Luke gazed heavenward. “How many times have I heard those words from you two? You’d think after all these years, you’d learn to fight fair.”
“I’m not the one...” Kelly began.
“Whose side are you on, big brother?” Jordan demanded.
“Ah, the sweet sound of two stubborn personalities butting heads yet again,” Luke said. “Jessie, maybe we should back off and let them fight it out.”
“Not in my living room,” she countered. “I do have a compromise, though.”
At the mention of compromise, Kelly’s gaze caught his. He wasn’t sure but he thought he detected amusement dancing in her eyes. “Bad idea,” he told Jessie. “I’m afraid compromise is what got us into this argument.”
Jessie wasn’t about to be put off so easily. “That’s not possible. Compromise is good.”
“Not necessarily,” Kelly muttered.
“Well, you’ll just have to listen to mine,” Jessie declared. “If you two absolutely must go to Houston, wait and leave in the morning, let Dani stay here until you come back. At least you’ll have some privacy for the next week or so. It may not be a honeymoon in the Caribbean, but it’s the best I can offer on short notice.”
Jordan glanced hopefully at Kelly. Given time, he knew they could work this disagreement out. It would go much more smoothly if they didn’t have Dani to worry about. It was Kelly’s call, though. He wasn’t about to start their marriage by forcing her to leave her daughter behind. He didn’t ever want her to think that he wasn’t interested in all of them being a family. Unfortunately, she didn’t look overjoyed by the suggestion.
“I don’t know...” She looked at him, clearly struggling with the prospect of abandoning her child even for a few days. “Jordan?”
“It’s up to you.”
“Come on,” Jessie urged. “It’s the perfect solution. She’s having a wonderful time here and she’s no trouble at all. You were planning for her to be here a few days anyway. Besides, you don’t want her caught up in the middle of your argument, do you?”
Jordan watched Kelly debating with herself, clearly aware of the sense of Jessie’s suggestion, but resisting it just the same. He kept silent and let her work it out on her own.
“I suppose it would be okay just this once,” Kelly agreed eventually. She shot a determined look at Jordan and added, as if daring him to contradict her, “We’ll pick her up Friday evening.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed.
Still looking worried, she gazed at Jessie. “Are you sure it won’t be an imposition?”
“Absolutely not,” Jessie said. “Right, Luke?”
Luke cast a quick look Jordan’s way. Jordan gave his older brother an almost imperceptible nod.
“Right,” Luke agreed.
“And you’ll stay the night,” Jessie prodded.
Clearly Kelly would have preferred to eat dirt, but she nodded. Jordan figured he had till morning to think how to mend fences.
They were on their way at daybreak. Dani hadn’t batted an eye at their departure, but Kelly had been misty-eyed ever since.
“Are you sure you don’t mind leaving Dani here?” Jordan asked after he’d made the turn onto the highway. “There’s still time to change your mind.”
“No, I think it’s best that you and I resolve some things before we try to get on with having any kind of normal family life. Jessie was right. Dani heard enough fighting between Paul and me. I don’t want her to go through that again.”
Jordan studied her intently. “Are we going to fight?”
She sighed and met his gaze. “It seems inevitable, doesn’t it?”
“What seems inevitable to me is being married to you,” he said at once. “The rest of it is just details.”
Kelly’s startled expression gave way to something that might have been relief. “Do you really mean that?” she asked.
“I never say anything I don’t mean,” he assured her. “Sometimes I don’t phrase things tactfully enough. Ginger’s always getting on me about that. Sometimes I cut to the chase too soon, but I always, always mean what I say.”
He slowed the car and eased it onto the shoulder of the road, so he could look directly into her eyes. “When I stood in front of that minister night before last and promised to love, honor and cherish you all the rest of our days, I meant every word.” He leveled a gaze straight at her. “Did you?”
Tears shone in her eyes and her lower lip trembled as she nodded. “I did.”
“Then, like I said, sweet pea, all the rest is details.”
13
The very first detail Kelly intended to deal with was getting the two of them out of Houston permanently. She had forgotten how heavy and oppressive the air there could be in midsummer. Clothes clung damply the minute they stepped out of the car. The movement between stifling heat and air-conditioning was capable of inducing pneumonia, especially since Jordan kept his home at Arctic-level temperatures. A chill sped through her at the blast of cold air that hit her the instant he opened the huge, carved front door.
Other than the frigid temperature, Kelly really had nothing against Jordan’s house. She’d been in it dozens of times when she had lived in Houston. She’d always admired the neat sweep of perfectly tended lawn, the cool turquoise waters of the pool, the thick, lush wall-to-wall carpeting, the decorator-chosen selection of fine paintings and antiques.
None of it, though, seemed to have anything to do with Jordan, at least not the man she knew. What frightened her was the possibility that it might reflect this other Jordan, the shrewd businessman she wasn’t nearly so fond of, the man who bargained for a bride with the same single-minded determination with which he’d go after an oil contract.
Only his study, with its book-lined walls, its slightly faded Southwestern decor, its original Remington bronze sculpture, seemed to fit his personality or his taste. The rest was too formal, too sterile.
And she could just imagine how long it would take Dani to destroy all those yards and yards of white carpeting that had clearly been chosen by
