Jordan’s Deliverance Read Online Free PDF Page B

with immigrants from Mexico, China, Korea, and El Salvador. We learned Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Danish from our families, both blood-related and work-related. I gave up Jensen to protect my parents and two sisters when I was accepted into the agency. My mother always said I was trying to help the helpless things: birds, squirrels, frogs, dogs…whatever. I even brought home a homeless man from a park once when I was ten. Scared the hell out of my parents, but he ended up getting a PB and J and a pair of sneakers. I realized then that a little risk on my end could change a life. That’s what attracted me to the Agency. I save lives by being proactive, and I get to travel the world doing it. Everyone deserves a little saving, Lovely Viper, hence my last name—Deliverance. And I had anywhere from two to four dogs the entire time I was growing up. How was that for a recap?”
    By this time the waitress had brought Jordan her vodka and pineapple, and she sipped it slowly, taking in Riordan’s story. “Wow. That sounds like a wonderful upbringing.”
    “It wasn’t charmed or easy, but it was filled with love and support… enough to share, Jordan. I will admit I am a bit of a serial dater. I love women. But that doesn’t mean you need to fear me,” he confided, gently caressing her hand on the table. “I have to ask—what made you finally agree to go out with me?”
    Jordan gently slid her hand from his and grasped her drink, running her fingers up and down the damp glass.
    “You came with great recommendations, Agent Deliverance. And I am not afraid of you, by the way. Caution is always good when dealing with unknowns. Didn’t you know that?”
    He chuckled, his deep throaty laughter sending delicious shivers down her spine. “Unknowns in battle, yes. But I wasn’t aware battle lines had been drawn. Are we at war, Lovely Viper?”
    “Isn’t every romantic relationship a battle of wills, at least?” she countered, her eyes searching his, analyzing and penetrating.
    “Actually, no, I believe it’s a puzzle to be solved as a couple. What’s the best way to achieve win-win situations together? Life is a battle all on its own. I wouldn’t set out to bring a battle into my home or my bedroom if I can help it.”
    “I see,” she answered, her expressive eyes displaying her disappointment.
    Riordan couldn’t help but read her expression and probe for answers. She projected like a drive-in movie theater. He had hit a nerve, and unless she opened up he couldn’t plan his next course of action. Reaching for her hand over the table again, he began to slowly massage her fingers with his fingertips. She glanced down at her hand in his grasp and seemed to release a little tension under his tender ministrations. Her eyes fluttered closed, hiding her feelings from his view, but she never pulled back.
    “Do you need me to fight a battle with you, sweetheart?” he asked quietly, never wavering in his searching stare.
    He watched her take a steadying breath and, finally, open her eyes, displaying the sea of emotion there.
    “You know, I think this was a bad idea,” she concluded.
    Feeling her pull away, he stopped her with a simple statement of fact. “You’re afraid. Whatever keeps you from opening up to me has a power over you that you think you can’t conquer. I don’t know what you are fighting, Jordan, but you don’t have to do it alone.”
    Her humorless smirk made his heart break a little.
    “You want to save the broken girl, Riordan? Be my own personal hero? How can you save me, farm-boy? Let me tell you a little bit about my family. My father died when I was eight years old. He was a firefighter and died in the line of duty, leaving my high-school-drop-out mother with gambling debts and a stack of unpaid bills. After losing our home because she had no savings, we moved in with my maternal grandmother, paying her what my mother received from my father’s pension until my grandmother had a stroke and we