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Her voice halted him in his tracks. She had obviously followed him.
“You forgot something.”
He turned back. She was holding out the box with the engagement ring. “Keep it here,” he said, refusing to accept it. “Try it on. Maybe you’ll get used to the idea.”
She tossed the ring straight at him. He caught it in midair and sighed. “I’ll bring it with me tomorrow.”
“Don’t,” she warned angrily. “I’m not some poor substitute you can call on when the first string doesn’t show.”
Jordan was shocked by her assessment, even though he had to admit there might be just the teensiest bit of truth to it. “I’m sorry. I never meant it like that,” he insisted.
She sighed heavily. “Yes, Jordan, I think that is exactly how you meant it.”
That said, she quietly closed the door in his face. He was left standing on the porch all alone. Oddly enough, it was the first time in all the visits he had paid to this house that he was leaving feeling lonelier and far, far emptier than when he had arrived.
He made up his mind as he drove the few miles back to White Pines that night that that wouldn’t be the last of it. After all, hadn’t he wooed some of the most sought-after women in all of Texas? Maybe approaching this as a business proposition hadn’t been the wisest decision. He’d try roses and, if that didn’t work, billboards along the highway, if he had to. Nobody said no to Jordan Adams. Kelly would weaken sooner or later. What struck him as slightly worrisome was the fact that it suddenly seemed to matter so much. Somewhere deep inside him he had the troubling impression that she was his last and best chance for happiness.
* * *
“The man is impossible!” Kelly declared, leaning against the front door and listening for the sound of his car driving off before she budged. She didn’t want to move until she knew for certain he wasn’t coming back. She seriously doubted she could hold out against his ludicrous proposal for very long. She’d been in love with the man practically since the cradle.
Unfortunately he had never once in all these years given her a second glance. She doubted he would be doing it now, if he hadn’t suffered a defeat in his blasted plan for his own life. Who in hell had a timetable for getting married? No one she knew except Jordan Adams. Well, he could put that plan into action without her.
“Mommy, are you okay?” Dani asked, peering up at her.
“I sure am, munchkin,” she said with more exuberance than she felt.
“You look funny.”
She grinned at the honest assessment. Bending over, she scooped her daughter into her arms and swung her high. “Funny?” she repeated indignantly. “Mommy is beautiful, remember?”
Dani giggled from her upside-down vantage point. “Very beautiful,” she confirmed. “Let me down, Mommy. My head’s getting dizzy.”
“Mine, too, sweetie,” she murmured, glancing through the window and watching the red glow of Jordan’s taillights disappear into the night.
Suddenly she thought of all the times she’d watched Jordan drive away, her heart thudding with disappointment once more because he hadn’t recognized how perfect they were for each other, because his kiss had been nothing more than a peck on the cheek.
She’d married Paul Flint only after she’d finally faced up to the fact that Jordan was never going to view her as anything more than his pal. Her world had fallen apart after that stupid, impulsive decision. Not right away, of course. It had taken a month or two before Paul had started spending more and more time away from their home. She wasn’t even certain when he’d started seeing other women.
When she finally accepted the fact that Paul was having affairs, she asked for a divorce. Jordan had been there to pick up the pieces. He hadn’t even said he’d told her so as he’d transported her and then three-year-old Dani to the ranch where Kelly had grown up.
From that moment on they had fallen into their old pattern of frequent phone calls and visits whenever he came home from Houston. She looked forward to their talks more and more. She had dreaded the day when his marriage to Rexanne would force an end to the quiet, uncomplicated time they spent together.
At least that wasn’t a problem any longer, she thought with another sigh.
“Mommy? Are you sad?” Dani inquired with her astonishing perceptiveness.
“Just a little,” she admitted.
“I know just what you need,” her daughter announced, giving her a coy look that Kelly recognized all too well.
“What’s that?”
“A new kitten.”
Kelly grinned at her child’s sneaky tactics. The suggestion was certainly a more rational one than Jordan had offered. A kitten was a whole lot less complicated than taking on a husband who’d selected her for marriage for all the wrong reasons.
“I’ll think about it,” she promised. “Now, go take your bath and get ready for bed.”
Dani bounced off toward the stairs, then halted and looked back. “Mommy?”
“Yes.”
“Think really hard, okay?”
“Okay.”
It was the second time that night that she’d been asked to carefully consider a decision that could change her life. Instinct told her to say no to both requests. Her heart was another matter entirely.
Chapter Two (#ulink_ba45bbf1-bb85-5c1d-85ed-916c665228af)
Jordan lingered over coffee at White Pines the morning after his proposal to Kelly. He’d been up since the crack of dawn, in the dining room since six-thirty. All that time he’d been pondering a new approach to the problem of getting Kelly to take his declaration of his intentions seriously. For the first time in his life, he was at a loss.
He heard the sound of boots on the stairs and glanced toward the doorway. Harlan Adams appeared a moment later, looking as fit as ever despite the fact that his fifty-sixth birthday was just around the corner. He regarded his son with surprise. Jordan suspected it was feigned, since nothing went on around White Pines that his father didn’t know within minutes.
“Hey, boy, when did you turn up?” his father asked as he surveyed the lavish breakfast buffet their housekeeper had left for them.
“Last night.”
“Must have been mighty late.”
“I’m too old for you to be checking my comings and goings,” Jordan reminded his father.
“Did I ask?”
Jordan sighed and battled his instinctive reaction to his father’s habitual, if subtle, probing. Harlan loved to goad them all, loved the spirited arguments and loved even more the rare wins he managed against his sons’ stubbornness.
According to Luke, the oldest, their father battled wits with them just to get them to stand up for what they wanted. Jordan supposed it might be true. He’d practically had to declare war to leave White Pines and its ready-made career in ranching to go into the oil business. Yet once he’d gotten to Houston, the path had miraculously been cleared for him. He’d promptly found work at one of the best companies in the state before striking out on his own a few years later.
“Everything okay around here?” he inquired as his father piled his plate high with the scrambled eggs, ham and hash browns that were forbidden to him except on weekends. He noted with some amusement that Harlan gave wide berth to the bran flakes and oatmeal.
“Things would be just fine if Cody didn’t decide he has to have some newfangled piece of equipment every time I turn around,” Harlan grumbled.
“How many have you let him buy?” Jordan asked.
His father shrugged. “Put my foot down about some fancy computer with those little disks and intergalactic communications potential or some such. I can’t even figure out the one we’ve got. Luke spent a whole day trying to show me again the last time he and Jessie were over here, but if you ask me, pen and paper are plenty good enough for keeping the books.”
Jordan hid a smile. He knew that his father’s pretended bemusement covered a mind that could grasp the most intricate details in a flash. Any trouble he was having with his computer was feigned solely to grab Luke’s attention.
“Daddy, you’re practically in the twenty-first century,” he chided. “You have to keep up with the times.”
“A lot of nonsense, if you ask me.” He grinned. “Leastways, that’s what I tell Cody. Keeps him on his toes.”
The youngest of the Adams brothers, Cody was the one who’d fought hardest for his place as the head of the White Pines ranching operation. Harlan had pushed just as hard to get him to leave and strike out on his own. Now there was little question in anyone’s mind that Cody was as integral to the family business as his father was.
“One of these days the two of you are going to butt heads once too often,” Jordan warned his father.
“Not a chance,” Harlan said with evident pride. “That boy’s stubborn as a mule. Might even be worse than you or Lucas and he’s a danged sight ornerier than Erik.”
He sounded downright happy about his youngest’s muleheadedness. He studied Jordan over the rim of his coffee cup. “You never did say what brought you home.”
“No,” Jordan said firmly. “I didn’t.”
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with that Flint woman, would it?”
Jordan’s head snapped up and he stared at his father. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because you make a beeline for that ranch every time you drive into the county. Can’t be sleeping with her, since you do wind up in your own bed here at night.”
Jordan’s jaw tightened at the too personal observation. “My sleeping arrangements are none of your concern. Besides, Kelly and I are just friends. She’s had a rough time of it these past couple of years. I try to look in on her every once in a while to make sure she’s okay.” At least, that had been his motivation until last night’s visit.
His father nodded. “She’s getting that place of hers on its feet, though. She’s got a lot of gumption and that girl of hers is a real little dickens. She called here last night to see if you’d asked yet about whether we want a kitten.”
Despite his annoyance with his father, Jordan couldn’t help chuckling at Dani’s persistence. The remark was also proof that his father had known he was back in town and had also known exactly where he was the night before. All the questions had been designed just to needle him.
“Did you agree to take one?” he asked, referring to the kittens Dani hadn’t trusted him to save.
“How could I say no? The child was worried sick about her mother drowning them all in the creek. She mentioned that you’d reassured her that wouldn’t happen, but she wasn’t taking any chances.” He eyed Jordan speculatively. “Does that pitiful excuse for a father of hers get by much?”
Jordan wasn’t surprised that his father knew the whole ugly story. It was hardly a secret, but even if it had been, Harlan made it his business to know about the folks around him, including those on neighboring ranches. He was even more persistent when it came to the women in his sons’ lives.
“Not that I’m aware of,” he told his father.
“Can’t understand a man who wouldn’t be proud to call a little one like that his own.”
“Neither can I,” Jordan said grimly. He’d expressed his views on Paul Flint more than once to Kelly, long before she’d finally decided on divorce as her only option. He’d even offered on occasion to pummel some sense into the man.
“Shame to go through life without a daddy,” Harlan observed.
Jordan regarded him intently. There was no mistaking that his father had a point to make. “Meaning?”
“Just what I said,” he insisted, sounding a little too innocent. “A child deserves two parents. Of course, a situation like that is all wrong for a man like you.”
“Now what’s your point?” Jordan’s voice contained a lethal warning note.
“Just that I understand you. You’re not looking for some country gal and a ready-made family. I’ve seen your type, glossy, sophisticated, like that…what’s her name?”
“Rexanne,” Jordan supplied automatically, used to his father’s refusal to get the names of the women in his life straight.
“Right,” he said. “Now she’s the perfect wife for a big oil tycoon.”
Jordan was beginning to wonder exactly how much his father knew about his broken engagement. It seemed to him that the digs were a little too pointed for him not to have heard about it. He’d always despised Rexanne, just as he had every other woman Jordan had brought to White Pines. His sudden defense of her was clearly part of some Machiavellian scheme of his. He’d probably been on the phone to Ginger during the week and gotten an earful about his son’s social life—or sudden lack thereof.
“I’m afraid Rexanne is out of the picture,” Jordan said tersely.
Harlan tried for a sympathetic look, but the effort was downright pitiful. There was a gleam of pure satisfaction in his eyes. “Sorry, son,” he said without much sincerity.
“She was the wrong choice. I’ll get over it.” Sooner than anyone imagined, if he had his way about it.
“It’s not surprising, then, that you were over to visit Kelly last night. She always has had a sympathetic ear, especially where you’re concerned.”
“We weren’t lamenting my love life last night,” Jordan said.
Curiosity blossomed on his father’s transparent features. “Oh?”
“We were just…talking,” he finally concluded weakly, unwilling to broach the actual subject matter of their conversation. Once Harlan got that particular bit in his teeth, there’d be no controlling his efforts at manipulation.
“Just don’t go letting her get the wrong idea now, son. You said yourself, she’s been through a lot. No point in getting her hopes up now that you’re on the rebound. No telling what a woman might do when a man is vulnerable. They can be downright sneaky when they’re out to get their hooks into a man.”
“There’s nothing the least bit sneaky or underhanded about Kelly,” Jordan snapped.
“If you say so, son. You certainly know the woman better than I do.”
Jordan didn’t think he liked the direction this conversation was heading. Any minute now his father was going to say something truly offensive about Kelly and he would leap to her defense. There was no telling what would happen after that. His mother would probably find them tussling on the dining room floor.
He tossed his napkin down on the table and stood. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Going for a ride?” his father inquired, his expression perfectly innocent.
“Yes,” he said tightly, and slammed out of the house.
Only much, much later did he wonder what he would have seen if he’d looked back. He had the strangest feeling he would have caught a complacent smile spreading across his father’s face.
* * *
With Dani visiting a friend for the day, Kelly had spent the entire morning checking on her livestock and inspecting her fences. Of course, given her state of distraction an entire section of fence could have been down and it would have slipped her notice. Fortunately the ranch hand she’d been able to afford just a month ago had been riding with her most of the day. Now, though, she was alone again, riding at a more leisurely pace.
She kept glancing toward the horizon, looking for some sign of Jordan’s car. Her ears were attuned to the sound of approaching hooves, as well, since he sometimes chose to borrow one of his father’s horses and ride over.
He still looked incredibly well suited to horse and saddle. In fact, she’d always thought he looked far more impressive and a hundred percent sexier in jeans and a chambray shirt than he did in those outrageously expensive designer suits he wore most of the time in Houston. Every time he put one of those suits on, it was as if a barrier went up between them. Sometimes she didn’t even recognize the man he’d become in Houston.
More than his clothes had changed. As if fitting himself to a role, he’d been transformed into a sophisticated executive, driven and sometimes, it seemed to her, a little too coldly dispassionate.
His proposal the night before had certainly fit the new Jordan. The old Jordan, the sensitive man who often sat in her kitchen talking until dawn, the exuberant daredevil who’d ridden over every square inch of her ranch and his own with her at midnight, would never have made such a proposition. He’d had more romance in his soul, even if little of it had been directed her way. Now she had to wonder if he’d wasted it all on that string of unsuitable gold diggers who’d spent the past few years trying to catch him.
She knew without a doubt that he wasn’t going to give up on this crazy idea he’d gotten into his head about marrying her. One of his most attractive traits was his tenaciousness. To ready herself for the next assault, she had spent the entire morning reminding herself of all the ways to say no—and mean it.
She was so busy concentrating on shoring up her defenses, she missed the plane the first time it flew over. The second time the sound of its engine drew her attention to the vivid blue sky. There was nothing especially unusual about a small plane overhead. Many of the more successful ranchers actually had their own planes to check out the far reaches of their land. Jordan’s family was one of them. Many more ranchers hired them on occasion. There was a small but active private airport nearby.
