.

And the worst of it was that, for Spencer, still unaware that he had lost both his parents and was never going home again, the worst was yet to come.

In her room, Jordan slipped quickly out of the clothes she’d thrown on earlier, letting them fall in a heap beside the unmade bed.

It wasn’t like her to let things go like this, she thought, glancing at the room’s disarray. She hadn’t even bothered to open the shades since Phoebe left Spencer here with her three days ago. Well, she wasn’t about to do so now. Not when the world had fallen apart around her….

Not when Beau Somerville had just kissed her senseless downstairs.

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror above the bureau and saw the telltale flush still coloring her cheeks. She saw, too, the rosy blotches rising on the
patch of alabaster skin beneath her throat, between her bra straps.

She remembered how Kevin, her ex-fiancé, used to tease her about her tendency to flush there, almost as if she had been sunburned, whenever she was aroused.

Well, Beau sure as hell had aroused her. What was he doing kissing her? And how could she have kissed him back? This wasn’t the time for romance.

There would never be a time for romance with him, as far as Jordan was concerned. If she hadn’t had enough going on in her life before Spencer arrived on her doorstep and Phoebe was murdered, she was more than overwhelmed now.

And anyway, she had already sensed that Beau wasn’t any more emotionally available than she was. There had been a careful distance about him every time she had seen him, and even when they talked on the phone. It didn’t take a mind reader to know that he wasn’t in the market for a relationship—and that Andrea MacDuff had bullied him into the date, just as she had forced him on Jordan.

And as long as that was the case, Beau had no business grabbing her and kissing her. He had some nerve, taking advantage of her at a time like this.

Jordan found herself growing indignant at his very presence downstairs until she remembered that he was here at her request.

And that if he left, she would have to deal with Spencer all alone.

She had already spent a grueling morning doing just that. Aside from her indulgence in Cap’n Crunch cereal, nothing she said or did was right as far as he was concerned. It was her fault that he had missed his favorite television program, and her fault when he’d stubbed
his toe on the coffee table. He didn’t want to brush his teeth, he didn’t want to get dressed, and he didn’t want to wear anything she had laid out for him.

On top of being generally disagreeable, Spencer had pestered her nonstop about when Beau was going to show up and whether they could go to the zoo. Finally, she’d had enough, and told him what she’d been trying to avoid: that they couldn’t go to the zoo even after Beau came.
If he
came….

By then, she was having her doubts that he’d show up at all, even though he’d called her twice from his office to tell her he’d be over just as soon as he could break away.

It might have been better if he’d gotten stuck at the office after all,
she thought, opening a drawer and pulling out the first pair of shorts on the pile. They were black. Good. That suited her mood.

She pulled them on and checked the mirror again. She couldn’t go back down there with the glow of arousal plainly visible beneath her neck. She didn’t want Beau Somerville to know what that single kiss had done to her.

It had been too long, Jordan realized, since she had been touched by a man. Too long since a man had looked at her the way Beau had before he kissed her. Too long since …

Well, it’s going to be a lot longer, especially for that,
she told herself firmly, opening another drawer and pawing through it for the shirt she sought.
It’s going to be forever, where Mr. Somerville’s concerned.

She refused to fall for a good-looking Southern charmer like Beau. That would just be asking for trouble.

She had vowed on her defunct wedding day that she
would never fall in love again, especially with a man like Kevin. A man who swept away her common sense with passion and promises, making her forget everything but how she felt when they were together.

Yet perhaps, somewhere in the back of her mind, she had occasionally acknowledged that she might not stay single forever. That she might someday grow weary of being alone. That somebody would come along who could make her forget the bitterness of being abandoned.

Yes, it
could
conceivably happen. Yet she also recognized that when and if a man won her jaded heart, he would be nothing like the one who had broken it.

If she really squinted into the distant future, she could see herself finally settling down someday with a safe, comfortable type—some reliable, quiet, sweet, buttoned-up gentleman like her father.

Comparing Beau Somerville to Clark Curry was like comparing a dry martini to a glass of warm milk.

Jordan sighed, pulling the sleeveless lime-green turtle-neck over her head and shaking her hair loose. It was a warm day for snug-fitting ribbed cotton and a high collar.

But right now, she could care less about the humid heat outdoors.

No, the only heat that had Jordan worried now was the fire Beau had generated deep within her with a single steamy kiss.

Dusk was falling when Beau pulled up at the curb in front of Jordan’s town house. Both an old Van Morrison song on the radio and the car’s air conditioner were
on full blast. But when Beau cut the engine, everything fell silent.

“Is he still asleep back there?” he asked, turning to check on Spencer.

“Looks that way,” Jordan replied.

They studied the little boy strapped into the backseat, eyes closed, lips slightly parted with his even breathing.

Spencer had been sleeping for the past few hours, during the whole drive back into rush hour traffic from the rural West Virginia park where the three of them had shared a picnic supper.

The day had been pleasant despite the underlying tension between Beau and Jordan, and between Jordan and Spencer. After driving through a fast-food takeout window for ice cream, they had cruised around Washington, past the White House, the Pentagon, the Smithsonian, and all the monuments—carefully avoiding the National Zoo.

Naturally, Beau had seen it all before from the windows of his SUV in his daily travels around the city, but for Spencer’s benefit, he had acted newly impressed by every landmark they passed. Naturally, Spencer begged for him to park at each one so that they could get out and investigate in person. And naturally, Jordan vetoed that request every time.

He couldn’t blame her. The city was crawling with people—commuters and residents, construction workers and diplomats, tourists galore: families and senior citizens’ groups and kids in matching T-shirts spilling off camp buses. They couldn’t take a chance that somebody who had seen the Averills’ photo in the papers might take one look at Spencer’s face and recognize him—or at least grow suspicious.

It was Jordan who suggested that they head to the
glorious park high above the Shenandoah River, not far from Harper’s Ferry. She told Beau, in a low voice that Spencer couldn’t hear above the radio, that they might be able to find a secluded spot where they could get out of the car and let Spencer run around a little. They had stopped and picked up sandwiches and beverages at a convenience store not far from the park, and they ate at a picnic table in a leafy grove. Though they saw a couple of hikers from a distance, nobody paid the least bit attention to Spencer, whose face was mostly shielded by the oversized Texas Rangers cap Beau had placed on his head just in case.

As Jordan had watched from her shaded spot on the bench, Spencer and Beau wrestled on the ground and climbed the low-hanging branches of an ancient tree. To anyone who might happen along, Jordan realized, they looked for all the world like father and son.

She wondered what kind of relationship Spencer had shared with Reno. He rarely spoke of his father, but he had repeatedly mentioned his mother today.

Each time Phoebe’s son had spoken of her, Jordan felt tears springing to her eyes and was glad for the sunglasses that masked them from Spencer.