Serendipity (Southern Comfort) (16 page)

“You shouldn’t have.”

Jordan laughed, grabbing the vegetable out of her hand and dropping it back into the bag.  “It’s an ingredient, Ava.  I’m making you vegetarian lasagna.”

Another
approving
noise emitted from the direction of her employee.

Ava cut her eyes toward Katie, who smiled like a loon. When she returned her attention to Jordan he’d shifted the bag again, and had closed the distance between them.  She tilted her head back to frown.  “You cook?”

“I’ve been known to.” He took advantage of her tipped up face to drop a quick kiss on her lips.  “I would have invited you over to my place,” and here he spared a quick glance for the still enrapt Katie, “but Clay’s currently camped out in my living room.  So I left him to his own devices,” – another, more pointed look – “and picked up everything we’d need to do dinner at your place.”

“Well.”  Katie, no fool, picked up the hint that Jordan had just quite obviously dropped.  Grabbing her purse, she pushed her chair away from the desk.  “Seeing as how it’s after five o’clock and there’s no real reason for either of us to stick around here any longer, I think I’ll be going.”  She scooted around the counter with a deftness born of practice, long legs eating up the space to the door in a few quick strides.  “It was nice to see you again, Jordan.  Ava, I’ll catch you tomorrow.  Enjoy your dinner.”   

As bells jangled, Ava turned her scowl on Jordan.  “Subtle.”

“I try.”

“So let me get this straight,” she motioned toward the bag.  “You’re inviting yourself to dinner at my place?”

“No.” Alone now, he anchored an arm around her waist and pulled her against him.  He sat the bag of groceries on the counter next to the cactus so that he could run his other hand along her spine.  “I’m inviting you to dinner.  I’m making it, remember?  Your place is simply the venue.”

And a recipe for disaster. Because the desire to lean on him, both physically and emotionally, was so strong, Ava forced herself to push back.  “That’s very sweet of you, Jordan, but I’m afraid that’s not a good idea.  I’m…” she searched around for a reasonable excuse that involved at least a kernel of truth.  “I’m really tired.  Like you said.”

Jordan danced his fingers up until they wiggled her ponytail.  “All the more reason for me to cook, so that you don’t have to.  You can kick back and relax with a nice glass of wine, while I dazzle you with my culinary prowess. And besides,” his face went straight.  “I get the feeling Katie may be headed over to keep Clay company, so I really have no place to go.”

Ava rolled her eyes.  “You don’t seriously think I’m going to fall for that again, do you?”

“Hope springs.  Find something that works, might as well stick with it.”

“Well aside from the fact that you’re pathetically transparent, I appreciate the offer.”  She couldn’t help but grin at the plant.  “And the cactus.  A creative alternative to roses and a candlelit dinner.”

“Wait.” Rummaging in the bag, he drew out a pair of votives.  “Who said we weren’t going to dine by candlelight?”

Looking at the candles, Ava was struck by a sudden epiphany.  Here – standing right here in front of her – might possibly be the perfect man. 

Or at least as close to perfect as any woman not completely masochistic might hope to expect.  Hell, maybe Lou Ellen wasn’t crazy.  Maybe fate had put her at the right place at the right time to save him. 

Not that fate intended him for her, of course. But a glowing example of natural selection at its finest like this wasn’t meant to be cut down in his prime.

That kind of thing would have been a crime against
wo
mankind.

And since she’d done such a good thing, a worthy thing, a purely selfless thing by preventing that genetic loss, she figured she was entitled to at least one lousy dinner.

“You’re a smooth one, Jordan Wellington.”  Lou Ellen had been right about that.   “And since you are, and you’ve gone to the trouble, and I probably would have eaten cold cereal otherwise, I’ll allow you to make me dinner. Just let me grab Jack and lock up.”

After seeing that everything was as it should be for the night, she followed Jordan outside. The spring air was like a first kiss, tentative and full of promise.  Though hers and Jordan’s first kiss, Ava considered wryly, had been anything but light. 

Jordan pointed to his car, parked under the bud-heavy magnolia shading her lot, and approval hummed through her again.  It looked like a fat, silver bullet.

“I’ll follow you,” he suggested, stowing the groceries on the back seat.

“That’s fine.” She tossed him an easy smile.  “I’ll just…”

Whatever she’d been about to say was forgotten as she caught her first real glimpse of her car.

It sat alone.

No black T-Bird, no beat up blue Chevy nearby.  Nary a goon in sight.  Her heartbeat picked up as she realized she’d blithely walked into plain view, accompanied by Jordan.  ADA Jordan.  Upholder of law and order.  The man who still bore the evidence of her uncle’s assault on his head. 

Had one of the men seen him going in? Had they recognized him?

Or, alternately, had Uncle Carlos finally called off his dogs?

Frozen by a surge of nerves, Ava noticed that there was something a little off about her car.  The back end sat considerably lower.

Nerves fled, fury nipping at the heels.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, and had Jordan straightening from his car.

“Problem?” 

“My tire,” Ava answered noncommittally. Sitting One-eyed Jack’s carrier down, she knelt on the ground to examine the damage.  Sure enough, the high-performance Pirelli, not two months old, had a six-inch gash running across it. 

“Son of a bitch,” she growled it loudly this time, and then shot to her feet and spun around.  Nothing popped
up
, no sneering jackasses with their stupid knives poking their heads out of the shrubbery.  Just the hush of old brick walls, that whisper of a breeze. The quiet hum of the occasional car passing.  But she knew the goon had to be watching.  She could all but feel the bastard’s eyes on her. 

JORDAN
walked over, brow raised as she turned the air around her blue.  But when he saw the slashed tire, any sense of amusement fled. 

“Any idea as to who might have done this?”

“What?”  When she jumped, darted another nervous look around, he feigned a casualness he didn’t feel.

“Slash like that,” he gestured to the tire, “doesn’t get there because you ran over a nail.”

He watched the denial creep into her eyes. 

And knew she was going to lie to him. 

HERE
it was, Ava thought dismally.  The first of many lies to be told.  And the fact that she did have to lie, for his sake as well as her own, was a bare-knuckled punch to the gut.  She hated to lie, hated for people to not know exactly why they might not want to hang around her.  It was the reason she’d confided in both Lou Ellen and Katie.  They deserved to know what they were getting into.

Jordan deserved no less. 

If he were just a man – the first man in a long, long while that she felt the almost irresistible urge to confide in – she knew, instinctively, that he was also the kind of man you could trust. 

But she couldn’t trust him with this.

To do so would mean explaining exactly how he’d ended up at the hospital that night. And who had put him in that trunk to begin with.

“Probably just some kids pulling pranks.” And because she wanted him to forget about her car – there were still traces of his blood on the headrest, for pity’s sake – she realized she had to put him off.  “Um, listen, Jordan,” she glanced back toward her clinic because she couldn’t look him in the eye.  “I’m afraid I might have to take a rain check on dinner. I need to get this taken care of.”

“Do you want to call the police?  File a report for your insurance?”

“No.  No, I really don’t.”

“Okay.  Do you –”

“You’re not obligated to help.  Really, I can handle this.  We’ll do dinner another time.” 

“Uh-huh.  Do you have a spare?”

“No.”  She shook her head, thinking it was like trying to stop a steamroller with her bare hands.  “I popped a tire a few weeks ago when I was visiting a client’s farm.  I haven’t gotten around to buying a replacement.  But –”

“I’LL
tell you what.”  Jordan slung an arm around her shoulders and started steering her toward his car.  Kids, hell.  It might be spring break, but he knew – from personal experience – that kids up to no good usually waited until after dark to sneak out of the house and wreak their havoc.  As it was only a little after five, he really didn’t think they could pin this on marauding teens.

The note of disquiet he’d felt last night struck another chord.

Factor in the tail when they left the bar, her landlord’s shotgun, Ava’s jumpy demeanor… Jordan was starting to think along the lines of a dangerous ex.

He’d get to the bottom of it, eventually.  Right now he just wanted to remove her from the scene.  She’d be more likely to confide in him over an intimate dinner than hanging around the parking lot.  “I’ll give you a ride home, and then we can stop and pick up a new tire before I bring you back in the morning.  I’d be happy to change it for you.” 

“Jordan, I don’t think –”

“Exactly.”  He squeezed her shoulder.  “You’re tired, and you’re not thinking clearly.  So why don’t you just let me take you home and make you dinner.”

When they reached his car, he tucked her into the passenger seat, ignored her various protests. Then he scooped up the carrier filled with yowling cat, depositing it on the back seat.  He climbed in with hurried grace, threw the car in reverse, and got the hell out of there before Ava could realize she’d been herded.

This was one sheep he wasn’t going to let slip away.

DOWN the street, a black car started.

“WHY don’t you go take a shower and get comfortable, and I’ll get started on this.”  Jordan took a carton of portabella mushrooms out of the bag, sat them next to the ricotta cheese.  A package of green lasagna noodles – spinach, Ava gathered – followed a colorful array of peppers and tomatoes on the vine.  Garlic, fresh parsley and basil.  She guessed he really did know how to cook.  

“Ava.”

Her head snapped up, and he pressed a smiling kiss to her lips.  “You.  Shower.  Go.”

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

JORDAN
set aside the fresh mozzarella.  She was hovering.  She was hovering, and he could tell that she wasn’t used to having someone else in her kitchen.  The well-thumbed cookbooks, neatly organized collection of stainless steel cookware, the pots of herbs on the windowsill – guess he’d jumped the gun, there – amidst an otherwise, well, ugly-ass kitchen suggested she was a woman who liked to cook.

And a woman, apparently, who was suspicious of a man who could.

Locating a wine glass in one of the glass-fronted cabinets above the counter, he poured her a glass of the Bardolino he’d brought along.

“Here, drink this in the shower.  It will help you relax.”

Ava accepted the wine and frowned.  “What makes you think I’m uptight?”

“Honey,
you’re so stiff
I could nail you to the wall and use you for shelving.”  He poured his own glass half full and leaned back against the sink.  “Just do me a favor, would you, and set the oven to broil on your way out.”

“Broil?  You’re planning to broil the lasagna?  Oh, ha ha,” she said in response to his grin. 

“If it will ease your mind, I’ll tell you a little story.  I’m one of five boys, as you know, and my mother, bless her heart, had to put up with an awful lot while we were growing up.  One night, after she’d put in a long, crazy-making day of child rearing and had just put dinner on the table, one of my brothers – who will currently go unnamed as we’re all still a little angry with him – told her that he didn’t like her tuna casserole and wasn’t going to eat that slop.”

The corners of her mouth turned up.  “Bet that went over well.”

Jordan lifted his glass at the understatement.  “You have to know my mother to appreciate the full effect that had.  But nevertheless, some good did come of it.”  He sat his wine down, grabbed a trio of peppers and carelessly juggled them. “She made us learn to cook.  A couple of us took to it, a few of us didn’t, but the point is, we all know how.  Now,” he set the peppers back on the counter. “Will you go take your shower and leave me to this?”

“Only if you’re one of the ones who took to it.”

“You’re a tough customer, Doc.  But lucky for you, it just so happens that I am.” 

AVA
went, still baffled by the fact that there was a gorgeous man – a gorgeous prosecutor, for God’s sake – currently making dinner in her kitchen.  Her life over the past couple of weeks had been one long, strange ride. 

But, she mused, dropping her soiled clothes on the bathroom tile, taking another sip of a surprisingly nice Italian red.  As much as she hated her uncle’s manipulations, and what for her was an uncustomary lack of control, she realized that she couldn’t count the past week as a total loss.