by Judith Yates
Jordan stepped back, unsure what to do next. He always seemed to say the wrong thing to this woman. Fortunately, Stephanie chose that moment to come running back outside.
“Jordan, can Taffy come to the party? She likes to swim, too.”
He picked her up. “Sure, kid, the more the merrier.”
While Holly helped Stephanie with her seat belt, Jordan threw Stephanie’s overnight bag into the trunk. Slamming down the lid, he caught a glimpse of Gracie watching them through her screen door. She looked so alone Jordan couldn’t help feeling bad for her. He hoped he wasn’t making her feel like a fifth wheel. He certainly didn’t want to shut her out, but she had to accept that the three of them needed time alone together now.
He wished he could prove to Gracie how much he cared about them. He wanted her to understand how connected he felt, not just to Holly, but to Stephanie, too. It was as if the heavens had meant for the three of them to be together. And if he got his way, they’d become a family soon.
After spending the better part of two wonderful days with his two special ladies, leaving them became harder than Jordan would have thought possible. He kept reminding himself he’d be away only a day and night. Besides, he had a lot to do in Boston. In addition to officially closing the books on CompWare, he had to put his condo up for sale, see a couple of friends, visit the jeweler’s and stop by his travel agent’s office. With an agenda like that, the time would fly and then he’d be coming home.
“I thought you weren’t leaving until after lunch,” Holly said when he stopped by her shop early Tuesday morning.
“The sooner I leave, the sooner I’ll get back.”
Jordan didn’t think he had to add why he’d shown up a good half hour before she opened the shop for business. He knew she’d be there, setting up for the day. But he didn’t know that Stephanie would be there, too.
“I was hoping we could steal a few moments alone,” he murmured in Holly’s ear, his hand caressing her firm bottom, making it clear exactly what he’d been hoping for. Her amber eyes flickered with a longing he’d come to recognize.
But almost immediately, this sexy gleam dissolved into disappointment. “Gracie has a dentist appointment this morning,” she explained.
He glanced over to where Stephanie was playing intently with her dolls and a tiny set of china cups and saucers. “I don’t suppose we can send her across the street for coffee with the guys at the general store.”
“Uh-uh,” she replied with a smile and a shake of her head. Then she took his hand and pulled him into the back room.
The next thing he knew. she was in his arms, firing him up with a kiss they both knew could go nowhere. But that didn’t make him want to stop his hands from roaming over her lush curves or from pressing his burning body against her soft hips. And he really didn’t want to stop kissing her. Her lips tasted like the scented flowers blossoming outside her front porch, and her skin was as creamy and smooth as all the sweet-smelling potions lining the shelves of her shop.
Closing his eyes, he filled his head with memories of their actual lovemaking. The touches, the tastes, the sounds flowed through him, reminding him of the profound pleasure he’d never experienced with any other lover. Making love with Holly was an act on an entirely different plane—the intimacies were more intense, the passions deep and the emotions almost sacred.
Holly moaned softly against his lips, pulling Jordan back to his senses. As hard as it was, he dragged his mouth away from hers and kissed her eyes. “I’d better go, before we—”
“Jordan.” Her eyes glistened with a startling anxiety. “I asked Nancy to take Stephanie home with her after the picnic—to spend the night.”
“You did?” He scooped her up in his arms as his pulse soared with delight. “Maybe we should think about skipping the fireworks display so we can make up for some lost time.”
“I would love that.”
She stepped back from him, her lips slightly quivering. Jordan couldn’t understand why. But when Holly tried to cover up with a weak smile, he was even more puzzled.
“Come here,” he whispered, guessing that she might be in need of some reassuring. He held her close. “I’ll call you when I get to Boston, and I’ll call you the minute I roll back into town. And while I’m gone, I’ll be counting the hours until we send all our guests home after the party.”
“We’ll have a lot to talk about then.”
Though talking wasn’t the thing uppermost in his mind, he nodded and kissed her cheek. She had sounded a little sad. But he felt sad about leaving her, too. Even if it was for less than twenty-four hours.
Jordan rolled back into town and right up to Holly’s door while she was making lunch for Stephanie. Butterflies flapped wildly in her stomach when she caught sight of his rangy frame in T-shirt and jeans standing on the front porch. With a cry of delight, she ran out to welcome him and Steph followed right behind her.
“I stopped at the shop first, but it was closed,” Jordan said after a round of hugs and kisses.
“Business was dead yesterday, so I tossed in the towel and decided to make it a real long holiday weekend,” she explained as they entered the house. “And I thought you could use my help getting ready for the party.”
It was all true. More than anything, however, she wanted to savor every minute of their last full carefree day together. As tomorrow night’s moment of truth edged closer, her faith was wavering. Her resolve was not. Come what may, Jordan would know Stephanie was his brother’s child before the town’s annual fireworks show was over.
Hooking her arm through his, Holly led Jordan into the kitchen. “I’m making Stephanie spaghetti circles for lunch. What can I get for you?”
“Certainly not spaghetti whatever you call them.”
The grimace on his face reminded her of his initial reaction to tuna noodle casserole. She laughed and hugged his waist. “Don’t you worry. I’ll come up with something just for you.”
The kitchen was a busy place, with Gracie at the sink peeling mounds of potatoes for her special holiday salad and Stephanie sitting at the table behind a big bowl of spaghetti circles, begging Jordan to play checkers with her while she ate. Taffy sat at Steph’s feet, alert to any and all droppings from the house’s designated messy eater. Yet there was laughter and warmth in the midst of the chaos. As she pulled out the makings for bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches, Holly realized what a difference Jordan’s presence made. In five short minutes the house had come alive.
Jordan finally gave in to Steph’s plea for a checker game. Holly agreed, but warned her to watch her dish. “She’s gonna spill,” Gracie muttered from the sink.
“I won’t, Gracie. You’ll see.”
Standing at the stove, frying bacon, Holly watched Jordan and Steph out the corner of her eye. He was so patient with her, calmly explaining which direction she could move her checkers and why she couldn’t suddenly switch from red to black in the middle of a game. The look in her daughter’s eyes as she drank up Jordan’s attention didn’t escape Holly’s notice, either.
Turning away to finish the sandwiches, she prayed Stephanie and Jordan would never lose that special bond.
“Uh-oh!”
Taffy yelped with delight. And Stephanie, with a telltale sauce-covered elbow and a bowl of spaghetti circles on her lap, looked up at Holly in helpless horror. “It was an accident, Mommy.”
“I know, honey.” She lifted the bowl off Steph’s thighs, which were a saucy mess. “We’ve got to clean you up.”
Jordan shooed Taffy out the front door, and Gracie came over with a roll of paper towels in hand. “You go get her out of those clothes. I’ll clean this mess.”
Gracie wouldn’t take no for an answer, so Holly took Stephanie upstairs to wash. Once she was scrubbed clean, they went to her room to pick out some clean clothes. “Can I wear my red-white-and-blue dress now?” Steph asked as she twirled about the room in her underwear.
Before she could answer, Taffy began bar
king outside, loudly and insistently. Holly went to Steph’s window to check on the commotion and was surprised to see Howie McGovern’s big lemon yellow taxi sitting in the driveway. Jordan was out there, too, extending a hand to the gray-haired passenger emerging from the rear door. A gasp of recognition rumbled in her throat.
Stephanie stood on tiptoe to peer over the high windowsill. “What’s the matter?”
Watching the two men shake hands, Holly froze.
“Who’s that with Jordan, Mommy?”
“That’s your—” She had to stop—she could scarcely breathe. Her chest felt heavy. “He’s—he’s my father.”
Chapter Thirteen
Holly edged away from the window, her mind in shock. Why her father had come here, how he had come—it didn’t connect. All Holly knew was she had to get out there before Ted said more than he should.
She tore past Stephanie and dashed down the stairs.
“What in creation is going on out there?” Gracie called after Holly as she flew out the front door.
By the time she had made it to the bottom of the porch steps, the taxi was backing out and Jordan and her father stood face-to-face, talking. “Jordan!”
Running down the driveway, she called to him again. Her throat burned from her cries. Before she could reach them, Ted turned to her with horrified eyes. They stopped her cold.
“Jordan?”
He looked up, his face ashen, but his eyes were pure ice. “Too late, Holly.”
The harsh, controlled anger beneath those three words struck her with the force of a physical blow. But what pained her more was the stricken look on his face. “Jordan, what did he tell you?”
She could see he was literally struggling with the shock racking his body. His hands curled into fists at his sides and he walked away. As she turned to go after him, her father caught her arm.
“Holly, I didn’t know. I’m sorry, but I didn’t know.” His voice cracking with emotion, Ted held up an airline ticket jacket. “He wired me this ticket—to surprise you for the holiday. When it came yesterday, I thought you had finally told him.”
He sounded devastated, but there was no time to deal with that now. “Dad, please. Go inside and look after Stephanie for me. Just keep her away from us, please.”
She caught up with Jordan just before he reached his truck. “Jordan, you can’t leave now.”
“The hell I can’t.”
“No.” She clutched his arm with both her hands. “We have to talk. Don’t you want to know the whole story?”
“That would be a good question if it wasn’t so ludicrous.”
His eyes were almost black with rage, and she could feel his anger and hurt vibrate beneath her fingers.
“I know the whole story. Scott is Stephanie’s father. You told me he wasn’t. Like a fool, I believed in some phantom lover of yours. But lo and behold, your father shows up to finally clue me in.”
“I was going to tell you tomorrow night. That’s why I arranged for Stephanie to go to Nancy’s. So we could talk.”
Jordan yanked his arm away from her. “Tomorrow night? Even if that were true—which I doubt—that’s five years too late.”
She wiped her hand across the tears on her cheek. “You don’t understand how it was.”
“Damn you, Holly. I don’t know which is worse—hiding Steph from Scott and my family all these years or lying to me all these weeks. After what we’ve been to each other? Even after we made love?”
The pain in his voice sliced through her. He might not know which was worse, but she could see which hurt him more. “I’ve been wrong, I know. God, how I know. I did try to tell you, though, several times. But something always happened to interrupt us. And after the way you talked about Scott and the way you resented him, I was afraid of hurting you.”
“Well, congratulations, Holly. You’ve done it anyway.” He leaned back against the cab of his truck, shaking his head. “If I hadn’t come to Golden, would you have kept this secret forever? If your father hadn’t blurted out the truth by accident, would you have kept lying to me forever?”
“No!”
Jordan didn’t hear her; he didn’t even look at her. “No matter what Scott did to you, he deserved to know about that little girl. And my father...I told you how much he had grieved for Scott. How dared you keep part of my brother away from him? How could you?”
Holly closed her eyes, absorbing every verbal blow, yet trying to steel herself against his unbearable rage. Although she felt as though she was dying inside, she was determined that Jordan know her side. She could see Jordan was deeply wounded, but she was in pain, too.
“I deserve everything you’ve said, Jordan—and more.” She struggled to keep her voice calm, hoping to soothe the inflamed tension scorching them both. “I take total responsibility for this unbearable mess. Still, I beg you—let me tell you what happened all those years ago. Because of what we’ve been through together, and because of how it was between us when we made love.”
Jordan’s eyes were cold, his mouth still tight with his seething pain. But he didn’t object. He didn’t try to leave.
So, with her heart in her mouth, Holly traveled back to that distant, almost unreal time when she was with Scott. “We did use birth control, but there were slipups now and then—like the last time we slept together, about a week before the wedding.”
“When he was already having second thoughts.”
Holly nodded. “Unfortunately, I found that out after the fact.”
She hadn’t realized she was pregnant until months later. Young and upset, she had convinced herself that stress had thrown her cycle out of whack. “When my pregnancy was confirmed, I did try to tell Scott. I spent weeks attempting to get hold of him on the phone when he was gallivanting across Europe. But when I finally did, he scarcely listened to anything I had to say. All he could talk about was his life, his choices.” Holly swallowed hard as the bitterness from those days merged with the hurt in her heart now. “You remember what he was like then.”
Jordan gave a somber nod. “I remember.”
“Then he hung up before I had a chance to tell him about the baby. He had to be somewhere—or something like that.”
Holly found it still hurt to talk about that phone call. She peered up at Jordan, hoping for a comforting glance or a sympathetic word. But no.
“You can imagine how angry and hurt I was then, and how scared,” she continued, wishing Jordan would at least look at her while she spoke. “I resented Scott terribly—even after I had the baby. I didn’t want him to think I was trying to trap him or burden him with a responsibility he had no interest in. I was bound and determined to prove I didn’t want him or need him when I did finally tell him about Stephanie. That was why I came to Golden—to give myself the chance to build that life.”
“But Scott died.”
Fresh tears sprang from her eyes. “The day my mother told me about his motorcycle accident was the saddest day of my life. I had a hard time accepting he was really gone.” She bit down on her lip to stop the trembling. “All I kept thinking was that Stephanie would never ever know her father.”
Holly wiped her tears with the back of her hand as a deafening silence followed.
“You could’ve told Dad.”
“I should have told him. I know that now.” How could she make Jordan understand the emotional climate she had lived in all those years? What more could she say about her youthful fears, her parents’ difficulty in dealing with her pregnancy and the incredible guilt that buried the truth deeper and deeper with each passing year?
When he finally looked at her, she realized it didn’t matter what she said. The Jordan she knew and loved was lost in a hard, cold shell of anger.
“You lied to me about Stephanie that very first day. Why?”
“You scared me half to death,” she declared, as an angry resentment began to mount inside her. “I didn’t know what you wanted. I felt I had to protect Stephanie.”
; “Protect her from her own uncle?” Jordan’s voice grew fierce. “That doesn’t wash, Holly.”
“You haven’t been appointed my judge,” she snapped. “Just because I didn’t react in the way you think I should doesn’t mean my feelings aren’t real.”
“Why should I believe anything you say now?” he demanded, his eyes flashing. “When I was falling for you hook, line and sinker, lady, you kept on lying to me.”
“Stop it. Stop it, Jordan!” The high thin voice strained to be heard over the shouting. “Why are you mad at Mommy?”
Stunned, Holly looked down at Stephanie, who was tugging at the hem of Jordan’s T-shirt. Jordan looked equally stunned as he stared openmouthed at her little girl.
“Stephanie! Stephanie!” Both Gracie and her father came running out of the house, visibly distressed that Stephanie had slipped away from them.
Kneeling low to meet Stephanie’s eyes, Jordan cupped his hands over her little shoulders and gazed at her for one long moment. The tough, steely facade he had shown to Holly melted almost immediately. “We’re just a little upset right now.”
Stephie’s mouth drooped. “Why?”
Jordan clearly didn’t want to say. “Look, kid, I’ve got some disappointing news—about tomorrow. I’m afraid we won’t be able to spend the day as we planned. Something unexpected came up.”
“There’s not going to be a party?”
Struggling to control his emotions, Jordan shook his head. “I’m really, really sorry, Steph.”
“But why not?”
“Remember I told you my father lives in Florida? Well, he’s been sick and I need to go see him. We’ve got some important things to talk about.”
Stephanie’s eyes began to water. “When are you coming back?”
Unable to bear it anymore, Holly looked away. Hot tears streamed down her face. Gracie came over to put a hand on her shoulder.
“Soon, sweetheart. Real soon,” Holly heard Jordan answer. “Besides, now your grandpa’s here to see you. Why don’t you go inside and show him what a mean game of checkers you play?”
