“I still don’t,” she said heatedly.
Jordan ignored the protest and her squirming as he examined the rip in her sleeve and checked to see if the wire had snagged the tender skin beneath. “Just a scratch,” he said eventually.
“I told you that.”
“Yes, but your diagnosis wasn’t nearly as informed as mine. I actually checked your arm.”
“Jordan, I was working this fence line long before you showed up this morning and I will be working it long after you’re back in your penthouse office in Houston next week.”
“Can’t deny that,” he said agreeably. “But while I’m here, you might as well let me pitch in.”
She rocked back on her haunches and sighed. The look she turned on him was filled with exasperation and resignation. “On one condition.”
He grinned. “I love it when you bargain.”
She fought a smile and eventually succumbed. “Do you have any idea what a perverse man you are?”
“Is that good?”
“I’ve certainly never considered it to be a desirable attribute.”
“Then I’ll change,” he promised.
“Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath. As for that condition, you will not under any circumstances bring up that ridiculous proposal while Dani’s in the vicinity. Got it?” she asked, regarding him with a defiant lift of her chin.
“Why not?”
“Isn’t that obvious? I don’t want her getting ideas about the two of us. She’ll only be disappointed.”
Jordan glanced up and searched for some sign of Dani. The fence line apparently forgotten, she was gathering wildflowers. She had an armload. He was struck by a sense of déjà vu.
“Looks as if she has your taste in floral displays,” he commented, directing Kelly’s attention to her daughter. As he did, he realized where he’d gone wrong. He’d been trying to woo Kelly the same way he would court those shallow, grasping socialites in Houston. Kelly wasn’t a hothouse-flower kind of woman. Bluebells or daisies would have pleased her more.
Now that the realization had come to him, he saw that it had always been true. Her favorite gifts as a teenager hadn’t been the fancy ones he and his brothers and their friends brought to her birthday parties. She’d always loved most the ones her father and mother had made for her, gifts that had come from the heart.
What could he give her now that would have the same kind of meaning? He studied her as she watched her daughter, saw the delight and love shining in her eyes, and recalled how often she’d worried out loud to him about the absence of Paul Flint in Dani’s life. “She needs her father,” she had said more than once.
Jordan wasn’t convinced that anyone on earth needed a man like Paul Flint, but Kelly’s point had registered just the same. She wanted her daughter to have a daddy. Even his father had seen that.
If Jordan could prove to her that he was suited for that role, if he could give her what she wanted most for her child, maybe Kelly would finally accept the idea that she needed him as a husband, as well.
* * *
Kelly watched as the sun beat down on Jordan’s bare shoulders. He’d stripped off his shirt an hour or so before and she hadn’t gotten a thing done since. Every once in a while she managed to tear her gaze away after giving herself a stern lecture about turning into a sex-starved divorcée, but in general she found the play of his gleaming muscles entrancing.
How on earth did he stay so fit sitting in an office all day long? she wondered. His shoulders and chest were thicker than she’d recalled, no longer an adolescent boy’s body, but a man’s. An intriguing line of dark hair arrowed down his washboard-flat stomach and vanished beneath the snap of his faded, snug jeans.
For years now she had forbidden herself to study him with so much carnal fascination. First of all, she had been married and she would have died before allowing herself even a hint of disloyalty toward a man she’d belatedly discovered didn’t deserve it.
Then, more recently, it had seemed like a very bad idea to allow her old feelings for Jordan to stir to life again. She hadn’t needed the pain of another rejection. He’d never given her a second glance during all those years when she had worn her heart on her sleeve. There was no reason to believe his feelings toward her had changed.
* * *
Now, though, with his proposal on the table—albeit for all the wrong reasons—she felt she had a right to study him from his windblown hair to his dusty boots. The sight of that expensive snakeskin layered with barnyard dirt made her smile. This was the old Jordan, the one she’d missed, the one who didn’t give a hang about appearances. The most rebellious of the brothers who’d filled the days of the lonely, only child next door, allowing her to tag along with them and later to compete with them as an equal.
“What are you looking at so intently?” he inquired, his voice laced with amusement.
She could feel herself blushing to the roots of her hair. “I was just worried you were going to mar that beautiful expanse of chest.”
His gaze settled on her. “Would you have kissed it to make it better? It might have been worth it.”
Dazed by the very idea, she slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said in a choked voice.
“Why not?”
“Bad idea,” she mumbled, forcing herself to look away.
“What was that?” he taunted.
She stared at him defiantly. “I said you’re a flirt and a tease and proper women aren’t safe around you.”
He nodded seriously. “I thought it might be something like that.”
“Don’t sound so proud of yourself.”
He winked at her. “I’m not the only one around here for whom pride is a character defect.”
“Jordan, I…” Her voice trailed off. There was no point in arguing with him, no point in trying to explain that pride wasn’t keeping
