Daring Moves

New York Times Bestselling Author

Linda Lael Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Don’t fall in love with the wrong man. She’d done it before and wouldn’t do it again—or would she? Because Love 101 isn’t a class you can take at the Y, Amanda Scott knew she’d have to rely on her instincts. Fate placed Jordan Richards right in front of her nose…and chemistry took it from there. But things got a little dicey (as things will do) when her ex-lover showed up—with his estranged wife not far behind. Yikes! And you thought you had issues. Despite her growing affection for Jordan, Amanda found herself repeating old mistakes. But if she made one more false move, she might find herself all by her lonesome.

For Melba.

Your friendship was a gift from H.P.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

1

The line of people waiting for an autograph reached from the bookstore down the length of the mall to the specialty luggage shop. With a sigh, Amanda Scott bought a cup of coffee from a nearby French bakery, bravely forgoing the delicate, flaky pastries inside the glass counter, and took her place behind a man in an expensive tweed overcoat.

Distractedly he turned and glanced at her, as though somehow finding her to blame for the delay. Then he pushed up his sleeve and consulted a slim gold watch. He was a couple of inches taller than Amanda, with brown hair that was only slightly too long and hazel eyes flecked with green, and he needed a shave.

Never one to pass the time in silence if an excuse to chat presented itself, Amanda took a steadying sip of her coffee and announced, “I’m buying Dr. Marshall’s book for my sister, Eunice. She’s going through a nasty divorce.” The runaway bestseller was called Gathering Up the Pieces, and it was meant for people who had suffered some personal loss or setback.

The stranger turned to look back at her. The pleasantly mingled scents of new snow and English Leather seemed to surround him. “Are you talking to me?” he inquired, drawing his brows together in puzzlement.

Amanda fortified herself with another sip of coffee. She hadn’t meant to flirt; it was just that waiting could be so tedious. “Actually, I was,” she admitted.

He surprised her with a brief but brilliant smile that practically set her back on the heels of her snow boots. In the next second his expression turned grave, but he extended a gloved hand.

“Jordan Richards,” he said formally.

Gulping down the mouthful of coffee she’d just taken, Amanda returned the gesture. “Amanda Scott,” she managed. “I don’t usually strike up conversations with strange men in shopping malls, you understand. It’s just that I was bored.”

Again that blinding grin, as bright as sunlight on water.

“I see,” said Jordan Richards.

The line moved a little, and they both stepped forward. Amanda suddenly felt shy, and wished she hadn’t gotten off the bus at the mall. Maybe she should have gone straight home to her cozy apartment and her cat.

She reminded herself that Eunice would benefit by reading the book and that, with this purchase, her Christmas shopping would be finished. After today she could hide in her work, like a soldier crouching in a foxhole, until the holidays and all their painful associations were past.

“Too bad about Eunice,” Jordan Richards remarked.

“I’ll give her your condolences,” Amanda promised, a smile lighting her aquamarine eyes.

The line advanced, and so did Amanda and Jordan.

“Good,” he said.

Amanda finished her coffee, crumpled the cup and tossed it into a nearby trash bin. Beside the bin there was a sign that read Is Therapy For You? Attend A Free Minisession With Dr. Marshall After The Book Signing. Beneath was a diagram of the mall, with the public auditorium colored in.

“So,” she ventured, “are you buying Gathering Up the Pieces for yourself or somebody else?”

“I’m sending it to my grandmother,” Jordan answered, consulting his watch again.

Amanda wondered if he had to be somewhere else later, or if he was just an impatient person.

“What happened to her?” she asked sympathetically.

Jordan looked reluctant, but after a few moments and another step forward as the line progressed, he said, “She had some pretty heavy-duty surgery a while back.”

“Oh,” Amanda said, and without thinking, she reached out and patted his arm so as not to let the mention of the unknown grandmother’s misfortune pass without some response from her.

Something softened in Jordan Richards’s manner at the small demonstration. “Are you attending the ‘free minisession’?” he asked, gesturing toward the sign. The expression in his eyes said he fully expected her to answer no.

Amanda smiled and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Why not? I’ve got the rest of the afternoon to blow, and I could learn something.”

Jordan looked thoughtful. “I suppose nobody has to talk if they don’t want to.”

“Of course not,” Amanda replied confidently, even though she had no idea what would be required. Some of the self-help groups could get pretty wild; she’d heard of people walking across burning coals in their bare feet, or letting themselves be dunked in hot tubs.

“I’ll go if you’ll sit beside me,” Jordan said.

Amanda considered the suggestion only briefly. The mall was a well-lit place, crowded with Christmas shoppers. If Jordan Richards were some kind of weirdo—and that seemed unlikely, unless crackpots were dressing like models in Gentlemen’s Quarterly these days—she would be perfectly safe. “Okay,” she said with another shrug.

After the decision was made, they lapsed into a companionable silence. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed by the time Jordan reached the author’s table.

Dr. Eugene Marshall, the famous psychology guru, signed his name in a confident scrawl and handed Jordan a book. Amanda had her volume autographed and followed her new acquaintance to the cash register.

Once they’d both paid, they left the store together.

There was already a mob gathered at the double doors of the mall’s community auditorium, and according to a sign on an easel, the minisession would start in another ten minutes.

Jordan glanced at the line of fast-food places across the concourse. “Would you like some coffee or something?”

Amanda shook her head, then reached up to pull her light, shoulder-length hair from under the collar of her coat. “No, thanks. What kind of work do you do, Mr. Richards?”

“‘Jordan,’” he corrected. He took off his overcoat and draped it over one arm, then loosened his tie and collar slightly. “What kind of work do you think I do?”

Amanda assessed him, narrowing her blue eyes. Jordan looked fit, and he even had a bit of a suntan, but she doubted he worked with his hands. His clothes marked him as an upper-management type, and so did that gold watch he kept checking. “You’re a stockbroker,” she guessed.

He chuckled. “Close. I’m a partner in an investment firm. What do you do?”

People were starting to move into the auditorium and take seats, and Amanda and Jordan moved along with them. With a half smile, she answered, “Guess.”

He considered her thoughtfully. “You’re a flight attendant for a major airline,” he decided after several moments had passed.

Amanda took his conjecture as a compliment, even though it was wrong. “I’m the assistant manager of the Evergreen Hotel.” They found seats near the middle of the auditorium, and Jordan took the one on the aisle. Amanda was just daring to hope she was making a favorable impression, when her stomach rumbled.

“And you haven’t had lunch yet,” Jordan stated with another of those lethal, quicksilver grins. “It just so happens that I’m a little hungry myself. How about something from that Chinese fast-food place I saw out there—after we’re done with the minisession, I mean?”

Again Amanda smiled. She seemed to be smiling a lot, which was odd, because she hadn’t felt truly happy since before James Brockman had swept into her life, turned it upside down and swept out again. “I’d like that,” she heard herself say.

Just then Dr. Marshall walked out onto the auditorium stage. At his appearance, Jordan became noticeably uncomfortable, shifting in his seat and drawing one Italian-leather-shod foot up to rest on the opposite knee.

The famous author introduced himself, just in case someone who had never watched a TV talk show might have wandered in, and announced that he wanted the audience to break up into groups of twelve.

Jordan looked even more discomfited, and probably wouldn’t have participated if a group hadn’t formed around him and Amanda. To make things even more interesting, at least to Amanda’s way of thinking, the handsome, silver-haired Dr. Marshall chose their group to work with, while his assistants took the others.

“All right, people,” he began in a tone of pleasant authority, “let’s get started.” His knowing gray eyes swept the small gathering. “Why does everybody look so worried? This will be relatively painless—all we’re going to do is talk about ourselves a little.” He looked at Amanda. “What’s your name?” he asked directly. “And what’s the worst thing that’s happened to you in the past year?”

She swallowed. “Amanda Scott. And—the worst thing?”

Dr. Marshall nodded with kindly amusement.

All of the sudden Amanda wished she’d gone to a matinee or stayed home to clean her apartment. She didn’t want to talk about James, especially not in front of strangers, but she was basically an honest person and James was the worst thing that had happened to her in a very long time. Not looking at Jordan, she answered, “I fell in love with a man and he turned out to be married.”

“What did you do when you found out?” the doctor asked reasonably.

“I cried a lot,” Amanda answered, forgetting for the moment that there were twelve other people listening in, including Jordan.

“Did you break off the relationship?” Dr. Marshall pressed.

Amanda still felt the pain and humiliation she’d known when James’s wife had stormed into her office and made a scene. Before that, Amanda hadn’t even suspected the terrible truth. “Yes,” she replied softly with a miserable nod.

“Is this experience still affecting your life?”

Amanda wished she dared to glance at Jordan to see how he was reacting, but she didn’t have the courage. She lowered her eyes. “I guess it is.”

“Did you stop trusting men?”

Considering all the dates she’d refused in the months since she’d disentangled herself from James, Amanda supposed she had stopped trusting men. Even worse, she’d stopped trusting her own instincts. “Yes,” she answered very softly.

Dr. Marshall reached out to touch her shoulder. “I’m not going to pretend you can solve your problems just by sitting in on a minisession, or even by reading my book, but I think it’s time for you to stop hiding and take some risks. Agreed?”

Amanda was surprised at the man’s insight. “Agreed,” she said, and right then and there she made up her mind to read Eunice’s copy of Gathering Up the Pieces before she wrapped it.

The doctor’s attention shifted to the man sitting on Amanda’s left. He said he’d lost his job, and the fact that Christmas was coming up made things harder. A woman in the row behind Amanda talked about her child’s serious illness. Finally, after about twenty minutes had passed, everyone had spoken except Jordan.

He rubbed his chin, which was already showing a five o’clock shadow, and cleared his throat. Amanda, feeling his tension and reluctance as though they were her own, laid her hand gently on his arm.

“The worst thing that ever happened to me,” he said in a low, almost inaudible voice, “was losing my wife.”

“How did it happen?” the doctor asked.

Jordan looked as though he wanted to bolt out of his chair and stride up the aisle to the doors, but he answered the question. “A motorcycle accident.”

“Were you driving?” Dr. Marshall’s expression was sympathetic.

“Yes,” Jordan replied after a long silence.

“And you’re still not ready to talk about it,” the doctor deduced.

“That’s right,” Jordan said. And he got up and walked slowly up the aisle and out of the auditorium.

Amanda followed, catching up just outside. She didn’t quite dare to touch his arm again, yet he slowed down at the sound of her footsteps. “How about that Chinese food you promised me?” she asked gently.

Jordan met her eyes, and for just a moment, she saw straight through to his soul. What pain he’d suffered.

“Sure,” he replied, and his voice was hoarse.

“I’m all through with my Christmas shopping,” Amanda announced once they were seated at a table, Number Three Regulars in front of them from the Chinese fast-food place. “How about you?”

“My secretary does mine,” Jordan responded. He looked relieved at her choice of topic.

“That’s above and beyond the call of duty,” Amanda remarked lightly. “I hope you’re giving her something terrific.”

Jordan smiled at that. “She gets a sizable bonus.”

“Good.”

It was obvious Jordan was feeling better. His eyes twinkled, and some of the strain had left his face.

“I’m glad company policy meets with your approval.”

It was surprising, considering her unfortunate and all-too-recent experiences with James, but it wasn’t until that moment that Amanda realized that she hadn’t checked Jordan’s hand for a wedding band. She glanced at the appropriate finger, even though she knew it would be bare, and saw a white strip where the ring had been.

“Like I said, I’m a widower,” he told her with a slight smile, obviously having read her glance accurately.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda told him.

He speared a piece of sweet-and-sour chicken. “It’s been three years.”

It seemed to Amanda that the white space on his ring finger should have filled in after three years. “That’s quite a while,” she said, wondering if she should just get up from her chair, collect her book and her coat and leave. In the end she didn’t, because a glance at her watch told her it was still forty minutes until the next bus left. Besides, she was hungry.

Jordan sighed. “Sometimes it seems like three centuries.”

Amanda bit her lower lip, then burst out, “You aren’t one of those creeps who goes around saying he doesn’t have a wife when he really does, are you? I mean, you could have remarried.”

He looked very tired all of a sudden, and pale beneath his tan. Amanda wondered why he hadn’t gotten around to shaving.

“No,” he said. “I’m not married.”

Amanda dropped her eyes to her food, ashamed that she’d asked the question, even though she wouldn’t have taken it back. The experience with James had taught her that a woman couldn’t be too careful about such things.

“Amanda?”

She lifted her gaze to see him studying her. “What?”

“What was his name?”

“What was whose name?”

“The guy who told you he wasn’t married.”

Amanda cleared her throat and shifted nervously in her chair. The thought of James didn’t cause her pain anymore, but she didn’t know Jordan Richards well enough to tell him just how badly she’d been hoodwinked. A sudden, crazy panic seized her. “Gosh, look at the time,” she said, pulling back her sleeve to check her watch a split second after she’d spoken. “I’d better get home.” She bolted out of her chair and put her coat back on, then reached for her purse and the bag from the bookstore. She laid a five-dollar bill on the table to pay for her dinner. “It was nice meeting you.”

Jordan frowned and slowly pushed back his chair, then stood. “Wait a minute, Amanda. You’re not playing fair.”

He was right. Jordan hadn’t run away, however much he had probably wanted to, and she wouldn’t, either.

She sank back into her seat, all too aware that people at surrounding tables were looking on with interest.

“You’re not ready to talk about him,” Jordan said, sitting down again, “and I’m not ready to talk about her. Deal?”

“Deal,” Amanda said.

They discussed the Seattle Seahawks after that, and the Chinese artifacts on display at one of the museums. Then Jordan walked with her to the nearest corner and waited until the bus pulled up.

“Goodbye, Amanda,” he said as she climbed the steps.

She dropped her change into the slot and smiled over one shoulder. “Thanks for the company.”

He waved as the bus pulled away, and Amanda ached with a bittersweet loneliness she’d never known before, not even in the awful days after her breakup with James.

When Amanda arrived at her apartment building on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill, she was still thinking about Jordan. He’d wanted to offer to drive her home, she knew, but he’d had the good grace not to, and Amanda liked him for that.

In her mailbox she found a sheaf of bills waiting for her. “I’ll never save enough to start a bed and breakfast at this rate,” she complained to her black-and-white long-haired cat, Gershwin, when he met her at the door.

Gershwin was unsympathetic. As usual, he was interested only in his dinner.

After flipping on the lights, dropping her purse and the book onto the hall table and hanging her coat on the brass-plated tree that was really too large for that little space, Amanda went into the kitchenette.

Gershwin purred and wound himself around her ankles as she opened a can of cat food, but when she scraped it out onto his dish, he abandoned her without compunction.

While Gershwin gobbled, Amanda went back to the mail she’d picked up in the lobby and flipped through it again. Three bills, a you-may-have-already-won and a letter from Eunice.

Amanda set the other envelopes down and opened the crisp blue one with her sister’s return address printed in italics in one corner. She was disappointed when she realized that the letter was just another litany of Eunice’s soon-to-be-ex-husband’s sins, and she set it aside to finish later.

In the bathroom she started water running into her huge claw-footed tub, then stripped off the skirt and sweater she’d worn to the mall. After disposing of her underthings and panty hose, Amanda climbed into the soothing water.

Gershwin pushed the door open in that officious way cats have and bounded up to stand on the tub’s edge with perfect balance. Like a tightrope walker, he strolled back and forth along the chipped porcelain, telling Amanda about his day in a series of companionable meows.

Amanda listened politely as she bathed, but her mind was wandering. She was thinking about Jordan Richards and that recently removed wedding band of his.

She sighed. All her instincts told her he was telling the truth about his marital status, but those same instincts had once insisted that James was all right, too.

Amanda was waiting when the bus pulled up at her corner the next morning. The weather was a little warmer, and the snow, so unusual in Seattle, was already melting.

Fifteen minutes later Amanda walked through the huge revolving door of the Evergreen Hotel. Its lush Oriental carpets were soft beneath the soles of her shoes, and crystal chandeliers winked overhead, their multicolored reflections blazing in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

Amanda took the elevator to the third floor, where the hotel’s business offices were. As she was passing through the small reception area, Mindy Simmons hailed her from her desk.

“Mr. Mansfield is sick today,” she said in an undertone. Mindy was small and pretty, with long brown hair and expressive green eyes. “Your desk is buried in messages.”

Amanda went into her office and started dealing with problems. The plumbing in the presidential suite was on the fritz, so she called to make sure Maintenance was on top of the situation. A Mrs. Edman in 1203 suspected one of the maids of stealing her pearl earring, and someone had mixed up some dates at the reception desk—two couples were expecting to occupy the bridal suite on the same night.

It was noon when Amanda finished straightening everything out—Mrs. Edman’s pearl earring had fallen behind the television set, the plumbing in the presidential suite was back in working order and each of the newlywed couples would have rooms to themselves. At Mindy’s suggestion, she and Amanda went to the busy Westlake Mall for lunch, buying salads at one of the fast-food restaurants and taking a table near a window.

“Two more weeks and I start my vacation,” Mindy stated enthusiastically, pouring dressing from a little carton over her salad. “Christmas at Big Mountain. I can hardly wait.”

Amanda would just as soon have skipped Christmas altogether if she could have gotten the rest of the world to go along with the idea, but of course she didn’t say that. “You and Pete will have a great time at the ski resort.”

Mindy was chewing, and she swallowed before answering. “It’s just great of his parents to take us along—we could never have afforded it on our own.”

With a nod, Amanda poked her fork into a cherry tomato.

“What are you doing over the holidays?” Mindy asked.

Amanda forced a smile. “I’m going to be working,” she reminded her friend.

“I know that, but what about a tree and presents and a turkey?”

“I’ll have all those things at my mom and stepdad’s place.”

Mindy, who knew about James and all the dashed hopes he’d left in his wake, looked sympathetic. “You need to meet a new man.”

Amanda bristled a little. “It just so happens that a woman can have a perfectly happy life without a man hanging around.”

Mindy looked doubtful. “Sure,” she said.

“Besides, I met someone just yesterday.”

“Who?”

Amanda concentrated on her salad for several long moments. “His name is Jordan Richards, and—”

“Jordan Richards?” Mindy interrupted excitedly. “Wow! How did you ever manage to meet him?”

A little insulted that Mindy seemed to think Jordan was so far out of her orbit that even meeting him was a feat to get excited about, Amanda frowned. “We were in line together at a bookstore. Do you know him?”

“Not exactly,” Mindy admitted, subsiding a little. “But my father-in-law does. Jordan Richards practically doubled his retirement fund for him, and they’re always writing about him in the financial section of the Sunday paper.”

“I didn’t know you read that section,” Amanda remarked.

“I don’t,” Mindy admitted readily, unwrapping a bread stick. “But we have dinner with my in-laws practically every Sunday, and that’s all Pete and his dad ever talk about. Did he ask you out?”

“Who?”

“Jordan Richards, silly.”

Amanda shook her head. “No, we just had Chinese food together and talked a little.” She deliberately left out the part about how they’d gone to the minitherapy session and the way she’d reacted when Jordan had asked her about James.

Mindy looked disappointed. “Well, he did ask for your number, didn’t he?”

“No. But he knows where I work. If he wants to call, I suppose he will.”

A delighted smile lit Mindy’s face. Positive thinking was an art form with her. “He’ll call. I just know it.”

Amanda grinned. “If he does, I won’t be able to accept the glory—I owe it all to an article I read in Cosmo. I think it was called ‘Big Girls Should Talk to Strangers,’ or something like that.”

Mindy lifted her diet cola in a rousing roast. “Here’s to Jordan Richards and a red-hot romance!”

With a chuckle, Amanda touched her cup to Mindy’s and drank a toast to something that would probably never happen.

Back at the hotel more crises were waiting to be solved, and there was a message on Amanda’s desk, scrawled by the typist who’d filled in for Mindy during lunch. Jordan Richards had called.

A peculiar tightness constricted Amanda’s throat, and a flutter started in the pit of her stomach. Mindy’s toast echoed in her ears: “Here’s to Jordan Richards and a red-hot romance.”

Amanda laid down the message, telling herself she didn’t have time to return the call, then picked it up again. Before she knew it, her finger was punching out the numbers.

“Striner, Striner and Richards,” sang a receptionist’s voice at the other end of the line.

Amanda drew a deep breath, squared her shoulders and exhaled. “This is Amanda Scott,” she said in her most professional voice. “I’m returning a call from Jordan Richards.”

“One moment, please.”

After a series of clicks and buzzes another female voice came on the line. “Jordan Richards’s office. May I help you?”

Again Amanda gave her name. And again she was careful to say she was returning a call that had originated with Jordan.

There was another buzz, then Jordan’s deep, crisp voice saying, “Richards.”

Amanda hadn’t expected a simple thing like the man saying his name to affect her the way it did. It was the strangest sensation to feel dizzy over something like that. She dropped into the swivel chair behind her desk. “Hi. It’s Amanda.”

“Amanda.”

Coming from him, her own name had the same strange impact as his had had.

“How are you?” he asked.

Amanda swallowed. She was a professional with a very responsible job. It was ridiculous to be overwhelmed by something so simple and ordinary as the timbre of a man’s voice. “I’m fine,” she answered. Nothing more imaginative came to her, and she sat there behind her broad desk, blushing like an eighth-grade schoolgirl trying to work up the courage to ask a boy to a sock hop.

His low, masculine chuckle came over the wire to surround her like a mystical caress. “If I promise not to ask any more questions about you know who, will you go out with me? Some friends of mine are having an informal dinner tonight on their houseboat.”

Amanda still felt foolish for talking about James in the therapy session, then practically bolting when Jordan brought him up again over Chinese food. Lately she just seemed to be a mass of contradictions, feeling one way one minute, another the next. What it all came down to was the fact that Dr. Marshall was right—she needed to start taking chances again. “Sounds like fun,” she said after drawing a deep breath.

“Pick you up at seven?”

“Yes.” And she gave him her address. A little thrill went through her as she laid the receiver back on its cradle, but there was no more time to think about Jordan. The telephone immediately rang again.

“Amanda Scott.”

The chef’s assistant was calling. A pipe had broken, and the kitchen was flooding fast.

“Just another manic day,” Amanda muttered as she hurried off to investigate.

2

It was ten minutes after six when Amanda got off the bus in front of her apartment building and dashed inside. After collecting her mail, she hurried up the stairs and jammed her key into the lock. Jordan was picking her up in less than an hour, and she had a hundred things to do to get ready.

Since he’d told her the evening would be a casual one, she selected gray woolen slacks and a cobalt-blue blouse. After a hasty shower, she put on fresh makeup and quickly wove her hair into a French braid.

Gershwin stood on the back of the toilet the whole time she was getting ready, lamenting the treatment of house cats in contemporary America. She had just given him his dinner when a knock sounded at the door.

Amanda’s heart lurched like a dizzy ballet dancer, and she wondered why she was being such a ninny. Jordan Richards was just a man, nothing more. And so what if he was successful? She met a lot of men like him in her line of work.

She opened the door and knew a moment of pure exaltation at the look of approval in Jordan’s eyes.

“Hi,” he said. He wore jeans and a sport shirt, and his hands rested comfortably in the pockets of his brown leather jacket. “You look fantastic.”

Amanda thought he looked pretty fantastic himself, but she didn’t say so because she’d used up that week’s quota of bold moves by talking about James in front of people she didn’t know. “Thanks,” she said, stepping back to admit him.

Gershwin did a couple of turns around Jordan’s ankles and meowed his approval. With a chuckle, Jordan bent to pick him up. “Look at the size of this guy. Is he on steroids or what?”

Amanda laughed. “No, but I suspect him of throwing wild parties and sending out for pizza when I’m not around.”

After scratching the cat once behind the ears, Jordan set him down again with a chuckle, but his eyes were serious when he looked at Amanda.

Something in his expression made her breasts grow heavy and her nipples tighten beneath the smooth silk of her blouse. “I suppose we’d better go,” she said, sounding somewhat lame even to her own ears.

“Right,” Jordan agreed. His voice had the same effect on Amanda it had had earlier. She felt the starch go out of her knees and she was breathless, as though she’d accidentally stepped onto a runaway skate-board.

She took her blue cloth coat from the coat tree, and Jordan helped her into it. She felt his fingertips brush her nape as he lifted her braid from beneath the collar, and hoped he didn’t notice that she trembled ever so slightly at his touch.

His car, a sleek black Porsche—Amanda decided then and there that he didn’t have kids of his own—was parked at the curb. Jordan opened the passenger door and walked around to get behind the wheel after Amanda was settled.

Soon they were streaking toward Lake Union. It was only when he switched on the windshield wipers that Amanda realized it was raining.

“Have you lived in Seattle long?” she asked, uncomfortable with a silence Jordan hadn’t seemed to mind.

“I live on Vashon Island now—I’ve been somewhere in the vicinity all my life,” he answered. “What about you?”

“Seattle’s home,” Amanda replied.

“Have you ever wanted to live anywhere else?”

She smiled. “Sure. Paris, London, Rome. But after I graduated from college, I was hired to work at the Evergreen, so I settled down here.”

“You know what they say—life is what happens while we’re making other plans. I always intended to work on Wall Street myself.”

“Do you regret staying here?”

Amanda had expected a quick, light denial. Instead she received a sober glance and a low, “Sometimes, yes. Things might have been very different if I’d gone to New York.”

For some reason Amanda’s gaze was drawn to the pale line across Jordan’s left-hand ring finger. Although the windows were closed and the heater was going, Amanda suppressed a shiver. She didn’t say anything until Lake Union, with its diamondlike trim of lit houseboats, came into sight. Since the holidays were approaching, the place was even more of a spectacle than usual.

“It looks like a tangle of Christmas tree lights.”

Jordan surprised her with one of his fleeting, devastating grins.

“You have a colorful way of putting things, Amanda Scott.”

She smiled. “Do your friends like living on a houseboat?”

“I think so,” he answered, “but they’re planning to move in the spring. They’re expecting a baby.”

Although lots of children were growing up on Lake Union, Amanda could understand why Jordan’s friends would want to bring their little one up on dry land. Her thoughts turned bittersweet as she wondered whether she would ever have a child of her own. She was already twenty-eight—time was running out.

As he pulled the car into a parking lot near the wharves and shut the engine off, she sat up a little straighter, realizing that she’d left his remark dangling. “I’m sorry…I…how nice for them that they’re having a baby.”

Unexpectedly Jordan reached out and closed his hand over Amanda’s. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked with a gentleness that almost brought tears to her eyes.

Amanda shook her head. “Of course not. Let’s go in—I’m anxious to meet your friends.”

David and Claudia Chamberlin were an attractive couple in their early thirties, he with dark hair and eyes, she with very fair coloring and green eyes. They were both architects, and framed drawings and photographs of their work graced the walls of the small but elegantly furnished houseboat.

Amanda thought of her own humble apartment with Gershwin as its outstanding feature, and wondered if Jordan thought she was dull.

Claudia seemed genuinely interested in her, though, and her greeting was warm. “It’s good to see Jordan back in circulation—finally,” she confided in a whisper when she and Amanda were alone beside the table where an array of wonderful food was being set out by the caterer’s helpers.

Amanda didn’t reply to the comment right away, but her gaze strayed to Jordan, who was standing only a few feet away, talking with David. “I guess it’s been pretty hard for him,” she ventured, pretending to know more than she did.

“The worst,” Claudia agreed. She pulled Amanda a little distance farther from the men. “We thought he’d never get over losing Becky.”

Uneasily Amanda recalled the pale stripe Jordan’s wedding band had left on his finger. Perhaps, she reflected warily, there was a corresponding mark on his soul.

Later, when Amanda had met everyone in the room and mingled accordingly, Jordan laid her coat gently over her shoulders. “How about going out on deck with me for a few minutes?” he asked quietly. “I need some air.”

Once again Amanda felt that peculiar lurching sensation deep inside. “Sure,” she said with a wary glance at the rain-beaded windows.

“The rain stopped a little while ago,” Jordan assured her with a slight grin.

The way he seemed to know what she was thinking was disconcerting.

They left the main cabin through a door on the side, and because the deck was slippery, Jordan put a strong arm around Amanda’s waist. She was fully independent, but she still liked the feeling of being looked after.

The lights of the harbor twinkled on the dark waters of the lake, and Jordan studied them for a while before asking, “So, what do you think of Claudia and David?”

Amanda smiled. “They’re pretty interesting,” she replied. “I suppose you know they were married in India when they were there with the Peace Corps.”

Jordan propped an elbow on the railing and nodded. “David and Claudia are nothing if not unconventional. That’s one of the reasons I like them so much.”

Amanda was slightly deflated, though she tried hard not to reveal the fact. With her ordinary job, cat and apartment, she knew she must seem prosaic compared to the Chamberlins. Perhaps it was the strange sense of hopelessness she felt that made her reckless enough to ask, “What about your wife? Was she unconventional?”

He turned away from her to stare out at the water, and for a long moment she was sure he didn’t intend to answer. Finally, however, he said in a low voice, “She had a degree in marine biology, but she didn’t work after the kids were born.”

It was the first mention he’d made of any children—Amanda had been convinced, in fact, that he had none. “Kids?” she asked in a small and puzzled voice.

Jordan looked at her in a way that was almost, but not quite, defensive. “There are two—Jessica’s five and Lisa’s four.”

Amanda knew a peculiar joy, as though she’d stumbled upon an unexpected treasure. She couldn’t help the quick, eager smile that curved her lips. “I thought—well, when you were driving a Porsche—”

He smiled back at her in an oddly somber way. “Jessie and Lisa live with my sister over in Port Townsend.”

Amanda’s jubilation deflated. “They live with your sister? I don’t understand.”

Jordan sighed. “Becky died two weeks after the accident, and I was in the hospital for close to three months. Karen—my sister—and her husband, Paul, took the kids. By the time I got back on my feet, the four of them had become a family. I couldn’t see breaking it up.”

An overwhelming sadness caused Amanda to grip the railing for a moment to keep from being swept away by the sheer power of the emotion.

Reading her expression, Jordan gently touched the tip of her nose. “Ready to call it a night? You look tired.”

Amanda nodded, too close to tears to speak. She had a tendency to empathize with other people’s joys and sorrows, and she was momentarily crushed by the weight of what Jordan had been through.

“I see my daughters often,” he assured her, tenderness glinting in his eyes. He kissed her lightly on the mouth, then took her elbow and escorted her back inside the cabin.

They said their goodbyes to David and Claudia Chamberlin, then walked up the wharf to Jordan’s car. He was a perfect gentleman, opening the door for Amanda, and she settled wearily into the suede passenger seat.

Back at Amanda’s building, Jordan again helped her out of the car, and he walked her to her door. Amanda waited until the last possible second to decide whether she was going to invite him in, breaking her own suspense by blurting out, “Would you like a cup of coffee or something?”

Jordan’s hazel eyes twinkled as he placed one hand on either side of the doorjamb, effectively trapping Amanda between his arms. “Not tonight,” he said softly.

Amanda’s blue eyes widened in confusion. “Don’t look now,” she replied in a burst of daring cowardice, “but you’re sending out conflicting messages.”

He chuckled, and his lips touched hers, very tenderly.

Amanda felt a jolt of spiritual electricity spark through her system, burning away every memory of James’s touch. Surprise made her draw back from Jordan so suddenly that her head bumped hard against the door.

Jordan lowered one hand to caress her crown, and she felt the French braid coming undone beneath his fingers.

“Careful,” he murmured, and then he kissed her again.

This time there was hunger in his touch, and a sweet, frightening power that made Amanda’s knees unsteady.

She laid her hands lightly on his chest, trying to ground this second mystical shock, but he interpreted the contact differently and drew back.

“Good night, Amanda,” he said quietly. He waited until she’d unlocked her door with a trembling hand, and then he walked away.

Inside the apartment Amanda flipped on the living room light, crossed to the sofa and sagged onto it. She felt as though she were leaning over the edge of a great canyon and the rocks were slipping away beneath her feet.

Gershwin hurled himself into her lap with a loud meow, and she ran one hand distractedly along his silky back. Dr. Marshall had said it was time she started taking chances, and she had an awful feeling she was on the brink of the biggest risk of her life.

The massive redwood-and-glass house overlooking Puget Sound was dark and unwelcoming that night when Jordan pulled into the driveway and reached for the small remote control device lying on his dashboard. He’d barely made the last ferry to the island, and he was tired.

As the garage door rolled upward, he thought of Amanda, and shifted uncomfortably on the seat. He would have given half his stock portfolio to have her sitting beside him now, to talk with her over coffee in the kitchen or wine in front of the fireplace…

To take her to his bed.

Jordan got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. The garage was dark, but he didn’t flip on a light until he reached the kitchen. Becky had always said he had the night vision of a vampire.

Becky. He clung to the memory of her smile, her laughter, her perfume. She’d been tiny and spirited, with dark hair and eyes, and it seemed to Jordan that she’d never been far from his side, even after her death. He’d loved her to an excruciating degree, but for the past few months she’d been steadily receding from his mind and heart. Now, with the coming of Amanda, her image seemed to be growing more indistinct with every passing moment.

Jordan glanced into the laundry room, needing something real and mundane to focus on. A pile of jeans, sweatshirts and towels lay on the floor, so he crammed as much as he could into the washing machine, then added soap and turned the dial. A comforting, ordinary sound resulted.

Returning to the kitchen, Jordan shrugged out of his leather jacket and laid it over one of the bar stools at the counter. He opened the refrigerator, studied its contents without actually focusing on a single item, then closed it again. He wasn’t hungry for anything except Amanda, and it was too soon for that.

Too soon, he reflected with a rueful grin as he walked through the dining room to the front entryway and the stairs. He hadn’t bothered with such niceties as timing with the women he’d dated over the past two years—in truth, their feelings just hadn’t mattered much to him, though he’d never been deliberately unkind.

He trailed his hand over the top of the polished oak banister as he climbed the stairs. With Amanda, things were different. Timing was crucial, and so were her feelings.

The empty house yawned around Jordan as he opened his bedroom door and went inside. In the adjoining bathroom he took off his clothes and dropped them neatly into the hamper, then stepped into the shower.

Thinking of Amanda again, he turned on the cold water and endured its biting chill until some of the intolerable heat had abated. But while he was brushing his teeth, Amanda sneaked back into his mind.

He saw her standing on the deck of the Chamberlins’ boat, looking up at him with that curious vulnerability showing in her blue-green eyes. It was as though she didn’t know how beautiful she was, or how strong, and yet she had to, because she was out there making a life for herself.

Rubbing his now-stubbled chin, Jordan wandered into the bedroom, threw back the covers and slid between the sheets. He felt the first stirrings of rage as he thought about the mysterious James and the damage he’d done to Amanda’s soul. Jordan had seen the bruises in her eyes every time she’d looked at him, and the memory made him want to find the bastard who’d hurt her and systematically tear him apart.

Jordan turned onto his stomach and tried to put the scattered images of the past two days out of his thoughts. This time, just before he dropped off to sleep, was reserved for thoughts of Becky, as always.

He waited, but his late wife’s face didn’t form in his mind. He could only see Amanda, with her wide, trusting blue eyes, her soft, spun-honey hair, her shapely and inviting body. He wanted her with a desperation that made his loins ache.

Furious, Jordan slammed one fist into the mattress and flipped onto his back, training all his considerable energy on remembering Becky’s face.

He couldn’t.

After several minutes of concentrated effort, all of it fruitless, panic seized him, and he bolted upright, switched on the lamp and reached for the picture on his nightstand.

Becky smiled back at him from the photograph as if to say, Don’t worry, sweetheart. Everything will be okay.

With a raspy sigh, Jordan set the picture back on the table and turned out the light. Becky’s favorite reassurance didn’t work that night. Maybe things would be okay in the long run, but there was a lot of emotional white water between him and any kind of happy ending.

It was Saturday morning, and Amanda luxuriated in the fact that she didn’t have to put on makeup, style her hair, or even get dressed if she didn’t want to. She really tried to be lazy, but she felt strangely ambitious, and there was no getting around it.

She climbed out of bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen, where she got the coffee maker going and fed Gershwin. Then she had a quick shower and dressed in battered jeans, a Seahawks T-shirt and sneakers.

She was industriously vacuuming the living room rug, when the telephone rang.

The sound was certainly nothing unusual, but it fairly stopped Amanda’s heart. She kicked the switch on the vacuum cleaner with her toe and lunged for the telephone, hoping to hear Jordan’s voice since she hadn’t seen or heard from him in nearly a week.

Instead it was her mother. “Hello, darling,” said Marion Whitfield. “You sound breathless. Were you just coming in from the store or something?”

Amanda sank onto the couch. “No, I was only doing housework,” she replied, feeling deflated even though she loved and admired this woman who had made a life for herself and both her daughters after the man of the house had walked out on them all.

“That’s nice,” Marion commented, for she was a great believer in positive reinforcement. “Listen, I called to ask if you’d like to go Christmas shopping with me. We could have lunch, too, and maybe even take in a movie.”

Amanda sighed. She still didn’t feel great about Christmas, and the stores and restaurants would be jam-packed. The theaters, of course, would be full of screaming children left there by harried mothers trying to complete their shopping. “I think I’ll just stay home, if you don’t mind.” She stated the refusal in a kindly tone, not wanting to hurt her mother’s feelings.

“Is everything all right?”

Amanda caught one fingernail between her teeth for a moment before answering, “Mostly, yes.”

“It’s time you put that nasty experience with James Brockman behind you,” Marion said forth-rightly.

The two women were friends, as well as mother and daughter, and Amanda was not normally secretive with Marion. However, the thing with Jordan was too new and too fragile to be discussed; after all, he might never call again. “I’m trying, Mom,” she replied.

“Well, Bob and I want you to come over for dinner soon. Like tomorrow, for instance.”

“I’ll let you know,” Amanda promised quickly as the doorbell made its irritating buzz. “And stop worrying about me, okay?”

“Okay,” Marion answered without conviction just before Amanda hung up.

Amanda expected one of the neighbor children, or maybe the postman with a package, so when she opened the door and found Jordan standing in the hallway, she felt as though she’d just run into a wall at full tilt.

For his part, Jordan looked a little bewildered, as though he might be surprised to find himself at Amanda’s door. “I should have called,” he said.

Amanda recovered herself. “Come in,” she replied with a smile.

He hesitated for a moment, then stepped into the apartment, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. He was wearing jeans and a green turtleneck, and his brown hair was damp from the Seattle drizzle. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out to lunch or something.”

Amanda glanced at the clock on the mantel and was amazed to see that it was nearly noon. The morning had flown by in a flurry of housecleaning. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll just clean up a little—”

He reached out and caught hold of her hand when she would have disappeared into her bedroom. “You look fine,” he told her, and his voice was very low, like the rumble of an earthquake deep down in the ground.

By sheer force of will, Amanda shored up her knees, only to have him pull her close and lock his hands lightly behind the small of her back. A hot flush made her cheeks ache, and she had to force herself to meet his eyes.

Jordan chuckled. “Do I really scare you so much?” he asked.

Amanda wet her lips with the tip of her tongue in an unconscious display of nervousness. “Yes.”

“Why?”

The question was reasonable, but Amanda didn’t know the answer. “I’m not sure.”

He grinned. “Where would you like to go for lunch?”

She would have been content not to go out at all, preferring just to stand there in his arms all afternoon, breathing in his scent and enjoying the lean, hard feel of his body against hers. She gave herself an inward shake. “You know, I just refused a similar invitation from my mother, and she would have thrown in a movie.”

Jordan laughed and smoothed Amanda’s bangs back from her forehead. “All right, so will I.”

But Amanda shook her head. “Too many munchkins screaming and throwing popcorn.”

His expression changed almost imperceptibly. “Don’t you like kids?”

“I love them,” Amanda answered, “except when they’re traveling in herds.”

Jordan chuckled again and gave her another light kiss. “Okay, we’ll go to something R-rated. Nobody under seventeen admitted without a parent.”

“You’ve got a deal,” Amanda replied.

Just as he was helping her get into her coat, the telephone rang. Praying there wasn’t a disaster at the Evergreen to be taken care of, Amanda answered, “Hello?”

“Hello, Amanda.” She hadn’t heard that voice in six long months, and the sound of it stunned her. It was James.

Grimacing at Jordan, she spoke into the receiver. “I don’t want to talk to you, now or ever.”

“Please don’t hang up,” James said quickly.

Amanda bit down on her lip and lowered her eyes. “What is it?”

“Madge is divorcing me.”

She drew a deep breath and let it out again. “Congratulations, James,” she said, not with cruelty but with resignation. After all, it was no great surprise, and she had no idea why he felt compelled to share the news with her.

“I’d like for you and me to get back together,” he said in that familiar tone that had once rendered her pliant and gullible.

“There’s absolutely no chance of that,” Amanda replied, forcing herself to meet Jordan’s gaze again. He was standing at the door, his hand on the knob, watching her with concern but not condemnation. “Goodbye, James.” With that, she placed the receiver back in its cradle.

Jordan remained where he was for a long moment, then he crossed the room to where Amanda stood, bundled in her coat, and gently lifted her hair out from under her collar. “Still want to go out?” he asked quietly.

Amanda was oddly shaken, but she nodded, and they left the apartment together. The phone began ringing again when they reached the top of the stairs, but this time Amanda made no effort to answer it.

“I guess I can’t blame him for being persistent,” Jordan remarked when they were seated in the Porsche. “You’re a beautiful woman, Amanda.”

She sighed, ignoring the compliment because it didn’t register. “I’ll never forgive James for lying to me the way he did,” she got out. Tears stung her eyes as she remembered the blinding pain of his deceit.

Jordan pulled out into the rainy-day traffic and kept his eyes on the road. “He wants you back,” he guessed.

Amanda noticed that his hands tensed slightly around the steering wheel.

“That’s what he said,” she confessed, staring out at the decorated streets but not really seeing them.

“Do you believe him?”

Amanda shrugged. “It doesn’t matter whether I do or not. I’ve made my decision and I’m not going to change my mind.” She found some tissue in her purse and resolutely dried her eyes, trying in vain to convince herself that Jordan hadn’t noticed she was crying.

He drove to a pizza joint across the street from a mall north of the city. “This okay?” he asked, bringing the sleek car to a stop in one of the few parking spaces available. “We could order takeout if you’d rather not go in.”

Amanda drew a deep breath, composing herself. The time with James was behind her, and she wanted to keep it there, to enjoy the here and now with Jordan. Christmas crowds or none. “Let’s eat here,” she said.

He favored her with a half grin and came around to open her door for her. As she stood, she accidentally brushed against him, and felt that familiar twisting ache deep inside herself. She was going to end up making love with Jordan Richards, she just knew it. It was inevitable.

The realization that he was reading her thoughts once more made Amanda blush, and she drew back when he took her hand. His grip only became firmer, however, and she didn’t try to pull away again. She was in the mood to follow where Jordan might lead—which, to Amanda’s way of thinking, made it a darned good thing they were approaching the door of a pizza parlor instead of a bedroom.

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