Unexpected Father

“This is a big bike,” Jordan told him. “A motorcycle.”

“You got a motorcycle?” Kevin asked, his eyes wide.

Esther honked the VW’s horn, and Hannah decided it was time to put an end to the display of machismo on the part of both males.

“If you boys are through trading war stories,” she said, “Esther is waiting.”

“’Bye, Mom!” Kevin called as he bolted for the car.

Hannah carefully tried to keep her eyes away from Jordan’s chest, which was still bared after his little scar display. But she had caught an eyeful of the dark hair and slab of muscles beneath, and she found that her pulse was thumping away in double-time.

“Nurse Hannah,” he said with a teasing smile, “I’m ready when you are. What kind of first aid did you have in mind?”

“A tourniquet to your neck,” she said dryly, turning and heading for the trailer.

But she didn’t dare look at him, because she was feeling far less sure of herself than she’d sounded. She found the cream in the cupboard, then turned abruptly to find him much too close.

“Stand in the light where I can see,” she told him, more to put some distance between them than as a visual aid. “It doesn’t look too bad,” she commented as he held up his thumb.

“I’m wounded here,” he protested. “I’ll have you know I put considerable force behind my hammer.”

“A regular Paul Bunyan,” she muttered. “The women must cluster around you just to sigh while you work.” It was a mean-spirited thing to say, but she couldn’t regret it. Not when she knew she was one of those clustering and sighing women.

“I’ve had my share of... admirers,” Jordan admitted.

“Don’t you mean lovers?” she retorted.

“I didn’t always go to bed with them,” he said quietly, looking into her face until she was forced to look away. “I’m not the playboy you seem to think I am.”

Not if you don’t consider dumping one woman when a better one comes along the actions of a playboy, she thought bitterly.

But she arched her brows and didn’t comment. She ran the water in the sink until it was warm, then took his hand by the wrist and held his thumb under the running water. She could feel him looking at her, but she stoically ignored him. Instead, she rubbed some soap on two fingers of her free hand and began to lather his thumb.

“Ow,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at him. “I need to clean it.”

“It didn’t hurt,” he said, and when she continued to stare at him, confused, he added, “I wanted to see your face.”

Flushing, Hannah looked away again, abruptly turning off the water and drying his hand on a paper towel.

Jordan remembered his brother Jake telling him that he was sure he fell in love with his wife at the moment she took a splinter from his thumb—but he hadn’t recognized it as love at the time.

But love was not an entanglement that Jordan McClennon wanted, and he carefully reined in his emotions. It was one thing to build an emotional bond with a son, quite another to fall in love with a woman.

A son. It just couldn’t be. He had never imagined himself as a father. It smacked of...too much responsibility.

With the blood washed away, Hannah could see that he had scraped the knuckle badly. It would be sore and bruised, but the damage was minimal.

“Lucky you,” she said brightly. “It looks like your nail’s going to be okay.”

“Lucky me,” he repeated quietly. Something in his tone unsettled her, and she frowned down at his hand as she dabbed on the cream. When she finished, she turned away and capped the cream, reaching into the cupboard to put it away.

When she turned back around he was too close to her again. She pressed her back against the sink.

“Hannah, you don’t have to act like a scared rabbit,” he teased her, his eyes studying her. “I’m not about to eat you alive.”

“Yes, you are,” she told him in all seriousness.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because you did it before. I was alone in the city in my first job and nervous enough about doing it right, when the great Jordan McClennon decided to have his fun. Oh, you wined and dined me and whispered sweet things in my ear until my head was swimming with the excitement of it all.” She stopped to take a deep breath. “And when you’d had your fun with me, some other girl with long legs and collagen lips crossed your path and swiveled her hips, and you went chasing after her.” He started to say something, but Hannah held up her hand to stop him. “It’s all right. I learned my lesson the hard way, but you’d better believe I learned it, Jordan. I have no use for you or any other man of your kind. You think you’re God’s gift to women, and the sooner they unwrap the package the better.”

For all her bravery, Jordan saw that her lower lip was quivering. He wanted to gather her in his arms and tell her he was sorry for whatever had happened then. He truly did not remember another woman, and he certainly had never meant to hurt Hannah.

The loan approval had generated a ton of paperwork, and he had spent the next two weeks at either the bank or the office of the economic development agency, filling out a completely new batch of forms in triplicate. And, somewhere in between, he had to meet with lawyers to insure that all of those triplicate forms were in accordance with federal and local business regulations.

Just after 7:00 p.m. on the fifteenth day of the process, after he had signed his name for the last time and taken three aspirin for a roaring headache—triplicate had become a habit—he had tried to call Hannah.

Her phone had been disconnected.

He’d broken one of his cardinal rules and called his personnel manager at home. He found out that Hannah Brewster had resigned and left town. She had left no forwarding address with either the company or her landlady.

Jordan had been dumbfounded, and then annoyed. His attentions to the opposite sex had never before had the effect of driving them out of town.

Now he thought that perhaps he understood why she’d left.

Was it because she’d been pregnant?

He could think of no other reason, and yet he couldn’t find the words to come out and ask her. She was too defensive, too determined to keep him away from her, and if he asked now he was sure she would deny it, out of pride if nothing else.

But he didn’t get a chance to ask. The door burst open, and Ronnie flew inside, holding his nose. He looked at the two of them. Then, apparently recognizing the tension on their faces, he started to back toward the door.

“What is it, Ronnie?” Hannah asked in concern.

“A bee stung me,” he muttered through his hand. “My nose feels like a lightbulb.”

Hannah was still shaking inside from her speech to Jordan, but she struggled to appear calm.

“Come on,” she said, her voice even. “Let’s take a look.”

From the corner of her eye she could see Jordan moving toward the door. She refused to look at him. She had said her piece, and she was sure that he understood her position. He would be a fool to pursue her now.

As the door closed, Hannah mustered a smile for Ronnie and inspected his nose.

“Is Jordan giving you trouble?” he asked hesitantly.

Hannah shook her head. “We had an argument over something that happened a long time ago,” she said. “Nothing more.”