*
Jordan slipped between the wood framings on the second floor. Bix, her foreman, was not on-site so she’d come upstairs to check the master bedroom herself. She scanned it, thinking of the blueprints, and reached for her tape measure, then laughed a little. She wasn’t wearing her tool belt. Well, it looked much better. She’d measure it later. She turned slowly, looking at the room. The tall windows were as graceful as she had hoped when she’d first looked at the designs. A gust of wind blew through the enormous room and she shielded her eyes from the blowing sawdust and dirt. The sounds of hammers, nail guns, and saws echoed around her as she turned to go.
John was looking at a generator when she got down. He looked at her, surprised. “I didn’t know you were here,” he said. “You look nice.” Jordan was wearing dark blue pleated slacks, a light blue tee, and silver earrings. “Goes well with the black eye.” He grinned. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, just felt like something other than jeans. Have you seen Bix?”
“I sent her for those customized parts for the fireplaces. Our client is due in a few minutes. His wife’s changed her mind again. Maybe you can get him settled down?”
They walked toward their trailer office. “I’d be happy to go home and change if you need help. I was on my way to see a carving exhibition at a new downtown gallery.”
“No. You’re off duty. Go to the exhibit,” John said, holding the door for her. “Or go shopping, buy some books. Have you found time for your studio?”
She shook her head. It was an ongoing discussion with them. She could still do the small carvings, the whittling, but nothing more. “I swear, John, it all died with Pete,” she said and looked away from him. And then I did the unthinkable. Traded in my carving for the bars.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee greeted her as they entered the big double-wide trailer. John immediately poured a cup for both of them and she looked at it tentatively. Even as fresh as this coffee was, she couldn’t handle it without cream.
She heard John talking to someone in the front. A distinguished older man followed him into their office.
“Jordan, this is our client, Thomas Teller.” John pulled a chair to the side of his desk. “Thomas, this is Jordan Carter, our finishing expert and third partner in the firm.” He poured him a cup of coffee.
They shook hands and Jordan watched the man take a tentative sip of the coffee. She grinned inwardly at his face as his taste buds got hit with the full force of John’s coffee.
“Would you like some cream or sugar?” she asked with a straight face.
He gave her a grateful smile and held out his cup. “My wife keeps changing her mind,” Thomas said and laid a handful of brochures on John’s desk. “Help.” He held up his hands.
Jordan spread them out and studied each one. “Are we still doing a primarily white kitchen?” she asked.
He nodded.
Jordan looked at the wood and color samples before her. “Would you like me to meet with her, Mr. Teller?”
Once again, he looked grateful. “It’s Thomas, Jordan. Yes, could you?”
“I’d be happy to take these samples and the designs we gave you in the beginning and go to your house. Or we could meet here.”
“That would be excellent,” he said and gestured at the brochures. “She’s been poring over different samples every day. It would be better if you went to the house.”
“I see. Just give me your address…or call her from here, now.”
He pulled his phone from his suit pocket. “Let’s do that.”
John got up and went to the front office. Jordan waited a moment to make sure the wife answered and left as well.
“That was a nice touch.” John smiled at her.
“You said no work till Friday. What could it hurt?” Jordan said.
Thomas called for them and they walked back to the office. “Could you go this afternoon?” he asked. Jordan nodded and he smiled, still talking on the phone. He hung up and took a notepad off John’s desk. “This is wonderful,” he said several times as he scribbled his address and his wife’s first name on the paper. “Right now, I’m so busy. I really appreciate this, both of you.”
“I have a little space this week, Mr.—” Jordan caught herself. “Thomas.” She took the piece of paper. “I’ll go now, if that’s all right.”
“That would be great,” he said with a genuine smile and looked at her face. “That’s a spectacular shiner. Did you have an accident here?”
Jordan laughed. “Not at all. I have two children and I was showing them a new skateboard in the park, the one by Whitehall. I ran into someone.”
“It’s a beauty.” He grinned. “One more thing.” He relaxed back into the chair. “When we called for bids for the Willis Athletic Center, why didn’t you place one?”
Jordan raised her eyebrows at John. She had no idea.
“It was the wrong moment,” John said and looked out the window.
“Kelly Construction could have managed that project easily.”
John nodded. “I know, Thomas. The timing was off.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Five years ago, approximately.”
She glanced at John but saw that he wasn’t going to say more. “John was helping me then. My husband was killed at that time. He was a Milwaukee fireman and one of the victims in the Haben fire. October, five years ago.”
Thomas looked up, startled. “The roof collapsed, if I remember correctly. They couldn’t find the bodies?”
Jordan nodded. “It took them four days.”
There was a small space of quiet as Thomas absorbed the words. “Yes, that would have been around the time we were taking bids.” He sighed audibly. “I’m sorry to hear that. Death is never nice, but it has a special, hard feeling to it when the person is young. And you have children?”
Jordan nodded. “A boy and a girl. Tyler is ten and Jenna is six.”
“I didn’t mean to bring up something sad. Your firm has always been so aggressive that I was just curious,” Thomas said. “The foundation has another project coming up soon. It’s much bigger than the athletic center we just finished. It’ll be up for bid next week, and the window of opportunity to reply will be short.” He gave John a youngish grin. “Of course, if you get it, you have to finish my house first.”
Jordan packed her briefcase with everything she thought she’d need and left the men talking about the new project. She took the shortcut to the interstate and drove north into Milwaukee. She’d call John about the bid tonight. That sounded really good, and it was more their area of expertise than houses. When she’d come into the firm three years ago, John had told her that he was consistently being underbid on commercial work, and that was true. She’d seen the figures. However, now that residential work was slowing down, it would be nice to catch some commercial work. She tapped the steering wheel, thinking about the bid five years ago. It probably was called for when John was helping her deal with Pete’s death and he simply missed it.
Something white was lodged in her car’s visor and she reached for it. It was Brie O’Malley’s professional card. She must have left it there after the meal the other night. Just as she put it back in the visor, her cell phone rang and her hand automatically went to her front right pocket. Then she remembered her phone was in her briefcase in the backseat. She’d just have to call them back, whoever they were.
*
The meeting with Thomas’s wife had gone well, Jordan thought as she wandered through the new art gallery later. The woman was as nice as Thomas and she had been very precise about what she wanted. Jordan stopped in front of a delicate carving of cattails with a splash of color. Nice, she thought. A woman’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Do you like that?” a woman asked.
“I do, but is that a sandpiper?” Jordan pointed at the bird nestled in the reeds.
“Yes. I like the California bird and Wisconsin cattails. A unique mix.”
>
Jordan took a second look at the woman. She looked familiar but Jordan didn’t think she was a carver. She would have known her. “This is a nice gallery, and Emma Fiona’s is a memorable name. I like the pieces I’ve seen so far.”
“Thanks.” The woman smiled and held out her hand. “Emma Fiona O’Malley.”
“Oh, the owner,” Jordan said and shook her hand. “O’Malley?” Her brain shifted. “Any relation to Brieanna?”
“Indeed. She’s my older sister. There are three of us. Sisters, that is.” Emma laughed easily and Jordan saw her look at her eye. “Do you mind telling me where you got that wonderful black eye?”
“That’s how I met Brie.”
“Oh no.” Emma began to laugh again. “You’re the woman on the skateboard.”
Jordan’s eyebrows shot up, sending a little pain through her eye. “She’s all right, isn’t she? It really was an accident.”
“She said it was. Actually, she said it was her fault.”
“No. I should have been more careful. I took her out to eat that night, after we both checked in at Urgent Care.”
“Brie could use a friend right now,” Emma said. “What brought you to my gallery?”
“I’m a local carver and always try to see anything new. Are these your pieces? I don’t see a name.”
“Oh no, I just own the gallery. I have more carvings in the back. Would you be interested?”
“Certainly,” Jordan said and followed Emma as they went toward the back of the gallery. “Seriously, is Brie all right?”
“We O’Malley women are tough,” Emma said and winked at Jordan. “She did talk to me about the accident. Actually, I thought she said you were a finish carpenter for a construction firm. And you had taught school?”
Jordan nodded. “The family business, but I have a studio at my home.”
“Have you studied with anyone?”
Jordan shook her head no. “My father was a carver and I keep up with the locals.”
Emma opened the door to the back storeroom and Jordan saw an intricate abstract. They began to talk about carving.
It was only later when she got back to her car that she thought about another cosmic bump with Brie O’Malley. Emma said Brie could use a friend right now. She took her phone out of her briefcase. Perhaps she could take Brie out for pizza with the kids tonight.
Chapter Eight
Footsteps echoed on the marble floor as the last graduate student disappeared down the hallway. Brie collapsed into her chair and closed her eyes. Her new glasses would be in tomorrow. “I could have used them today,” she said to her empty office. When she had returned to teaching after the shooting, she had dropped a course but taken more graduate students to compensate. It kept the workload balanced and made her department chair happy.
She rubbed her temples and felt her stomach complain. Her appetite had finally found life after that meal with Jordan, and it reminded her that it’d been more than six hours since the cereal she’d eaten that morning. She’d called and left Jordan a message about taking the kids to the new playroom at the sports complex. Brie checked her phone. Jordan hadn’t called back.
A light knock sounded on the door and she looked up to see Patrick leaning on the frame.
“Hello,” she said, happy to see him. George followed him into the room and they settled into the comfortable chairs across from her desk. “I always think of you as some Celtic queen, up here in your castle,” Patrick said and began humming “Camelot,” looking around the turret-shaped room. Books lined the walls, and two of the eight tall, narrow windows were stained glass. It was beautiful in the sunlight and comfortable in every season except when the wind blew hard in winter, howling like a true castle. He gestured at the stained glass. “That was the best glass Niki ever did.” Two women, one blonde and one with dark curls, wearing medieval dresses, both holding an armful of lilies, graced each window.
Brie got up carefully and walked to the windows. “These were the coldest, leakiest windows in the office until she worked on them. She reframed the casing, caulked them, and put these in. It’s been warmer ever since.”
They’d thrown a small party in here the night Niki had finished the windows and, after everyone had left, they had locked the door, finished the wine, and made love on the new carpeting. Niki had pulled herself up on an elbow and whispered to her, “Baby, whenever you’re mad at me about something, look at these windows and remember this moment.” Brie stared at the windows, remembering Niki’s sexy voice and exactly what they had been doing at the moment she had spoken those words.
She turned too quickly and pain shot up her side, doubling her over. Both men were beside her in an instant.
“Damn,” she gasped. “Remember the party that night?”
They all began to laugh. Patrick had fallen on the last step and been on crutches for several weeks with a bad ankle.
“We brought the wine,” George said with a grin and picked up a sack off the floor. Patrick put three wineglasses on Brie’s desk. The cork popped and George filled the glasses halfway.
“A toast,” he said quietly, lifting his glass.
Brie drank the tears back down her throat and gave them a wobbly smile. George poured more wine and Brie protested.
“This is good for you, Brie,” he said. “We need to talk, and both of us feel bad that we have left you alone so long. Niki would have kicked our butts for this.”
They laughed, remembering Niki’s incredible butt kickings. She was famous for dispersing crowds in a single moment and could have cleared a football stadium if she were angry enough.
“True,” Brie said with a shaky breath. She lost count of the drinks as they talked. By the time they were ready to go, George had to lock the door for her, help her down the steps, and drive her home. He talked to her quietly as he drove her Subaru through the narrow streets by the campus. Brie leaned against the window, feeling well and truly drunk, watching the lovely September day fade and streetlights come on. Every piece of her ached for Niki.
George hit the brakes. A sporty silver Camry sat in her driveway, lights on and motor running, and a figure was just leaving her front door. George got out. Brie raised her head, peering through the dusk and headlights, trying to see who he was talking to. Squinting, Brie thought it was Jordan and opened her door, carefully negotiating her way to them.
“This is not a good night,” she heard George say and Jordan turned to Brie.
Brie said a few words and caught herself slurring, so began again. “Is too…good night, I mean, we’ve been drinking…don’t listen to him. Have some wine.”
“I got your message about the kids. I thought you could go out with us tonight and have some pizza,” Jordan said as Brie began to lean sideways and she grabbed her before she toppled. “I agree, not a good night for that, Brie.” She began to laugh.
Frustrated with herself, Brie leaned into Jordan. “I smell like a bottle of wine. Or two.”
“Or two,” Jordan said softly, steadying Brie with an arm around her shoulders.
“But I’m hungry and these mean men haven’t fed me,” Brie mumbled petulantly. “Pizza sounds good.” She snuggled against her, sighing with pleasure at the feeling of the warm and secure arm once again.
“Missed them,” she mumbled into Jordan’s hair.
“What?” Jordan asked.
“Your arms.”
Jordan tucked Brie into her body as Patrick unlocked the front door. They got her to the couch and Brie stretched out. This felt good too. Her mind made a try at staying alert, then settled as someone covered her with a blanket.
*
Jordan draped the blanket over Brie and felt that strange tug toward her once again. She straightened and looked around. What were the odds that she would be standing inside this house? A home that she’d been interested in for years? The ceilings were low but the rooms were big. Two walls were devoted to books. A stone fireplace dominated the living room in front of the couch where Brie lay.
Large easy chairs sat on either side. There was no television, but a large sound system stood in the corner. It was inviting and she liked the bright blues, shimmering greens, and grays in the room. They were the colors of Lake Michigan.
Patrick’s cell phone rang and he talked briefly. “Damn,” he said, looking at George. “Jordan, can you stay a while?”
Jordan held her finger up. “Wait a minute,” she said and dialed her mother.
“Okay, no problem,” she said to the men. “What’s happened?”
“The restaurant’s sprung a leak in the kitchen,” Patrick said. “We didn’t mean to get her drunk. The moment just got away from us.” He paused and looked at George. “Perhaps we should take a minute?”
George nodded, turning for the kitchen. “You’ll need to feed her if she wakes up before we get back. She doesn’t drink very often, but when she does, she’s always ravenous. By the way, she does love pizza, all pizza. She’ll eat anything. She also swears like a sailor when she drinks, so brace yourself. Here, let’s go to the kitchen.” They walked into the next room and Jordan took a deep breath when she saw it.
Three walls were entirely bricked, floor to ceiling. A stainless steel double oven, oversized range, and refrigerator sat against the bricked walls. The remaining wall was white with a grouping of three framed newspaper articles. Dark oak beams ran the length of the ceiling. A large trestle table sat on the largest oval rug she’d ever seen. Wide glass doors led out onto a deck. Blue glass jars with white and blue flowers brightened the room.
“Want a beer?” George asked, opening the refrigerator. “Patrick, come here.”
“Niki would kick her butt over that,” Patrick said, looking inside with a frown. “No wonder she’s so thin.”
“Beer’s great,” Jordan said, sitting at the long table. “Wow, this is a working kitchen. Someone likes to cook here. Brie? Her boyfriend? Her husband?”
Collision Course Page 5