Murphy's Child

by Judith Duncan

  And Murphy recognized that with J.J. sleeping better at night, there was really no reason for him to stay at Jordan’s. But since she never brought it up, neither did he. In fact, he had moved in even more. Without making any kind of an issue out of it, he started sleeping in the master bedroom as if he belonged there. It was nice, going to bed together, and it was even nicer to wake up in the night and have her right there beside him. It was almost like being married. Almost.

  But it was more than the new closeness in their relationship that kept him there. It was the changes in Jordan, as well. There had been a big change since J.J. was fussing less and sleeping more. It was as if motherhood had eroded her former self, and for Murphy, it was as if he was getting to see the real Jordan Kennedy underneath. Funny, self-effacing, totally enchanted by her small son. And there were times when Murphy was caught so unawares, was so totally disarmed by this emerging person, that he felt as if he’d been caught in some kind of weird time warp. And every day he fell in love with her a little more.

  Which was damned sobering. Because in spite of how much he wanted it otherwise, there was still that element of guardedness in her. Yes, she let him get as close to her as he wanted—but there were parts of herself that she still withheld, as if she was protecting herself. And unless he could somehow slip behind her wariness, he knew he was pretty much at a standstill.

  But he tried not to think about it. He just kept hoping for a breakthrough—any kind of breakthrough. What he wanted more than anything was some demonstration of trust from her—something. Anything.

  Well, at least if nothing else—thanks to Revenue Canada—they reestablished their client-accountant association. Now that he was over being ticked off at her, Murphy had to be honest with himself. It was true; one reason he hadn’t moved to another accountant was out of spite. But the most important reason was that she was sharp, astute and she knew the tax act inside and out. So when his bookkeeper, who was due to leave on holidays that afternoon, phoned to tell him that Revenue Canada was questioning the corporate return, he pulled a bald-faced scam and told Jordan about it And he did it because he knew exactly what she would do.

  She had taken a six-month maternity leave from the firm, which meant that most of her clients had been temporarily shuffled to one of the other partners. But Murphy knew from odd comments that she was worried about losing some of her client base—she wouldn’t talk about it, but he could tell she was concerned. So this way, he could let her know without coming right out and saying so that Munroe Construction had every intention of keeping her on.

  They dropped J.J. off with Baba, who was standing on the street waiting for them when they drove up. His grandmother had dragged out a tiny crib that Murphy’s grandfather had made when their first daughter was born, had it all polished up and set up in her living room, right by her favorite chair. Murphy had a hard time to keep from laughing. It was just so Baba.

  After the family barbecue, Baba had taken it upon herself to be the family representative, and she started showing up at the condo, unexpected and unannounced. She’d Just hop on a bus and arrive at the door, usually with some of her specialized goodies, and usually when Murphy was at the job site. Jordan was always so thrilled by her visits, and it was pretty obvious that she was totally taken by the older woman.

  But what he really got a kick out of was watching his grandmother and Jordan together. They had gotten so tight that they started having these silent little exchanges—like when Jordan handed Baba two bottles for J.J., and Baba touched her own breast and gave Jordan a questioning look, and Jordan turned pink and nodded. It was all so—family. Murphy figured that after J.J., Baba was his next-best weapon.

  The other thing that amused the hell out of hun was Jordan’s attitude about leaving their son for the first time. He had expected separation anxiety. Nope. Didn’t happen. Instead, she had a self-satisfied look on her face when they drove away from Baba’s—as if leaving J.J. with his great-grandmother was the best thing that had ever happened.

  Then they hit the head office of Munroe Construction, which was located in an industrial strip mall on the southeast side of the city. And it took Jordan exactly twenty minutes to sort out a problem that would have taken him half a day to find, let alone fix. Getting the documentation meticulously organized, she used the computer in his office to write a rather brisk letter to Revenue Canada. With that prim-accountant look on her face, she referred to attached documents, item by item, meticulously pointing out their error. He loved it.

  It was early afternoon by the time they left the office. And even though they were well into fall, heat radiated off the concrete parking lot and the sunlight was blindingly bright as it bounced off the windshield of Jordan’s truck. The metal frame of the door was hot to the touch as he locked it behind him. Checking to make sure the door was secure, he glanced at her. “Do you mind if we stopped by my place first? I fixed one of Baba’s kitchen chairs, and it’s in my workshop. I should get it back to her.”

  Slipping on her sunglasses, Jordan shook her head. “No, I don’t mind.”

  Murphy gave her a hard, assessing look. There had been a funny tone in her voice, and he wondered what it meant. Maybe it had to do with going to his place. Because in their previous life, she had been in his house exactly once, and that time she went as far as the kitchen. She’d been very skittish, as if she didn’t feel safe there—or maybe, he realized now, it was that she felt as if she didn’t belong. They were approaching the Explorer when she handed him the keys, avoiding eye contact. “Here, you may as well drive. You know the way from here.”

  He wasn’t sure if it was about going to his place, or if it was about something else, but something was cooking with her. He’d sensed her withdrawal when they’d gone into his office to use his computer. At the time, he thought she was preoccupied with the problem. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  The street in front of his house was a narrow dead end, and the huge elm trees on either side of the road formed a leafy canopy overhead, their foliage breaking the heat. Murphy parked in the driveway and switched off the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition. “My workshop’s in the back of the garage. Do you want to check out the backyard? You could pick yourself another bunch of flower, if you want.”

  She gave him a quick glance, the expression in her eyes obscured by the sunglasses. Her voice was oddly uneven when she answered. “Yes. I’d like that.”

  Sensing some kind of distress in her, Murphy held her hand as they followed the old flagstone path around to the back, wondering what in hell was going on. When they reached the rear of the house, she didn’t give the yard so much as a glance. She looked up at him. “Could I get something to drink?”

  “Sure.” He let go of her hand and rested his on the small of her back. “Come on m.”

  They entered through what used to be the old summer kitchen, part of which had been remodeled and turned into a laundry area. Murphy had always suspected the original Dutch Colonial design had been altered, and the summer kitchen was one of the reasons. The other was the interior layout. The house was basically divided in half from front to back, with the summer kitchen, kitchen, dining room and living room lined up in a row and taking up one half.

  A central hall separated the two sides, with the large master bedroom at the street end, followed by a bath, another room that he suspected was designed as a nursery, then a large sunroom that he had turned into a home office.

  He didn’t use the second floor. The stairwell, which led upstairs, was located in the dining room. Because of the slope of the roof, the rooms upstairs also ran front to back, with two huge dormer bedrooms on either end, a huge windowless storage room on one side of the landing and a goodsized b athroom on the other. He hadn’t done any restoration in the upstairs, partly because he wasn’t sure what he was going to find under the three layers of very old linoleum. But also because he had no reason to.

  All the blinds were drawn to keep out the heat, and the house was dim and
surprisingly cool. He went to the sink and turned on the cold-water tap, aware that Jordan was inspecting the leaded-glass, six-pane cupboard doors, which had taken him the entire winter to restore. There were so many layers of paint on the frames that he’d had to use a gas mask when he stripped them, because he was certain there had to be lead-based paint in there somewhere He waited for her to say something but she didn’t. She just drifted off out of his line of sight.

  Getting a tray of ice out of the fridge, he cracked it and dumped some into each glass, then filled them. When he turned around to hand her a glass, she was gone. Feeling oddly uneasy, he went looking for her. He found her in the living room, by the weird wall adjacent to the fireplace. That wall had always struck him as strange, as if it were one big frame. So he’d taken advantage of its location and had hung a collection of family photographs on the wall. Not studio portraits. But what his father called real pictures.

  She was standing before that wall, her sunglasses shoved on top of her head and her arms clasped, a somber expression on her face. It hit him then—that her quiet mood had something to do with the pictures of him and his siblings that he had in his office, the one of the bunch of them in uniforms, lined up like a real baseball team for the annual game of slow-pitch against the company employees. Sobered by the realization, he went over to her, handing her the glass that already had condensation running down it.

  She took it, rubbing her fingers up and down its wet surface. “These are great pictures,” she said, her voice very quiet.

  Suddenly wishing the water were something stronger, he took a long drink. Wiping his mouth, he stared at the grouping. “Yeah, they are.”

  She drank her water and studied the wall, her gaze going from picture to picture, her expression getting more and more strained. Her attention landed on one photo—one that was different—one of a Latin face. “There were pictures of her at your parents’—on the piano. Who is she?”

  Holding his empty glass by the rim, Murphy folded his arms, a funny feeling unfolding in his middle. “That’s Maria. She’s sort of a foster sister, I guess. Mom and Dad have always supported international children’s organizations. And Maria was one of their foster kids. Only she kinda turned into family.”

  Her movements stiff, Jordan set her glass on the magazine lying on an unused lamp table. Her voice was so tight, it didn’t even sound like hers when she spoke. “I was a foster child.”

  Murphy closed his eyes, a kind of crazy relief ricocheting through his chest and gut. Yes! he thought. Yes. Easing in a careful breath, he responded. “I kinda thought as much.”

  Her head came around, and she shot him a startled look. “Pardon?”

  He reached in front of her and set his glass beside hers. Then leaning against the mantel on the fireplace, he rested his hand on his hip as he met her gaze dead-on. “I said I figured as much. You never mentioned family—in fact, you went out of your way to avoid it. It just seemed to add up.”

  Clasping her arms tighter, she looked away, her lips white. “Oh.”

  Watching her, his insides in knots, he kept his tone calm. “I keep hoping you’re going to trust me enough to tell me about it.”

  She shot him a tight, caustic smile. “Well, Munroe. There’s not much to tell. I was abandoned in a bus depot when I was about J.J.’s age. End of story.”

  She turned to leave, but he caught her arm. Ignoring her stiff resistance, he wrapped her up in a secure embrace, then forced her head against his neck. “Hey,” he whispered softly, rocking her a little. “I’m on your side. And I understand why you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m glad you told me.”

  She didn’t say anything but remained stiff in his arms, and he held her even tighter. His chest was so thick, he felt as if it were full of wet concrete. He was standing on thin ice and he knew it. If he made one wrong move now, she’d be running for cover. He was pretty certain she had serious feelings for him, but he wouldn’t want to swear to it And he also knew, if it hadn’t been for her strong sense of fair play and deep sense of honesty—and the fact that she wanted a family for J.J.—she never would have told him anything. But at least she had told him this.

  Still rocking her, he pressed his cheek against her temple. His voice was very gruff when he spoke again. “That has nothing to do with your being a parent, Jordan. And just so you know—I think you’re one hell of a mother, and I think J.J. was damned lucky to get you.”

  She let go a choked sob and went instantly slack in his embrace. Sliding her arms around his rib cage; she turned her face against him and hung on as if he’d just tossed her a lifeline. Resting his head against hers, he closed his eyes and swallowed hard, wishing he could just wrap her up enough to stop her from hurting.

  They stood like that for a long time, until every speck of tension had left her body. Running her hand up his back, she took a deep breath and spoke. “So when are you going to give me a guided tour of this incredible house of yours?” She was doing the exact same thing his father did. He grinned and gave her a hard hug. “Well, first of all, let me show you my bedroom.”

  Her laugh was muffled but it was real. “I don’t think so, hero. Not unless you’ve got a stash of those little foil packets somewhere.”

  “Nope. Don’t have a stash.” He pulled her head back and gave her a very heated kiss. “But maybe we can improvise,” he murmured against her mouth.

  They improvised so well that he was still light-headed and walking into walls two hours later, when he did give her a tour. But the really great thing about his sexual stupor was that Jordan thought it was all very funny, and all the shadows were gone from her eyes. Now if he could just maintain the status quo...

  But he also recognized one hard, cold fact. With all of her grim past experience, she had every reason not to trust anyone. Even him. Yeah, she’d been the one to walk out, all right. But without even realizing it, he’d betrayed her, too. Because he had let her go.

  Chapter 9

  The month of October was aces all the way. Munroe Construction was ahead of schedule, there hadn’t been one single snag and they had enough work lined up to keep all the crews busy till spring. But as far as Murphy was concerned, what was happening at work was a sidebar.

  What really mattered was his private life. By the end of the month, everything was coming up solid roses. It was as if J.J. hit twelve weeks, and he miraculously turned into a whole new kid. He started sleeping through the nights, and during the day he was a perfect, contented baby who smiled at everything and everybody.

  And order had been restored at Jordan’s. Not the former uptight, prissy kind of order—that had pretty much gone by the boards. But just an easy kind of order—a place where you could put your feet up and feel at home.

  And that was the problem. It was getting to feel like home more and more. And it bothered the hell out of him that they were living together the way they were—caught in some kind of no-man’s-land. Feeling like a home, but not really being his home. Feeling like a family, but not really being one. Feeling married to her, but not. It drove him crazy, but he didn’t know how to change the situation without rocking the boat. Because if the truth be known, he didn’t trust Ms. Jordan Kennedy all that much, either. If she took a walk once before, she could do it again. So to keep himself from going totally nuts, he tried not to think about it at all.

  Murphy always tried to make it home for dinner. If J.J. was going to have a fussy period, it would be then, and he wanted to give Jordan a break from child care. And he also wanted to spend time with his son.

  But tonight, there were no fussing squawks when he entered the apartment, just the tantalizing smell of dinner cooking. He toed off his work boots and set them in the closet, then began pulling his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans as he walked into the kitchen. It had been a hard day at work, and he was hot and sweaty and tired. And on top of that, the heavy traffic on the way home had made him irritable. But that tension started to uncoil the minute he laid eyes on her.
She was seated at the kitchen table in a bright yellow loose-fitting dress with a long flowing skirt, her long legs wound around the legs of the chair, her head propped on her hand as she read the morning newspaper. She straightened when she saw him, her eyes lighting up. “Hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  He didn’t answer. That light in her eyes did things to his chest that made it impossible. Instead he went over to where she was sitting and leaned down to give her a kiss. Her mouth opened under his, and she wound her arms around his neck, her response sending a hot energy coursing through him. Satisfying himself with the taste of her, he caught one arm and tried to pull it away, his voice gruff when he spoke. “I’m going to get your pretty dress all dirty.”

  Clasping her arms tighter around his neck, she brushed her mouth across his bottom lip. “I don’t care.”

  His pulse speeding up from the soft slowness of her mouth, he suddenly didn’t care much, either. Emitting a low growl of approval, he caught her around the hips and lifted her up, locking her against him. She wrapped her legs around him as she continued to torment him with the lazy movements of her mouth, and he clasped her tighter, his breathing suddenly labored. Overcome with a heavy weakness, he turned with her and sat down in her chair, trying not to groan as she settled her weight on the thick, pulsing ridge under the fly of his jeans. It was as if she transfused him—and such powerful feelings flooded through him, filling him up and making his entire body pulse and throb.

  His heart slamming against the walls of his chest and his breathing ragged, he finally drew away, abruptly pressing his face against the curve of her neck. She seemed to mold around him, as if she were melting into him, and he closed his eyes, forcing himself not to react. God, but she could ring his bells. Kissing the soft, warm skin of her neck, he roughly ran his hand up her back. “Ah, babe,” he whispered gruffly. “You feel so damned good. But I’m filthy and I need a shower—I shouldn’t even be touching you.”