His genuine discomfort relieved some of her own tension. “Jenny thinks you have a serious inability to control your own kids.”
He grinned. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. I’m still not sure where I went wrong.” He held out his hand to her. “Come on. We might as well get this over with. Give it five minutes and you can swear you have a major client coming and that you have to get to town.”
She suddenly found his desire to be rid of her in such a hurry a little insulting. “Are you afraid to let them spend too much time with me?” she asked irritably.
His mouth gaped. “With you? Are you crazy? I’m scared silly you’ll take one look at the lot of them and never show your face around here again.”
She grinned at his adamant tone. “I’m made of tougher stuff than that,” she declared. “So is Jenny.” She leaned back in. “Out, young lady.”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “Oh, all right. But I’m not playing cute for anybody, okay?”
“There was little doubt of that,” Janet said dryly, exchanging a pointed look with Harlan, who looked as if he wanted very badly to burst out laughing.
As they approached the porch, three young women came down the steps to meet them.
“Hi, I’m Jessie,” the first one said. “We’re sorry about all of this, but there’s no controlling these guys when they get together to harass their father. We couldn’t have gotten them out of here last night if we’d set off a canister of pepper spray in the house. Believe me, I thought about it. So did Kelly and Melissa.”
“I even had one in my purse,” Kelly said. “I bought it when I lived in Houston. Never had a need for it there, thank goodness, but I thought it might come in handy here last night.”
“Too many babies, though,” Melissa added. “I’m talking about the ones in cribs, not the ones we’re married to. You’d think they hadn’t learned to share, the way they’ve been carrying on about meeting the woman who’s stealing their daddy’s affection.”
Janet warmed to the trio of smiling women immediately. They clearly understood what it meant to hook up with an Adams man. “Believe me, I am not out to steal their daddy’s affection or anything else, for that matter.”
“It’s not entirely up to you,” Jessie declared with the kind of clear-thinking logic that cut straight to the heart of Janet’s dilemma. “Our husbands may be the stubbornnest set of men in Texas. Not a one of them knows how to take no for an answer. Who do you guess they learned that from?”
“Hey,” Harlan protested. “Watch your tongue.”
“It’s true, Harlan, and you know it,” Kelly and Melissa chimed in, laughing at his disgruntled expression.
Janet considered the teasing comments to be very discouraging news. Apparently Harlan detected her discomfort, because he slipped her arm through his.
“Come on,” he said. “We might as well get the rest of this over with. Ladies, go tell your husbands to be on their best behavior.”
“Don’t expect us to accomplish what you couldn’t,” Kelly teased.
Jenny rolled her eyes. “I told you, Mom.”
Harlan glanced at her. “What did you tell your mother?”
“That you must not be half so tough as you try to pretend, if your sons walk all over you.”
The sons in question hooted at that.
“Guess she has you pegged, doesn’t she, Daddy?” Cody taunted.
“If her mama’s half as smart, you’re in for it,” Jordan agreed, grinning at Janet as he shook her hand.
Luke crowded in next, a sympathetic glimmer in his eyes. “Don’t let all the fuss scare you to death. We’re not half as intimidating as we sound.”
“A bunch of soft touches?” Janet asked doubtfully.
He nodded. “And Daddy’s the easiest of all.”
“You start giving away all my secrets and that prize bull of mine you want to breed next year won’t get anywhere near those cows of yours,” Harlan warned.
Luke held up his hands and backed off. “Not another word,” he vowed.
The teasing went on for another ten minutes, though, as the three oldest grandchildren raced around the yard. Jenny seemed thoroughly bemused by all the commotion. It made Janet wonder whether she’d been so wrong to insist to Barry that she wanted no more children. Left unspoken had been the fact that she didn’t want them with him. Within months of Jenny’s birth, she had already sensed that their marriage wasn’t going to last the distance. It had taken her more than twelve years to finally cut the ties.
When Melissa shoved a baby into her arms, so she could chase after her daughter who was vanishing around the side of the house, Janet felt a stirring of maternal instinct that was so overwhelming it brought tears to her eyes. She quickly handed the baby over to Jessie, who was standing nearby.
“I have to get to work,” she announced to no one in particular.
Harlan was at her side in a heartbeat. “We’ll talk later,” he said as he walked with her to her car. “I’ll come up with some way to apologize for all this.”
“It’s not like you threw me into a den of starving wolves,” she reminded him. “It wasn’t that bad. They’re nice people, all of them. And they clearly love you and worry about you.”
He grinned at that. “Do I look like a man who needs people fussing over him?”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. “I doubt they see you the same way I do,” she said.
“Oh, really,” he said, sounding absolutely fascinated all of a sudden. “And how do you see me?”
“Never mind. Your ego’s big enough as it is,” she said, and closed the car door in his face.
“We’ll finish this discussion tonight,” he shouted as she drove away.
The challenge in his voice and the gleam in his eyes stayed with her the rest of the day. At least a dozen times, as she talked with the few potential clients who called, an image of Harlan’s face popped into her head. His strength and compassion, along with that taunting, unmistakable desire, kept her from regretting the day she’d moved to Texas.
Too many of the calls were from people only interested in hiring her if she’d work free, or from people with ugly accusations to make about her being an uppity Indian. She found the atmosphere of bias and distrust both discouraging and infuriating.
By the time she returned to White Pines to pick up Jenny, she had a thundering headache and a chip on her shoulder the size of a longhorn. The sight of Harlan waiting on the porch for her, a pitcher of tea ready, along with more of Maritza’s culinary treats, brought tears to her eyes. She lingered in the car for a moment for fear he’d see how despondent she was and try to jump in and fix things for her. After a day like the one she’d just had, it would be too easy simply to let him.
Even though she’d taken the time to gather her composure, Harlan wasn’t fooled. He took one look at her and reached out to gather her into his arms. She hesitated only an instant before accepting the comfort he offered.
“Bad day?” he asked.
“Is it that obvious?”
“To me, it is. Want to talk about it?”
She wrapped her arms a little tighter around his waist and rested her head on his chest. “No, but this is nice.”
Too nice, she reminded herself sternly. Too easy. It was a dangerous trap. With a sigh, she pulled away. “Thanks.”
“You could stay right where you are,” he said. “These are mighty broad shoulders. Might as well make use of ’em, if you’ve got troubles.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she said, and forced herself to step away from what he was offering.
When she would have turned away, his voice stopped her.
“Janet?” he said in little more than a whisper.
She lifted her gaze to his and felt her heart skip a beat at the blazing heat in his eyes. She swallowed hard. “Yes?”
> “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.
9
“Hot,” 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.
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