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“Whoever designed it knew what they were doing,” she said, turning back to him. “It’s got a very timeless feel.”
Something flickered across his face, an emotion she hadn’t yet seen from him. Sadness? Regret?
“My best friend, Gil, drew up the plans. I wanted something custom, but firefighters aren’t exactly known for their big paychecks. Gil always said if firefighting wasn’t in his blood, he’d have been an architect, so I told him to practice with me. He came up with this. We had a licensed architect review the blueprints, and then I had it built.”
Gil.
The same name the girls had mentioned at the bar the other night.
Jordan took a sip of coffee. “He’s very talented. He still designing houses, or did he stick with the firefighting thing?”
“He’s dead.”
Luke’s harsh announcement echoed through the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” Jordan said softly.
He lifted a shoulder. “We all know it’s a risk.”
“He died while working?”
Luke took a sip of coffee, stared absently over her shoulder. “Last year. There was a fire at an abandoned house outside town. Some kids using it as a place to smoke. Ceiling caved in, and…”
Luke’s eyes came back to hers, cool and distant. “He didn’t make it out.”
Jordan swallowed at the raw pain he tried so hard to disguise.
“Luke, I—”
“Don’t bother,” he interrupted. “Just file it away for my big TV debut. Better if I have a tragic backstory, right?”
“Don’t be an ass,” she snapped, walking toward him. “Just because I think you’re a great candidate for the TV show doesn’t mean I’m an inhuman monster who sees someone else’s personal tragedy as my professional gain.”
“You—”
“Shut up,” Jordan said impulsively. “Just shut up. I’m not perfect, but at least I don’t offer someone a cup of coffee only to lure them closer as a punching bag.”
“That’s not—”
“It is,” she said, setting her mug on the counter and moving closer to him, until she could push a finger against his chest. “It’s absolutely true. You’re miserable and you’re hurting, and you have plenty of reason to be, but find someone else to take it out on.”
“You’re hardly a victim, Jordan.”
“No, I’m not. But I’m also not acting like one. I’m acting like an ambitious thirty-year-old woman whose boss has given her a job to do. And more than that, I’m smart, with good instincts, and I can tell you right now that me thinking you’re the right man for the job is as much about you needing to start living your life again as it is the fact that half of America’s likely to fall in love with you.”
He leaned into her, chest pushing hard against the finger as he glowered. “You don’t know me, City.”
“Well, that makes two of us, Small Town. Because you don’t know yourself either. Enjoy your solitude and your attitude problem.”
She pressed once more with her finger against his chest for emphasis, before whirling away and marching toward the door. Jordan had thought her body was spent after their race, but she was wrong.
It was thrumming again, her blood pumping, fists clenching.
“Damn it. City!”
His voice was a loud command, clearly one he was accustomed to people adhering to.
Jordan had no intention of listening.
