The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter

Chapter Two

“I’ve taken on another hand for the summer,” Harlan mentioned to Cody when he stopped by just before dinner later that night.

His son sat up a little straighter in the leather chair in which he’d sprawled out of habit as soon as he’d walked through the door. Instantly Harlan could see Cody’s jaw setting stubbornly as he prepared to argue against his father’s unilateral decision. Harlan decided he’d best cut him off at the pass.

“Don’t go getting your drawers in a knot,” he advised him. “I’m not usurping your authority. This was just something that came up.”

“Came up how?” Cody asked, suspicion written all over his face. “There’s no budget for another hand. You told me that yourself when we talked about it just last week.”

“It came up right after my truck was stolen and smashed up,” Harlan explained. “Let’s just say that no money will be changing hands. The thief will be working off the repair bill.”

Cody’s jaw dropped. “You hired the thief who stole your car? Haven’t you ever heard of jail time? If any of us had stolen a car and gone joyriding, you’d have helped the sheriff turn the lock on the cell.”

“It didn’t seem like the thing to do with a thirteen-year-old girl,” Harlan said mildly. “Seemed to me this was a better way to teach her a lesson.”

Cody fell silent, clearly chewing over the concept of a teenage girl as his newest ranch hand. “What the hell am I supposed to have her doing?” he asked finally.

“You’re not her boss,” Harlan said, amused by the relief that instantly spread across Cody’s face. “I am. I just wanted you to know she’d be around. Her name’s Jenny Runningbear.”

“Runningbear? Is her mother…?”

“The new lawyer in town,” Harlan supplied, watching as curiosity rose in Cody’s eyes.

“Did you meet her?” Cody asked.

“I did.” He decided then and there that he’d better be stingy with information about that meeting. His son had the look of a man about to make a romantic mountain out of a platonic molehill.

“And?”

“And, what?”

“What did you think of her?”

“She seemed nice,” Harlan offered blandly, even as he conjured up some fairly steamy images of the raven-haired beauty who’d struck him as a fascinating blend of strength and vulnerability. Nice was far too tame a description for that delicate, exotic face, those long, long legs, and eyes so dark a man could lose himself in them.

“Really?” Cody said, skepticism written all over his face. “Nice?”

Harlan didn’t like the way Cody was studying him. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” he replied irritably.

“Just seemed sort of namby-pamby to me,” Cody retorted. “I might have described her as hot. I believe Jordan said something similar after he spotted her.”

Harlan bit back a sharp rebuke. His gaze narrowed. “Exactly how well do you and your brother know the woman?”

“Not well enough to say more than hello when we pass on the street. Never even been introduced. Of course, if we both weren’t happily married, we’d probably be brawling over first dibs on meeting her.”

“See that you remember that you are married,” he advised his son.

“Interesting,” Cody observed, his eyes suddenly sparkling with pure mischief.

“What’s interesting?”

“The way you’re getting all protective about the mother of a teenage car thief. What time are they getting here in the morning?”

“That’s nothing you need to concern yourself about.” He stood, glanced at his watch pointedly as he anticipated his housekeeper’s imminent announcement that dinner was on the table. “I’d invite you to dinner, but I told Maritza I’d be eating alone. It’s time you got home to your wife and those grandbabies of mine anyway.”

Cody didn’t budge. “They’re eating in town with her folks tonight, so I’m all yours. I told Maritza I’d be staying. I thought maybe we could wrangle a little over buying that acreage out to the east, but I’d rather talk more about your impressions of Janet Runningbear.”

“Forget it,” Harlan warned. “Besides, since when does my housekeeper take orders from you?”

Cody grinned. “Ever since I was old enough to talk. I inherited your charm. It pays off in the most amazing ways. Maritza even fixed all my favorites. She said she’d missed me something fierce. I’m the one with the cast-iron stomach.”

Harlan sighed as he thought of the hot peppers that comment implied. Between lunch at Rosa’s and that darned accident, his own stomach could have used a bowl of nice bland oatmeal. It appeared he was out of luck.

“Well, come on, then. The sooner we eat, the sooner I can get you out of here and get some peace and quiet.”

“You really interested in peace and quiet, Daddy? Or do you just want to make sure you get some beauty sleep before you see Janet Runningbear in the morning?” Cody taunted.

“Don’t go getting too big for your britches, son,” Harlan warned. “You’re not so old that I can’t send you packing without your supper. Push me hard enough, I might just send you packing, period.”

“But you won’t,” Cody retorted confidently.

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Because so far only you and I know about this new fascination of yours. Send me home and I’ll have the whole, long evening to fill up. I might decide to use that time by calling Luke and Jordan. They like to be up-to-date on everything that goes on around White Pines. They’ll be flat-out delighted to discover that you’re no longer bored.”

Harlan could just imagine the hornet’s nest that would stir up. He’d have all three sons hovering over him, making rude remarks, discussing his relationship with a woman he’d barely spent a half hour with up to now. They’d consider taunting him their duty, just as he’d considered it his to meddle in their lives.

“That’s blackmail,” he accused.

Cody’s grin was unrepentant. “Sure is. It’s going to make life around here downright interesting, isn’t it?”

Harlan sighed. It was indeed.

* * *

“I don’t see why I have to work for him,” Jenny declared for the hundredth time since learning of the agreement her mother had made with Harlan Adams. “Aren’t there child labor laws or something?”

“There are also laws against car theft,” Janet stated flatly. “You didn’t seem overly concerned about those.”

A yawn took a little of the edge off of her words. No one in his right mind actually got up at daybreak. She was certain of it. Even though she’d forced herself to get to bed two hours earlier than usual the night before, she’d wanted to hurl the alarm clock out the window when it had gone off forty-five minutes ago.

She’d dressed in a sleepy fog. With any luck, everything at least matched. As for her driving, she would probably be considered a menace if anyone checked on how many of her brain cells were actually functioning. The lure of a huge pot of caffeinated coffee was all that had gotten her out the door.

At the moment she could cheerfully have murdered Jenny for getting them into this predicament. The very thought of doing this day after day all summer long had her gnashing her teeth. She was in no mood for any more of her daughter’s backtalk.

“Why couldn’t you just pay him?” Jenny muttered. “There’s money in my account from Dad.”

“It’s for college,” Janet reminded her. “Besides, I offered to pay Mr. Adams. He refused.”

“Jeez, did he see you coming! I’m free labor, Mom. He’ll probably have me scrubbing down the barn floor or something. I’ll probably end up with arthritis from kneeling in all that cold, filthy water.”

“Serves you right,” Janet said.

At the lack of either sympathy or any hint of a reprieve, Jenny retreated into sullen silence. That gave Janet time to work on her own composure.

To her astonishment, Harlan Adams had slipped into her dreams last night. She’d awakened feeling restless and edgy and unfulfilled in a way that didn’t bear too close a scrutiny. It was a state she figured she’d better get over before her arrival at White Pines. He had struck her as the kind of man who would seize on any hint of weakness and capitalize on it.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon in a blaze of brilliant orange when she arrived at the gate to the ranch. She turned onto the property with something akin to awe spreading through her as she studied the raw beauty of the land around her. This was the land Lone Wolf had described, lush and barren in turns, stretched out as far as the eye could see, uninterrupted by the kind of development she’d come to take for granted in New York.

“This is it?” Jenny asked, a heavy measure of disdain in her voice. “There’s nothing here.”

Janet hid a smile. No Bloomingdale’s. No high rises. No restaurants or music stores. It was little wonder her daughter sounded so appalled.

She, to the contrary, was filled at last with that incredible sense of coming home that she’d wanted so badly to feel when she’d moved to Los Piños. She considered for a moment whether Lone Wolf’s father might have hunted on this very land. It pleased her somehow to think that he might have.

“That’s why they call it the wide open spaces,” she told her daughter. “Remember all the stories I told you about Lone Wolf?”

“Yeah, but I don’t get it,” Jenny declared flatly. “Maybe I could just get a job in the drugstore or something and pay Mr. Adams back that way.”

“No,” Janet said softly, listening to the early morning sounds of birds singing, insects humming and somewhere in the distance a tractor rumbling. Did he grow his own grain? Or maybe have a nice vegetable garden? On some level, she thought she’d been waiting all her life for a moment just like this.

“I think this will be perfect for you,” she added as hope flowered inside her for the first time in years.

Jenny rolled her eyes. “If he makes me go near a horse or a cow, I’m out of here,” she warned.

Janet grinned. “This is a cattle ranch. I think you can pretty much count on horses and cows.”

“Mo-om!” she wailed. Her gaze narrowed. “I’ll run away. I’ll steal a car and drive all the way home to New York.”

“And then what?” Janet inquired mildly. Jenny knew as well as she did that there was no room for her in her father’s life. Even though at the moment his selfishness suited her purposes, she hated Barry Randall for making his disinterest so abundantly clear to his daughter.

Jenny turned a tearful gaze on her that almost broke Janet’s heart.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” she asked.

“Afraid not, love. Besides, I think you’ll enjoy this once you’ve gotten used to it. Think of all the stories you’ll have to write to your friends back in New York. How many of them have ever seen a genuine cowboy, much less worked on a ranch?”

“How many of them even wanted to?” Jenny shot back.

“You remember what I always told my clients when they landed in jail?” Janet asked.

Jenny shot her a tolerant look and sighed heavily. “I remember. It’s up to me whether I make my time here hard or easy.”

“Exactly.”

A sudden gleam lit her eyes. “I suppose it’s also up to me whether it’s hard or easy for Mr. Adams, too, huh?”

Janet didn’t much like the sound of that. “Jenny,” she warned. “If you don’t behave, you’ll be in debt to this man until you’re old enough for college.”

“I’ll be good, Mom. Cross my heart.”

Janet nodded, accepting the promise, but the glint in her daughter’s eyes when she made that solemn vow was worrisome. The words had come a little too quickly, a little too easily. Worse, she recognized that glint all too well. It made her wonder if Harlan Adams just might have bitten off more than he could handle.

One look at him a few minutes later and her doubts vanished. This was a man competent to deal with anything at all. When he rounded the corner of the house in his snug, worn jeans, his blue chambray shirt, his dusty boots and that Stetson hat, he almost stole her breath away.

If she was ever of a mind to let another man into her life, she wanted one who exuded exactly this combination of strength, sex appeal and humor. His eyes were practically dancing with laughter as he approached. And the appreciative head-to-toe look he gave her could have melted steel. Her knees didn’t stand a chance. They turned weak as a new colt’s.

“Too early for you?” he inquired, his gaze drifting over her once more in the kind of lazy inspection that left goose bumps in its wake.

“No, indeed,” she denied brightly. “Why would you think that?”

“No special reason. It’s just that you struck me as a woman who’d never leave the house with quite so many buttons undone.”

A horrified glance at her blouse confirmed the teasing comment. She’d missed more buttons than she’d secured, which meant there was an inordinate amount of cleavage revealed. She vowed to strangle her daughter at the very first opportunity for not warning her. At least the damned blouse did match her slacks, she thought as she fumbled with the buttons with fingers that shook.

“Jeez, Mom,” Jenny protested. “Let me.”

Janet thought she heard Harlan mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, “Or me,” but she couldn’t be absolutely sure. When she looked in his direction, his gaze was fixed innocently enough on the sky.

“Come on inside,” he invited a moment later. “I promised you coffee. I think Maritza has breakfast ready by now, too.”

“Who’s Maritza?” Jenny asked.

Her tone suggested a level of distrust that had Janet shooting a warning look in her direction. Harlan, however, appeared oblivious to Jenny’s suspicions.

“My housekeeper,” he explained. “She’s been with the family for years. If you’re interested in learning a little Tex-Mex cooking while you’re here, she’ll be glad to teach you. She’s related to Rosa, who owns the Mexican Café in town.”

“I hate Tex-Mex,” Jenny declared.

“You do not,” Janet said, giving Harlan an apologetic smile. “She’s a little contrary at this hour.”

“Seemed to be that way at midday, too,” he stated pointedly. “Not to worry. It would be an understatement to say that I’ve had a lot of experience with contrariness.”

He led the way through the magnificent foyer and into a formal dining room that was practically the size of Janet’s entire house. Her eyes widened. “Good heavens, do you actually eat in here by yourself?”

He seemed startled by the question. “Of course. Why?”

“It’s just that it’s so…” She fumbled for the right word.

“Big,” Jenny contributed.

“Lonely,” Janet said, then regretted it at once. The man didn’t need to be reminded that he was a widower and that his sons were no longer living under his roof. He was probably aware of those sad facts every single day of his life.

He didn’t seem to take offense, however. He just shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

He gestured toward a buffet laden with more cereals, jams, muffins, toast and fruits than Janet had ever seen outside a grocery store.

“Help yourself,” he said. “If you’d rather have eggs and bacon, Maritza will fix them for you. She doesn’t allow me near the stuff.”

“How come?” Jenny asked.

“Cholesterol, fat.” He grimaced. “They’ve taken all the fun out of eating. Next thing you know they’ll be feeding us a bunch of pills three times a day and we won’t be needing food at all.”

“There are egg substitutes,” Janet commented.

“Yellow mush,” he contradicted.

“And turkey bacon.”

He shuddered. “Not a chance.”

Janet chuckled at his reaction. “I’m not going to convince you, am I?”

“Depends on how good you are at sweet talk, darlin’.”

Her startled gaze flew to his. Those blue eyes were innocent as a baby’s. Even so, she knew in her gut, where butterflies were ricocheting wildly, that he had just tossed down a gauntlet of sorts. He was daring her to turn this so-called arrangement they had made for Jenny’s punishment into something personal. The temperature in the room rose significantly.

Nothing would happen between them. Janet was adamant about that. She was in Texas to tap into her Native American roots, not to get involved with another white man. She’d tried that once and it had failed, just as her mother’s marriage to a white man had ended in disaster exactly as Lone Wolf had apparently predicted when her mother had fled the reservation.

She drew herself up and leveled a look at him that she normally reserved for difficult witnesses in court. “That, darlin’, is something you’re not likely to find out,” she retorted.

Jenny’s eyes widened as she listened to the exchange. Janet was very aware of the precise instant when a speculative gleam lit her daughter’s intelligent brown eyes. Dear heaven, that was the last thing she needed. Jenny was like a puppy with a sock when she got a notion into her head. If she sensed there were sparks between her mother and Harlan Adams, she’d do everything in her power to see that they flared into a blaze. She’d do it not because she particularly wanted someone to replace her father, but just to see if she could pull it off.

To put a prompt end to any such speculation, Janet forced a perfectly blank expression onto her face as she turned her attention to the man seated opposite her.

“Exactly what will Jenny be doing today?”

“I thought maybe I’d teach her to ride,” Harlan replied just as blandly, apparently willing to let that sudden flare of heat between them die down for the moment. “Unless she already knows how.”

“Oh, no,” Jenny protested.

Janet jumped in to prevent the tantrum she suspected was only seconds away. “She doesn’t, but riding doesn’t sound much like punishment or work to me.”

“She has to be able to get around, if she’s going to be much use on a ranch this size,” he countered. “I can’t go putting her behind the wheel of a truck again, now can I?”

He glanced at his watch, then at Jenny. “You ready?”

Jenny’s chin rose stubbornly. “Not if you were paying me a hundred bucks an hour,” she declared.

Janet thought she detected a spark of amusement in his eyes, but his expression remained perfectly neutral.

“You scared of horses?” he inquired.

Janet watched her daughter, sensing her dilemma. Jenny would rather eat dirt than admit to fear of any sort. At the same time, she had a genuine distrust of horses, based totally on unfamiliarity, not on any dire experience she’d ever had.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Jenny informed Harlan stiffly. “Horses are dirty and smelly and big. I don’t choose to be around them.”

Harlan chuckled at the haughty dismissal. “I can’t do much about their size, but I can flat-out guarantee they won’t be dirty or smelly by the time you’re finished grooming them.”

Jenny turned a beseeching look in Janet’s direction. “Mom!”

“He’s the boss,” Janet reminded her.

“I don’t see you getting anywhere near a smelly old horse,” Jenny complained.

“You’d be welcome, if you’d care to join us,” Harlan said a little too cheerfully.

“Perhaps another time. I have to get to work.”

“Why?” Jenny asked. “You don’t have any clients.”

Janet winced. The remark was true enough, but she didn’t want Harlan Adams knowing too much about her law practice, if that’s what handling one speeding violation could be called.

“Business slow?” he asked, leveling a penetrating look straight at her.

She shrugged. “You know how it is. I’m new to town.”

He looked as if he might be inclined to comment on that, but instead he let it pass. She was grateful to him for not trying to make excuses for neighbors who were slow to trust under the best of conditions. Their biases made them particularly distrustful of a woman lawyer, who was part Comanche, to boot, and openly proud of it.

“What time should I pick Jenny up?” she asked.

“Suppertime’s good enough. You finish up at work any earlier, come on out,” he said. “We’ll go on that ride. I never get tired of looking at the beauty of this land.”

Janet found herself smiling at the simplicity of the admission. She could understand his appreciation of his surroundings. Perhaps even more than he could ever guess.

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that one of these days,” she agreed. She stood and brushed a kiss across her daughter’s forehead. “Have a good time, sweetie.”

“Is that another one of those things you tell all your clients who end up in prison?” Jenny inquired, her expression sour.

“You’re not in prison,” Janet observed, avoiding Harlan’s gaze. She had a feeling he was close to laughing and exchanging a look with her would guarantee it. Jenny would resent being laughed at more than anything.

“Seems that way to me,” Jenny said.

“Remind me to show you what a real prison looks like one of these days,” Janet countered. “You’ll be grateful to Mr. Adams for not sending you to one.”

Janet decided that was as good an exit line as she was likely to make. She was halfway to the front door when she realized that Harlan had followed her. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly.

“She’ll be okay,” he promised.

Janet grinned at his solemn expression. “I know,” she agreed. “But will you?”

Chapter Three

When Janet’s car had disappeared from sight, Harlan turned and walked slowly back inside. For the first time he was forced to admit that his decision to haul Jenny Runningbear’s butt out to White Pines to work off her debt wasn’t entirely altruistic. He’d wanted to guarantee himself the chance to spend more time with her mother.

But now, with Janet on her way back to town and her taunt about his ability to manage Jenny ringing in his ears, he wondered precisely what he’d gotten himself into.

Raising four stubborn sons, when he’d had authority and respect on his side, had been tricky enough. He had neither of those things going for him now. If anything, Jenny resented him and she had no qualms at all about letting him know it.

He sighed as he stood in the doorway to the dining room and studied Jenny’s sullen expression. If ever a teen had needed a stern hand, this one did. Whether she knew it or not, she was just aching for someone besides her mama to set some rules and make her stick to them.

It was a job her father should have been handling, but he’d clearly abandoned it. It was little wonder the girl was misbehaving, he thought with a deep sense of pity. Typically in the aftermath of divorce, she was crying out for attention. Maybe she’d even hoped if she were difficult enough, she’d be sent back to her father for disciplining.

It took some determination, but Harlan finally shoved aside his inclination to feel sorry for her. It wouldn’t help. He figured whatever happened in the next few minutes would set the tone for the rest of the days Jenny spent at White Pines.