by Karina Bliss
Mike glowered and Jordan realized the painful episode was the last thing he should have mentioned. “Oh, I get it. And now Dillon’s chosen me, you’ve come with your tail between your legs, suddenly willing to share.” He crossed his arms, widened his stance. “Maybe you’re worried I’ll tell Claire about your outburst and she’ll reconsider your influence in his life. Well, mate, I can’t wait. You be the loser for a change and see how it feels. Hopefully, it will teach you a little humility.”
Jordan had sent Dillon down to the river for water; now he was very glad he had. Mike spun on his heel and went after the boy, and Jordan was left standing alone in the clearing.
There was a movement behind him and he turned to see Kate.
“Well, that went well,” he said. She came over, took his face in her hands and kissed him hard.
“Don’t give up yet,” she said, and followed Mike. Dumbstruck, Jordan stared after her.
KATE COULDN’T BELIEVE she’d just kissed Jordan. Hurrying to the river, where there was safety in numbers, she castigated herself every step of the way.
What were you thinking, encouraging him like that?
I was only comforting him. “Yeah, right.”
But he’d looked so lost, so vulnerable, so…It’s temporary, she thought. He’ll change back.
And if you help him he’ll change back faster.
But how could she not? Okay, help him then, but that’s all. She met the others coming back from the shore. “Mike, we need to talk.”
“It’s not a good time, Kate.”
She realized Dillon was miserable again. Mike must have told him he hadn’t accepted Jordan’s apology, and she reined in her impatience. “Later then.”
When they got back to camp, Jordan was sitting on a folding chair, the first-aid kit beside him. “Damn, I thought you’d all be down there longer,” he said ruefully.
Kate gasped. Below his black boxers, dark, viscous blood oozed from a deep slash across his right thigh.
“I…fell.”
Mike took control, taking the cloth from him and wiping away the encrusted blood. Kate frowned as the wound started to look suspicious. “A fall, you say?”
“Lost my footing…rolled down a slope…scraped against a tree stump,” Jordan said vaguely.
“You know,” Kate said a little later, “this looks remarkably like one of the pictures in my pig book.”
“Now you’re being paranoid.” Warily, Jordan watched Mike splash disinfectant onto a clean swab. “Don’t you want to dilute that?”
Mike held it above his wound. “Last chance to change your story.”
“I don’t know what you—” Jordan hissed as Mike applied the swab.
Dillon was agog. “Does that hurt?”
“No,” said Jordan through gritted teeth.
Cleaned up, the gash ran in a shallow jagged line almost the length of his thigh, carving deeper into the flesh near the top. The adults assessed it.
“Damn, I thought I’d get away without stitches.” Jordan reached into the first aid kit. “I have a thing about needles. Hopefully this one’s small enough to pass under the phobia radar.”
But he paled as he tried to thread the surgical needle with a shaky hand, and Mike confiscated it. “You’re in luck. I’ve been a volunteer with the St. John’s Ambulance Service for three years.”
“Thank God. So you can also give me the tetanus jab?”
“Only if he tells the truth,” Kate said to Mike.
They all waited.
“Okay, it was a pig,” Jordan admitted. “But it was my fault.”
“Cool,” breathed Dillon.
Jordan told them the story, seemingly impervious to the fact that Mike was plying a needle in his leg. “And, Kate, I don’t want it to affect the way you feel about…about…” His voice trailed off.
He was staring mesmerized at the needle. All the color left his face. His eyes rolled back and Kate caught him as he fell forward.
Dillon started to howl. “What’s wrong with him?”
“It’s okay, son, he just fainted,” Mike said very calmly. “Kate, hold him steady for a minute while I finish the stitches.”
Swallowing hard, she tightened her grip. Jordan’s hair, soft against her cheek, smelled of wood smoke.
“Okay,” said Mike finally. He cut the thread, then helped her place Jordan on his side in the recovery position. Almost immediately the patient groaned and tried to sit up.
Mike held him down. “You passed out. Lie still for a minute.”
“Okay, guys,” Jordan said weakly, “what’ll it cost to keep this quiet?”
Dillon got all excited. “I want a PlayStation.”
“It’s yours.”
“Don’t talk crazy,” Mike snapped. “Turn over and I’ll give you the tetanus shot.”
The color coming back to Jordan’s face left it again. “I think I can only handle one needle a day.”
“Don’t be frightened,” said Kate, enjoying being the fearless one for a change. Shooting her an evil look, Jordan rolled over. She stared at that fabulous swell of muscle under his boxers and her sense of superiority vanished.
With an effort she wrenched her eyes away and started clearing up the mess.
“Don’t be surprised if I pass out again,” Jordan warned.
“Take your mind off it,” Mike said briskly. “Talk through it.”
“Are you saying we’ve got something left to talk about, Mike?”
He didn’t answer and Kate looked up. His face was stony as he prepared the needle.
“Tell me that river story again,” Dillon suggested. “And whatever you do, don’t look.” His dad was squeezing the air out of the syringe.
Obediently, Jordan cradled his face in his arms, and Kate caught her breath as the muscles bunched there. “Two great mountains,” he began, “Tongariro and Taranaki, fought for the love of the beautiful Mount Pihanga.”
Mike pushed up the boxers, exposing a taut creamy buttock, and she turned her back. “Taranaki lost,” Jordan continued softly, “and, wild with grief, tore a path through this land as he headed toward the setting sun—ouch! At the ocean he turned north, ending up on the west coast, where he still nurses his broken heart. From the victor, Tongariro, a spring rose, which filled and healed the wound Taranaki had made in his flight—the mighty river Whanganui.”
“Very romantic, I’m sure.” Kate was still struggling to forget the image of his butt. “From what I’ve read, the land of the region was formed a million years ago, and the strata—”
“Spare me your prosaic facts.” Jordan rolled over and sat up. “You were all logic and science as a kid, weren’t you? Cottoned on to the Easter bunny at three years old, probably, and at six made it your duty to denounce Santa to other little kids.”
“At six, I measured the chimney and posted him a diet sheet so that he’d fit come Christmas,” she said.
He smiled at her. She was still smoke smudged and dirty, with no clothes to change into. He had no right to look at her as if it didn’t matter.
“You mean Santa’s not real?” Dillon said plaintively, and everyone froze. His face broke into a grin. “You guys are so lame! I’m twelve.”
“And filthy,” said Kate after they’d stopped laughing. “We all are. Question is, what am I going to wear while I wash these clothes?”
The somber mood reasserted itself. “A T-shirt of Dillon’s.” Jordan looked at Mike’s small frame. “Some pants of Mike’s and that Swanndri you love so much. I’ve got a spare sleeping bag.” He looked at the other man. “We’ll have to share a tent and let Dillon and Kate have the other.”
“I’ll sleep by the fire,” Mike said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DILLON NEEDED TO TALK to Jordan, but he didn’t want his dad around and the chance didn’t come until right before dinner, when Mike went for more firewood.
Jordan was cooking some kind of stew over the stove, and Kate was reading aloud to him from her killer pig b
ook. Dillon had been enjoying the teasing, but as soon as Dad disappeared, butterflies started in his stomach and he couldn’t concentrate.
But Jordan always said if you had to do something it was better to jump right in, so Dillon took a deep breath and asked if they could have a talk by themselves. Kate said, “I’ll stir the stew.”
Jordan looked at him and stopped smiling. “Let’s go into one of the tents.”
But when they were sitting facing each other in the greenish gloom, Dillon didn’t know how to start.
“It’s okay,” Jordan said. “You can say anything to me.”
“You know how I stood up for Dad before.”
“Yeah, you did the right thing.”
“And he won’t let you say sorry to him, and he still ha…doesn’t like you.”
Jordan nodded.
“Maybe for a little while, after this trip—” Dillon started playing with the zipper on the puffy green sleeping bag “—we shouldn’t see each other.” He looked anxiously at Jordan, whose face was completely expressionless. “It’s not that I want to,” Dillon said, blinking hard, “but…”
“You’re tired of all the conflict. It’s okay, Dil.”
“No, it’s not that. Something happened to Dad when he was young that I’m not allowed to tell you about.” Dillon watched the zipper slide up and down until it caught on some fabric and stuck. He handed it to Jordan, who freed it and handed it back. “But it was bad and, well, he kinda needs me on his side….” His voice trailed off.
“And I don’t,” Jordan finished calmly. “It’s the right decision, Dil-boy, and—” he cleared his throat “—I’m proud of you.”
All Dillon’s worries rolled off his shoulders. “So I haven’t hurt your feelings?”
Jordan reached out and ruffled his hair. “C’mon, mate, Kate’s probably burning the stew.”
KATE HAD HEARD EVERY WORD and it was breaking her heart. Quickly she lifted the hem of Jordan’s Swanndri and wiped away her tears.
It smelled faintly of him, and for a moment she buried her face in the coarse wool, then realized what she was doing and dropped it like a hot potato.
“We’re starving,” said Jordan behind her. If he can be brave, so can I. She swung around with a smile. He returned it, but there were lines around his blue eyes.
“So am I.” Mike dumped a stack of wood by the fire. “That should see me through the night.”
Kate resisted the urge to fling the ladle at him. “Then let’s eat,” she said, and dished up.
Mike and Dillon were the only ones with any appetite. Jordan noticed Kate pushing her food around the plate. “What’s wrong?” His gaze flicked between her and the tent, and comprehension dawned on his face.
“Nothing,” she lied. “Hey, Dillon, want to play Truth or Dare again tonight?”
“Sure.”
“I’m not in the mood, guys,” Jordan said. Mike agreed with him.
Kate ignored them both. “Last night you two didn’t get to finish being nice to each other. You still owe me three minutes.”
The two men stared at her, and even Dillon blinked. She ignored them all. “Mike, last night we had you. Now it’s Jordan’s turn to answer questions.”
Jordan pushed his plate aside and stood up. “This isn’t funny, Kate.”
“Sit,” she said, in the same tone she’d used on her siblings when they were younger. Jordan sat. “Mike, you said when Dillon wanted to start seeing you again, Claire said no initially, and then changed her mind.”
“Yeah, what’s your point?”
She turned back to Jordan. “Who talked her into it?”
Jordan squirmed. “Does it matter?”
Dillon looked puzzled. “Wasn’t it me?”
“Jordan,” Kate asked again, “who talked Claire into letting Mike see Dillon?”
“I did, but—”
She cut him off. “Thank you, that’s all.” She couldn’t let him qualify it…or say he regretted it. Kate looked back at Mike, who appeared stunned. “This is the man who gave you your second chance,” she said. “I figure you owe him one, don’t you?”
The fire hissed as it bit into green wood. Kate held her breath and waited.
Mike turned his head. “Are you going to make another effort to reconcile with your dad?”
Her heart sank. “That’s blackmail.”
“If you’re going to talk the talk, then you need to walk the walk.”
She looked at Dillon, then at Jordan, who were clearly both wondering what the hell was going on. “I’ll try, but I’m making no promises.”
“Then we understand each other,” said Mike. He leaned forward and threw another chunk of wood on the fire. Sparks flew like fireflies. “You know, it’s too bloody cold to sleep outside tonight. Okay if I share your tent, Jordan?”
“KATE?”
Over her shoulder she shot Jordan a wary look. Mike had already gone to bed, and she was following Dillon, who’d stayed up way too late playing cards.
Jordan knew she didn’t want to be alone with him. “Come back a minute.”
“I’m really tired…”
“I want to thank you.”
She kissed Dillon, who was yawning widely. “I won’t be far behind you, Dil-boy.” Hearing his nickname for Dillon on her lips made Jordan grin. She came back to the fire, hesitated, then sat on the other side of it. Jordan found that very interesting.
“I owe you,” he said.
She mumbled, embarrassed. He found it captivating that Kate Brogan could be shy.
“I didn’t know you were estranged from your father.”
Her face took on a haunted expression. “Guess you should have hired a better private investigator.”
“You didn’t want to say yes to letting him back into your life. You did it for us, me and Dillon.”
She moistened her lips. “I only said I’d try.”
“And you looked like someone facing the electric chair. You listened to me today. Let me listen tonight.”
She stared into the fire for so long he thought she’d forgotten him. “My father was a womanizer,” she said in a low voice. “Even on the day my mother died he was with another woman. I used to cover Dad’s tracks until I realized Mum knew about his affairs. She died without ever confronting him.”
Angrily, she brushed some tears away. “His sick wife couldn’t give him sex anymore, so he went elsewhere. Who am I kidding? I’ll never forgive him.”
“Did your father always cheat on your mother?”
Jordan could see his question baffled her. “No, he was always a flirt, but the affairs began when Mum got ill.”
She shivered. Jordan poked the ash-covered embers with a stick. They pulsed like glowworms in the chill night air.
“When my father was dying,” he said, “Mum suddenly started getting us to do things for Dad that she’d done for him all our lives. Like giving him a haircut and scrubbing his back in the bath. She and Dad used to listen to this radio program every night. She came up with excuses why it was better for one of us to sit with him.”
He tossed the stick on top of the embers. “Dad said she was trying to mitigate the pain of losing him. It only lasted a couple of weeks, then she re-invested, and when he died they were closer than ever. She suffered terribly for the first couple of years afterward, but she says he was worth it.”
“You think that maybe my dad was trying to prove he could live without Mum before he had to?”
“It’s something to think about.”
There was another silence. “You said I was like your father,” Jordan said frowning.
“No,” she hurried to assure him, “at least…not in that way. It’s more your recklessness, your disregard of consequences, using your charisma to manipulate people. Your arrogance…”
She seemed to be winding into a list, rather than out of one, so Jordan interrupted with the question he desperately needed an answer to. “But you don’t doubt my morals anymore?”
“No
, or your heart. You’ll make a good trustee.”
It seemed ironic that she knew the state of his heart, considering he’d never been less sure of it. Jordan rarely thought about love, but now he wondered what its symptoms were—and if there was a cure. But lust? That was an emotion a guy could understand. “So,” he said, “you kissed me this afternoon.”
“Sunstroke.”
“It was cloudy.”
“I wanted to see if you’d turn into a prince.”
He flashed her his wickedest grin. “And voilà.”
Kate stood and brushed a few ashes off her pants.
Jordan stopped joking. “Give me a good reason,” he said, “and don’t make it Peter.”
“Okay. Even believing that you didn’t know your lover was married—”
“Thank you.”
“—and…” she hesitated “…assuming Peter and I weren’t engaged, let’s measure your cost-benefit ratio.”
He started to laugh. “I didn’t bring a ruler.”
She persevered. “I’m a woman who likes to get all the facts together before making an investment decision. How many women have you dated in the past twelve months?”
She was being so schoolmarmish, Jordan couldn’t help himself. “Can I borrow your fingers and toes?”
“Promiscuity at your age is a sign of immaturity, not to mention dangerous for sexual health.”
“Four, but I only slept with one of them.” Chiefly because he’d been too busy with the business, but Kate didn’t need to know that. “You’re looking at a serial monogamist.”
“Really.” She sounded skeptical. “What’s the longest you’ve been in a relationship since you broke up with Claire? What was that, eight years ago?”
“Six months.” She raised a brow and he added reluctantly, “If you include three months when I was overseas. But we talked on the phone.”
Kate folded her arms. “I rest my case.”
Jordan wasn’t deterred. “Fight all you want,” he said, “but it’s going to happen, Kate, and you know it.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IT WAS ONLY WHEN the canoe scraped across the long bank of fine river pebbles with a sound like fingernails on a blackboard that Kate realized she’d been paddling on autopilot.