Brave the Heat

by Sara Humphreys

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Jordan called. “I have to make sure everything is secured back here.”

  She grabbed her purse, shut off the lights, and double-checked the back door, making sure it was locked. Satisfied everything was taken care of, and unable to think of any other reason to stall her exit, she stared at the swinging door. Sweat trickled down her back, and her quivering fingers clutched the leather strap of her bag. She could do this. It was no big deal. Like Gavin said, they were friends first. That’s all that was happening now. He was being a friend. That was it.

  Steeling her courage, she followed the girls out to the main showroom. The scene that greeted her stopped her dead in her tracks. Lily and Gracie were staring up at Gavin, white sugar powder on their grinning faces and half-eaten doughnuts in their hands. He was wearing a white T-shirt and plaid board shorts, and looked every bit as lickable as he had yesterday.

  Drat.

  He stood with his broad-shouldered back to Jordan, both arms extended toward the girls, and his hands curled into fists. A smile curved her lips as he charmed her daughters, the same way he had when Jordan had first moved to town in fourth grade. It was how he had introduced himself to her on the playground, and to Jordan’s delight, the sweet disarming greeting was even more adorable today.

  “Okay, take your best shot.” He wiggled his wrists. “Which hand?”

  “That one,” Lily exclaimed, slapping his left fist.

  “Nope.” Gavin opened his hand to reveal an empty palm. “Wrong again!”

  The girls dissolved into giggles as Gavin opened his right hand, a quarter firmly fixed at the center of it.

  “Looks like I get to keep my quarter.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t taken that act on the road,” Jordan said playfully. “If memory serves, I never did guess correctly.”

  “Mama,” Lily said breathlessly, “did you know that Mr. McGuire can do magic tricks? He made a quarter come outta Gracie’s ear and then made it disappear.”

  Gracie nodded and took a bite of her doughnut.

  “I know.” Jordan flicked her gaze from Lily to Gavin, and her stomach swirled into knots of hope and regret. “Did he tell you that he showed me that trick when we were kids?”

  “You mean you learned that when you were a little kid?” Lily asked.

  “Sure did.” Gavin winked at Jordan before offering the quarter to Lily. “Maybe later I’ll show you how it’s done. But then you have to promise not to tell anyone unless it’s another magician. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Lily nodded and wrapped her fingers around the quarter while gobbling up the rest of her doughnut. “Can I tell Gracie?”

  “I dunno.” Gavin made a face and bent at the knees so he was eye level with the girls. Leaning his forearms on his thighs, he folded his hands and gave them an overly serious stare. “Do you want to be a magician too, Gracie?”

  Gracie nodded furiously but nuzzled closer to her sister, clearly in awe of and a little intimidated by Gavin.

  “She says yes,” Lily said.

  “Well, I suppose that’s good enough for me.”

  “Thanks, Mr. McGuire.”

  “Call me Gavin or Chief, okay, girls? ‘Mr. McGuire’ has me looking over my shoulder for my dad.” Rising to his feet, Gavin snagged the brown paper bag off the counter and turned around, offering one to Jordan. “Doughnut?”

  “Thanks.” She swallowed the lump in her throat and held his gaze. “Chief.”

  Gavin shook the bag temptingly and cocked his head, giving her that narrow-eyed gaze he’d given so many times before. The one that screamed…I dare you.

  “They’re good,” he sang. “And calorie-free. Fat-free too. Right, girls?”

  Lily and Gracie laughed as Jordan peered inside the wrinkled opening, and her smile grew when she spotted her favorite kind.

  “Chocolate glazed?”

  “Your favorite,” he said quietly, those intelligent green eyes studying her closely. “At least it used to be.”

  “Still is.” Jordan took the doughnut and moved past him. When her bare arm inadvertently brushed his, a shiver skittered up her back and almost had her tripping over her own feet. “Thanks,” she said, while trying to walk in a straight line.

  “Anytime,” Gavin murmured.

  As she locked up the shop, all Jordan could think about was sitting in the front seat of the car next to Gavin. The warm summer sun blazed down on them, and if it weren’t for a gentle breeze, the July air would be positively stifling. Or maybe it wasn’t the sun. Maybe being near Gavin had Jordan overheated.

  “Mama, can we ride in the chief’s big truck?” Lily twirled around on the sidewalk before clasping her hands together in the traditional begging stance of a child. “Please? He said that we can even turn on the whirly lights.”

  Before Jordan could answer her question, the sirens at the firehouse started to blare in the clear warning of a fire in progress. It looked like fate had stepped in and saved her from what was sure to be a stomach-churning situation. Gavin swore and went to the open window of his truck, grabbing his radio. Jordan didn’t have to hear him to know what was going on.

  Lily and Grace covered their ears with their hands and scrunched up their faces as the sirens continued to wail. The doors of the firehouse rolled up. Opening the back door of the car, Jordan ushered the girls in and fought the wave of disappointment. Jeez. She was a conflicted mess.

  “Lily,” Jordan shouted over the siren, “help Gracie into her booster seat, okay?”

  She shut the door and turned around to find Gavin right behind her. She stepped back but didn’t go far, her ass hitting the side of the car with an undignified oomph.

  “I have to go,” Gavin said, his face a mask of concern. He watched the truck pull out and turn right down Main Street, and the muscle in his stubble-covered jaw flickered with unmistakable tension. “I’m sorry but—”

  “Go.” Jordan waved him off and folded her arms over her breasts. “It’s fine and it’s the thought that counts.” She held his serious stare as he studied her reaction closely. She could tell he was torn about going, but she also knew he didn’t really have a choice. “I mean it, Gavin…it’s okay.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry, Jordan.” Before she could respond and assure him again, Gavin slipped his hand around the nape of her neck, pulled her close, and pressed his lips to her forehead. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  That brief, sweet, and familiar brush of his mouth against her flesh still stole her breath. She nodded absently as he shouted, “I’ll text you.”

  As Gavin drove away, the red emergency lights of his Bronco flickering wildly, Jordan knew it was for the best. She also knew he wouldn’t be texting her. Letting out a laugh, she leaned against the car and tossed her head back.

  He didn’t have her number.

  Chapter 6

  Standing in the hallway of her childhood home, Jordan instantly felt as though she were back in high school. She stared at the faded floral wallpaper, with its pink and yellow buds dangling on green stems. Then she sucked in a steadying breath, attempting to muster up the courage to go into her parents’ bedroom. Her heart raced and her palm, slick with sweat, slid over the glass doorknob as she squeezed her eyes shut. Memories of the many frightened nights she’d spent in this old house flooded her like a tsunami. If not for the laughter of her daughters downstairs, she might actually think she really had stepped back in time.

  You can do this, she thought. He can’t hurt you anymore. He’s a dying old man and you’re a grown woman.

  “Jordan?”

  The fragile, hesitant voice of her mother drifted through the hallway. Opening her eyes, Jordan looked down at the dish towel clutched tightly in her mother’s hands, which had seen more dishwater than should be legal. Her mother’s pale brown-and-white dress hung over a thin frame, her shoulders hunched from years of shrinking away from her husband’s rage.

  “The girls want to go down the street to the park. I’m happy
to take ’em there, if you can see fit to stay with your father for a little while. He’s already eaten, and the nurse will be here in a few minutes to give him more pain medicine. I know you don’t—”

  “That’s fine, Mama,” Jordan said quietly. “I think Lily and Gracie would love that.” She looked back at the smooth, white-paneled door of the bedroom and sucked in another deep breath. “Dad and I have a lot to talk about.”

  “It won’t do you no good, Jordan. He don’t remember anything.” Her mother’s voice sounded thin and raspy, and the delicacy of it tugged at Jordan’s heart. “Not a lick of it.”

  “What?” Jordan’s hand fell from the doorknob as she turned to face her mother. “What do you mean he doesn’t remember? How could he not remember? Is it the medication?”

  “No.” Her mother’s haunted, hollow-looking eyes met Jordan’s, and she squared her shoulders, as though mustering up some long-forgotten courage. “It’s dementia. Doc said it was brought on by the cancer. But whatever the reason, he don’t remember and it won’t do no good to have you bring anything up to him.” Her mother’s mouth set in a tight line before she took a deep breath and whispered, “He probably won’t even know who you are. Besides, the man can’t hardly speak anymore.”

  “Mama.” Jordan folded her arms over her breasts, hugging herself in an effort to still her shaking body, anger and sadness swirling through her like a storm. “But you said—”

  “I know what I said.” Her teary eyes stared down at the dish towel in her hands as she let out a slow breath. “It’s been so long since you came home, and I, well, I suppose I was worried that if you thought you couldn’t say your piece, then maybe you wouldn’t come home at all.”

  A shroud of guilt hung heavily over Jordan as tears spilled down her mother’s cheeks, tears that were because of her, because she’d been a coward and stayed away for so long. Jordan couldn’t blame the old man for the pain on her mother’s face right now. Nope. This was entirely on her.

  “Oh, Mama,” Jordan whispered as she closed the distance between them and gathered her mother in her arms.

  In that moment, with her mother’s face cradled against her shoulder, Jordan realized how much she’d missed this. How much she’d longed for her mama’s hugs and the faint scent of jasmine that was so distinctly hers. With that familiar flowery smell came memories from Jordan’s early childhood in Oklahoma, her life before they came to Old Brookfield. She remembered sitting on the porch with her mother. A white rocking chair and her father nearby, singing and laughing.

  Like a wisp of smoke, hazy and unclear, the image hovered in her mind, teasing her before vanishing almost as swiftly as it had come.

  “I’m so sorry I stayed away for so many years, Mama. But it had been so long, and so many things had gone unsaid. I guess that I thought it was too late.”

  That was true. When she was younger, Jordan had never thought her mother would want to see her again. After having her own children, she’d realized how silly that was. Nothing would keep her from being with her girls.

  She’d spoken with her mother from time to time on the phone after Lily was born, whenever Jordan’s father wasn’t around, but communication had been spotty at best. In the past couple of years, her mother had managed a few day trips to New York under the guise of volunteer work for the church, but any more than that was out of the question. Jordan had tried to get her to leave, to come and live with them in New York, but she had always refused.

  Just as well, Jordan thought. It’s not like her life with Ted had been happy or stable. The irony of her life was not lost on her. She had run away from an unhappy home as a girl, only to end up in the same situation as a woman. Jordan kissed the top of her mother’s head and squeezed her tightly before pulling back.

  “That’s why you’ve been able to call more in the past few months, isn’t it?” Jordan squeezed her arms gently. “He couldn’t keep an eye on you anymore.”

  “Yes.” Her mother nodded and sniffled before swiping at her teary eyes with the dish towel. “The man don’t even know me most days, and the crazy thing is that the dementia might be the best thing that ever happened to him. It’s like he forgot how to be ornery.” She let out a curt laugh. “Do you know he even thanked me the other day? I about fainted. That man ain’t thanked me for nothin’ in almost forty years…”

  The sound of little feet pounding up the stairs echoed through the old Colonial house, and a moment later, two adorable blond heads peeked around the corner.

  “Meemaw,” Lily whined, “you said you would only be a minute and it’s been a hundred minutes.”

  “A hundred minutes,” Grace said through a giggle. “A hundred billion minutes.”

  “Well then.” Her mother smiled brightly and the beauty of it made Jordan’s heart skip a beat. When she looked at her granddaughters, that weary woman faded away and she emanated joy, a joy Jordan had rarely seen growing up. “That’s a long darn time, isn’t it? What do you say we go down to the playground? I heard that Laurie’s grandchildren were visiting this summer too, and if I’m not mistaken, I think they’re right around your age.”

  “Boys or girls?” Lily asked skeptically.

  “Girls, I think.”

  “Good.” Lily grabbed Gracie’s hand and headed back downstairs. “Boys are smelly.”

  “Not the chief,” Gracie said with a giggle. “He smells like doughnuts and he can do magic.”

  “Go on down, girls.” Her mother raised her salt-and-pepper eyebrows as she cast a sidelong glance in Jordan’s direction. “I’ll be right behind you. Why don’t you wait for me on the porch?”

  “Thank you, girls.”

  “The chief, hmm?” Jordan’s mother said a moment later, folding the dish towel into a neat square.

  “Yes.” Jordan straightened her back and shrugged as though it was no big deal that the girls had met Gavin. Of course, if it hadn’t been a big deal, then she might have mentioned it to her mother instead of intentionally omitting it. “He came by the flower shop this morning and gave the girls doughnuts,” she said, not mentioning what his original intentions were. “Don’t make a thing out of it.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her mother nodded slowly and tucked the dish towel in the pocket of her dress. “Well, I guess it ain’t a problem. You aren’t married no more, are you?”

  Jordan fought a surge of frustration because even though her mother never said it, she could hear the disappointment in her voice. It wasn’t a surprise to Jordan though, after everything she’d put up with over the past forty years. Divorce was a big old sin in Claire’s world.

  “No, I’m not. The divorce has been in place for months now. But I’m not dating him or anyone else, okay? Gavin is a friend. That’s all. We have no plans to be anything other than that.”

  “Well, I’m surprised the man will still speak to you after you left the way you did.” Her mother held up both hands before Jordan could say a word. “I’m your mama and there ain’t nothin’ in the world you could do that would make me stop lovin’ you, but he ain’t your family. I’m just surprised, is all. I mean, you weren’t here when he came lookin’ for you that day. The boy was angrier than a snake when I told him you were gone. He didn’t believe me.”

  “Gavin came here?” Jordan’s voice wavered and a lump formed in her throat. “After I left?”

  “He surely did. The boy was convinced your daddy was hidin’ you and keepin’ you from him.”

  “I had no idea,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Didn’t think it mattered.” Her mother sniffed. “But maybe I was wrong and shoulda told ya.”

  What difference would it have made? Her mother was right. It didn’t matter anymore. What’s done was done, and while she couldn’t change the past, she sure as hell could face it. But would he ever forgive her for leaving the way she did? For believing Suzanne’s lie so easily? Why should he?

  “You’re right.” Jordan’s shoulders sagged a bit and weariness started to
creep in. “It was a long time ago, Mama. Gavin and I are just friends. It’s fine.”

  “Maybe.” Her mother slipped her hands in her pockets and shrugged. “But that don’t mean all that happened between you two is gonna go away just ’cause y’all want it to. Upset feelings like that have a way of bubblin’ up to the surface.”

  “We’re both grown-ups, and the past is in the past.”

  “That so?” Her mother grabbed the mahogany banister and nodded toward the closed door of the bedroom. “Then what are you doin’ here?”

  Jordan opened her mouth to respond but thought better of it.

  “Meemaw!” Lily shouted. “Can we go now?”

  “I’m comin’, darlin’.” Jordan’s mother started down the stairs but stopped halfway before letting out a slow breath and looking back up at Jordan. “You can’t change what you did to Gavin any more than your daddy can change what he did to you.”

  Jordan stood at the top of the stairs and listened while the girls’ chatter faded as they headed off to the park with their grandmother. A smile played over Jordan’s lips. She’d wondered so many times if this day would ever come—her daughters playing at the park with their meemaw. This wasn’t the way she would have chosen, but at least it was happening.

  Squaring her shoulders, Jordan turned around and strode across the hall to the bedroom door. Lingering outside, she reminded herself why she was here. She wanted closure with her father. No, not only wanted it but needed it, and no matter what Gavin said, he needed it too. The two of them couldn’t move into the future as friends, or anything else, until they’d dealt with the past.

  But first things first.

  Wrapping her hand around the knob, she sucked in a shuddering breath. With all the courage she possessed, Jordan opened the door to face her past. As the hinges squeaked, she fought a sudden wave of nausea and slowly pushed the door open, preparing herself for whatever was waiting for her on the other side.

  Would he look the same? Would he seem as intimidating as when she was young? Would that voice, the deep rumbling of it, still cut her to the core and stop her in her tracks?