“Of course,” her dad echoed, starting to become amused.
Jordan ignored his chuckle. “Let’s assume a man suddenly starts telling his girlfriend what she can and can’t do, gets all irrational, and demands she give up her job, all because she came home with a tiny scratch from that job.”
“Yes?”
She leaned forward. “Do you think this irrational fear means that … that this man loves his girlfriend? Or would you say he’s just a selfish asshole?”
The bafflement on her father’s face would have been cute if she wasn’t waiting for an answer.
“Are you talking about that cop from the fraud unit, the one your brother saw you holding hands with?”
Jordan lifted her chin. “Dad, I told you it was a purely theoretical question,” she rebuked him.
“Purely theoretical.” He snorted. “And what do you mean when you say ‘a tiny scratch’? What happened? Why were you injured?”
“You sound exactly like Ryan,” she burst out. “Nothing happened! I’m fine, as you can see for yourself.”
The look he gave her then spoke volumes. “We’ll talk about that later, my dear, but first I want to know who the young man is. Your brother told us about him. So he’s a cop, too?”
Jordan shook her head vehemently. She wanted to change the subject before it got uncomfortable. It was her own fault, though. Why did she have to ask her father such an obvious question? “That isn’t the point right now! You said you want to protect me because I’m your daughter. But since I am your daughter, you should know I have a will and a mind of my own and that I’m absolutely capable of taking care of myself.”
It was as if he hadn’t heard her at all.
“Why don’t you bring the boy home to dinner so I can put him to the test? There’s nothing wrong with having a cop for a son-in-law, especially if he thinks the same as me about your job.”
Jordan was left speechless once again. “Just so you know, Dad, nothing is going to keep me from working as a firefighter. And another thing: Ryan Fitzpatrick is an overbearing, bigmouthed, chauvinistic, and self-righteous idiot who tried to tell me to quit my job. And that means he’ll never get to be your son-in-law!”
“Ouch,” her father said, amused.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
He seemed to be struggling to suppress laughter. “The man who has the balls to give you orders is either tired of living or deeply in love—probably the latter. And given the way you’re flying off the handle, I’d guess you both are.”
Jordan frowned darkly and avoided her father’s gaze. “Shut up, Dad.”
When she walked into the living room to say goodbye to her mom, his laughter followed her through the house.
***
When the doorbell rang, Jordan was busy stacking the groceries she had bought in her fridge.
She closed the fridge door and slunk listlessly to the door, very surprised to see Sienna standing there, giving her an insecure look and shouldering her tiny purse.
It took Jordan a few heartbeats to recover from the shock of seeing her former friend at her door, and she licked her dry lips. After the emotional discussion with her dad and her trip to the grocery store, where she’d ambled down the aisles lost in thought and pondering her relationship with Ryan, she was too tired and exhausted for this. “What are you doing here?” she finally managed.
“I want to talk to you,” Sienna whispered nervously, giving Jordan a hesitant look. “Can I come in?”
Jordan should’ve slammed the door in her face, but the sight of the woman, who seemed to have lost at least twenty pounds over the past eight months, and whose eyes held a lost quality that gave Jordan an indistinct ache, made her reconsider. She couldn’t bring herself to turn her dead brother’s fiancée away.
She held open the door without saying anything, remembering wistfully how much fun the two of them had had only a year ago, shopping for dresses for the engagement party and checking out bridal wear together. Unlike Jordan, Sienna was the type of woman who loved beautiful dresses, had the patience to twist her hair into all manner of amazing styles, and was passionate about a makeup.
And she had been the person responsible for the almost idiotically happy expression that used to grace Jordan’s brother’s face.
“You want coffee?” Jordan pointed in the direction of the kitchen, taking the lead and hearing Sienna’s soft footsteps behind her.
“You’re probably wondering why I showed up uninvited.”
With a shrug, Jordan stepped up to her coffeemaker and kept her back to Sienna, who had stopped next to the kitchen table and was now looking around slowly.
“Strangely enough, I’m not.” Jordan switched the coffeemaker on and exhaled loudly while her hands slid over the countertop, brushing away nonexistent crumbs.
They were both silent, until Jordan slowly turned around and studied Sienna, who was the picture of grief. Jordan was tough, but she wasn’t a brute. She felt a tug of compassion and pity for her friend, whose life had changed so drastically eight months ago.
“Sienna—”
The other woman interrupted her with a shake of her head. “Please … I need to get this off my chest before I go insane.”
“Okay,” Jordan said hollowly.
“I need to apologize to you, Jordan, but I don’t know how …” Sienna’s voice was a pained whisper. She took a shaky breath. “What I said … I never should have said a thing like that. And … and I shouldn’t have been so selfish. Brad was your brother.” She sobbed and wiped her eyes. “By now, I understand that … that I’m not the only one who lost him. We all miss him like crazy and … and my accusation was not only wrong, it also helped no one, least of all me. It didn’t do anything to alleviate my anger and my sadness that he’s no longer around.” Her pretty doll-like face looked utterly unhappy, and alarmingly gaunt. “Please accept my apology for the awful things I said to you. I’m so, so sorry.”
Jordan searched her friend’s face and then exhaled deeply. “How are you holding up?” she asked with warm concern. “You look terrible.”
All her friend could muster was a shaky smile. Sienna had never been a good liar, which she proved again when she hastened to add, “I’m okay … really. I’m doing okay. Luke is helping me find a new apartment, so I don’t have to …” She looked at Jordan. Her eyes seemed unnaturally large, which frightened Jordan a little.
She didn’t want to see Sienna break down, so she jumped in. “When did you last eat anything?” she asked sympathetically. “Should I order us a pizza?”
Sienna’s eyes filled with tears. She started sobbing and wrapped her arms around herself.
Only an hour ago, Jordan would have sworn she didn’t want anything to do with her college friend, but now her heart sank like a rock. She rushed over to hug her.
“Oh, God, I miss him so much,” Sienna sobbed against Jordan’s shoulder, clinging to her like a drowning woman.
Jordan returned the embrace just as desperately. “Me, too,” she whispered.
“Please forgive me for that stupid stuff I said,” Sienna cried helplessly. “I-I didn’t know what to do. It just hurt so bad.”
“It’s okay,” Jordan murmured. “I understand.”
Then she burst into tears as well.
She spent the next hour with the woman who should have been her sister-in-law. Sienna seemed changed almost beyond recognition—and unhappy beyond belief. They sat together on Jordan’s couch and drank iced tea, not speaking much. Although they’d been very close once, they were like strangers now, a fact Jordan could only explain by Sienna’s ever-present grief. And now she finally understood what Luke had been trying to tell her.
Sienna needed support, and most of all, she needed someone to take care of her. She’d always been a very positive, cheerful person, but now she seemed almost apathetic, which was even more worrying than if she’d ranted and yelled her grief out.
It made sense now that Luke was always sayin
g the family needed to support Sienna and be there for her. Even though they all grieved for Brad, even eight months later, not a single one of the them was in such a scary state. Sienna was like a different person.
Jordan was glad Luke had been taking care of her so selflessly.
When Sienna left an hour later after promising to come to their next family dinner, Jordan didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned. She didn’t like the way her friend had acted—as if she was on autopilot. Feeling gloomy, she sat down in her reading chair and stared out into the bright sunshine. The conversations with first her dad and then Sienna had upset and touched her. Her brain was a whirl of emotions, and all she could think of was her father’s words about the irrational fear of men who wanted to protect their loved ones.
Slowly, she reached for her phone, stared at it for a while, and then dialed Ryan’s number. Her fingers trembled nervously.
But she was no coward. She wouldn’t run away from an argument.
Even though they’d fought like rabid dogs, and Jordan had literally told him to go to hell, there had to be a solution. They just needed to …
“This is the Mercy East Hospital emergency room. Who is this?”
Confused, Jordan pulled back, glanced at her phone screen, and discovered Ryan’s name there. “Hello?” She held the phone to her ear again and heard a chaos of indefinable noises on the other end. “Who is this? Ryan?”
“Hello …” Again, a bunch of indefinable noises Jordan couldn’t place took over, until she heard a severe voice, a voice of authority. “Hello, this is Nurse Beatrice Ramsay. You’ve reached the emergency room of the Mercy East Hospital—”
“That isn’t possible,” Jordan protested, utterly confused. She jumped from her chair. “This is my boyfriend’s number! His number’s on the–”
“Detective Ryan Fitzpatrick?”
“Yes!”
The voice became reserved and cautious. “Miss, your boyfriend was brought in a few minutes ago. There was a shooting, and—”
Jordan didn’t hear the rest. The phone slipped from her hand, and she dropped to the floor.
Chapter 14
When she stepped into Ryan’s hospital room, she could hardly see where she was going, her eyes were so puffy from crying.
She paused in the doorway, breathless and fearful of what she might find. But when she stared into the room, she saw Ryan lying on the single bed, lifting his left hand in cheerful greeting and then morphing it into a regal wave like the Queen of England.
“High time you came by,” he welcomed her, twisting his lips into a smile. “All the nurses have been slipping me their numbers and offering to kiss my boo-boo. How am I supposed to fend them off without you here to defend your territory?”
Jordan didn’t pay any attention to his mother, who was sitting on a chair at the other end of the room leafing through a magazine and answered her son’s cockiness with a snort.
“You’re such an idiot!” Jordan told him in a cracked voice.
Slowly, she entered the room and wiped her running nose, studying him with concern and flinching at the sight of the bandage around his right shoulder. The thought of a lethal bullet boring into his beautiful shoulder made Jordan gasp for air. And the next thought, of how painful it must be, made her throat feel tight. She didn’t want to imagine him in pain. It tore at her heart.
“You have to be nice to me,” he chastised her with a cheerful grin. “I was shot, and lost all my blood. Now all I need is love. A whole lotta love.” He giggled at his own words.
Jordan blinked and looked to Ryan’s mom, who laughed out loud. “They gave him morphine,” she explained, “and his reaction has been rather amusing. A few minutes ago, he was imitating Madonna. He performed his own version of “Like a Virgin.” I think the entire ward thought it was funny, too.”
A few minutes ago, Jordan had wanted to die because all she’d heard was that Ryan had been shot. She’d gone insane with fright and fear because she hadn’t known how he was doing, how serious his injury was, and how she could bear it if anything happened to him.
The last thing she’d told him, the last thing she’d yelled at him, was that he could go to hell and never come back. Exactly what she’d told Brad just before she literally never saw him again.
The possibility of Ryan being fatally or even seriously wounded had made her stomach turn. She’d felt sick, and everything had gone black for a moment.
And what had he been doing at that exact time? He’d been lying in this hospital bed putting on a show, having the time of his life!
Jordan didn’t know whether to be relieved or enraged.
All the conflicting emotions were still churning within her as she stepped close to his bed and reached out a shaky hand to ruffle his mussed-up hair. She marveled at his familiar, bright smile.
“You really gave me a fright,” she admitted in a murmur, feeling the tears sting her eyes again. “Don’t ever do that again, you hear me?”
“Were you scared for me?”
Why the hell did he sound so satisfied?
Normally, she would have answered with a clever line, but when she opened her mouth, she could hardly suppress a sob. “I was terrified, Ryan,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I …” Her voice broke.
“I think I’m going to take a look at what they have in the cafeteria,” Ellen Fitzpatrick said cheerfully as she rose from her chair and put the magazine aside. She obviously wanted to give her son and his girlfriend some privacy.
Ryan, on the other hand, didn’t set much store by privacy. “Mom, this sounds suspiciously like a declaration of love coming on!” he crowed loudly. “Why don’t you stay and—”
“Son, the fact that you can’t defend yourself right now is not going to keep me from boxing your ears.” Ryan’s mom stepped up to the bed, pressed Jordan’s arm, and then patted her son’s uninjured shoulder. “I’m going to get a coffee. Can I bring anything for you, Jordan? Maybe a new boyfriend?”
Considering the fact that only a few minutes ago Jordan had been afraid she might never see her boyfriend again, she thought this was a rather morbid question. “No, thank you. I really want to keep the one I have.”
“She’s talking about me,” Ryan crowed triumphantly, before imitating the Queen of England and her regal wave again.
“Good for you, dear,” his mom said, making a face as she left them alone and closed the door behind her.
When Jordan was alone with Ryan, she studied him closely, continuing to stroke his hair, as if she were entranced. Her eyes rested on his bare chest, which was bandaged only around his right shoulder. If it wasn’t for the white bandage, he could have been lying in his bed, waiting for her to join him.
“I’m doing great,” he mumbled dopily. “I want to go dancing with you. Right now.”
“Dancing?” She smiled warmly. “Since when do you like dancing?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was slipping, slurring. “You know how much I love your butt. If you danced, it would swing and sway from side to side. I’d like that.”
It was hard not to burst into relieved laughter, but she managed not to. Instead, she murmured softly, “You can’t be hurt that bad if you’re already thinking about sex again.”
He heaved a theatrical sigh. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Absolutely.” She put a hand on his cheek and stroked it tenderly. “You can tell me anything.”
His eyes closed for a moment. It looked as if he were about to doze off. “When I think about sex, I have to think of Jordan. I can’t think of any other woman.”
“Oh?” Thrilled, she bit the inside of her cheek. “Is that so?”
Ryan yawned and then nodded. “I don’t think I ever want to sleep with another woman ever again. But you can’t tell Jordan that.”
Jordan cocked her head and continued to caress his cheek, which was already starting to feel stubbly. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell her.”
“Good.” He exhaled loudly
through his nose, blinked his heavy lids, and, just like that, he was asleep.
Jordan remained where she was and took a deep, relieved breath.
She didn’t know how much time had elapsed when the door behind her opened slowly and Ryan’s mom came in with Shane and Kyle. Jordan was still standing next to Ryan’s bed, guarding him in his sleep.
“Is he sleeping?” Ellen asked.
Smiling, Jordan glanced over her shoulder at the three of them and nodded cautiously. “Safe and sound.”
“The little idiot.” Shane sighed and stepped closer to the bed, where he buried his hands in his pockets with a grim expression. Even his cool and seemingly reserved posture couldn’t hide the fact that he was worried about his little brother. “What has he gotten himself into?”
“They’re probably releasing him tomorrow,” Ellen said gently. “The doctor said they didn’t even have to sedate him when they took out the bullet.”
Shane didn’t answer but inhaled with a grim sound and frowned.
Kyle grabbed Ryan’s patient file and began explaining Ryan’s further treatment, obviously hiding his own concern in the medical terms familiar to him. Jordan didn’t listen very closely as Kyle told them the advantages of the medication Ryan had been given. She focused fully on the sleeping patient, whose features looked incredibly soft as he rested in the arms of Morpheus.
Fortunately, Shane interrupted his lecturing brother. “I don’t need to be at work until tomorrow afternoon, so I can stay here tonight.”
Though Jordan thought Shane’s offer was very touching, she shook her head and leaned over Ryan to brush a strand of hair from his face. “That’s okay. I’m going to stay here.”
“Are you sure?”
She looked at Shane and nodded before looking down at her sleeping boyfriend again. “Yeah, I’m sure. I couldn’t bear not being with him tonight.”
She didn’t care what she’d just implicitly admitted to all of them. What counted was that she was with Ryan. And he was okay.
***
All Tied Up (The Boston Five Series #4) Page 16
