***
Ty’s mom was attractive, almost elegant with her height, long limbs, and willowy figure. She wore a simple pink blouse and jeans. Jordan immediately classified her as one of those women, the kind other women noticed. And envied. Her dark hair was bobbed with simple elegance. Her accessories were stylish. Even her nails were manicured to perfection.
But it was her eyes that Jordan couldn’t stop studying, the darkness that shadowed them and the red rims that no amount of expensive make-up could ever cover. They were the same striking gray as Ty’s, only they’d long since surrendered the humor and mischief.
“Mom, this is Jordan,” Ty said. “Jordan, my mom, Maggie.”
Maggie took her hand and pulled her into a quick hug. “I’m so glad to meet you. Ty has told us so many good things. And he sure didn’t lie about how pretty you are.”
Embarrassed, Jordan waved a dismissive hand in Ty’s direction. “Oh well, he tends to exaggerate.”
“And you already know Trevor,” Ty said, when his brother approached.
“Hi, beautiful.” Trevor kissed her cheek.
“You’ve already met Jordan? When did that happen? Why don’t you boys tell me anything?” Ty’s mom asked.
Jordan recognized Trevor’s shit-eating grin and knew he was about to say something obnoxious about their first encounter. She’d made a grand ass of herself by walking out of the bathroom buck naked with the intent to seduce Ty. Only it hadn’t been Ty crouched in the corner of their bedroom trying to fix the radiator. It had been Trevor.
“Let’s see?” Trevor tapped a finger against his chin. “When did we meet for the first time? Oh, yes, it’s coming back to me now. Ty asked me to come over and help fix the radiators in their house. I started in their bedroom first, and—”
“And that was it. End of story.” Ty shot Trevor a warning glare.
Red-hot humiliation flamed in Jordan’s cheeks. It hadn’t been one of her finer moments.
“What?” Trevor’s voice dripped with mock innocence. “I was just explaining to Mom how Jordan introduced herself to me. And I assure you, Ty does not exaggerate about Jordan’s beauty.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Come on into the kitchen. I’ve got rolls in the oven.”
When Maggie turned around, Ty whacked Trevor on the back of the head like they were twelve.
“So Mom said you’re working a murder? That’s why you’re late?” Trevor asked as they turned to follow Maggie.
“He says it was the case that held him up. I think it may have been the redhead who clearly has a thing for him.” Jordan teased.
Trevor’s gaze snapped to Ty’s. “The redhead? The one from the highway patrol? Holy crap, she’s back?”
Jordan stopped, and both guys halted in her tracks. She studied Ty and then Trevor. The uncomfortable tension told her that Tinkerbelle, or Annabelle, or whatever the fuck her name was, had been a topic of discussion before. If Trevor’s insinuating words hadn’t been the tipping point, the furious, guilty look on Ty’s face certainly would have been.
She stood in silence and waited for Ty to say something.
He managed to look everywhere except in her direction.
“I need to use the restroom,” she murmured. But just barely. A miserable, grinding burn was spreading through her chest and making it ridiculously hard to speak. She’d stood over graves containing the names of her family today and hadn’t felt an ache this vicious.
“I’ll show you where it is.” Ty reached for her hand.
“I can find it.” She blinked away the ludicrous sting and arrowed toward the restroom. She knew the way. On their last case, she’d spent more than a week here recovering from injuries while Ty’s parents vacationed in Florida.
She certainly couldn’t control who Ty had or had not been with. No doubt he’d had sex with many women before her. He was too damn good at it to not have had a lot of practice.
But her heart told her that he’d lied today. Or at the very least, omitted the truth. From her experience, when a suspect omitted an important truth in interrogation, there was always a reason. Usually not a good one.
Like maybe he still had feelings for the redhead.
As she suspected he might, he followed her inside the small bathroom and shut the door behind them.
“Uh, I don’t need an audience, thanks.”
“Don’t listen to Trevor,” he said. “You know how he is, always joking around—”
“Did you have a relationship with her?” God, she hated that she felt like this. Simply hated that she blurted that question out.
“No. It wasn’t like that . . .”
“Okay, then, let me ask this to clear the record. The redhead I saw in your precinct today, the one that grabbed the sandwiches out of my hands and said you’d pay because you owed her—that one—have you had sex with her?”
He didn’t answer.
Which in itself was answer enough. Her throat swelled even tighter, and although she was fighting the burning sensation with everything she had, her eyes welled up.
“I’ll tell my mom I got a call from the station about the case and we can’t stay,” he said.
“No, you won’t.” No way in hell was she doing the meet-the-parent thing twice. She hadn’t been ready for this, and he’d insisted on dragging her here, anyway. So he could sit and be just as miserable as she was.
“Your mom probably cooked and cleaned, going to a lot of trouble for tonight. It’s not her fault you’re a jackass. We’re both going to go in there and be pleasant, make small talk, and get through this.”
She opened the bathroom door and pushed him out. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath for a massage or any other form of physical contact for a very long time. At least not from me. You might have better luck with the redhead.”
***
Ty sat at his mom and dad’s dinner table staring at his favorite pot roast in misery. He glanced across the table at Trevor. The dumbass seemed to recognize he was going to get his ass kicked as soon as they were alone together. They were both just pushing their food around.
On top of it all, their dad wasn’t even making an effort. He’d decided to live in misery since the day he learned of Tara’s murder. As far as anyone could tell, he had depression down to a science. The man hardly spoke anymore. Ty had no idea how his mom put up with it. He was a little ticked off that his dad hadn’t at least tried to be sociable with Jordan.
Jordan had done just what she’d said she would. She’d been funny, polite, answered all questions with a smile. It was like she’d flipped a switch in that damn bathroom and decided to be nothing less than charming. Except when it came to interacting with him. The one time he laid a hand on her thigh under the table, she’d almost twisted his thumb clean off.
“Would anyone like more rolls?” his mom asked.
“Thank you, but I’m stuffed. It was wonderful, though,” Jordan said. “Ty will probably sneak over here a lot to eat. I’m a horrible cook. I work a lot of hours and have never really gotten the hang of it.”
“I haven’t cooked much the last year, either,” his mom answered. “This was nice. I really enjoyed having the whole family here.”
Ty’s dad dropped his fork and turned immediately to the one empty chair. Tara’s chair. “It was nice to meet you, Jordan,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to finish feeding the horses and take care of some things out in the barn.”
“It was nice to meet you, too.” Jordan smiled at him. “You should come out to our stable and help Ty figure out what needs to be done to get the place functioning again.”
His dad pushed back from the table and stood. “You planning on having horses out there?”
“Maybe,” Ty answered. “Haven’t decided yet.”
“That would be good. You could take your horses, then. I just can’t see us keeping this farm and all the land. Time to think about retiring, not about what crop gets planted next.”
Ty’s mom sto
od and nailed his dad with a dangerous glare. “Give it a rest, Rick. We are not selling this farm.”
His dad turned and walked out without another word. Couldn’t the man have made an effort for one frigging night? Right about now, Jordan was probably thankful she didn’t have any family to deal with.
“I’m gonna go talk to him,” Trevor said.
Ty wasn’t sure whether to follow Trevor or stay with the women.
Jordan eventually graced him with a look. Not a particularly affectionate one. “Why don’t you go with them?”
“I thought maybe you’d like me to stay—”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be silly. Go talk with Trevor and your dad. I certainly don’t need you.”
***
Jordan watched Ty sulk out of the kitchen.
The ass-hat.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. The energy in the room told her everyone was still trying to recover from Tara’s death. But while Trevor, Ty, and Maggie seemed to be coming around, Ty’s dad, on the other hand, was struggling big time.
The hole that death left took time to fill again. She knew that better than anyone. And murder left a particularly wide and vicious hole. Tara had been murdered less than a year ago, so all of them would still have bad days.
“I’m sorry.” Ty’s mom dropped down into a chair and looked at Jordan as though she wanted to crawl under the table and curl into a ball. “This is the first meal we’ve had as a family since Tara’s been gone. I thought he could handle it. This was my fault; I was the one who insisted we do this.” Tears began to swim in Maggie’s eyes.
Hells bells, what a fucked-up day. Jordan had let deception and lies screw with her for more years than she cared to think about. She might as well let the truth yank her around for a while. “Has Ty told you anything about my family?”
Maggie met Jordan’s gaze and shook her head.
“My dad, my mom, and my sister were murdered when I was ten,” Jordan admitted quietly. “I was in the house when it happened. I only survived because I was hiding in a closet.”
Maggie’s eyes widened, but instead of speaking, she lightly squeezed Jordan’s wrist.
They sat in silence for a long quiet moment. As uncomfortable as it should have been, strangely it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. Jordan supposed nothing bonded strangers quite like sharing a horrible, murder-filled past.
“I would never recommend two people meeting the way Ty and I did, but as unfortunate as they were, our pasts are one link that makes us understand each other so well.”
Ty’s mom broke. “I miss her. Every minute of every day. I just can’t live in the isolation that Rick wants to live in. I miss my boys. I miss cooking for them and having family dinners. I miss going to church. I miss my stupid part-time job at the flower shop.”
Jordan felt Tara’s presence sweep through the kitchen like a wild, whirling twister. Tell her. Tell her I’m okay. Tell her to be happy, I want her to be happy.
Jordan sucked in a breath. Tara was a force she couldn’t deny.
To appear normal to the living, Jordan blocked all communication with spirits during the day. In the night, she let them come, tell her what they needed her to know. But the daytime hours were hers, and the spirits seemed to understand that.
Except for Tara.
She had never been able to block Ty’s little sister because . . . Hell, she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe because she liked the girl. Tara had helped Jordan save Ty’s life. A little sister spirit was all around Jordan when Tara was near. After losing Katy, there was something about Tara’s spirit that was comforting.
This situation, however, was not comfortable.
“Rick makes it sound like I’m betraying Tara if I do anything. It’s making me crazy. He wanted to have the boys sell the farm while we stayed in Florida. He never wanted to come back. How could he not want to come back? This is home.”
They don’t have to sell the farm. They love the farm. Tell her I’m okay.
Nothing like juggling competing conversations in your head at the same time. Tara’s thoughts were overlapping with Maggie’s words, and the tension . . . God, the tension was making it hard to breathe.
“This was Tara’s home,” Maggie sobbed. “I’ll never leave.”
Tell her. Tell her I’m still with her and always will be. Why won’t you tell her?
“Tara, stop it.” Jordan spoke louder than she’d meant to.
Maggie’s gaze whipped toward her.
“Not you.” Jordan looked at Maggie, mortified. “I mean . . . Well, see, what I meant is that I think Tara would want you to stop feeling that way. I don’t think she’d want your life to come to a screeching halt. Ty has told me what a sweet, loving girl she was.”
Please tell her I want her to be happy.
“Maggie, whether Tara is here or in the next world, you’d always want her to be happy, right?
Maggie nodded and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.
“I don’t think she would want any less for you.”
Jordan wondered if her mom and dad were rolling in their graves from the irony. She was pretty sure they had tried to communicate that same fact for the last twenty years, only she had just never gotten it. It had taken Ty’s sister to drive the point home.
Ty’s mom’s eyes widened, and her face went white.
“I can’t believe I just sat here and unloaded on you like this.” She swiped the tears from her cheeks. “Ty is such a good man. Please don’t let tonight and all our issues scare you off. I can see in his eyes what you mean to him.”
Jordan almost laughed. “It would take a lot more than what happened here tonight to scare me off. And if you tell Ty I said that, I will flat out deny it.” She shot Maggie an amused smile. “I’m usually the mental charity case that Ty gently tolerates. It’s kind of nice to know the tables can turn once in a while.”
Maggie smiled. “Somehow, I doubt that he has to put up with you. I’m just sorry tonight didn’t turn out quite like I’d hoped.”
Now, here, with all of Ty’s family, Jordan realized just how many years she’d spent in selfish isolation. Ty was the first person who had ever made her feel that she wasn’t suffering alone. Maybe if she had ever bothered to look around and help someone else before tonight, the bitter knot in her own chest would have loosened sooner.
“I know what losing someone to murder does to you,” she said. “You don’t ever have to apologize for your reactions. Not to me, anyway.”
Chapter 6
On the way home, Ty kept glancing over at Jordan sitting beside him in the truck.
Both of them preferred a balls-to-the-wall knock-down-drag-out to the silent treatment. Which, he figured, was precisely the reason she was ignoring the hell out of him.
“There’s a good ice cream shop about a half mile from here. You want dessert since dinner was kind of a bust?”
“No. I’m good.” She never looked up from her phone.
He knew damn well there wasn’t anything on it interesting enough to keep her from speaking. “So I got the feeling you wanted to talk to me about something when you came by the office today.”
“Nothing that can’t wait until your case is over.”
“Come on, what was it?”
She shrugged. “Bahan came over. He brought my dad’s file. Confirmed my dad was undercover for the FBI when his cover was blown. Someone from a drug cartel murdered my family—the same cartel Arlo and Warren Buck were working for on our last case.”
The air caught in his chest. Her news was a huge fucking deal, and she hadn’t said a thing. “Holy shit.” He reached for her hand. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
They were stopped at a four-way stop. She shot him the Jordan Delany death stare. “I came to your office right after Bahan left, but you had your hands full. Remember?”
No way was he wiggling out of this one. A car behind him honked, and he stomped on the gas. “Fine, if you’re pissed about Isobel, let�
��s have it out now and move on.”
“Gee, Ty,” she said, “I was talking about the murder you caught this morning. Funny how your mind jumped right to Isobel. Why do you feel like your hands are full because of her? Maybe because you banged her?”
He blew through the narrow gate of their ranch and stopped in front of the house. Jordan jumped out of the truck as if it were on fire and bolted inside. He followed her, praying that the day would end soon. Or that someone would just end him. Either option worked.
Jordan was already halfway up the stairs. He stomped up behind her, followed her into the bedroom. “You want the truth. Yes, I slept with her. One time. One night. We parted ways and that was it. It was no big deal.”
She brushed past him with a disgusted shake of her head. “I really thought you were smarter than that.”
“Are you going to stand there and tell me that you’ve never had sex with another cop you were working with? Not one time? Not one slip-up?”
When she whirled around and stepped toward him, he realized the look she’d given him in the truck was just a warmup.
“Yes, I’m going to stand here and tell you in no uncertain terms that I have never, ever, slept with another cop. That I have never slept with anyone that I’ve worked with. And then I’m going to tell you why.”
She moved closer and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Because I’ve worked my ass off since day one in that fucking academy. I was one of three women in a group of thirty-five men. Two days before I graduated, I was asked to participate in an undercover op and I’ve never looked back. And I will be damned if one fucking man is ever going to say I earned my cases or my rank because I slept with the right guy.”
“Really? ’Cause you slept with me.”
Her whole body jolted back in surprise.
With every fiber of his being he wanted to grab the words and yank them back. In all honesty, he preferred seeing anger in her expression to the hurt.
“I slept with you because for the first time since my family was gone, I felt something that I didn’t know how to turn away from. Is that what it was between you and Isobel?”
Dream Caller (A Dream Seeker Novel Book 3) Page 6