“I should have choked you when I had the chance,” Kayleigh grumbled darkly. “Now it’s too late, and I can’t seem to get rid of you.”
“I love you, too,” Ryan replied with a dry smile. “And as much as I love chatting with you, I still have some work to do.”
She snorted as if she didn’t believe him. “So are you coming to Aidan’s surprise party?”
“Sure!” He licked his lips and, trying to sound nonchalant, added, “I’ll bring someone. I guess I’ll bring Jordan.”
To his utter surprise, his sister didn’t even try to tease him. She clicked her tongue and said, “Jordan was already on my list. I asked her this morning when she was in the ER.”
His head jerked up, and he almost dropped the phone. “What?”
“She and Heath had to be examined after a fire—you know the regulations.” His sister sounded as impassive as if she were talking about the food she was going to prepare for Aidan’s party. In fact, she’d probably have shown more emotion had she been talking about food.
Ryan’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the receiver harder. His stomach seemed to twist itself into a painful knot. “What happened? Is she injured?”
Kayleigh chuckled. “Jesus, Ryan, you sound like—”
“Goddammit, Kayleigh! I asked whether Jordan is injured.”
“No, she isn’t,” his sister replied much more calmly. “Nothing dramatic—thank God. One of my coworkers sent her home. She has mild smoke inhalation and a few bruises. Nothing serious. Actually, your girlfriend saved our brother’s—”
Ryan didn’t wait around to hear what else his sister had to say. He hung up and rose, tearing his jacket off the back of his chair.
“Dickie, I need to leave for a while,” he called to his partner, who was rifling through his gigantic cookie jar, and looked up uncomprehendingly.
Without waiting for an answer, Ryan ran out of the office and down the hall, rushed out to his car, and drove to Jordan’s apartment in record time.
He was out of breath when he reached her place and banged on her door like a madman. When she opened the door, he was so relieved to see her perplexed face.
“Ryan? What are you doing here?”
He pushed her backward into the apartment and closed the door with a bang. He scrutinized her with furrowed eyebrows and realized she must have just taken a shower, because she was wearing a bathrobe and rubbing her wet hair with a towel.
For the first time, he didn’t feel the overwhelming urge to tear her clothes off and have her. He was sick with the fear that had gripped him at his sister’s words.
His limbs felt paralyzed and his throat tight.
His voice, however, was anything but paralyzed. “You were injured during an operation?”
Her beautiful eyebrows rose. “What? How did you know?”
“Kayleigh called me and mentioned it in passing.” His hands were shaking, so he balled them into fists.
“And that’s why you came by?”
“Jesus, Jordan,” he whispered roughly. “Are you okay? Are you injured? Is everything alright?”
She gave him a confused look and knit her brows. “It’s no big deal,” she said with a dismissive flick of her hand. “Didn’t Kayleigh tell you it was just a routine examination and that they sent me home?”
“She told me you have smoke inhalation!” he snapped, not knowing how to contain his raging emotions. He felt like grabbing and shaking her but also hugging her so tightly that he could be certain she was really still there and would never scare him like that again. He didn’t know what had gripped him, but it felt like wild panic staring him in the face—and the feeling was horrible.
“I lost my mask and inhaled a little smoke.”
“Kayleigh also said you have bruises!”
“We had to drag an unconscious man down a flight of stairs, and we fell down the last few steps. That leaves a few bruises, yes, but it doesn’t even hurt.” She shrugged. “I’m fit for service for my next shift.”
“Your next shift?” He must have misheard her. “What the hell are you talking about? What next shift? You’re not going back there,” he ranted, shaking his head like a dictator.
“Ryan,” she shot back, her hands on her hips, “have you lost your fucking mind? I’m fine, okay?”
He didn’t even register that her bathrobe had fallen open at the top and was revealing her delicious cleavage, because he was staring daggers at her. He’d rather have chained her to the bed with his handcuffs than allow her to play firefighter again.
“Something could have happened to you!”
“But it didn’t!”
Ryan drew himself up to his full height and inhaled. “You’re not going to risk your life again like that, do you hear me?”
“What?” Her voice had a dangerous edge now, and she glared at him. “Did you sniff glue at work today, or have you simply lost your mind? You’re not giving me orders!”
“Of course I am!” he yelled back. “If you can’t be reasonable enough to see that this job isn’t for you, then it’s on me to make you see!”
Speechless, she gasped and searched his face for signs of either madness or joking. Obviously finding none, she drew her soft, beautiful lips into a thin, hard line.
“This job is far too dangerous!” Ryan went on, hoping to make her see reason. “You’ve got to realize that—”
“Wait one minute,” she interrupted, struggling to contain her anger. “Your brother was with me in this operation. He and I dragged the guy out together. He was sent home just like me. But you don’t seem to be worried about him going back on his next shift!”
“That’s completely different,” he dismissed her immediately.
“Why? Because he’s a man? Because I’m a woman?”
“Exactly!” Ryan’s head felt like it might explode at any moment. “This job is far too dangerous for a woman! I won’t allow you to endanger yourself like that.”
“What? You won’t allow it?” Jordan also looked like she might explode. Her face turned beet-red. “Just for your information, Ryan Fitzpatrick, but I don’t care what you will or will not allow me to do! I’m an adult, and I make my own decisions!”
“Apparently you’re not fit to make your own decisions,” he raved, fueled by a mixture of panic, anger, fear, and the need to keep her under his protection. “Don’t be so irrational—”
“Shut up!”
“But you—”
“Shut up and get out of here!” she screamed. “I’m not talking to you when you’re behaving so unreasonably!”
“You’re the one acting unreasonably!” he yelled. “You could have gotten hurt today!”
“Yeah, and a piano could have dropped on my head on the way to work!” She shook her head. “Of all people, I expected more support and sympathy from you, Ryan. You know exactly how much this job means to me.”
“And you know how much you mean to me!” The words had escaped his mouth before he could think them through. “Jordan, I couldn’t bear—”
“If I really mean so much to you, you’re going to have to let me make my own decisions,” she interrupted. “I am not a submissive little woman, Ryan, who’ll only do what you allow me to do!”
“I never said that’s what I wanted!”
“Of course that’s what you want! You’re trying to dictate what job I have because you can’t deal with me being a firefighter! What do you call that?”
“I call that a reasonable decision.”
“I call it selfish!” Her face suddenly became shuttered. “Neither my parents nor my brothers have managed to talk me out of becoming a firefighter—and you won’t succeed either. If you can’t deal with that, you better leave now.”
He felt pummeled by panic and helplessness. “Jordan—”
“I’m an adult, Ryan. Do you want me to make decisions for you about your job?”
“That’s completely different.”
“No, it’s not!”
H
e had no clue how he could get her to give up her job. He was still paralyzed by the thought of something serious happening to her in the line of duty. That’s why he decided to play his final, trump card.
He breathed heavily. “If you can’t see reason, I’m going to talk to Heath … or the chief. He was a friend of my father’s. You’re not staying in that profession one more day—I’m going to make sure of that.”
An expression of pure horror spread across her face. “You can go to hell for all I care, Ryan Fitzpatrick! Don’t ever come back here!”
Chapter 13
“Do you have to do that, Dad?”
“Do what?”
Jordan made a disgusted face and pointed at the weapon, which her dad was cleaning at the kitchen table while slurping his coffee. She didn’t know which was worse—the loving attention he bestowed upon his Glock, or the persistent slurping noise he made as he drank his coffee.
Even though she’d grown up with her dad possessing a weapon—he was a cop, after all—Jordan could no longer bear the sight of a gun on the kitchen table. Her dad still brought his gun home without wasting a thought on the fact that her mom had persistent nightmares about her son’s death. It made Jordan so mad she wanted to tear the gun from his hand and drown it in her mom’s dishwater.
Every woman on the planet knew men weren’t sensitive—they were terrible, bullheaded, selfish brutes—and yet it still made her speechless how inconsiderate her father could be.
When her mom went to the living room to call her sister, Jordan turned to her father. “Do you ever think of Mom?” she hissed.
Of course he looked at her like a learning-disabled chimpanzee. “What about your mom?” he asked, confused.
Jordan ground her teeth and pointed at his gun again. “Brad was shot with one of those things, and here you sit cleaning your precious baby as if nothing happened! Can’t you be a little more considerate?”
He lowered his graying head and twisted his mouth down. “Your mom doesn’t mind—”
“But I mind,” she snapped. “Even if Mom keeps her mouth shut and pretends to have no problem with your gun in the house less than a year since Brad’s death, you should know I mind!”
When he gave her a silent look, knitting his brows thoughtfully, she couldn’t stop herself. “All I ever hear is that my job is responsible for Mom’s sleepless nights and that I’m inconsiderate of her worries,” Jordan said accusingly, “but what are you doing here? Do you really believe it doesn’t affect her, watching you play with your gun right in front of her?”
“But I—”
“Men are so selfish!” she cut him off, too angry to stop now. “While Luke and Logan continue to do the job that cost Brad his life, and not one of you has a problem with that, you blame me for driving Mom into the arms of a nervous breakdown! Do you have any idea how unfair that is, placing all the responsibility squarely on me? Why don’t you demand Luke and Logan give up their jobs and become accountants? Why don’t you resign from your job? You’re a cop, too, you know.”
She hadn’t meant to come here and vomit up all the baggage she’d carried around for months. She’d actually come to her parents’ to ask her mom for a simple cake recipe and to distract herself from the fact that she had apparently broken up with Ryan yesterday. They had fought so hard the walls shook, and now she couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and was in such a foul mood she’d even ranted at an old lady earlier just because she was taking a bit long to hobble across the street in the crosswalk.
Jordan was as snappish as an old turtle.
And her dad was the current recipient of her foul mood.
She almost felt sorry for him as he gasped for air like a fish on dry land and stared at her, stunned, for a few moments.
“Wait a minute, Jordan.” He shook his head. “Nobody ever accused you of being inconsiderate toward your mom.”
“Of course you do. You all do,” she fought back. “You don’t want me working at the station, and you argue that I should think of Mom, because she already lost one child. That just isn’t fair—and you know it!”
Her father’s expression darkened. “Maybe it isn’t fair, but what else are we supposed to do? Your mother, your brothers and I, we all fear for you, Hedgehog.”
“Don’t call me that,” she choked out, knowing she would burst into tears if her dad used her pet name one more time. Brad had started teasing her with the name after she’d played the part of a hedgehog in her first-grade play. A year ago, he’d still called her that when he wanted to tease her. She felt a sob rise in her throat at the memory of him at his engagement party, an arm around Sienna’s shoulders, as he murmured to Jordan, “I barely recognized you in that dress, Hedgehog. What happened? You actually look like a girl!”
“Why do you want to keep me from being as a firefighter?” Jordan asked her father more calmly. “You all know I’ve never wanted to be anything else.”
Her dad pushed the gun aside and searched for words. “Please understand that we’re worried. We fear for you. None of us can bear the thought of something happening to you! After Brad …”
“Dad,” she protested helplessly. “I want to work in a meaningful profession and help people. I don’t see what’s bad about that!”
“Nothing is bad about that.” He paused for a moment. “If only it wasn’t so dangerous.”
“But you, Luke, and Logan all work for the police! How is that any less dangerous?”
“It’s not the same!” he insisted.
“Why isn’t it the same?” Jordan narrowed her eyes. “Because you, Luke, and Logan are men? Because I’m a woman?”
“Yes, of course it’s different because you’re a woman!”
She suddenly felt like a broken record. Endlessly repeating herself. More Groundhog Day than hedgehog. Twenty-four hours ago, Ryan had said almost the same exact things as her father, insisting there was a difference between a man and woman holding the same job.
And just like the day before, Jordan hit the roof. “That is absolute bullshit, Dad! This is not the Middle Ages! Women can and do the same things as men! You have been telling me men and women should be equal my entire life. That they should have equal rights.”
“This has nothing to do with equality, Jordan!” Frustrated, he ran a hand through his hair.
“So it’s perfectly fine for your sons to work in a dangerous profession, but you can’t accept the same for your daughter? Jesus, do you have any idea what that sounds like?”
“What does it sound like, Jordan?”
“It sounds … chauvinistic! Sexist.”
“If it’s chauvinistic that a father doesn’t want anything to happen to his daughter, then I’ll gladly be a chauvinist.”
Jordan took a shaky breath. “Dad, I’m old enough to make my own decisions. Maybe you can’t understand why I want to be a firefighter, but you’re going to have to deal with it.”
“And you’re going to have to deal with the fact that I worry about you.”
“But why?” She lifted her shoulders in incomprehension, suddenly feeling exhausted. “Why do you worry about me, but not Luke and Logan? That’s utterly irrational.”
Even though her father had never been an emotional man, he swallowed hard, and his eyes moistened. “A man loves all of his children, Jordan.”
“Yes, but you—”
He held up a hand to indicate that needed to hear him out. Then he drew a breath. “A father is very proud of his sons, but his daughter is his greatest treasure. You may call that chauvinistic, sexist, and discriminatory, but I simply couldn’t bear it if you were harmed.”
Suddenly, she felt a lump in her throat.
“When your brothers were little and fell off their bikes, I flinched. But when you hurt yourself, I panicked. Even though I know you’re just as strong, clever, and smart as your brothers, I have a strong urge to protect you. And that isn’t going to change, not in a hundred years.”
She sniffled and rubbed at her eyes. “You�
�re not playing fair, Dad, making me cry.”
His voice was suddenly infinitely soft. “That was my plan.”
“I’m serious.” She fought against the lump in her throat and tried to speak soberly and calmly. “I’m sure Mom worried about you a lot, too. She probably still does, but she never told you to quit your job just because she was worried.”
“Your mom is a woman.”
Perplexed by that logic, she lifted her shoulders. “I don’t understand. Women can deal with their fears and suppress them, but men can’t?”
Her dad made a face. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“You need to explain that a little better,” she demanded.
“Probably only men can understand it.”
“Very helpful.” Jordan rolled her eyes. “Is that another daddy thing?”
“It’s a man thing,” he clarified with a sigh.
“Irrational fear is a man thing?” she asked sarcastically.
“You could say that. A man wants to protect the people he loves. And if he’s very scared, he might act a little irrational.”
Jordan wanted to snort with disdain, but then it hit her.
She suddenly saw Ryan’s panicked face, his high-pitched voice, and the sweat on his forehead as he’d ordered her to quit her job. He’d been utterly irrational, like someone who’d lost control over his own life. Jordan hadn’t understood why he’d suddenly been so dictatorial and caveman-like, trying to order her around. Jesus, she’d wanted to throttle him when he’d started telling her what to do.
And when he’d threatened to talk to the chief or to Heath, she’d told him to go to hell.
But now she was starting to realize why he’d seemed so out of his mind.
“Can I ask you a theoretical question, Dad?” she asked cautiously.
“A theoretical question?”
“Mm-hm.” Hesitating, she licked her lips. “So … let’s assume … on a purely theoretical basis, of course …”
All Tied Up (The Boston Five Series #4) Page 15
