The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter (14 page)

“Jenny's off with Cody again. They're going to be a while. Care to take a chance on another kiss?”

She almost wished he hadn't asked at all, that he'd just swept her back into his arms without giving her any say in the matter. But she couldn't deny that a
part of her was glad he'd reassured her of Jenny's whereabouts first.

“I can't,” she protested halfheartedly, even as she swayed toward him.

He stroked a finger along her cheek. “Talk about mixed messages, darlin'.”

She shook her head ruefully. “I know. I'm pitiful.”

“Never pitiful,” he argued. “Strong, sassy, impossible, maybe, but never pitiful.”

His touch on her face lingered. There were a hundred questions in his eyes, but only one that really mattered: had she meant yes or no? Both, depending on whether he asked her head or her heart, she decided.

And just this once she was going with her heart. She stood on tiptoe to lift her lips to his. Her touch was tentative, but it was all it took to set passion blazing. So much tenderness. So much heat, she thought as he held her head still and plundered her mouth.

The rightness of it stunned her. He was everything she'd once been taught to hate by Lone Wolf—a Texan and a rancher. And yet, in his arms, as she was right now, she felt at home. At peace.

At least that was how she felt deep in her heart. Her head was another matter entirely. She had a hunch that struggle was far from over.

“H
ot,” Janet murmured eventually, backing away from Harlan as if he were a stove and she'd been standing over it too long. If she'd owned a hankie and it wouldn't have been a dead giveaway of how affected she was by his touch, she would have patted her brow with it.

“I'll say,” he agreed, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

“I was referring to the temperature,” she insisted as embarrassment made her face flush even hotter. At this rate she'd wind up as a little puddle of mortified genes right at his feet.

“Of course you were,” he said perfectly innocently. “So was I.”

“The weather, dammit!”

He nodded. “If you say so.”

She turned her back on him and headed across the porch, trying not to mutter out loud about his impudence. On the way, she grabbed a glass of iced tea and held it against her feverish brow.

This attraction was getting out of hand. She was slipping into a pattern that had all the earmarks of surrender. It would be just her luck that she'd fall head-over-heels in love with Harlan Adams and then he'd discover that she was out to find a way to reclaim some of his land for the Comanches. He'd blow a gasket, blow her off, and they'd both wind up being hurt and feeling used.

She heard his booted footsteps as he crossed the porch to join her. He was moving slowly, almost as if he wanted to give her time to prepare. By the time he paused beside her, her nerves were jittery all over again. Damn, why did it have to be this particular man who made her feel like a whole, vibrant, sexy woman again?

“You still wrestling with yourself?” he inquired in that lazy tone that raised goose bumps up and down her spine.

“Wrestling, hell,” she admitted. “It's all-out war.”

He chuckled at that. “Good.”

“You don't have to sound so complacent about it.”

“Sure I do. That's the nature of an Adams man.”

Despite herself, she laughed and shifted until she could look into his eyes. “Big egos, huh?”

“I prefer to think of it as self-confidence.”

“You would. Arrogance by any other name is still a flaw, Harlan.”

“I'm entitled to one serious defect, don't you think?”

She held back another urge to laugh. “Just one? That's all you're admitting to?”

“I'm not a fool, darlin'. I'm not admitting to a single one you haven't already discovered. You're
searching so hard for more, I'd hate to spoil your fun.”

“How altruistic,” she retorted sourly, wondering when she'd become so transparent. Or was it just that Harlan had an innate knack for reading her, a knack that stemmed from fascination and concentration? Few men had ever studied her quite so intently, that's for sure. Barry had never even scratched the surface of her emotions. She couldn't decide whether to feel flattered or cornered that Harlan could.

He settled himself onto the porch railing, then pulled her between his thighs. She didn't even have the strength of will to resist.

The provocative position, the glitter of desire in his eyes, sent shivers of pure longing dancing through her. As dangerous as the reaction was, she couldn't have pulled back if her life depended on it.

He kept his hands loosely settled on her hips as if to convey she was free to go, if she chose…if she could.

“Your skin turns to fire when you're close to me like this,” he observed.

“How polite of you to point it out,” she said, but without nearly as much venom as she should have mustered. Besides, it was true. That was what had forced her away from him only moments before.

“Why does that bother you so much?” he asked. “Men and women have been attracted to each other from the beginning of time. It's natural.”

“Sometimes the attraction's to the wrong person.”

“You think I'm wrong for you?”

She nodded. “And I'm just as wrong for you.”

“Why?”

She sighed, unwilling to spell it all out for him. “It's complicated. You'll just have to take my word for it.”

Drawing in a deep breath, she leveled a serious look straight into his blue eyes. “If you can't, I'll have to stop coming around. I'll keep Jenny away, too. We'll find another way to pay for the repairs to your truck. I'll work it out with Mule.”

“Your debt's not with Mule. It's with me,” he insisted stubbornly.

“He's making the repairs, isn't he?”

“Forget the blasted bill,” he said, his exasperation apparent in his tone. He lifted her aside and stood. “Your daughter stole my truck. I didn't call the sheriff because you agreed to let her work off the debt out here.”

She stiffened at the reminder. “I wonder how the sheriff would feel about your taking the law into your own hands, devising your own brand of justice?”

He scowled at her. “You want to test him and find out?”

Janet had a feeling that—laws or no laws—he knew the justice system in Los Piños and could manipulate it far better than she ever could with her legal expertise and law school degree.

“Why are you making this so difficult?” she snapped. “Hasn't anyone ever turned you down before?”

A ghost of a smile played around his lips. “Haven't asked anyone until you came along, not for more than thirty-five years.”

That sucked the wind right out of her sails. She reached up impulsively and placed her hand against his cheek. “Harlan Adams, you don't play fair.”

“That's right, darlin'. I play to win.”

Before she could reply to that, his mouth was moving over hers again, coaxing, persuading, claiming.

It was a hell of a kiss by anyone's standards. By Janet's, it was devastating. A bone-melting, breath-stealing crack of thunder deep inside her. It raised goose bumps from head to toe and had the hair on the back of her neck raised on end.

“I think I'd better be going,” she murmured when it was over. As badly as she wanted to sound serene and unfazed, she couldn't seem to get her voice above a shaken whisper. She glanced around anxiously, trying to spot the purse she'd dropped somewhere.

“Without Jenny?” he inquired, laughter dancing in his eyes.

“Oh,” she murmured. “No, of course not.” She drew in a deep, supposedly calming breath. It didn't help a whit.

“How soon will she and Cody be back?” she asked a little desperately.

“Not for a while,” he reported complacently. “You might as well settle back and relax.”

Relax? It would take an entire bottle of tranquilizers to get her to relax as long as Harlan was in the vicinity. She didn't have so much as a single pill to her name. She sipped at the only available distraction, her iced tea, but it didn't go far in terms of settling her nerves or soothing the thirst that kiss had aroused.

“You look as if you could use a nice, cool shower,” Harlan said after a bit.

Her head snapped up. “What?”

“A cool shower,” he prompted, grinning. “Alone, if that's the way you prefer.”

“Here?” she asked incredulously.

“Why not? It's a big house. There are lots of bathrooms. If I'd put in that pool the boys were always plaguing me to, I'd suggest that, but a shower is all I have to offer.”

The offer might have been part generosity, part seduction, but Janet was intrigued just the same. Maybe an ice-cold shower would get her through the wait, she decided thoughtfully. It would wash away some of the hot day's dust and cleanse her wicked thoughts at the same time.

And maybe not. She weighed just how far she could trust Harlan to stay right here where he was, rather than following her inside.

Don't be an idiot, she lectured herself. Of course, he would stay here. The man was a gentleman…when it suited his purposes.

As if he'd read the temptation in her eyes, he said, “Use the bathroom in Luke's suite. It's the first one upstairs on the right. I think Jessie probably left some of that fancy, perfumed bubble bath she likes, if you'd prefer to relax in a tub for a while.”

The suggestion conjured up images so steamy her brain should have been x-rated. “A shower will be fine,” she said, bolting to presumed safety.

Inside Luke's suite, with the door locked, and inside the bathroom with
that
door locked, she leaned back against it and released a pent-up breath. Safe at
last, she thought. What was yet to be determined, however, was whether she was hiding from Harlan's pursuit or her own increasingly dangerous longings.

* * *

Damn, but she was a stubborn one, Harlan thought to himself the following morning as he surveyed the disaster Jenny had made of his toolshed. Almost as stubborn as her mama.

Janet's abrupt retreat to hide out in Luke's suite until Jenny's return the night before had left him chuckling on the front porch. Frustrated as hell, but amused just the same. There'd been no mistaking how grateful Janet had been to be given a reason to escape his provocative company for a bit.

Jenny had shown up finally, looking for her mama. When Harlan had told her she was inside taking a bath, Jenny's shocked expression suggested she was making far more of that than she should have. Thank goodness Cody wasn't with her or he'd have had a few choice words to add to the conversation for sure.

Harlan had instantly regretted any inferences Jenny might have made, but he hadn't been able to think of any way to correct her mistaken impression without adding to the problem.

“Tell her I'm waiting in the car,” she'd said stiffly, and stalked away, her back as straight and proud as any Comanche chief he'd ever seen pictured in the art museums around the Southwest.

“Sure you don't want a glass of tea or maybe some of the oatmeal-and-raisin cookies Maritza baked earlier?” he'd called after her. He'd seen his plans for an evening with the two of them vanishing in a puff of smoke. Janet was scared spitless of being around
him and Jenny clearly resented whatever was happening between him and her mother.

The offer of cookies went unanswered, just one indication of how upset she'd been. When he'd relayed her whereabouts to her much cooler-looking, if no less rattled mother, Janet had grabbed her purse and taken off without so much as a goodbye.

“Well, that certainly went well,” he'd muttered as he'd watched the trail of dust settle in their wake.

Apparently their evening hadn't gotten any better, if Jenny's sullen mood this morning was any indication. She wouldn't even meet his gaze, which made him wonder just what Janet had told her about their little set-to the night before.

At midmorning, as soon as she'd picked disinterestedly at the snack Maritza had prepared for her, she'd stalked out of the kitchen and disappeared, sparing him little more than a glare.

He hadn't seen her for another hour or so. Hadn't even looked that hard, truthfully. He'd figured she needed time to settle down and get her bearings again without him hovering over her with a lot of questions.

Then, not more than five minutes ago, he'd spotted her sneaking away from the toolshed with suspicious streaks of yellow paint on her clothes. It was not a good sign, he'd decided as he went out to the shed.

The shambles he found triggered an explosion that could have been heard in the next county. Toolboxes had been upended, yellow paint had been splattered hither and yon, and nuts, bolts and nails were scattered like birdseed all over the floor.

“Damn that girl's hide!” he bellowed, even as he wondered precisely what had set her off this time.
He'd long since discovered that Jenny only acted out when she was feeling threatened in some way.

Taking off in the direction he'd seen her heading, he followed her trail all the way to the creek. He found her sitting at the edge, her feet in the water, tears streaming down her face.

He lowered himself to the ground next to her and waited, biding his time until she felt like talking.

“I don't care if you do send me to jail,” she said eventually in a voice choked with barely contained sobs.

“Actually, I hadn't considered that possibility,” he said. “I was thinking you could spend the rest of the day back there cleaning up the mess you made.”

He looked her in the eye and saw thirteen years of hurt and loneliness there. “First, though, why don't you tell me what's on your mind?”

“Nothing.”

“You just decided to tear up things inside the toolshed for fun?”