The Naughty List Bundle - Kylie Adams [297]
Knowing his ploy, Honey lifted her chin and said, “Because I watched her dance two nights ago, as you very well know.”
Jordan couldn’t have been more amazed by her admission than if she’d thrown an egg at him. “You told him?”
She nodded. He glanced at Elizabeth who sat in Gabe’s lap. “Of course we told.”
Jordan stared at his brothers’ red faces. “And neither of you are angry?”
“Damn right I’m angry,” Sawyer admitted. “I told her she should have told me if she’d wanted to go and I would have taken her.”
“Damn right,” Amber said. When Sawyer groaned, she asked, “Unca Sawyer nasty, too?”
“Yeah,” Morgan answered. “Nastier than me.” He kissed Amber’s belly and made her laugh.
Gabe made a face. “I had fully intended to impress upon Elizabeth the error of her ways, but it didn’t work out quite as I had intended.”
Morgan covered Amber’s ears and said with remorse, “I know what you mean. You plan on giving a woman a good swat, but once you’ve got her pants off, you forget what you’re doing.”
Misty pinched Morgan for that bit of impertinence. Elizabeth just laughed, knowing it was all bluster. It was the truth not a one of them would ever lay a harsh hand on a female and their wives more than understood that.
Jordan laughed. God, he loved the lot of them. They were all nuts and overbearing and intrusive, and he had no idea what he’d do without them. The phone rang so he decided to excuse himself from the chaos.
He went into the family room and when he picked up the receiver and said, “Hello,” he heard a long pause before his mother asked, “What’s wrong?”
Jordan stared at the phone. “Mother?”
“Of course it’s your mother. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
Of course it’s your mother? Jordan held the receiver away from his ear to stare at it. His mother and Brett now lived in Florida. She’d called last week, but he’d been at Georgia’s and missed her.
Because he wasn’t sure how much she knew, Jordan hedged. “What makes you think anything’s wrong?” Though he’d just been entertaining softer thoughts about his family, he now considered knocking all their heads together. If one of his damn brothers had been tattling, upsetting their mother, he wouldn’t be pleased.
“I can hear it in your voice,” she explained. “You’ve always had the most betraying voice. Even when you were a baby, I could tell by your gurgles what you were thinking and feeling.”
Jordan dropped onto the edge of the couch and without giving himself time to plan out his reply, he said, “I think I’m in love.”
Another pause, then softly: “Will you tell me about her?”
Even as he considered his words, Jordan smiled. “She’s beautiful.”
“Of course.”
“But that’s not what got to me.” He frowned. “She has two kids. Lisa, six and Adam, four. They’re incredible.”
There was a smug note in his mother’s voice when she said, “Then obviously she’s incredible.”
“She is. And gutsy. She’s made a few mistakes, I guess. And…” Jordan hesitated. “In a lot of ways, she’s like you.”
Another pause. “How’s that?”
Jordan looked toward the doorway, saw no one was lurking, and said, “She’ll do anything necessary to see that her kids are taken care of.”
His mother laughed. “What in the world did I ever do to warrant that comment? You make it sound like I worked in the coal mines to feed you or something.”
Jordan considered all the things she had done, the sacrifices she’d made, how hard she’d always worked to make them happy. But the one thing that really stood out in his mind, the one thing he’d always hated, slipped out without his permission. “You married my father,” he said, “hoping to make a complete home for Sawyer and Morgan.”
“Jordan!” She sounded incredulous that he’d come to such a conclusion. “I married your father because I loved him!”
Jordan heard a muffled shout in the background and his mother said, “No Brett, it’s not Gabe. It’s Jordan.” And then: “Yes, I can see how you made that assumption.”
Jordan chuckled. He could just imagine what Brett, Gabe’s father, was thinking