* * *
Janet Runningbear gazed out of the window of her small law office on Main Street and saw her daughter being ushered down the sidewalk by a man she recognized at once as Harlan Adams, owner of White Pines and one of the most successful ranchers for several hundred miles in any direction. Judging from the stern expression on his face and Jenny’s dragging footsteps, her daughter had once more gotten herself into a mess of trouble.
She studied the man approaching with a mixture of trepidation, anger, and an odd, tingly hint of anticipation. Ever since her move to Los Piños, the closest town to where her ancestors had once lived, she’d been hearing about Harlan Adams, the man whose own ancestors had been at least in part responsible for pushing the Comanches out of Texas and onto an Oklahoma reservation.
The claiming of Comanche lands might have taken place a hundred years or more ago, but Janet clung to the resentment that had been passed down to her by her great-grandfather. Lone Wolf had lived to be ninety-seven and his father had been forced from the nomadic life of a hunter to the confined space of a reservation.
Even though she knew it was ridiculous to blame Harlan Adams for deeds that had been committed long before his birth or her own, she was prepared to dislike him just on principle. What she hadn’t been prepared for was the prompt and very feminine response to a man who practically oozed sex appeal from every masculine pore.
He was cowboy through and through, from the Stetson hat that rode atop his thick, sun-streaked hair to the tips of his dusty boots. His weathered face hinted at his age, which she knew to be somewhere in his fifties, but nothing about his easy stride or his broad shoulders added to that impression. He had the bearing of a much younger man.
In fact, Harlan Adams strolled down the sidewalk, her daughter in tow, with the confidence of a man who was comfortable with himself and with the power his wealth had earned him. To dampen any spark of fascination he might arouse, Janet quickly assured herself it was more than confidence she saw. It was arrogance, a trait she despised. Since there was no mistaking his destination, she braced herself for his arrival.
A few minutes later, with the pair of them seated across from her, she listened with a sense of growing horror as Harlan Adams described the theft of his truck and the subsequent accident, which had clearly done more damage to the truck than it had to Jenny. Her daughter didn’t even seem flustered.
“He shouldn’t have left the damned keys inside,” Jenny muttered.
“Watch your tongue, young lady,” Janet warned.
A heartfelt apology rose to Janet’s lips but before she could begin to form the words, she caught a surprising glint of amusement in Harlan’s startlingly blue eyes. She’d been anticipating the same mischievous dark brown eyes each of his sons reportedly had, according to the fond reminiscences of the local ladies. They must have inherited those from their mother, she decided. Harlan’s were the bright blue of a summer sky just rinsed by rain.
“Jenny, perhaps you should wait in the other room, while Mr. Adams and I discuss this,” she said, sensing that the twinkle in those eyes might mean an inclination toward leniency that wasn’t altogether deserved.
The last of her daughter’s defiance slid away. “Am I going to jail?” she asked in a voice that shook even though she was clearly trying desperately to sound brave.
“That remains to be seen,” Janet told her without so much as a hint that she thought jail was the last thing on this particular victim’s mind.
“Are you going to be my lawyer?”
Janet hid her face so that Jenny wouldn’t see her own smile. “If you need one,” she promised solemnly, doubting that it was going to come to that.
Sure enough, the second Jenny was out of the room, Harlan Adams chuckled. “Damn, but she’s a pistol. She’s got the makings of one heck of a young woman.”
“If she doesn’t self-destruct first,” Janet muttered wearily. “I’m not sure I understand why you find all of this so amusing.”
He grinned at her and her heart did an unexpected little flip. There was something so unexpectedly boyish about that lazy, lopsided smile. At the same time, the experience and wisdom that shone in his eyes was comforting. Something told her at once that this was a man a woman could always count on for straight talk and moral support. A little of that misguided resentment she’d been stoking slipped away.
“Remind me to tell you about the time one of my boys rustled a bunch of my cattle to start his own herd,” Harlan Adams said, still chuckling over the memory. “He was seven at the time. Try taking your daughter’s mischief and multiply it four times over and you’ll have some idea why I can’t work up too much of a sweat over one stolen truck.”
“She could have been killed,” Janet said grimly, realizing as she spoke that she was shaking at the very thought of what could have happened to Jenny.
“But she wasn’t,” Harlan reminded her in a soothing tone that suggested he knew exactly the sort of belated reaction she was having.
“Then there’s the matter of your truck. I’m just getting my practice off the ground here, but I can make arrangements to pay you back over time, if that’s okay.”
He waved off the offer. “Insurance will take care of it.”
“But it’s my responsibility,” she insisted.
“The danged truck’s not important,” he countered emphatically. “The real question now is how to make sure that gal of yours doesn’t go trying some fool thing like that again.”
His unexpected kindness brought the salty sting of tears to her eyes. Janet rubbed at them impatiently. She never cried. Never. In fact, she considered it a point of honor that she was always strong and in control.
Suddenly, for some reason she couldn’t fathom, she was not only crying, but actually considering spilling her guts to a total stranger. Harlan Adams was practically the first person in town to be civilized to her, much less kind. Truth be told, the move to Texas was not turning out anything at all the way she’d imagined it would.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me or with Jenny. I never cry. And she used to be such a good girl.”
Harlan’s expression remained solemn and thoughtful. “You know,” he said, “I used to teach my sons that tears made a man seem weak. The past year or so, I’ve had a change of heart. I think it takes someone pretty strong to acknowledge when they’re feeling vulnerable and then deal straight-out with the pain they’re going through.”
Janet guessed right off that it was his wife’s death that had brought him to a change of heart. The word on Mary Adams was mixed, according to the gossip that folks had been eager to share. Some thought she’d been an elegant, refined lady. Others thought she was a cold, uppity witch. One thing no one disputed, however, was that Harlan Adams had adored her and that she had doted on him.
Janet had wondered more than once what it would be like to love anyone with such passion. Her own marriage had been lukewarm at best and certainly not up to the kind of tests it had been put through. She’d been relieved to call it quits, eager to move far from New York and its memories to the land Lone Wolf had described with such bittersweet poignancy. She had legally taken the name he’d dubbed her with as soon as she’d settled in town. A new name, a fresh start for her and Jenny.
She glanced up and realized that Harlan’s warm gaze was fixed on her. He was regarding her with more of that compassion that made her want to weep.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on with that girl of yours?” he offered. “Maybe we can figure this thing out together.”
Surprised at the relief she felt at having someone with whom to share her concerns, Janet tried to describe what the past few weeks had been like. “I thought coming here was going to make such a difference for Jenny,” she said. “Instead, she’s behaving as if I’ve punished her by moving from New York to Texas.”
“Quite a change for a young girl,” Harlan observed. “She’s at an age when leaving all her friends behind must seem like the end of the world. Hell, she’s at an age when everything seems like the end of the world. Besides that, it’s summertime. All the kids her age around here are caught up with their own vacation activities. Lots of ’em have to work their family’s ranch. Must seem like she’ll never have a friend of her own again.”
Janet didn’t like having a total stranger tell her something she should have figured out for herself. She’d been so anxious to get to Texas after the divorce, so determined to get on with her life and to get Jenny settled in a safer environment than the city streets of Manhattan that she hadn’t given much thought to how lonely the summer might be for her daughter. She’d been thinking of the move as an adventure and had assumed Jenny was doing the same.
Now it appeared that the kind of energy that might have resulted in little more than mischief back in New York was taking a dangerous turn. She cringed as she pictured that truck slamming into a tree with her daughter behind the wheel. If her ex-husband heard about that, he’d wash his hands of Jenny once and for all. Barry Randall had little enough room in his life for his daughter now. If she became a liability to his image, he’d forget she existed.
“I have an idea,” the man seated across from her said. “I don’t intend to press charges for this, but we don’t want her getting the idea that she can get away with stealing a car and taking it joyriding.”
Janet was so worried by the prospects for Jenny getting herself into serious trouble before school started in the fall that she was willing to listen to anything, even if it was being offered by the exact kind of man she’d learned to distrust—a rich and powerful white man. A Texan, to boot. A sworn enemy of her ancestors.
“What?” she asked warily.
“I’ll give her a job out at White Pines. She can earn enough to pay off the cost of the truck’s repairs. That’ll keep her busy, teach her to take responsibility for her actions, and wear her out at the same time.”
“I said I’d pay,” Janet reminded him.
“It’s not the same. It was her mistake.”
Just one of many lately, Janet thought with a sigh. Perhaps if Jenny hadn’t shoplifted a whole handful of cosmetics from the drugstore the week before, perhaps if she hadn’t upended a table in Rosa’s Café breaking every dish on it, Janet might have resisted a suggestion that would have kept her in contact with this man who made her pulse skip. The kindness in his voice, the humor in his eyes, were every bit as dangerous to her in her beleaguered state of mind as Jenny’s exploits were to her future. At the rate she’d been going since they got to Texas, she’d either end up in jail or dead.
“Do I have any choice?” she asked, all but resigned to accepting the deal he was offering.
He shrugged. “Not really. I could sue you, I suppose, but that gal of yours says you’re the best lawyer around. You might win, and then where would I be?”
Janet laughed at the outrageous comment. A man who could keep his sense of humor in a circumstance like this was rare. She just might be forced to reevaluate Harlan Adams. And he might be just the kind of good influence her daughter needed. There was no question Jenny needed a stern hand and perhaps a stronger father figure than her own daddy had ever provided.
“Are you really sure you want to deal with a rebellious teenage girl for the rest of the summer?” she asked, but there was no denying the hopeful note in her voice as she envisioned an improvement in Jenny’s reckless behavior.
“I’ll take my chances,” he said solemnly, his gaze fixed on her.
Janet trembled at the speculative gleam she saw in his eyes. She hadn’t had this kind of immediate, purely sexual reaction to a man in a very long time. She’d actually convinced herself she was capable of controlling such things. Now not only was Jenny out of control, it appeared her hormones were, as well. It was a dismaying turn of events.
It also served as a warning that she’d better be on her guard around Harlan Adams. It wouldn’t do to spend much time around him with her defenses down. He was the kind of man who’d claim what he wanted, just as his ancestors had. Whether it was land or a woman probably wouldn’t matter much.
She adopted her most businesslike demeanor, the one she reserved for clients and the courtroom. “What time do you want her at White Pines?” she inquired briskly, prepared to temporarily sacrifice her emotional peace of mind for her daughter’s sake.
“Dawn will do,” he said as he rose and headed for the door.
He must have heard her faint gasp of dismay because he turned back and winked. “I’ll have the coffee ready when you get there.”
Janet sighed as he walked away. Dawn! If he expected her to be coherent at that hour, he’d better have gallons of it and it had best be strong and black.
2
“I’ve taken on another hand for the summer,” Harlan mentioned to Cody when he stopped by just before dinner later that night.
His son sat up a little straighter in the leather chair in which he’d sprawled out of habit as soon as he’d walked through the door. Instantly Harlan could see Cody’s jaw setting stubbornly as he prepared to argue against his father’s unilateral decision. Harlan decided he’d best cut him off at the pass.
“Don’t go getting your drawers in a knot,” he advised him. “I’m not usurping your authority. This was just something that came up.”
“Came up how?” Cody asked, suspicion written all over his face. “There’s no budget for another hand. You told me that yourself when we talked about it just last week.”
“It came up right after my truck was stolen and smashed up,” Harlan explained. “Let’s just say that no money will be changing hands. The thief will be working off the repair bill.”
Cody’s jaw dropped. “You hired the thief who stole your car? Haven’t you ever heard of jail time? If any of us had stolen a car and gone joyriding, you’d have helped the sheriff turn the lock on the cell.”
“It didn’t seem like the thing to do with a thirteen-year-old girl,” Harlan said mildly. “Seemed to me this was a better way to teach her a lesson.”
Cody fell silent, clearly chewing over the concept of a teenage girl as his newest ranch hand. “What the hell am I supposed to have her doing?” he asked finally.
“You’re not her boss,” Harlan said, amused by the relief that instantly spread across Cody’s face. “I am. I just wanted you to know she’d be around. Her name’s Jenny Runningbear.”
“Runningbear? Is her mother...?”
“The new lawyer in town,” Harlan supplied, watching as curiosity rose in Cody’s eyes.
“Did you meet her?” Cody asked.
“I did.” He decided then and there that he’d better be stingy with information about that meeting. His son had the look of a man about to make a romantic mountain out of a platonic molehill.
“And?”
“And, what?”
“What did you think of her?”
“She seemed nice,” Harlan offered blandly, even as he conjured up some fairly steamy images of the raven-haired beauty who’d struck him as a fascinating blend of strength and vulnerability. Nice was far too tame a description for that delicate, exotic face, those long, long legs, and eyes so dark a man could lose himself in them.
“Really?” Cody said, skepticism written all over his face. “Nice?”
Harlan didn’t like the way Cody was studying him. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” he replied irritably.
“Just seemed sort of namby-pamby to me,” Cody retorted. “I might have described her as hot. I believe Jordan said something similar after he spotted her.”
Harlan bit back a sharp rebuke. His gaze narrowed. “Exactly how well do you and your brother know the woman?”
“Not well enough to say more than hello when we pass on the street.
Never even been introduced. Of course, if we both weren’t happily married, we’d probably be brawling over first dibs on meeting her.”
“See that you remember that you are married,” he advised his son.
“Interesting,” Cody observed, his eyes suddenly sparkling with pure mischief.
“What’s interesting?”
“The way you’re getting all protective about the mother of a teenage car thief. What time are they getting here in the morning?”
“That’s nothing you need to concern yourself about.” He stood, glanced at his watch pointedly as he anticipated his housekeeper’s imminent announcement that dinner was on the table. “I’d invite you to dinner, but I told Maritza I’d be eating alone. It’s time you got home to your wife and those grandbabies of mine anyway.”
Cody didn’t budge. “They’re eating in town with her folks tonight, so I’m all yours. I told Maritza I’d be staying. I thought maybe we could wrangle a little over buying that acreage out to the east, but I’d rather talk more about your impressions of Janet Runningbear.”
“Forget it,” Harlan warned. “Besides, since when does my housekeeper take orders from you?”
Cody grinned. “Ever since I was old enough to talk. I inherited your charm. It pays off in the most amazing ways. Maritza even fixed all my favorites. She said she’d missed me something fierce. I’m the one with the cast-iron stomach.”
Harlan sighed as he thought of the hot peppers that comment implied. Between lunch at Rosa’s and that darned accident, his own stomach could have used a bowl of nice bland oatmeal. It appeared he was out of luck.
“Well, come on, then. The sooner we eat, the sooner I can get you out of here and get some peace and quiet.”
“You really interested in peace and quiet, Daddy? Or do you just want to make sure you get some beauty sleep before you see Janet Runningbear in the morning?” Cody taunted.
“Don’t go getting too big for your britches, son,” Harlan warned. “You’re not so old that I can’t send you packing without your supper. Push me hard enough, I might just send you packing, period.”
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