Daring Moves. Linda Miller Lael

had had earlier. She felt the starch go out of her knees and she was breathless, as though she’d accidentally stepped onto a runaway skate-board.

      She took her blue cloth coat from the coat tree, and Jordan helped her into it. She felt his fingertips brush her nape as he lifted her braid from beneath the collar, and hoped he didn’t notice that she trembled ever so slightly at his touch.

      His car, a sleek black Porsche—Amanda decided then and there that he didn’t have kids of his own—was parked at the curb. Jordan opened the passenger door and walked around to get behind the wheel after Amanda was settled.

      Soon they were streaking toward Lake Union. It was only when he switched on the windshield wipers that Amanda realized it was raining.

      “Have you lived in Seattle long?” she asked, uncomfortable with a silence Jordan hadn’t seemed to mind.

      “I live on Vashon Island now—I’ve been somewhere in the vicinity all my life,” he answered. “What about you?”

      “Seattle’s home,” Amanda replied.

      “Have you ever wanted to live anywhere else?”

      She smiled. “Sure. Paris, London, Rome. But after I graduated from college, I was hired to work at the Evergreen, so I settled down here.”

      “You know what they say—life is what happens while we’re making other plans. I always intended to work on Wall Street myself.”

      “Do you regret staying here?”

      Amanda had expected a quick, light denial. Instead she received a sober glance and a low, “Sometimes, yes. Things might have been very different if I’d gone to New York.”

      For some reason Amanda’s gaze was drawn to the pale line across Jordan’s left-hand ring finger. Although the windows were closed and the heater was going, Amanda suppressed a shiver. She didn’t say anything until Lake Union, with its diamondlike trim of lit houseboats, came into sight. Since the holidays were approaching, the place was even more of a spectacle than usual.

      “It looks like a tangle of Christmas tree lights.”

      Jordan surprised her with one of his fleeting, devastating grins.

      “You have a colorful way of putting things, Amanda Scott.”

      She smiled. “Do your friends like living on a houseboat?”

      “I think so,” he answered, “but they’re planning to move in the spring. They’re expecting a baby.”

      Although lots of children were growing up on Lake Union, Amanda could understand why Jordan’s friends would want to bring their little one up on dry land. Her thoughts turned bittersweet as she wondered whether she would ever have a child of her own. She was already twenty-eight—time was running out.

      As he pulled the car into a parking lot near the wharves and shut the engine off, she sat up a little straighter, realizing that she’d left his remark dangling. “I’m sorry…I…how nice for them that they’re having a baby.”

      Unexpectedly Jordan reached out and closed his hand over Amanda’s. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked with a gentleness that almost brought tears to her eyes.

      Amanda shook her head. “Of course not. Let’s go in—I’m anxious to meet your friends.”

      David and Claudia Chamberlin were an attractive couple in their early thirties, he with dark hair and eyes, she with very fair coloring and green eyes. They were both architects, and framed drawings and photographs of their work graced the walls of the small but elegantly furnished houseboat.

      Amanda thought of her own humble apartment with Gershwin as its outstanding feature, and wondered if Jordan thought she was dull.

      Claudia seemed genuinely interested in her, though, and her greeting was warm. “It’s good to see Jordan back in circulation—finally,” she confided in a whisper when she and Amanda were alone beside the table where an array of wonderful food was being set out by the caterer’s helpers.

      Amanda didn’t reply to the comment right away, but her gaze strayed to Jordan, who was standing only a few feet away, talking with David. “I guess it’s been pretty hard for him,” she ventured, pretending to know more than she did.

      “The worst,” Claudia agreed. She pulled Amanda a little distance farther from the men. “We thought he’d never get over losing Becky.”

      Uneasily Amanda recalled the pale stripe Jordan’s wedding band had left on his finger. Perhaps, she reflected warily, there was a corresponding mark on his soul.

      Later, when Amanda had met everyone in the room and mingled accordingly, Jordan laid her coat gently over her shoulders. “How about going out on deck with me for a few minutes?” he asked quietly. “I need some air.”

      Once again Amanda felt that peculiar lurching sensation deep inside. “Sure,” she said with a wary glance at the rain-beaded windows.

      “The rain stopped a little while ago,” Jordan assured her with a slight grin.

      The way he seemed to know what she was thinking was disconcerting.

      They left the main cabin through a door on the side, and because the deck was slippery, Jordan put a strong arm around Amanda’s waist. She was fully independent, but she still liked the feeling of being looked after.

      The lights of the harbor twinkled on the dark waters of the lake, and Jordan studied them for a while before asking, “So, what do you think of Claudia and David?”

      Amanda smiled. “They’re pretty interesting,” she replied. “I suppose you know they were married in India when they were there with the Peace Corps.”

      Jordan propped an elbow on the railing and nodded. “David and Claudia are nothing if not unconventional. That’s one of the reasons I like them so much.”

      Amanda was slightly deflated, though she tried hard not to reveal the fact. With her ordinary job, cat and apartment, she knew she must seem prosaic compared to the Chamberlins. Perhaps it was the strange sense of hopelessness she felt that made her reckless enough to ask, “What about your wife? Was she unconventional?”

      He turned away from her to stare out at the water, and for a long moment she was sure he didn’t intend to answer. Finally, however, he said in a low voice, “She had a degree in marine biology, but she didn’t work after the kids were born.”

      It was the first mention he’d made of any children—Amanda had been convinced, in fact, that he had none. “Kids?” she asked in a small and puzzled voice.

      Jordan looked at her in a way that was almost, but not quite, defensive. “There are two—Jessica’s five and Lisa’s four.”

      Amanda knew a peculiar joy, as though she’d stumbled upon an unexpected treasure. She couldn’t help the quick, eager smile that curved her lips. “I thought—well, when you were driving a Porsche—”

      He smiled back at her in an oddly somber way. “Jessie and Lisa live with my sister over in Port Townsend.”

      Amanda’s jubilation deflated. “They live with your sister? I don’t understand.”

      Jordan sighed. “Becky died two weeks after the accident, and I was in the hospital for close to three months. Karen—my sister—and her husband, Paul, took the kids. By the time I got back on my feet, the four of them had become a family. I couldn’t see breaking it up.”

      An overwhelming sadness caused Amanda to grip the railing for a moment to keep from being swept away by the sheer power of the emotion.

      Reading her expression, Jordan gently touched the tip of her nose. “Ready to call it a night? You look tired.”

      Amanda nodded, too close to tears to speak. She had a tendency to empathize with other people’s joys and sorrows, and she was momentarily crushed by the weight of what Jordan