Janelle Taylor

by Night Moves

  A classic case of cold feet.

  The last thing he wanted to do was get involved with someone. He had only been in Washington for a few months, freshly liberated from a relationship with Lisa, who had thought he was going to marry her, give her babies, and build her a dream house. And before Lisa, there was …

  No.

  He didn’t want to think back that far. He dragged his thoughts to the present, but it was too late. The almost-memory had tossed a chill over his heart.

  “Did you get my message?” he asked Jordan Curry, who was supposedly the most beautiful, intelligent, successful woman in the metro D.C. area. Oh, and she made “a praline pie that would do that Somerville N’Awlins heritage proud"—a direct quote from Andrea.

  “I got your message,” Jordan replied, sounding efficient, as though they were discussing a business proposition. “You wanted to reschedule?”

  Not particularly. He had been hoping that after another round or two of phone tag, their telephone correspondence would fizzle and he’d be off the hook.

  “Sure,” he said, because that was, after all, the message he had left on her machine.

  Irritated, he pressed some keys on his computer keyboard, hoping to sound busy so he’d have an excuse for cutting the conversation short. He asked, just as efficiently, “When do you want to meet?”

  “It’s up to you.”

  There was something sultry about the low pitch of her voice, he noted. And she didn’t have a trace of any kind of accent. He was so used to Lisa’s forced drawl that he welcomed Jordan’s lack of one. Lisa had grown up in the Midwest but considered herself an adopted Southern belle. She’d gone to college at Tulane, which was apparently when she started dyeing her brown hair blond, got blue contact lenses, and learned to “y’all” in earnest. The mere memory of her syrupy inflections grated on his nerves.

  “How about Saturday?” Beau heard himself suggest to Jordan Curry.

  “Saturday, the day after tomorrow, or Saturday, next week?”

  “I’ll be gone on vacation next week, so the day after tomorrow,” he clarified, wondering what the heck he was doing. Just because this woman didn’t sound like Lisa didn’t mean that he should date her. He shouldn’t date anyone. Ever again.

  “The day after tomorrow … ?” He could hear what sounded like datebook pages flipping. “I’m free that night,” she said.

  She didn’t sound legitimately pleased about it, though.

  Well, she was the one who had called him back. If she didn’t want to go out with him, she shouldn’t have returned the call.

  “Great,” he said with fake enthusiasm to match her own. “Do you want to meet for dinner, then?”

  “That would be good.”

  “Good.”

  “Where do you want to meet?”

  He named a restaurant.

  She named a time.

  They hung up.

  Beau wondered if he should hunt down his Palm Pilot and mark the date and the details. Nah. He wouldn’t forget. It was only two days away.

  He scowled at the layout on his computer screen. A chunk of the kitchen island was now obstructing the mudroom doorway. How had that happened?

  He had a date with Jordan Curry. How had that happened?

  Beau shook his head. He honestly wanted to strangle Andrea MacDuff.

  A little over twenty-four hours later, Jordan climbed out of her BMW and raced through a downpour toward her front door. What a day … and night. Her fingers ached like crazy from pitting cherries for the jelly she had made as favors for a bridal shower to be held on Sunday afternoon, and her shoulders were sore from bending over the painstaking task. She was sore all over, and now she was soaked, too.

  The rain that had begun loudly in the middle of the night hadn’t seemed to let up for a moment since. The world was a gray, humid, soggy mess.

  All Jordan wanted was to get into her dry, air-conditioned townhouse, change out of her damp clothes, and curl up on the couch with that issue of Martha Stewart Living. When she had tried to read it last night, she had been so weary she’d dozed with her head on the page and finally gave up and went to bed….

  She stopped short now on the bottom step in front of her door.

  Somebody was huddled beneath the overhang that sheltered the top step, which wasn’t big enough to qualify as a stoop.

  Not just one person, she realized, gaping at the figure in the dark-colored slicker. There were two. One was a third of the size of the other, also clad in rain gear.

  “Jordan?”

  “Oh my god!” Jordan recognized the voice, if not the sight of her best friend. “Phoebe!”

  She raced up the steps and threw her arms around her friend.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, looking from the small section of Phoebe’s face that was visible inside her hood, to the small child who stood with his arms wrapped around her leg.

  “Waiting for you,” Phoebe replied.

  “For how long? Did I know you were coming?” Jordan was fairly certain it hadn’t slipped her busy mind. A visit from Phoebe was monumental. She would never forget something like that.

  “No, you didn’t know,” Phoebe said. “We haven’t been here long. When you weren’t home, I was trying to figure out where we should go next. We took a cab over from the train station. I should have told him to wait…”

  “Well, now it doesn’t matter.” Jordan fumbled with her keys, unlocking the door. “Let’s get inside. Is this Spencer? Why didn’t you call and tell me you were coming?”

  Phoebe only said, “Yes, this is Spencer,” as she and her son stepped past Jordan’s beckoning arm and over the threshold.

  Jordan followed them in, reeling.

  Never in a million years would she expect her closest childhood friend to show up on her doorstep.

  She hadn’t seen Phoebe in … how long had it been? She backtracked mentally to their last meeting, in a hushed funeral parlor back in Glen Hills, their hometown. About eighteen months, Jordan realized. It had been eighteen months since Phoebe’s father passed away. That was around the holidays.

  She still recalled the late-night phone call that had preceded that unexpected trip home, and her surprise at hearing Phoebe’s wavering voice on the other end of the line. Phone calls from Phoebe had been scarce for a few years, ever since she married Reno and moved to Philadelphia.

  Yet whenever they talked, time and distance fell away.

  “Jordan, Daddy’s dead,” Phoebe had said that night on a sob. Jordan had cried with her.

  Of course, Jordan had gone home for the funeral. She flew into Erie on a tiny commuter plane in a blizzard and flew out the same day, thanks to a wedding she was in the midst of catering for the grand-niece of the Speaker of the House.

  Now she recalled how fiercely Phoebe had clung to her when they embraced beside the casket—until Reno interrupted, drawing his wife away, saying the minister needed to speak to her.

  Spencer wasn’t even there, Jordan remembered. They had left him with a baby-sitter at Phoebe’s older brother Curt’s house.

  “How old are you now, Spencer?” Jordan asked, crouching beside the godson she hadn’t seen since he was a gap-toothed toddler.

  “I’m thirty-one.”

  “No, Spence, I’m thirty-one,” Phoebe said with a tight smile. “He’s almost four,” she told Jordan. “But he has an active imagination.”

  Phoebe was as pretty as ever, Jordan noted, watching her friend lower her hood, admiring her long blond hair caught smoothly back in a ponytail.

  She was skinnier than ever, too. Her always-angular face looked almost gaunt. Her hazel eyes were trenched in shadows, as though she hadn’t slept well lately.

  “I can’t believe you’re really here!” Jordan straightened and shed her wet Burberry trench coat, tossing it carelessly over the back of a nearby chair. “This is an incredible surprise. Is Reno with you?”

  “No. This is a nice place.” Phoebe’s gaze flicked around the en
try hall with its maroon-and-ivory striped wallpaper and polished hardwood floor.

  “Thanks. I just redecorated.”

  “I’m afraid we’re dripping on your rug,” Phoebe observed, gesturing at the woven welcome mat under her feet.

  “That’s why it’s there.” As she spoke, gazing at her friend, Jordan realized that something was wrong. Not just with Phoebe, but with her son, and with this whole scene.

  Phoebe, always on the quiet side—and increasingly so following her marriage—seemed even more subdued than usual. Skittish, even. Jordan saw her friend fumbling with the buttons on her slicker, trying several times to unfasten each closure before succeeding.

  And little Spencer just stood there, his wide brown eyes looking almost frightened beneath a sheaf of thick, straight brown bangs.

  “What’s wrong, Phoebe?” Jordan’s thoughts were spinning. Had Phoebe left Reno? If so …

  Well, it was about time. Jordan had never liked Phoebe’s darkly handsome husband, who had swept her friend off her feet and married her after a whirlwind courtship. Jordan’s feelings for him weren’t based on anything he had ever said or done. After all, she hadn’t spent enough time with him even to feel as though she knew him well enough to judge his character based on anything other than instinct. But sometimes instinct was sufficient.

  “Phoebe?” Jordan prodded, watching her friend, who seemed reluctant to meet her gaze. “What happened?”

  “I … I can’t really explain it. Not… yet.” Phoebe motioned slightly with her head, gesturing at her son.

  Clearly, she didn’t want Spencer to know about whatever it was that had brought them here.

  Jordan didn’t press her. She took Phoebe’s coat and watched her remove Spencer’s little slicker. Then she hung them both, along with her own trench, to drip-dry on hangers along the shower-curtain rod over the never-used tub in the full bath off the kitchen.

  Jordan ushered her guests into the living room and offered them something to drink.

  “Do you have any juice boxes?” Spencer asked.

  “Juice boxes?” Jordan echoed the unfamiliar phrase. She crouched to be on the same level with the little boy. “I’m afraid I’m fresh out of juice boxes, but I have some nice oranges in the fridge, and I have a juicer that I’ve never even used. I’d love to give it a try.”

  “No, don’t do that,” Phoebe said quickly. “He can drink milk.” Seeing Jordan’s expression, she added, “or water.”

  “Water, I have.” Jordan led the way to the kitchen, with its white ceramic-tile floor and backsplash with cornflower-blue accents, and cool slate-colored granite countertops. Several of the white cabinets had glass doors to display Jordan’s collection of cobalt plates and stemware. She had replaced the existing appliances with a six-burner stainless-steel Viking stove and sub-zero refrigerator.

  She walked over to the corner that held the spring-water cooler with its upended blue plastic bottle. “Sorry there’s no milk,” she said over her shoulder. “I haven’t bought any in ages, ever since I stopped making coffee at home. Now I just get it from Starbucks on the way to work. It’s so much easier. But… I can make some coffee now if you want some,” she offered Phoebe. “Or wine. I have wine.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll just have water, too.” Phoebe helped Spencer climb onto one of the tall wooden stools at the breakfast bar island and sat beside him, watching Jordan take down three glasses.

  With her back to them as she filled the pretty blue goblets, Jordan wanted to ask countless questions, finally settling on one that didn’t seem overly nosy. “Are you staying overnight?”

  There was a pause.

  Jordan turned to see Phoebe wearing that same nervous, troubled expression. “Do you have room for guests?”

  “I have nothing but room,” Jordan said. “Look around. It’s just me, and I’ve got plenty of space for company. You can stay as long as you want. I have a guest room upstairs next to mine, and the living room couch pulls out into a bed.”

  “Do you have cable TV?” Phoebe asked, glancing at Spencer, who was solemnly looking around the kitchen.

  Jordan nodded, smiling. “Yep, I even have cable TV.”

  “Spencer likes to watch a program on the Disney Channel at around this time every night,” Phoebe said. “Would you mind if I turned it on for him?”

  “No problem. I’ll do it. Come on, Spencer. You can bring your water into the living room, and I’ll try to find some kind of snack for you to have with it.”

  “Do you have any plastic cups?” Spencer asked, eyeing the brimming goblet in her hand. “That looks too big. I might spill it.”

  “No plastic,” Jordan said ruefully. “Not even paper cups. Don’t worry. If it spills, it spills.”

  “It might break,” Spencer told her worriedly.

  “If it breaks, it breaks. I have lots of them. Come on. I’ll set you up in front of the TV. I’ll be right back, Phoebe.”

  It took her a few minutes to locate the Disney Channel. When she returned to the kitchen, Phoebe was still sitting at the counter, her water glass untouched, her elbow propped on the countertop, chin in one hand, fingers splayed broodingly across her face.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Phoebe,” Jordan said quietly, sliding onto the stool Spencer had vacated. “Why are you here? Why isn’t Reno? Did something happen?”

  Phoebe nodded, running her hand distractedly through her hair as she met Jordan’s gaze. Her expression was stark, haunted. “Reno’s back at home, in Philadelphia.”

  Jordan knew then that her hunch was right. Phoebe had left him. Why? Was he abusive?

  Jordan found it frighteningly easy to imagine her friend’s moody husband lashing out at Phoebe, or even at his son. She had noticed, on the few occasions she had seen them together, that Reno frequently seemed to have a protective arm around his wife. Yet Jordan had witnessed little if any genuine affection in their marriage, let alone between father and son. It was Phoebe who held Spencer as an infant, who changed his diapers and fed him bottles and played with him. Reno seemed detached.

  “It’s going to be all right, Phoebe.” Jordan laid a comforting hand on Phoebe’s arm and noticed that it was terribly thin. She could feel the jutting bones beneath her fingers. “You must be a nervous wreck. I know how hard it is to go through something like this, but—”

  “No, Jordan, it’s not what you think,” Phoebe said, casting a fretful glance toward the living room, where the television blared reassuringly.

  “You and Reno aren’t splitting up?”

  “No.”

  Disappointment coursed through Jordan. On its heels came fresh concern. Something was obviously terribly wrong. If it wasn’t Phoebe’s marriage, and if Spencer was safely here and Reno back in Philadelphia, then what was it? Both Phoebe’s parents were dead; the only family she had left was her older brother.

  “Did something happen to Curt?” Jordan asked, doubting it even as she spoke.

  Phoebe had never been close to her only sibling, the product of their father’s brief first marriage and nearly a generation older than Phoebe. Even if Curt had met some tragedy, Jordan tried and failed to imagine that it would be shattering enough to send Phoebe to her doorstep out of the blue, looking like a nervous wreck.

  “No, it’s not Curt; it’s …” Again Phoebe trailed off, looking anxious.

  Oh, no. Jordan took in Phoebe’s gaunt appearance, her skin-and-bones figure, her distressed expression. Was it Phoebe? Was she seriously ill?

  “Phoebe, you have to tell me,” she pressed, her stomach flip-flopping in apprehension. “You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m scared, too, Jordan.” Phoebe’s voice barely hovered above a whisper. “I’m so sorry to drag you into this, but you were the only person I could trust….”

  “Of course you can trust me,” Jordan said automatically. Her mind flashed back to sunny summer days, to childhood promises.

  How many times had she said those words? They had grown up next door to ea
ch other, had played together as soon as they were old enough to toddle back and forth across the yard between their houses. They had shared everything from girlhood confidences to eye makeup to double dates.

  Though college had separated them long before Reno came along and Kevin ran off and Jordan moved to Washington, Jordan still considered Phoebe her most cherished friend. There was no secret she wouldn’t entrust to her.

  “I have to ask you to do something for me,” Phoebe said, her voice edged with despair. “Something huge. Something you don’t have to do, except… if you don’t say yes, Jordan, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “I’ll do anything for you, Phoebe. You know that. Believe me, no favor is too huge.”

  “I need you to take Spencer for me.”

  Jordan gaped at her. “Take Spencer? You mean …” She took a deep breath. “Are you sick, Phoebe? Are you—?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. I’m not sick. And I don’t mean forever. Just … take him. Please.” Her voice wavered. “Keep him here, for as long as I need you to.”

  “But… why? It’s not that I don’t want to take him,” Jordan added hastily, her mind cascading with frantic questions that mingled with apprehension and doubt.

  Take a four-year-old boy? She had never even talked to a four-year-old boy, had she? No, not since she was a six-year-old girl with a kid brother.

  “I can’t really explain it, Jordan. All I can say is that nobody can know he’s here. Nobody. Not your family, and not mine. Not even Reno.”

  “Not even Reno? Phoebe, what’s going on?”

  “Jordan, just say you’ll do it. Please. It’s …” Phoebe trailed off, wiping at the tears that spilled from her eyes.

  “It’s what, Phoebe?”

  “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  Chapter Two

  “Jeremy? Did I wake you?”

  “Wake me?” Jordan’s partner’s sleepy voice was barely audible on the other end of the line. “What time is it?”

  “It’s almost six,” Jordan said, pouring her second cup of coffee from the stainless steel percolator. She had grown pleasantly accustomed to creamy Starbucks lattes, but today she was so exhausted that she didn’t even mind this home-brewed black stuff.