Serendipity (Southern Comfort) (20 page)

“I suppose a liberated woman such as myself should take issue with you for that.”

Ava’s eyelids dropped to half mast, but she managed a mystified smile.  “But for reasons that escape me, I thought it was kind of cute.”

“Oh yeah?”  

When she didn’t immediately answer, Jordan glanced over and realized he’d already lost her.  Her lids had completely lowered, lashes smudged like soot against her cheek, the spark of will that turned her eyes from an ordinary brown to something warm and brilliant quietly banked for the night. 

She looked so much smaller, somehow. 

Tenderness welled. And as lights began to wink here and there against the black sky until the outline of the city took shape, Jordan saw his own pattern emerging.   While it may not have been what he’d expected – she may not have been what he expected – he had enough of an eye to discern the big picture. 

He was falling in love with her.

He waited for the rush of nerves, the pure male panic that should come with such a revelation, but wasn’t wholly surprised to find himself steady.  Fact was, he was a steady man.  A man who knew his mind, knew his heart, and had little difficulty trusting either.

In that respect, among others, he was very much his father’s son.

When he pulled up at Ava’s carriage house, he left the car running and simply watched her. 
Mine
, was the singular thought that ran through his brain. 

He’d known it somehow, the minute he’d seen her.  Those wide, dark eyes making her look a little bit stunned herself.  Like maybe she’d sensed it, instinctively, as he had.

Though she’d certainly given both of them a hard enough time.

Remembering the way she’d gone cool, gone professional had a smile tugging at his lips.  Her whole attitude had bewitched him.  Maybe partly because it presented a challenge, but more so because a woman who looked like she did
had more backbone than three fully grown men. 

Ava wasn’t the kind of woman who could be pushed around.

Maneuvered, he mused.  Very, very carefully maneuvered.  So he guessed it was a damn good thing that he was like a farm dog, after all.

And when he put everything in just those terms, realization smacked him in the head.

“My God.”  He gaped at the woman curled against the seat.  “No wonder I fell for you so hard.  You’re cut from the same cloth as my mother.”  And he, being like his father, hadn’t stood a minute’s chance.

Like the Titanic, he thought.  One glancing blow, and down he went.

Laughing quietly now, Jordan reached out, stroked the bare skin of her arm. “And you, my darling, are now just as sunk as me.  You just don’t know it yet.”

Settled, Jordan turned off the car and fished her house key out the front pocket of her medical bag.

Time to take his own little iceberg upstairs and tuck her in
to
bed.  It was a damn shame that he couldn’t tuck himself in with her, but he knew that what she needed now was sleep.  And if he told himself he could spend another night with her cuddled up next to him and do nothing about it, then he was an outright liar.

She mumbled something that sounded like “goon” when Jordan bundled her against his chest, but otherwise lay like an inanimate lump in his arms.   

After carefully readjusting his hold so that he could unlock the door without dropping her, he nearly tripped over One-Eyed Jack. 

“That wasn’t funny,” he whispered when he could have sworn the cat smirked.  “I nearly dropped her on her head.   And after I gave you table scraps.”

Stepping carefully since he didn’t trust the animal not to sabotage him again, he eased into her bedroom.

The bed was already unmade, so he simply laid her between tangled sheets blooming with yellow poppies.  Her feet hung off the side, and he pulled off her boots before going to work on her jeans.

He’d had her out of them once already that night.

Knowing what he would find didn’t make the sight of the red silk any easier, and he gritted his teeth to block the memory of how it had felt against his mouth.

Soft.  Hot. Wet.

“Not helping, dumbass,
”
he muttered.
  There was a piece of hay in her hair, so he leaned over to pluck it out.

Dusty from the barn, her red shirt was also smeared with some kind of nefarious substance.  Deciding it best not to consider the source – another of those things he didn’t want to know about – he wrinkled his nose and tugged it up.

“Ouch.  Hey.”  He muffled a laugh as she grumbled and punched him.  “Take it easy, slugger.  It’s just me.”

“Jordan?”

“That’s the one.”

She looked at him from beneath lids that blinked like a motel’s vacancy light.  “Tired.”

“I know.”  He pulled the shirt over arms that she held out like a child. 

She rolled onto her side and went back to sleep.

And Jordan took a moment to marvel.  Then going with impulse, ran a hand over her hip.  She looked, he thought, like a pin-up girl from the nineteen forties.  When women weren’t afraid to have curves.   

Certainly nothing like the current crop of rail-thin celebrities who sniffed at a carrot stick and called it lunch. 

He imagined that occasionally bothered her.  Women were forever looking at other women’s thighs, and finding their own to be fat.

It was a mystery he couldn’t hope to understand.

With a final squeeze for that curvy hip, he pulled the sheet up and kissed her goodnight.

“Sainthood,” he mumbled as he made his way to the kitchen in search of pen and paper.  “That level of restraint deserves canonization.”

After dropping her dirty clothes in the basket on top of the dryer, he scrawled a note reminding her he’d be by in the morning.  Propping it on her nightstand, he checked to make sure her alarm was set.  Since it was nearly one a.m., it would be going off before she knew it.

As Jordan pulled away and headed down the street, he noted the dark car parked in front of Lou Ellen’s house. And found himself slowing. 

Deep blue domestic, out of town plates.  Florida, judging from the orange depicted between the tag numbers.  As Jordan drove away, a piece of memory raised itself like a crumpled red flag, though he was several blocks away before it smoothed out.

The tag had been secured in position with a shiny gold chain.

“DO you have any idea how many dark blue, midsize domestic sedans are registered in Florida?” Jesse asked as Jordan leaned over his shoulder to get a look at the computer. 

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“Too many.”  Though his brother had narrowed it down, Jordan noted, and had the plate numbers sorted into lists.  Even as they spoke the printer spit one into Jesse’s waiting hand.  “At least you caught part of the tag this time.”

“Being conscious tends to help.  Here.  Drink your coffee.”  Jordan exchanged the printout for the large – Jordan refused to call it venti – Caffé Americano he’d brought along to make up for having woken his brother in the middle of the night. 

Jesse grunted, and picked up one of the scones Jordan had added to sweeten the deal.

Thank God Starbucks opened at five a.m.

Jordan took a drink from his own cup when the words he was reading blurred on the page.  His brain cells might be moving with the lubrication of caffeine, but the rest of his body was quickly turning to lead. He was exhausted. When he’d realized the significance of the chain, he’d backtracked toward Ava’s only to find the car gone.

But had sat there, watching, for hours.

Maybe it was paranoia on his part, but the chill that had danced over his skin when the memory kicked into place was enough to have him pick up the phone.  He’d called his brother, told him what he’d seen.  Jesse had started running tags, no questions.

“The ones on that list are registered to individuals who came up as having some form of criminal record.  Mostly nickel and dime stuff – your petty thievery, drunken and disorderlies, simple assault – but we have at least ten convicted felons.  From armed robbery all the way up to murder one.  One or two have served their time, several others are out on parole.  A few are still locked up, but the vehicles might be being used by relatives.”  Jesse slipped off his glasses to rub his eyes.  “You’ll want to look it over and see if any of these names jump out at you from one of your cases.”

“Thanks.”  Jordan pulled out a chair and joined his brother at the desk.  The computer hummed as Jordan scanned the names, probed his memory.  Cons
ulted his stored notes
whenever memory failed.  The house creaked occasionally, in the language of old buildings, and when morning streaked its first pink fingers across the sky Jordan heard the shower kick on above Jesse’s home office. 

“Clay’s up.” 

Jesse just grunted.  “Bastard took me for thirty dollars last night.  Should have kicked him out of the house.  Never play poker with a psychologist.” 

By the time the water pipes gave their final groan Jordan had cross-referenced most of the list.

“Anything?” Jesse asked.

“The only name that jumps out as even a possibility is Eileen Zeigler.  Looks like she got busted for shoplifting back in eighty-five.  Community service, no time served.  But it’s her son who came through Chatham County’s system.  Bodie Zeigler is doing the flip side of a dime for possession with intent.”

“That’s pretty stiff for a drug charge.”

“Aggravated.  He’d been slapped on the wrist a couple times before for simple possession, which – though you didn’t hear it from me – is a waste of both manpower and taxpayer money.  I’ve seen enough of these guys come through multiple times to know that people who want to get high are going to find a way to do it.  But anyway, he went from being a danger mostly to himself to a predator when he decided to pedal smack to middle school kids.”  He circled the name even as he shook his head.  “Mrs. Zeigler lives in a retirement community outside Orlando.  Wore a Mickey Mouse sweater at the trial, and sat in the lobby knitting during recess.  It was one of those things that hit home for me.  Even degenerates have mothers.”

Jesse eyed him over the rim of his cup.  “And this particular mother has sticky fingers.  Just because she knits
,
it doesn’t mean she’s a model citizen, Jordan.”

“She’s probably seventy years old by now.  I can’t see her bashing me over the head. I know,” Jordan said when Jesse continued to stare. “She could have had help.  Though after six years, why bother?  Unless something happened to the son.  People can go batshit when they lose someone.  But anyway. I’ll pass this along to Detective Coleman.”

“You sure you don’t want me to check it out?”

“Let’s do everything through the proper legal channels.  This is Coleman’s jurisdiction.  I don’t want to hang anything up on a technicality.” He crossed the room to his briefcase.

“Speaking of Coleman’s jurisdiction, still no word on that red-headed succubus you were dating?”

Jordan turned, cocked his head. “Does your wife realize you’re an ape?” 

Jesse stretched out his legs, covered in jeans he hadn’t bothered to button, and propped his bare feet on the extra chair.  “Jillian’s the one who called her that.  Woman would have sucked you dry within a year. No idea what you saw in that one, apart from an exceptional rack.”   

“Who has an exceptional rack?” Clay asked as he walked in, buttoning his shirt. “Damn, is that coffee?”

“All gone.”  Jesse shook his empty cup.

Spotting Jordan’s cup on the edge of the desk, Clay walked over and popped off the lid.

“By all means.  Help yourself.”

Ignoring Jordan, Clay slapped Jesse’s feet aside and sat.  “About this rack.  You talking about the veterinarian?  What?” he said in surprise when Jordan bared his teeth.

“Do not.  Say one word. About Ava’s breasts.”

Jesse’s low whistle accompanied Clay’s raised brow.  “Well.  Mostly I was yanking your chain again, but apparently I’ve roused the beast.  You’re serious.”

“I’m going to marry her.”

Clay bobbled the coffee, spilling some across his lap.  “At least it wasn’t hot.  My God son, have you gone insane?”

But Jesse was grinning like a fool.  “The Wellington Curse strikes again.”

“What?” Clay looked over his shoulder as if expecting an attack from behind.

“Relax, Copeland.  The only unattached female in this house is Grace, and I don’t think she’s considering marriage just yet.”

“Not until she’s forty,” Jesse agreed.  “Or I’m dead.  Whichever comes first.”

Jordan closed his briefcase, then dropped onto the leather sofa angled in the corner.  And sank. It felt so damn comfortable that he knew it was a mistake.  “Trade me spots, Clay.  If I sit here, I’ll fall asleep.”

“Yeah, I want to hear about why you were skulking around before the crack of dawn,” Clay said as he grabbed a napkin before heading to the couch.  He dabbed it at his lap. “Right after you explain why I shouldn’t suggest that your family have you committed.”