“Not a chance in hell! He would get so much shit from his teammates. But I have been wearing it to bed. Oh! Which reminds me. You both are invited to the cookout at the house I’m planning for Bennett for when he’s here.”
“Why would discussing your jammies remind you of that?” Angel asks.
“Apparently, they like to have video S-E-X,” I spell out.
Angel giggles when Harper cuts me off by circling her finger in front of her lips, then miming zipping them closed.
“Count me in,” Angel tells her, walking behind the reception desk to answer the phone.
“Me too,” I tell her, and Harper claps, all excited.
“Yay! My hubby and all my favorite people together.”
I look over at a sculpture of a little girl cupping butterflies in her hands, her arms outstretched as if offering them to the sky. It’s something that I think Jordan’s mom would have liked in her garden.
Harper pockets her phone and keys and starts pushing me toward the door. “I’m starving. Let’s go get some lunch.”
I guess I’ll get a full tour later.
Chapter 23
Walking inside the small brick and mortar building that houses Summerfield Construction, I’m hit with a sense of nostalgia. Mike and I used to hang out here with Chase a lot during summer breaks, especially in high school when we’d work for Mr. Summerfield part-time doing jobs like erecting wood frame skeletons or painting walls. Back then, Summerfield Construction was a small, family-owned business. Chad, Chase’s dad, first ran the business out of a mobile home trailer on a parcel of land he purchased from Mr. Bixby, a local cattle farmer. Mr. Summerfield relocated the business here to Hopper Springs about nine years ago.
Times have changed, I think, as I look around. Gone are the cheap chairs with brown upholstery and the lone, chipped wood coffee table. In its place is a new seating area with slate-gray button accent chairs, glass coffee tables, a stone waterwall, and a full coffee bar. In the middle of the room, on top of a large square table, is a scale model of the new housing development I saw the other day. And behind the reception desk is the Summerfield Construction logo signage on the back wall, tastefully done in laser-cut, dimensional letters in a polished gold, metallic sheen. Underneath the signage sits a woman.
The pretty blonde looks up from her computer, and her crimson-glossed lips spread in a smile when she sees me. I’ve never met her before, then again, I don’t come out this way much anymore.
The receptionist gracefully stands and comes around her desk, her slender, long legs jacked up a good six inches on the stilettos she’s wearing and putting us almost at eye level. She’s very attractive and normally would’ve been the type I’d go for. But I feel absolutely nothing as she sashays toward me. Not even a twitch. My heart and my dick are too tangled up in an auburn-haired, hazel-eyed, stubborn-assed woman.
The receptionist glides over to me, an impressive feat considering her shoes.
“Good afternoon and welcome to Summerfield Construction. How may I help you?”
“I’m here to see Chase,” I reply bluntly, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible.
She teeters a step back at my unfriendly tone. “Oh, do you have an appointment?”
“No, but he’ll see me. Tell him Jordan Hammond is here.”
I know exactly when she recognizes my name by the perfect ‘O’ of her scarlet lips. Her doe brown eyes hidden by a thick layer of black mascara drag down my body appreciatively.
My family name, not the Montgomery one, is well-known all through Texas. Not many people know I’m also a Montgomery because I’ve kept that tidbit of information under lock and key. Several of my siblings including Harper and Aurora were hounded by the press and paparazzi once word leaked about Phillip Montgomery being their biological father. I’ve worked hard to maintain my privacy by only allowing a few trusted people know my true genetic heritage. It wouldn’t be hard for anyone to discover my paternal parentage if they went digging, but it sure as shit isn’t going to come from me.
The blonde places an uninvited hand on my arm. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Jordan. I’m Tracy. Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
I look at my wristwatch, hoping she takes the hint that I’ve got other places to be, which I don’t.
She gestures to the chair nearest me. “Please have a seat. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
I remain standing as she goes back to her desk and picks up the phone. As soon as she lifts the earpiece, the door next to reception opens.
“Tracy, could you—” Chase stops when he notices me standing a few feet away.
I didn’t know what to expect or how I would feel seeing him again. He must feel the same way because he’s frozen in place; his only movement is the slight twitching of his head, like his brain is having trouble processing what I’m doing here.
“Jordan?”
