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NICOLE WAS SURPRISED when Jordan stayed and kept working with her in the garden. If it had been another guy she might have been annoyed, and part of her was frustrated. What was he doing, hanging around and making it ever more difficult for her to stop having romantic daydreams?
Seriously, what kind of idiot was she to picture a little girl with Jordan’s dark hair trotting alongside the wheelbarrow as he pushed it? Or a boy with golden curls, climbing the apple tree as it grew?
Over and over she reminded herself that Jordan wasn’t prime family material to start with. His only preparation for a relationship was arguments, infidelity and domestic violence. His early aversion to marriage was probably based on those negative experiences. Then he’d discovered that being single gave him the life he wanted. So why shouldn’t he be happy in it? Why would she want him to change that decision and take the chance of making him unhappy?
“How many peas are we going to plant?” he asked, crouching along a furrow and poking a seed into the soil.
We.
Why did he have to use words like that?
“The whole row,” she answered, amazed her words came out so evenly. “I’ve got stakes and strings for them to climb up.”
He nodded and kept planting, carefully inserting the seeds in the way the seed packet had recommended.
Okay, she needed to be fair. She’d already realized that Jordan didn’t do anything halfway. So if he made a real commitment, she found it difficult to believe he’d resort to the lifestyle his parents had practiced.
Yet as she watched him dig up a pea and replant it, she wondered about how badly he needed things to be perfect and orderly. Every marriage had problems. Each relationship hit rocky sections. You woke up in the morning and it wasn’t a supermodel or a handsome prince you were married to, but a real person. Because of the rotten example of marriage Jordan had seen as a kid, he might find it harder than the average person to deal with problems. Perhaps he’d always worry that things would slide into chaos.
“You look as if you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he commented as he helped stretch strings from one stake to another.
“I’m just dwelling on life and decisions.”
“Anything that could shed light on the articles?”
She was glad he’d attributed her comment to something less personal than matters of the heart. They’d been talking for hours and he finally seemed satisfied with the material he had for PostModern, but he was probably open to new insights.
“Not especially. It isn’t that unusual to change careers. Don’t statistics show that most people won’t retire from the first job they get?” she asked lightly.
“Absolutely. I think that’s why articles like this are important to PostModern’s readers. Many of them will face similar decisions, so reading how another person did it could be enlightening.”
“Are you going to include a comment about that in the articles?” Nicole asked.
“How do you mean?”
“It would be easy for some people to see a feature about a well-known model as just hype to sell more copies.”
Jordan nodded. “Good point, especially since I know that isn’t why Syd wanted a story about you.”
“Then why did she?”
“She thought your transition from being in front of the camera to behind the scenes would be interesting. But she also said that your choice involved giving up the kinds of things that some people badly want—money and fame. It adds a different dimension.”
Nicole couldn’t help wondering how he planned to characterize her choices. With any other reporter, she wouldn’t care, since she’d learned long ago not to base her life on other people’s opinions.
If only she hadn’t fallen in love…
With a painful pressure in her chest, she acknowledged the truth. She had fallen for Jordan. It was stupid and she knew better. There was little chance he would ever want to stay in one place or get married, even if he loved her in return, which seemed unlikely.
Her romantic nature was warring with her good sense and it didn’t matter which won the battle, she was going to be left hurting.
Still, when the afternoon drew to a close and Jordan suggested ordering a pizza, she didn’t object, even though good sense argued hard for ending the evening.
