was no denying that, if she was telling the truth, he had it coming. He just couldn’t seem to find the right path on anything connected to Jordan.
With an effort he was almost too weary to make, he pulled his scattered thoughts together and made himself focus on the reason he was here and the best way to get what he needed from this woman, not the woman herself. It was surprisingly difficult. She had a presence, and he had the brief, flitting thought that she must have been something onstage.
“Ms. Reynolds,” he said, trying to sound reasonable, “I’m just looking for my son.”
“What you’re doing,” she said, “is driving him away.”
“He’d have to be a lot closer before I could drive him away,” he said wryly.
Something flickered in her eyes, whether at his rueful words or his tone he didn’t know. But it was a better reaction than that fierce anger, or that icy cool, and he’d take it.
“Look, I just found out how much time Jordan spends here. I wanted to check the place out.”
“So you come in with an attitude and a lot of assumptions?”
She had him there. “Yes,” he admitted simply.
That won him the briefest trace of a smile.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not realizing he was going to say it until the words were out.
“About which?” she asked, clearly requiring more than just a simple, blanket apology.
He looked at her for a moment. She held his gaze steadily. Nerve, he thought. Or else he’d lost his knack for intimidation entirely in the last year. Since that had been his goal he should be happy, not standing here missing the skill.
“The attitude,” he said finally. “And the assumptions … they should have stayed at the possibilities stage.”
“Every music store is a haven for druggies and their gear? A bit old-school, aren’t you? Why risk it when people can get whatever they need or want online, with no open display of wares to get hassled over?”
She had, he knew, a very valid point. Several of them. He really should have thought more before he’d barged in here on the offensive.
“I was just worried about Jordan.” He let out a long breath, lowering his gaze and shaking his head. “I pretty much suck at this father thing,” he muttered.
“It’s a tough gig.”
The sudden gentleness of her tone caught him off guard. “I know this has been … difficult for him.”
“Ya think?” she said. “His mom dies, the father he never knew shows up out of nowhere and proceeds to drag him back to that nowhere with him … well, nowhere in his view, anyway.”
He’d been right about that, it seemed, Wyatt thought. Jordan talked to her. A lot. Certainly more than to him.
“I know he hates it here,” he said.
“I know. ‘It’s too cold, half the roads aren’t even paved, and there’s hardly any people,’” she said, clearly quoting something Jordan had told her.
“That’s exactly what I like about it,” Wyatt said.
“The cold, the roads, or the lack of population?”
“Selection C.”
Her brows rose. “So it’s not just me who sets you off, it’s people in general?”
He wasn’t quite sure there wasn’t something about her in particular, but he didn’t want to delve into that now.
“I’ve seen what people can do.”
For a moment she just looked at him. Then, with an odd sort of gentleness, she said, “I have, too. They can build skyscrapers, write incredible poetry and stories, and impossibly beautiful music. They can be kind and generous and pull together when others need them. They can weep at pain and sadness, or at a beautiful sunset.”
He stared at her. “And they can inflict pain, murder and mayhem on each other.”
She didn’t flinch. “Yes. That too. Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever had to deal with the reality.”
Her gaze narrowed, and he regretted the words. And not for the implied criticism. Hastily he looked for something to divert the question he could sense was about to come.
“What kind of name is Kai?”
It sounded rude, and abrupt, but it accomplished the goal. Instead of asking what he knew about mayhem, she instead said sweetly, too sweetly he thought, “Mine.”
Now that she’d been diverted, he backed off. “I mean, where did it come from?”
“My parents.”
She wasn’t obtuse, he already knew that, so she was paying him back for his attitude, he supposed. He also figured he had it coming.
“And what,” he said evenly, “was their inspiration?”
She studied him for a moment before saying, “It’s Kauai without the u a.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Island in Hawaii? Fourth-largest? The Garden Isle?”
She was talking to him, he realized, as if he were the obtuse one. And he somewhat belatedly realized he would do well not to underestimate this woman.
“Were you born there?” That seemed a reasonable question, he thought.
“No. The fun part happened there.”
His mouth quirked. And she smiled, a bright, beautiful smile, and much more than the tiny alteration in his own expression deserved.
“Mom shortened it to the one syllable, to avoid me having to remember what order all the vowels came in when I was little, a thoughtfulness I still thank her for.”
The quirk became a smile of his own, he couldn’t seem to help it. And when he asked this time, the attitude was missing.
“What’s Jordan really doing?”
“Playing.”
He blinked. “Playing. Video games? Poker? Bingo?”
She didn’t take offense this time. Instead, the smile became a grin, and it hit him somewhere near the solar plexus and nearly took his breath away.
“A Gibson SG.”
“A guitar?”
“That one, to be exact,” she said, gesturing at the photograph he’d seen near the guitar display.
He didn’t have to turn
