Sparring Partners (27 page)

Jordon shuddered, pumped, and collapsed next
to her, pulling her on top of him as he went. He said nothing, just
held her. Reed reveled in the small spasms that he couldn't control
and the rapid beating of his heart.

She fell asleep with a smile on her face,
and a warm, thick, need between her legs.

...

Jordon didn't sleep. He couldn't. Irma's
words combined with his need to keep Reed close, when all he wanted
to do was run away, had him so tied up inside he was beginning to
wonder why he chose this path. It would be so easy to just tell
William to get stuffed.

All he'd have to do is give up everything
he'd worked so hard to achieve.

All he'd have to give up is his dream. A
dream he'd nurtured his entire adult life.

All he'd have to do is walk away before Reed
got seriously hurt and never see her again.

His arms tightened around her as acid
scorched its way through his intestines on its way to the ulcer
beginning in his stomach. Bile made its way up his esophagus
burning the back of his throat leaving a coppery taste in his
mouth. He forced it back, willed his stomach to calm, and
concentrated on regulating his breathing.

It worked. He only felt mildly nauseated
now.

Damn his mother, and her damned invitation.
He had no interest in having Reed see the world he lived in, let
alone the people who populated it. She wouldn't fit. She was too
real. Too ordinary. Too t-shirt for a black tie world. His mother
spent a week with her, she ought to know that. William had probably
put her up to this. It was just the kind of perverse thing that
would get the old man off. Watching Jordon squirm. Knowing he only
had two weeks left to prove to William that Reed loved him.

And then, once William crowned him king of
B.H., Jordon would leave her. He'd have to. There was no room in
that life for a wife and a family. There was no room for fishing
and naked afternoons sleeping in the sun. His talents were being
wasted making Potters Woods profitable. What did one alternative
elder care experiment have to do with making the world a better
place?

Not much from what he saw, so far.

Reed and Finn's plan was too expensive to
market globally, and too inefficient to help more than a handful of
people at a time. Potters Woods could turn a profit, because he'd
done enough leg work to make it happen, but its owners would never
be rich, and they'd have to work their tails off to keep earning a
marginal income.

He didn't belong in this world and Reed
would be gobbled up in his.

Jordon looked down at Reed's sleeping form
curled into his side, half on top of him. So trusting and free with
her body every time he asked. She was smiling in her sleep, lightly
snoring, dead weight on his chest. Jordon brushed a lock of curly
red hair away from one rosy, lightly freckled cheek. When he first
met her, he thought she'd be prettier if she covered some of those
freckles. Now he was glad she didn't wear make-up and powder.

She was real. No illusion. No pretense.

And he was a fraud.

When she woke up he'd tell her the truth
about why he married her and what he needed from her. She deserved
that much. She sighed heavily and rubbed his chest, making him
smile. Her lower body arched against him seeking relief and he
could feel her wet heat warming his thigh. She was still
smiling.

"I love you."

Her words were barely audible, but they
reverberated like Big-Ben through his brain. Clear. Distinct. With
a vibration that sang through his body and danced with his
soul.

Jordon rolled over and sank inside her
before she fully woke. She was warm, wet, and welcoming, matching
his pace that had nothing to do with finesse and everything to do
with need. Need to capture her and hold tight, knowing she was like
smoke. There, surrounding him, but elusive.

He plunged deep and held her there as he
felt her contract around him. She opened her magnificent peacock
blue eyes and traced the wetness on his cheek. She brought one
dampened finger to his lips, wetting them with his tears.

"You're crying. What's wrong?"

He didn't answer. He couldn't. He didn't
know why or how or what caused the tumult in his chest, it simply
was. Instead, he bent and kissed her, tasting his tears on her
mouth.

Jordon rocked forward, allowing his seed to
release inside her as she held him.

At least for this moment he didn't want to
let her go.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

He meant to tell Reed the truth, he really
did, but as the weekend from hell inched closer, Jordon just
couldn't bring himself to do it. He took comfort in rationalization
instead, nearly convincing himself it would be better for Reed not
to know what a scum-bag he was before she faced his family and some
of the most influential people in the country.

It wouldn't do his plan, to convince William
she loved him, any good if he told her the truth right before the
big event either.

And there was the rub. Even though she was
asleep when she said 'I love you', and she hadn't said it again
since, Jordon was ninety-seven percent sure Reed really did love
him, or if not, she'd done a pretty good job of convincing herself
she did. Jordon needed her conviction to convince William that he
could pass every one of William's damn tests, and that he had what
it was going to take to lead B.H. as a world force in personal
investing.
The
force to see the world through the economic
nightmare it became.

Jordon glanced at his watch. It was
literally hours before he and Reed and the rest of their motley
crew were supposed to arrive for the family dinner as a prelude to
the weekend's festivities.

Lily planned similar weekend gatherings in
the past, and for most of them Jordon had been able to conjure up a
business reason, most often real, to excuse himself after the first
day. Not this time. This time he had to convince William his
marriage was real, not the sham it started out to be, and that his
wife truly loved him. At least William didn't mandate that Jordon
love Reed in return. He wasn't sure he could pull that one off no
matter how motivated he was. Jordon just didn't have that in him
anymore. His heart was still scorched earth, nothing grew there
anymore, not even resentment.

Jordon threw a change of clothes into his
overnight bag and headed toward the back door as quietly as
possible. He had some shopping to do before braving the Bennetts
en-masse.

Finn caught him at the door.

"Cutting and running before the big event?"
She asked, leaning against the door jamb leading into the laundry
room. He really needed to hire someone to do the laundry. It took
too much of Finn's and Reed's and on occasion, Charlie's time that
could be better spent with programming that actually generated
income.

"If only I could."

"Are you dreading it that much?"

"More than you know."

Finn straightened and pushed away from the
doorway, suddenly tense. Her shoulders shot up and back, and the
frown on her face gave her away. She worried about Reed, that much
was evident by the lines etched permanently into her brow, lines
that did nothing to detract from her movie-star beauty.

"This weekend isn't going to break Reed's
heart, is it?"

The weekend won't but eventually I will.

"No."

He must have been getting better at lying,
either that or Finn was learning to trust him, because she sighed
heavily and lowered her shoulders, visibly relaxing as she took him
at his word. Suddenly he felt like shit.

"Good, because I won't be there to pick up
the pieces."

Jordon gave a small, but heartfelt laugh. "I
can't see Reed falling to pieces."

"I wasn't talking about Reed." Finn smiled.
"I meant the pieces of your family and friends she'll leave in her
wake." She said lightly.

Jordon was enjoying the easy camaraderie of
the moment, the first he'd had with Reed's aunt since he came to
Potters Woods. He wasn't sure what had changed Finn's opinion of
him, and he wasn't about to ask and destroy the moment. He also
wasn't looking forward to having her look at him with suspicion and
accusation again. Jordon had no doubt though that she would when
she found out he married Reed solely to keep his job.

Acid started burning his throat, making
Jordon cough. He changed the subject. "You're not coming to Lily's
'meet the Bennetts weekend'?"

"No. Someone has to take care of things
here."

"I thought Charlie was going to stay."

"We decided he should go. Better for your
family to get to know the live-in ex-husband than the live-in aunt.
Besides, I think I offended your mother enough already."

"It's harder than you think to offend Lily
Bennett. My mother wears an invisible teflon cloak. Everything
negative rinses away with the first wash. Don't let her scare you
away though, for all her pushiness, she really is a caring woman."
Jordon cocked his head and raised his eyebrows in mock
seriousness.

"She's just like you."

Finn threw her head back and let out a deep
laugh. No wonder Henry fell so hard for her.

"I don't know whether to kiss you, hit you
or throw your sorry ass out the door."

"I'll take the first and last ones." Jordon
looked at his watch. "I've got a flight to catch and I don't have
time for any broken bones."

"Does Reed know you're leaving?"

"She's still asleep, and this is kind of a
last minute thing. Tell her I'll call later."

Finn eyed his overnight case. "When are you
coming home?"

Home.

The word hit Jordon like a bolt of lightning
when Finn said it. Potters Woods truly was beginning to feel like
his home. He shook himself, trying to throw off the invisible
mantle of belonging he'd fooled himself into wearing.

"I'll be back in the morning in plenty of
time to drive everyone to the lake cottage." Jordon picked up his
case from where he'd dropped it when he saw Finn, crossed to her
and kissed her on the cheek before she had the time to ask where he
was going. She hugged him in return and said something like
be
safe
as he pushed his way out the laundry room door into the
garage where he parked his new vehicle, a bright blue handicapped
equipped minivan.

He made it all the way to I-94 before
noticing his hands were shaking.

...

Jordon didn't call.

Finn said he said he'd call. He didn't.

Reed checked her cell phone for the eighth
time in ten minutes. No, she didn't have any missed calls. No voice
mail messages. Nothing. She adjusted her ringer to the loudest
setting and set the phone next to the lamp on the bedside table.
She checked the clock again, just to make sure the time on her
phone was accurate. 11:17 p.m., and still no call. She pulled out
the latest Nelson DeMille book, another six-hundred page hardcover
job, and began to read.

She passed the four-hundred page mark as
dawn broke. She fell asleep somewhere around page 410, just as
DeMille's smartass hero was doing something really stupid that was
likely to get him shot.

Even though DeMille described his hero as a
blue-eyed blond, all Reed's mind saw was mahogany hair,
golden-cinnamon eyes rimmed in green, and a slow smile that made
her stomach turn to jalapeno jelly.

It was a good thing Finn wouldn't let her
keep any guns in the house, or her own smartass hero would soon
find himself shot, if only in his smart ass. She wasn't giving him
four-hundred pages to explain.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Thursday morning arrived with little fanfare
for such a momentous occasion. Lily planned a family dinner as the
kickoff to the weekend 'reception' they'd all been eagerly
anticipating. Well, Charlie was eager.

The atmosphere at Potters Woods wasn't the
usual joyous panic of another day of planning day activities for
the wellbeing of mind, body and spirit of their clientele. The air
wasn't light and scented with organic tea and tofu. In fact, as
Jordon walked through the door, tired and loaded with uniforms for
everyone for tonight and the rest of the weekend, the atmosphere
was decidedly cool and heavily laced with
'where-the-hell-have-you-been'?

All eyes around the breakfast table followed
him silently as he took his packages into the family room, except
the ones he needed to see the most. Jordon dropped his load on the
couch in an attempt to keep the ninja cats and the three canine
stooges from tearing apart their contents, at least until he'd had
coffee, assuming that Henry at least had the decency to make some.
He was never going to get used to herbal tea as a pick-me-up.

Jordon walked back into the well lit sun
room that housed the giant wooden picnic table where everyone
except Reed and Irma gathered.

"Coffee?" He asked to the room in
general.

Henry nodded toward the kitchen. "It's
organic, but fully leaded."

Jordon poured himself a cup, brought the pot
in, and re-filled Henry's mug. Surprisingly, Finn held hers up for
a refill as well. Seeing the purpling under her eyes, he didn't
even raise a brow, he just poured. Setting the remainder of the pot
on top of an unread Journal Sentinel, Jordon grabbed a space on the
bench across from Henry.

"What's up with the bakery?"

Henry looked at him over his steaming mug
and shrugged. "It was the best I could do on short notice." He
gestured toward a particularly unappetizing dark brown muffin-like
thing with small twigs sticking out. "Try an organic cranberry bran
and flax seed muffin. They're yummy."

Jordon lifted one, determined it weighed
about three pounds and set it back down. "Coffee's great.
Thanks."