Woody stared in disbelief at the cellar door, then came to his senses and ran up the stairs. Jordan followed closely behind him, and they both stood beneath the door, hitting it with their fists.
"Mr. Havisty!" Woody shouted.
"It's against the law to trespass," came the self-satisfied reply.
"Yeah, it's also against the law to hold an officer hostage," Woody yelled. There was no reply this time, but they could hear footsteps retreating across the gravel yard. Woody hit the door with his fist and stormed down a few stairs, turning to face the heavy wooden door. "Stand back, Jordan."
"No, Woody I don't think that's such a-" Jordan said rapidly, trying to stop Woody from his onslaught. He flew right past her up the stairs and collided solidly with the door, but with no effect. Jordan winced. "…good idea," she finished grimly.
Woody glared ruefully at the block of oak as he rubbed his throbbing shoulder. He turned and tromped down the stairs. Jordan looked after him, debating whether to comfort him or yell at him for endangering his back like that.
"Can you shoot the lock?" she asked, choosing to stay productive.
"I would, if I had my gun. But with the lock being on the other side I might run out of bullets before I even hit it."
"Since when do you not carry your gun?"
"Well, I didn't know there was the possibility of you getting us locked in a storm cellar today."
Jordan glared at him and bit the inside of her lip, hoping the pain would distract her from fighting. They were doing far too much of that lately. "Why don't you use one of the shotguns," she suggested.
"Did you see any bullets?" he asked rhetorically.
Jordan turned away from him and began looking for a crack in the wood that she could see out of, dropping her attempts to help. Woody tested his shoulder, feeling his muscles bruising already. Why was she always getting him into situations like this? For all intents and purposes, the two of them should have been arrested more than once at this point in their careers, if not killed. They had been extremely lucky, given what Jordan dragged them into. In the end, though, he couldn't think of anyone he would rather be trapped with. But he was almost sure he was no longer the center of her thoughts, not after the way he'd treated her. Not that he cared. I don't care, he told himself. I don't care, I don't care, I…do. Shit.
"This is a fantastic mess, Jordan," he muttered, not sure exactly what he was referring to.
"Oh yes, Woody, this is fitting. This is exactly what I wanted to be doing on a Saturday night," she said sarcastically.
"Keeping you away from hooking up with Jake?" he said bitterly, though his voice remained quiet.
Jordan pushed away from the door and stormed down the stairs to the center of the room. If looks could kill, Woody would have been speared to the wall.
"Okay, you want to have this out?" she seethed.
"What are you talking about?"
"What is your problem! You don't want me, but nobody else can have me either, is that it?" she fired at him, the words burning with the fears she didn't want actualized.
"Your personal life is your business, I'd just prefer not to see Jake Sutton play you," he said, his voice rising. "I got to witness that enough when I lived here."
"Oh, like you haven't done the same thing," she snapped. Woody narrowed his eyes, feeling his emotions reaching a boiling point.
"I never played you."
"Bullshit."
"With who?" he demanded. He could see the fire in her eyes – she wanted to lash him. "With who!"
"Forget it," she muttered, backing down.
"With Devan, is that what you want to say?" he nearly shouted at her. Jordan flinched. "With Santana, with a dozen other girls the fucking liars at the precinct linked me to? Go ahead, Jordan, accuse me of what you've always wanted to."
She didn't say anything. She wasn't sure what to say to him. It had been easy to dismiss many of those rumors about him and other women…but it was harder to ignore what she saw with her own eyes. His relationship with Devan had always been in the back of her mind, reminding her that Woody was still just a guy, capable of the human failings of all guys. Could she blame him for falling for the perky blonde, especially with the way things had ended? Looking down at her shoes, Jordan remained silent.
"I never slept with her," his voice was intense. "Or with anyone else. I don't play women."
He didn't add that when he had tried miserably to move on, it was always a pair of golden brown eyes staring back at him no matter who he was with. Even when Jordan pushed him to find someone else, it was inevitably her who unknowingly drove him back. He had loved Devan – as a close friend. Nothing more. Not when there was Jordan.
"That didn't stop you from seeing them, though, did it?" she countered.
"What do you want me to say, Jordan? You wouldn't let me kiss you, you would barely go out with me if more than a casual atmosphere was implied. Not exactly the definition of an exclusive relationship. And you know, I seem to remember you playing the friend card on more than one occasion. Why would it matter to you if I'm seeing someone or not?" he pressed her.
"I could ask you the same question," she said curtly.
"Would you stop avoiding what I'm asking you?" he said, taking a step closer to her.
"I'm not avoiding anything!" she said as she held her ground.
"This is so typical of you."
"I don't have to explain myself to you, I don't even know why I'm defending myself to you."
"You're impossible, do you know that?" he said, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "I don't know how to get through that stubborn Irish head of yours."
"Well I'm not quite as easy to figure out as the other women you were dating," she snapped. "Forgive me for being three dimensional."
"Yeah, a psychologist's dream."
"Jerk."
"Hypocrite."
For half a beat, they just stared at each other. Jordan wasn't sure what happened next. She wasn't sure who reached for who. All she knew was that in the next moment, Woody's arm was around her waist, pressing her against him, and her own arms were wrapped around his neck pulling him closer as his mouth claimed hers desirously. She felt his hands skirt across her back, gripping her body and making her arch against him. His lips and tongue danced with hers, making her nearly delirious. She laced her fingers in his hair, locking him to her. After what felt like hours, Woody broke away and rested his forehead against hers, working for air.
"What was that?" Jordan breathed.
Woody shook his head, opening his mouth to speak without the slightest idea of what to say. His head was still reeling from the way she had pressed against him. If he had known she could kiss like that…
Before he had a chance to speak, they heard the sound of a car pulling into the gravel yard outside. Pulling away from each other at that moment was the hardest thing either of them had ever done. But they had to get out of that cellar…although Jordan would have been okay with staying right where she was for a while longer.
Reluctantly, they stepped away from each other and went quickly up the stairs. They started banging on the door as loudly as they could, yelling to whoever it was to come let them out. Through a small crack in the wood, Jordan thought she saw a pair of legs walking towards them. A few seconds later, the lock was being opened and the door swung open, a flashlight beaming down on them.
"Woody?" a voice said, its owner's face obscured by the light. Jordan and Woody stepped out of the cellar and came face to face with Chuck from the police station. "You're the intruder George called in?"
"Is that what he said?" Woody asked.
"Said there were a couple of questionable individuals harassing him," Chuck told them with a humoring look.
"We were asking him about his connection to the murder weapon, he locked us in his cellar," Jordan explained, conveniently omitting that they had been down there without permission. Chuck raised his eyebrows.
"The knife was his?" he asked.
"We're not sure yet," Woody said.
"You want me to bring him into the station?" Chuck offered. "I know he can be a little difficult to deal with."
Woody shook his head, remembering the shotgun flashing in his face. "Give him a day to cool off."
'We can come back with a search warrant on Monday," Jordan agreed. She hoped playing by the rules would keep her in a good place with Woody.
"All right," Chuck consented, nodding his head. He looked at Woody, furrowing his brow. "You takin' to wearing colored chapstick?"
Woody's hand flew up to his mouth, wiping at his lips. He looked down and saw a faint red smear on his fingers and glanced at Jordan. She was looking at him slightly wide eyed and certainly embarrassed. What a time for her color-stay lipstick to fail her…Chuck looked from Woody to Jordan to the cellar, and then back again with a raise of his eyebrows.
"I'll see what I can do about that search warrant," he said, turning to go back to his squad car.