Brave the Heat by Sara Humphreys Page B

shoreline, Gavin couldn’t help but smile. At the moment, he and that damn house had a lot in common.
    * * *
     
    Jordan double- and triple-checked the delivery list against what had come in, while the girls colored quietly at a table in the back room. She’d checked the list when the guys unloaded everything into the cold storage room, but going over it again couldn’t hurt. It would also keep her mind off the fact that Gavin would be arriving any minute.
    She tapped the pencil against her chin and stared at the steel door of the refrigerated storage room. As with the delivery, she’d gone over yesterday’s experience with Gavin countless times; she’d had a hell of a time falling asleep last night.
    She could have refused his offer. Told him “thanks but no thanks,” and that she and the girls would be fine. But she hadn’t. Jordan had been struggling to keep her head above water for so long that the notion of having someone help her was both a relief and completely horrifying.
    Especially when that someone was Gavin McGuire.
    What the hell was she doing? She’d intended to come back home and set up a stable new life for her daughters, not start mooning over her long-lost love. Frustrated and bordering on nausea from fried nerves, Jordan went to the tiny pink-and-white powder room in the back corner of the workroom. Grace was humming a tune, swinging her sandal-covered feet over the linoleum floor, and she paused to give her mother a wide grin.
    “You have to go potty, Mama?” Grace asked with a giggle. “I like that bafroom ’cause it’s pink.”
    “Nope.” Jordan laughed. Grace was obsessed with bathrooms, even if she didn’t have to go. Anytime they went to a restaurant, the girls would make a point of visiting the ladies’ room; the fancier the bathroom, the better. “I’m going to wash my hands because we’ll be going to Meemaw’s house in a little while.”
    Jordan placed the clipboard on the table between the girls and peered at their drawings. Her chest ached when she saw Lily’s. It was only the three of them. No sign of their father anywhere. For the first month or two after Jordan left Ted, the girls would ask for him. But when he stopped calling and didn’t come see them, they didn’t take long to get the hint.
    It was heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time. She could kill Ted for being such a heartless bastard. But she wasn’t just pissed at him. Not at all. Jordan was even angrier with herself for being such a poor judge of character and choosing a man like Ted as the father of her children. Oh, he had been charming at first but that didn’t last long. By the time she’d figured it out, her daughters were paying the price for her bad decisions. That was something she’d never forgive herself for.
    “Look, Mama.” Lily pushed her picture over and grinned, pointing a yellow crayon at the paper. “That’s you and me and Gracie at our new house. I like it better here than being in the city.”
    “It’s beautiful, baby.” Jordan smoothed the back of Lily’s hair and fought the swell of emotion. Keeping these girls safe and assuring they didn’t have a volatile childhood like hers was Jordan’s top priority. “I like it better here too.”
    “Then how come we never came here before?” Lily picked up a blue crayon and started coloring the sky behind the house she’d drawn. “It’s pretty and I love the ocean. It smells nice.”
    “It’s complicated, Lily. The important thing is that we’re here now, and I know Meemaw is so excited to have you come to her house today.” Jordan looked at her watch and her gut clenched. It was quarter to nine and Gavin would be here any minute. “It’s almost time to go, so clean up the crayons. Okay, girls?”
    Shoving aside the cavalcade of emotions, Jordan slipped into the little powder room and shut the door. Leaning her hands on the white porcelain sink, she let out a long, slow breath. She looked at her reflection in the