But she wasn’t ready for this, any of it, and certainly not for facing Jordan!
She drew the door back open. He hadn’t moved. He stared at her, a sandy brow arched.
“Sorry. Instinct,” she told him.
“Like the crack on the head?” he asked politely.
“Jordan, honest to God, I was terrified. I thought someone had broken in here while I was out in the hallway.”
“What were you doing in the hallway?”
“Looking for the person who had knocked.”
“I knocked.”
“Then where were you?”
“Trying the other door, then getting worried when I saw the first one wide open with no sign of you. Kathy, you’ve got to be more careful—”
“I am very careful! This is life. I do manage alone, and you’ve no business—”
“My daughters live here,” he reminded her.
“I am usually very careful.”
“You left that door open.”
“I won’t let it happen again.”
He sighed. Obviously, his head didn’t hurt quite so much anymore. He was trying very hard for patience again. “Okay. Can we try to start over?”
“We can.”
“I’m the one with the bump on the head.”
She nodded, grinning slightly. “That was one of my very favorite Lladro pieces.”
“It’s the only head I’ve got.”
“It was a gift.”
“From someone special?”
“It was a gift from you,” she said wryly.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“Fine. I’m sorry about your head.”
“But Kathy, you wouldn’t have stopped a burglar that way, you’d have just made him mad.”
“I’ll hit harder next time.”
“You’d need a better weapon, and there shouldn’t be a next time!”
“Jordan, I apologize for hitting you on the head.”
He inhaled and exhaled. “It’s all right.”
“Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“It’s all right.”
“Want me to take a look?” She stepped toward him in the hallway.
“No. I do not want you looking at my head!” he snapped, scowling, “especially out here in the hallway.”
“There’s no one around,” she assured him.
“Kathy, may I come in?” he asked, swallowing down his impatience, speaking very politely.
She inhaled, taking a good look at him.
Oh, God. He was nicely dressed. He had the ability to look both elegant and rugged all in one. She was without makeup, in a cotton nightgown that was not one of the sexy choices she might have made. And she was older than him, for God’s sake!
“Kathy, please, may I come in? I need to speak with you.”
“I have a telephone.”
“Please...Allow me to speak with you now.”
She’d hit him on the head, slammed the door in his face, and now she was being childish. “Of course, of course...” she said and moved aside, sweeping out an arm. “It’s nearly midnight, I wasn’t expecting you, I haven’t seen you in a decade, and you just scared me half to death, but please, Jordan, do come in.”
He arched a brow at her sarcasm, but stepped past her, not responding to it. He didn’t touch her, but she could almost feel him as he moved by. She breathed in and recognized that scent, that subtle aftershave that somehow still managed to tantalize. He hadn’t changed it. Why should he? Certain things about him were set. She had known him most of her life, they had only been strangers for the past ten years and certain things didn’t change. He drank his coffee with one teaspoon of sugar. He wasn’t a heavy drinker—and never had been—but he liked good red wine with an Italian dinner and he loved beer—Budweiser—when he was playing poker or spending a hot day at the beach or fishing or boating. Since they’d been really young, he’d loved a good volleyball game, chicken on the barbecue, and though he loved music more than anything in the world, his favorite evenings were spent in quiet, before a low-burning fire, no lights except for the soft streaks of red and yellow that illuminated from the flames.
All of that might have changed.
But it hadn’t, she was sure. Just seeing him, she knew. He hadn’t changed much at all.
Right. He was still pigheaded and stubborn. Dominating. Their arguments had nearly raised the roof upon occasion.
But had that really been why she had left? The question taunted her suddenly. She had left, but he had been the one who had filed the divorce papers. Almost before the door had closed behind her, she remembered bitterly.
But it had ended!
And now, just like that, he was back. In her home. The same man who had set his hands so protectively upon her shoulders. Ten years and she could still remember way too much—way too clearly. It hurt to see him. It was also good.
She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as he walked by. He wasn’t just stepping past her.
He was walking back into her life.
And God help her, she didn’t know if she could bear it.
The bad...
...or the good.
But that didn’t seem to matter—to Jordan, at least. He walked in, glanced around the living room, his green gaze giving away nothing of his inner thoughts. He turned by the large, beige, soft leather sofa and lifted a brow to her.
“Please, sit down,” she invited dryly.
He did so, near the edge of the sofa, watching her, elbows on his knees, hands folded idly between them. He waited for her to seat herself, and she gingerly sat before him in the recliner. As she felt his gaze sweep over her she wondered if he was giving her the same assessment she had just given him—seeing what damage the last decade had brought upon her. She waited for him to make a comment. Perhaps, You look great, Kath. The years haven’t changed you at all. But he didn’t. He just watched her. Damn him. She didn’t like surprises. If she’d known she was going to see him, she’d have had on makeup, her hair would have been brushed and styled, and she would have been wearing real clothing. Something black probably, black was such a dignified, slimming color.
She wanted to appear dignified, not slim, she assured herself. This had been over long ago. She didn’t need to prove anything to Jordan.
She wondered why it mattered what he thought of her. It shouldn’t. It did.
Still, he didn’t comment, but his eyes remained upon her, intent as he studied her. Unnerved, she determined she was going to be casual. Calm. At ease. She would ignore the Lladro pieces on the floor and the little specks of porcelain dust on his shoulders and in his hair.
“Since you’re here,” she said, “may I offer you anything?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll have a—” he began, then paused and shook his head. “Let’s go somewhere. Let me take you to dinner.”
“Jordan, it’s nearly midnight.”
“And this is New York. The theater crowd will be out in numbers.”
“What are you doing in New York?” she inquired carefully, without responding to his invitation.
“I came to talk to you.”
“As I said before, I have a telephone. You could have called.”
He nodded. “Yeah. And you just bashed me on the head before you closed the door in my face.”
“I didn’t mean to hit you.”
“Did you mean to close the door?”
“Jordan—”
“Instinct, right?” he taunted softly. “Kathy, you’d have hung up on me if I’d called you here, and your assistant would have had you in continual meetings if I’d tried to get you at work.”
“You could have warned me you were coming.”
“You’d have left town.”
“We have written upon occasion.”
“This is important.”
“To you.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, to me. And our daughters.”
She hesitated a minute, watching him. “Are you here in New York alone
?”
A slow smile crept onto his lips. “Why? Have you room on the sofa?”
“Not on your life,” she said sweetly. “I was just concerned about that sweet young thing with whom you’re involved at the moment.”
“Tara Hughes?”
“Is that her name?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged. “Is she with you? She may be expecting you back for a late-nite supper.”
“She’s not here. I’m alone.”
Hmmm, all right. So his little playmate wasn’t even concerned about his taking a trip to see his ex-wife. Not exactly flattering, Kathy decided. “She must miss you,” she told him.
“My life is my own.” He shrugged. “Kathy, will you have dinner with me? It really doesn’t seem that much to ask.” He hesitated just a second. “You did leave me, remember?” he asked softly.
“You filed for divorce.”
“Somehow, I didn’t get the impression that you were just on a vacation.”
“You didn’t—”
“Kathy, didn’t we do our fighting long ago?”
Ouch. Maybe he was right.
“It was why I left.”
“Was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes I think you left because you were afraid.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know exactly. You tell me.”
She started to rise. “Jordan—”
“Sorry, I’m not trying to wage war again. It’s just that I sometimes wonder if you didn’t just throw everything away because you weren’t willing to fight.”
“I didn’t want to have to fight. I wanted marriage to be an equal, trusting relationship.”
“Why didn’t you trust me?” he demanded tensely.
“Why didn’t you trust me?” she countered.
“And just what wasn’t equal?” he responded.
“Didn’t you just say we’d already done our fighting?” Kathy asked. It was absolutely incredible that after so much time had passed, they came up with these questions—with so much passion still, and so much anger. It didn’t matter anymore. It was over.
Yet it was frightening to see how much emotion remained, how much anger would not go away.
“Yeah,” Jordan breathed softly. “We’ve done the fighting. It’s all in the past, isn’t it?”
“Definitely,” she lied.
“Then surely, by now we can be civil. Kath, can we go to dinner?”
Dinner. Out with him. He just didn’t understand—even if he was close in a strange way she would never admit. He didn’t realize why she had left. She was okay when she didn’t see him. When he wasn’t a part of her life. But being with him again...
She could manage, and she was going to do so. Maybe they could never actually be friends—their time together had been far too intense for that, as they had proven to one another in a matter of seconds after nearly ten years—but it might help her to get on with things if she could exorcise the ghosts of their marriage and at least have a decent speaking relationship with him again.
“All right. Just give me a few minutes. There are sodas and beers in the refrigerator if you want to help yourself to anything.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
She rose and started toward her bedroom.
“Kathy!”
She paused and turned back. He was standing, tall, straight, arresting, his green eyes sharp, intelligent, and curiously soft as they lit upon her. “This is a nice home you’ve created here.”
“Thanks.”
“And you look great.”
Was that what he really thought? Or was it polite conversation because she’d agreed to go out for dinner?
“Really great!” he said.
It sounded sincere. As if the words had resulted from the intent scrutiny he had given her before.
“Thanks, again,” she murmured. Keep the tone casual, she reminded herself.
She started back to her bedroom again, wondering what she was doing. This was a mistake. She had been better off when she’d closed the door on him. She should have told him to go away. Then he would have been only a minor interruption. She would have been tortured by his face in her dreams for a month or so, but then the memories would fade.
This was just dinner. They’d been apart ten years. She loved what she did for a living. She had good friends. She did date upon occasion. It was just...
She’d never found what she had once had. Long before the divorce, of course. But somehow she’d wanted it just right, she’d wanted it all—the love, the laughter, the devotion, the passion. And if she couldn’t have it, she hadn’t wanted a commitment that offered anything less. Jordan, on the other hand, did have something going. He hadn’t remarried yet, but she was convinced it was just a matter of time before he did.
She threw open her closet door and stared at the rows of clothing. Hmmm. What was just the right outfit for a late dinner out with an ex-husband she couldn’t help but want to impress?
Back to basic black?
She almost managed to grin to herself. Summer in the city was hot, and she did have the perfect black dress, a cotton knit halter-type with a not-too-long and not-too-short skirt. Not too dressed up and not jeans and a T-shirt either. She drew it from the closet, tossed it on the bed, and warned herself sternly that her ex-husband was a man she had left for a reason, that she wasn’t up to a good time in the least, that he was involved with a girl not much older than their daughters.
It wasn’t that. She wasn’t looking to recapture the past. She just wanted the dignity of Jordan knowing that she hadn’t fallen apart, that she was still a person. One who counted in her own right, perhaps. She sighed. Who was she kidding? He’d always respected her intelligence. She’d found that to be one of the most endearing of his traits when they were young. He’d loved to listen to her, sometimes argue a point—be it about the house, their lives, or world issues—and sometimes concede.
Certain that he considered her a person still, and respected her intelligence, she wanted more. Pride, perhaps. Vanity. She wanted him to still consider her desirable. Because she found him attractive.
“No, no, no!” she chastised herself firmly. Jordan was no longer a part of her life.
But what had gone wrong between them had never been physical. She didn’t want to let herself remember just how good sex had been, not now. Maybe she’d been alone too long. Maybe she’d taken “responsible” relationships too far, and maybe that was why intimate details were now springing unbidden into her mind. Yet more than those came to her. Memories of closeness...after intimate details. Waking together, being held—
“Quit this! Or else you can’t go to dinner with him!” she hissed to herself. She had left him because she had already lost him, somehow. Because the trust had been gone. Because of the way he had looked at her.
Maybe she had thought he would come for her, she told herself wryly. That he’d follow, determined to break the barrier that had risen.
After Keith’s death...
She wasn’t going to dwell on it now. She was going to go to dinner and establish a civil relationship between them. Dignified and civil.
All right, so she still hoped she could be dignified and sexy.
She pulled her tailored nightshirt over her head, ready to slip into a dignified and—hopefully—desirable black dress.
And that was when all hell broke loose.
She heard the shuddering of the condo’s front door; the slam as it was thrown inward, striking the wall.
“Kathy, Kathy!”
Her name was shouted in a deep, male voice. Footsteps came tearing down the hallway to her room.
“Hey!” That was Jordan’s voice. That incredible baritone, startled, outraged. Furious, defensive.
The door to her room burst inward, and all she saw at first was a blur. It had all happened so quickly! She let out a shriek, startled and alarmed.
Caught naked except for the la
ce panties she’d worn beneath the nightshirt.
Her fear quickly faded as the blur cleared as two men hit the floor, Jordan having tackled...
Jeremy.
Three
“WAIT, WAIT!” SHE CRIED, making a mad dive for her discarded nightshirt, then grasping it to her chest and trying to break up the two men at the same time. They were well matched. Jeremy was honed to perfection—muscle-building was his job. But Jordan had always been tall and well built and he was the one who had tackled Jeremy.
“This guy just came bursting into the apartment!” Jordan grated as she caught his shoulder with her free hand, trying to drag him up and off Jeremy.
“Jordan, it’s all right!” With a great deal of effort, she managed to drag her ex-husband from Jeremy.
“What the hell is going on, Kathy? The doorman is right behind me; he’s called the police!” Jeremy said indignantly. He scrambled to his feet, standing and straightening his shirt while watching Jordan with wary and accusing eyes.
“Jeremy, this is—”
“Whoa!” Jeremy exclaimed, his eyes growing very wide. He was staring at Jordan almost as if he had just met his Maker. He didn’t need any introduction from Kathy. “My God—you’re Jordan Treveryan!” He stared at Kathy as if she had betrayed him in the worst way, then offered a hand to Jordan. “Sorry. God, I’m so sorry. We were just on the phone, you see. Kathy and I. We were talking. When Kathy didn’t get back on with me, I thought something awful had happened to her. I thought she’d been attacked. You know, big city.”
Kathy winced. She’d forgotten that Jeremy had been on the line. So now both men were standing in her bedroom and she was undressed. Jordan had his hands on his hips, surveying Jeremy as if he were a rival on a high-school football team. Not that Jordan had any rights, but then, being Jordan, he would have defended her to his last breath whether they had any relationship left or not.
If she weren’t in such a ridiculous and half-naked situation, that might even be nice.
“Kathy, who is this?” Jordan asked, looking to her at last.
Who was Jeremy? A lifesaver, at this particular moment, she decided.
She clutched Jeremy’s arm, still trying to hold her nightgown to her breast and maintain a semblance of dignity. “Jordan, Jeremy Hunt, a...a very good friend.” She looked to Jeremy. “I’m so sorry, darling, I was just so startled to see Jordan that I forgot the phone—”
For All of Her Life Page 3