She approached the front counter looking dignified and smiled, revealing her pearly white teeth.
“Hi, I was wondering if you could help me.” She certainly wasn’t a Texas native; the long southern drawl people had around here was absent from her accent. She was obviously more city-chic than country girl, and she knew it too. She wouldn’t be caught dead in this town unless it were necessary.
Gabby folded her arms together. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Is it really that obvious?” she asked with a fake laugh.
“Afraid so, honey,” Gabby said while looking her up and down, the stilettos becoming noticeably the prime focus of her attention. “You would be the only one to ever come in here wearing those shoes. It’s a dead giveaway.” The woman looked down at her shoes, and then her eyes wandered over Gabby and her attire like she thought she looked way better than she did.
Cassie approached the counter from her previous position at the espresso machine, placing her hands on the edge of the countertop.
“What can I help you with?” she asked, getting straight to the point.
“Well, you are right. I’ve never been here before, and I’m trying to find someone. Can you help me?” She searched through her oversized Chanel handbag and pulled out a slip of swanky notepaper with an address scrawled across it, showing it to Cassie.
“Do you know where this is?”
Cassie showed little countenance on her face the moment she was shown the paper. Of all the coincidences, she just happened to breeze into town, strutting into the very shop where Cassie worked. Could she really be the same gal Jordan was casually seeing in Miami? Cassie doubted Nick knew any women who wore three-inch stilettos passing through town. She knew him too well to know his busy workload had kept him in town throughout the past couple of years with little time to venture outside of Texas to meet pretty women. However, Cassie didn’t press her for information, or substantiate she knew whom she was meeting up with in Yellow Valley. Obviously, she didn’t even know who Cassie was.
When Cassie rattled off directions to the address written on the paper, and the woman left with a home-baked cream pie, Cassie turned to Gabby, whose facial expression appeared almost identical to Cassie’s at that moment. For the first in a very long time, both women were speechless over what just happened.
Gabby was the first one to speak. “Do you think that was her?”
Cassie shrugged her shoulder. “I really don’t know. It has to be her, right?”
“Well, she is looking for Nick’s address, which is where Jordan is currently residing right now. If she doesn’t know Jordan, then Nick has certainly been holding out on us about the women in his life.” Gabby drummed her fingernails against the countertop. “So what are you going to do?” she asked her best friend. “Do you think Jordan was telling you the truth when he said he wasn’t in a serious relationship with anyone?”
“Honestly, I don’t think he had any reason to lie to me. I don’t think they’re that serious right now, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to be something more than what they already are. But I’m not worried about how his current relationship status is going to affect Jake. Jordan wouldn’t do anything to threaten his growing union with our son anyway.”
Jake was her biggest priority in her life, and although Cassie didn’t think she had anything to worry about with Jordan and his relationships, she also didn’t want to let on to her best friend that buried deep down inside, there was a tiny bit of her worrying about how it might affect her own relationship with her son. She was Jake’s mother, and no woman would come into Jordan’s life and worm her way into Jake’s world in an attempt to build something he’s already got.
Cassie would simply free it from her mind, refusing to struggle over the concept that Brielle might mean something more to Jordan than he was letting on, and hoped Jake meant more to her ex-boyfriend than his sexual frustrations.
Repetitive knocks on the door startled Jordan out of his power-nap on the plush sofa in the middle of Nick’s living area, making him jump up from his position and rush to the door, where he was surprised by the visitor standing on the other side.
He was shell-shocked and speechless. He didn’t know what to say, prompting his visitor to say something first.
“Is that any way to greet someone who’s travelled as far as I have to see you?” Brielle struck a pose with one hand on her hip as if she was slightly offended by his lack of words. “It’s good to see you too, babe,” she prompted, looking him up and down with a seductive grin on her face; the distance between them had made her eager to see him again.