“We’re not a couple of kids with stars in our eyes,” he said. “We could make it work.”
The remark, so like him, snapped her out of the dreamy, hopeful state of mind he’d induced in her. “But I want stars in my eyes. If I ever marry again, I want it all.” She fingered the piles of silk scattered across the table, then gazed directly into his eyes. “I want it all, Jordan. Nothing less.”
He stood slowly, then, the faintest hint of anger in his eyes. “I won’t stop trying,” he said with a touch of defiance.
“You’ll be wasting your time.”
Before she realized what he intended, he turned back, leaned down and kissed her, a bruising, hard kiss that stole her breath away. His mouth plundered hers, branding her as his as surely as if she’d been one of those heads of cattle at White Pines.
While she was still dazed, he said softly, “I don’t think so, sweetheart. I don’t think it will be a waste of time at all.”
4
Jordan figured he must have gotten less than an hour of sleep the entire night. Despite his exhaustion, he was back at Kelly’s just before dawn, expecting to find her dressed and ready to get to all that fence mending she’d talked about the night before. Instead he found the house quiet and dark except for a faint light he thought he detected in the kitchen.
So, she hadn’t gotten much sleep, either. He counted that as a positive sign, an indication that perhaps she had spent the remaining hours of the night lying awake thinking about him, just as he had about her.
He walked around toward the back of the house, prepared to taunt her a little about getting a late start. Instead he found only Dani in the kitchen, standing on a chair in front of the sink, carefully pouring cereal into a bowl.
Hiding his disappointment, he tapped on the screen door. When Dani turned toward him and her face lit up, he felt the oddest sensation in the pit of his stomach. It was almost...paternal, he thought with amazement, or at least what he took to be some sort of fatherly emotion. Relief that he could experience such a sensation flooded through him. It would certainly make his future with Kelly less complicated.
“Hi, Jordan. Want some breakfast?”
Stepping inside, he eyed the frosted cereal warily. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s really, really good.”
She looked so hopeful that he relented. “Okay, maybe just a little.”
She stretched on tiptoe, teetering just enough to cause his breath to catch in his throat. Reaching into the cupboard, she withdrew another bowl, a very large bowl. Then she upended the box and dumped in enough cereal to feed an army.
“Hey,” he protested, “I said a little bit.”
She gave him another of those disarming smiles. “I think you’re going to really, really like it.”
Leaving the box on the counter, she climbed down while Jordan held his breath and barely restrained the urge to pluck her up and set her feet firmly on the floor himself. He did manage to grab the bowls before she could and put those safely on the table.
She retrieved a carton of milk from the refrigerator and a pair of spoons from a drawer. It seemed to be a routine with which she was disturbingly familiar. It gave him yet another argument to use on Kelly. If they were married, she wouldn’t be out of the house so much or so exhausted that her daughter was up before her, as he suspected might be the case this morning. At any rate, if he had his way, Dani would have a full-time mother.
“All set?” he inquired dryly, watching her precise preparations.
Looking an awful lot like her mother had years ago, she bit her lower lip and studied the table thoughtfully. “We need a banana,” she decided.
She scampered into the pantry and returned with a banana. With surprisingly deft little fingers, she peeled it, broke it almost in two and plopped the larger piece into his bowl and kept the smaller for herself.
“Maybe we should slice it,” Jordan observed.
“I can’t. Mommy doesn’t let me use knives when she’s not here.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m here,” he said. He opened a drawer and retrieved one.
“How come you know where the knives are?”
“Because I’ll bet I’ve been in this kitchen almost as many times as you have,” he told her.
She tilted her head and studied him suspiciously. “How come? I live here.”
He grinned at her. “Ah, yes, but I grew up practically next door and I was over here almost every day when your mom and I were kids. Nothing much has changed in here.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot. You’ve known Mommy a really, really long time.”
“Forever,” he agreed, surprised at how easily conversation came with this pint-size version of his oldest friend. Why had he never noticed before that Dani wasn’t really so terrifying? She was just a little person with obvious views already forming. He already knew about her powers of persuasion.
“Speaking of your mom, where is she this morning? Still sleeping?”
“No. She left a long time ago. She’s mending fences right outside. She says I can come find her when I’m done with breakfast.” She eyed him speculatively. “Maybe you should come, too. Can you string wire?”
“With the best of them,” he affirmed.
She gave a little satisfied nod. “Good, because I can’t really help. Mommy’s afraid I’ll get barbed wire stuck in my backside.”
“A very real danger,” Jordan said, trying not to chuckle out loud. He took his first tentative bite of cereal. To a man whose cereal consumption was usually confined to bran flakes, this stuff was sweet enough to make him gag. He noticed that Dani was watching him intently, a worried frown puckering her brow.
“Don’t you like it?”
