Coldhearted

by Beverly Barton

  He had wept with her when her father died, but had been unable to help her when she’d asked him, “What am I going to do about Roselynne and Tammy? How can I take care of them?” But in true Jordan fashion, she had found the answer within her generous heart.

  He had watched her fall apart when she lost Robby Joe. He had held her, wept with her, slept alongside her, stayed with her day and night for weeks. And when she had overdosed on sleeping pills, he and Darlene had taken turns sitting at her bedside twenty-four/seven. And once again, Jordan had rebounded because she had focused on helping Darlene instead of drowning in self-pity.

  In the beginning, he had been opposed to her marrying Boyd Brannon. Not that he hadn’t liked Boyd. He had. But Jordan had been in love with Boyd’s children and the dream of having a child of her own, not with Boyd. When Boyd had been killed in a tragic hunting accident, he had flown in from D.C. and stayed two weeks. But she hadn’t needed him, not the way she had when she’d lost Robby Joe. He and Darlene had realized that Jordan’s only concern had been Kendra and Wesley. She loved them then and loved them now as if they were her own. Darlene had moved in with them and stayed for over a year, and he and Dan had visited as often as possible.

  Sadly, helplessly, Devon had watched Jordan’s metamorphosis as she changed from a sweet, happy, optimistic young girl into a lonely, guarded, emotionally restrained woman. She had given up her youthful hopes and dreams and focused on her caretaker duties to her adopted family: Roselynne, Tammy, J.C., Darlene, Kendra and Wesley. And then three years ago, Dan had been approached by leaders in the party and asked to consider running for president. They had pointed out that in order to project the proper image to the public, he would need a wife.

  Neither he nor Dan had wanted to share their personal relationship with a third party. Dan’s first marriage had ended badly when he had admitted to his wife that he was gay and in love with someone else. Even though Devon had known that a second marriage would have been a marriage in name only, he’d hated the thought of sharing Dan, of giving up even a few of the precious stolen hours they shared. But he understood how politically ambitious Dan was and he hadn’t wanted to be the reason the man he loved wouldn’t be able to fulfill his lifelong dreams.

  He actually couldn’t remember whose idea it had been for Dan to marry Jordan. When she’d come for a weekend visit to Price Manor, as she often did, the three of them had been sitting around one evening after dinner and the subject of Dan running for president had come up. During the course of their conversation, Jordan had joked about how Dan should marry her because she had no intention of ever falling in love and marrying again and she knew and loved both Devon and Dan. By the time Jordan drove back to Atlanta that Sunday night, they had formed a plan for Jordan and Dan to marry. By week’s end, the arrangements had been made for a private ceremony, and by the end of the month, Jordan became Mrs. Daniel Price.

  Oddly enough, the marriage had been a blessing for all three of them, or so they had thought. Even their decision to have a child had seemed like the right thing to do. In retrospect, Devon wondered if they had been ridiculously naïve to believe that the three of them could continue living a lie indefinitely.

  As he gazed out his bedroom window, his thoughts in the past with Dan, he was brought abruptly back to the present when he saw Jordan running toward the house, running as if she were being chased by the devil.

  Where the hell was Rick Carson? Hadn’t he been with Jordan? And if he had left Price Manor, why wasn’t Maleah Perdue keeping tabs on Jordan?

  Devon left his room and rushed into the hall and down the back staircase, intending to meet Jordan when she entered the house. Within minutes, she raced through the back door, her face flushed, her eyes overly bright.

  He called her name. She ignored him.

  As she passed him, he reached out and grabbed her arm. She glared at him, then jerked free of his grasp and dashed up the backstairs.

  “Jordan?”

  “I need to be alone for a while,” she called to him from halfway up the stairs. “Please, Devon, please.”

  What the hell had happened to her? She was obviously upset, but why? Or should he wonder who had upset her?

  He would give her some time alone, but later, he would go to her and find out what was wrong.

  Suddenly the back door flew open again and Rick Carson bounded into the house. “Where is she?” Rick asked.

  “I assume you’re referring to Jordan.”

  Rick nodded.

  “She went upstairs to her room,” Devon said. “And she doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “That’s too damn bad.”

  When Rick headed for the backstairs, Devon stepped in front of him. The two men stared at each other, both knowing that this confrontation could end badly.

  “She’s upset,” Rick said. “I need to make sure she’s all right.”

  “What happened to upset her?” Devon asked.

  “That’s between Jordan and me.”

  “Why don’t we give her some time alone, then I’ll go check on her and if she wants to talk to you—”

  “Go check on her now,” Rick told him.

  Devon hesitated, then said, “All right, but only if you promise to stay here and if she doesn’t want to see you, you won’t insist.”

  “Agreed.”

  They didn’t shake on it, but Devon sensed he could trust Rick, that he was a man of his word.

  When Devon reached the closed door to Jordan’s bedroom suite, he paused, uncertain whether or not he was doing the right thing, but then he lifted his fist and knocked. She didn’t respond. He knocked again. Not a sound. He grasped the knob and tried the door, suspecting she might have locked out the world. But she hadn’t. The door opened easily. He peered inside, but didn’t see her. He walked into the room and looked around, but Jordan wasn’t there. Maybe she’d gone to the bathroom. The door leading through the dressing room and into the bathroom stood partially ajar. When he entered the dressing room, he noticed that the louvered doors to the walk-in closet were wide open.

  Jordan sat on the floor inside the closet, a garment bag draped over her body as she held it to her chest. He stopped outside the closet, his gaze traveling the length of the unzipped garment bag, and looked at the heavily beaded, white satin wedding gown.

  “Jordan?”

  She didn’t seem surprised by his presence, didn’t gasp, didn’t call his name or even glance up at him.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Sitting there calm and still, she asked, “Do you remember going with Darlene and me to look for my wedding dress?”

  “Sure, sweetie, I remember.”

  “The moment I put this dress on and walked out of the dressing room, you and Darlene both laughed and said this was the one.”

  “You looked like a princess, beautiful and regal.” And happy. God, she’d been so very happy. He’d give anything to see her like that again.

  “Robby Joe never saw this dress.” She caressed the lace bodice, dripping in crystal beads and pearls.

  Devon entered the closet, eased down slowly, and sat beside her. “I didn’t know you still had the dress. I thought maybe—”

  “I haven’t looked at this dress in years.” She hugged it to her chest.

  “Then why are you looking at it today?”

  When he reached out to take the garment bag from her, she held it all the tighter.

  “Jordan, give me the dress and let me hang it back up.”

  “I’ve never really loved anyone else, only Robby Joe. In all these years, I’ve never met another man who…who…” She stroked the beads, but Devon could tell that her fingers worked on their own, separate from her thoughts.

  “What happened between you and Rick Carson?”

  She snapped around and stared wildly at Devon, but didn’t answer his question.

  “He followed you, you know. He’s waiting downstairs. He wants to talk to you.”

  “I don’t want
to talk to him.”

  Devon laid his hand over hers and lifted it up and away from the dress; then he speared his fingers through hers. “Let me put the dress up.”

  She looked at him through glazed eyes and when he tugged on the garment bag, she released it. He sighed with relief. He had seen Jordan like this only two other times—shortly after Robby Joe died and the morning she discovered Dan’s body. She had snapped out of it fairly quickly that morning, unlike in the past when Devon had feared for her sanity.

  He stood, carried the garment bag with him, and placed it deep in the back of the closet.

  Why on earth had she kept the damn dress?

  He held out his hand to her. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  She put her hand in his and rose to her feet. He slid his arm around her shoulders and guided her into the sitting room, but she didn’t want to sit. Instead, she paced back and forth, while he watched her, feeling totally helpless.

  “I’ve made so many mistakes, so many.” Her voice trembled with emotion. “I’ve tried to do the right thing, tried to take care of my responsibilities, done the best I could.” She stopped and looked right at him. “I have done my best, haven’t I?”

  He grabbed her gently by the shoulders. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you have to get hold of yourself. I haven’t seen you like this since—”

  “Since Robby Joe died,” she finished the sentence for him. “I think I went a little crazy after I lost him. Even now, there are things I can’t remember clearly. I think I’ve blocked out some of the memories.”

  “It’s better that you have.”

  She nodded. “I remember being in love, how it felt…I remember what it was like to want someone until I ached with the wanting. I’ve never wanted anyone else the way I wanted Robby Joe, not until…It’s wrong to feel like this. I know it’s wrong. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong man. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

  “It’s Rick Carson, isn’t it?”

  She grabbed Devon’s hand. “I just lost my husband and my baby. My life is being put under a microscope because I’m suspected of killing half a dozen people. And I’ve known Rick for less than two weeks and the man doesn’t even trust me.”

  “The heart wants what the heart wants,” Devon told her.

  She smiled weakly. “I’m not sure it’s what my heart wants, maybe just what my body wants.”

  “Tell me what happened between you and Rick.”

  “He kissed me. I don’t think he meant to kiss me, but he did. And it wasn’t one-sided. I kissed him back.”

  “And it scared the hell out of you.”

  “Maybe he’s just a really good kisser. Maybe because of the miscarriage, my hormones are all screwed up. Maybe I’m just freaking nuts!”

  Devon brought her hands to his mouth and kissed each one, then released her. “You’re not nuts. At least not any nuttier than the rest of us. You’ve been through hell lately. Just like me, your world has been turned topsy-turvy and you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Add to that scenario a big, strong macho guy with broad shoulders to lean on. Hell, if he wasn’t straight, I’d be tempted to—”

  Smiling broadly, Jordan tapped his lips with her right index finger. “No, you wouldn’t. It’s going to take you a long time to get over losing Dan.”

  He heaved a deep sigh. “Dan was the love of my life, just as Robby Joe was the love of your life. But that doesn’t mean that someday I won’t meet someone else and fall in love again. And even if what’s happening between you and Rick isn’t love, it’s not wrong.”

  “Maybe not, but it feels wrong.” She closed her eyes, tilted her head back and breathed deeply. “I feel as if I’m being unfaithful to Robby Joe.” She opened her eyes, held up her hand in a STOP signal and said, “I know that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You need to talk to Rick. Tell him that you’re not ready for any kind of a relationship, emotional or physical. I have a feeling that he’ll understand and probably agree with you.”

  “I acted like such an idiot when he kissed me.”

  “He’s downstairs just waiting for a word from me to come up here.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay, you’ll talk to him?”

  “Yes, I’ll talk to him.”

  Devon tickled her under her chin. “You scared me there for a few minutes, back in the closet, sitting there clinging to that old wedding dress.”

  “It was just a moment of weakness,” she said. “We all have them occasionally, right?”

  “Right.”

  Leaving her alone to sort through her feelings and hopefully, to steady her nerves, Devon took his time going back downstairs. He wasn’t completely convinced that Jordan really was all right.

  He found Rick alone in the kitchen, his cell phone pressed against his ear.

  “Talk to you later,” Rick said, then turned to Devon.

  “She wants to see you,” Devon told him.

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “That you kissed her and she kissed you back,” Devon said.

  “It wasn’t planned. It just happened.”

  “She knows that.”

  Rick nodded, then took the backstairs two at a time.

  Why couldn’t Rick Carson have shown up in Jordan’s life sooner, before she married Dan or Boyd? Devon wondered.

  Rick knocked on the closed door.

  “Yes?”

  “May I come in?”

  “Yes.”

  He eased the door open and paused for half a second when he saw her standing in the middle of the room looking right at him, head held high, shoulders squared. Battle ready.

  “About what happened,” he said.

  “Come in and close the door.”

  He responded to her request, then hesitated before approaching her.

  What the hell had happened to him out there? He wasn’t the type of man who mixed business with pleasure or had ever had trouble keeping his dick in his pants. What had he been thinking, kissing a woman in such a vulnerable state, someone who so obviously needed only the utmost tender, loving care.

  “I’m sorry,” they spoke simultaneously, both expressing the same sentiment.

  Her lips curved upward in a fragile smile. “I overreacted to a simple kiss.”

  There was nothing simple about the kiss they’d shared and they both damn well knew it. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  “It had been a long time since a man kissed me that way.”

  “You just looked so damn beautiful.” He huffed, releasing some of his frustration. “I know that’s no excuse. I didn’t realize I was going to kiss you until it actually happened.”

  “We’re both making far too much of this. It was just a kiss and that’s all it was.”

  “Yeah, that’s all it was.”

  “Sometimes physical attraction just happens. If we look at the situation for what it is—”

  “It won’t happen again,” he assured her.

  “No, it won’t happen again.”

  “Then we’re good?” he asked.

  “Yes, we’re good.”

  “I’m going to head back to the Inn, make a few phone calls, wrap up the copies of those obituaries and send them off to the Powell lab in Knoxville. I’ll let Maleah know I’m leaving.”

  When he turned and walked to the door, Jordan followed him. He stepped into the hall, then paused for a minute and faced her.

  “Will you be back tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Probably not.”

  “Monday, then?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be back Monday.” Come Monday morning, he intended to speak to Roselynne about exhuming Wayne Harris’s body and Darlene about exhuming her son’s body. If the doctor employed by Powell’s to do independent autopsies could verify that Wayne Harris did indeed die of a heart attack and Robby Joe Wright died as a result of injuries sustained in a car wreck, then they could blow hole
s in the DA’s theory that Jordan was a black widow.

  And right now, proving Jordan innocent was more important than anything else.

  Chapter 22

  Rick had kept busy Sunday, going over every tidbit of information Powell’s had gathered on Jordan and those closest to her. He had studied the copies of the police reports on the deaths of Jay Reynolds, Donald Farris, Boyd Brannon, Dan Price and Jane Anne Price. Only two deaths had been ruled homicide: Jane Anne’s and Jay Reynolds’s. Farris’s and Brannon’s deaths had been classified as accidents; and Dan Price’s as suicide. He had read and reread the hospital files on Wayne Harris and Robby Joe Wright, everything detailed from the minute they entered the ER until they were pronounced dead. Harris, who had been only 49 when he died, had been a heavy smoker, overweight and dealing with a stressful job as a plant manager. The night Robby Joe had died, he’d been driving on a rain-slick highway during a thunderstorm. His small sports car had hydroplaned and landed head-on into a massive oak tree. He had received severe head trauma in the accident. Even if the paramedics had arrived seconds after the crash, there would have been no way to save him.

  How could anyone believe that either Harris’s death or Wright’s had been murder? The facts were right there, in the files. But neither man had been autopsied because there had been no reason to perform the procedure. Autopsies hadn’t been necessary and if performed now would serve only one purpose—to substantiate the doctors’ original opinion as to cause of death.

  As he drove his Jeep up to the front gates at Price Manor, Rick noticed that the horde of reporters swarming around the entrance to the estate had dwindled to only a few. The newspaper and television reports were no longer front page news. But how long would this lull last if and when the FBI became involved?