Feeling better after her little inner pep talk, she caught up with them at the car and popped open the hatch while instructing the boys on how to place the groceries in the back. Rob stood back and watched the boys work.
“You’ve got some good helpers here, Jordan,” he said encouragingly.
“I sure do,” she agreed. When they were done, Joseph took the cart and placed it back with the others. When he approached the car, Rob clasped him on the shoulder.
“Good job, Joe.”
“Thank you, sir.” The boy beamed. “I always help my mom, especially since the accident.” Having said that, Joseph climbed into the backseat of the car and shut the door.
Jordan looked away to avoid Rob’s inquiring eyes.
“Listen, Rob, I didn’t expect you to pay for our food. Let me write you a check and—”
“Don’t worry about it, Jordan,” he said nonchalantly and turned away. Jordan stood there dumbfounded for a moment and then walked around to the driver’s side. Rob climbed into the passenger seat and watched as Jordan stiffly settled in and started the car.
“Everybody buckled?” she asked. They all answered in unison and she put the car in gear and drove back to where she had first seen Rob. She parked the car next to the curb and turned to him.
“This is where you needed to be, right?”
“Yes. Thanks,” he replied, but he wasn’t ready to get out of the car. He had a million questions for her, but one look in her eyes and he read their meaning: “No questions, please.” He would respect that silent plea.
Hell, he had no choice. He was in no position to make any demands of her, especially here in front of her children.
Picking up the grocery bags he had kept with him up front, he turned around to face Joseph and Jake. “Thanks for shopping with me, boys,” he said brightly and was met with two smiling faces in response. “It was really nice meeting you both. I hope you have a good time here on the coast.”
“Hey, Rob,” Jake started, “do you think maybe you can come over and show me how to build a sand castle sometime?”
Rob turned to Jordan and shrugged. “It was one of my selling points to them on the benefits of living near the beach,” he confessed with a sheepish grin.
Jordan couldn’t help but smile. He really had helped the boys focus on how much fun this vacation could be, something she had been unable to do in the long weeks of planning before they’d arrived here.
“Maybe sometime, sport,” he replied, and noticed how the young boy’s face fell. He silently turned to Jordan for help.
“Jake?” she queried. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
“That’s what Dad always says when he doesn’t mean it,” he responded sadly, looking down at his hands twisting in his lap.
Jordan’s heart ached at the sight of her son. When would the hurt of Eric’s leaving end? Bracing herself, Jordan turned to Rob.
“So, do you have any plans for dinner?”
* * *
Rob pulled up in front of Jordan’s bungalow a little after five that evening. He had readily accepted Jordan’s invitation to dinner and felt like it was a gift from above. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe she had actually wanted to invite him over, but he was not above being thankful for sad little boys, either.
He sat in his truck for a long moment and thought about the events of the morning. During their time in the grocery store, Jordan’s sons had shared a wealth of information. For instance, he knew Jordan and Eric had divorced several years earlier and Eric was now splitting his time between New York and Los Angeles. He also dated a lot. At least according to Joseph.
He also learned their father rarely came to see them since he’d moved out, and during his last visit he had forced Jordan to go out with him and they had been involved in a near-fatal accident due to Eric’s driving drunk. Rob had wanted to push for more details, but there wasn’t time. Plus, since it was clearly such a traumatic incident, perhaps the supermarket was not the best place to get into it. There was no doubt in his mind the boys would have told him everything, but he was sensitive enough not to force them to relive all the details. Rob remembered Eric from high school and had never understood how Jordan could have married him—or how she could have left him for Eric. He could admit his own actions had caused the breakup between him and Jordan, but the fact that she’d chosen to date Eric so quickly—and stayed with him—threw him for a loop.
Eric was the class president, full of charm and charisma. He had always irritated Rob. Eric had the type of personality that seemed sincere but once you got to know him, you came to realize it was all just a smooth, pretty-boy facade. How could the woman he had known and loved so dearly marry someone like Eric?
Joseph had gone on to tell him how badly Jordan had been injured in the accident: broken ribs, internal injuries, a broken leg—her entire right side had basically been crushed. Rob hadn’t noticed any outward signs of the accident. Jordan still looked perfect to him. But then again, Jordan had always looked perfect to him.
From the very first time he had seen her in second period biology class, he was lost. They had dated for two years in high school, and Rob had thought they would eventually get married. But, being a foolish eighteen-year-old partying hard at a keg party or two, he had been caught kissing another girl in a moment of pure stupidity, and he had lost her. He wasn’t even attracted to the other girl; he had just been all puffed up on himself and thought, “Why not?” It just goes to show where thinking south of the border got you.
Jordan had rebounded quickly with Eric and had never given Rob a second look. She hadn’t spoken a word to him since that fateful night. Rob had hoped, foolishly, that Jordan would go off and have her “payback fling” with Eric and come back to him. But she never had. He had wanted to go to her so many times and beg for forgiveness, but she had turned to stone where he was concerned. It had been hard to accept that, after all they had shared and how much they had loved each other, she could just walk away from him.
Of course, he had no one to blame but himself. Looking back at that time in his life, he could kick himself. No one had ever attracted him or turned him on as Jordan had. Not that he’d been living the life of a monk all these years. He’d just become more selective in the women he slept with, in hopes there would be a spark like he’d had with Jordan. It had never happened and he’d come to accept that you just didn’t have that kind of chemistry twice in a lifetime. It didn’t thrill him, but he’d come to live with it. Only Jordan had ever had the ability to turn him on just by being near him.
And she still did. Just spending time doing something as mundane as food shopping with her today had been enough to make him hard. Time had been kind to Jordan Manning, and although Rob knew he was here to appease her children, he secretly hoped that in time she’d be as happy about seeing him as he was about seeing her again.
Now, standing on her doorstep, he felt extremely self-conscious and nervous. He knew he would need to put her at ease. Rob wanted the chance to get to know Jordan again, and her kids. But if after all she had been through, she let it be known that tonight was all he would be given, then he would be fine with it.
Yeah, right.
Taking a deep breath and feeling more nervous than a man his age should, Rob rang the doorbell. Dinner, conversation, a casual evening. No harm, no foul. He could do this. No problem. Her children, however, had a completely different game plan in mind, one in which they were oblivious to the underlying feelings of the adults around them.
* * *
Jordan nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the doorbell. Before she could move to answer it, she was nearly plowed down by the boys in their excitement to get there first. It sounded like a tiny stampede in their rush to the door. Feeling that they had it all under control, Jordan went back to the kitchen and the dinner preparations.
Rob called out a ca
sual greeting to her and she watched him get dragged right back out the door by her sons. Chuckling to herself, she went about filleting the chicken. Once she had that simmering and the salad prepared, Jordan looked up and stared in fascination at the scene in the yard.
Rob was tossing a football back and forth with her boys. Both Jake and Joseph looked very animated and she could hear their laughter. The sound tugged at her heart. It had been too long since she’d heard them laugh with such pure joy, and twice today Rob had been the cause of the wonderful noise.
Jordan stood and watched the man responsible for the laughter in complete awe. He hadn’t changed much in all these years. His sandy-brown hair was still wild; he never did brush it properly and so it had a constant “just out of bed” look to it. She loved that. He was still in excellent physical condition, and even though he was dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt, she could see the muscles of his upper body straining against the fabric of his clothes. His skin was nicely bronzed; beach life, she supposed.
Earlier, when they were shopping, she had tried to avoid looking into his chocolate-brown eyes. In her youth, she’d told him he most definitely had bedroom eyes. He still did and they were still very sexy. The few times she had allowed herself to meet those eyes, her tummy had fluttered nervously.
Looking at his profile, she realized he was quite a perfect specimen of a man. His features weren’t so outrageous, but the straightness of his nose and the squareness of his jaw and, hell, cheekbones a model would kill for… Stop it! she mentally yelled at herself. He’s just a man, for goodness sake! Sure, he was a beautiful man, with broad shoulders; a wide chest; big, muscular arms… Oh. She groaned out loud. It was going to be a long night! She grabbed a glass of cold iced tea she had poured for herself earlier and took a healthy drink.
Forcing her attention back to the dinner she had to get on the table, she turned and took the biscuits out of the oven and placed them in a basket. Jordan turned again to the window and raised it to alert them all that dinner was ready. Within seconds, they filed in and the boys went directly to the bathroom to wash up. Rob sauntered toward the kitchen. She watched his approach with a dry mouth.
Damn, he looks good.
For the briefest of moments, she envisioned Rob coming up to her and kissing her senseless, her with oven mitts on her hands and an apron around her waist. Sure it was a boring, very domesticated fantasy, but man, oh man, did she itch for it to be real.
Shaking herself out of her reverie, she slipped off the oven mitts and faced Rob as casually as she could. “Having fun yet?”
“Absolutely,” he replied as he walked over to the sink to wash his hands. “What can I help you with?”
You could rip this apron off me and kiss me like you’ve missed me all these years.
“Nothing. Everything’s ready, just have a seat.” She motioned toward the table and he sat down and turned to watch her work. Jordan hoped he didn’t notice the slight tremble of her hands under his watchful gaze.
“Oh, before I forget.” Jordan reached into her front denim pocket. “Here.” She handed him money for the groceries he had purchased.
“You don’t need to do that, Jordan. It wasn’t that big a deal.” He tried to put the money back in her hands, but she refused. He held her hand in his for just the barest of seconds, heat beginning to build in his veins.
“I appreciate the offer, but feeding the three of us costs a small fortune and it’s not your responsibility.” Her tone was light and cheery but Rob still slightly resented the fact that she wouldn’t let him help her. “I can take care of my family without any help from anyone.” Her tone turned slightly sharp on that last note and Rob raised an eyebrow. Clearly he had struck a nerve.
“I wasn’t implying you couldn’t—”
Jordan cut him off with the shake of a hand and a nervous laugh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get so defensive. I get a lot of sympathy from people who are just so sorry I’m a single mom. But single mom or not, I can take care of my boys just fine. I have no worries about it.”
“If you’re sure…”
“Yes. Thank you.” She turned to finish getting their meal on the table.
The boys came scampering down the hallway and into the kitchen, where they began to help serve the meal. Jordan prepared all their plates, directing Jake as to whose plate was whose and instructing Joseph on the salad and dressing placement.
When they were all seated and had said grace, the chatter started up immediately.
“Rob used to play football… Rob said he had a baseball mitt I could use… Rob said he has a boat that we could fish off of… Rob said there was a video store nearby…” On and on it went, and the snarkier side of Jordan was having a field day inside her own head.
Rob said he could walk on water, her inner self mocked and she chuckled. Snapping out of her own wayward thoughts, she forced her attention back on Rob and the kids.
“Easy, guys,” she scolded gently. “It was very nice of Rob to come by tonight, but he is not here to entertain you. He has a life of his own and we are here to have fun together, just the three of us, remember?” As soon as the words were out, she felt like the wicked witch of the west. The smiles on their faces disappeared and they became very quiet.
Jordan put her fork down in resignation. Rob didn’t want to interfere and put his two cents in, but he truly felt Jordan could use a helping hand in this situation.
“Hey, you guys, come on. Give your mom a break,” he addressed them in a firm yet loving tone. “She has planned this great trip for you and she’s right. I have a job and commitments of my own.” That hadn’t helped much; if anything, the boys looked even a little more devastated. “I can come by once in a while and hang out with you, but ease up on your mom, okay?”
“Yes, sir.” As far as pep talks went, it stunk, but both Jake and Joseph pushed on, a little of their cheer returning.
Rob looked over at Jordan and she mouthed, “Thank you.” He nodded and turned his attention back to his dinner.
“When you said dinner, Jordan, I figured you’d make some burgers or something. This is way more than I expected. I hope you didn’t go to too much trouble.” Rob helped himself to some salad. “This has been a real treat.”
Jordan wasn’t deliberately trying to show off; she enjoyed cooking and this really was a standard meal for them: sautéed chicken, angel hair pasta with peas and cherry tomatoes in a creamy herb sauce, biscuits, and a salad. Well, maybe it was a little more than their standard meal, but Rob didn’t need to know that.
“Amazingly enough, the boys prefer this kind of cooking,” she told him. He looked at the boys in disbelief. “They’re not that interested in fast food.”
“It’s true,” Joseph confirmed. “Mom’s a great cook. Whenever I eat at a friend’s house, I always come home and tell Mom how thankful I am that she can cook!” They all laughed at that. “Really, you wouldn’t believe how many moms out there can’t cook. That’s why most kids want fast food. But not me. I want my mom’s homemade pizza or her chicken cutlet parmesan. Yummm…” The boy was obviously lost in the thought of it all because his big brown eyes sort of glazed over.
Jordan rubbed the top of his precious head and smiled.
“That’s quite a compliment,” Rob commented as he placed his napkin on the table next to his plate. “That was fabulous, Jordan. Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” she said, and meant it. Jordan glanced around the table. “Time for cleanup,” she prompted, and the boys sprang into action.
Rob rose as well and began to help but Jordan swatted him away. “This is part of their chores. Please, just sit and relax.”
Rob sat back and enjoyed the sight of Jordan and her sons working together in the kitchen. She ran a very tight ship. A single mom would have to do such things, he realized. In a matter of minutes, the room was immaculate. He was amazed the boys di
dn’t complain about having to help out so much, but maybe it was just because they had company. He smiled as Jordan placed a kiss on each of the boy’s heads.
His smile turned to a frown when he realized this could very well signify an end to their night and he wasn’t ready to leave this family yet. He was enjoying himself and had hoped to have more time to talk with Jordan alone. Thinking quickly, Rob rose from his chair and clapped his hands together.
“Who’s up for ice cream?” he asked. He risked a look at Jordan and mentally kicked himself. Maybe she didn’t allow for such things. He was mildly surprised when he got a positive response from all three Mannings. The boys ran off to their room to grab their jackets and waited anxiously by the front door while Jordan went to her room to get one for herself.
As they walked out the front door, Rob said, “There’s a great place down by the beach.”
“We’re already by the beach, Rob,” Jake reminded him. Rob chuckled and patted the boy on the head.
“I meant it’s within walking distance,” he said to Jordan. “If you don’t mind the walk.” Though she showed no outward signs of difficulty from her accident, Rob wasn’t sure if she was fully up to walking around town.
“That sounds nice,” she replied as she slipped a black cardigan sweater on.
Rob held the picket gate open for them and as Jordan walked past him, she caught a hint of his aftershave. Without conscious thought, she said the name of it out loud. She smiled at the thought that the simple woodsy scent was still his.
“Excuse me?” he chirped from behind her.
Jordan blushed furiously and ducked her head. “Nothing,” she said as she walked as fast as her still-sore body would allow to catch up with her sons, thoroughly embarrassed.
Real smooth, Jordan, she chided herself. He probably thinks you’ve been pining away for him all these years.
Soon they were all heading down the few short blocks to the beach. The thought of seeing the sun set on the ocean had Jordan picking up her pace a little. She breathed in the salty air. The smells of the beach filled her senses, and she inhaled deeply and smiled. It was early September and the nights hadn’t cooled much yet, but there was still a hint of a breeze coming from the ocean. Once they reached the sand, Jordan stopped and kicked off her shoes. She turned when she heard Rob’s soft laughter.
Jordan's Return Page 3