A Valentine Kiss. Christy McKellen
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‘We’ll have to see if the same food vendors are available, and we’ll have to find out if Karen can perform...’ She trailed off, as though the thought frightened her, and he felt the release of the tension in him at the memory of Mila dealing with the teenage singer.
‘Won’t that be fun for you?’
‘I can’t wait,’ she said wryly. ‘We might have to consider someone else if she isn’t available. After that, the hardest part is going to be getting people to come. Karen—or whoever we get to perform—will have a huge impact on that, but it’s still going to be a challenge.’
‘Social media will help,’ he said, and walked down the stairs to where she stood. She was taking pictures, and he realised that with the marquee the space was different from what she’d worked with before. ‘We can have Karen post something closer to the time. It could even be a pop-up concert.’
‘That won’t work,’ she disagreed. ‘Doing that would put us at risk of overcrowding or riots. Of course we can have her post about the event, but we need to sell tickets. That’s the only way we can know how many people to expect.’
If he’d thought she wouldn’t be insulted by it, he would have complimented her on her professional knowledge. But he’d learned his lesson the previous evening. He hadn’t been around before to see her in action, but his father had complimented her often enough. Now Jordan could see why.
‘Was it hard work the first time?’
She glanced over at him. ‘Yes, but for different reasons. We had to start from scratch then. Design it, figure out what would work, what wouldn’t. Now we don’t have those problems, but we’re working from a blueprint. Which means we’re confined. It also puts us at risk of making a loss.’
‘Well, regardless of that, we’re going to have to plan this.’ He stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing I wasn’t here the first time.’
‘Marketing wine in American restaurants does sound more exciting,’ she said easily, and his heart knocked at hearing her attempt something remarkably close to banter. Perhaps they should stick to work, he thought.
‘Well, seven of the ten restaurants I visited now carry our wines, so I was working. Besides, if I’d been here, we probably would have been married a lot earlier—’ He broke off, cursing himself for not thinking. He almost saw Mila’s walls go up again.
‘This event is going to take a lot of work,’ she said instead of addressing his slip. ‘I might have to give Lulu a call...’
Her face had tightened, and Jordan wondered what he didn’t know about Mila’s only real friendship.
‘Have you spoken to her recently?’ he asked, watching the emotions play over her face.
‘Now and then,’ she answered him. ‘Not nearly as often as I should have.’
The admission came as a surprise to him—and to her, too, it seemed.
‘I think we’ve seen all we need to here.’ she said quickly. ‘The stairs...they’re easier going up.’
It was a clear sign that she didn’t want any help from him, and he had to clench his fists at his sides to keep himself from doing just that as he watched her painstakingly climb the stairs.
Why couldn’t she just ask for help? he thought irritably, and then stilled when a voice asked him why she should need to ask at all.
MILA HEARD THE door to the house slam and closed her eyes. Clearly Jordan hadn’t returned from their trip to the amphitheatre in a good mood. Not that she was feeling particularly cheerful herself. She had let him bait her into lashing out, into revealing things she didn’t want him to know.
It was only because she had been feeling particularly vulnerable after hesitating at those stairs. She had always hated that reminder of her accident—any reminder, really. But as she had stood in front of those steps, her heart in her throat, she had hated that the most. Because every time she thought she would be able to take a step she was reminded of the sensation of tumbling to the ground. Pain would flash through her at the memory of lying at the bottom of the steps, her breathing staggered, waiting for someone to help her.
She blamed that feeling for the accusation she had hurled at Jordan from nowhere earlier. She had never intended letting that slip—the real reason she thought he’d left—but her tongue no longer seemed to obey the ‘think before you speak’ rule she had always played by.
Heaven knew she was tired of taking all the blame for him leaving—yes, she had asked him for space, but that had been said in grief, in pain. She hadn’t meant it, but when he’d packed his bags she hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask him to stay. She had wanted him to—every fibre in her being had urged her to stop him—but she had also wanted him to want to stay. She had wanted him to refuse to go, to tell her that he needed her, to acknowledge that they needed each other to get through the heartbreak of losing their son.
But he hadn’t, and she had been forced to admit to herself that their make-believe life—the one where they were playing at being a happy family and where she was a worthy wife—was never really going to be her life. Jordan hadn’t had any reason to be with her before she had lost their baby, so why would he bother with her now, when she’d proved that she wasn’t capable? When she’d proved that she was broken, especially during her grieving?
He must believe that, too, or he would never have asked her if Greg had told her that. Jordan must have said it to Greg at some point, in confidence, and the stunned expression she’d seen on his face must have been because Jordan had thought Greg had broken his confidence...
Hurt beat at her heart, but she set her shaking hands down on the lists of the things she needed to do and the notes from the phone calls she had made at the kitchen counter.
‘Hey,’ he said, and the deep voice made her heart jump in the same way it had when they’d first met.
She turned and saw the amicable expression on his face. Had she been mistaken about his mood? Perhaps not, she thought as she looked in his eyes.
‘Hi,’ she replied, determined not to let her emotions get in the way of amicability. If he could do it, so could she. ‘You were gone for a while.’
‘Yeah, I bumped into Frank and we talked about the vineyard. I got us some food, too.’
She could tell from his voice that something was bothering him, and while her heart wanted to ask him about it, her head told her to keep to the game they seemed to be playing.
‘That was nice of you,’ she said measuredly, and took the pizza from him.
It had already gone cold, she saw when she opened the boxes, making her wonder if he’d gone somewhere else after picking the food up. But she was distracted when she saw he had got her favourite pizza, and she had to force herself not to be swayed by something as simple as that that only indicated his memory.
‘Frank couldn’t have told you all that much,’ she said, and took out two oven trays to warm the pizza on. ‘You two spoke about the place quite often while you were gone.’
‘Did he tell you that?’
She looked back at him, and was suddenly struck by how attractive he was. He’d taken off the red winter jacket he had on that morning, and now she was being treated to the sight of the muscles he sported almost lazily under his long-sleeved top. Even his light blue jeans highlighted the strength of his lower body.
She swallowed, and told herself to answer him instead of staring like a fool. ‘Frank’s mentioned it, yes. But he told your dad first, and Greg told me. I think he thought that if I knew you’d kept in touch, I’d get in touch with you.’ She closed her eyes briefly as soon as she realised she’d said it. It