now he was obviously just “ordinary/not in love” crazy.
Because there was no way his body should feel that need slide through him. No way he should be staring at her mouth as if he wanted that instead of a slice of pizza. Thankfully, Jordan put a quick stop to it by saying just a handful of words.
“Your mom just called me.”
Dylan hadn’t seen that coming, and he wondered if it had something to do with the call that she’d just made to him. He got the feeling that it did when his phone buzzed with yet another call from her.
“You should answer that,” Jordan insisted. “Because your mom knows about Corbin. She knows that I’m here, too, and she just told me that she wants me to stay at the ranch until we’ve all had a chance to talk. She’s hoping to be back here by tomorrow night.”
Crap. That wasn’t good. Yes, his mom, Regina, co-owned the house, but it wasn’t her place to do this. Not when it would put Jordan, Regina and him under the same roof.
Dylan was about to hit the answer button to take the call, but then Jordan said something else that had him saying something much stronger than crap.
Jordan looked him straight in the eyes. “And Regina’s talking to her lawyer now so that she can petition to get custody of Corbin.”
JORDAN GLANCED AT the clock on the nightstand and groaned. Five thirty in the morning. It was a full hour earlier than her normal time to get up, but the cold sweat had woken her. Sweat that had wet her camisole to the point where it was uncomfortable. She got up, shucked it off and went to the shower.
Maybe it wouldn’t be too long before Dylan and Corbin got up, too, and then she could resume the chat that Dylan and she had had on and off the night before. The chat where he’d let her know that he was pissed off at what was happening.
And Jordan couldn’t blame him.
She’d thought Regina’s out-of-the-blue custody demand was a bad idea from the very moment the woman had made it. She believed it was an even worse idea when Dylan and his mom had gotten into an argument that ended with Regina standing her ground. And now that it was morning, Jordan still believed it was bad. That’s why she was here, at the ranch, in one of the many guest rooms so that eventually Dylan and she could work out what they were going to do.
Jordan hadn’t gone to the inn in town as she’d planned because there hadn’t been a room available. Plus, she hadn’t wanted to be that far away from Corbin. She was worried that once he realized his mom wasn’t around, he might feel abandoned, and Jordan wanted to be there for him.
Of course, Dylan wanted to be there for the boy, too. And he was. Dylan had stayed right there through the pizza dinner, Corbin’s bath and putting him to bed in the room next to Dylan’s. Dylan had insisted on that, and then had also insisted that he would sleep on the floor next to Corbin’s bed in case the little boy got scared about being in unfamiliar surroundings.
Jordan had also wanted to stay with Corbin, but she hadn’t intended to compound Regina’s bad idea with one of her own. It just wouldn’t have been good for her to be that close to Dylan. Because despite their dispute, and now their joint dispute with Regina, there was still lust in the air.
For some stupid reason, she kept thinking about kissing Dylan. Probably because kissing had been one of his best talents. She wasn’t sure how a man became good at something like that. Plenty of practice, probably, but he’d been a downright pro even back in the days when she’d been the recipient of some of Dylan’s first kisses. Maybe it was the shape of his mouth. Or the gentle but coaxing pressure. Or that taste.
Mercy, that taste.
She’d never been able to label it, but it was some sort of version of cowboy sin.
Which was exactly why she should stop thinking about it.
Jordan finished her shower and dressed as quickly as she could. And the quickly included not looking in the mirror any longer than necessary. She was having trouble with mirrors these days because she didn’t want to see her own face. After she’d been rescued, she had seen her reflection in the helmet-visor of one of her rescuers. That image of her stark fear was what she saw now whenever she caught a glimpse of herself. No need for her to relive that. Instead, she focused on the shimmer of gold from a navel ring as she pulled on her jeans and top.
In hindsight, getting the ring seemed silly. Like a mistake that she should fix by just taking out the little circle and letting the piercing heal. But she’d wanted to do something, well, different. Something that got her mind off what’d happened, so the day she’d gotten out of the hospital, Jordan had found a place to do it. The piece of jewelry had gotten her through some tough mornings while she’d dressed.
And it was large enough that it sort of looked like a much-thinner version of her old wedding ring.
A reminder that kept troubling her a little.
Since she didn’t want to deal with her inability to remove unwanted body jewelry, she switched her attention to Dylan’s mom. Instead of labeling the taste of his kiss, she should be figuring out Regina’s angle. Or if there even was an angle. The woman had said a boy needed a mom, and that since Adele was locked up and Jordan was in the military, that she—as Corbin’s grandmother—should get custody.
It was an old-fashioned idea that a woman/mother would be a better parenting choice, but then Regina could be set in her ways. Ironic though, that after her own divorce, Regina hadn’t been around much afterward to actually raise her own kids. Neither had her ex-husband. Child-rearing responsibility had been pretty much left to Lucian. But according to what Karlee had said, in recent months Regina had seemingly wanted to make up for lost time with her kids. Karlee’s theory was since Regina’s brush with death from breast cancer, she was now trying to be the mom she probably should have been all those years ago.
And Regina was extending that mom-hood to being a hands-on grandmother.
During the arguments that Dylan had had with his mom the night before, he’d accused Regina of matchmaking. Jordan also agreed that could be a possibility. And trying to interfere in her son’s love life was a lot easier to swallow than believing the woman wanted to keep Dylan from getting custody of his son. That meant Regina likely thought the same thing as everyone else.
That Dylan wasn’t responsible enough for fatherhood.
Jordan was sure that stung for him. The same way it stung for her when people gave her that poor, pitiful you look. But in Dylan’s case, folks might be right.
Might.
She didn’t really know the man that Dylan had become, but the preliminary signs weren’t good with the sex bingo card that the dog had brought in. Of course, maybe the card was a prank and there weren’t others floating around out there, waiting to have enough sex boxes ticked off.
Jordan put on some makeup and a dress since she’d have to see both Adele and a lawyer today. She also wanted to spend as much time with Corbin as possible. Dylan had had extra hours with the boy, and while this wasn’t a competition, Jordan wanted Corbin to know her as well as he did Dylan. Besides, it probably wouldn’t be long before Regina arrived and threw things
