White Pines Summer

by Sherryl Woods

  “Then I guess you’ll think long and hard before you misbehave in school again, won’t you?”

  “But, Dad—”

  Chance shook his head. “No buts, pal. You brought this one on yourself.”

  “It’s not fair!” Petey protested. “You’re siding with the enemy!”

  “Ms. Adams is not the enemy, not in the classroom. She’s in charge there. We’ve been over this before.”

  “But—”

  “There’s no point in arguing. Go to your room now. I’m sure you have a lot of homework left to do.”

  “I hate you!” Petey yelled as he raced from the room. “And Granddad would hate you, too, if he knew you were picking her over your own kid!”

  Maybe so, Chance conceded to himself when Petey was gone. But Hank wasn’t the one trying to get a kid through school without winding up in juvenile court.

  He had to bear some of the responsibility for this. He obviously hadn’t made his displeasure over the hair-chopping incident plain enough to his son. Even after their dinner together Petey clearly thought making Jenny Adams’s life a living hell was within bounds.

  Well, it had to stop. No one was going to find some way to say he wasn’t a fit parent. He’d get Petey under control.

  Besides, if anybody in this family was going to keep Jenny all riled up, it was going to be him. He was already enjoying it way more than he ought to.

  * * *

  Chance wasn’t certain exactly what drew him to White Pines on Saturday. He was still feeling guilty about Petey’s misbehavior, and maybe on some level he wanted to make amends. Or it might have been the simple desire to catch his first up-close look at the ranch his father had been obsessed with most of his life. Maybe he’d just run out of the willpower he needed to stay away.

  More than likely, though, it had something to do with his need to butt heads with Jenny. Clashing with her just on general principle made him feel more alive than he’d imagined possible a few short months ago when he’d been grieving the loss of Mary and his father.

  With Petey settled in for the day and the dreaded teenage babysitter keeping guard, Chance took the highway in front of Wilkie’s and headed west in the direction of the family ranch. He’d traveled the same road at least a dozen times since arriving in town a few months back, but he’d always stopped well short of the gate to White Pines. He’d vowed he wouldn’t set foot on the land until it belonged to him.

  Today, however, he broke that vow. He turned in and drove slowly down the long winding lane, absorbing his first impression of the land around him. It was ruggedly beautiful, as he’d known it would be. His father had described it endlessly, his voice thick with emotion. And Wilkie’s neighboring property gave a hint of what he could expect. It was just that White Pines had more of it. Acres and acres more. The endless view was awesome.

  Chance’s first sight of the house, though, had him hitting the brakes and wondering if he’d taken a wrong turn. Apparently his father’s memory had failed him here, or else Harlan Adams had spent a small fortune restoring the place to its original glory.

  Chance cut the truck’s engine eventually, but he couldn’t stop staring. There was a strong hint of the old South to the house. That much his father had recalled. But in his stories, the house had been virtually tumbling down, a mere shadow of the dream home his ancestors had built when they’d come west after the Civil War. Hank had talked of grand rooms from which the furnishings had been sold off piece by piece to pay the bills. He had described ragged drapes and scarred paint.

  The house certainly wasn’t suffering from such inattention now. Freshly painted a pristine white, its pillars impressive, if out of place in West Texas, its gardens a riot of color, the mansion could have been transported back to the South and not suffered by comparison to its neighbors.

  The sweep of the porch—he supposed it ought to be called a veranda or some such—was such a far cry from the tiny two-rocker porch on Hank’s cabin back in Montana that it left Chance awestruck. He wondered if the family sat out here at sunset, watching the changing colors on the horizon, or if they just took the wonder of it all for granted.

  There had to be twenty rooms inside, he thought as he continued to sit and stare, trying to absorb the grandeur of it. More, probably. For just an instant he wondered what the devil he’d do with twenty rooms—or even ten, if they split the place down the middle. Then he banished the thought as irrelevant. Half of White Pines—house and land—was his. That was all that mattered. He could close off every room but one if he wanted to. The point was, it would be his choice to make.

  Pushing aside an unexpected surge of uncertainty, he climbed out of his pickup, settled his hat on his head and strode up the front steps, steeled for the bitter confrontation that was bound to come, especially if anyone other than Jenny answered the door.

  He hadn’t exactly considered what he was going to say to whichever stranger answered his forceful knock on that heavy, carved front door. The sound of footsteps slowed his pulse to a dull thud. Maybe he was making a terrible mistake by coming. He should have thought this moment through, planned more carefully for it.

  It was too late now, though. The door swung wide and he was suddenly face-to-face with a silver-haired, stoop-shouldered, yet still impressive man who had to be Harlan Adams. The family resemblance between him and Hank was stunning. In recent years Hank had been thinner, but both men had the same clear blue eyes, the same square jaw.

  Chance stared at Harlan Adams, suddenly feeling oddly tongue-tied. He told himself it was fury that silenced him, but it was more. Much more. It was history and family and pride, all kicking in with a swell of contradictory emotions.

  His uncle, however, had no such reticence. “You must be Chance,” he said quietly, his gaze even and unblinking. If he was thrown by the surprise arrival of his nephew, he hid it well. He held out his hand, closed it in a firm grip around Chance’s. “I’m Harlan Adams, your uncle.”

  “I’m surprised you recognize me,” Chance said stiffly, returning the handshake he’d been too startled to ignore.

  The comment drew a broad smile. “Come on in,” Harlan said with what appeared to be unforced graciousness. “I’ll show you why.”

  Chance followed his uncle into a living room that was three times as big as his own and filled with comfortable furniture that was obviously expensive but surprisingly unpretentious. Harlan followed his gaze and said, “The place used to be filled with antiques, but Jenny got tired of tippytoeing around in here. Next thing I knew, her mama had redecorated. This suits us. It’s a room you can live in without being scared of breaking something every time you move. When Jenny was a teenager, that was especially important. She tended to be rambunctious.”

  “I can imagine,” Chance said wryly, wishing for just an instant that he had known her then, that their relationship could have started off in some uncomplicated way. He suspected she would have made his heart pound and his mouth go dry even then.

  Harlan led the way to a piano sitting in front of a huge bay window. Sunlight spilled through the window and glinted off the glass on literally dozens of formal photographs and snapshots. For Chance, looking at some of those pictures was like looking in a mirror.

  But the absence of one picture in particular stuck in his craw. There was no snapshot of Hank Adams, no formal portrait of his grandparents with Hank and Harlan. It was as if his father had never existed, as if he’d been cut out of the universe as easily as he’d been cut out of the will.

  Harlan took first one picture in hand, then another, explaining who was in each, proudly showing off his family, right down through the grandchildren, most of whom were now too darned grown-up to suit him, he claimed.

  “I’m starting with great-grandbabies now, though,” he said, showing off another half-dozen snapshots of a squalling newborn and a couple of boys who looked like twins and didn’t look at
all like Adamses.

  “These two belong to Duke Jenkins,” Harlan said, apparently seeing Chance’s confusion. “He just married my granddaughter Dani, so, of course, now they’re family, too. Born, adopted, it doesn’t matter. They’re all family.”

  The pride, the love shining in his eyes, all of it was too much for Chance. He wanted to smash every single one of those pictures. Harlan Adams thought more of these great-grandchildren who hadn’t even been born to an Adams than he did of his own brother.

  Instead of saying that, though, instead of railing against the injustice of it, Chance kept his cool and solidified his determination. This little exhibition had fueled his determination for battle just when he might have been tempted by his fascination with Jenny into tempering it. That didn’t mean he would leave here today without catching a glimpse of her.

  “Is Jenny around?” he asked eventually.

  Harlan regarded him speculatively. “Is that why you really came? To see Jenny?”

  Chance nodded. “I need to talk to her about my boy. He’s been giving her a rough time in school.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Harlan said, chuckling. “I’d like to meet him. He sounds like my sons way back when. They were up to mischief all the time.”

  “That’s Petey, all right.”

  “Why don’t you bring him along next time you come?”

  Surprised by the invitation, Chance nodded. “Maybe I will—if there is a next time.”

  “Why wouldn’t there be?”

  “I just thought...” Chance shrugged. “Never mind. You never did say if Jenny was around.”

  “She’s gone for a ride with her sister,” Harlan said. “They should be back soon. Or if you’d like, we could saddle up and go out and find them. It would give you a chance to look the place over.”

  Even more startled by this invitation, Chance had to wonder if Harlan realized what he was offering. He was giving the enemy a chance to size up the potential spoils of this family war. His uncle’s bland expression, however, gave nothing away.

  “I’m surprised,” Chance confessed.

  “By?”

  “The fact that you didn’t kick me off the property. Most men would have.”

  His uncle seemed genuinely puzzled by the suggestion. “Why would I do that?” he asked, then added simply, “You’re my brother’s boy.”

  “A brother you ran off,” Chance retorted bitterly.

  “Something I will regret to my dying day,” Harlan said with apparent sincerity. “I was sorry to hear he’d passed away. I wish we’d had a chance for me to make amends. Someday, if you like, we can talk about that.”

  “I don’t need to talk about it. I know the details.”

  “From your father’s perspective,” his uncle said. “There are two sides to every story. A wise man listens to both before making up his mind. Whether you do or not, though, you’ll always be welcome here.”

  Chance stared at him in amazement. “Even though I intend to do everything in my power to take it away from you?” he asked.

  Harlan actually had the audacity to smile at that. “Give it your best shot, son. Nothing gets the blood to flowing like a good brawl.”

  Chance’s respect for the man deepened in that instant. Under other conditions he had a feeling he could actually like Harlan Adams.

  But there were no other conditions. History stood between them, just as it did between him and Jenny. Not that it was stopping him where she was concerned, he thought ruefully.

  “I think I’d like to ride out with you,” he said.

  Harlan gave a brisk nod of satisfaction. “Good. I’ll get my coat. There’s a chill in the air today, and these old bones of mine don’t take to the cold they way they once did.”

  “Maybe you’d rather just point the way.”

  “No, indeed. I go for a ride every day just to see the beauty of this land. I’ve got the time to appreciate it now, and I never let a day pass without letting the good Lord know I’m grateful.” His expression turned wistful. “Can’t go quite as far as I once could, though. Hopefully we’ll come across Jenny and Lizzy before I tire out, and then Jenny can show you what I can’t.”

  “Thank you,” Chance felt compelled to say, though it grated at him to thank this man for anything. “You’ve been very kind.”

  Harlan squeezed his shoulder. “No reason not to be.” His gaze narrowed. “One word of warning, though. I’ll fight you fair and square over White Pines, but you do one single thing to hurt Jenny and you’ll live to regret it.”

  Chance nodded, not surprised at all that Harlan Adams had intuitively sensed that his interest in Jenny was dangerous. “Fair enough.”

  The line had been drawn in the sand, so to speak. It suited Chance’s need for order. It also told him that Harlan Adams was a man with clear priorities. He might love his land, he might even fight for it if forced to, but his children were his life. In that instant Chance wondered for the first time how a man who felt that strongly about family could have turned his back on his younger brother.

  Maybe, just maybe, his father hadn’t told him the whole story, after all.

  8

  In the midst of spreading a blanket on the ground for the picnic she and Lizzy had brought with them on their ride, Jenny thought she heard the sound of hooves. She glanced toward the southeast and spotted two men on horseback heading their way at a leisurely pace. She recognized her father at once, but the man beside him almost looked like Chance, which, of course, was impossible. He would never show up at White Pines. Nor was her father likely to welcome him, except maybe with a shotgun blast or dueling pistols.

  Then again, he had said just a few nights ago that he wanted to meet his brother’s son.

  “Lizzy, can you see who’s riding with Daddy?” Jenny asked.

  Her younger sister looked up from the picnic basket Maritza had packed and stared in the direction Jenny indicated. “I’ve never seen him before, which is too bad, because he is one hundred percent gorgeous,” Lizzy declared breathlessly. She automatically reached up to tidy her naturally curly black hair, which she’d scooped into a careless ponytail.

  Jenny fought back amusement. Lizzy was at the age when her fascination with men was increasing by the same leaps and bounds as her hormones. Jenny couldn’t recall ever being quite so over-the-top about the opposite sex in general and only once about a specific man. The latter had occurred all too recently. She was still trying very hard to pretend that it was nothing more than a wild fantasy taking control of her body.

  Lizzy’s brow wrinkled as she peered more intently at the riders. “He looks a little like Cody, don’t you think, only younger?”

  Jenny sighed heavily at the description. It was Chance. It had to be. He was the only man she knew who might be mistaken for Cody. Not even Cody’s own son resembled him as closely. Harlan Patrick was still gangly, while Cody, like Chance, was solid muscle.

  Lizzy stared at her worriedly. “What’s wrong? Do you know who it is?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Who?”

  “My hunch is you’re about to meet Chance Adams.”

  Her sister’s eyes widened. “Our long-lost cousin? The man who wants White Pines?”

  “The one and only.”

  “Oh, dear. What do you suppose he’s doing with Daddy?”

  “Scoping out the property, I imagine,” Jenny said wryly.

  “Daddy looks okay from here. You don’t suppose they fought or something, do you? Maybe Chance kidnapped him and forced him to take him on a tour.”

  Jenny had briefly considered the very same scenario, but it was ridiculous, of course. Chance was perfectly civilized, if misguided in his intentions. Besides, from this distance, both men looked unbloodied, which must mean this first meeting had gone passably well. She would have expected as much of her father. He was an amazin
gly tolerant man and he’d flat out told her he was anxious to meet his nephew.

  Chance, though, was another story. He was just itching for a fight. From the moment he’d explained what he was doing in Los Piños, it had been clear he wouldn’t be happy until he’d paid his uncle back for the sins he believed had been committed against his father.

  So what was he doing here today? Jenny wondered. Was it as simple as taking a look around? Or was he setting his plan into motion finally? And why was his gaze fixed so avidly on her as they neared? The intensity of it could have set off a forest fire from a hundred yards back. It certainly set off a lickety-split pace of her pulse.

  Before Jenny could reach any conclusions about what his presence might mean, Lizzy gave an exuberant shout and raced off to meet their father. At least she was still one part little girl, Jenny thought, watching her race across the open field. Because looking at Chance unsettled her, she kept her gaze fixed on Lizzy.

  Harlan bent low and gave Lizzy a hand up onto his horse, settling her on the saddle in front of him. Jenny had seen her father do the same thing a hundred times over the years, but she never failed to feel a trace of envy as she watched their rapport. Harlan might love her, might love all of them deeply, but even at twenty, Lizzy was his precious baby.

  “Don’t look now, but jealousy is gnawing at you,” Chance observed, dismounting right beside her.

  Startled by his insight and by the fact that he’d managed to sneak up on her, Jenny scowled at him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I think I do. You got to be queen of the roost for how long? A year, maybe two, before baby sister came along and stole your daddy’s heart.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I was fifteen when she was born. I was thrilled to have a baby in the house. I had no cause to be jealous.”

  “Maybe no cause,” he said, “but jealousy’s a funny thing. It gets under the skin and eats away at logic.”

  Refusing to concede he might be at least partially right, Jenny slanted a defiant look at him. “Why are you out here today, anyway? Is this another of your less-than-subtle attempts to stir up trouble?”