Friendship blossoms into romance in this reader-favorite Adams Dynasty story from New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods.

Jordan Adams proposed a marriage of convenience to single mom Kelly Flint because he thought it was time they each settled down with a perfectly compatible, always-dependable partner. After all, they'd both learned the hard way that love only leads to heartache.

But to his surprise, Kelly made Jordan feel that their marriage would be anything but platonic, and her little daughter kindled fond feelings of fatherhood in his heart. Now he had to convince Kelly that he was not only a natural born daddy…but also the perfect husband she’d been waiting for all her life.

Natural Born Daddy

Sherryl Woods

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Copyright

Prologue

“Hey, boss, the barracuda…excuse me, your fiancée is on line two,” Ginger Drake announced from the doorway.

Jordan glowered at his impudent secretary. “I’ve told you not to call her that.”

Undaunted, Ginger merely strolled into his office and perched on the corner of his desk, an act that hiked her skirt to midthigh. Jordan shook his head. If she weren’t the most efficient, most incredibly loyal young woman who’d ever worked for him, he would have fired her months ago for her tart remarks and her unrepentant intrusion into his personal life.

“You’ve also told me to be honest and truthful, no matter how much it hurts,” she informed him now. “That’s my job around here.”

“Your job is taking dictation and typing.”

“And keeping you happy,” she reminded him. She gestured at the blinking phone line. “She does not make you happy. She is a b—”

“Don’t say it,” he warned, reaching for the phone.

Ginger shrugged. “Well, she is, which you could see for yourself, if you weren’t blinded by the size of her—”

“Ginger!” He pointed toward the door. “Out!”

“Just doing my job,” she said, and sashayed from the room with a provocative sway of her hips.

Unable to resist, Jordan watched that motion with an appreciative eye. If he hadn’t known that she was blissfully married to a linebacker for the Houston Oilers, he would have assumed that Ginger was trying to get his attention. Instead, he knew perfectly well that feminine provocation came as naturally and unselfconsciously to her as flirting with the opposite sex did to him. The difference was, he had tired of it.

Being named one of the city’s most eligible bachelors the past five years in a row had lost its charm. He was ready to settle down. The woman on the phone was the candidate he’d chosen six months ago from the string of female acquaintances who accompanied him to the various charity functions that made up the bulk of his social life.

“Hey, darlin’, how are you?” he said to Rexanne Marshall once Ginger was out of hearing range with the office door firmly shut behind her. “How was the convention?”

“Interesting,” Rexanne said in that deliberately smoky voice that oozed sensuality and, as she well knew, sent goose bumps dancing down his spine.

He settled back in his chair and asked, “Did you make any big deals?” Rexanne really got turned on by her deal making. He could practically envision their passionate reunion.

“You could say that.”

Jordan thought he heard something odd in her tone, a hint of strain that was rare for the supremely confident, highly successful owner of a small but thriving Texas cosmetics company. It was a company poised to make a major move into the national marketplace with his financial backing.

“Rexanne, is everything okay?”

“Jordan…”

He could hear her swallowing and suddenly his body went absolutely still. She had bad news. He could tell from that increasingly evident note of uncertainty in her voice. He sat up a little straighter.

“Whatever it is, just tell me,” he instructed. He’d meant to sound patient and concerned, but even he recognized the drill-sergeant command in his voice.

“Actually, it was the most amazing thing,” she began with a nervous little giggle.

Rexanne was quite possibly the most sophisticated woman he’d ever met. She never giggled. His suspicions tripled as he waited for her to go on.

“I ran into this man, an old friend, actually, from high school, as a matter of fact.”

Now the woman who never wasted a word was babbling. Jordan’s sense of dread kicked in. He stood and began to pace, phone in hand. “And?”

“Well, the truth of it is…Jordan, I’m really sorry about this, but…”

“Just spit it out, Rexanne.”

“Randall and I got married,” she blurted at last. “In Vegas.”

Rexanne and Randall? How alliterative, he thought with an uncharacteristic edge of sarcasm. Married? How considerate of her to give him fair warning. The same society page columnists who’d been gushing about their engagement would be gossiping about this turn of events for weeks. It was only one step short of being left at the altar. He didn’t like the prospect of being the subject of speculation and innuendo. He didn’t like it one damned bit.

“I see,” he said coldly. Not entirely sure of the protocol for the circumstances, he went with his gut reaction, which was liberally laced with more sarcasm. “Thank you so much for calling, Rexanne. Have a nice life.”

“Now, Jordan, please don’t be like that,” she whined.

Why had he never noticed that she whined? he wondered. Probably because he’d given in to her every request, showered her with gifts and never once in the months since they had announced their engagement exchanged a cross word with her. Of course, that was probably because Rexanne had tucked herself so neatly and cheerfully into his life, he’d had no reason to complain.

“Darling, I know it’s a shock and I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world, but this was, like, fate or something,” she said in a more familiar, smoky, cajoling tone.

“Fate?” he repeated numbly. “Yes, I suppose it was.” Fate had benevolently prevented him from having to listen to that whine for the rest of his days. She could ooze sensuality from now to doomsday and he would never stop hearing that whine. It would lurk in his memory like the sound of chalk squeaking across a blackboard.

“Darling, you can’t let this change in our personal status interfere with the business arrangement we have,” she protested. “You’re too much of a businessman. You and I are going to take Marshall Cosmetics to the top around the globe. We’re going to make a fortune.”

Ah, now they were getting to her real concern, not his feelings, but her future plans for Marshall Cosmetics. “Sorry, darlin’, I’m afraid that’s going to be up to you and Randall.”

“But you promised,” she whined.

The sound of her voice was really getting on his nerves. “So did you,” he reminded her icily. “Goodbye, Rexanne.”

He hung up before she could launch into an attempt to sugarcoat the now-obvious truth—that she had wanted his money and his connections to Wall Street more than she had ever wanted him.

As he sat staring out at the sweeping view of the Houston skyline, he wondered at his lack of emotion. Shouldn’t he have felt more than this vague irritation that his plans for settling down had been disrupted? Shouldn’t he be feeling empty inside? Shouldn’t he be throwing things? He hefted a Baccarat crystal paperweight consideringly, then shrugged and lowered it to his desk. She wasn’t worth it.

Maybe he was incapable of the kind of passion that his older brother Luke had found with Jessie. Maybe, he conceded, he’d gone about finding a wife too methodically.

Or maybe the incredible judgment that had propelled him to the top of the oil industry didn’t carry over into personal matters. Maybe he was doomed to make the same mistakes over and over, trusting the wrong women.

It wasn’t, he admitted to himself ruefully, as if Rexanne had been the first. There had been a whole damned army of poor choices, starting back in college and continuing right up through this latest debacle. Oddly enough, he realized he couldn’t even recall the names of most of them. Obviously his heart had never been as engaged as he’d thought it had been.

Finally, dragging in a deep breath, he pushed the problem aside for further consideration on the weekend. He was almost tempted to make a notation to himself on his calendar, so he wouldn’t forget. Women ought to be enough of a reminder. He reached for his daybook and dutifully jotted it down. He would matter-of-factly dissect his love life as he would a business proposition to see if he could pinpoint where he was going wrong.

He turned back to his desk just in time to see Ginger poking her head into his office. The grin on her face made him wonder if she’d been eavesdropping on his conversation. She’d apparently seen all along what he hadn’t, that Rexanne was a barracuda. No doubt that smile meant she was delighted that the woman was out of his life.

“Hey, boss, didn’t you hear me buzzing you?” she asked.

“If I had, I would have answered,” he retorted irritably.

Her grin widened. She knew, all right, he decided with a sinking feeling. It appeared his latest humiliation was complete. There would be weeks of hearing I told you so from her, interspersed with renewed attempts at matchmaking. Maybe he’d finally give in. Ginger’s taste couldn’t possibly be any worse than his own, though she did seem to know a disturbing number of professional cheerleaders.

“Line one,” she prompted him. “It’s Kelly.”

For some inexplicable reason, Jordan found himself smiling back at his secretary. If there was one person on the face of the earth who could take his mind off his troubles, it was Kelly Flint. She was his best friend, his confidante, his conscience. She had an angel of mercy’s sense of timing.

As he reached for the phone the most incredible thought flashed through his head. Why the devil couldn’t he marry a woman like Kelly? She was sweet, not the least bit temperamental, funny and, though he’d never really stopped to think about it before—at least not since the days when they’d gone swimming in the creek together back in west Texas—sexy. In fact, just thinking about her sex appeal made him wonder why he hadn’t settled on Kelly as the perfect solution long ago.

“Why, indeed?” he murmured thoughtfully, picturing her in his head and liking what he saw—clean-scrubbed, basic beauty with absolutely no artifice about her. Better yet, he knew for a fact that she didn’t have a duplicitous bone in her body. She would never betray the man she loved.

“What was that, boss?” Ginger asked, regarding him with a puzzled look.

“Nothing,” he said, because confiding in Ginger would only draw more advice than he could handle right now. “Nothing at all.”

Something told him, though, that the disclaimer was more than a massive understatement. He had a feeling he had just reached the most significant turning point in his entire life. He mentally scratched the subject of women from his calendar and replaced it with one word: Kelly.

By the end of the day he would have his plan for marrying her formulated and by the weekend he’d be ready to put it into action. Unless something unforeseen popped up, he and Kelly could be married and settled down by fall. He wouldn’t even have to alter the schedule he’d set for himself when he’d asked Rexanne to marry him.

Pleased with himself, he finally poked the blinking light on his phone. “Hey, darlin’,” he said, taking what he perceived to be the first step on the road to the rest of his life.

Chapter One

Jordan drove up the dusty, shaded lane to Kelly’s ranch in west Texas with a rare knot in his stomach. Once he’d gotten the idea of marrying her into his head, he hadn’t been able to shake it loose. It had been like a burr, sticking to him and snagging his attention at the oddest times.

The only thing that had prevented him from impulsively proposing to her on the phone when she’d called his office earlier in the week was Ginger’s fascinated expression as she stood beside his desk the whole time he was on the phone. He had a gut-level feeling that even though his secretary might have applauded Rexanne’s replacement, there was something vaguely tacky about proposing to a woman not five minutes after being dumped by the previous fiancée.

Over the next few days the previously implausible idea of marrying his best friend had begun to take shape in his head. He could actually envision Kelly at his side for the rest of his life.

As he’d reminded himself when the idea first came to him, she was calm, sweet and beautiful, at least when she wasn’t covered head-to-toe in filth from a rough day on the range. Of course, that wouldn’t be a problem once they were married and she was living with him in Houston. She’d have endless hours to pamper herself.

With her glowing skin, her hair the color of wheat in sunlight, and her unexpected brown eyes, she would knock the socks off of Houston society. With her warmth, she would be an asset as a hostess for the kinds of functions that were required of a corporate president. His friends and associates would find her tales of running her own ranch intriguing, if something of an oddity for a woman alone.

Well, not alone, exactly, he reminded himself. There was Danielle. The preschooler was the by-product of Kelly’s unfortunate marriage to Paul Flint, a philanderer of the first order, a man who had taken Kelly’s tender, trusting heart and broken it into pieces.

Hands clenched and temper barely contained, Jordan had witnessed most of that particular debacle. He’d provided the shoulder for Kelly to cry on when she’d finally decided to end the marriage and take her daughter home to Los Pinos, the tiny west Texas town where they’d grown up on neighboring ranches.

Danielle was a bit of a complication, he had to admit. He was lousy with kids. He had no idea what to say to them. In all of his plans for settling down, he rarely considered the next step—kids.

He thought back to the previous Christmas. When his sister-in-law had shown up at the family ranch with his infant niece, he’d been completely stymied about what to do with that fragile little baby. Even the prospect of holding her had made his palms sweat. He’d tried not to let his reaction show, but he had known that he had negotiated multimillion-dollar business deals with less display of nerves.

Danielle was equally perplexing to him, even though in a fit of sentiment he’d allowed himself to be persuaded to be her godfather.

The child was barely three feet tall, he reminded himself. At five, she already had an astonishing and precocious vocabulary. Surely he could find a way to communicate with her. If nothing else, he could always buy her half the stock at Toys Unlimited. She’d be so busy with all those new playthings, she wouldn’t require any attention at all from him.

Satisfied that he’d dealt with that potential problem in his usual decisive way, he drew in a deep breath and rehearsed what he would say to Kelly to persuade her to marry him. For all of his planning, this part had never quite solidified the way it should have. He kept envisioning her laughing in his face, amused by his out-of-the-blue proposal after all these years of platonic friendship.

Perhaps he should simply tell her that she was the answer to his prayers, someone he liked, someone he trusted.

Someone who could keep him out of the clutches of the wrong women. Even as the words formed, he groaned. Telling her that would certainly go a long way toward charming her. No matter how unemotional she might be, even a woman who’d been chosen as the solution to a problem of sorts wanted to be wooed a little. As a practical matter, he knew Kelly would see the sense of his proposal, but he would definitely have to dress it up with a little romance.

Damn, how was he going to pull this off? Kelly was the most fiercely independent woman he’d ever met, especially since her divorce. She might not want to marry anyone after her experience with Paul, especially not a man who, at one time or another, had been pictured on the society pages with half of Houston’s eligible female population. His track record, though certainly not immoral, might be a too vivid reminder of her ex’s habits.

Since the divorce, Kelly had taken charge of her life. She had returned to the falling down ranch her family had left her and tackled the task of making it work with the kind of gritty determination he couldn’t help but admire.

For the past two years she had worn herself ragged, working from before dawn until well after dark, seven days a week. The ranch hardly had a look of prosperity about it, but there was no mistaking that her efforts were paying off. There was fresh paint on the old house, inside and out, and her herd of longhorns was growing. Even now the livestock was visible in the distance, grazing on newly acquired pastureland she had bought with every penny of her divorce settlement.

The hard work should have taken its toll, but, he was forced to admit, in recent months Kelly had never looked healthier or happier. She no longer had the haggard, tight-lipped, stricken look of a woman who’d been betrayed by the man she’d loved. In fact, she glowed, radiating a sense of serenity and bone-deep satisfaction that had made visiting her the highlight of his trips home.

Whenever the weighty sense of family that Harlan Adams imposed on all of his sons grew too burdensome, Jordan slipped away from White Pines and spent time in Kelly’s kitchen, sipping the herbal tea she preferred and talking of inconsequential things that somehow all added up to a kind of tranquility he found nowhere else in his life. The thought of spending the rest of his days around a woman capable of creating such a peaceful atmosphere soothed him.

Okay, so they wouldn’t be marrying for love. Neither of them had had much luck with messy emotions anyway. An old-style marriage of convenience struck him as the sensible way to go. Kelly would never have to worry about money for herself or her daughter again and he would never have to deal with another female barracuda.

As he walked toward the front porch of the ranch house, a porch that sagged and dipped from years of use and sloppy construction, he noted the huge pots of bright flowers she tended with such care in the evenings. They were thriving, the blossoms providing vivid splashes of color against the front of the white house.

Already anticipating their life together, he sighed with contentment. Kelly was a nurturer. Like those flowers, he and any children they ultimately might have would thrive in her care. Assuming he got over this uneasiness he felt with these pint-size enigmas, that is.

He fingered the small jewelry box in his pocket and smiled, pleased with his decision. Kelly’s fat gray-and-white cat wound between his legs, purring and shedding on his navy pants. Jordan glanced down, felt a momentary touch of annoyance, then sighed. The old tomcat was part of the package and at least he seemed delighted by Jordan’s presence.

With a rare twinge of trepidation, he knocked on the screen door and called out, “Hey, darlin’, it’s me.”

He heard the thunder of tiny feet as Dani came careering around a corner and raced down the hallway. She skidded to a halt, her blond curls bouncing.

“Hi, Jordan,” she said, swinging the screen door wide and coming out to join him. “Mommy’s in the barn. Francie’s having kittens. A lot of kittens.”

Jordan cringed. “Really?”

“Want to come see?”

He would rather eat dirt, but the sparkle of anticipation in Dani’s eyes was too powerful to resist. “Sure.”

To his astonishment, Dani tucked her hand trustingly in his and tugged him around the side of the house toward the barn. “You could have one, if you wanted,” she told him.

“I work very long hours. I’m not sure what I’d do with a kitten in Houston,” he said, trying to sound as if he regretted it when the truth was he couldn’t have been more relieved.

“Cats don’t mind if you’re not home very much. They’re very independent,” she informed him. “We hardly ever see Francie, except when she’s going to have kittens.”

Old Francie reminded him of certain types of people who only turned up when they were in trouble. He hoped Kelly wasn’t going to view his visit that way.

Dani stopped on the path in front of him, her face turned up, her brow knitted with concern. “Mommy says we have to give all of them away,” she told him.

Her eyes suddenly and, Jordan thought, rather suspiciously filled with tears.

“What if we can’t find homes for them?” she asked, sounding pathetic. “Will we have to drown them in the creek?”

The little minx was pulling out all the stops. Jordan choked back a chuckle at the preposterous notion that Kelly would allow harm to come to a single kitten. “No, Dani, I seriously doubt that your mother would drown them in the creek. Where would you ever get such an idea?”

“That’s what Daddy said should happen to kittens.”

“But you didn’t do it, did you?”

“No, because I found homes for every single one.” She looked up at him speculatively. “Maybe they’d like a new kitten at White Pines. I’ll bet there are mice there and everything. A kitten would be a big help.”

“I’ll ask,” he told her, wondering what his mother would have to say about a kitten scratching her precious antique furniture.

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

A radiant smile spread across her face. “Thanks, Jordan. I really, really think you should take one, too. So you won’t be lonely.”

Actually, he had another idea for staving off loneliness. He glanced up and saw the very woman he had in mind standing in the barn, hands on slender hips, a challenging spark in her eyes as she regarded her daughter.

“You have your work cut out for you, young lady,” Kelly announced, barely sparing a glance for Jordan. “There are seven kittens in here. Francie’s tuckered out and so am I. See to it that Francie has some fresh food and water.”

“Cream, Mommy. Don’t you think she deserves cream just this once? Having kittens is hard work.”

“Fine, bring her some cream.”

Dani tore off across the lawn as fast as her churning little legs could carry her.

“And don’t put it in a good china bowl! Use plastic,” Kelly shouted after her. Finally she glanced at Jordan. “What brings you by on a Friday night? You didn’t mention anything about coming home when we talked earlier in the week.”

Jordan shrugged. He was struck by an uncharacteristic twinge of uncertainty. He tucked his hand into his pocket and tightened his grip around the jewelry box for reassurance. “Just an impulse.”

“Come on in. I’ll make us some tea. Chamomile, I think. You look almost as frazzled as I feel.”

“You don’t look frazzled,” he noted even though it was a charitable remark. Her hair was tousled, her makeup nonexistent, her clothes caked with mud and hay and other stains that didn’t bear too close a scrutiny.

Inside the cozy kitchen, which was shadowed in the gathering twilight, she smiled at him. She took down two china cups and placed them on the kitchen table. “And you’re a lousy liar, despite all that practice you get dispensing your charm all over Houston. How’s the oil business?”

“Challenging.”

Attuned as always to his moods, she paused while filling the teakettle with water. “Bad week?”

“No worse than most.”

Her gaze narrowed. “That doesn’t sound convincing, old chum.”

Jordan picked up the empty cup and turned it slowly in his hands. The fine porcelain was cracked and chipped, but he found the delicacy oddly enchanting. Flaws, he’d discovered over time, often made people, like china, more interesting. He wondered what flaws Kelly had. After all these years, he could think of none. Discovering them suddenly struck him as a fascinating pastime.

“Jordan?”

He looked up from the fragile cup and saw that Kelly was regarding him with a puzzled expression. Those huge brown eyes of hers were filled with concern.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Rexanne broke the engagement,” he announced casually.

“Good,” Kelly replied without the slightest hint of sympathy.

“Damn,” he muttered irritably. “Did everybody dislike her except me?”

“I didn’t dislike her,” Kelly corrected. “I just thought she was all wrong for you.”

“Why?”

“She was using you.”

“Weren’t they all,” he said dryly.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” she said as she poured the boiling water into the pot, tossed in a handful of tea leaves and waited for it to steep.

“Have you ever approved of any woman I’ve dated?”

Kelly took the question he’d intended to be sarcastic seriously. “There was one, back in college. I think her name was Pamela. You dumped her after the first date.”

“And she was right for me?”

“I didn’t have all that long to check out her sincerity,” she reminded him, “but, yes, I think she could have been. She was sweet.”

Jordan scowled. Sweet? Perhaps innocuous would have been a better description. He didn’t even remember a Pamela, which didn’t say much for either her or him.

“Actually, I think my taste is improving,” he said, his gaze fixed on Kelly’s face. There was no immediate reaction beyond a faint flicker of something in her eyes, something he couldn’t quite identify. She seemed slightly more alert, perhaps even a little wary.

“You’ve already found a replacement for Rexanne? Isn’t that a little cavalier?”

“Not really. I told you a long time ago that I thought it was time for me to settle down.”

“Right, so you proposed to the first woman to cross your path after that, and look where that got you.”

“She wasn’t the first woman to cross my path,” he protested. “I was seeing several women at the time. Rexanne seemed like the best choice.”

“Maybe out of that lot, but did you ever stop to consider there was slim pickings in that bunch?” She waggled a slender finger at him. “I’ll answer that. No, you did not. You just decided you wanted to be married and filled the opening as methodically as you would have a position at your company. You probably had a stupid checksheet.”

She wasn’t all that far off the mark, though he wouldn’t have told her that for another gusher in his oil fields. “Well, I’m not going to be so hasty about it this time,” he said.

“You just told me you’ve identified the woman you want to marry. It’s been what? Two days? Maybe three since your engagement broke off?”

“Four, actually.”

She rolled her eyes. “Definitely long enough,” she said with a touch of unfamiliar sarcasm. “Jordan, why can’t you just relax and let nature take its course?”

He gave her a disdainful look. “I don’t have a lot of faith in nature.”

She gave him a wry look. “You would if you’d been in that barn with me an hour ago.”

“I don’t think the fact that your tomcat can’t keep his paws off of Francie is a testament to nature in its finest moments.”

She shrugged, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Okay, you may have a point about that. So, who’s the latest woman to capture your fancy?”

He leveled a look straight into her eyes and waited until he was sure he had her full attention. “Actually, it’s you.”

Kelly—calm, serene, unflappable Kelly—succumbed to a coughing fit that had her eyes watering and Jordan wondering if he’d gone about this in an incredibly stupid way. It wouldn’t be the first time the direct method had failed him.

Still, he was determined to make her see the sense of this. All of those lectures he’d given himself about dressing it up with a little sweet talk flew out the window. He set out to hammer home the logic.

“It’s a perfectly rational decision…” he began.

“You’re not serious,” she said when she could finally speak.

He pulled the jewelry box from his pocket and placed it on the kitchen table in front of her. Since she was eyeing it as if it were a poisonous rattler, he flipped it open to reveal a stunning three-carat diamond that pretty well proclaimed him to be dead serious. Despite its impressive size, it was simpler than the engagement ring he’d purchased at Rexanne’s urging. She’d wanted flashy. Kelly struck him as the kind of woman who would admire simplicity. Gazing into her eyes, however, he had the sinking feeling that admiration for his taste in rings was the last thing on her mind.

“You’ve obviously lost your mind,” she said, but her voice was softer now and laced with something that might have been regret.

“Quite the contrary. It’s the only rational decision for both of us.”

“Rational,” she repeated as if it were a dirty word.

There was an ominous undercurrent he didn’t quite get. “Actually, yes. I’ve given it quite a lot of thought. We’ve known each other forever—there won’t be any nasty surprises. We’ve both had more than our share of those. I can give you the kind of life and financial security you deserve.”

“And I can give you…what? A hostess? A cook, perhaps? A bed partner on cold nights?”

Jordan could feel the blood climbing into his cheeks as she enumerated some of the very thoughts that had occurred to him. They’d sounded better in theory than they did spoken out loud by a woman who was clearly insulted. She wasn’t taking this well at all. He searched for a new approach. “Now, Kelly…”

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.

If only she were more than a means to an end, if only he really, truly loved her, she would say yes to him in a heartbeat, if only to guarantee that incredibly rare moments like this would never end.

When at last he released her, Jordan looked almost as dazed as she felt. His hands lingered on her face as if he couldn’t bear to break the contact.

“Was that a yes?” he asked.

Kelly listened to her heart and heard yes repeated over and over. Her head, though, was louder. “No,” she said with more regret than she’d ever felt about anything she’d ever done.

“But…”

She touched a finger to his lips. “Don’t argue. This isn’t about all the clearheaded, rational arguments you can mount. It’s not about bullying me until you get your way.”

Jordan looked as lost as if she’d been talking about astrophysics. “What, then?”

“Think about it,” she advised him, hiding a grin at his confusion. “I’m sure it will come to you eventually.”

Now that he’d really, truly kissed her, now that she knew the first faint stirrings of all the passionate possibilities in his arms, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to bear it if it didn’t.

Chapter Three

“He is clueless,” Kelly declared to Jordan’s sister-in-law Jessie a few weeks later.

Kelly hadn’t been around when Jessie’s marriage to Erik Adams ended with his tragic death in a ranch accident. Jessie had been pregnant with Erik’s baby at the time. By the time Kelly had returned to Los Pinos, Luke, the oldest of the Adams brothers, had delivered the baby during a blizzard and he and Jessie had fallen in love and married. Whenever the two of them came home to White Pines with their daughter, Jessie slipped away for a visit and the kind of girl talk they rarely got elsewhere. Over the past months, Kelly had come to consider her a good friend.

“For a man widely regarded as brilliant, I think his synapses regarding women short-circuited sometime around puberty,” Kelly added as she kneaded her bread dough with a ferocity that had Jessie grinning.

“You love him, though, don’t you?” Jessie teased. Regarding Kelly intently, she reached over to still her flour-covered hands.

Kelly gazed into blue eyes filled with concern and sighed heavily. Eventually she drew in a calming breath and shrugged. “Depends on when you ask.”

“I’m asking now.”

“Now I’m exasperated, annoyed, perplexed and bordering on murderous.” Her temper flared up all over again. “He actually thinks I’ll pack up Dani and move back to Houston. Wasn’t he even awake during my marriage to Paul? Did he miss every single one of the opinions I expressed about the city during the entire drive from Houston back to this ranch? Has he been oblivious to how hard I’ve worked to make a go of this place? Can’t he see how I love it?”

“Maybe he can see that the work is wearing you out. Maybe he just assumes a wife should want to live where her husband lives,” Jessie suggested. “There is a tradition of that sort of thing. Whither thou goest, et cetera.”

“Well, times have changed. I’ve been there, done that. I’m perfectly happy right here.”

“You look exhausted to me.”

“So what? I didn’t say it was easy. I said I loved it. Every little improvement I’m able to accomplish around here gives me a deep sense of satisfaction. How can I give that up to go be some socialite wife?”

“It doesn’t have to be an either-or situation. Compromise,” Jessie said.

“He used the same word, but he doesn’t know the meaning of it,” Kelly said with conviction. Jordan was the kind of man who knew exactly what he wanted and assumed the rightness of it. Control was second nature to him. He was more like his father in that respect than he had ever acknowledged.

She sighed. “When I came back here after the divorce, I really needed to figure out who I was. I was no longer the teenager with the crush on the boy next door. I was no longer Paul Flint’s cheated-on spouse. I didn’t know who I was. I’m still rediscovering myself. I don’t want to need anyone ever again.”

“Then don’t marry him.”

“Have you ever tried to say no to Jordan?” Kelly inquired dryly. “Short of barring the front door, disconnecting the phone and never looking out the windows, I can’t seem to avoid these declarations of intent he’s been dreaming up for the past month. Did you look in the living room? There must be seven dozen roses in there. I sneeze when I walk through the door. Worse, Dani’s beginning to ask a lot of questions. I’ve avoided answering them so far, but that can’t go on much longer. She’s a very perceptive child and all those roses are hard to kiss off.” She hesitated. “That’s another thing that worries me.”

“What?”

“Dani. Jordan acts as if he’s scared to death of her sometimes.”

Jessie nodded. “I can believe that. The first time he held Angela, he looked as if he might faint. Obviously he’s just not used to being around kids.”

“Maybe,” Kelly said doubtfully. “What if it’s more than that? What if he just plain doesn’t like children?”

“You asked him to be Dani’s godfather. Obviously, you trust him instinctively with your child. Give him time around Dani and see how it goes. How does she behave around him?”

“Dani misses her father desperately. She looks at Jordan with so much hope in her eyes sometimes that it breaks my heart. She wants a daddy. I’m not sure she’s too particular about who it is. That’s another reason to keep all this nonsense from her. If she learns that Jordan has proposed, she’ll stop at nothing to make it happen. Have you ever tried to say no to a stubborn five-year-old? Between worrying about her finding out and fending off Jordan, the whole thing is wearing me out.”

“I think it’s supposed to wear you down.”

Kelly sighed. “That, too.”

* * *

Jordan was beginning to wonder if Kelly was right, that he had lost his mind. For the past month he’d spent an awful lot of time trying to outguess a woman he had known forever, a woman he’d been certain he understood completely. It was a damned confounding turn of events.

Not that he didn’t love a challenge. He did. He’d just never expected his old pal Kelly to provide it. To his everlasting chagrin, he had expected her to say yes to his proposal without giving the matter a second thought. The plan was so sensible, he didn’t see how she could say anything else.

As for that kiss they’d shared, his body hardened every time he thought about it. Who would have guessed that good old Kelly had that much passion inside her? Once he’d recovered from the shock, he’d realized that it was a benefit he hadn’t even considered when he’d made his choice. Discovering that he wanted her physically was a hell of a bonus.

Years ago, when he’d experienced the first faint stirrings of desire for her, he’d forced them aside. His father had always told him there were women for marrying and women for dalliances. He had known with certainty even then that Kelly was the kind of woman a man married, not the kind he experimented with. That kiss a few weeks back, though, had hinted that she might have shared that early attraction. There had seemed to be a lot of pent-up emotion behind it.

He glanced up just in time to see Ginger taking her usual place on the corner of his desk. Her skirt hitched up a practically indecent three inches, exposing shapely thighs. Her attempt to tug it lower failed dismally. One of these days he really was going to have to have a talk with her about office decorum.

“Don’t you ever sit in a chair?” he grumbled.

“Sure,” she said easily. “At my desk. At yours, this is better. So, what’s it going to be today? Roses? Candy? Balloons? A trip to the moon?”

Jordan sighed. He was running out of ideas. “What would have worked on you?”

“I’m easy. I’d have caved in after the first two or three dozen roses,” she said readily. “Of course, DeVonne did have to get a little creative. He actually told me he loved me. Have you mentioned anything along those lines to Kelly?”

He could feel patches of color climbing into his cheeks. Ginger’s expression told him she could interpret exactly what that meant. She regarded him with a mix of disgust and pity.

“You haven’t, have you? Jordan Adams, you don’t deserve a woman like Kelly. You’re some kind of throwback to another era. You think you’re doing her some great favor just by asking, don’t you?”

“Of course not.”

Ginger rolled her eyes. “Work on that delivery, boss. It’s not believable. You probably told her something romantic like how she’d never have to work another day in her life or how she could attend teas with all the hoity-toity people in Houston society, am I right?”

It was close enough that Jordan could feel another rush of blood up the back of his neck. He scowled at his secretary. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Just taking care of your love life. Once you make up your mind what you’re sending today, I’ll place the order. Then I’m out of here. I’m taking the afternoon off.” Her eyes sparkled with anticipation. “DeVonne is taking me in-line skating tonight. It’s our anniversary. I intend to look sexy as hell for the occasion.”

“In-line skating? And you call me unromantic,” Jordan muttered.

“We met in-line skating,” Ginger informed him huffily. “Bumped smack into each other. Believe me, when you smack into a professional linebacker, you’re down for the count. When I finally caught my breath, I took one look into those big blue eyes of his and it whooshed straight out of me again. The man is awesome.”

She wagged her pencil at him, obviously hinting she was ready to take notes. “So, what’s it going to be today?” she asked again. “Try to be original, boss. Even I’m getting bored and I’m not on the receiving end.”

“More roses, I suppose,” he said, sounding thoroughly defeated even to his own ears.

Ginger shook her head. “Enough with the roses already. She’s bound to be sick of them. I think I’ll make it orchids. And if you don’t have anything better to do this afternoon, I’d suggest you go to the mall and pick out some outrageously expensive perfume to send tomorrow.”

He stared at her blankly. “What kind?”

“Something French and sexy. Something that will drive you wild when you get a whiff of it.”

He thought Kelly smelled pretty good as it was, fresh and clean. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to smell like a Paris whorehouse. This might be another of those times when it would be best to go with his own instincts and ignore Ginger’s. “I’ll look around,” he promised.

An hour later, after wandering through a mall indecisively, he walked past a lingerie shop. He stopped in his tracks and stared openmouthed at the display in the window. All that silk and lace would definitely drive a man wild. He tried to imagine Kelly’s reaction if she opened a box and found something like that inside. Would she slap him upside the head? Laugh at him? Or would her imagination kick into overdrive the way his was doing? Would she finally realize that he truly thought of her as a sexy, provocative woman? He figured it was worth the risk.

After glancing around to see if he was being observed, he sucked in a deep breath and marched inside. He’d never seen so many silky underthings in his life. Each struck him as more daring and sensual than the next.

“May I help you?” a girl barely out of her teens inquired perkily. A Ginger-in-training, he decided.

“I’d like to buy something for a lady.”

She grinned. “I’m relieved,” she said. “I doubt we’d have anything in your size.”

The unexpected joke, which also reminded him of his secretary, released some of his anxiety. “I don’t have a clue about sizes and stuff like that,” he admitted.

“Is she about my size? Bigger? Smaller?”

“A little taller,” he said without hesitation, then paused. The rest seemed downright intimate to be discussing with this total stranger. She was watching him expectantly, though. She was probably used to men fumbling around with embarrassment.

“Maybe a little bigger…” He cleared his throat. “On top,” he added in a choked voice.

She grinned again without batting an eye. “Got it. And on the bottom?”

He thought of Kelly’s cute, sassy little behind. “Curvy,” he said. “But not too big.”

The teenager grinned. “Okay. Now, did you want a teddy? A negligee? Bra? Panties?”

He was stymied. His gaze went back to the item that had drawn his attention to the window. Rexanne had owned something similar, but seeing her in it had never seemed to stir him the way just the thought of seeing Kelly wearing one did. He had no idea what it was called.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“A teddy. It’s from France. Very chic.”

Ginger had said he ought to get something from France that was capable of driving him wild. Another glance at the teddy told him that ought to do it. No question about it. With Kelly in it—or mostly out of it—he wouldn’t be able to catch his breath for a month.

“I’ll take that.”

“In red, black, pink or blue?”

“All of them.”

The clerk’s eyes lit up, which hinted that he might have made a mistake not asking about the price. He didn’t care. “Can you wrap them?”

“Absolutely.”

Fifteen minutes later he exited the store with his elegantly wrapped package. An hour later he was driving straight toward west Texas at a speed that openly defied state law. This was one gift he intended to give her in person. Tonight. And he was too damned impatient to waste time waiting around in an airport to be on his way. Besides, a long drive was the only way he could think of to cool off before he scared her to death by making it plain exactly how badly he wanted her.

* * *

The pounding on the front door woke Kelly from a sound sleep. She glanced at the clock beside her bed. It was well after two in the morning. She automatically sniffed the air for the smell of smoke. A fire was the only thing she could think of that would cause all this uproar at this hour. The air smelled summer fresh with just a hint of the flowers she’d planted in pots on the porch below.

Grabbing her old chenille robe from the foot of the bed, she belted it tightly around her and glanced outside. She spotted Jordan’s car parked haphazardly in front of the house. So much for the who, she thought wearily. All that remained was the why. Why would he be carrying on like a lunatic in the middle of the night? She’d sent him a polite thank-you note for the gifts. Maybe he hadn’t considered it adequate, but this was hardly an appropriate hour to discuss her lack of manners.

She hurried down the stairs, pausing only to reassure a sleepy-eyed Dani that there was no problem.

“Go on back to bed, sweetie. It’s just Jordan.”

“He sounds mad or something.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” In fact, she was going to wring his stupid neck.

Downstairs, she switched on the porch light and opened the door a crack, determined not to admit him. “What do you want?” she demanded, noting that he was still wearing a suit and tie. He had at least loosened the tie. Obviously he’d driven all the way across the state straight from work.

He shoved a huge box toward her. It wouldn’t fit through the crack. “I brought you this.”

The box was intriguing with its gold paper and fancy bow. Still, Kelly determinedly wrapped her arms around her middle and refused to take it. “Jordan, this has to stop.”

Her insistent tone seemed to totally bemuse him. He regarded her with evident confusion. “Why?”

“Because I cannot be bought.”

Shock registered on his handsome features. “I’m not trying to buy you,” he swore. “I’m trying to…”

Words clearly failed him. Kelly could understand why. There was hardly another interpretation for what he’d been doing. “Buy me,” she supplied.

“No,” he insisted. “I’m trying to court you.”

Her heart skittered wildly. “Oh, Jordan,” she murmured, feeling her insides turn to mush. “Please don’t do this to me.”

His gaze settled on her and a once-familiar warmth spread through her.

“Could I come in so we can discuss this?” he asked.

Kelly did not want him in the house, not with her resolve wavering and his determination solidifying. “It’s the middle of the night. I have fences to mend in the morning.”

“I’ll help,” he promised.

“When was the last time you mended a fence?”

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