Authors: Parker Ford
“There she is!” Tom Sweet’s big grin warmed her. They really did look an awful lot alike.
She’d left Gareth eating breakfast and reading the paper. He had a job to work today but had told her he’d catch up with her tonight. That he wanted to see how she dealt with a good paddling. He’d said the words like he wondered if she’d like rice pudding or wool socks.
Every time she thought she’d forgotten it, she’d shiver and break out in goose bumps thinking about a paddle slapping her flesh.
She still had a bit of pink and purple freckled bruising on her ass, and she’d spent a bit of time admiring it in the bathroom mirror. As she’d passed, Gareth had tugged the waistband of her leggings and tugged them down. He’d dropped a hearty kiss on the most bruised ass cheek before tugging her pants back up.
“Nice,” he said and patted her once.
Now she stood before the man that was probably her dad and realized she’d zoned out.
“Sorry? What?””
“I said, it’s not a big deal. A swab of all things. Can you believe that?”
“It’s very CSI,” she laughed.
“True! I love that show. You?” Tom led her to a counter where they signed in and he paid a the receptionist when she presented him with a bill.
“Only the original.”
“Right. Me too!”
When she heard the total and he started to write a check, Jordan panicked. “I had no idea it would be so…expensive. Let me…” She rifled through her purse thinking she must have some money on one of her cards.
Tom stilled her hand. “Please. Let me. It’s such a small price to pay to find out I might have…family. A
daughter
.”
He said it with such awe and reverence she blushed. “Thank you. I promise if it’s negative I’ll pay at least half.”
He chuckled. “Stubborn. Definitely from Kelly. Not me.”
He winked and she couldn’t help but laugh. “I am a bit…tenacious.”
“Good word for it. Let’s go. All we need to do is say ah and in a week to ten days, maybe sooner, we’ll know.”
“Sounds painless enough.”
If she could get Bonnie Donaldson to acknowledge her brother as easily, it would all be golden.
A woman in a lab coat swabbed the inside of their cheeks, capped the swabs, labeled them, had them check her labeling and sign off on their inspection. She smiled and was gone.
Tom shrugged. “There ya go! Now we’re done.”
“That was freakishly easy,” she said.
“I know, right?”
“So are you married, Tom?” she asked, following him out.
“No, but there’s a woman in my life, so there’s hope for me, yet.”
“Congratulations. And do you maybe plan—”
“No kids,” he said, cutting her off. “She can’t and I can’t. So that rules out kids for us if we ever even get that far. Far enough to consider such things. Unless we wanted to be one of those couples who adopted later in life.”
“Oh,” she said, studying her feet. Unsure of what to say.
“So, you’d be a miracle kid if Linda and I got married. A child, a family, someone else to love. Not to be all weird but can I hug you?”
She threw herself into his arms so fast and hard he chuckled. “Of course,” she whispered, tears pricking her eyes. “And I’m not even going to ask permission,” she said, kissing him on his stubbly cheek.
She left Tom in the parking lot, promising to get together for a drink to open the envelope with the test results. Excitement buzzed through her just at the thought of finding out for sure. He was a good man. And she might still have a dad. A brand new one to get to know and build a new part of her life with. Now to get that for Gareth.
Bonnie Donaldson was only thirty minutes from the hospital and about thirty minutes from Gareth’s house. So close and yet so far. It made it impossible not to wonder if they ever ran into each other at the grocery store or post office. If they’d been seated near each other in restaurants or movies or even out to dinner.
Jordan was a bit anxious about approaching the woman, but equal to the anxiety was the happy possibility that she could do something amazing for Gareth. That he may still have family too. Family had always been very important to them. To the point that they had kept their urges and secret thoughts and desires to themselves until this new information came to light.
It had been more important to have a secure and intact family than to act out their desires.
Until now.
Jordan blew out a breath, put on her blinker and turned left into Bonnie Donaldson’s street. Marigold Way of all places.
“Hopefully, she has a sunny disposition to match her sunny street name,” Jordan whispered. She could hear the nerves rattling her voice and it made her cringe. She hated to sound weak and unsure.
But this was big.
17 Marigold Way was a large cottage style house, with a roof that was starting to show wear. The shutters were painted red and the rest of the house was a taupe color. Overall, it was a cute house with a cute yard on a cute street.
“Cute means nice, right?” She laughed a little too high. Why was she suddenly so worried that Bonnie wasn’t nice? Why were her internal bells and whistles going off?
“Because you are loco.” She stepped out of the car. The only way to do this for Gareth, was to do it.
She started up the nice little walk behind the nice white picket fence. If only her knuckles didn’t feel made of lead when she rapped on the nice red door.
Chapter Twenty
It was kind of surreal. She felt like a fairy tale character knocking on the witches door. Stupidly announcing herself to the evil that lurked within. Which was nuts because she had no indication that this woman was anything other than a normal pleasant person. Even her house looked pleasant.
“Yes?”
She hadn’t heard the door and Jordan jumped, giving a little yell and clutching her chest. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry!”
“What do you want?” The woman asked. She wasn’t mean about it, but she was gruff. She was tall and very thin and had the same honeyed hair as Gareth but shot with some gray. Jordan couldn’t make out the true color of her eyes through the screen in the door. But she was almost sure they were green.
“I…didn’t see you,” she said, softly.
“
You
knocked on
my
door,” the woman said brusquely, “So what do you want? If you’re selling anything, you need to go ahead and move on down the road.”
“I’m not. Selling, I mean. I wanted to talk to you about—”
“It better not be Jesus or Krishna or any kind of religion because to me, honey, that’s the same as solicitation. And read the sign.” She pointed to the left and Jordan’s eyes found the small sign to the side of the door.
ABSOLUTELY NO SOLICITATION
“No, not soliciting. I just…”
“What?”
She pushed and pushed and Jordan’s anxiety reared up and she blurted. “I’m here about your son! Gareth Davis. I think he’s your son and—”
But then she was being forced back because the woman was pushing the door open and storming at her. She was thin but she looked angry, so the overall effect was imposing at best.
“Look, I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, lady, but I want you off my property.”
Jordan blinked, so startled for a moment she wasn’t sure what to say, then, “Oh, I’m sorry, I just wanted to—“
“I know what you wanted to do. Put pressure on me. I don’t know who you are to him, girlfriend, fuckbuddy, wife…whatever. I don’t care. But I’m going to tell you the same thing I told him when he showed up here last week. I don’t want any part of him. Or you. Or his life. If I’d wanted him, I wouldn’t have given him to his dad and left.”
Jordan chewed her bottom lip to keep from screaming. He’d been here and this wretched woman had cruelly dispatched him for the second time in his life. Her fingers shook so hard, she clenched her hands into fists. “Yes, well—”
“Now you get the hell off my property before my husband gets home for lunch.”
“I take it he doesn’t know.”
“That is none of your business,” Bonnie Donaldson hissed. But Jordan could tell by the way her face paled and her eyes narrowed that it was the truth.
“I just want to say one thing.”
“What?” The woman demanded.
“It’s your loss, you miserable, miserable woman!” And then she fled before the bitch could see her cry.
It was everything in her to start the car and pull off from the curb while appearing in control. Bonnie Donaldson stood there and watched her go, making sure she was truly gone.
When she turned the corner off of Marigold Way, Jordan pulled over and cut the engine. She put her head on the steering wheel and cried—feeling stupid and rattled and more on edge than she had in a very long time.
“Poor Gareth,” she whispered. “Poor Gareth. He went there with hope and met up with…
that.
”
No wonder he’d dismissed her immediately when she broached the subject of finding his mom. He’d already found her and already tried and she’d made it perfectly clear that he was unwelcome in her life in any way.
“Bitchbitchbitchbitch!” Jordan growled and hit the steering wheel hard enough to hurt her palm and make it sting.
Then she got back on the road and headed home. Gareth was working. She’d make herself a nice lunch and maybe look into making him a really nice dinner. If she stayed home much longer, she’d need to address her apartment and her job and all that jazz. But for the moment, it could wait.
*****
Jordan was still shaking from the adrenaline rush when she got home. Gareth was nowhere to be found. She’d simply make them something for dinner. A nice pot pie or lasagna. Something—anything—that would take her mind off her rage.
He never needed to know that she’d looked up Bonnie Donaldson. He never needed to know that
she
knew how that wretched woman had reacted to him.
Jordan rummaged the pantry finding a box of unopened lasagna noodles and a sealed bag of flour.
“Looks like the fresh items will dictate our dinner.” The fridge held fresh ground beef but no chicken. She found some provolone which could substitute for mozzarella and parmesan. The ricotta filling wasn’t a necessity. Their mother—
her
mother, actually—used to make a lazy lasagna. Basically noodles, sauce and the cheese without all the fancy filling.
“Back to the pantry,” she whispered, humming to herself to try and calm down.
Crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, spices. Jordan was in business. She set a pot of water on to boil and started to chop some garlic, setting the ground beef on the counter to come down to room temperature a bit.
“You deserve a better mother than that, Gareth,” she said aloud. No one could hear her so she could rant all she wanted. “I know our mother left, but god, she did love you better than that monster ever could have. At least until she up and left us all…” She snorted, shaking her head.
Two missing parents, one runaway parent and the one decent parent they’d shared—whether blood or not—was dead. “What a fucking mess.”
The doorbell rang, making her knife jump. Jordan let out a shaky sigh, grateful she hadn’t cut her finger. She wiped her hands on a towel, hurrying as the doorbell rang again.
“Coming!” she yelled. Then she had a horrible image of that horrible woman at the front door, ready to yell and screech and belittle again.
But it was Mrs. Phelps from next door.
“Oh, hi!” Jordan said, smiling. “How are you, Mrs. Phelps?”
“I am tired of your brother’s shenanigans, that’s how I am,” the plump woman said. Her mandarin orange colored lips were pressed down in a tight angry seam.
“Gareth? What do you mea—”
“If he is going to insist on bringing a string of women in here—women he is not
married to
, the least he can do is make it so that I do not have to be scarred by his nonsense. I have a family. I go to church. I have grandchildren who visit!” She tapped her fat little foot on the front porch and Jordan stepped over the threshold and looked down at the shorter woman.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Phelps but I’m not sure what you mean.” Though in her gut, Jordan had a sinking feeling that she
did know
what she was talking about.
“He ties them up, you know,” the woman said on a growl. “He ties them to the bed and I can see their feet. I can see them! I can hear them sometimes, too for the love of Pete! The caterwauling and the carrying on. The least Gareth Davis could do is close his darn blinds!”
It was then that the woman’s gaze fell on Jordan’s feet and she gasped.
At first Jordan was confused but then her stomach bottomed out.
“You?” Mrs. Phelps gasped. “You and your…brother? You two are…going to hell!” she managed on a squeak.
Jordan’s eyes fell to her neon orange toenails.
“Mrs. Phelps, I—“
“I saw your feet,” the woman said, waving her arms around. “I saw them!”