Jordan

I hadn’t meant to walk to her. As soon as I saw Destiny with her long, platinum hair pulled back into a ponytail at the base of her neck and long, trim body in a skintight black dress that skirted the tops of her knees, sleeves that cupped the curve of her shoulders and hugged her other curves perfectly, my blood immediately started racing.

I spent the time at the service with my hands curled into fists, ready to knock out the next damn person who spoke another negative word about her returning to Carlton for her grandmother’s funeral.

Good freaking hell, the people in this damn town who could never let the past go. I thought I’d done it. Hell, over the last two years the pain of walking in Tillie’s house had become so minimal I sometimes didn’t notice it until I’d left. But seeing Destiny in person? She stole my breath and my protective instincts slammed in my chest exactly like they always used to.

And then, that boy, that little boy who didn’t quite reach her shoulders had stood next to her, holding her hand. His face dipped toward the casket, shoulders occasionally shaking.

She had a fucking kid. A boy. And she had the nerve to bring him here? To my damn town? The town she’d left without a single hint of remorse? She disappeared on the only person other than me who gave a shit about her and now she thought she had the right to parade her sexy little body and her boy at the funeral like Tillie meant something to her?

Hell, she hadn’t even kept in touch with Tillie. She hadn’t bothered to check in on her or show up when Tillie needed help, getting too old and too sick to handle her house and her life on her own.

The urge to slap sense into her hit me hard and fast. Before I could stop myself, I was behind her, shooting daggers out of my eyes at her until she looked my way. Her tanned, flawless, perfect skin turned alabaster white.

So what that the first words I said to her made me sound like a dick. Ten years without Destiny Matsen in my life and she still made my blood race like she’d always done since the moment I noticed her back in school.

In front of her, she had her boy wrapped in her arms. His shoulders shook as I spoke, and trim muscles in her arms appeared as she tightened her grip on him. Time seemed to stop as I took her in, unable to help myself. For the first time since she’d ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped all over it, we were face to face.

“Jordan,” she whispered.

Her pink lips formed my name, one I’d always loved hearing her say so damn beautifully it sounded like a tortured song.

“I didn’t think you’d be here.”

The boy next to her was no longer in front of her, but at her side, curling into her. Huge light blue eyes were on me, jaw so tight he risked cracking a tooth.

“Could say the same about you.” My hands went to my hips. The only thing I could do with them, so I didn’t reach out and shake the shit out of her. This freaking beautiful woman.

My downfall. My siren.

“Where ya’ been?” I asked when she didn’t say anything.

Her eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses, but the small movement she made told me she looked down at the boy.

Damn. He was cute. Floppy black hair on top of his head. His arms around his mother’s waist like a death grip. Something fizzled in my brain as he looked at me with obvious suspicion in his narrowed eyes.

“We should go,” she said. Her voice sounded like she rubbed her throat with sand. “We have…things to do.”

“What’s your name?” I asked, looking back to the boy. I couldn’t pull my eyes off him. “I’m Jordan Marx. An old, friend, of your mom.”

Friend. Vomit pooled in my throat and that heat in my chest flared hard and fast. We’d been friends, but not just.

He stared at the hand I held out in front of me to shake his hand. His hold on his mother went granite. “I know who you are,” his little voice said. His chin wobbled, and his shoulders gave a violent tremble.

Destiny hissed in a harsh breath. Her arm went to his shoulders and held him tight.

Shit. I stepped back. I was being an ass to his mom and he was here, obviously upset about Tillie’s death.

I dragged my gaze off the boy who was staring at me. His statement was strange, but hell, maybe he was a baseball fan. I’d played in the majors a few years before blowing out my knee and heading back to Carlton. But he wasn’t looking at me with the awe of a small fan I was used to. This was…meaner.

And something about him glaring at me set me off.

“Guess everyone was right, weren’t they? You did end up like your mom.”

“Shut up. And don’t be an asshole,” she hissed. “You don’t know anything.”

She hurried around me and I was too stunned to stop her.

Too stunned at the entire day, the last forty-eight hours, hell, the last two years since I’d come back.

That still didn’t stop me from watching them, or when the boy turned back to look at me over his shoulder as Destiny hurried him to a small black SUV, it didn’t explain why I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of him.

Fucking Destiny Matsen.

She was the only girl I’d ever loved. We were supposed to beat the odds of the star-crossed lovers bullshit. From the moment I recognized her in high school, a slim and sexy pipsqueak of a thing, I wanted her. But she’d been quiet and aloof, and gave me zero opening. Then I caught her in the hallway, surrounded by four girls, getting bullied. They were giving her a hard time about something I couldn’t hear, but their body language had said enough. I did hear Destiny telling them to back off, but they didn’t. I’d stepped up to put a stop to it, so damn sick of Jenni Akers and her crew thinking they ran the damn town. Then Destiny’s hand had gone flying through the air, landing smack into Jenni’s nose and blood went flying.

She took off out of the school as Jenni crumpled to the floor with a scream, her friends freaking out over the blood, but I’d only had eyes on Destiny.

She’d just punched the biggest bitch in school and I had to learn more.

Two years later, we’d made plans for our future. We were headed to the University of Kansas where I had a full-ride baseball scholarship. We were going to stay together. Get married right after college. I’d never been more certain of my path, despite the fighting it took, sticking up for her constantly even with my own family who never gave her a decent chance.

Then, she’d shown up at my house, weeks after graduation, and without a single hint of sadness in her eyes she’d looked directly into my eyes and hurt me just as bad as she had Jenni, except she used her words and not her fists.

I don’t think I can do this. I don’t know if I want to follow you all over who knows where just so you can live your dream. I have dreams too, and they’re more than being your groupie.

It was a fight. A silly fight and it wasn’t like we hadn’t had them before, but that one…it was different. I’d still been a dumbass and brushed it off, thinking she was hormonal or scared to leave, scared to stay…that was Destiny. Scared and uncertain. I’d thought it was another fear of hers and we’d get through it. We’d always been able to before.

Two days later, after she stopped returning my calls or texts, I’d gone to Tillie’s to fix it. Except Destiny wasn’t there and Tillie had handed me a note. She broke up and disappeared on me with a fucking note. It was ten years ago, and it still hurt as much as it had that very same day.

Destiny and her son finally reached her SUV. She glanced back at me as she pulled open her door. I didn’t need to see her eyes to know she was glaring at me, but it was the quick flinch when she caught me watching her that sent ice to the back of my neck.

I’d hurt her. I’d said the worst possible thing to her, the one thing I’d always stood by her and defended her for. In a split second, I became like every single other asshole in the town. Something I’d always sworn I’d never do to her.

Ten years later and it still hurt me to hurt her, even if she didn’t feel the same.

“Fucking shit.” I kicked at the grass. Her SUV’s tires squealed out of the space and took off.

I needed a damn drink. Or twelve.

* * *

“So how’d it go?” my best friend, Ryan, asked me.

We were on the back deck at my sister’s house, tossing back beers. It didn’t take a genius to figure out I was broody and pissed off as soon as I showed up. I half-expected my sister, Rebecca, orchestrated this dinner tonight because she knew I’d head to Tillie’s funeral even though no one else bothered to.

Not that they had any reason to. Most in attendance hadn’t hidden their dislike of Destiny, some of them didn’t bother to hide it before she even took off. I’d shut them up pretty quick afterward. It was so damn ingrained in me to protect Destiny it still hurt when I remembered her earlier flinch.

“Fucking sucked,” I muttered and tossed back my beer. “She’s here.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.” I grabbed another beer from the cooler near our feet and popped the top. The cool drinks were not settling me down. Maybe more would help. “Has a kid. A boy.”

Barely looked a thing like her, too. I’d stared at that photo more times in the last few hours than I cared to admit. Something that showed he was her son. But he didn’t have a lick of her light coloring or her hazel eyes that would be slightly different colors depending on how bright the sun was or what color she wore.

I’d always loved her in green.

I took another large swallow of my beer. Like I needed to be remembering what color I liked her wearing. Ten years and I hadn’t been able to evaporate her in my brain. Wouldn’t have been able to if I took a power washer to it either.

“No shit?” he said again, his voice rising. “She has a son?”

“Who has a son?” That came from Cooper Hawke, my sister’s fiancé.

“Destiny,” I muttered.

He was the only one who wasn’t around when the epic shitstorm of Destiny and Jordan blew up, but I was sure Rebecca had told him enough.

She never held back around me, anyway, especially when she knew I was helping Tillie.

Damn. Fucking Tillie. I hadn’t been blind to her decline over the years. The way her hands shook more than were steady. The loss of weight on her already small frame and the mellowing of her spunky attitude. We’d run into each other at the grocery store shortly after I came back to town and like a moth to a flame, willing to be burned when it came to anything Matsen-related, I’d showed up at her house the next weekend to see if I could help her with anything.

She’d seen right through my bullshit tactic, knowing it was to get information on Destiny, but she didn’t turn me away. Instead, she pointed her finger to her small shed where she stored her lawnmower. Week after week I returned, sometimes more often. Every time I started to ask about Destiny, she changed the subject.

I figured they didn’t have anything to do with one another.

Until last week when she was on the couch almost asleep and she gripped my hand. Hers, small and frail and cold despite it being August and she was covered in a blanket.

She’d looked at me with that fire in her eyes I’d known so well when I was younger. Forgive her, Jordan. Someday, you’re going to know everything and for me, I’m begging you, for me…forgive her. Find it in that huge heart of yours you have, dig deep, and give that to her. You’re both going to need it.

Whatever the hell that meant. She fell asleep before I could get her to tell me more.

Two days later, she was gone. I’d been too busy at the golf resort and spa I owned to get back to her place and demand more answers.

“How was she?” Cooper asked.

How was she? Just as beautiful as I remembered, if not more so. She carried herself with grace, head held high despite the whispers she obviously heard.

She had never caved to them in all the years I’d known her, at least until the end. Something was different about her though, too. She’d grown stronger, more certain of herself and who she was. It was clear not only in her composure but how quickly she put me in my place.

That confidence was something I’d always wanted to give her.

“I was a dick to her.”

“No shit?”

“Swear to fucking God Ryan, you don’t find more words in your vocabulary to use, I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”

He laughed and slapped my shoulder. “Oh come on. Give me a minute to process this. She married?”

“Is who married?” Rebecca asked. She sauntered up to us on her back deck and slid her arm around Cooper’s waist.

“Fuck.” I groaned and dropped my head into my hand.

Ryan found all his words. “Destiny showed up at the funeral with a kid.”

“Don’t.” I shoved the palm of my hand in Rebecca’s direction and didn’t look up. “Don’t start, Rebecca.”

My sister erupted like a volcano when any mention of that part of my life was brought up.

“She…” she sputtered. “Well, is she?”

“Is she what?” I asked. I closed my eyes. I needed a nap. For weeks.

“Married?”

“No ring on her finger.” I’d checked. More than once or twice. As soon as I saw that little boy grab her hand and hold on tight, I’d focused all my attention on her hands and there was nothing. Not even the hint of a wedding band tan line.

“Oh shit,” Ryan said, laughing. “You feel like a dick for being an ass to her, don’t you?”

Yes. Of course I did.

“Fucking hell,” I groaned. “Shut up.”

He didn’t. “And you’re thinking of going to apologize to her, aren’t you?”

I drained my beer in two large swallows. Did I buy some mini-size bottles? They were going down too fast.

“No.” Yes. Of course I was.

“Bullshit.” He knew me too well.

“So what about the kid? How old?”

That came from Cooper, and since I knew he didn’t hate the woman I’d loved, I lifted my head at the same time I reached for my phone. “I have no idea. A boy, though. Took a picture of him.”

“Why in the hell would you do that?” Rebecca asked, grabbing the phone out of my hand.

“What’s going on out here?” Kelly, Ryan’s wife, asked.

“Jesus.” I slammed my hands to my face and scrubbed them down. “I came here for a few drinks and some quiet, is that too much to ask?”

“Around this group?” Kelly asked, grinning like the crazy woman she was. “Of course it is. What are you looking at?” She turned to Rebecca and her eyes went crazy wide.

“What?” I didn’t have porn on my photo. No dick pics. Nothing that could make Kelly and Rebecca look like they’d seen a ghost. I shoved out of the chair. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Rebecca said and handed back my phone. Her hand shook, and she’d gone pale. “Nothing. Cute kid.”

She grabbed Cooper’s hand and yanked him toward their house with Kelly following. Last summer, a tornado had destroyed the original farmhouse Rebecca and I grew up in. Cooper, richer than rich, rebuilt what most in town considered a mansion. An all brick one and a half story house with almost four thousand square feet of gorgeous home. They’d moved in last December and were getting married in a couple of months.

I stood from the chair. The screen door they ran through slammed closed. I turned back to Ryan. “What the hell was that about?”

“Women.” Ryan shrugged and slung back a drink. “Who the fuck knows?”