“I would never drown them in the creek,” she said, shocked by the very idea of such a thing. “Where on earth would you get such a notion?”
He glanced at Dani, who had hung her head. Kelly had never seen a clearer portrait of guilt.
“Danielle Flint, is that what you’ve been telling everyone?” Kelly demanded. “No wonder everyone’s been so eager to claim these kittens.”
Dani’s expression of guilt quickly fled. Her chin tilted defiantly. “I had to do something. Besides, they’re really, really cute. I knew everyone would like them once they got to know them.”
Kelly looked up from her daughter’s belligerent face to find Jordan’s lips twitching with amusement. “Are you sure you’re up to a lifetime of this?” she asked him.
“Oh, I think I’ll manage,” he said confidently. “You’ve never scared me.”
“More’s the pity,” she said with feeling. “But I was thinking of Dani.”
“She’s just the icing on the cake,” he assured her.
Dani looked from one to the other, clearly puzzled. “What cake?”
“Never mind, munchkin. Go check on those kittens,” Jordan said. “Your mom and I have wedding plans to make.”
Dani finally climbed out of her chair and ran from the house. The minute she was out of sight, Jordan cupped Kelly’s face in his hands. He studied her intently.
“Are you sure?”
“I have been since I was eight,” she admitted, suddenly breathless. “You’re the one who took a very long time to come around.”
He didn’t even begin to deny the accusation. “I guess I had to mine through a lot of fool’s gold before I could tell I had the real thing right here.”
She held the words to her heart. It was as close to an I love you as he’d come. “How are your parents going to react?”
“Oh, I suspect Daddy’s been figuring on this for weeks now, maybe even years. If he’s content with the decision, Mother will be, too.”
Kelly sighed with regret. “I wish my parents had lived long enough for this. They always adored you. As hard as they tried, they never warmed up to Paul.”
Jordan tilted her head up. “And you? How did you feel about me?”
“Jordan, I said I’d marry you. Don’t get greedy.”
“Suddenly I want it all,” he whispered softly, just before he slanted his mouth across hers.
Kelly was swept away by the kiss, swept away to a time and place where dreams became real and magic filled every hour of the day. It was a place she’d never thought to reach, because she’d always known only one man could take her there.
And now, out of the blue, it was real and every bit as incredible as she’d always imagined.
* * *
The wedding plans were completely out of control. Kelly latched onto Jordan’s arm when he walked through the door the following Wednesday and dragged him into the kitchen.
“This has to stop,” she insisted.
He regarded her warily. “What?”
“Your mother has taken over. A decorator steamrolled through here this morning as if she were preparing for the Normandy invasion.” She glared at her fiancé of less than a week. “I will not have it, Jordan. I won’t!”
“What exactly was she here to do?”
“She is designing the wedding,” she said, a note of disgust in her voice. “Between now and Saturday, she intends to transform this house into a summer garden. She wants to put trellises with roses in the middle of my living room.”
He seemed almost as bemused by the concept as she was. “And you don’t want them there?”
“I want my living room to look like a living room, not a damned fake garden!”
The expletive apparently convinced him she was at the end of her patience. Jordan reached out and snagged her hand. Somehow she wound up in his lap, with his arms reassuringly settled around her waist and his lips on hers.
“Kissing won’t make it better, Jordan!” she warned at one point.
“Are you sure about that?” he inquired, brushing his lips back and forth against hers until her blood sizzled. It did pretty much wipe thoughts of anything else out of her mind.
“It could be helping just a little,” she admitted as his lips found a sensitive spot on her neck. A shudder washed through her. “Okay, more than a little.”
“Are you distracted yet?”
“From what?” she murmured, giving herself up to the sensations spinning through her.
A knock on the screen door interrupted. Kelly’s sigh only deepened when she spotted Mary Adams, her soon-to-be mother-in-law, on her doorstep. She was wearing her going-into-battle shopping outfit of linen pants, a silk blouse and sufficient gold jewelry to impress the most difficult salesclerk. As stifling hot as it was, she looked cool and unrumpled.
“Enough of that, you two,” Mary said briskly as she entered without waiting for permission. “It’s ridiculous enough that you’ve only given a week’s notice for this wedding, we can’t go wasting time on nonsense.”
Kelly gazed helplessly into Jordan’s eyes and mouthed, Do something!
Jordan stood. He towered over his petite mother, but his size clearly didn’t intimidate her.
“Out of my way,” she commanded. “I need to see the kitchen.”
“Why?” Kelly inquired suspiciously.
“To let the caterer know what’s possible and what isn’t.”
“I was thinking we’d have those little cocktail wieners and maybe some potato chips,” Jordan said. “Maybe a big old platter of barbecued ribs.”
His mother simply scowled at his teasing as she breezed past. Kelly trailed along in her wake, tugging Jordan with her. Why hadn’t they eloped to Vegas as Jordan originally suggested? It would have been better than this armed invasion of strangers that Jordan’s mother had planned.
Mary Adams glanced at Kelly. “What about your dress? Perhaps we should have Harlan’s pilot fly us over to Dallas this afternoon. I’m sure we could find something on short notice at Neiman-Marcus.”
The suggestion explained Mary’s attire. Kelly balked at going anywhere to buy anything. “I have a dress,” she said adamantly.
Mary looked aghast. “You’re planning to pluck something out of your closet? This is your wedding, for heaven’s sake, and Jordan does have a
