White Pines Summer

by Sherryl Woods

  In fact, by the time the final bell rang, she was actually looking forward to meeting Chance Adams. She was just itching to go toe-to-toe with an adult, instead of a classroom of pint-size hellions.

  2

  In retrospect, the decision to settle in Los Piños had been easier than Chance had anticipated. Even when he’d driven into town two months earlier, he hadn’t been sure he would stay. He’d just meant to keep his promise to his daddy, check out White Pines and then move on if West Texas didn’t suit him. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Petey, he might have kept on roaming for the rest of his life. He was too restless, too soul-deep exhausted to start over.

  As it was, though, he knew his son deserved stability. Petey needed schooling and a real home to come to, his own bed to sleep in. The motel rooms they’d stayed in on the road when they’d first left Montana were fine for a night or two. But they were not the kind of places where he could raise a kid. No matter how sick at heart he was himself, he owed his son a better life than that.

  He’d still been wrestling with his conscience when they’d crossed the border into Texas. He’d deliberately taken his time getting to Los Piños. They’d gone to the southeast part of the state first, taken a swim in the Gulf of Mexico, which Petey had declared way more awesome than the creeks back home. Then they’d spent a few days exploring the wonders of Houston, the biggest city Petey had ever seen, before moving on to Dallas, where Petey had wanted to see the stadium where his beloved Cowboys played. Whatever happened, Chance had wanted Petey to have his grand adventure. He’d hoped that would make up for all the grief in his young life. Two devastating losses in as many years were enough to shake up a boy’s whole world. A man’s, too, for that matter.

  At any rate, it had been early July by the time they’d driven into Los Piños. Chance had expected to feel some sort of tug, some kind of connection to the place, but as far as he could see it was no different from any other ranching community in the West. The businesses catered to the cattlemen, nothing fancy, just good solid merchandise at decent prices.

  They were just in time for the town’s annual Independence Day celebration. Flag-waving families had gathered all along the sidewalks for a parade that was twice the size of the one back home in Montana, even though the town was no more populated, at least as far as Chance could tell.

  After the parade there’d been a picnic. Most folks had brought their own baskets of fried chicken, along with blankets to spread on the grass, but there were plenty of food concessions for those who wanted to buy hot dogs and fries and cotton candy.

  The celebration was wrapped up that night with fireworks. Chance had choked back bile at the oft-repeated announcements that the lavish display had been donated by none other than Harlan Adams and his sons.

  “Y’all be sure and thank ’em when you see ’em,” the mayor said.

  Petey’s eyes had widened at the mention of Harlan Adams. “That’s Granddaddy’s—”

  Fearing he’d be overheard, Chance had put a hand over Petey’s mouth, cutting off the blurted remark in midsentence. It was too soon for anyone to know he was connected in any way to the powerful Harlan Adams. He wanted to size things up before he made his presence and his intentions known—if he ever did.

  But hearing all that boasting had solidified one thing: he was staying. He wanted to see just how the other half of the family had thrived after running his father off. Resentment he hadn’t known he felt simmered all night long.

  During the day he had asked around about employment and learned that a rancher named Wilkie Rollins was looking for an experienced foreman.

  “It’s a small place compared to White Pines,” one man told him. “Then, again, most are. White Pines is about the biggest cattle operation in the state, bar none. Harlan’s got himself quite a spread out there. That boy of his, Cody, has doubled the size of it these past few years. He’s a smart one, all right, every bit as sharp as his daddy.”

  “Is that right?” Chance said, absorbing the information about his cousin and tucking it away for later consideration. “How do I go about finding this Rollins place?”

  “You can’t miss it if you head west going out of town. If you come up on them fancy gates at White Pines, you’ve gone too far.”

  The directions had been easy enough to follow. The next morning he’d driven out there, talked with Wilkie Rollins and had a job and a new home by the end of the interview. He and Petey had been settled in by sundown. Petey had been ecstatic that they were staying on.

  In the weeks since, Chance had been happy enough with the familiar work. Wilkie’s spread was smaller than his own had been in Montana, but the man was getting too old to handle it himself. He left most of the decisions to Chance and drove into town every day to hang out with his cronies. Chance had been able to keep up with the work with time to spare to contemplate his next move with Harlan Adams.

  Petey was hell-bent on charging over there and introducing themselves and staking their claim. He’d been all but deaf to Chance’s admonitions that slower was better. Fortunately, despite being the next-door neighbor, White Pines was too far down the road from Wilkie’s for Petey to sneak off there on his own to snoop around.

  “Patience, son, patience,” Chance said over and over, but he figured he was pretty much wasting his breath. Petey was intent on fulfilling his granddaddy’s last request.

  Through the years Chance hadn’t gotten caught up in his father’s bitterness. It had always seemed a waste of energy to him. But now, the more he heard about those paragons of virtue out at White Pines, the more the high praise grated.

  He wondered what folks would have to say if they knew that Harlan Adams had stolen half of that ranch right out from under his younger brother. He wondered how they’d react if they knew that Hank Adams had been sent away all but destitute. In the past two months Chance had started working up a pretty good head of steam over it himself.

  While he debated the best way to go about making his presence known, he gave Wilkie his money’s worth and let the idea of revenge simmer. Some of his plots were subtle and downright sneaky. Some were blatant and outrageous. All of them ended with him and Petey ensconced in that fancy house a few miles up the road from the little foreman’s cottage they currently called home.

  He was just trying a new scheme on for size when he glanced up from the wood he’d been chopping and caught sight of a slender dark-haired woman striding in his direction, a purposeful gleam in her eyes. Since she also had his son in tow, he suspected Petey had been up to some sort of mischief again. He’d hoped the start of school today would settle the boy down, but it looked like just the opposite had happened.

  The boy was darn near out of control. He managed to find a way to do mischief where Chance would have sworn none was possible. Chance would have tanned the boy’s hide, if he’d thought it would help, but his own father’s lashings had never done anything except make Chance more defiant than ever. Since Petey had his temper in spades, it seemed likely he’d react the same way.

  Chance wiped his brow with the bandanna he’d stuck in his pocket and stood back to watch their approach. Might as well appreciate the sight of a pretty woman while he had the opportunity. In a few minutes they were going to be on opposite sides of something or other. That much was clear from the scowl on that pretty face of hers.

  She was tall, five-eight at least, he gauged from a distance, and thin as a poker in her fancy doeskin-colored linen slacks and bright orange blouse. Her black hair was cropped short as a boy’s, emphasizing wide cheekbones and eyes as dark as coal. There was a hint of Native American ancestry in her angular features.

  He put her age at anywhere from late twenties to early thirties. She had the brisk no-nonsense stride of a man, but as she neared, he saw that she had the surprisingly ample curves of a woman beneath that clinging silk blouse of hers. His body reacted as if he’d just spotted a primed and waiting
sex goddess in his bed.

  The reaction, of course, was the result of too many months of celibacy. This woman wasn’t at all his type. She was way too skinny, and that determined jut of her chin warned him she’d be a handful of trouble.

  “Mr. Adams,” she called out as she neared. She sounded way too grim to be dropping by for the sheer pleasure of it.

  “That would be me,” he confirmed, glancing at Petey. When his son determinedly refused to meet his gaze, Chance looked the woman over from head to toe, hoping to rattle her. The action was as instinctive as breathing. He’d always enjoyed flirting with a pretty woman, no matter the circumstances. If he could distract her from her mission, so much the better. Instead, though, her gaze remained fixed squarely on his face as she patiently withstood the examination.

  “Satisfied?” she asked eventually.

  There was no hint of color in her cheeks, but Chance felt his own flaming. “Not by a long shot,” he said, trying to reclaim the edge he’d lost.

  She shrugged. “Let me know when you are. I can wait.”

  He concluded that trying to best her was a losing cause. “Who are you?” he asked since no one had seen fit to fill him in.

  “I’m Petey’s teacher.”

  He’d guessed as much—Petey was coming home from school, after all. And the woman with him had a prim and prissy attitude about her, just like every teacher Chance had ever had, though she was definitely a whole lot sexier than most.

  “You have a name?” he asked.

  “Jenny Adams.”

  Chance flinched. This was a turn of events he hadn’t anticipated. He’d heard all about Harlan Adams’s sons. He hadn’t heard a word about any daughters. Then again, Adams was a common enough name. Maybe she wasn’t kin at all.

  “Adams?” he repeated cautiously. “Any relation to Harlan Adams?”

  Her expression brightened. Those great big eyes of hers sparkled like coal well on its way to turning into diamonds.

  “He’s my father,” she said with pride. “My adoptive father, actually. I was Jenny Runningbear before he married my mother and adopted me. Do you know him?”

  “Oh, I know him, all right,” Chance said coldly. “Or maybe I should say I know all about him, since we haven’t exactly been introduced.”

  “Dad!” Petey protested, tugging urgently on his jeans.

  Chance ignored him. Before he could stop himself, he blurted what he’d intended to keep secret for a while longer yet. “Harlan Adams is my uncle. He and my father were brothers.”

  She gaped at that, clearly stunned. Petey looked equally shocked that his father had done precisely what he’d been warning Petey not to do.

  “That’s not possible,” Ms. Jenny Adams declared.

  “Why? Because dear old Dad hasn’t mentioned his long-lost brother?” Chance said, surprised at the bitterness in his voice. Apparently Hank’s resentments had taken hold, after all. “They haven’t been on speaking terms in years, not since he rode my daddy out of town and stole his heritage out from under him.”

  Genuine bemusement washed across her face. “That’s not possible,” she repeated, her tone a mixture of shock and outrage. “Obviously you don’t know my father at all if you think he’s capable of doing something like that.”

  Chance forced a smile. “Oh, I assure you it’s more than possible, cousin Jenny. It’s a genuine fact.” He regarded her with a touch of defiance. “Unless you’re calling me a liar.”

  He glanced at his son, who was following the exchange with a mixture of shock and relief. Apparently Petey figured this revelation was the next best thing to salvation, since it had served to distract his teacher from whatever she’d been intent on saying about his behavior in school today.

  Chance thought Petey’s optimism was a bit premature. He doubted that Ms. Adams could be distracted so easily, at least not for long. She struck him as the kind of woman who was all sass and vinegar, the kind who’d needle a man until she got her way or provoke a fight just for the sheer fun of it. It was all there in those flashing black eyes. True, this news had thrown her, but she was visibly gathering her wits as the tense silence dragged on. He found he was looking forward to doing battle with her. Herding cattle wasn’t near as much of a challenge as arguing with a pretty woman.

  “Well, I must say this is quite a shock,” she said eventually. “You’ve just moved into town, according to Petey’s file at the school.”

  “A couple of months ago,” Chance confirmed.

  She shook her head. “Daddy has a brother? I just can’t get over it.”

  “Had a brother,” Chance corrected. “He died a few months back.”

  Sympathy flared in her eyes at once. “Oh, of course. It was in Petey’s file. I’m so sorry.”

  “No need for you to be sorry. You didn’t even know the man.”

  Her eyes flashed for a second as if she might chastize him for being rude, but then her expression softened, once more sympathetic.

  “I’m sorry just the same,” she insisted quietly. “I’ll have to tell my father you’re here. I know he’ll want to get to know you. We’ll have you come to dinner at White Pines.”

  The ever-so-polite invitation grated, probably more than it should have since it was uttered with absolute sincerity. “No, thanks, darlin’. I’m not the least bit interested in dropping by for barbecue and coleslaw.”

  This time her gaze narrowed at his rudeness. “Oh?” she said. “And why is that?”

  She said it in that cool haughty way that might have tickled him under other circumstances. Chance forced another smile. “That would make it seem too much like I was a guest in my own home.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He regarded her with feigned surprise. “Why, darlin’, haven’t you figured it out yet? I thought for sure you were quicker than that.”

  “Figured out what?”

  He kept his gaze steady and his voice even. “That I’ve moved to Los Piños for the sole purpose of taking that big old ranch away from your daddy.”

  * * *

  Jenny felt a lot like kicking dust straight into Chance Adams’s arrogant face. Unfortunately, since she’d come to his house just to tell him his son required more discipline, she couldn’t see that throwing a temper tantrum herself would accomplish much. It might give Petey the notion that the only things separating them were age, height and power. It wouldn’t be a good lesson at all.

  However, forcing herself to remain calm in the face of Chance Adams’s outrageous claim required every bit of self-control she possessed.

  The whole thing was ridiculous. Of course, he was just confused. It was a case of mistaken identity or something. Harlan had no brother she’d ever heard about. He’d taken a dying ranch left to him by his shiftless daddy and made it pay. If White Pines was legendary in Texas and Harlan was powerful, then he owed it all to the sweat of his own brow. He hadn’t stolen anything from anyone. She’d have staked her life on that. She’d never met a more honorable man than the one who’d adopted her when he’d married her mother.

  She supposed she ought to tell Chance Adams just how far off base he was, but the angle of that stubborn chin suggested she’d be wasting her breath. She studied that chin for just a moment and concluded there was a distinct resemblance between it and every other male in the entire Adams clan. The discovery shook her a little, because it lent just the tiniest bit of credence to his preposterous claim.

  Rather than start an argument over who owned what, she said sweetly, “Perhaps I should leave you to work out those details with my father when you finally meet. I’m actually here to discuss Petey.”

  The man sighed and some of the arrogance drained right out of him.

  “What’s he done?” Chance asked as if expecting the worst. He glanced at his son. “Petey?”

  Since Petey remained stoically silent, Jenny descr
ibed that morning’s escapade.

  “I’ll pay for the girl’s haircut,” Chance said readily enough.

  “Perhaps Petey should pay for it,” Jenny suggested. She gestured toward the firewood. “Maybe chopping wood, for instance, would work off some of those aggressive tendencies. Physical exertion can be very healthy.” She ought to know. Harlan Adams had worked her butt off after she’d stolen and wrecked his pickup.

  Chance scowled at her suggestion, clearly resenting it and her.

  “I’ll deal with Petey the way I see fit,” he responded stiffly. “Maybe you should concentrate on getting control of your class. If you can’t cope with a bunch of nine-year-olds, maybe it’s time to look for other work.”

  Petey shot her a triumphant look. He’d predicted his father would say that very thing. Jenny refused to concede to either of them that she’d said very much the same thing to herself just a few hours earlier.

  She wondered what Chance would think if he discovered that one of the ideas she’d considered was working at White Pines, the very ranch he intended to seize as his own. Maybe she’d tell her father this very afternoon that she wanted to learn everything there was to know about ranching. Then she could flaunt her own claim to White Pines in this man’s face. She hadn’t had a decent mental and verbal skirmish since she gave up leadership of a Native American rights organization to move back to Los Piños. Something told her that Chance Adams would prove to be a fascinating challenge.

  She sighed. Her father, of course, would see straight through her. From the day he’d made her one of his heirs he’d known that what she really wanted to do with her share of White Pines acreage was put a Bloomingdale’s on it. Not that she’d ever make good on the threat, but it had been a running joke between them for too many years now for him to believe she’d suddenly developed a taste for ranching.

  Her future wasn’t the immediate problem, though. Petey’s was. She regarded Chance Adams evenly. “It’s entirely up to you what you do about your son’s behavior,” she said. “But I will tell you now that I will not tolerate a repeat of this in my classroom. The next incident will result in a suspension. Have I made myself clear?”