She’d married Paul Flint only after she’d finally faced up to the fact that Jordan was never going to view her as anything more than his pal. Her world had fallen apart after that stupid, impulsive decision. Not right away, of course. It had taken a month or two before Paul had started spending more and more time away from their home. She wasn’t even certain when he’d started seeing other women.
When she finally accepted the fact that Paul was having affairs, she asked for a divorce. Jordan had been there to pick up the pieces. He hadn’t even said he’d told her so as he’d transported her and then three-year-old Dani to the ranch where Kelly had grown up.
From that moment on they had fallen into their old pattern of frequent phone calls and visits whenever he came home from Houston. She looked forward to their talks more and more. She had dreaded the day when his marriage to Rexanne would force an end to the quiet, uncomplicated time they spent together.
At least that wasn’t a problem any longer, she thought with another sigh.
“Mommy? Are you sad?” Dani inquired with her astonishing perceptiveness.
“Just a little,” she admitted.
“I know just what you need,” her daughter announced, giving her a coy look that Kelly recognized all too well.
“What’s that?”
“A new kitten.”
Kelly grinned at her child’s sneaky tactics. The suggestion was certainly a more rational one than Jordan had offered. A kitten was a whole lot less complicated than taking on a husband who’d selected her for marriage for all the wrong reasons.
“I’ll think about it,” she promised. “Now, go take your bath and get ready for bed.”
Dani bounced off toward the stairs, then halted and looked back. “Mommy?”
“Yes.”
“Think really hard, okay?”
“Okay.”
It was the second time that night that she’d been asked to carefully consider a decision that could change her life. Instinct told her to say no to both requests. Her heart was another matter entirely.
2
Jordan lingered over coffee at White Pines the morning after his proposal to Kelly. He’d been up since the crack of dawn, in the dining room since six-thirty. All that time he’d been pondering a new approach to the problem of getting Kelly to take his declaration of his intentions seriously. For the first time in his life, he was at a loss.
He heard the sound of boots on the stairs and glanced toward the doorway. Harlan Adams appeared a moment later, looking as fit as ever despite the fact that his fifty-sixth birthday was just around the corner. He regarded his son with surprise. Jordan suspected it was feigned, since nothing went on around White Pines that his father didn’t know within minutes.
“Hey, boy, when did you turn up?” his father asked as he surveyed the lavish breakfast buffet their housekeeper had left for them.
“Last night.”
“Must have been mighty late.”
“I’m too old for you to be checking my comings and goings,” Jordan reminded his father.
“Did I ask?”
Jordan sighed and battled his instinctive reaction to his father’s habitual, if subtle, probing. Harlan loved to goad them all, loved the spirited arguments and loved even more the rare wins he managed against his sons’ stubbornness.
According to Luke, the oldest, their father battled wits with them just to get them to stand up for what they wanted. Jordan supposed it might be true. He’d practically had to declare war to leave White Pines and its ready-made career in ranching to go into the oil business. Yet once he’d gotten to Houston, the path had miraculously been cleared for him. He’d promptly found work at one of the best companies in the state before striking out on his own a few years later.
“Everything okay around here?” he inquired as his father piled his plate high with the scrambled eggs, ham and hash browns that were forbidden to him except on weekends. He noted with some amusement that Harlan gave wide berth to the bran flakes and oatmeal.
“Things would be just fine if Cody didn’t decide he has to have some newfangled piece of equipment every time I turn around,” Harlan grumbled.
“How many have you let him buy?” Jordan asked.
His father shrugged. “Put my foot down about some fancy computer with those little disks and intergalactic communications potential or some such. I can’t even figure out the one we’ve got. Luke spent a whole day trying to show me again the last time he and Jessie were over here, but if you ask me, pen and paper are plenty good enough for keeping the books.”
Jordan hid a smile. He knew that his father’s pretended bemusement covered a mind that could grasp the most intricate details in a flash. Any trouble he was having with his computer was feigned solely to grab Luke’s attention.
“Daddy, you’re practically in the twenty-first century,” he chided. “You have to keep up with the times.”
“A lot of nonsense, if you ask me.” He grinned. “Leastways, that’s what I tell Cody. Keeps him on his toes.”
The youngest of the Adams brothers, Cody was the one who’d fought hardest for his place as the head of the White Pines ranching operation. Harlan had pushed just as hard to get him to leave and strike out on his own. Now there was little question in anyone’s mind that Cody was as integral to the family business as his father was.
“One of these days the two of you are going to butt heads once too often,” Jordan warned his father.
“Not a chance,” Harlan said with evident pride. “That boy’s stubborn as a mule. Might even be worse than you or Lucas and he’s a danged sight ornerier than Erik.”
He sounded downright happy about his youngest’s muleheadedness. He studied Jordan over the rim of his coffee cup. “You never did say what brought you home.”
“No,” Jordan said firmly. “I didn’t.”
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with that Flint woman, would it?”
Jordan’s
