Chapter Three

      “He is clueless,” Kelly declared to Jordan’s sister-in-law Jessie a few weeks later.

      Kelly hadn’t been around when Jessie’s marriage to Erik Adams ended with his tragic death in a ranch accident. Jessie had been pregnant with Erik’s baby at the time. By the time Kelly had returned to Los Pinos, Luke, the oldest of the Adams brothers, had delivered the baby during a blizzard and he and Jessie had fallen in love and married. Whenever the two of them came home to White Pines with their daughter, Jessie slipped away for a visit and the kind of girl talk they rarely got elsewhere. Over the past months, Kelly had come to consider her a good friend.

      “For a man widely regarded as brilliant, I think his synapses regarding women short-circuited sometime around puberty,” Kelly added as she kneaded her bread dough with a ferocity that had Jessie grinning.

      “You love him, though, don’t you?” Jessie teased. Regarding Kelly intently, she reached over to still her flour-covered hands.

      Kelly gazed into blue eyes filled with concern and sighed heavily. Eventually she drew in a calming breath and shrugged. “Depends on when you ask.”

      “I’m asking now.”

      “Now I’m exasperated, annoyed, perplexed and bordering on murderous.” Her temper flared up all over again. “He actually thinks I’ll pack up Dani and move back to Houston. Wasn’t he even awake during my marriage to Paul? Did he miss every single one of the opinions I expressed about the city during the entire drive from Houston back to this ranch? Has he been oblivious to how hard I’ve worked to make a go of this place? Can’t he see how I love it?”

      “Maybe he can see that the work is wearing you out. Maybe he just assumes a wife should want to live where her husband lives,” Jessie suggested. “There is a tradition of that sort of thing. Whither thou goest, et cetera.”

      “Well, times have changed. I’ve been there, done that. I’m perfectly happy right here.”

      “You look exhausted to me.”

      “So what? I didn’t say it was easy. I said I loved it. Every little improvement I’m able to accomplish around here gives me a deep sense of satisfaction. How can I give that up to go be some socialite wife?”

      “It doesn’t have to be an either-or situation. Compromise,” Jessie said.

      “He used the same word, but he doesn’t know the meaning of it,” Kelly said with conviction. Jordan was the kind of man who knew exactly what he wanted and assumed the rightness of it. Control was second nature to him. He was more like his father in that respect than he had ever acknowledged.

      She sighed. “When I came back here after the divorce, I really needed to figure out who I was. I was no longer the teenager with the crush on the boy next door. I was no longer Paul Flint’s cheated-on spouse. I didn’t know who I was. I’m still rediscovering myself. I don’t want to need anyone ever again.”

      “Then don’t marry him.”

      “Have you ever tried to say no to Jordan?” Kelly inquired dryly. “Short of barring the front door, disconnecting the phone and never looking out the windows, I can’t seem to avoid these declarations of intent he’s been dreaming up for the past month. Did you look in the living room? There must be seven dozen roses in there. I sneeze when I walk through the door. Worse, Dani’s beginning to ask a lot of questions. I’ve avoided answering them so far, but that can’t go on much longer. She’s a very perceptive child and all those roses are hard to kiss off.” She hesitated. “That’s another thing that worries me.”

      “What?”

      “Dani. Jordan acts as if he’s scared to death of her sometimes.”

      Jessie nodded. “I can believe that. The first time he held Angela, he looked as if he might faint. Obviously he’s just not used to being around kids.”

      “Maybe,” Kelly said doubtfully. “What if it’s more than that? What if he just plain doesn’t like children?”

      “You asked him to be Dani’s godfather. Obviously, you trust him instinctively with your child. Give him time around Dani and see how it goes. How does she behave around him?”

      “Dani misses her father desperately. She looks at Jordan with so much hope in her eyes sometimes that it breaks my heart. She wants a daddy. I’m not sure she’s too particular about who it is. That’s another reason to keep all this nonsense from her. If she learns that Jordan has proposed, she’ll stop at nothing to make it happen. Have you ever tried to say no to a stubborn five-year-old? Between worrying about her finding out and fending off Jordan, the whole thing is wearing me out.”

      “I think it’s supposed to wear you down.”

      Kelly sighed. “That, too.”

      * * *

      Jordan was beginning to wonder if Kelly was right, that he had lost his mind. For the past month he’d spent an awful lot of time trying to outguess a woman he had known forever, a woman he’d been certain he understood completely. It was a damned confounding turn of events.

      Not that he didn’t love a challenge. He did. He’d just never expected his old pal Kelly to provide it. To his everlasting chagrin, he had expected her to say yes to his proposal without giving the matter a second thought. The plan was so sensible, he didn’t see how she could say anything else.

      As for that kiss they’d shared, his body hardened every time he thought about it. Who would have guessed that good old Kelly had that much passion inside her? Once he’d recovered from the shock, he’d realized that it was a benefit he hadn’t even considered when he’d made his choice. Discovering that he wanted her physically was a hell of a bonus.

      Years ago, when he’d experienced the first faint stirrings of desire for her, he’d forced them aside. His father had always told him there were women for marrying and women for dalliances. He had known with certainty even then that Kelly was the kind of woman a man married, not the