by Natalie Ann
“Watch Grace while I get my tablet. I have a list of foreclosures I got from the banks last week. I know there are a few that might work.”
He leaned down and rubbed his nose on Grace’s again, tickled her belly a little and got a giggle out of her. She was the brightest light in his life right now.
Brynn walked back in and he caught her tender smile at him as he played with Grace. “You are such a softie.”
“Women dig a man who likes kids.”
She bumped her elbow with his. “Any special woman you’re looking to impress?”
There was, but he wasn’t about to say it to his sister. It was better to keep this under the radar. Brynn would probably have something negative to say about him dating a client. His father knew, so it’s not like it was really a secret.
“Hardly. Show me what you’ve got,” he said, nodding at the tablet in her lap.
She swiped her finger along the list and said, “Here. This is a two-family house, but it’s not in the city.”
“No, I’d like to stay in town.”
“I figured. How about this one?”
“That looks nice. Looks like a decent size and the outside looks good, not run-down at all. Why is it in foreclosure?”
“A young couple bought it and got in over their heads, and now they’re going through a divorce. Neither of them wanted to pay the mortgage, kind of a revenge thing, and now they’ve lost it to the bank. Anyway, I walked through it myself thinking it would be a nice flip, but there wasn’t enough wiggle room for profit in my eyes. This location didn’t work either. Normally if we are going to get a two-family house for our rental properties, we’d want it more in the heart of the city, or closer to the schools.”
“Where is it?”
“Actually, it’s the street behind Jordyn Montgomery’s house. I’ll send the link and address to your email. Swing by on Monday when you go to work there and let me know your thoughts. I can get us a time to walk through if you want.”
“I’ll do that.”
Figure Out
Jordyn let the first of the workers in Monday morning and tried to hide her disappointment Drew wasn’t with them. What did she expect? That he couldn’t wait to see her on Monday morning? That was a joke if she ever heard one.
Let’s be real, it wasn’t like it was the best first date of the century. If it even was a date, because she still wasn’t positive it was anything more than him being friendly.
Of course he did say they were going on a second date, so she should stop doubting herself.
Still, every time she thought back to Friday night she tried not to cringe.
There she was, all confident in her appearance before she left. Too bad she’d caught him watching her adjust her shirt all night. Not that anything was showing, but she was self-conscious showing as much of her body as she did. She even caught him smirking at her once when she tugged her shirt together.
Then there was the comment about him living with his father. Just what every guy wants: a woman judging his manhood about not being able to support himself. Talk about a turn-off.
Next came the food on her face. That was real sophistication on her part.
First he accused her of not eating, now he probably thought she was a pig with no manners. What a rookie move on her part eating something that messy. She should have stuck with a salad that so many women seemed to do on a date.
And she couldn’t forget the awkward end to the date.
All night she wondered if he’d kiss her. He looked at her so sweetly and so warmly at times. Her heart raced in her chest and got lodged in her throat more times than she could count. It’d been so long since she’d felt attraction like that to a man. She wanted him to kiss her, and maybe that was why she stumbled so much at the end.
He’d pulled into her driveway and shut off his truck. She looked over at him and panicked, thinking maybe he assumed she was easy and he’d be coming in for the night. That wasn’t happening, and she blurted out, “What are you doing?”
He closed his eyes, shook his head and took a mock deep sigh. “Walking you to the door to make sure you get in safely. Maybe I’ll walk through and scare any boogeyman away too if you’d like.”
She’d never had anyone walk her to the door before. Or walk in her house and protect her. Then she’d felt guilty that she had accused him in her mind of trying for a one-night stand.
Walking to her front door, she pulled her keys out, but he took them out of her hand, opened her door for her and held it while she walked in, but he stayed in the doorway.
Was he waiting for her to invite him in? She was afraid if she did, he’d take it the wrong way, so instead she’d said, “I had a good time tonight.”
“Me too. Don’t forget, the next date is your choice.”
“Okay,” she said lamely, staring at his face, willing him to lean down and kiss her.
As if he finally got the message, he started to lean down, she stretched up on her toes and tilted her head to the right trying to give him a better angle, but in doing so she totally cocked her head too much and he ended up kissing her on the cheek.
If that wasn’t humiliating enough, he laughed. Then he grabbed her hand, squeezed it and said, “Don’t make me wait too long.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, her eyes going wide. Did he think she was a tease? Oh God, the self-doubt was slowly turning her brain to mush.
“The date,” he reminded her. “Don’t get lost in your work and forget to have a little fun in life.”
“Oh. I won’t. Thanks again for tonight.”
“You’re welcome. Lock up behind me.”
She’d spent the rest of the weekend picking that date apart and everything she could have done differently. Unfortunately, she couldn’t go back in time and change a thing.
So then she tried to analyze everything she would do right the next time. When she finally worked up the courage to plan the second date, that is.
She’d even spent time researching how long she should wait to bring it up. The next day, or even the next few days smacked of desperation to her, but was a week too long?
So on Sunday when she got a text from him asking how her weekend was going, she relaxed a little. She realized even if she’d wanted to contact him over the weekend, she’d never gotten his number. She’d completely forgotten to ask.
At first she was surprised he’d sent her a message and wondered how he got her number. Then she remembered it was on her business card that she’d given him.
She texted back that her weekend was good, that she was spending time working. After she hit send she could have kicked herself…and her boring life.
He only replied back to not work too hard again. But she had to because she was losing today with the contractors kicking her out of her office.
When the last person arrived around eight, they asked if she was ready for them to go into her office.
“We’d like to do that first. We only have your office, bedroom and living room to do today. Then we’ll get everything hooked up in the new panel and switch the power over. With any luck we can patch the walls in your office and bedroom today.”
She appreciated that they were thinking of her and trying to get her life back to normal. Or as normal as it could be in a construction zone.
“I’m all set. I shut all my computers down and moved everything to the center of the room and put a sheet over them. They should be out of your way.”
“We appreciate that. Not too many people move things out of the way for us,” he said, smiling at her.
“Are we all set to go, Eric?” Drew asked from the doorway. She hadn’t even heard her front door open.
Eric jumped, seeming almost nervous. She hadn’t talked to him before, but he seemed nice enough. He’d been all smiles since she let him in the door first, like he was eager to get to work.
“Yeah, Ms. Montgomery was explaining that she kindly moved everything out of our way and covered it. I was explai
ning that not too many people do that for us.”
Drew turned his head, winked at her, and said, “Jordyn’s nice that way.”
She didn’t miss the way he said her name, almost as if in warning to Eric, a little possessive maybe?
Eric nodded, smiled at her again and rushed out of the room leaving her alone with Drew. “Hi,” she said.
“Good morning,” he replied, his eyes crinkling. “Did you have a good weekend?”
“I did,” she said, finding some courage. “But I’m afraid I spent most of it working to make up for losing the time today.”
“I’m not surprised.”
He was still smiling at her and it was making her nervous. Like he was waiting for her to say something about their next date. But from all her research, she concluded that she’d wait five days to bring the date up. So Wednesday it was.
“I’ll get out of your way.” She grabbed her book bag and started to walk out of the room.
“Don’t work too hard today either.”
“I won’t.”
How he knew she had her laptop in her bag was beyond her. Then again, she wasn’t all that hard to figure out.
***
Drew watched Jordyn rush out the door, an innocent blush spreading across her face again. She was just too easy.
He hadn’t expected to feel annoyance when he walked in and saw Eric flirting with Jordyn. Not that it seemed she was even aware Eric was doing it. He had no reason to feel that way. Eric was younger than Jordyn, barely out of school, no competition for him really.
He’d waited for her to contact him over the weekend until he realized she had no way of doing that. Then he remembered her business card and decided to make the next move. He was pretty sure if he waited for her, it would be a long wait. She seemed so unsure of herself around him. Or life in general.
Part of him enjoyed the fact that he flustered her, but the other part wanted her to relax a little too. That was what had him ending their texting conversation so quickly on Sunday. He didn’t want to pressure her in any way.
He looked around her office and took note that she did a good job moving and covering her equipment. He’d already made the decision that he would do the work in here rather than the guys. If he understood anything about her, it was that her office and computers probably meant more to her than anything else.
Once he was done with her office, he would do the work in her bedroom. He’d also decided he didn’t want any of the other men in there either. He had a feeling it might be the closest he was going to get to her bed for a while, too.
An hour later, he was done with her office and walking through her bedroom door. He shouldn’t have been surprised it was immaculate. Everything in her house was, even during the construction. Then again, she didn’t have a lot of furnishings either.
In here, just her bed, one dresser with a TV on top, plus a nightstand and an old chest at the foot of the bed. Pretty simple and plain really.
Looking around for the outlets, he found he needed to add more, like he did in almost every room. The house was nowhere near up to code.
Then he walked into her closet and tried not to laugh. Everything was hung up nice and neat, with more sweatshirts and leggings than he’d ever seen in his life.
He did laugh when he saw all her shorts hung up like they were skirts with clips attached to the waist to keep them straight. He didn’t know anyone who hung up shorts, let alone that way. She was going to have a rude awakening with the weather pretty soon.
Time to get serious, he reminded himself, and get to work. No more analyzing, thinking or wondering about Jordyn. At least not during working hours.
Painful
It was still too early for Jordyn to go to the public library, so she found a cafe with Wi-Fi access and decided to kill some time there.
Seated with her muffin and a large hot chocolate, she opened her laptop and pulled up a scanned copy of her mother’s letter. The one that she finally decided she was ready to read…which was two weeks after she found the envelope and box in the attic.
She’d read the letter more times than she could count, and it was branded in her brain by now. But she took comfort in seeing her mother’s handwriting, knowing how hard it must have been for her to pen the two pages with her decreasing mobility.
Tim Morris. Her father’s name. No, the name of the man who fathered her. That was better. She never had a father and it felt foreign to phrase it any other way.
After she’d read the letter multiple times and processed everything inside of it, she did a search on the internet for Tim Morris. Unfortunately, since it was such a common name, she came up empty in terms of anything connecting him to her. She tried searching for him in Georgia, again nothing to lead her to her mother.
All she had to go by were the few items in the box, and a letter from Tim’s landlord stating that he was asked to ship the package days prior to Tim’s passing. When she’d read that part she’d felt a range of emotions.
First she’d been in shock that her mother finally told her who her father was. As resentful as she was over never having that information, she was so excited to maybe find out something about her past, her lineage, genetics, the relationship with her mother…anything.
Then reading that he had passed over a year prior frustrated her. She wasn’t sad—she didn’t know him in order to be sad—but she was angry.
Pissed off was a better description. If only her mother had opened that box the year before, or told her about it, then she could have looked into things back then.
She’d held that resentment in for a long time growing up, wanting to know anything about her father. But her mother had stayed close-lipped and Jordyn never understood why.
The only glimpse she had into whatever relationship had existed was her mother crying at night when she thought Jordyn didn’t know. Crying and saying how men couldn’t be trusted and to never believe a word they say—they never told the truth.
Not the best example to have in your life, but it was all Jordyn had.
Maybe that was why she could never get close to a man. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t confident enough in herself to get close to a man. It had nothing to do with trust.
As jaded as her mother seemed to be, it hadn’t rubbed off on Jordyn and she was grateful for it.
Now she was hoping she’d find something about Tim Morris in Saratoga. Hoping that the postcard and picture in the box were some kind of a clue. The only other thing in the box was a small key, and she had no idea what it went to.
Searching for a Tim Morris and cross-referencing Saratoga proved fruitless on the internet too, so her next stop was the local library with hopes they’d heard of him or she could search old newspapers…anything.
Minimizing the search on her computer, she pulled up the picture that was in the box and tried to pick it apart, looking for any signs of where it was taken.
It was a close-up shot of two men that looked to be in their early twenties. She knew it wasn’t her father; the picture was too recent, a digital picture that had been uploaded to print.
Nothing in the background but water and trees, so the men most likely were on a boat, but it was too hard to tell. Their arms were around each other’s shoulders, both smiling like everything in the world was great.
Focusing on their faces, she noted the lines around their eyes. Maybe they spent time outdoors? She wasn’t positive. They were both shirtless and in good shape, with short dark hair. That’s it, nothing stood out at all. Just another frustration for her.
She closed the screen down since there was nothing else to look at.
She’d looked for lakes within a fifty-mile radius of Saratoga and there were plenty. The closest was Saratoga Lake. She thought she’d drive over there at some point, but had no way to get on the water and really look around. Not that she thought she’d recognize the area based on some water and trees.
Drew wouldn’t be of any help now that she knew he hadn’t lived h
ere that long either. That was a bummer.
She’d figure it out on her own. She always did.
***
“Can I help you?” the older librarian asked when Jordyn walked up to the desk.
It was so quiet in there. Of course it was, but even more than she remembered as a kid. It seemed like no one went to the library anymore.
As a kid, she’d spent as much time as she could in libraries looking things up and researching on the computers. It had been years before her mother could afford to have a computer at home.
“I was hoping you could help me. I’m looking for anything on a Tim Morris, or maybe Timothy Morris, from Saratoga.”
“The name doesn’t sound familiar, but that doesn’t mean anything. Do you have a period of time, or reference date, anything like that?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.” She pulled out her laptop and loaded the picture of the two men on her screen, taking a long shot. Maybe someone would recognize them. “Do either of these men look familiar to you?”
The librarian looked at them and shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. Whoever they are, they’re nice-looking men, but no one I’ve ever seen before, though this one reminds me of someone,” she said, pointing to the man on the right.
“Really?” Jordyn asked, hopeful.
“Yeah. What’s that guy’s name that plays in the crime drama on TV?”
Jordyn’s shoulders drooped. “I don’t know. I don’t watch a lot of TV. Could you point me in the direction of your old newspapers and maybe I’ll have some luck there?”
“Sure, dear. Follow me.”
By four o’clock, Jordyn was opening her front door with her book bag over her shoulder and her arms full of bags. With her foot she shut the door and set the bags down.
“I see you didn’t spend your whole day working.”
Jordyn turned her head and saw Drew walking down the hall toward her. “No work today. Just personal errands.”
“Looks like you made out well,” he said, glancing at the bags by her feet. “Are there boots in there?”