Read Online Jordan’s Deliverance by Tiffany Monique - Free Book Online

quickly—she’d been called out. “Repair…of…of course! And yes, I’m here for the duration,” she sputtered.
    “Very well. I am setting you up with a sleep study, my friend. This will be exactly the same as the previous studies we’ve done on you, only now you will have an observer. Preferably a close friend or significant other. This must be someone who has been present while you have slept. This must be someone who you feel safe with in your most vulnerable state. The experiment controller and I will document your physical and mental functioning from a separate observation area immediately after a night terror. You will recount every second you can remember to your partner, it will be recorded, and it will be played back to facilitate conscious recognition. When I feel we have a complete picture of the dream, you will then ‘speak’ to this night terror. Confront this demon that keeps haunting you, and then we will begin to finally bury it.”
    Annabelle rose from her chair and leaned one hip on the corner of her mahogany desk. She was silent until Jordan raised her head and met Annabelle’s dark, steady gaze. “Do you have someone you can trust to pull you from the depths of your own hell, Jordan?”
    Jordan closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Riordan’s image immediately came to the forefront.
    “I think I do, AB.”

Chapter Eleven
     
     
    Raising a tentative hand, Riordan leaned toward the monstrosity cautiously, as if it were hot to the touch. He had climbed up canyons with his bare hands, thrown grappling hooks over building ledges, and spelunked into caverns a half-mile into the earth. He had never ever been to an indoor rock wall with a lavender façade and rainbow hand/foot holds. What had happened to his friend Michael? The man had lost his mind. He gazed up to the top of the wall face and at the peak stood Michael, tossing down lines.
    “Seriously, Sin, was the cotton-candy rock wall necessary? I’m ashamed to even be touching this.”
    Michael tossed down two harnesses, yelling all the while. “Audra wants to build upper body strength after the baby is born. I’m putting an addition on the house anyway, so what’s a few extra rooms? A gym here, a shower there? I figured it was a fun way to work out together, and the kids can use it as they get older when we are here in DC. Everything I do is about the future, man, the next generation.”
    Riordan hooked his safety line to his harness, talking to himself. “Some couples invest in college funds—my best friend invests in the Barbie version of Mt. Fuji. Is my future niece or nephew climbing Everest in the next few years? Who does that…? Oh, yeah, Mr. and Mrs. Make-up-for-Lost-Time. Can we say overkill? Are you gonna build the kid a college in the backyard too? This could never be Jordan and I...”
    Then Riordan paused for a moment, dropping down to his haunches, his shoulders hunched. His chest hurt all the time, and he felt so fucking empty at the thought of his lady carrying her burdens alone.
    Who was he kidding? If she said build a tree house under the Pacific and she was heavy with his child, he’d damn well learn to scuba dive. After reading the police records, counseling notes, and hospital records that had sent Jordan’s step-father to jail for domestic violence and the autopsy records that described Jordan’s mother’s advanced cirrhosis and liver failure, he finally understood the level of pain she carried.
    “What?” Michael yelled down. “Hold on...lowering.” He easily lowered himself from the faux mountain peak, landing next to Riordan at the bottom. “What were you saying?”
    “Oh, I just said that seems like a great way to bond as a family.”
    “Exactly!” Michael exclaimed. “I never thought you’d understand. There’s only one reason you would be thinking about building families… Jordan’s got you all tied up in knots, huh? You really should put both of you out of your misery and go to her. Now that