No sooner than Jordan walked through his front door, his phone rang and sure enough, it was Devon. “Hey, man, what’s up?”
“Hey, Dev, I just stopped in there to check out what you have available for this photo contest this town’s putting on.”
“Tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know without taking a closer look at my schedule. My girl just called me and said that you stopped in,” Devon explained. “Tell you what, I’m on my way back to the studio now. Wanna meet there in say, five minutes?”
Glancing at his watch, Jordan realized it was a few minutes before four. He had plenty of time before he needed to be back to the shop for the delivery. And if he wasn’t back in time, he was sure Paul could handle it on his own. There wasn’t much coming in from the truck today. “Yeah, I can do that. See ya in a bit.”
Hanging up, he grabbed his keys and headed out to his truck. Today would be the day he would have it all figured out and planned just right in order to surprise Kate. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she found out they were getting pictures taken, but that wasn’t all he had planned... he couldn’t wait.
* * *
Pushing the glass door open, Kate entered the studio and was greeted by the same high pitched voice she had heard on the phone. “Can I help you?”
“Hi, I just called a bit ago about the photo contest and cost. You said I could see the package prices,” Kate said, rambling nervously at the fact that she was here and this was really happening.
She watched the tall brunette pull a file from the cabinet. The woman handed it to Kate with a smile. “They’re all fairly cheap. Devon provides the best quality at the lowest, most affordable cost.”
Kate smiled and nodded as she took the folder and opened it. There were several different options available and she could already tell she would have a hard time choosing. She knew they wouldn’t need more than one or two pictures to choose the best one, but what if this whole thing was something more serious? What if getting pictures was just the start of accepting that their relationship was official?
“If you want, you can have a seat and look through them,” the woman offered, pointing to a nearby chair. “Take your time.”
Kate took the woman’s offer as she sat in the chair in the corner, by the front window. She spread the options across her lap and looked over each one carefully. She’d had a feeling it was going to be hard choosing, but she hadn’t expected it to be this hard.
The bell above the door chimed and a guy she assumed was Devon, because of the way the woman at the desk lit up when he walked through the door, walked in. What she hadn’t expected was Jordan walking in right behind him. She sat quietly in the corner as she waited to see what he was there for. Jumping when the woman’s high-pitched voice told Devon that he had a new client interested in a session for the photo contest, as she pointed in Kate’s direction.
Kate quickly gathered the papers from her lap, neatly tapped them into a stack and placed them back in the folder. When she looked up, Jordan’s eyes fell on hers and a smile crossed his face. “Kate, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, nothing, really, I was just stopping by because I need to get pictures of...”
“She wanted to check out prices,” the woman said, smiling in Kate’s direction. “She wants to get pictures taken for that local couple’s contest.”
She watched as Jordan turned toward her and raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that so?”
Feeling the heat creep into her cheeks, she looked down at the folder in her hand. But then it hit her, he was here too! Why was he here?
Almost as if he could read her thoughts, he fumbled with his truck keys and said, “I suppose I’d better get going.”
Devon turned around, giving Jordan a puzzled look. “But you just got here. Didn’t you want to...”
Jordan cleared his throat and his face turned bright red. “I was just checking in on how things were going.”
The look Jordan gave Devon hadn’t gone unnoticed by Kate. She wondered what was up between the two of them, but could only assume Jordan was here for the same reason she was.
“Well, since we’re both here, why don’t we choose what we want?”
Jordan laughed nervously as he fumbled his keys around his finger. The smile that he gave her told her that she had caught him in the act. There was something about him wanting to surprise her, like she wanted to surprise him, that made her heart thump a little harder, a little louder in her ears. She smiled and shrugged. “We’re busted?”
Devon held up a hand and pointed between Jordan and Kate. “Hold on,” he said. “Don’t tell me the two of you are?”
He paused as he looked between the two of them and back at his secretary before saying, “I’ll be damned.”
He held out his hand toward Kate as he asked for the file with the options of packages. Expanding it on the desk beside him, he asked, “Then, how about we get you two looking through these and lined up with pictures?”
“Sounds good,” Kate said, grabbing the closest chair and sliding it close to the desk in order to get a better look at the prices; smiling when Jordan copied her as he pulled a chair up next to her. Turning to him, she smiled and asked, “What do you think we should do?”
* * *
Damn, if he hadn’t gone to the actual studio, he wouldn’t have risked being busted. The good thing about running into Kate at the studio was that he no longer had to pick an option by himself. Kate had done a great job deciding on a package that suited them perfectly.
The look she had given him told him that she was up to something, but she refused to tell him what she was thinking about the whole time they were in Devon’s studio. He’d have to get it out of her tonight, if she would give in, that is.
Once they had split the cost of the session, because once again she insisted that she was more than capable of paying for her share, they scheduled it for the following weekend so they had plenty of time to get their outfits planned out. He had told her not to make plans for supper before leaving the studio.
The look she had given him was implanted in his mind’s eye for the rest of day. He couldn’t wait to get to her house. He had to stop at home first, and then the grocery store. He hoped she wouldn’t mind sharing her kitchen with him tonight as he prepared to cook for the two of them.
Walking into his house, the first thing he noticed was the flipped furniture and the destruction of his walls. His place had been ransacked and it was obvious that someone had meant to destroy everything he owned.
Pulling his phone from his pocket, he dialed Rick’s number. Rick had become the county sheriff at the beginning of the year and was a good friend of Jordan’s, since the shop had become a prime target of vandalism. Thinking it was nothing more than just that with this situation, he figured it was just some kids who were bored and looking for something to trade in for money for their next pack of smokes.
“This is Rick, talk to me.”
“Rick, it’s Jordan.”
“Jordan, how’s things going for ya down that way?”
“Well, it looks like I have another situation that needs to be dealt with,” Jordan explained. “It looks like my house was the target of some bored kids again.”
* * *
Arriving home, Kate had her hands full. Jordan had told her not to make plans for supper, but she couldn’t resist the urge to stock up on some much needed items. It had been a while since she had taken a trip to the grocery store. Not sure what he would need tonight, she had decided to grab the basic necessities—hoping that he would bring whatever else he needed that was extra or something someone wouldn’t normally have on hand.
Unlocking her door, she could have sworn it turned easier than it had before. Usually, she had to pull on the handle and jiggle the key a bit in order to get it to unlock. Blaming it on the weather, because it had warmed up quite a bit over the last few days, she didn’t think anything more about it as she carried in the grocery sacks.
Placing the bags on the counter, she walked around to the other side and began putting things in the fridge. Emptying the bags, she heard a loud thud that came from down the hall. Her heart raced as she thought about what it could have been. Reaching behind her, she grabbed a knife and startled at the ringing of her phone. Pulling it from her pocket, she kept an eye towards the direction the sound had come from.
“Hello,” she whispered.
“Kate?”
“Jordan, I think someone’s in my house,” she whispered, panic present more than anything else in her voice.
“You think someone’s in your house? We’ll be right over,” Jordan said. “Rick, we gotta go to Kate’s.”
She had no idea who Rick was, but she followed Jordan’s order and tiptoed her way to the front door. “I heard a noise come from down the hall,” Kate whispered. She was almost to the door when a hand grabbed her phone and smashed it on the floor with one heavy stomp of their boot. She had no time to run out the door before the same hand tangled in her hair and pulled her down.
“You’re not going anywhere,” a man’s voice she knew all too well growled in her right ear. She wanted to fight him off, but she was helpless as her ex-husband hit her in the back of the head with something jagged and heavy. Darkness consumed her as she silently pleaded for Jordan to hurry up and get there.
* * *
The minute the phone line went dead, Jordan knew. He knew that Kate’s life was in danger. Something was wrong. They had hopped into Rick’s Tahoe and sped off down the gravel road in the direction of Kate’s house—full on lights with sirens blaring.
His house hadn’t been targeted by kids. Instead, it had been ransacked by her ex-husband who had figured out where Jordan lived. This meant that he had to have been watching them from a distance for quite some time now. The thought that the creep was in Kate’s house made Jordan’s adrenaline pump faster than the diesel running through this Tahoe.
“Rick, we have to get there,” he had said repeatedly. “He’s going to hurt her. He’s crazy, Rick. We’ve got to get to her.”
“We’re getting there as fast as we can, man,” Rick shouted, over the blare of the sirens as he fishtailed off the gravel road and onto the pavement. “Did you try to call her again?”
Jordan felt helpless. There was nothing he could do except pray that Kate was okay. The bastard better not have hurt her...
“Yes, it goes straight to her voicemail,” Jordan said, drumming his hands in his lap. They needed to get to Kate. She needed help and needed it now more than ever, and he wasn’t there for her.
“We’re almost there, hang on,” Rick said, taking a sharp left at the intersection, ignoring the cars that screeched to a sudden halt in order not to crash into the squad car.
“Here, her house is right here,” Jordan shouted, pointing in the direction of Kate’s house. He jumped out, without waiting for the Tahoe to come to a complete stop. Rick was right behind him, hollering for him to stop and not enter the house—to wait for him because it wasn’t safe in there.
He didn’t care. The only thing he cared about was inside this house and he was going in after it. He needed to do whatever it took to keep her safe. Slamming his body into the jammed door, the wood splintered as he forced his way in. “Kate! Kate!” he hollered through the entryway as he walked into the living room and made his way towards the kitchen, following the trail of blood as he hoped they weren’t too late. “Kate!”
“Kate!”
She wasn’t sure where he was, but she heard him. The echo of his voice infiltrated her ears and ricocheted through the pain her head. Confusion clouded her thoughts as she tried to sit up, but the room spun and her stomach twisted in response to the shooting pain in the back of her head.
“Jordan.”
Her voice was quiet compared to his. She wasn’t sure if she had even said anything at all. Rolling over onto her stomach, she tried to crawl out from behind her kitchen counter. Shivers traced her skin against the coldness of the hardwood floor. Blood stained the floor below her. Gasping at the sight of how much blood surrounded her, tears fell from her eyes clouding her thoughts further.
“Oh, my God, Kate,” Jordan hollered as he rushed to her side. “Are you okay?”
Shaking her head gently enough to not cause further pain, she mouthed the word no. She wasn’t okay. She knew that something awful had happened, but her thoughts were a jumbled mess.
“We need an ambulance at 217 Jones Street,” another man’s voice shouted back at a static-filled radio. “I need backup. Suspect whereabouts are unknown at this time. House is clear. One young female with a head wound.”
Jordan pulled her against him. The warmth of his body created random chills as goosebumps lined her body. She snuggled against him, thankful for his presence.
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed, unsure if they were actual words or if her voice had failed her again.
The feeling of his strong arms pulling her tighter against him gave her a sense of security that she wanted now more than anything. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” Jordan whispered in her ear, as he cradled her against him.
“Kate, do you know who did this? Who was here?”
It was apparent that the voice belonged to the sheriff. She had met him a while back when she delivered flowers to his office for his one month anniversary on the job.
“My ex... he...”
Fresh tears fell against her cheeks, trailing their way to her mouth—tasting of salt and copper as they stung her swollen, busted lip.
“I checked the house, he’s nowhere to be found,” the sheriff repeated. “Can you give me a fair description of him?”
A nod caused a shooting pain to surround the back of her head, tightening the muscles as it traveled down her neck. Whatever was wrong with the back of her head, she wished the pain away. “He’s tall, dark hair, wears glasses. He’s got a scar above his right eye from a bar fight in Arizona a year ago,” she said, using all of the energy she could muster. “His name is Michael Benson, but he goes by Mike.”
The thought of her ex-husband doing something like this was unspeakable. Never, in all of her years of knowing him, would she ever have expected him to do this. He had a temper, but he hadn’t ever acted out in a way that would hurt her.
“The ambulance will be here shortly,” Rick said on his way out the back door.
“Don’t worry, Kate, you’re going to be okay,” Jordan whispered, reassuring her as if he could sense the overwhelming fear she was feeling, and the swarming thoughts of how this could have happened.
“I should’ve known,” Kate said, her words barely audible to her own ears. “When he came to the hotel... I should’ve known.”
“Shh... this isn’t your fault,” Jordan reassured her. “The man is crazy and this just proved my point.”
The paramedics swarmed in around her, assessing her wounds and checking her for other battle signs of her ex-husband’s crazed attack. Other than her head and busted lip, she felt fine. The room was spinning and the noise from their voices was excruciating to her ears, and caused the pain in her head to increase, but other than that, she couldn’t find anything else wrong.
One of the paramedics pulled a white bandage from her jump bag and wrapped it around Kate’s head. Kate felt the instant pressure of Jordan’s hand release as the bandage took its place. Blood matted hair fell against the back of her neck as the Paramedic wrapped her head with the gauze.
“There’s a pretty good sized gash on your head,” the paramedic confirmed where the blood on the floor had come from. “You might have a slight concussion, so we’ll take you into the hospital and get you checked out further by the ER doc.”
Nodding her approval of going to the hospital to be seen, she pressed herself against Jordan’s chest as they lifted her onto the ambulance cot. She didn’t want to let go of him even when they asked her to. Even with Jordan’s promise that he’d be headed to the hospital right behind her, she refused to let go.
“Can I just ride along with her?” Jordan asked, holding onto to Kate’s hand while he pleaded with the ambulance crew. “She needs me with her.”
One of the paramedics must have okayed his request, because no sooner than she was loaded into the back of the ambulance, Jordan appeared next to her and took hold of her hand. With a smile on his face, concern in his eyes, he said, “If you wanted me to come over, you should have just called and told me, instead of being so dramatic.”
It hurt to laugh, but she couldn’t help but laugh at his cheesy banter. Leave it to him to find a way to take her mind off what had happened, as they traveled together in the back of the ambulance. “I’m glad you’re okay, Kate. You had me scared to death. I thought I’d lost you. I never want to lose you,” he said, pressing his lips to the back of her hand. “Ever.”
* * *
He should have listened to his gut when it came to coming home to a destroyed house. He hadn’t wanted to believe that some lunatic would actually travel from Arizona to Iowa just to act like a complete idiot.
The worst thing about this whole situation was that he hadn’t done what he had wanted to. He had wanted to protect her and love her, show her how a man should treat a woman. He had failed to protect her, and now she was hurt.
Watching her wince as the medics rewrapped the bandage, after giving their report on the way to the hospital, was enough to make him sick to his stomach. Kate had a large goose egg on the back of her head, along with a deep gouge that was a couple of inches long. Her confusion had clouded her words and she was no longer talking as much as he would like her to. When she did say more than a few words, it was to ask the same question she had asked a few minutes before. The medics had assured him that it was only the concussion. It was a common side effect of head trauma, but she would most likely recover over the course of the next week or two.
He wanted to take her pain away, along with her confusion, regardless of how certain the medics were that she wouldn’t remember too much about asking the same thing over and over once the injury healed.
Kate's Forever (Thistle Do Flowers Book 1) Page 11