Lucky For You

by Jayne Denker

  “Thank you,” Jordan whispered.

  “Welcome.”

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Giving you some breathing room. That is what you prefer, right?”

  Jordan turned to him and hesitated, eyes downcast as she smoothed his tie. Her hand was like a brand on his chest. Then she slowly raised her huge brown eyes to his. “Not necessarily.”

  And his insides lurched. A sort of fog rolled into his head; his brain clouded over and ceased to function. All he could manage to choke out was a strangled, “Oh?”

  She nodded briefly, eyes at his chest level again, as she fingered his lapel. “I was thinking . . .”

  “Here we go! Beers all around!”

  Never had Will had such a strong desire to punch his brother. Never. And that was saying something, considering Cam provoked punching on a regular basis. Will hadn’t indulged since they were kids, when Cam had sold Will’s bike to an older teenager and pocketed the cash. He squelched the urge for violence, as usual, as well as his other inclination, which was to get in his brother’s face and hiss “Get out” more venomously than a drooling evil entity in a horror movie.

  Cam, oblivious to his brother’s death glare, held out a cluster of glasses, nudging them toward his brother and Jordan when they didn’t automatically accept them. “Beers! For you! My treat!”

  “It’s an open bar,” Jordan stated flatly.

  “But I got them. For you. So here.”

  The last thing Will wanted was alcohol—not after last night—and it looked like Cam knew it. So he called his brother’s bluff and accepted two of the glasses, then handed one to Jordan with a “just take it” look. She did, but neither of them drank.

  “You. Are. A miracle worker.” Sera came up on Jordan’s other side, grabbing her arm. “I’m bequeathing you my child when Jaz and I kick it. In fact, you can have her right now. Take her home with you. We’ll visit, promise.” Then she glanced at the men standing with Jordan, her eyes resting on Cam for a longer moment before she looked away. “Not that she isn’t a little bit of heaven on earth, of course.”

  “She’s growing up fast,” Cam said.

  “Can’t believe she just turned four.”

  “Yep. Time flies.”

  What the . . . Will glanced at Jordan, who looked just as confused as he felt. The Nashes had known the Downs forever, of course, but they’d never run in the same circles because the Nash boys were all younger than the Down sisters. Their only connection was that George had babysat Will and his brothers, much to his chagrin, as she often reminded him she’d seen him in his footie pajamas. She’d even hinted, more than once, that she had photographic evidence, but he didn’t believe her.

  So if the two families had no history, why was there suddenly some weird tension in the air? Will thought he was imagining things . . . but then Jordan looked at him with wide eyes.

  “What?” he whispered.

  She put a hand on his arm, signaling him to wait, and said, “Hey, Sera? Where is Amelia, anyway?”

  “Around somewhere. Jaz has her. Why?”

  “No reason. I just thought I heard some screaming laughter coming from the second floor.”

  Sera’s eyes widened in alarm. “Are you serious?”

  “Hey, I could be wrong. I probably am. Never mind.”

  “Dammit, if she’s playing hide and seek in the linen closet again, I’ll . . .” And Sera was off, pounding up the stairs, calling to her daughter.

  “Wow,” Cam said, alarmed. “Do you think she’s okay? Does Sera need help?”

  “Amelia’s not up there. I saw her with Barb two minutes ago. Now you’ve got some ’splaining to do.” Jordan grabbed his arm.

  “What—?”

  “Is that the secret you were talking about?”

  “What’s going on?” Will demanded.

  “There was something funky going on just now between Sera and your brother. He said Summer found out about a secret he had. I want to know if that’s it.”

  “Are you implying Cam and Sera . . . ? You do know Sera’s gay, right?”

  “I know!” Still, Jordan whispered fiercely to Cam, “Have you, or have you not, slept with Sera?”

  “I have not!” Cam protested, trying very hard to act offended. He failed, and just ended up looking guilty.

  “You’ve never had an affair with her,” she declared, daring him to confirm the statement.

  “Never!”

  “Jordan! She’s been out since middle school,” Will said.

  “Okay.” She paused, contrite. “Okay. I’m . . . sorry.”

  Will had no idea why Jordan would accuse Cam of something like that—other than the fact that his brother was quite the dog when it came to the ladies. Then, just as he was about to decide whether to shrug it off or confront her about it later, Grandma Down passed by with Amelia in her arms, and Jordan called out to her.

  “Hey, Barb? Can I talk to my little partner in crime for a minute?”

  “By all means!” the older woman exclaimed. “She thinks you’re the greatest. Amelia, do you want to go see Auntie Jordan?”

  “Yes!” the little girl shouted, then started squirming to get out of her grandmother’s arms.

  Barb’s grip slipped, and Cam got there first. “Gotcha.” He hoisted Amelia in the crook of his arm, and as Barb drifted off through the crowd, Jordan slapped Will on the chest.

  “Ow!”

  “There.”

  Jordan jutted her chin at Cam and Amelia, and Will almost dropped his beer. “Holy shit.”

  “Right?”

  Amelia looked just like Cam. Sure, she had some of Sera’s features, but she definitely had Cam’s pointed chin, broad eyebrows that stretched nearly to the hair at their temples, and petite, straight nose.

  “You slept with Sera?” Will squeaked, trying desperately to keep his voice down, but . . . damn!

  “No!” Cam hissed, as Amelia slid out of his arms and started attacking a bowl of pretzels on the table behind him, oblivious to the conversation going on above her head. “Absolutely not! It was total turkey baster action.”

  Will took an involuntary step back. “Ew.”

  “Look . . .” His brother sighed. “She and Jaz wanted a baby, right? What’s the better choice, shop for a stranger’s spunk at the nearest sperm bank, or hit up somebody you know? They asked me, they paid me. We signed a contract—all legal and confidential. They’d never ask for support or any other responsibility, and I’d never talk about it. So why not?”

  “It fed your ego.”

  “Well, yeah. It is kind of flattering, you know?”

  “Funny, I never pegged Sera and Jaz as so superficial,” Jordan sniped. “All looks, no brains.”

  “So you do think I’m hot. I knew it.”

  “Oh my God . . .”

  Then Will started to see the bigger picture. “So this started the problems between you and Summer?”

  Cam stumbled as Amelia started swinging on the hem of his suit jacket. “It was supposed to be a secret—from everybody. It’s still supposed to be a secret. So can you two keep your big mouths shut, please?”

  “Are you going to talk to Summer?” Jordan asked, watching how naturally Cam disengaged Amelia from his jacket and picked her up again. “I mean really talk to her, not just be all, ‘Ooh, I’m so hot my neighbors asked me to father a child’?”

  Cam sighed and looked out over the crowd. Summer was there, talking with Gabe and Katy. His wife must have felt eyes on her, because she turned her head, and her jaw dropped when she saw Cam holding Amelia.

  “Oh, shit. Not the impression I was going for. Uh, Jordan? Can you . . . ?”

  Before she could answer, Cam stuffed Amelia into Jordan’s arms and chased after Summer, who stalked off in the opposite direction.

  “Well, that’s going to be interesting,” Will said dryly, and Jordan laughed. “What are their odds, do you think?”

  “On a scale of one to ten?”

&nbs
p; Oh. She remembered last night, and better than he thought she would. He could see it in her expressive eyes.

  “So.”

  “Yeah,” she said, as Amelia started rearranging Jordan’s hair and prattling on about how it would look better if it was purple.

  “You were about to say something before all . . . all this?”

  Jordan actually colored a bit and let her attention drift to the little girl on her hip. “Right. I was . . .”

  Her words were drowned out by a ruckus in the foyer—excited voices, a surge of the crowd toward whoever had come in the door on a blast of winter air. Will saw a distinctive head above the crowd, turning this way and that, greeting one person here, bending down to kiss a woman’s cheek there, shaking people’s hands. Then the crowd parted to reveal Jordan’s cousin Celia, followed by the tall guy, her boyfriend Niall Crenshaw. Celia beamed when she spotted Jordan and headed straight for her. Amelia squirmed until Jordan put her down; she immediately ran to Niall and attached herself to his gangly leg like a koala on a eucalyptus tree.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Jordan exclaimed, not unkindly, as her taller cousin bent down and hugged her tight. “I thought you were in California.”

  “Obviously we’re not.” Celia looked around. “We missed the ceremony, didn’t we?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Aw! We tried so hard to get here, but Niall was shooting and do you know how hard it is to get a flight on Christmas Eve? We had two layovers, and weather delays everywhere east of the Mississippi, and wow, look at you!” Celia stepped back to view Jordan at arm’s length. “You look amazing!”

  “Yeah, well, don’t feel all threatened or anything. You’re still the golden Leigh child around here.”

  “Stop.” Celia turned her beautiful smile on Will. “Nice to see you too, Will. You look very handsome tonight.”

  “Welcome home, Celia. How’s California?”

  She laughed. “Very different. It’s great to be back in the snow for Christmas.” Niall extricated himself from all the Marsden residents clamoring for his attention and came up behind Celia, wrapping his arms about her waist. He kissed her neck, and she giggled, leaning back against him. “Niall, you remember Will, our best police officer, and my cousin Jordan?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, reaching around Celia to shake their hands. “How’s it going?”

  “Holy. Fucking. Shit.” George was plowing through the crowd, Casey in tow, to greet their guests. “I cannot believe you came all this way for us.”

  “Who said we did?” Niall answered. “I’m just here for some pie.”

  Chapter 26

  While all the greetings were going on, Will headed to the makeshift bar in the front room to get himself and Jordan some nonalcoholic drinks, but the size of the crowd slowed his progress to a crawl. Pretty soon they were going to be in violation of the fire code’s maximum capacity for the place. So much for the open house, come-and-go concept; there was a whole lot of coming and very little going, because nobody wanted to miss anything.

  There was Missy Preston, in a flashy designer gown covered in weird, Muppet-like floaty strings, right off her “lightly used couture” rack. She was on the arm of her beau, the dapper Harvey Nostrand, and chatting away with Rachel Dwyer, while Rachel’s husband, Skip, never much of a talker, stood by sullenly. Over in the corner, Nora from the diner was cooing over Matt and Laurie Hoffman’s baby boy, born early in November. Will wondered if he should warn Celia her ex-husband was here with his much younger wife and baby, but then he realized that while Matt had a new family, Celia could hold her own in the life-after-divorce competition, what with her movie-star boyfriend and fancy life on the West Coast. He decided to leave it be.

  On his way back from the bar, he dodged another knot of people—the guerilla yarn bombers, led by Bedelia Swift and Wendy Marshall (Celia’s mother)—because they’d more than likely drag him into their circle for a chat. They liked to stay on his good side so they could get away with various rogue yarn-bombing events in the village, but he didn’t want to deal with them pinching his cheeks (both sets, which happened all too frequently when they were under the influence). Plus there was a good chance Audra would be with Bedelia. He really didn’t want Bedelia to try to play matchmaker again.

  But as he made his way along the far edge of the room, he spotted Audra dead ahead, nowhere near her aunt. She was hard to miss, in a silver dress that made her look like she was wrapped in tinfoil. Her hair was especially large tonight, and her enormous chandelier earrings caught the light and blinded him. Just at the moment he thought she’d spotted him, she grabbed a man’s arm, glanced around stealthily, and hustled him through a door, shutting it behind them. Will was pretty sure it led to the enclosed—but not heated—side porch, and he hoped whoever it was would keep Audra nice and warm . . . and occupied.

  When he got back to the foyer, he paused; Jordan and Celia appeared to be in an intense discussion. He decided to leave them alone for a few minutes and changed direction to join Gabe and Katy, but he caught snatches of their conversation as he passed.

  “—Serious about this,” Celia was saying.

  “Why not?” Jordan snapped.

  And Celia replied, “Because you’re never serious. About anything.”

  Will thought maybe he should go back to them and find out what was wrong, but Gabe physically pulled him into their group and automatically held out a beer. Will shrugged and showed his full hands. He wasn’t sure how many different methods he was going to have to employ to get out of drinking alcohol tonight.

  “Have you seen Cam and Summer?” he asked his brother and sister-in-law.

  Gabe picked up a small plate with a teetering pile of hors d’oeuvres. “Not lately. Why?” he asked, scarfing them down.

  “Just . . . keep an eye on them, okay? Stuff’s going on.”

  “When is it not?”

  Then there was a voice at his shoulder. “Will, dear.”

  “Hey, Mrs. P. You look very nice tonight.”

  “Aren’t you sweet? I’m going to cut to the chase, dear, if you don’t mind. I noticed you’re here with Jordan Leigh.”

  A feeling of dread settled over him. Of course his neighbors were going to notice even the slightest change in vibe between him and Jordan. It was what they did. He wasn’t surprised that Missy Preston was the most observant, or at least the one quickest on the draw to find out what was going on.

  “Yes. And?”

  “Well, are you two . . . together?”

  She wasn’t kidding about cutting to the chase, he thought. “Is there a problem?”

  Mrs. P hesitated, patting her cotton-candy-shaped orange bouffant. “Well, I’ve heard some things, young man, and while I’m sure she has her . . . good qualities . . . quite honestly, I just don’t think she’s right for someone as wonderful as—”

  Then Mrs. P stopped short, looking past him, just as he felt a sharp tap on his shoulder. Gabe and Katy, suddenly uncomfortable, looked elsewhere as he turned. Jordan. He smiled, then noticed she was practically vibrating where she stood.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong,” she said immediately, but her fists were clenching and unclenching at her sides. He wanted to point that out to her, because she seemed unaware she was doing it. He just waited. It didn’t take long before she bit out, “My perfect cousin felt the need to express an opinion about us. Apparently it’s not just Celia, either.”

  Jordan was glaring at Missy, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Looked like she’d heard what the older woman had just said. Mrs. P reddened a bit, and Will felt his blood pressure skyrocket. But he wasn’t upset with Jordan for being impolite, for making others uncomfortable. He was incensed for her. The intense mix of anger and hurt in her eyes was killing him.

  He set their drinks aside and put his arm around Jordan’s waist, pulling her to him as tightly as he could. If he could have covered her body with his, to protect and shield
her, he would have. She felt so fragile, suddenly. She was trembling. Whether it was with rage or frustration or sorrow didn’t matter. Nobody deserved this. Nobody. Not even Jordan. Least of all Jordan. And if he didn’t know it already, it was now crystal clear where his loyalties lay. There was no question. Really, there never had been.

  “Mrs. P, it doesn’t matter what you think. Sorry,” he threw in out of habit, because he’d always been raised to respect his elders. “But you’re wrong about Jordan, and I’m only going to ask you once to keep your opinions to yourself.”

  “Finally, some sense out of you.” Mrs. Rousseau elbowed her way forward, aided by her huge, hard-sided vinyl handbag. She wasn’t wearing anything fancy, just her usual outfit of practical skirt, polyester blouse, and comfortable shoes. To Mrs. P, she said, “You leave these two alone.” Missy huffed, offended, but Mrs. Rousseau didn’t care. Missy Preston might have been the town busybody, but Mrs. Rousseau was the de facto matriarch of Marsden . . . and everyone knew it, including Mrs. P. “Don’t you listen to anybody around here, you hear me?” she said to Will and Jordan. “You do what you want. But if you want my opinion, because mine is the only one that matters. . .” And here Mrs. Rousseau’s face split into a wide grin—as rare and wonderful as a double rainbow—as she said, “I approve.”

  Ignoring Mrs. P’s continued shocked noises and Gabe and Katy’s laughter, Will turned to Jordan. “Hear that?” Although she was still teary, she was smiling. “Don’t forget it. But you know what matters most?” She shook her head, apparently unable to speak. “You. And me. I know how I feel; how about you?”

  He watched Jordan swallow, with difficulty, then she managed the words, “Do something for me?”

  “Anything.”

  “Meet me upstairs in two minutes.”

  “But—”

  Without another word, Jordan slipped through the crowd faster and smoother than he had been able to all night. A flash of red, and she was gone. All he could do was follow.

  And as he moved away from his neighbors, he could have sworn he heard Mrs. Osterberg’s voice floating above the crowd: “Well, what did you expect? Will said they were going to get married. I heard it with my own ears.... No, not just now. When they were in kindergarten.... What are you talking about? Of course it counts!”