Natural Born Trouble

by Sherryl Woods

  She’d also heard that the man was chafing at being chained to a desk. She suspected these two had something to do with his decision to take a safer assignment. Or perhaps his wife had demanded it. Then, again, hadn’t she heard he was a widower? Or was he divorced? Either would explain why he and not their mother was making the decisions about their pets and why this new housekeeper was so important.

  She hit speed dial for the company headquarters a few blocks away. Originally the company had been in Houston, but her mother had persuaded Jordan to relocate years ago. When the operator answered, Dani greeted her, then asked for Duke Jenkins.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve staked him out already,” the young woman said with an audible sigh of regret.

  “Actually, I’m calling on a business matter,” Dani reassured her.

  “Well, you’re out of luck, hon. He’s in with Jordan and last time I checked the rafters were about to blow straight off the building. I wouldn’t buzz in there for the president of the U.S.A.”

  Donna Kelso was not easily intimidated, nor was Jordan the kind of man who tolerated much insubordination. Dani could only imagine just how explosive the meeting going on in her stepfather’s office was. If Duke Jenkins was foolish enough to take Jordan on, he was either a very brave man or he operated on pure arrogance. If Jordan hadn’t fired him in the first five minutes, then Duke Jenkins was a very valuable company asset. Dani knew better than to get caught in the middle.

  “Never mind,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll catch up with him later. Thanks, Donna.”

  “You bet. You want me to leave him a message, say in a day or two when things cool down?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She hung up and turned to see two very disappointed faces.

  “I guess we don’t get a kitten, huh?” Zachary asked.

  “Not right away,” she said. “But I will talk to your dad. I promise.”

  “When?” Joshua asked. “Tonight? He’s always home by suppertime. You could come over. That would be best. Dad would never yell at a lady in person. He says it’s not proper to hit girls and yell at them and stuff.”

  Dani wasn’t at all sure she wanted to meet the formidable Duke Jenkins on his home turf, especially when his mood was likely to be surly. Still, she really did have to find a home for the kittens. She had a hunch a face-to-face chat with Mr. Jenkins was the only way these boys were going to get permission to bring one home. Besides, it might be interesting to see what sort of scars Duke Jenkins bore from his battle with Jordan. She’d known few men who dared to stand up to him and lived to tell about it, other than her uncles and grandfather, of course.

  “I’ll stop by as soon as I close up for the day,” she agreed.

  “Will you bring the kitten with you?” Joshua asked hopefully.

  She shook her head. “That might be a tactical mistake, boys. I’d better talk to your dad first.”

  “He would probably like Mittens a lot if he saw her,” Zachary argued.

  “Trust me,” Dani said, thinking that Zachary’s tactical approach was very reminiscent of one she had used quite often at his age. Now she reacted with an adult’s sense of caution. “We should get his permission first.”

  Let the man at least think he was in charge. It was a motto that made sense to her. It didn’t mean he had to actually be in charge, as long as he thought he was. Being around a whole clan of master manipulators, most of them hardheaded males, had given her an edge on understanding the masculine thought process. She doubted Duke Jenkins veered too far from the same mold. In fact, Donna’s report had just pretty much confirmed it.

  “Dr. Adams?” Joshua asked, sounding suspiciously meek.

  “Yes?” She noticed his gaze was pinned to the kittens again.

  Blue eyes lifted and regarded her hopefully. “As long as you’re going to talk to Dad anyway, do you think maybe you could see if we could keep all three kittens?” Joshua asked. “One for me and one for Zack and one for Dad.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe we should start with just one. Besides, your dad might not want a kitten of his own.”

  “I’ll bet he would,” Zachary said. “He’s kinda lonely now that Mom’s gone.”

  Definitely another budding manipulator, she thought, fighting the salty sting of tears at the hitch in his voice. Probably a trait he’d picked up at his father’s knee. That reference to his mom was definitely calculated to stir sympathy.

  No problem, though. She was an Adams, by name and upbringing, if not by birth. When it came to manipulation, she had learned from the best authorities in the whole state of Texas, if not the entire world. Resisting Duke Jenkins and his sons would be a snap.

  Then she recalled Donna’s awestruck reaction at the mention of Duke’s name. Maybe now would be a good time to start praying that she wasn’t unwittingly about to start flirting with disaster.

  Chapter Two

  Duke Jenkins was mad enough to bend a steel beam in two, preferably around Jordan Adams’s neck. The man was stubborn, arrogant and, without question, the best oil man in the state of Texas. Maybe in the world. Duke figured he was no slouch himself, which suggested that maybe once, just once, Jordan ought to listen to him.

  They were going to be wasting time and money drilling that new field. Every instinct he possessed told him that. He didn’t give two hoots about the ream of geological surveys piled up on his desk. If he’d been able to get out there and look things over firsthand, run the dirt through his fingers, get a deep whiff of the scent of it, he would have been able to put some real strength into his arguments.

  As it was, he was going with his gut, instinct honed by years of wildcatting. Jordan preferred cold, hard facts. Scientific facts, which in this instance Duke suspected had been doctored to someone else’s benefit.

  If he’d had somebody to look after the boys, Duke would have given Jordan all the facts he wanted. He would have been on a plane in a heartbeat, doing what he did best: finding oil and bringing it in, making them all richer.

  Not that he cared all that much about the money. Most of his life he hadn’t had a lot, hadn’t needed much. Now he just wanted to insure that his sons would have a good future, a college education if they wanted it, though getting them through elementary school was proving to be challenge enough.

  At any rate, he would trade the potential profits for the pure adrenaline rush of bringing in a new gusher any day.

  Instead, he was surrounded by paperwork, mounds of it, most of which didn’t matter a tinker’s damn in the overall scheme of things as near as he could tell.

  Oh, how he hated pushing papers around on a desk, he thought, staring irritably at the mostly untouched piles of it still awaiting some action or another. Well, today he’d had enough of it, he concluded, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door. If he hung around another few minutes, he might storm straight back into Jordan’s office and quit, something he didn’t have the right to do with two kids depending on him. The twins were the reason he’d made the move to Los Pinos in the first place. He had to give this major life-style overhaul a chance to work for their sakes.

  Twenty minutes later, he had the top on the classic convertible down, the car radio was blaring a George Strait tune and he was curving down the winding driveway to the white, ranch-style house he’d bought on the outskirts of Los Pinos. There was a little dip in the land, then a rise. His house was nestled in that suggestion of a valley, surrounded by the pines for which the town had been named. A trickle of water that passed for a creek was the north boundary of the property. It looked like a picture-book image of what a home ought to be. He’d bought it at first sight because of that. It had triggered some sort of subliminal yearning within him.

  Not that he had much experience with real homes. He’d bounced from foster home to foster home as a kid, a born troublemaker, according to those in the system who’d had to deal with his belligerence.

  Used to being on the move, he’d seen no need to settle down onc
e he’d grown up. Oil had been a way to stay on the go and pile up a decent bankroll.

  Given his total lack of experience with lasting relationships, he probably never should have married, but Caroline had convinced him that they could make it work. When she’d been whispering in his ear late at night, when her magical hands had been busy moving over him, he believed almost anything that came out of her mouth.

  Unfortunately, she hadn’t counted on his refusal to quit wandering wherever the excitement took him. At first, she had gone with him, but once the boys had come along, she’d insisted on staying in one place. A few years of that and she’d gotten lonely and frustrated. When he was home, there had been more fights than loving.

  A few months back, she had walked out, claiming that she’d had the twins to raise all alone for most of the past eight years, now he could see for himself how much fun it was. He could call her when he’d put in equal time and maybe they would work out a new arrangement.

  Duke wasn’t counting on it. He figured the divorce papers he’d received in the mail almost immediately pretty much countered any hopes he might have been harboring that things would eventually return to normal.

  Even so, for a solid month he’d tried to pretend that nothing had changed. He’d convinced himself that he could go right on working crazy hours, taking off at the drop of a hat. Reality had slammed in when the fourth housekeeper in as many weeks quit in a huff.

  Just in case the message wasn’t plain enough, Zachary broke his arm and Joshua brought home a report card that suggested he hadn’t cracked a book since his mother left. Even Duke had been bright enough to figure out that it was time to grow up and take responsibility for his sons, that parenting wasn’t something a man could do in his spare time.

  Not that he hadn’t loved them all along. He had. He adored them. In fact, he was in awe of them. They were bright and mischievous and loving. He just didn’t know a doggone thing about day-in, day-out caregiving. But he could learn, by God. There were books on the subject. He supposed there were even shrinks who specialized in that kind of stuff, not that he would ever be caught dead talking to one.

  He did buy the books, though. A dozen of them the first week. When he caught the boys reading them, he figured he was never going to get an edge unless he worked at parenting full-time. With a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, he had hitched a ride in the corporate jet and had a long talk with Jordan Adams. Jordan came from a long line of men who understood about family. He’d offered Duke a vice presidency in Los Pinos on the spot. With it came the promise of stability.

  Two weeks later, Duke had a new job and a new home. Moving in a hurry was something at which he excelled. It remained to be seen if he could get the rest of it right.

  As he stepped out of the car in front of that appealing new home, the boys came barreling out the front door. It was a scene straight out of an old “Father Knows Best” episode and for a moment he allowed a feeling of immense satisfaction to steal over him. Not that it would last. His kids were irreverent little imps who would never be confused with anybody’s angelic offspring for long.

  “Don’t let the screen door slam,” Duke hollered just as it rocked on its hinges. He winced at the sound. He figured that door, the hinges and the frame would last a month, tops. Fortunately for all of them, he was reasonably handy with tools.

  “Sorry, Dad,” Joshua said unconvincingly.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Zack echoed.

  Already stripped of his jacket and tie himself, he noted that they were looking a little more like normal kids again, with dirt streaking their faces and rips in their T-shirts. There had been one awful period when they’d been so neat and tidy he hadn’t recognized them, just as he often didn’t recognize himself in the business suits he was wearing these days. The boys’ transition had been the fault of the second housekeeper. Or was it the third? Anyway, she’d had a very rigid outlook. She was the only one Duke had actually had to fire. She’d seemed to enjoy the challenge of turning his sons into proper young men a little too much.

  “Hey, Dad, guess what?” Zachary said.

  “Hush,” his brother hissed.

  “What?” Duke asked, suspicion aroused by the exchange.

  Zack scowled at his brother. “We gotta tell him. She’s coming right now.”

  “Who’s coming now?” Duke asked. He glanced up the driveway and saw that, indeed, a four-wheel-drive vehicle of some kind was kicking up dust. “Okay, guys, what’s up? What kind of trouble are you in?”

  “We’re not in any trouble,” Joshua claimed. “Honest, Dad.”

  The last time Duke had heard that he discovered that they had broken a neighbor’s window—his very large, floor-to-ceiling window. It had cost an arm and a leg to repair it. He would be taking the money out of their allowances until they reached puberty.

  Since the truth seemed to be in short supply coming from these two, he decided to wait to see what the new arrival would have to say.

  He studied the car as it came closer. Expensive and trendy once, it was little more than serviceable now. There was a layer of dried dirt, topped by dust over most of it, muting a dark green paint into something closer to muddy moss. For a man who took his cars seriously, this one was enough to make him shudder. He had an automatic hankering to rush for a hose and a can of his best wax.

  The woman who emerged, however, had him shuddering for another, far more positive reason entirely. She was a beauty. Long legs and skinny behind were molded by denim. The suggestion of very interesting curves lurked beneath a short-sleeved silk blouse that had been tied at a waist he could span with his hands. Blond hair, scooped into some sort of ponytail, escaped in curling tendrils to frame a face that was lovely even without makeup. He’d seen that face somewhere before, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember where. As for the rest of her, he wouldn’t have forgotten that in a dozen lifetimes, so apparently they’d never actually met.

  A model, maybe? She was tall and thin enough. An actress? With that golden complexion and blue-gray eyes, she had a face the camera would love. Still, it didn’t quite fit. Besides, Los Pinos, Texas, wasn’t exactly crawling with the rich and famous. The town wasn’t quaint enough to draw tourists. Nor was it home to any celebrities he’d ever heard of.

  While his mind sorted through alternate possibilities, she crossed to where they were standing in three brisk strides. He wondered if she realized that the sway of her hips robbed her movements of the professional demeanor she was clearly after. She nodded at the boys, who were suddenly, inexplicably very quiet, then held out her hand.

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Danielle Adams. Everyone calls me Dani.”

  Her voice was so low, so blasted seductive that her title and name barely registered. Duke took her hand in his and felt a jolt of pure electricity charge through him. He didn’t feel much inclined to let her go, but she subtly wrestled her hand away from him. The reaction made him smile. So, he thought with satisfaction, she’d felt it, too. Hadn’t liked it half as much as he had, though.

  “Duke Jenkins,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m the vet in Los Pinos,” she said.

  His gaze narrowed. Adams? A veterinarian? The pieces suddenly clicked into place and a sinking sensation settled in his stomach.

  “You’re Jordan’s daughter,” he guessed, remembering where he’d seen that face. It was very prominently displayed on his boss’s desk, right alongside a much less interesting framed photo of his son and a family portrait taken some years back, when this woman had still been in pigtails.

  “Yes,” she said. Then, as if she were anxious to get past the subject of family ties, she rushed on with some convoluted tale of dead goldfish and kittens.

  “I have all three of them in the car, if you’d like to take a look. I think the boys could really learn a lot taking responsibility for them, don’t you?” she concluded, her eyes locked hopefully on his. He noticed they were more blue than gray just now as if some inner fire ha
d sparked the sapphire in them.

  Duke struggled to sort out the tale. When he had, he stared at her incredulously. “They killed two goldfish in less than a week, and you want me to let them care for three kittens? Doesn’t that strike you as a bit risky?”

  She gave him a winning smile that almost caused his heart to slam to a stop. Logic flew out the window. He wanted desperately to do as she asked, anything she asked.

  “Really, it’s not the same thing at all,” she assured him. “Cats, even kittens, are reasonably independent and self-sufficient. And this would be temporary. I’m in a bit of a bind, you see. I have to find homes for these three, plus two more that are too young to separate from their mother and then Francie III is expecting again any day now.”

  Duke was astounded by the casual recitation. “Just how many kittens are we talking about? I mean at your house, not in the car.”

  “Well, of course, there’s no way of telling for sure with Francie, but I think there were five, maybe six others when I left, plus the mothers and a tomcat.”

  “You can’t even keep track of the number of cats living with you?”

  “It changes, you see. Sometimes a neighbor’s tomcat will just wander in and make himself at home, which probably explains why there are so many kittens in the first place. And people find strays and drop them off on my doorstep. I never quite know what to expect.”

  “You’re a vet. Couldn’t you stop this?”

  “I would, but people know I love cats, so they’re always coming to me when they want one. Sometimes they’re just not adopted as quickly as I would like, but sooner or later they all wind up in good homes.” She smiled winningly again. “Like yours. This would be an excellent opportunity for the boys to prove to you that they can take responsibility for a pet, so you’d get them the puppy they want.”

  “And how many puppies do you have around the house?” he inquired suspiciously.

  “None. I found they don’t get along all that well with the cats. I take those out to Uncle Cody. He’s a real sucker for a stray dog.”