by S. M. Butler
As he pulled the roast from the oven, someone knocked on the door. Lunging for his cane, he hobbled over to the door, Ralph diving in and out of his legs in an almost obnoxious way. Yeah, Ralph was excited too. He patted the small dog on the head with his free hand. “Relax, bud. It’s all right.”
Ralph wagged his tail as Jordan straightened up and turned the doorknob on the front door. As the wooden slab of door opened, he stopped cold, all the blood rushing out of his head.
HO-LEE-FUCK.
Penny did indeed stand on the other side, but he’d never seen her like this, not even the night they’d met. Her chestnut hair was down instead of her usual ponytail, falling in soft waves over bare shoulders and the setting sun cast red highlights over the silky strands. Only thin spaghetti straps breaking the smooth expanse of skin across her shoulders. The dress was dark blue, but almost shimmery, and it looked like silk. He ached to run his hands over it, because the fabric hugged every inch of her torso, flaring out at the hips. The skirt ended mid-thigh and her legs were miles of smooth, supple golden skin.
She shifted uncomfortably while he stared at her like a complete idiot. “Did I get the time wrong?”
“What?” The words didn’t quite penetrate the haze falling over his brain. Then he snapped back to reality as she shifted her weight to her other foot. “No, not wrong. It’s just…” He blew out a breath and pushed the door open the rest of the way. “You look amazing.”
Her cheeks flushed pink as Ralph’s tail went superspeed and he greeted Penny like he hadn’t just seen her that morning for a walk. He frowned at the ache in his chest as Penny stepped inside the apartment. Was he really jealous of a dog? He shut the door behind him, his eyes glued to the vision that had just entered. Her ass swayed slightly as she bent down to give Ralph soft scratches behind his ears.
As she lowered herself onto the couch, her gaze shifted up to Jordan and it was like getting hit with the power of the sun. “You’re not wearing one of those bird shirts,” she said.
“I can change,” he said immediately. He smoothed his hand over the black silk shirt self-consciously.
She put up a hand. “No, I like it.” Then she smiled and his body flipped the fuck out; heart pounding against his chest, lungs not getting air, and his cock… that fucker was all about the woman on his couch. He’d have fallen to his knees if he hadn’t been using the cane to lean on.
“Drink!” he blurted. She frowned at him and he mourned the loss of that smile. “I mean, do you want one? Or whatever.”
“Sure,” she said, watching him as he limped his way into the kitchen. “What do you have?”
What did he have? He opened the fridge and stared at the whole lack of nothing in there. Why hadn’t he gotten something to drink when he’d gone to the grocery store? “Wine? Or… Kool-Aid.”
She laughed, the vibrations of her voice buzzing right through his body. “I’m almost tempted to ask for the Kool-Aid. Why do you have Kool-Aid?”
He shrugged as he pulled the wine out and opened the bottle. At least that was familiar. He’d opened hundreds of wine bottles over the years. They weren’t quite as cheap as this one was, but he had limited options in Jubilee. “I like it. I suggest the wine though, because the Kool-Aid is grape-flavored and likely will turn your mouth purple.”
She laughed again and the rhythmic rise and fall of her voice stroked his insides like fire. This was going to be harder than he thought to get through dinner without jumping her body if she kept that up. He was totally struck stupid by her at the moment.
He set two glasses on the partition between the living room and the kitchen and hobbled around to the couch. He leaned over, grabbed both and handed one to her. She gingerly took the glass, like it might be filled with poison. He smiled. “I promise. I did nothing to that glass.”
She grinned. “I didn’t think you would. You don’t seem like the rufie type.”
“I hope not. I prefer my woman to want me as much as I want her,” he replied as he set the cane aside and lowered himself to the couch so he could be nearer to her.
He hesitated, realizing what he’d said. My woman. Not women. Not women in general. My woman.
He swallowed hard and ordered his body to relax, to expel the tension that pinched every muscle in his body. With effort he hadn’t realized it would take, he extended his right arm over the back of the couch so he was mostly turned toward her and raised the glass in his other hand. “To… first dates?”
“Is this a first date? Technically, we’ve already passed the whole first time, haven’t we?” Her eyes glinted with mischievous energy, like she was making fun of him.
He supposed that was part of what attracted him to her. She matched him. She refused to take his shit. She refused to submit in so many ways. The women he’d been with before had always just spread their legs and let him do whatever he wanted. They’d wanted the way he made them feel. But with Penny… it was different. Sex wasn’t just “give” with her. And it wasn’t just the sex. Everything was a give and take, like… like a partnership, he realized. That was the attraction he felt.
“Do you really want our first date to end with you leaving a note on a pillow?” he asked, needing to gain some semblance of control here.
“Hmm.” Her cheeks flushed and she gave him a slight incline of her head to concede the point. “Good point.”
They both drank, letting the quiet reign over them. Though alcohol didn’t really affect him the way it used to in this new Reaper-enhanced version of himself, seeing her sitting next to him had much the same effect as if he had drunk an entire bottle of wine.
“So,” he said, setting his glass down on the coffee table. He cleared his throat. “What made you leave Jubilee?”
She coughed and set her glass down as she covered her mouth. “You don’t start small, do you?”
That was another thing that hadn’t been in the files Sierra had compiled. It had mentioned she’d been born and raised here but had left two years ago. School had followed, but that ended a year ago. Some of it he could piece together. Her mother had died in January the previous year and Penny hadn’t gone back to school after that. But there was nothing on why she hadn’t come back to this town after the funeral, especially when it seemed like no one from Jubilee ever truly left the town.
“I prefer to be direct with my questions,” he replied. It wasn’t exactly an answer to her question, but she seemed to accept it.
“Apparently,” she replied. Her eyes went distant. “Why do you ask?”
“The whole town is a family business,” he said. “I’m curious as to why someone born and raised here wouldn’t want to come back.”
“You’re not really the settling type, are you?”
The shot back at him was deflection, he realized. Or maybe she was trying for time, to figure out her own answer. He shrugged. “I don’t settle for mediocrity, if that’s what you mean.”
“Is Jubilee mediocrity?” There was no recoil in her, just an honest question of what he thought of the town.
“Oh, no, you’re not trapping me,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know, I’m just fucking with you,” she said, covering her mouth as she chuckled.
“So why did you leave?” he asked again. “I mean, I could have met you here, instead of in a club.” He kind of wanted that, if he was honest with himself. A whole other experience, to meet her in the town, to take her to dinner, to walk with her along the park’s paths… like a normal couple. Instead, they had this huge thing between them, and she wasn’t even aware of it.
~*~*~
Penny stared at Jordan for a long moment before she answered. He seemed uncomfortable, shifting his weight around and gripping that glass in his hand like he was afraid of dropping it. She didn’t want to talk about herself, to go into her past. She’d slammed the lid closed on that part of her life for a long time.
But Jordan made her want to talk and that was scary as fuck t
o think about.
“When I was a kid, I loved art. I was always drawing, always painting. My mother—” she cleared her throat because suddenly there was a brick inside it. “She encouraged it. She was an amazing artist herself.”
He didn’t say anything. The light lift of his brow was the only thing he did, like he was encouraging her to continue.
“Mom saw it as a hobby, nothing more. She wanted me to be a vet. This is a ranch town, so there are two professions here. Ranching and ranching adjacent. I liked the idea, actually. Being a vet would mean I’d be able to be around the animals that I loved, that I drew all the time because I couldn’t stop admiring them. So, I was on board with her plan. I got into a good college a couple of hours away. The plan was always to come back to Jubilee. Because as you said, no one ever leaves Jubilee. Not for good, anyway.” She stopped then, because the next part was when it had all gone wrong. “She died last year.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “It must have been hard.”
“Actually, her death wasn’t what was hard,” she said. It was like someone else was speaking out of her mouth, telling all her secrets. “I’d told her at Christmas last year that I was dropping out of school. I’d gotten the job as Senator Reilly’s assistant at the gallery over the summer and I was so happy. But she wasn’t that happy with me.” She finished the wine in the glass and set it back down on the coffee table. And immediately regretted it when she had nothing to fidget with. “She died a week later, overdosed on something. I don’t even know what she took. I didn’t ask. It didn’t matter. The last things my mother and I said to each other were in anger.”
The silence in the room was suffocating, like it contracted all the walls in on the two of them.
Jordan cleared his throat, not looking at her but at the glass before him. “I had a fight with my father the night I—” he stopped himself. “The last time I saw him.”
She glanced at him. She recognized the admission for what it was, an olive branch, an offer of reciprocation for her opening up about her past. “What about?”
“The future. He had a very clear mind of what I was to do. But what he wanted… it wasn’t right for me.” His jaw was tight, and it was obvious it was difficult for him to talk about it. His hand went to his chest and rubbed. She remembered the scars and the tattoos that had covered his chest. Somehow, she didn’t think he’d appreciate her telling him she’d seen them. He seemed… protective of them.
“What did you do?” she whispered, though maybe she was already getting a picture of it.
“I took this job,” he said, letting out a long breath, “which took me half a world away from him.”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “You’re not going to tell me what happened with your father.”
“It’s not something I like to share,” he said flatly. “It’s… it’s a painful part of my life. My old life.”
“Did he beat you?” she asked.
He laughed dryly. “If only that were all he did.”
As he fell silent, she realized that conversation was not open. She wondered why he’d offered up that thing with his father if he wasn’t ready to talk about it. Or maybe he’d thought he was ready for it and ended up changing his mind. She appreciated the effort, actually. He was trying and this was probably the first time she’d ever seen Jordan as anything other than confident and cheery.
“Tessa was more than resolute that I go back to school after Mom died,” she said, offering up more of her own dirt and hoping he would give her more. “But I was angry. Mad at myself, at my mom for dying before we could work things out, mad at her for not being braver and withstanding the maelstrom inside her that took her life. I blamed myself because it happened only a week after our fight.”
“Her death was not your fault,” he said, looking appalled at the very idea.
“Yeah, it was,” she said sadly.
“We are not the culmination of our parents’ mistakes,” he said quietly.
She met his gaze. “Are you sure?”
“My father was a thief. A con artist. He excelled at separating people from their money and valuables,” Jordan said. “I was part of his schemes for most of my life. Most everything I’ve learned was from him.”
She glanced at him. The admission was costing him. His entire body was tensed and twitchy. He didn’t want to talk about this, but he wanted to keep her talking. In some way, they’d made some sort of unspoken deal, giving to receive. They were giving up a part of themselves to get something from the other.
“What about your mother?”
He shrugged. “Never really knew her. My da took me in when I was old enough to eat and shit on my own. He told me she didn’t want me, but I’ve learned through the years not to trust my father to say anything that won’t benefit him.”
“You think he lied?”
He studied her for a long moment before he answered. “I know he did.” Jordan stood and refilled her wine and his and then he glanced at the kitchen. “I took the roast out a few minutes ago. We should probably eat it before it’s cold.”
It was like closing a door, she realized. They’d had that brief give and take and though she wanted to know so much more, she understood why he didn’t want to continue it. Even a year after her mother’s death, it was still hard to talk about it. It was still hard to give voice to the one thing in her life she regretted.
Was it the same for Jordan, she wondered as he hobbled to the kitchen. Had the years made the pain less sharp?
Jordan seemed to be walking better on that leg of his, leaning less on the cane as he moved through the kitchen. She stood up, smoothing her dress down and stepped around to the kitchen where Jordan was indeed wrestling with a roast. There would be time enough to dive deeper into each other’s past. What mattered to Penny was learning who Jordan was now… not who he used to be.
As Jordan set plates on the table, piled high with food, he glanced over at her. His cheeks were… was that a blush? Surely the entirely too arrogant and confident Jordan was not blushing. Then his lips turned up into a soft smile. “You hungry?”
“Yes,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure if she was talking about the food or the fact that she wanted to press her body against his and let him have his way with her.
As if he sensed her thoughts, his eyes turned heated and his jaw ticked. Then the look vanished and he pulled out a chair for her. “Sorry, I don’t have a formal dining room.”
Like she cared? She’d grown up sitting at a kitchen table in that house. It had been easy and comfortable. Like this was.
“I don’t really entertain much,” he explained.
Penny chuckled. “I’d have figured you to be popular here. I bet the women down at Tessa’s place probably stalk the hell out of you.”
That got the laugh she wanted out of him as he sat down across from her. “They did. But I think Axel was always the favorite. But then they found out about Bea and him and I’m pretty sure she scares them.”
“Bea?” She thought of the conversation with Axel outside her sister’s salon. “I think I met her. With Axel.”
“Yeah, she’s my… friend.” He frowned at that, like he was really trying the word on for size. “We work together.”
“Were you and her…” Penny trailed off because she really didn’t want to know the answer to that question. Seeing the look on his face, it was obvious there was more than friendship going on there.
“What? No!” he snapped, frowning. “She’s like… my sister. I guess. Not… that. Never that.”
That shouldn’t have relieved her as much as it did. He wasn’t hers by any stretch of the imagination. He had every right to pursue whoever he wanted. But still the relief eased the ache inside her gut.
They ate in silence for a bit. Penny was surprised at how good it was. She’d thought maybe he’d make something from a frozen box, but this was all homemade, it looked like. At least, it tasted that way. It was amazing. If his career as a mechanic ever
tanked, he had one as a chef waiting in the wings.
“Why are you in Jubilee?” she asked suddenly.
He stopped mid-bite, then slowly lowered his fork back to his plate. “I live here.”
“I mean, what made you come here? You said yourself, the people here are lifers. That doesn’t fit you. You’re not the lifer type.”
“Do you know me that well, you’d know what fits me?” A challenge, she thought.
“Let me tell you what I know,” she said, leaning forward. “I see a man that doesn’t settle. I see a man that wants to hold the world in his palm. You know what I don’t see? A man willing to live out his life in a town of less than five hundred people. It would be like… clipping your wings.”
He clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “Is that so? Perhaps I will surprise you.”
“Doubtful,” she replied. “If I can’t stand it here, there’s no hope for you.”
He laughed, rich and melodious. “Is that so?”
“Yes, that’s so.”
He reached across the table and took her hand, running his thumb back and forth over the back of it. His touch sent electric shocks all through her arm. “So, if I don’t want to be here, and you don’t want to be here, how is it that we are both here?”
“Strange, isn’t it?” she smiled.
He sighed, but he didn’t pull his hand from hers. “I came here for work. I owe my boss… a lot. Even if I don’t want to be here, this is probably my life now.”
“You owe your boss money?” She asked. Wasn’t that, like, indentured servitude?
“No,” he laughed. “Not money. I owe him more than money. As I said, my life.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. How could he just accept that?
He shrugged and lifted her hand to his lips. “I don’t want to talk about my boss. I want to talk to you.”
“Hmm, I’m thinking talking isn’t something you really want,” she purred.
“No, but this is a date,” he replied. “I promised I would not molest you until I fed you.”