Chapter 15
Chapter 15
“ J ordan, woo-hoo, Jordan.”
Jordan’s neighbor waved at her from across their adjoining lawns. Jordan waved back halfheartedly and with a sinking feeling. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her neighbors, a retired couple where the wife’s overt friendliness ran counter to her husband’s recalcitrance. Rather it was that it had taken a half hour to wrangle the kids into their clothes and stroller. Jordan had enough snacks to keep them entertained for a thirty-minute jog, if she was lucky. Talking to her chatty neighbor would use up much of that precious snack time. Her jiggly mom pooch burbled, reminding her of its resentment over the pending workout and determination to linger and grow.
“Hello, Nan, Kurt,” Jordan said, nodding. Nan, she learned during their first conversation, retired last year from her job as a middle school secretary. She had no idea what Kurt retired from, but it appeared to be something in the government or military, if the cagey way he studied her and his environment was any indication. He remained at attention beside his wife, scanning the quiet street around them like it might erupt into chaos without his scrutiny. Living so close to DC meant most of the people she encountered seemed to have some connection to the government in one way or another.
“Hi, sweetie. How are you?” Nan tipped her head in a way that was becoming familiar to Jordan. She thought maybe it was pity, but she tried to take it as concern instead.
“I’m doing well,” Jordan said. “These two keep me busy.” She glanced down at Nash, already halfway through his pile of jogging snacks.
“We were a bit worried after the police showed up last night,” Nan said, tone leading.
Here is a woman who knows how to gossip, Jordan thought. Nan had perfected the balance between nosiness and care. In other words, she knew how to ask intrusive questions cloaked in sincerity. “I thought I heard something, an intruder,” Jordan admitted, cheeks flushing. She didn’t want these people to know the embarrassing truth—that she wasn’t certain there had been an intruder. When Kurt’s eyes flicked toward her and narrowed, the flush deepened.
“Oh, no,” Nan said, pressing her hand to her cheek with a gasp. “Is everything okay?”
Jordan shrugged one shoulder. “The police came. They made a thorough search and didn’t see anything.” Jordan trailed helplessly away, gaze slipping to her house. Was she crazy? Was her imagination that overheated? The police certainly thought so.
Kurt made a little harrumph sound, drawing her attention back to him. When she looked at him, his lips were pressed tightly together in disapproval, eyes still on the horizon. What did that mean? Did he also think she was crazy? That she was a hysterical female who had wasted valuable police time?
“I saw another car, a strange car here overnight.” Nan was at it again, comingling a mass dose of nosiness with half-hearted worry, an eighty/twenty ratio at this point.
“I called one of my husband’s friends to come over. He stayed after the police left, to make certain everything was okay,” she added weakly when Nan’s brows rose and Kurt’s lips all but disappeared. How much farther could they retract in disapproval before he swallowed them?
“Oh,” Nan said, drawing out the word to eight syllables, each one dripping with judgment.
“If you’ll excuse me, the kids and I were going to go for a little jog.” She glanced at Nash’s stroller tray, now populated by a mere three rice puffs.
“Sure,” Nan said. She still stared at Jordan who could practically hear the story repeat itself to her friends. My neighbor gal, a recent widow, called her husband’s friend to come stay the night. A MONTH after he died. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
What was more disconcerting was her husband’s expression, now also narrowed speculatively on Jordan. She didn’t think he judged her for having Gaines stay, didn’t believe he cared one way or another what she did with her personal life. His look seemed to be trying to convey something, but what? And why did it leave her fighting a shudder as she turned and jogged away?
Twenty minutes later, dripping with sweat and fielding two noisy children, who had finished their snacks and wanted out, she forgot her neighbors, forgot everything but trying to keep the kids quiet and entertained in the stroller as she trudged back home. Why did the stroller always feel light on the way somewhere and leaden on the way back?
When she opened the door and stepped inside, it took her another five minutes of unbuckling and unloading the stroller to stand up straight and come to a complete halt.
The door wasn’t locked when she let herself in.
She had locked the door when she let herself out. Hadn’t she?
Her mind whirred, struggling to remember. She’d worked up a sweat trying to get the oversized stroller over the threshold, had paused, turned toward the house and… Her mind went blank with sudden panic because she couldn’t remember. Today’s exit overlaid itself with every other exit. She always locked the door and double checked it. Had she done that today or was she remembering some other time? If she didn’t lock it, how could she be so careless, today of all days? And if she did lock it, how did it get unlocked again?
“Hello,” she called into the echoing stillness. Her senses felt hyper alert. Did it smell funny, or was that her overheated brain?
“Mommy, who are you talking to?” Charlotte asked, tipping her head curiously toward Jordan like a baby bird.
“No one, sweetie. Charlotte, do you remember if Mommy locked the door on the way out?”
Charlotte shrugged one bitty shoulder, attention already diverted to the stuffed dog that hadn’t accompanied them on the jog.
Jordan pulled out her phone and stared at it, debating texting Gaines. What could she possibly tell him? I may or may not have locked the door? I’m disturbed because my house is calm and settled but something smells a little funky?
Probably your bad housekeeping skills again, she chided herself. The trash needed to go out, the spoiled food needed removed from the fridge. Tomorrow was trash day and there were dirty diapers in the wastebasket of Nash’s room. Of course it smelled bad. It would be shocking if it didn’t.
In the end Jordan texted Gaines but left out all the crazy.
Thanks for showing up and staying last night. I hope you’re having a good day after weathering a night on my hard floor.
He replied immediately, which was somehow so surprising she dropped her phone in a flustered startle. Anytime, Jordy, you know that. And it turns out it doesn’t matter if the floor is hard if the company is soft.
Jordan’s jaw dropped. Was Gaines…flirting with her? Blushing at the ridiculous thought, she shook her head and blew out a breath, laughing at herself. Of course Gaines was not flirting with her. He was simply one of those men, one who was so charming everything he said ended up sounding flattering and appealing.
Trying to infuse her text tone with lightness, she returned, If that was your idea of a good time, we need to get you out more, sailor.
The effect was ruined when Gaines instantly replied, It’s a date, with a winking emoji.
“My goodness,” Jordan whispered, stuffing her phone in her pocket so she wouldn’t be tempted to reply and bumble into awkwardness. He was undoubtedly kidding. They were pals and things were comfortable between them. That was all this was, for certain. Because she knew, down to her marrow, that she and Gaines were all wrong for each other. He was too perfect, too beautiful. And she was…
She glanced down at her yoga pants, noting a stain on her faded t-shirt. She was sort of a disaster, more so now that she was a widow. Perfect is not for me, she reminded herself. At this point in her exhausted life cycle, she would happily settle for uneventful.
The kids began to clamor loudly for lunch and, forgetting everything but motherhood and the long day ahead, she folded the stroller and went to the kitchen, not thinking again about the mystery of her unlocked door.
D espite Ribs’s assurances to Jordan, he felt the pain of the sleepless night all day. So much that he pulled out his phone and texted Ethan.
When’s the last time you slept on the floor?
When Amelia and I bought the new place, before our stuff arrived.
How’d it go? Ribs asked. Was it just him? Were his fellow SEAL guys still as fit as they used to be?
Couldn’t lift my left leg all the way for a week, Ethan replied, putting Gaines’s mind to rest.
How much longer can we stay in the game? Ribs asked him.
I’m getting out, as soon as we have kids. I want to be present, coach soccer, all the things.
What will you do? Ribs asked.
Amelia’s thinking of going solo, opening her own salon, maybe taking on a few employees. She already makes more than I do. I’ll stay home and she’ll support for a while, until the kids are older and I figure out a next step.
Ribs read the text three times and remained staring at his phone. Ethan, daring, never met an adventure he didn’t take Ethan , was actively planning a future that included himself as a stay-at-home dad? Ribs honestly didn’t know how he felt about that. They’d spent years, no, decades training to do what they did. How did someone walk away so easily? Or was it easy?
Really? he finally replied.
When you have kids, someone has to raise them. Might as well be me.
You really think you can walk away? Ribs tried.
For anything else? No. For Amelia and our family? I’d leave today.
Ribs remained staring at his phone again. How did a man get to that point? What did it take? Because he knew for certain he wasn’t there. Would he ever be?
His thumb skittered over his phone and a picture popped up. It was Jordan in the hospital, just after she had Nash. She lay holding him in one arm, her other curled around Charlotte, beaming as she looked at her kids. Seeing her that way, so beautiful, perfect, and happy, was like a gut punch. Had he seen her smile that way since that day? For the last few months she’d looked so strained, stressed, and exhausted. Suddenly it didn’t seem to be enough to see her smile again if he wasn’t the one who put it there. But how could he do that when his life was a revolving door of assignments?
Charlotte’s party loomed in the future and Ribs set it as an honorary deadline for himself. By then he wanted to have an answer or a plan, maybe both. It was an ambitious goal, figuring how clueless he now felt. But he hadn’t gotten where he was by being laid back and waiting for life to come to him. An answer wouldn’t present itself; he would have to go out and find it. And he would. Just as soon as he figured out where to start looking.