Daring Moves

Mindy looked disappointed. “Well, he did ask for your number, didn’t he?”

“No. But he knows where I work. If he wants to call, I suppose he will.”

A delighted smile lit Mindy’s face. Positive thinking was an art form with her. “He’ll call. I just know it.”

Amanda grinned. “If he does, I won’t be able to accept the glory—I owe it all to an article I read in Cosmo. I think it was called ‘Big Girls Should Talk to Strangers,’ or something like that.”

Mindy lifted her diet cola in a rousing roast. “Here’s to Jordan Richards and a red-hot romance!”

With a chuckle, Amanda touched her cup to Mindy’s and drank a toast to something that would probably never happen.

Back at the hotel more crises were waiting to be solved, and there was a message on Amanda’s desk, scrawled by the typist who’d filled in for Mindy during lunch. Jordan Richards had called.

A peculiar tightness constricted Amanda’s throat, and a flutter started in the pit of her stomach. Mindy’s toast echoed in her ears: “Here’s to Jordan Richards and a red-hot romance.”

Amanda laid down the message, telling herself she didn’t have time to return the call, then picked it up again. Before she knew it, her finger was punching out the numbers.

“Striner, Striner and Richards,” sang a receptionist’s voice at the other end of the line.

Amanda drew a deep breath, squared her shoulders and exhaled. “This is Amanda Scott,” she said in her most professional voice. “I’m returning a call from Jordan Richards.”

“One moment, please.”

After a series of clicks and buzzes another female voice came on the line. “Jordan Richards’s office. May I help you?”

Again Amanda gave her name. And again she was careful to say she was returning a call that had originated with Jordan.

There was another buzz, then Jordan’s deep, crisp voice saying, “Richards.”

Amanda hadn’t expected a simple thing like the man saying his name to affect her the way it did. It was the strangest sensation to feel dizzy over something like that. She dropped into the swivel chair behind her desk. “Hi. It’s Amanda.”

“Amanda.”

Coming from him, her own name had the same strange impact as his had had.

“How are you?” he asked.

Amanda swallowed. She was a professional with a very responsible job. It was ridiculous to be overwhelmed by something so simple and ordinary as the timbre of a man’s voice. “I’m fine,” she answered. Nothing more imaginative came to her, and she sat there behind her broad desk, blushing like an eighth-grade schoolgirl trying to work up the courage to ask a boy to a sock hop.

His low, masculine chuckle came over the wire to surround her like a mystical caress. “If I promise not to ask any more questions about you know who, will you go out with me? Some friends of mine are having an informal dinner tonight on their houseboat.”

Amanda still felt foolish for talking about James in the therapy session, then practically bolting when Jordan brought him up again over Chinese food. Lately she just seemed to be a mass of contradictions, feeling one way one minute, another the next. What it all came down to was the fact that Dr. Marshall was right—she needed to start taking chances again. “Sounds like fun,” she said after drawing a deep breath.

“Pick you up at seven?”

“Yes.” And she gave him her address. A little thrill went through her as she laid the receiver back on its cradle, but there was no more time to think about Jordan. The telephone immediately rang again.

“Amanda Scott.”

The chef’s assistant was calling. A pipe had broken, and the kitchen was flooding fast.

“Just another manic day,” Amanda muttered as she hurried off to investigate.

2

It was ten minutes after six when Amanda got off the bus in front of her apartment building and dashed inside. After collecting her mail, she hurried up the stairs and jammed her key into the lock. Jordan was picking her up in less than an hour, and she had a hundred things to do to get ready.

Since he’d told her the evening would be a casual one, she selected gray woolen slacks and a cobalt-blue blouse. After a hasty shower, she put on fresh makeup and quickly wove her hair into a French braid.

Gershwin stood on the back of the toilet the whole time she was getting ready, lamenting the treatment of house cats in contemporary America. She had just given him his dinner when a knock sounded at the door.

Amanda’s heart lurched like a dizzy ballet dancer, and she wondered why she was being such a ninny. Jordan Richards was just a man, nothing more. And so what if he was successful? She met a lot of men like him in her line of work.

She opened the door and knew a moment of pure exaltation at the look of approval in Jordan’s eyes.

“Hi,” he said. He wore jeans and a sport shirt, and his hands rested comfortably in the pockets of his brown leather jacket. “You look fantastic.”

Amanda thought he looked pretty fantastic himself, but she didn’t say so because she’d used up that week’s quota of bold moves by talking about James in front of people she didn’t know. “Thanks,” she said, stepping back to admit him.

Gershwin did a couple of turns around Jordan’s ankles and meowed his approval. With a chuckle, Jordan bent to pick him up. “Look at the size of this guy. Is he on steroids or what?”

Amanda laughed. “No, but I suspect him of throwing wild parties and sending out for pizza when I’m not around.”

After scratching the cat once behind the ears, Jordan set him down again with a chuckle, but his eyes were serious when he looked at Amanda.

Something in his expression made her breasts grow heavy and her nipples tighten beneath the smooth silk of her blouse. “I suppose we’d better go,” she said, sounding somewhat lame even to her own ears.

“Right,” Jordan agreed. His voice had the same effect on Amanda it had had earlier. She felt the starch go out of her knees and she was breathless, as though she’d accidentally stepped onto a runaway skate-board.

She took her blue cloth coat from the coat tree, and Jordan helped her into it. She felt his fingertips brush her nape as he lifted her braid from beneath the collar, and hoped he didn’t notice that she trembled ever so slightly at his touch.

His car, a sleek black Porsche—Amanda decided then and there that he didn’t have kids of his own—was parked at the curb. Jordan opened the passenger door and walked around to get behind the wheel after Amanda was settled.

Soon they were streaking toward Lake Union. It was only when he switched on the windshield wipers that Amanda realized it was raining.

“Have you lived in Seattle long?” she asked, uncomfortable with a silence Jordan hadn’t seemed to mind.

“I live on Vashon Island now—I’ve been somewhere in the vicinity all my life,” he answered. “What about you?”

“Seattle’s home,” Amanda replied.

“Have you ever wanted to live anywhere else?”

She smiled. “Sure. Paris, London, Rome. But after I graduated from college, I was hired to work at the Evergreen, so I settled down here.”

“You know what they say—life is what happens while we’re making other plans. I always intended to work on Wall Street myself.”

“Do you regret staying here?”

Amanda had expected a quick, light denial. Instead she received a sober glance and a low, “Sometimes, yes. Things might have been very different if I’d gone to New York.”

For some reason Amanda’s gaze was drawn to the pale line across Jordan’s left-hand ring finger. Although the windows were closed and the heater was going, Amanda suppressed a shiver. She didn’t say anything until Lake Union, with its diamondlike trim of lit houseboats, came into sight. Since the holidays were approaching, the place was even more of a spectacle than usual.

“It looks like a tangle of Christmas tree lights.”

Jordan surprised her with one of his fleeting, devastating grins.

“You have a colorful way of putting things, Amanda Scott.”

She smiled. “Do your friends like living on a houseboat?”

“I think so,” he answered, “but they’re planning to move in the spring. They’re expecting a baby.”

Although lots of children were growing up on Lake Union, Amanda could understand why Jordan’s friends would want to bring their little one up on dry land. Her thoughts turned bittersweet as she wondered whether she would ever have a child of her own. She was already twenty-eight—time was running out.

As he pulled the car into a parking lot near the wharves and shut the engine off, she sat up a little straighter, realizing that she’d left his remark dangling. “I’m sorry…I…how nice for them that they’re having a baby.”

Unexpectedly Jordan reached out and closed his hand over Amanda’s. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked with a gentleness that almost brought tears to her eyes.

Amanda shook her head. “Of course not. Let’s go in—I’m anxious to meet your friends.”

David and Claudia Chamberlin were an attractive couple in their early thirties, he with dark hair and eyes, she with very fair coloring and green eyes. They were both architects, and framed drawings and photographs of their work graced the walls of the small but elegantly furnished houseboat.

Amanda thought of her own humble apartment with Gershwin as its outstanding feature, and wondered if Jordan thought she was dull.

Claudia seemed genuinely interested in her, though, and her greeting was warm. “It’s good to see Jordan back in circulation—finally,” she confided in a whisper when she and Amanda were alone beside the table where an array of wonderful food was being set out by the caterer’s helpers.

Amanda didn’t reply to the comment right away, but her gaze strayed to Jordan, who was standing only a few feet away, talking with David. “I guess it’s been pretty hard for him,” she ventured, pretending to know more than she did.

“The worst,” Claudia agreed. She pulled Amanda a little distance farther from the men. “We thought he’d never get over losing Becky.”

Uneasily Amanda recalled the pale stripe Jordan’s wedding band had left on his finger. Perhaps, she reflected warily, there was a corresponding mark on his soul.

Later, when Amanda had met everyone in the room and mingled accordingly, Jordan laid her coat gently over her shoulders. “How about going out on deck with me for a few minutes?” he asked quietly. “I need some air.”

Once again Amanda felt that peculiar lurching sensation deep inside. “Sure,” she said with a wary glance at the rain-beaded windows.

“The rain stopped a little while ago,” Jordan assured her with a slight grin.

The way he seemed to know what she was thinking was disconcerting.

They left the main cabin through a door on the side, and because the deck was slippery, Jordan put a strong arm around Amanda’s waist. She was fully independent, but she still liked the feeling of being looked after.

The lights of the harbor twinkled on the dark waters of the lake, and Jordan studied them for a while before asking, “So, what do you think of Claudia and David?”

Amanda smiled. “They’re pretty interesting,” she replied. “I suppose you know they were married in India when they were there with the Peace Corps.”

Jordan propped an elbow on the railing and nodded. “David and Claudia are nothing if not unconventional. That’s one of the reasons I like them so much.”

Amanda was slightly deflated, though she tried hard not to reveal the fact. With her ordinary job, cat and apartment, she knew she must seem prosaic compared to the Chamberlins. Perhaps it was the strange sense of hopelessness she felt that made her reckless enough to ask, “What about your wife? Was she unconventional?”

He turned away from her to stare out at the water, and for a long moment she was sure he didn’t intend to answer. Finally, however, he said in a low voice, “She had a degree in marine biology, but she didn’t work after the kids were born.”

It was the first mention he’d made of any children—Amanda had been convinced, in fact, that he had none. “Kids?” she asked in a small and puzzled voice.

Jordan looked at her in a way that was almost, but not quite, defensive. “There are two—Jessica’s five and Lisa’s four.”

Amanda knew a peculiar joy, as though she’d stumbled upon an unexpected treasure. She couldn’t help the quick, eager smile that curved her lips. “I thought—well, when you were driving a Porsche—”

He smiled back at her in an oddly somber way. “Jessie and Lisa live with my sister over in Port Townsend.”

Amanda’s jubilation deflated. “They live with your sister? I don’t understand.”

Jordan sighed. “Becky died two weeks after the accident, and I was in the hospital for close to three months. Karen—my sister—and her husband, Paul, took the kids. By the time I got back on my feet, the four of them had become a family. I couldn’t see breaking it up.”

An overwhelming sadness caused Amanda to grip the railing for a moment to keep from being swept away by the sheer power of the emotion.

Reading her expression, Jordan gently touched the tip of her nose. “Ready to call it a night? You look tired.”

Amanda nodded, too close to tears to speak. She had a tendency to empathize with other people’s joys and sorrows, and she was momentarily crushed by the weight of what Jordan had been through.

“I see my daughters often,” he assured her, tenderness glinting in his eyes. He kissed her lightly on the mouth, then took her elbow and escorted her back inside the cabin.

They said their goodbyes to David and Claudia Chamberlin, then walked up the wharf to Jordan’s car. He was a perfect gentleman, opening the door for Amanda, and she settled wearily into the suede passenger seat.

Back at Amanda’s building, Jordan again helped her out of the car, and he walked her to her door. Amanda waited until the last possible second to decide whether she was going to invite him in, breaking her own suspense by blurting out, “Would you like a cup of coffee or something?”

Jordan’s hazel eyes twinkled as he placed one hand on either side of the doorjamb, effectively trapping Amanda between his arms. “Not tonight,” he said softly.

Amanda’s blue eyes widened in confusion. “Don’t look now,” she replied in a burst of daring cowardice, “but you’re sending out conflicting messages.”

He chuckled, and his lips touched hers, very tenderly.

Amanda felt a jolt of spiritual electricity spark through her system, burning away every memory of James’s touch. Surprise made her draw back from Jordan so suddenly that her head bumped hard against the door.

Jordan lowered one hand to caress her crown, and she felt the French braid coming undone beneath his fingers.

“Careful,” he murmured, and then he kissed her again.

This time there was hunger in his touch, and a sweet, frightening power that made Amanda’s knees unsteady.

She laid her hands lightly on his chest, trying to ground this second mystical shock, but he interpreted the contact differently and drew back.

“Good night, Amanda,” he said quietly. He waited until she’d unlocked her door with a trembling hand, and then he walked away.

Inside the apartment Amanda flipped on the living room light, crossed to the sofa and sagged onto it. She felt as though she were leaning over the edge of a great canyon and the rocks were slipping away beneath her feet.

Gershwin hurled himself into her lap with a loud meow, and she ran one hand distractedly along his silky back. Dr. Marshall had said it was time she started taking chances, and she had an awful feeling she was on the brink of the biggest risk of her life.

The massive redwood-and-glass house overlooking Puget Sound was dark and unwelcoming that night when Jordan pulled into the driveway and reached for the small remote control device lying on his dashboard. He’d barely made the last ferry to the island, and he was tired.

As the garage door rolled upward, he thought of Amanda, and shifted uncomfortably on the seat. He would have given half his stock portfolio to have her sitting beside him now, to talk with her over coffee in the kitchen or wine in front of the fireplace…

To take her to his bed.

Jordan got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. The garage was dark, but he didn’t flip on a light until he reached the kitchen. Becky had always said he had the night vision of a vampire.

Becky. He clung to the memory of her smile, her laughter, her perfume. She’d been tiny and spirited, with dark hair and eyes, and it seemed to Jordan that she’d never been far from his side, even after her death. He’d loved her to an excruciating degree, but for the past few months she’d been steadily receding from his mind and heart. Now, with the coming of Amanda, her image seemed to be growing more indistinct with every passing moment.

Jordan glanced into the laundry room, needing something real and mundane to focus on. A pile of jeans, sweatshirts and towels lay on the floor, so he crammed as much as he could into the washing machine, then added soap and turned the dial. A comforting, ordinary sound resulted.

Returning to the kitchen, Jordan shrugged out of his leather jacket and laid it over one of the bar stools at the counter. He opened the refrigerator, studied its contents without actually focusing on a single item, then closed it again. He wasn’t hungry for anything except Amanda, and it was too soon for that.

Too soon, he reflected with a rueful grin as he walked through the dining room to the front entryway and the stairs. He hadn’t bothered with such niceties as timing with the women he’d dated over the past two years—in truth, their feelings just hadn’t mattered much to him, though he’d never been deliberately unkind.

He trailed his hand over the top of the polished oak banister as he climbed the stairs. With Amanda, things were different. Timing was crucial, and so were her feelings.

The empty house yawned around Jordan as he opened his bedroom door and went inside. In the adjoining bathroom he took off his clothes and dropped them neatly into the hamper, then stepped into the shower.

Thinking of Amanda again, he turned on the cold water and endured its biting chill until some of the intolerable heat had abated. But while he was brushing his teeth, Amanda sneaked back into his mind.

He saw her standing on the deck of the Chamberlins’ boat, looking up at him with that curious vulnerability showing in her blue-green eyes. It was as though she didn’t know how beautiful she was, or how strong, and yet she had to, because she was out there making a life for herself.

Rubbing his now-stubbled chin, Jordan wandered into the bedroom, threw back the covers and slid between the sheets. He felt the first stirrings of rage as he thought about the mysterious James and the damage he’d done to Amanda’s soul. Jordan had seen the bruises in her eyes every time she’d looked at him, and the memory made him want to find the bastard who’d hurt her and systematically tear him apart.

Jordan turned onto his stomach and tried to put the scattered images of the past two days out of his thoughts. This time, just before he dropped off to sleep, was reserved for thoughts of Becky, as always.

He waited, but his late wife’s face didn’t form in his mind. He could only see Amanda, with her wide, trusting blue eyes, her soft, spun-honey hair, her shapely and inviting body. He wanted her with a desperation that made his loins ache.

Furious, Jordan slammed one fist into the mattress and flipped onto his back, training all his considerable energy on remembering Becky’s face.

He couldn’t.

After several minutes of concentrated effort, all of it fruitless, panic seized him, and he bolted upright, switched on the lamp and reached for the picture on his nightstand.

Becky smiled back at him from the photograph as if to say, Don’t worry, sweetheart. Everything will be okay.

With a raspy sigh, Jordan set the picture back on the table and turned out the light. Becky’s favorite reassurance didn’t work that night. Maybe things would be okay in the long run, but there was a lot of emotional white water between him and any kind of happy ending.

It was Saturday morning, and Amanda luxuriated in the fact that she didn’t have to put on makeup, style her hair, or even get dressed if she didn’t want to. She really tried to be lazy, but she felt strangely ambitious, and there was no getting around it.

She climbed out of bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen, where she got the coffee maker going and fed Gershwin. Then she had a quick shower and dressed in battered jeans, a Seahawks T-shirt and sneakers.

She was industriously vacuuming the living room rug, when the telephone rang.

The sound was certainly nothing unusual, but it fairly stopped Amanda’s heart. She kicked the switch on the vacuum cleaner with her toe and lunged for the telephone, hoping to hear Jordan’s voice since she hadn’t seen or heard from him in nearly a week.

Instead it was her mother. “Hello, darling,” said Marion Whitfield. “You sound breathless. Were you just coming in from the store or something?”

Amanda sank onto the couch. “No, I was only doing housework,” she replied, feeling deflated even though she loved and admired this woman who had made a life for herself and both her daughters after the man of the house had walked out on them all.

“That’s nice,” Marion commented, for she was a great believer in positive reinforcement. “Listen, I called to ask if you’d like to go Christmas shopping with me. We could have lunch, too, and maybe even take in a movie.”

Amanda sighed. She still didn’t feel great about Christmas, and the stores and restaurants would be jam-packed. The theaters, of course, would be full of screaming children left there by harried mothers trying to complete their shopping. “I think I’ll just stay home, if you don’t mind.” She stated the refusal in a kindly tone, not wanting to hurt her mother’s feelings.

“Is everything all right?”

Amanda caught one fingernail between her teeth for a moment before answering, “Mostly, yes.”

“It’s time you put that nasty experience with James Brockman behind you,” Marion said forth-rightly.

The two women were friends, as well as mother and daughter, and Amanda was not normally secretive with Marion. However, the thing with Jordan was too new and too fragile to be discussed; after all, he might never call again. “I’m trying, Mom,” she replied.

“Well, Bob and I want you to come over for dinner soon. Like tomorrow, for instance.”

“I’ll let you know,” Amanda promised quickly as the doorbell made its irritating buzz. “And stop worrying about me, okay?”

“Okay,” Marion answered without conviction just before Amanda hung up.

Amanda expected one of the neighbor children, or maybe the postman with a package, so when she opened the door and found Jordan standing in the hallway, she felt as though she’d just run into a wall at full tilt.

For his part, Jordan looked a little bewildered, as though he might be surprised to find himself at Amanda’s door. “I should have called,” he said.

Amanda recovered herself. “Come in,” she replied with a smile.

He hesitated for a moment, then stepped into the apartment, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. He was wearing jeans and a green turtleneck, and his brown hair was damp from the Seattle drizzle. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out to lunch or something.”

Amanda glanced at the clock on the mantel and was amazed to see that it was nearly noon. The morning had flown by in a flurry of housecleaning. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll just clean up a little—”

He reached out and caught hold of her hand when she would have disappeared into her bedroom. “You look fine,” he told her, and his voice was very low, like the rumble of an earthquake deep down in the ground.

By sheer force of will, Amanda shored up her knees, only to have him pull her close and lock his hands lightly behind the small of her back. A hot flush made her cheeks ache, and she had to force herself to meet his eyes.