LITMIR.BIZ

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her through some tough mornings while she’d dressed.

      And it was large enough that it sort of looked like a much-thinner version of her old wedding ring.

      A reminder that kept troubling her a little.

      Since she didn’t want to deal with her inability to remove unwanted body jewelry, she switched her attention to Dylan’s mom. Instead of labeling the taste of his kiss, she should be figuring out Regina’s angle. Or if there even was an angle. The woman had said a boy needed a mom, and that since Adele was locked up and Jordan was in the military, that she—as Corbin’s grandmother—should get custody.

      It was an old-fashioned idea that a woman/mother would be a better parenting choice, but then Regina could be set in her ways. Ironic though, that after her own divorce, Regina hadn’t been around much afterward to actually raise her own kids. Neither had her ex-husband. Child-rearing responsibility had been pretty much left to Lucian. But according to what Karlee had said, in recent months Regina had seemingly wanted to make up for lost time with her kids. Karlee’s theory was since Regina’s brush with death from breast cancer, she was now trying to be the mom she probably should have been all those years ago.

      And Regina was extending that mom-hood to being a hands-on grandmother.

      During the arguments that Dylan had had with his mom the night before, he’d accused Regina of matchmaking. Jordan also agreed that could be a possibility. And trying to interfere in her son’s love life was a lot easier to swallow than believing the woman wanted to keep Dylan from getting custody of his son. That meant Regina likely thought the same thing as everyone else.

      That Dylan wasn’t responsible enough for fatherhood.

      Jordan was sure that stung for him. The same way it stung for her when people gave her that poor, pitiful you look. But in Dylan’s case, folks might be right.

      Might.

      She didn’t really know the man that Dylan had become, but the preliminary signs weren’t good with the sex bingo card that the dog had brought in. Of course, maybe the card was a prank and there weren’t others floating around out there, waiting to have enough sex boxes ticked off.

      Jordan put on some makeup and a dress since she’d have to see both Adele and a lawyer today. She also wanted to spend as much time with Corbin as possible. Dylan had had extra hours with the boy, and while this wasn’t a competition, Jordan wanted Corbin to know her as well as he did Dylan. Besides, it probably wouldn’t be long before Regina arrived and threw things into even more chaos.

      Before she headed downstairs in search of the coffeepot, Jordan gave herself a final but fast check in the mirror, and she wanted to curse when she saw what was dangling out from the neck of her dress.

      The wedding band and engagement ring.

      The very ones that Dylan had given her over fourteen years ago.

      They weren’t something she usually wore. In fact, she normally opted for no jewelry at all, but when she’d decided to fly from Germany to San Antonio, she’d put them on the gold chain with the intention of somehow getting them back to Dylan. After all, the diamond was huge, probably two carats, and since she had been the one to end things, it’d never seemed right to keep them. Now that she had finally seen him, she would be able to return them to him.

      For now though, she shoved the rings back beneath the dress and tiptoed out of the guest room and into the hall. Since everyone was probably still asleep, she kept tiptoeing past Corbin’s room, but when she saw the door was open, she peeked inside.

      And her heart went to her toenails.

      Because he wasn’t there. Neither was Dylan. The room was empty. So was the adjoining bathroom because Jordan had a quick, frantic search in there before she went running down the stairs. My God. She hoped Dylan hadn’t run off with the boy as a way of avoiding custody showdowns with her and his mother.

      Jordan definitely wasn’t tiptoeing now. She was taking the steps two at a time and trying to stave off the thoughts that something bad had happened when she spotted Karlee.

      Karlee was wearing pj’s and looked as if she’d just gotten out of bed. She immediately put her index finger to her mouth in a “stay quiet” gesture. Then, she motioned for Jordan to follow her. Since Karlee wasn’t alarmed, Jordan tried to tamp down the panic bubbling up inside her. She didn’t succeed in doing that until they got into the kitchen and she saw Corbin.

      And Dylan.

      The two were asleep. Dylan’s head was resting on the kitchen table while Corbin was sacked out in the booster seat that one of the housekeepers had located in the attic. His head was on the plastic tray. There were cereal bowls next to each of them, and Booger was napping underneath Corbin’s chair.

      “Corbin got up at four,” Karlee whispered. “I heard Dylan bring him down here so I came to check on them and make some coffee.”

      Instant guilt. Jordan felt a boatload of it because she hadn’t heard a peep from either of them. Though Karlee obviously had.

      “Dylan should have woken me,” Jordan muttered.

      Karlee lifted her eyebrow. “You really think it’d be wise for Dylan to come to your bedroom? If I recall our teenage years, you used to sleep practically commando.”

      Jordan still did. Usually she just wore panties and maybe a camisole. So, Karlee was right—it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea for Dylan to knock on the guest room door since he would have been looking all sleepy and hot.

      As opposed to his usual hot and awake.

      “When I came back down a couple of minutes ago,” Karlee went on, still keeping her voice low, “I found them like this.” She quietly went to the coffeepot, poured Jordan a cup, and then topped hers off. “You think I should wake them?”

      Jordan shook her head. Though it was tempting. She would have liked to talk with Corbin. Even have cereal with him. But he was sleeping, well, like a baby. So was Dylan, for that matter. And yes, he was in the hot and sleepy mode.

      Karlee and she took their coffee into the foyer. That way, Jordan could still be close enough to Corbin if he woke up, but she could also talk to Karlee without the risk of the boy hearing.

      “I didn’t think you’d be here,” Jordan said. “I thought Lucian and you were going back to San Antonio.”

      “Lucian wisely delayed the trip.” She stared at Jordan from over the top of her coffee cup. “So, just how riled is Dylan about Regina? How pissed off are you?”

      It didn’t surprise her that Karlee knew about Regina making her own bid for custody of Corbin. Karlee probably had heard Dylan talking to his mom on the phone. In fact, it was possible that people in Kansas had heard it. Jordan hadn’t yelled, but that’s exactly what she’d felt like doing.

      “How pissed off am I?” Jordan repeated. “Remember that time when we were in middle school and Dylan put a frog in my backpack as a joke to scare me?”

      Karlee quickly nodded. “And it peed and crapped all over your homework and ruined it. Ruined your backpack, too, and then you got detention for yelling and cursing when you saw what’d happened.”

      Yep, that was the incident all right. What Karlee had left out was that the detention had in turn gotten her grounded. “Well, that anger was a drop in the bucket to how I feel about what Regina’s trying to do.”

      Karlee fought a smile. “At least Dylan did the frog thing to show how much he liked you.”

      Dylan had indeed claimed that several years later after they’d started dating. But Jordan had always suspected it’d been more of a dare or bet.

      “I think Regina might have a different motive,” Karlee continued. “She’s up to something.” Jordan made an immediate sound of agreement. “Last year she tried to fix Eve Cooper up with Dylan,” Karlee added.

      Jordan nearly

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