The Heart of Hill Country

by Sherryl Woods

  So why did the prospect still set off this odd little aching sensation in the region of her heart? she wondered. Lunacy, she concluded. Maybe exercise would restore the blood flow to her brain.

  When everyone else headed for dinner on the patio, she remained in the pool. She swam laps, which had been impossible when it had been jammed. She was praying the exercise would wipe out the thoughts of the man who had been plaguing her for weeks now. She was running out of excuses to avoid him. She’d been so sure he would take the hint eventually, but he’d shown no signs of doing so. In fact, it appeared all she’d really succeeded in doing was increasing his fascination. He had an absolutely inspiring mix of patience and determination.

  Jenny would probably take care of that, she thought irritably. She was a little surprised to hear that Jenny was interested in Duke, but she probably shouldn’t have been. After all, he was a gorgeous, bright, funny man. What sane woman wouldn’t be interested in him?

  Breathless at last, she swam to the side of the pool and clung.

  “Worn-out?” an amused voice inquired from above her. She looked up into sparkling blue eyes and felt that strange little sizzle Duke managed to set off without even trying.

  “Pretty much,” she confessed. “How come you’re not eating dinner with everyone else?”

  “It’ll still be there in a few minutes.”

  “Don’t count on it. Uncle Cody and Uncle Luke have very hearty appetites. And Harlan Patrick and Justin are virtually grown men. Everyone knows they can clean off a buffet table faster than a butler with a hand-vac.”

  He grinned. “You worried I’m going to starve? Or just anxious to be rid of me?”

  “Why would I want to get rid of you?”

  “Good question. Care to answer it?”

  “If I’ve given you that impression, I’m sorry.”

  “Said very dutifully and very politely. Why don’t I believe it?”

  “Believe whatever you like.”

  “Let me hazard a guess instead,” he suggested. “I think you’re scared to be alone with me. Look at you now, for instance. You’re shivering.”

  “The air’s cold,” she said defensively.

  “It’s ninety,” he pointed out. “And the water’s not that cold, either, in case you were thinking of mentioning that next.”

  “How would you know? You haven’t been in.”

  He grinned. “Keeping an eye on me, were you?”

  “You know I could really grow to dislike you,” she muttered.

  He didn’t appear to be horrified by the prospect. “Really? I don’t think so. I think exactly the opposite is true and it scares you silly.”

  “You really are full of yourself, aren’t you?” she said as a mischievous idea popped into her head. “Maybe you should cool off.”

  Before he could guess what she intended, she snagged his arm and toppled him straight into the pool. If he hadn’t been off balance to begin with she doubted she could have managed it, but he was. He came up sputtering with a look of astonishment on his face. She might have laughed, if she hadn’t noted the calculating gleam in his eyes. He wanted revenge.

  She pushed off from the wall and swam for the opposite end of the pool. She was fairly confident of her swimming skill, plus she had the element of surprise on her side. And Duke was weighed down with shorts, a T-shirt and sneakers. She should have made it. No question about it.

  When she felt a hand wrap around her ankle, she yelped with surprise and took in a mouthful of water. Strong hands spanned her waist and lifted her up. Her legs instinctively circled Duke’s waist and her hands came to rest on his shoulders. At least his skin wasn’t bare, she thought as desire slammed through her. If it had been, if she’d felt that muscled flesh beneath her fingers, it would have been all over. Her pretense of being unaffected by him would have vanished like a puff of smoke caught by the wind.

  As it was, she doubted he could mistake the pebbling of her nipples beneath the scanty fabric of her bathing suit. Nor could he miss the catch of her breath or the way her own flesh was suddenly burning. She was surprised steam wasn’t rising all around them.

  When she finally dared, she looked into his eyes and saw that he appeared to be almost as stunned as she was. Lust had darkened his eyes. Dani suspected she would find that same passionate hunger reflected in her own eyes. She had never, ever wanted a man as desperately as she did this one. Right here, right now. The powerful force of it stunned her.

  Abstinence and avoidance, it appeared, had been a waste of time. It had had exactly the opposite effect of the one she’d hoped for. Caught up against his body, she was feverish with need.

  “You picked a hell of a time for this,” he murmured, his voice husky.

  “For what?”

  “To tempt me to make love to you.”

  “I am not...” she began, but the protest died on her lips when she saw he would never believe a denial. She managed a halfhearted smile. “You ought to be grateful, actually.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Given the circumstances, we won’t make a terrible mistake.”

  “Would it be so terrible?”

  Unexpected tears formed in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, mixing with chlorine. Hopefully, that would disguise them.

  “You know it would be,” she said.

  “I don’t know any such thing, darlin’.”

  Before they could debate the subject, a voice called out.

  “Hey, Dani, you out here?” Justin shouted. “Dad says you’d better hurry or there won’t be any barbecue left.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” she called back, thankful that they were in the shadowed end of the water, invisible in the gathering darkness.

  “Want me to get you a towel?” her brother offered.

  “No, thanks. Go on back. I’ll be right there.”

  She heard a muttered exchange, then a chuckle.

  “Tell Duke to hurry up, too,” Harlan Patrick called out. “Before Uncle Jordan decides to see what’s taking you so long.”

  Dani chuckled despite her embarrassment. “There are eyes and ears everywhere with this family.”

  “Should I expect Jordan to meet me with a shotgun in the morning?”

  “You never know.”

  He winked at her. “I’ll take my chances. It was worth it.”

  “How can you say that? Nothing happened,” Dani said.

  “Sure it did. I just got all the proof I need that my instincts were on track the first time I saw you.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Meaning?”

  “I’ll explain it to you another time. I think we’d better join the others.”

  “Duke Jenkins, what did you mean?” she said, scurrying after his retreating back.

  Naturally, since she was more intent on catching him than on where she was, she managed to snag his soaking wet shorts just as he stepped onto the patio, right smack in front of her grandfather.

  “Everything okay?” Grandpa Harlan inquired, not even trying to hide his amusement.

  “Just peachy,” Dani said and allowed the elastic waistband to snap back into place.

  Duke grinned. “Better than that, actually.”

  “Good,” Grandpa Harlan said. “I couldn’t be happier.”

  Oh, sweet heaven, what was the family going to make of this? Dani wondered desperately. Not that the answer was all that difficult to figure out. They were going to assume whatever they wanted to. She could talk a blue streak for an entire year, and they would never believe that nothing had happened between her and Duke. For some reason, that didn’t seem to bother him one bit.

  She whirled around and scowled at him. “This is all your fault, you know.”

  “What’s my fault?” he asked innocently.

  If he couldn’t see the hornet’s nest the
y’d stirred up, she wasn’t going to explain it to him. Let him find out for himself when her father cornered him first thing in the morning. She grinned vindictively. What she wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when Duke tried squirming off the hook that he’d inadvertently managed to snag himself on.

  * * *

  “Are you making any progress?” Jordan asked Duke at their regular weekly planning meeting, which had been rescheduled for eight a.m. Tuesday because of the holiday.

  “On what?” Duke inquired, feigning ignorance. He had a hunch they were not talking business. Jordan had taken to lumping the strategy for his personal life into the same sessions at which they discussed acquisitions and mergers.

  “With my daughter, of course.”

  “You were at the picnic yesterday. You know as much as I do.”

  Jordan sighed heavily. “The girl’s as elusive as a will-o’-the-wisp, isn’t she? Just like her mother.”

  “Kelly was hard to get?” Duke asked. “For some reason I thought you two were childhood sweethearts.”

  Jordan grinned. “Depends on whom you ask. She claims she was always crazy about me, but I kept chasing after unsuitable women. When I finally woke up and decided the right woman had been under my nose all along, she turned me down. Again and again, in fact.”

  Duke was astonished. He’d never read an article about his boss in any newspaper or magazine in which some mention hadn’t been made of the enduring love of his life. It was hard to imagine that theirs hadn’t always been a fairy-tale love story. He had envied them that. It was something he never expected to experience.

  “Really?” he asked. “Why didn’t she accept your proposal?”

  “She claimed she was only waiting for me to admit I loved her and Dani. Personally, I think she was paying me back for all that trial and error with those other women.”

  Duke found Jordan’s revelations more disturbing than he dared to admit. If Kelly had held out for an admission of love from a man she openly adored, would her daughter ever accept less from a man? Duke couldn’t offer her love. He didn’t have it in him.

  He could promise her loyalty and faithfulness, companionship and friendship. He could offer her a family. Would that be enough to entice her to marry him? Or would she tell him to go hire a nanny, if all he wanted was someone to look after his sons? Unfortunately, he could practically hear her saying just that. Shouting it, in fact, at the top of her lungs.

  Of course, he did have one ace in the hole. The attraction between them was powerful enough to singe asbestos. Some women confused sexual attraction with love. Few men did. He certainly didn’t. He just prayed that Dani was one of the women who would never sleep with a man she didn’t fancy herself head over heels in love with. Then, once he’d made love to her, he would be halfway to getting her to marry him.

  Of course, he still hadn’t even succeeded in getting her to go on a damn date, but he would rectify that this afternoon at four at Dolan’s. The rest would follow.

  He hoped.

  8

  “Hey, sweetie,” Sharon Lynn said, when Dani walked into Dolan’s promptly at four on Tuesday. “Lemonade? Or are you going to splurge on a milk shake? You haven’t had one in a while.”

  “Since Jenny’s buying, I was thinking of a hot fudge sundae,” Dani said, already imagining the taste of the thick, warm chocolate drenching the chilly, creamy vanilla. If she had any vices, this was it. It had been weeks since she’d last indulged herself. There were a hundred and one reasons she deserved that sundae. Putting up with—no, surviving—Duke Jenkins was at the top of the list.

  Aware of Dani’s recent restraint, Sharon Lynn grinned. “Sure thing,” she said and began scooping vanilla ice cream into a deep, old-fashioned glass dish before Dani could have second thoughts.

  Dani glanced around the deserted drugstore. “Where’s Jenny? I thought she’d be here on the dot since she was so insistent on me being here at four.”

  “Oh, she probably got caught up in something out at White Pines,” Sharon Lynn said without meeting her gaze. “You know how Grandpa Harlan is with his little projects. He loves having Jenny home so he can try to boss her around.”

  “Try being the operative word,” Dani said, smiling. “No one ever succeeds in getting Jenny to do anything she doesn’t want to do, Grandpa included.”

  “Much to his chagrin,” Sharon Lynn added, handing her the sundae.

  “She was a rebellious fourteen-year-old when he married Janet and adopted Jenny. You would think he’d have figured out by now that she’s not going to change.”

  “Grandpa is the most optimistic man on earth. You know that,” Sharon Lynn said. “Plus he managed to manipulate all but one of his stubborn sons into doing what he wanted. He’s a master of reverse psychology. Why should he give up on Jenny?”

  “That’s not quite right,” Dani countered soberly. “Even Uncle Erik followed Grandpa’s wishes and became a rancher. We all know what a tragic mistake that was. He died because of it. You would have thought that would cure Grandpa of meddling.”

  Both she and Sharon Lynn fell silent. She had only very dim memories of Erik Adams. Sharon Lynn hadn’t even been born when the accident on Uncle Luke’s ranch had happened. Still, they both had heard of the heavy cost Grandpa Harlan had paid for pushing Erik into a career for which he wasn’t at all suited. Maybe every member of the Adams clan was destined to make one huge mistake in a lifetime. Hopefully, Rob had been her one and only disaster.

  Then again, maybe there was another terrible calamity on the horizon, she thought as she heard Duke’s cheerful greeting to Sharon Lynn. The spoon almost slipped out of her suddenly shaky grasp when she felt his fingers skim her shoulder in a light caress as he slid onto the stool next to her. Yes, indeed, disaster was definitely right around the corner.

  “Hey, darlin’. Fancy meeting you here,” he said. “Sharon Lynn, how about a cup of coffee and a piece of lemon meringue pie?”

  Dani slowly swiveled around until she could look directly into his eyes.

  The glint she detected seemed an awful lot like triumph. Duke had never struck her as the kind of man who’d be tempted to play hooky in the middle of a workday. Nor was Dolan’s so close to his office that he would be likely to pop in for take-out coffee, not when Jordan maintained a fully stocked snack bar for his employees and a dining room for executives.

  Besides, Duke wasn’t even dressed for work. He’d taken time to go home and change from a business suit into chinos and a T-shirt that emphasized the breadth of his chest and the muscles in his arms. She should be used to the fact that he was devastating no matter what he wore, but she wasn’t.

  Since he was very much here in the middle of a workday, there was only one conclusion she could reach. He had to be up to something and the something was related to her.

  But how the heck would he have known...? One look at Sharon Lynn’s expression answered that. Guilt was written all over her face. Dani turned back to Duke.

  “Why aren’t you at the office?” she inquired suspiciously.

  The corners of his mouth tilted into the beginnings of a smile. “Is this an official inquiry or casual chitchat?”

  “Whichever will get me a straight answer.”

  “I’m all caught up on my work,” he said as if he were a kid swearing that all his homework was done. “Jordan gave me permission to take the rest of the day off.”

  Dani regarded him skeptically. “You asked?”

  “Of course. I always play by the rules.”

  “Oh, please,” she protested. “You don’t expect me to believe that one, do you?”

  He grinned. “It was worth a shot,” he said and took a bite of his pie.

  “It failed. Now try the truth. Why are you here?”

  He took his own sweet time about answering. First, he tried another bite of the pie Sharon Lynn had set down,
then a couple of swallows of coffee. Dani was fighting exasperation by the time he met her gaze.

  “Actually, someone mentioned that this would be a good time to catch up with Josh and Zack,” he said turning a pointed look on Sharon Lynn, who was suddenly very busy counting out little piles of napkins on the far side of the U-shaped counter. “Have you seen them today?”

  “No.” Dani watched her cousin trying to slip unobtrusively into the storage room. No question Sharon Lynn was in this—whatever this was—up to her eyeballs.

  “Are you expecting them?” Duke asked.

  Dani’s gaze narrowed. “Why would I be expecting them?” Suddenly the whole convoluted plot began to come clear. She stared at her cousin, who’d almost made it into the safety of that back room. “Sharon Lynn, get back here. What do you know about this?”

  “About what?” her cousin asked defensively.

  “Me being here? Duke turning up? What’s the deal?”

  “Deal? There’s no deal,” she insisted, not coming one step closer. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Why you little...” Duke began, then suddenly grinned. “You’re good. You know that. You are really good.”

  Sharon Lynn blushed.

  Dani stared from one to the other. “Would one of you tell me what’s going on?”

  Since Sharon Lynn’s lips were clamped firmly shut, it was Duke who answered. “We’ve been had, darlin’. Set up. Manipulated. Meddled with.”

  That pretty much confirmed Dani’s own suspicions. After all, Jenny was nowhere in sight, either. Their scheming left her momentarily speechless.

  “Let me guess,” Duke suggested. “You were lured here to meet...?”

  “Jenny,” she supplied with a sigh.

  “Any sign of her?”

  “No.” She scowled at her cousin. “Sharon Lynn?”

  “Yes?”

  “What are you two up to?” she asked again, though by now the answer was fairly obvious.

  Fortunately, for her cousin, the phone in the storage room rang.