Natural Born Daddy

Unfortunately he never got to finish the sentence. Kelly was already shaking her head, rather emphatically, it seemed to him.

She stood and glowered down at him. “Not a chance. No way. Forget it, bud. Take a hike.” She seemed to be just warming up.

The flare of unexpected temper just might be one of those previously hidden flaws he’d been hoping to discover. He tried to calm her. “You’re saying no without giving the matter any consideration at all,” he advised her. “When you do, I’m sure you’ll see—”

“Not if we both live to be a hundred and ten and we’re the only two people tottering around on the face of the earth,” she assured him.

Jordan was beginning to get an inkling that she meant it and that nothing he was likely to say tonight was going to change her mind.

“Okay, okay,” he said, defeated for the moment. “I get the picture.”

“I doubt it.”

A hasty exit seemed in order. “Maybe I’d better let you sleep on it. We can talk again tomorrow.”

Kelly drew herself up and squared off in front of him. Fire sparked in her eyes, amber lights bringing that normally placid shade of brown alive. “We can talk tomorrow, if you like,” she said emphatically, “but not about this.”

Jordan edged carefully around her and made his way to the front door. “See you in the morning.”

“Jordan?”

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

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.

What was unusual about this particular plane was the message trailing through the clear blue sky behind it: Marry Me, Kelly.

She stared at it with a sort of horrified fascination. She supposed a case could be made that it was exactly the sort of impulsive, outrageous thing the old Jordan would have dreamed up, the sort of thing she’d claimed only moments ago to miss. Her heart, in fact, turned a somersault in her chest, a slow loop-de-loop that very nearly made her giddy.

Her gaze riveted on that message, she bit back a groan. The whole blasted county was going to know about Jordan’s proposal now. Well, maybe not that Jordan was behind it, though that news would come quickly enough. Los Pinos was small enough that nothing ever stayed secret for long, including the identity of the man who’d taken his family’s plane up from the local airstrip to make his proposal in such an outrageous way. Her phone was probably ringing off the hook already.

Even as she watched, the plane made another slow loop and circled back. Just when it reached a spot directly overhead, she saw something being scattered through the sky. Like confetti falling, it drifted down until the first touch of pink landed on her cheek. Rose petals, she realized at its silky touch against her skin. The man had filled the sky with rose petals.

She sucked in a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of them, then lowered her head and rode deliberately away from the cascade of pink. Tears stung her eyes. He was making it awfully damned hard to say no. So far, though, he hadn’t come close to the one thing that would have guaranteed a yes.

She reached the house just in time to see him settling his tall, lanky frame into a rocker on the porch. At the sight of her he stilled and waited, his expression oddly hesitant. That was a new side of Jordan altogether, one that stole her breath away. Not once in all the years she’d known him had he ever appeared the least bit vulnerable. He’d always been terribly, terribly sure of himself.

“You have rose petals in your hair,” he said quietly.

“Funny thing about that,” she said just as quietly, her gaze caught with his. “They were falling from the sky.”

His mouth curved into a slow smile. “Amazing.”

“Not many men could make that happen.”

“Maybe not. I suppose it takes a man intent on making an impression.”

Kelly sighed. “Jordan, you’ve never needed messages in the sky or rose petals to make an impression on me. Don’t you know that?”

He seemed to sense that she hadn’t been as impressed as he’d hoped. “What does it take?” he asked.

She reached up and patted his cheek. “I think I’ll let you think about that awhile longer.”

Undaunted, he followed her into the house, heading straight for the kitchen as always. This time, though, he maneuvered past her and reached for the cups himself. He looked as if he needed to stay occupied, so Kelly washed up at the kitchen sink, then settled herself at the table and waited.

He filled the kettle and put it on the stove, then lingered over her selection of herbal teas. “Which one?”

“Orange spice, I think. The situation seems to call for a little zing.”

“What situation would that be?” he inquired, leaning against the counter, his gaze on her steady and unrelenting.

She really hadn’t wanted to get into this again today. In fact, she had warned him the topic was off-limits. Those blasted rose petals had made that impossible. “This notion you’ve gotten in your head,” she said.

“About marrying you?”

She grinned at his quick-wittedness. “That’s definitely the one. It appears to me that this breakup with Rexanne has hurt you more than you’re willing to admit. Perhaps it’s addled your brain.”

His eyebrows rose a fraction. “Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. Did you really love her, Jordan? Was I mistaken in thinking that she just came along at the right time, at the precise moment when you’d decided you needed a wife to complete your transformation into solid citizen?”

He went very still. “Transformation?”

Kelly almost chuckled at his expression. “I seem to recall a boy who ran away from home at seventeen to be a wildcatter on the oil rigs. Then there was the disruption you caused at the high school when you got on the public address system and performed a rock song you had composed. The lyrics, as I recall, had every teacher blushing. The principal had to take the rest of the day off, she was so stunned. And let’s see now, there was the summer you rustled a few of your own daddy’s cattle, so you could start your own herd.”

A once-familiar impish grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Not fair,” he accused. “I was only seven when I did that.”

“It was, however, the beginning of a highly notable career as the family rebel. I’m sure Harlan despaired of your ever turning into someone respectable.” She surveyed him closely, from the neatly trimmed brown hair to the tips of his polished boots, and regretted that his hair no longer skimmed his collar and his boots weren’t worn and dusty. “I’d say you beat the odds. A wife would complete the package.”

“You make it sound so cold and calculating,” he objected.

She shrugged. “If the shoe fits…”

“It doesn’t. I’m thirty years old. It’s just time I settled down.”

“When was it you decided you needed a wife?” she asked.

“What do you mean, when?”

“What was the precise date?”

“I don’t recall,” he said stiffly. “Sometime last fall, I suppose.”

“I’ll tell you precisely. It wasn’t fall at all. It was January 12, your birthday. You turned thirty with a worse midlife crisis than most men have when they’re forty-five. You made your decision. Then you looked around and chose Rexanne. When that didn’t work out, you did another survey of the candidates and decided on good old Kelly. Did you figure all alone out here, I wouldn’t put up much of a fuss before saying yes?”

He had the grace to look embarrassed by her assessment.

“Well, isn’t that exactly how it happened?” she persisted.

“Something like that,” he agreed with obvious reluctance. He regarded her with a stubborn thrust of his chin. “That doesn’t make the plan any less sound.”

“Exactly how far have you thought this through?” she inquired carefully, barely keeping a flare-up of temper in check. “Have you chosen a wedding date? Picked the caterer? Reserved the church?”

“Not exactly,” he muttered in a defensive tone, which told her that was exactly what he had done.

She was going to lose it and fling her steaming hot tea straight at him in another ten seconds. “Let me guess,” she said. “You were figuring on the same date you’d set with Rexanne and you figured the caterer could just change one of the names on the cake. The minister wasn’t likely to care who was standing next to you, isn’t that right?”

“Those are just details,” he argued. “You can pick the date, the church, the caterer and anything else you want. The sky’s the limit.”

“How thoughtful!”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

“Oh, I think I do. When a man gets the romantic notion of letting me fill in for his originally intended bride, I definitely have to get a little sarcastic,” she said, clinging to her cup so tightly her knuckles were turning white. The idea of splattering that tea all over him was looking better and better. Unfortunately the stuff was cooling too fast to do much damage and far faster than her temper.

“You have it all wrong,” he insisted. “It’s not like I plucked your name off some computer network. You and I have known each other all our lives. We’re compatible.”

“Oh, really?” she said doubtfully. She seized on the most obvious thing she could think of to point out their differences. “Where did you plan on us living?”

He seemed taken aback by the simple question. “In Houston, of course.”

“I hate Houston,” she shot back.

“No, you don’t,” he said, as if he knew her better than she did herself. “You just had a bad experience there. Paul colored the way you feel about the city.”

Kelly gritted her teeth to control her exasperation. “No,” she said eventually, when she could speak calmly. “I disliked it from the first.”

“Then why the hell did you move there?”

She would not tell him in a thousand years that she had moved there to be near him. “Because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. There were opportunities there that didn’t exist around here.”

“And there still are. Even more doors will open up to you as my wife.”

It was the last straw. “Dammit, Jordan, don’t you know me at all? I will not use you or anyone else to gain acceptance,” she said tightly. “Around here I have made my own way. I have earned the respect people have for me.”

“I never said you hadn’t,” he said. Now his exasperation was clearly growing by the second. “I’m just saying things will be easier for you as my wife.”

She sighed. “You’ll never get it.”

His expression suddenly softened and he hunkered down in front of her. His eyes were level with hers and filled with so much tenderness that Kelly wanted to gaze into them forever. “I do get it,” he said quietly. “One of the things I admire most about you is your fierce independence.”

“Then how could you even think about taking that away from me and making me nothing more than your appendage?”

His lips quirked with amusement. “Plenty of wives are able to exert their independence. Marriage isn’t likely to join two people like us at the hip. I am capable of compromise, Kelly.” His gaze caught hers. “Are you?”

The question caught her off guard. “Not if it means losing who I am.”

“I want to marry you because of who you are,” he declared. “Why would I want you to change?”

“That’s what marriage does. It changes people.”

“Not if they fight it.”

She had no ready answer for that. She was beginning to weaken and he knew it. She could read the gleam of triumph in his eyes. With his hands resting on her thighs, with his masculine scent luring her, all of the old yearnings were beginning. Heat flooded her body and made her reason vanish. She had wanted Jordan Adams as far back as she could remember. She had ached for his touch, hungered for just one of the wicked kisses that he seemed to share so freely with other women.

“You’ve never even kissed me,” she murmured without thinking.

She hadn’t meant it as a dare, only as an observation, but Jordan was quick to seize the opening. His hands, softer now than they had been when he was working his father’s ranch, but still strong, cupped her face. His thumbs gently grazed her lips until they parted on a sigh of pure pleasure. His mouth curved into a half smile at that and, still smiling, he touched his lips to hers.

The kiss was like the caress of warm velvet, soft and soothing and alluring. It made her head spin. The touch of his tongue sent heat spiraling through her, wicked curls of heat that reached places she was certain had never before been touched.

“Oh, Jordan,” she murmured on another sigh as he gathered her close and deepened the kiss until she was swimming in a whirlpool of sensation.

In her wildest imagination she hadn’t known, hadn’t even guessed at the joy a mere kiss could bring. This was Jordan, though, the man she’d always believed to be her other half. If she had known his touch would really be like this, she would have fought for him long ago. She wouldn’t have waited, patient and silent, for him to wake up and notice her. She would have overcome her shyness, shoved aside all of her fears of rejection and tried to seduce him.