Page 15 of The Jilted Lovers Club
She lowers Lottie to the floor immediately, stepping back fast like she needs distance. She watches her, but not like she’s making sure Lottie’s safe. More like she isn’t sure how to exist in the same space as a child.
“You haven’t been around a lot of kids,” I muse, half-laughing. But when I see the offense darken her expression, my smile fades.
“I’ve been around plenty of kids,” she huffs, then she hesitates. “I just don’t particularly like…”
She trails off, pressing her lips together in a tight line.
“So you haven’t been around kids,” I repeat.
Her jaw tightens. “My cousin just had a baby girl.”
“Oh, that’s great. So you babysit her a lot?”
Her eyes narrow, something unreadable flashing across her face before she looks away.
“We’re wasting time, and this conversation is boring me,” she says, voice flat. “Just get the car seat so I can get to work.”
We leave the farm with Jordy sitting in the passenger seat, scrolling through her phone, and Lottie babbling in her car seat in the back. My daughter’s hair is extra wild this morning, though I’d managed to pull it tight into floofy poms on the side of her head. She got the auburn shade and pale freckled skin from her mother, but those coiled spirals are all me. Thankfully she’s learned from an early age to just sit still while her daddy pulls at her hair—just like my own mother used to do for me back when I was young and wore my hair long.
Jordy’s stilettos lay on the floorboards at her feet, hosed off and dried before I returned them to the truck. Hopefully water won’t ruin them, but I choose to not tell Jordy, just to be on the safe side. I’m starting to understand that Jordy is very particular, and all of this is outside her comfort zone—from the sunflower jeans to the kid in the back seat.
Jordy is a puzzle I’m not sure I want to solve, but damn if I’m not fascinated by her—and attracted. Way too attracted. Even though I barely know her, I can tell we are two entirely different people, and yet, I’m drawn to her like a bird to open sky. There’s something about her that calls to me, and I can’t quite name it. Maybe it’s because we’re both outsiders in this town, though I doubt she sees anything in common between the two of us. Maybe it’s the way she carries herself—tough on the outside, but with something fragile just beneath. Or maybe it’s the fact that she isn’t throwing in the towel, even though this town has given her hell from the moment they learned who she is.
All I know is that every moment I’m next to her, I feel both the excitement of our nearness, and the pain of not quite reaching her.
Of course, my complicated feelings toward her hardly matter. She’s here for only a few weeks—just one more reason why I need to keep my attraction in check.
That, and she’s working for that asshole.
Besides, we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot, and the way things are going, that’s not going to change.
I turn the radio on to help break the silence in the front seat, trying not to feel affected by the wall between Jordy and me. Leon Bridges fills the cab, doing little to change my mood. I can’t place why I even care. After today, I plan to never see her again. She’ll get to work, I’ll go back to the farm, and that will be it. How this town treated her isn’t my business, or my problem. Her obvious disdain for children has nothing to do with me or Lottie, and isn’t something I need to feel offended by or try to fix. I’m just the idiot who brought her home last night in her hour of need. I did my part, now my part is done.
“Where is Lottie’s mom?”
Jordy’s question surprises me. Her curiosity is normal, but given the way she shut down, I didn’t expect to be quizzed about my life … especially about that part.
“I don’t know.”
She turns to me, and I glance at her long enough to see the confusion on her face.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Lottie is two, right? You mean to tell me that her mom had her, and then up and left?”
Pretty much.
But to Jordy, I just shrug. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
I can feel her questions mounting.What kinds of complications? Why did she leave? What kind of person abandons their child?
But all she says is, “It’s nice how involved Bec and Bob are with Lottie.”
I breath out a sigh, my shoulders lowering with my defenses. “They’ve been like parents to me, and they love their granddaughter.” I look at Lottie in the rearview mirror. She’s busy studying her hands, talking softly in her own little language. I smile, my heart expanding like it always does when I feel overwhelmed by the love I have for this little girl. “Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to do it without them. They let us move in before Lottie was born, and then after…” I pause, my eyes shifting to Jordy, then back to the road. “Let’s just say I owe a lot to the Felixes. Bob and I built a small house on the property around the time Lottie was born, and it’s where we live now.”
“Just you and Lottie.”
I keep my eyes on the road as I nod. It’s been years, and I still feel that weight of anger building in my gut whenever it comes to Sasha and all the allowances everyone makes for that woman—especially the excuses I’ve internalized about her. But enoughtime has passed that those excuses were weak. Every morning that I wake up to my daughter is a reminder of everything Sasha willingly gave up. Most days, I don’t think about forgiving her anymore. On the best days, I don’t think about her at all.
Jordy says nothing for a moment, long enough that I think the conversation is over. But then I feel her eyes on me.
