Believe in Me: A Rosewood Novel (31 page)

The teen blasted him with another withering look. “For a smart guy, you’re pretty clueless, aren’tcha?”

Okay, so maybe Jade had a point, Owen thought, several hours later. Dinner at Rosewood was a whole lot more involved an affair than elsewhere. A participatory experience from the moment he walked into the house with Jade helpfully bellowing, “Yo, Jordan, I’ve got Owen with me.”

Her voice triggered an earthquake, the old wood floors shaking, an ominous rumbling echoing from the back hallway, and then her nephew and nieces erupting forth as they rushed to greet her … and him, too. Their ongoing enthusiasm mystified Owen. It wasn’t as if he encouraged it.

“We’re putting on our puppet show after dinner, Jade. Mommy and I made tickets for everyone,” Kate said, slipping her hand in Jade’s.

“Yeah, and we get to stay up late as a treat,” Max informed him, jumping up and down from the excitement that announcement engendered.

The news of the day kept coming, spilling out of their mouths like a leaking faucet as they made their way toward the kitchen.

“Not Olivia, though, she’s too little. She has to go to bed when the show is over.”

Owen thanked God for small favors. Maybe when summoned to bed, the toddler would let go of his leg. She’d latched on like a ball and chain.

As if reading his thoughts, Jade leveled one of her green-eyed gazes at him. “Dude, you know we might actually reach the kitchen before the next millennium if you’d just
pick
’Liv up.”

Feeling strangely embarrassed, he hoisted Olivia into his arms and resigned himself to a slow strangulation.

Never in his wildest imaginings would he have predicted that he’d be grateful to have Olivia’s solid bulk hanging from his neck. But it turned out the kid made a damn good shield to duck behind when Max dropped the bomb.

They’d made it into the kitchen where Margot was helping Jordan prepare dinner and Travis was setting the long table for a family dinner that would include the children—why that was desirable, Owen had no idea—and Max was still talking about the great stuff going on in his life: the all-school picnic, a playdate with someone named Will, his elation over the fact that his mom had baked a cake that they were going to get to eat with ice cream and so on and so on.

Owen listened with a quarter of an ear, doing a pretty fine job of faking the appropriate noises as he tracked Jordan’s movements around the kitchen. He liked watching her move, liked thinking of his hands running along the curve of her hip and then slipping around to cup her ass, liked imagining lifting her up onto the counter and stepping into the vee of her slender thighs.

“And you know what, Owen?”

“No, what?” He kept his eyes on Jordan, who’d opened the fridge and was bending over to pull something out of the lower shelf. He’d very much like to see her naked, just like that.

He nearly jumped a mile at the impatient tug on his trouser leg. He looked down at the reddish brown head that didn’t even reach the counter Owen was leaning against. Christ, he could probably be arrested for thinking about Jordan this way with her kids present.

“And you know what else, Owen?”

He shook his head. “No, I really don’t, Max.”

“Me, Kate, and Wiv are going to see my daddy and stay at his house!”

It was difficult to say for sure if Max had actually shouted
the news or if the momentary lull in the grown-up conversation just made it seem that way, but the sentence resounded with the force of a major explosion.

Stunned silence filled the room as Jordan’s sisters stared at her. Even Travis, whom Owen considered a master of unshakeable calm when dealing with his wife and sisters-in-law, frowned with dark concern.

Olivia was still clinging to his neck. Owen decided this would be the perfect time to make himself invisible. He ducked his head, bringing it closer to her blond curls. She rewarded him by mashing her open palm against his nose.

“She wants you to say
beep
!” Max was a real font of information tonight.

He was saved the embarrassment of having to honk into Olivia’s palm by Margot.

“You’re going to visit your dad, Max?” she asked, still looking at Jordan.

Oblivious to the adults’ tension, Max nodded happily. “Uh-huh. When are we going, Mommy?”

“Next Friday,” she replied, setting the blue and white ceramic bowl filled with pasta salad on the counter.

Annoyed the horn was malfunctioning, Olivia slammed her palm into his nose again, making him jerk his head back. The movement caught Jordan’s attention. “Olivia, let go of Owen’s nose, please.”

Olivia freed his nose only to begin thwacking his chest, perhaps expecting he’d go “moo.” But with no hand planted in the middle of his face, he was at least able to give Jordan a smile in silent support.

Her answering smile eased the fine tension about her eyes. “Kate, can you and Max please take Olivia to the bathroom? You all need to wash your hands before dinner.”

The second the kids had trooped out of the kitchen, Jade pounced. “And why is this visit happening exactly?” she demanded.

“Because I think it’s a good idea. Richard and I have
talked it over and we’ve agreed to share the kids on the weekends and for part of the school holidays.”

Owen was proud of Jordan’s calm reply.

“So he just called and bullied you into agreeing? How typical.”

“No, he sent a letter through his lawyer, a very polite and correct letter.” Jordan plunged two long-handled spoons into the pasta salad and tossed it. “He simply wants to see his children, Margot.”

“He’s simply a selfish jerk is all.”

Jordan could extol the virtues of having siblings all she wanted, Owen thought, listening to their exchange. He liked Margot. She was strong and smart and, for a successful fashion model, refreshingly indifferent to her knock-you-on-your-ass beauty. And Jade was like fireworks on a summer night. Thrilling and crackling and unpredictable.

But like them as he may, he’d had enough of them jumping on Jordan. “I think Jordan’s doing the right thing.” The surprise mirrored in their faces at his comment reinforced his determination to get them off her back. “You saw Max. The kid’s over the moon at the prospect of spending a weekend with his dad. Do you honestly think Jordan would deny her kids that happiness?”

They had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Here’s something else you might want to consider. These kids will have a much easier time adapting to the new situation if you don’t make it quite so obvious you’d like to hunt their father down like a rabid fox. They’re not totally stupid.” They weren’t. He was sure even Olivia would learn to read and write one day. But having said his piece, this was as far as he would wade into the Radcliffe family waters.

“Owen’s right,” Travis said. “What we think of Richard has nothing to do with his merits as a father. So they’re going to D.C. next Friday?”

Owen was pleased Travis had spoken up. His added
support would cool Margot and Jade’s tempers far more effectively than anything he could do.

Jordan nodded, giving her brother-in-law a frankly dazzling smile. “Yes, they’ll stay with him through Sunday. Richard’s coming to pick them up. He’s even arranged for Susannah to come over and lend a hand.”

“Smart of him,” Travis said easily, ignoring Jade and Margot’s less-than-happy silence. Walking over to the fridge and opening it, he glanced over his shoulder. “Can I get you a beer, Owen, before Olivia begins playing with your face again?”

“Please. Though maybe since I didn’t honk, moo, or tweet, she’ll give up.”

Travis laughed. “Not our Olivia.”

Owen decided that as puppet shows went, this one took the prize for surreal. The play was about a hippo and alligator taking a walk through a sunny, flower-filled meadow. It was difficult to tell if there was more to the plot. But one thing was certain, the principals’ lines were so off-beat, they could have passed for the edgiest avant-garde theater in Berlin.

The show pushed the envelope in terms of audience interaction, too, with Olivia bounding from her seat to rush the stage, touch the plush actors, and up the level of the dialogue’s incoherency. The puppeteers weren’t shy about shouting questions to Jordan for tips with the scene.

It was a sign of how much he’d acclimated to the Rosewood environment that he wasn’t at all surprised at the rousing applause the two stars, Henry the alligator and Lucinda the hippo, received when the dark red curtain went down. The standing ovation would have done Broadway proud. And he had to admit, the show had been pretty darned entertaining.

Once the play and the accolades were over, Owen was sure the children would be trundled off to bed. Naïve of him.
With Henry the alligator still jammed on his arm, Max, high on the success of his opening night, was ready to party.

“Mommy, Mommy, can we play Twistuh now?” and when Jordan hesitated, he cannily added, “Pwease.” Then Owen knew, sure as bees made honey, that he was finally going to see what this game Twister was all about.

“All right. But not for long. Why don’t you run upstairs and bring it down? It’s on the lower shelf. You can play in the front parlor, where there’ll be more room. But I’m going to have to put Olivia to bed.”

Resistance came from an unexpected source. “No, let Olivia stay up. She loves to play, too,” Margot said.

“She needs to go to sleep.”

“Jordan, you know Twister is just not the same without her,” Margot laughed.

“That’s for sure,” Jade said, joining forces with Margot. “Owen should experience the game at its finest.” Rising from the sofa where she’d been lounging, she turned to Margot. “I gotta split. The Rev and I are bowling against a new team.”

“Okay. Drive safely.” Margot stood, too. “Are you ready to do the barn check, honey?”

Before Travis could even nod, Jordan said, “You and Travis aren’t going to play?”

“Nope,” Margot said with a little smile. “We might spoil your fun.”

“So very considerate of you,” Jordan replied, sounding distinctly sarcastic.

“That’s what sisters are all about. Right, Jade?”

“Absofreakinlutely,” she pronounced with her own broad smile. “
Hasta la vista
, y’all.”

Listening to the sisters’ conversation, Owen knew something was going on. But he attributed the testiness and Jordan’s out-of-character exasperation as the lingering effect of their earlier spat in the kitchen. There was no reason to get this hopped up about a children’s game.

* * *

This was a children’s game?

Its premise had sounded so simple, banal: at the turn of the dial one had to place one’s left or right foot or hand on one of the red, blue, yellow, or green colored dots lining the plastic sheet. But then the play had commenced …

No prude, Owen decided Twister should come with a warning label: dangerous when sexually starved. Who in hell had invented this diabolical game? It had him literally contorted with lust.

With each spin of the dial—Max and Kate taking turns because spinning was apparently just too much fun to miss out on—little bodies raced across the plastic rectangle to land on a colored spot, the frantic dash inevitably sending Jordan’s body into his.

By spin number three, he no longer knew left from right, nor could he distinguish his foot from his hand. Colors? Red, blue? Forget about it.

All he could think of, focus on, was Jordan and the next careful twist and flex of her body. Because no matter how much she or he tried to avoid it, some miniature dervish was going to plow into them and there was going to be contact. Each jostle and bump, every tangle of limbs the spin of the dial produced was an electric zap of desire shooting through him.

That Jordan was trying to resist the push and shove as much as he was intensified the awareness between them as their bodies moved with excruciating care around each other. Each graze and accidental press amplified the sudden hitches in their breathing.

It was hell struggling not to respond when with each breath, he caught Jordan’s unique scent. It was heaven feeling the fine quiver of her limbs when they touched and seeing her pulse hammer wildly beneath the delicate skin of her throat. Impossible not to think of touching that point with his tongue while he was deep inside her and she tight
and hot around him. Weak-kneed, he went down like one of Jade’s bowling pins when Olivia barreled into him. With a groan, he took them—Jordan and the kids—with him. A squirming human heap, they hit the mat.

He landed on Jordan. A second stretched into eternity as his body learned the gentle slopes of hers.

A high-pitched giggle, as effective as a stun gun, shocked them both into violent recoil. He jumped to his feet.

Christ, forget a simple advisory, the game should be outlawed, he thought, rubbing the crick in his neck that was as stiff as the rest of him but at least was a G-rated part of his anatomy. For God’s sakes, this was nuts. Unless he got a handle on his attraction for Jordan, he was going to get arrested for indecent acts in the presence of minors.

“Let’s play again!”

Jordan’s sharp “No!” would have been funny except for the sad fact that part of him wanted to override her with a “Sure thing, Max. I’ll play this game right through dawn if it means having your mom’s body against mine.” How was that for pathetic?

Jesus Christ, he was becoming desperate and he didn’t like the feeling one little bit. What the hell was wrong with Jordan that she couldn’t just give in to what was a perfectly natural urge and take him into her bed?

But no, she was only interested in children’s bedtimes, he thought sourly, as she said with truly obnoxious calmness, “No, Max, it’s time for bed now. Remember, you have a playdate and a riding lesson tomorrow. You don’t want to be tired on such a big day. Come on, we’ll walk Owen to his car. He needs to get home, too.”

Yeah, so he could stand under an ice cold shower until he forgot how Jordan had felt lying beneath him.