Amanda started in Jordan’s arms, but he held her fast. She turned her head and saw a little dark-haired girl standing a few feet away. She was wearing a pink quilted robe and tiny fluffy slippers to match.
“This is Amanda, Jess. Amanda, my daughter, Jessica.”
“Hi,” Amanda managed.
“How come you’re hugging her?” Jessica wanted to know. “Did she fall down and hurt herself?”
“Sort of,” Jordan answered. “Why don’t you go back to bed now, honey? You can get to know Amanda better in the morning.”
Jessica’s smile was so like Becky’s that Amanda was shaken by it. “Okay. Good night, Daddy. Good night, Amanda.”
When the little girl was gone, Amanda sat there in Jordan’s arms, sorely wishing she hadn’t intruded. She didn’t belong here.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she said, bolting to her feet.
Jordan pulled her back so that she landed on his lap. “You’ve missed the last ferry, Mandy,” he pointed out. “Besides, I’m not letting you go anywhere in the shape you’re in.”
Amanda swallowed hard. “I can’t sleep with you—not with your daughters in the house.”
“I understand that,” Jordan replied. “I have a guest room.”
Why did he have to be so damned reasonable? Amanda fretted. She didn’t deserve his patience or his kindness. “Okay,” she said lamely, reaching for her brandy and downing the whole thing practically in one gulp. Maybe that would give her the courage to say what she needed to say.
But it only made her woozy and very nauseous. Jordan lifted her into his arms and carried her to the guest room, where he undressed her like a weary child, put her into one of his pajama tops because she’d forgotten to bring a nightgown and tucked her in.
“Jordan, I made a terrible mistake.”
He kissed her forehead. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said. “Go to sleep.”
Exhaustion immediately conquered Amanda, and when she awakened, it was morning. Jordan had brought her things to her room. There was a small bathroom adjoining, so she showered, brushed her teeth and put on make-up. When she arrived in the kitchen, wearing jeans and a blue sweater, she felt a hundred percent better than she had the night before.
Jordan was making pancakes on an electric griddle and cooking bacon in the microwave, while his daughters sat at the table, drinking their orange juice and watching him with amusing consternation. While Jessica resembled Becky, the smaller child, Lisa, looked like Jordan. She had his maple-brown hair and hazel eyes, and she smiled broadly when she saw Amanda.
Again, despite her improved mood, Amanda felt like an imposter shoving herself in where she didn’t belong. She would have fled to her car if she hadn’t known it would only compound her problems.
“Hungry?” Jordan asked, his eyes gentle as he studied Amanda’s face.
She nodded, and, seeing that there were four places set at the table, took a chair beside Lisa.
“That’s Daddy’s chair,” Jessica pointed out.
Amanda started to move, but Jordan slapped his hand down on her shoulder and pushed her back.
“It doesn’t matter where Amanda sits,” he said.
Jessica didn’t take offense at the correction, and Amanda reached for the orange juice carton with a trembling hand. She was more than ready to tell Jordan the truth now, but it didn’t look as though she was going to get the opportunity. After all, she couldn’t just drop an emotional bombshell in front of his daughters.
Jordan’s cooking was good, and Amanda managed to put away three pancakes and a couple of strips of bacon even though she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so nervous.
“I think it’s about time we decorated that Christmas tree, don’t you?” Jordan asked when the meal was over.
The girls gave a rousing cheer and bounded out of their chairs and into the living room.
“You’ll have to get dressed first,” Jordan called after them. Despite his lack of experience, he seemed to be picking up the fundamentals of active fatherhood rather easily.
“Lisa can’t tie her shoes,” Jessica confided from the kitchen doorway.
“Then you can do it for her,” Jordan replied, beginning to clear the table.
Amanda insisted on helping, and the moment Jordan heard the kids’ feet pounding up the stairway, he took her into his arms and gave her a thorough kiss. She melted against him, overpowered, as always, by his strange magic.
“It’s very good to have you here, lady,” he said in a rumbling whisper. “I just wish I could take you upstairs and spend about two hours making love to you.”
Amanda shivered at the prospect. She wished that, too, with all her heart, but once she told Jordan about her visits to James’s hospital room and her pretense of rekindling their affair, he probably wouldn’t ever want to touch her again.
The idea of never lying in Jordan’s arms another night, never feeling the weight of his body or going crazy under the touch of his hands or his mouth, made a hard lump form in her throat.
“Still not ready to talk?” he asked, touching the tip of her nose with a gentle finger.
Amanda shook her head.
“There’s time,” Jordan said, and he kissed her again, making her throw her arms around his neck in an instinctive plea for more.
“Daddy!” a little voice shouted from upstairs. “I can’t find my red shoes!”
Amanda pushed away from Jordan as though he’d struck her, and lifted the back of one hand to her mouth when he turned away to go and help his daughter.
While he was gone, Amanda’s bravery completely deserted her. She found her purse and dashed for her car, leaving her luggage behind in Jordan’s guest room. He ran outside just as she pulled out of the driveway, but Amanda didn’t stop. She put her foot down hard on the accelerator and drove away.
A glance at her watch told her the ferry wouldn’t leave for another twenty minutes, and Amanda was half-afraid Jordan would toss the kids in the car and come chasing after her. Since she couldn’t face him, she drove to the café where they’d eaten on a couple of occasions.
After parking her car behind a delivery truck, Amanda went into the restaurant, took a chair as far from the front door as she could and hid behind her menu until Wanda arrived.
“Well, hello there,” the pleasant woman boomed. “Where’s Jordan?”
“He’s—busy. Could I get a cup of coffee?”
Wanda arched one artfully plucked eyebrow, but she didn’t ask any more questions. She just brought a cup to Amanda’s table and filled it from the pot in her other hand.
“Thanks,” Amanda said, wishing she didn’t have to give up the menu.
Jordan didn’t show up, and Amanda was half disappointed and half relieved. She finished her coffee and went back to the ferry terminal just in time to board the boat.
Because she hoped there would be a message on the answering machine from Jordan and feared there would not, she went to the hospital first, instead of her apartment.
“You’re late,” James fussed when she walked into his room.
“I’m sorry—” Amanda began.
She’d forgotten what a master James was of the quicksilver change, and the brightness of his smile stunned her. “That’s okay,” he said generously. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
Amanda lowered her eyes. She would have given anything to be with Jordan and his children at that moment, helping to decorate the Christmas tree or even listening to a lecture. She regretted giving in to her impulse and running away. “Me, too,” she lied.
“Tell me you love me,” James said.
Amanda’s heart stopped beating. She would have choked on the words if she’d tried to utter them.
For better or worse, Madge Brockman spared her the trouble. “Isn’t this sweet?” she asked, sweeping like a storm into the room in a black full-length mink with a matching hat. Her eyes, full of poison, swung to Amanda. “To think I believed you when you said you and James were th
rough.”
“Amanda and I are going to be married,” James protested, and he raised one hand to his chest.
Amanda was terrified.
“You idiot,” Madge growled at him, gesturing wildly with one mink-swathed arm. “She’s two-timing you with Jordan Richards!”
“That’s a lie!” James shouted.
A nurse burst into the room. “Mr. Brockman, you must be calm!”
Terrified, Amanda backed blindly out into the hallway and ran to the elevator. It seemed to be her day for running away, she thought to herself as she got into her car and sped out of the parking lot.
For a time she just drove around Seattle, following an aimless path, trying to gather her composure. She considered visiting her mother, or one of her friends, but she couldn’t, because she knew she’d break down and cry if she tried to explain things to anyone.
Finally Amanda drove back to her apartment building and went in through the rear entrance.
In the bathroom she splashed cold water on her face, washing away the tearstains, but her eyes were still puffy afterward, and her nose was an unglamorous red. It was no real surprise when the door buzzer sounded.
“Jordan or the tiger?” she asked herself with a sort of wounded fancy as she made her way determinedly across the living room and reached for the doorknob.
9
Jordan stood in the hallway, holding Amanda’s suitcase. He was alone, and his expression was quietly contemptuous.
For the moment Amanda couldn’t speak, so she stepped back to let him pass. He set the luggage down with a clatter just inside the entryway and jammed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket.
“Why the hell did you run off like that?” he demanded.
For a second or so, Amanda swung wildly between relief and dread. She turned away from Jordan, walked to the sofa and sank onto it. “You haven’t had a call from Mrs. Brockman?” she asked in a small voice.
Without bothering to take off his jacket—he obviously didn’t intend to stay long—Jordan perched on the arm of an easy chair. “James’s wife? Why would she call me?”
Amanda swallowed. “I’ve been visiting James in the hospital,” she blurted out. “I told him we could t-take up where we left off.”
The color drained from Jordan’s face. “What?”
“He said he was going to give up and die—that I was all he had to live for. So I decided to pretend I still loved him, just until he was strong enough to go on his own.”
“And you believed that?” His voice was low, lethal.
“Of course I believed it!” Amanda flared.
“Well, you’ve been had,” Jordan replied coldly.
Amanda stared at him, wounded, her worst suspicions confirmed. “I knew you wouldn’t understand, Jordan,” she said. “That’s why I was afraid to tell you.”
“Damn it,” he rasped, “don’t make excuses. A lie is a lie, Amanda, and there’s no room in my life for games like this!”
“It wasn’t a game! You didn’t see him, hear him…”
Jordan was on his feet again, his hands back in his pockets. “I didn’t have to.” He walked to the door and stood there for a moment with his back to Amanda. “I could understand your wanting to help,” he said in parting. “But I’ll never understand why you didn’t tell me about it.” With that, he opened the door and walked out.
Amanda jumped off the couch and raced to the entryway—she couldn’t lose him, she couldn’t—but at the door she stopped. Jordan had judged her and found her guilty, and he wasn’t going to change his mind.
It was over.
Slowly Amanda closed the door. With a concerned meow, Gershwin circled her ankles. “He’s gone,” she said to the cat, and then she went into the bedroom, found the fur jacket and the skimpy bikini, and returned to her car.
With every mile she drove, Amanda became more certain that Jordan had been right: James had used emotional blackmail to get her to come back to him. She could see now that he’d given a performance every time she’d visited his room; she recalled the shrewd expression in his eyes, the things he’d said about Jordan.
“Fool!” Amanda muttered to herself, flipping on her windshield wipers as a light rain began to fall.
When she reached the hospital, Amanda marched inside, carrying the fur coat over her arm and the bikini in her purse. Some of her resolution faded as she got into the elevator, though. James had a serious heart condition, and for a time he’d been in real danger. Suppose what she meant to say caused him to suffer another attack? Suppose he died and it was her fault?
Amanda approached James’s room reluctantly, then stopped when she heard him laughing. “Face it, Richards,” he said. “You lose. In another week or two I’ll be out of this place. And believe me, Amanda will be more than happy to fly off to Hawaii with me and make sure I recuperate properly.”
Her first instinct was to flee, but Amanda couldn’t move. She stood frozen in the hallway, resting one hand against the wall.
Jordan said something in response, but Amanda didn’t hear what it was—maybe because the thundering of her heart drowned it out.
The scraping of a chair broke Amanda’s spell, and she didn’t know whether to stay and face Jordan or dodge into the little nook across the hall where a coffee machine stood. In the end she decided she’d done enough running away for a lifetime, and stayed where she was.
When Jordan walked out of James’s room, he stopped cold for a moment, but then a weary expression of resignation came over his face.
“I’m going to tell him the truth,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
Jordan shrugged. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” His eyes dropped to the rich sable jacket draped over her arm. “Merry Christmas, Aman-da.”
Amanda saw all her hopes going down the drain, and something inside drove her to fight to save them. “Jordan, be reasonable. You know I never meant for things to turn out this way!”
He looked at her for a moment, then walked around her, as he would something objectionable lying on the sidewalk, and strode off down the hall.
Amanda watched him go into the elevator. He looked straight through her as the doors closed.
It was a few moments before she could bring herself to walk into James’s room and face him. She no longer feared that her news would cause him another heart attack; now it was her anger she struggled to control.
Finally she was able to force herself through the doorway. She laid the coat at the foot of James’s bed without meeting his eyes, then took the bikini from her purse and put it with the coat. When she thought she could manage it without hysterics, she turned to him and said, “You had no right to manipulate me that way.”
“Amanda.” His voice was a scolding drawl, and he stretched out his hand to her.
She evaded his grasp. “It’s over, James. I can’t see you anymore.”
Surprisingly James smiled at her and let his hand fall to his side. “You might as well come back to me, baby. It’s plain enough that Richards is through with you.”
Hot rage made Amanda’s backbone ramrod straight, but she didn’t allow her anger to erupt in a flow of nasty retorts. Clinging to the last of her dignity, she whispered, “Maybe the time I had with Jordan will have to last me a lifetime. But he’s the only man I’ll ever love.” With that, she turned and walked out.
“You’ll be back!” James shouted after her. “You’ll come begging for my forgiveness! Damn it, Amanda, nobody walks out on me….”
While a nurse rushed into James’s room, Amanda went straight on until she got to the elevator. She pushed the button and waited circumspectly for a ride to the main floor, even though her emotions were howling in her spirit like a storm. She wanted to be anywhere but there, anybody besides herself.
She’d hoped Jordan might be lingering somewhere downstairs, or maybe in her section of the parking lot, but there was no sign of him.
Beyond tears, she climbed behind the wheel of
her car and started toward the house where she and Eunice had grown up.
She knocked at the door and called out “It’s me!” and her mother instantly replied with a cheerful “Come in!”
Bob, it turned out, was putting in some overtime at the aircraft plant where he worked, but Marion and Eunice were wrapping festive presents on the dining room table. Eunice looked a little tired, but other than that she seemed to be in good spirits. Marion was taking her usual delight in the yuletide season, but her face fell when she got a look at her elder daughter.
“Merciful heavens,” she sputtered, rushing over and forcing Amanda into a chair. “You’re as pale as Marley’s ghost! What on earth is the matter?”
Just minutes before, Amanda had been convinced she had no tears left to cry, but now a despondent wail escaped her and tears streamed down her face.
Eunice immediately rushed to her side. “Sis, what is it?” she whispered, near tears herself. She had always cried whenever Amanda did, even if she didn’t know what was bothering her sister.
“It’s Jordan!” Amanda sobbed. “He’s gone—he never wants to see me again….”
“Get her a glass of water,” Marion said to Eunice. She rested her hands on Amanda’s shoulders, much as Jordan once had, trying to soothe away the terrible tension.
Eunice reappeared moments later, looking stricken, a glass of water in one hand.
“You told him,” Marion said as Amanda sipped the cold water.
Eunice dragged up a chair beside her. “Told him what?”
Setting the water down with a thump, Amanda blurted out the whole story—how she’d fallen hopelessly in love with Jordan, how James had hoodwinked her into ruining everything. She ended with an account of the scene in James’s hospital room when she’d given back his gifts once and for all.
“What kind of lunkhead is this Jordan,” Eunice demanded, “that he doesn’t understand something so simple?”
Amanda dragged her sleeve across her eyes, feeling like a five-year-old with both knees skinned raw. Only it was her heart that was hurting. “He’s angry because I didn’t tell him about it from the first.” She paused to sniffle, and her mother produced a handful of tissues in that magical way mothers have. “I tried, I honestly did, but I was so scared of losing him.”
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