The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter

by Sherryl Woods

  “I’ll be good, Mom. Cross my heart.”

  Janet nodded, accepting the promise, but the glint in her daughter’s eyes when she made that solemn vow was worrisome. The words had come a little too quickly, a little too easily. Worse, she recognized that glint all too well. It made her wonder if Harlan Adams just might have bitten off more than he could handle.

  One look at him a few minutes later and her doubts vanished. This was a man competent to deal with anything at all. When he rounded the corner of the house in his snug, worn jeans, his blue chambray shirt, his dusty boots and that Stetson hat, he almost stole her breath away.

  If she was ever of a mind to let another man into her life, she wanted one who exuded exactly this combination of strength, sex appeal and humor. His eyes were practically dancing with laughter as he approached. And the appreciative head-to-toe look he gave her could have melted steel. Her knees didn’t stand a chance. They turned weak as a new colt’s.

  “Too early for you?” he inquired, his gaze drifting over her once more in the kind of lazy inspection that left goose bumps in its wake.

  “No, indeed,” she denied brightly. “Why would you think that?”

  “No special reason. It’s just that you struck me as a woman who’d never leave the house with quite so many buttons undone.”

  A horrified glance at her blouse confirmed the teasing comment. She’d missed more buttons than she’d secured, which meant there was an inordinate amount of cleavage revealed. She vowed to strangle her daughter at the very first opportunity for not warning her. At least the damned blouse did match her slacks, she thought as she fumbled with the buttons with fingers that shook.

  “Jeez, Mom,” Jenny protested. “Let me.”

  Janet thought she heard Harlan mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, “Or me,” but she couldn’t be absolutely sure. When she looked in his direction, his gaze was fixed innocently enough on the sky.

  “Come on inside,” he invited a moment later. “I promised you coffee. I think Maritza has breakfast ready by now, too.”

  “Who’s Maritza?” Jenny asked.

  Her tone suggested a level of distrust that had Janet shooting a warning look in her direction. Harlan, however, appeared oblivious to Jenny’s suspicions.

  “My housekeeper,” he explained. “She’s been with the family for years. If you’re interested in learning a little Tex-Mex cooking while you’re here, she’ll be glad to teach you. She’s related to Rosa, who owns the Mexican Café in town.”

  “I hate Tex-Mex,” Jenny declared.

  “You do not,” Janet said, giving Harlan an apologetic smile. “She’s a little contrary at this hour.”

  “Seemed to be that way at midday, too,” he stated pointedly. “Not to worry. It would be an understatement to say that I’ve had a lot of experience with contrariness.”

  He led the way through the magnificent foyer and into a formal dining room that was practically the size of Janet’s entire house. Her eyes widened. “Good heavens, do you actually eat in here by yourself?”

  He seemed startled by the question. “Of course. Why?”

  “It’s just that it’s so…” She fumbled for the right word.

  “Big,” Jenny contributed.

  “Lonely,” Janet said, then regretted it at once. The man didn’t need to be reminded that he was a widower and that his sons were no longer living under his roof. He was probably aware of those sad facts every single day of his life.

  He didn’t seem to take offense, however. He just shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

  He gestured toward a buffet laden with more cereals, jams, muffins, toast and fruits than Janet had ever seen outside a grocery store.

  “Help yourself,” he said. “If you’d rather have eggs and bacon, Maritza will fix them for you. She doesn’t allow me near the stuff.”

  “How come?” Jenny asked.

  “Cholesterol, fat.” He grimaced. “They’ve taken all the fun out of eating. Next thing you know they’ll be feeding us a bunch of pills three times a day and we won’t be needing food at all.”

  “There are egg substitutes,” Janet commented.

  “Yellow mush,” he contradicted.

  “And turkey bacon.”

  He shuddered. “Not a chance.”

  Janet chuckled at his reaction. “I’m not going to convince you, am I?”

  “Depends on how good you are at sweet talk, darlin’.”

  Her startled gaze flew to his. Those blue eyes were innocent as a baby’s. Even so, she knew in her gut, where butterflies were ricocheting wildly, that he had just tossed down a gauntlet of sorts. He was daring her to turn this so-called arrangement they had made for Jenny’s punishment into something personal. The temperature in the room rose significantly.

  Nothing would happen between them. Janet was adamant about that. She was in Texas to tap into her Native American roots, not to get involved with another white man. She’d tried that once and it had failed, just as her mother’s marriage to a white man had ended in disaster exactly as Lone Wolf had apparently predicted when her mother had fled the reservation.

  She drew herself up and leveled a look at him that she normally reserved for difficult witnesses in court. “That, darlin’, is something you’re not likely to find out,” she retorted.

  Jenny’s eyes widened as she listened to the exchange. Janet was very aware of the precise instant when a speculative gleam lit her daughter’s intelligent brown eyes. Dear heaven, that was the last thing she needed. Jenny was like a puppy with a sock when she got a notion into her head. If she sensed there were sparks between her mother and Harlan Adams, she’d do everything in her power to see that they flared into a blaze. She’d do it not because she particularly wanted someone to replace her father, but just to see if she could pull it off.

  To put a prompt end to any such speculation, Janet forced a perfectly blank expression onto her face as she turned her attention to the man seated opposite her.

  “Exactly what will Jenny be doing today?”

  “I thought maybe I’d teach her to ride,” Harlan replied just as blandly, apparently willing to let that sudden flare of heat between them die down for the moment. “Unless she already knows how.”

  “Oh, no,” Jenny protested.

  Janet jumped in to prevent the tantrum she suspected was only seconds away. “She doesn’t, but riding doesn’t sound much like punishment or work to me.”

  “She has to be able to get around, if she’s going to be much use on a ranch this size,” he countered. “I can’t go putting her behind the wheel of a truck again, now can I?”

  He glanced at his watch, then at Jenny. “You ready?”

  Jenny’s chin rose stubbornly. “Not if you were paying me a hundred bucks an hour,” she declared.

  Janet thought she detected a spark of amusement in his eyes, but his expression remained perfectly neutral.

  “You scared of horses?” he inquired.

  Janet watched her daughter, sensing her dilemma. Jenny would rather eat dirt than admit to fear of any sort. At the same time, she had a genuine distrust of horses, based totally on unfamiliarity, not on any dire experience she’d ever had.

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” Jenny informed Harlan stiffly. “Horses are dirty and smelly and big. I don’t choose to be around them.”

  Harlan chuckled at the haughty dismissal. “I can’t do much about their size, but I can flat-out guarantee they won’t be dirty or smelly by the time you’re finished grooming them.”

  Jenny turned a beseeching look in Janet’s direction. “Mom!”

  “He’s the boss,” Janet reminded her.

  “I don’t see you getting anywhere near a smelly old horse,” Jenny complained.

  “You’d be welcome, if you’d care to join us,” Harlan said a little too cheerfully.

  “Perhaps another time. I have to get to work.”

  “Why?” Jenny asked. “You don’t have any clients.”

 
; Janet winced. The remark was true enough, but she didn’t want Harlan Adams knowing too much about her law practice, if that’s what handling one speeding violation could be called.

  “Business slow?” he asked, leveling a penetrating look straight at her.

  She shrugged. “You know how it is. I’m new to town.”

  He looked as if he might be inclined to comment on that, but instead he let it pass. She was grateful to him for not trying to make excuses for neighbors who were slow to trust under the best of conditions. Their biases made them particularly distrustful of a woman lawyer, who was part Comanche, to boot, and openly proud of it.

  “What time should I pick Jenny up?” she asked.

  “Suppertime’s good enough. You finish up at work any earlier, come on out,” he said. “We’ll go on that ride. I never get tired of looking at the beauty of this land.”

  Janet found herself smiling at the simplicity of the admission. She could understand his appreciation of his surroundings. Perhaps even more than he could ever guess.

  “Maybe I’ll take you up on that one of these days,” she agreed. She stood and brushed a kiss across her daughter’s forehead. “Have a good time, sweetie.”

  “Is that another one of those things you tell all your clients who end up in prison?” Jenny inquired, her expression sour.

  “You’re not in prison,” Janet observed, avoiding Harlan’s gaze. She had a feeling he was close to laughing and exchanging a look with her would guarantee it. Jenny would resent being laughed at more than anything.

  “Seems that way to me,” Jenny said.

  “Remind me to show you what a real prison looks like one of these days,” Janet countered. “You’ll be grateful to Mr. Adams for not sending you to one.”

  Janet decided that was as good an exit line as she was likely to make. She was halfway to the front door when she realized that Harlan had followed her. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly.

  “She’ll be okay,” he promised.

  Janet grinned at his solemn expression. “I know,” she agreed. “But will you?”

  Chapter Three

  When Janet’s car had disappeared from sight, Harlan turned and walked slowly back inside. For the first time he was forced to admit that his decision to haul Jenny Runningbear’s butt out to White Pines to work off her debt wasn’t entirely altruistic. He’d wanted to guarantee himself the chance to spend more time with her mother.

  But now, with Janet on her way back to town and her taunt about his ability to manage Jenny ringing in his ears, he wondered precisely what he’d gotten himself into.

  Raising four stubborn sons, when he’d had authority and respect on his side, had been tricky enough. He had neither of those things going for him now. If anything, Jenny resented him and she had no qualms at all about letting him know it.

  He sighed as he stood in the doorway to the dining room and studied Jenny’s sullen expression. If ever a teen had needed a stern hand, this one did. Whether she knew it or not, she was just aching for someone besides her mama to set some rules and make her stick to them.

  It was a job her father should have been handling, but he’d clearly abandoned it. It was little wonder the girl was misbehaving, he thought with a deep sense of pity. Typically in the aftermath of divorce, she was crying out for attention. Maybe she’d even hoped if she were difficult enough, she’d be sent back to her father for disciplining.

  It took some determination, but Harlan finally shoved aside his inclination to feel sorry for her. It wouldn’t help. He figured whatever happened in the next few minutes would set the tone for the rest of the days Jenny spent at White Pines.

  “Thought you’d be outside by now, ready to get to work,” he announced. “I won’t tolerate slackers working for me.”

  Her gaze shot to his. “What does this crummy job pay anyway? Minimum wage, I’ll bet.”

  “It pays for a smashed up pickup, period. Think of it as a lump sum payment.”

  “I’ll want to see the repair bill,” she informed him. “If the figures for my pay, based on the minimum hourly wage, are higher, I’ll expect the rest in cash.”

  Harlan wanted very badly to chuckle, but he choked back his laughter. This pint-size Donald Trump wannabe had audacity to spare. “Fair enough,” he conceded.

  “And I’m not getting on a horse,” she reminded him belligerently.

  “That’s something we can discuss,” he agreed. “Meantime, let’s get out to the barn and groom them. They’ve been fed this morning, but tomorrow I’ll expect you to do that, too.”

  She stood slowly, reluctance written all over her face. Harlan deliberately turned his back on her and headed out through the kitchen, winking at Maritza as he passed. He didn’t pause to introduce them. He had a feeling Jenny would seize on any delay and drag it out as long as she possibly could. She might even inquire about those Tex-Mex recipes she claimed not to like, if it would keep her out of the barn a little longer.

  With her soft heart, Maritza would insist on keeping Jenny in the kitchen so she could teach her a few of her favorite dishes and coddle her while she was at it. That would be the end of any disciplining he planned. Until he’d laid some ground rules and Jenny was following them, he figured he couldn’t afford to ease up on her a bit. Her very first day on the job was hardly the time to be cutting her any slack.

  “Was that your housekeeper?” Jenny asked, scuffing her sneakers in the dust as she poked along behind him.

  “Yes.”

  “How come you didn’t introduce us?”

  “No time for that now,” he said briskly. “You have a job to do. You’ll meet Maritza at lunch. She’ll be bringing it out to us.”

  “We’re going to eat in the barn?”

  Harlan hid a grin at her horrified tone. “No, I expect we’ll be out checking fences by then.”

  She scowled at him. “I thought you were rich. Don’t you have anybody else working this place? I can’t do everything, you know. I’m just a kid.”

  “Trust me, you won’t even be scratching the surface. And yes, there are other people working the ranch. Quite a few people, in fact. They report to my son. They’re off with the cattle or working the fields where we have grain growing.” He shot her a sly look. “You had any experience driving a tractor?”

  “The sum total of my entire driving experience was in your truck yesterday,” she admitted, then shrugged. “You want to trust me with a tractor after that, it’s your problem.”

  He grinned. “You have a point. We’ll stick to horses for the time being.”

  He led her into the barn, which stabled half a dozen horses he kept purely for pleasure riding. Jenny eyed them all warily from the doorway.

  “Come on, gal, get in here,” he ordered. “Let me introduce you.”

  “Isn’t it kind of sick to be introducing me to a bunch of horses, when you didn’t even let me say hello to the housekeeper?”

  “You’ll get to know Maritza soon enough. As for these horses, from now on they’re going to be your responsibility. I want you getting off on the right foot with them.” He pulled cubes of sugar from his pocket. “You can start off by offering them these. That’ll get you in their good graces quick enough. Let’s start over here with Misty. She’s a sweetie.”

  Jenny accepted the sugar cubes but she stopped well shy of Misty’s stall. “Why is she bobbing her head up and down like that?”

  “She wants some of that sugar.”

  Jenny held out all of it. “Here. She can have it.”

  “Not like that,” he corrected, “unless you want her to nip off a few fingers at the same time.”

  He showed her how to hold out her hand, palm flat, the sugar cube in the middle. Misty took the sugar eagerly. He grinned as Jenny’s wary expression eased. “Was that so bad?”

  “I guess not,” she said, though she still didn’t sound entirely convinced.

  For the next two hours he taught her to groom the horses, watching wit
h satisfaction as she began first to mutter at them when they didn’t stand still for her, then started coaxing and finally praising them as she worked. He’d never known a kid yet who could spend much time around horses and not learn to love them. Jenny’s resistance was weakening even faster than he’d hoped.

  When he was satisfied that her fear had waned, he walked over to her with bit and saddle. “How about that ride now? Seems to me like Misty’s getting mighty restless and you two seem to have struck up a rapport.”

  Jenny regarded the black horse with the white blaze warily. The gentle mare wasn’t huge, but Harlan supposed she was big enough to intimidate anyone saddling up for the first time.

  “I don’t know,” Jenny said.

  “Let’s saddle her up in the paddock and you can climb aboard for a test run. How about that?”

  “You’re not going to be happy until I fall off one of these creatures and break my neck, are you?” she accused.

  “I’m not going to be happy until you try riding one,” he countered. “I’d just as soon you didn’t fall off and break anything, though I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll get thrown sooner or later.”

  “Oh, jeez,” she moaned. “My mom really will sue you if that happens. We’ll ask millions and millions for pain and suffering. We’ll take this whole big ranch away from you and you’ll end up homeless and destitute.” The prospect seemed to cheer her.

  “I’ll take my chances,” Harlan said with a grin. “Come on, kid. Watch what I’m doing here. If you don’t cinch this saddle just right, you’ll be on your butt on the ground faster than either of us would like.”

  Jenny grudgingly joined him in the paddock. With trepidation clear in every halting move she made, she finally allowed him to boost her into the saddle on Misty’s back.

  “I don’t know about this,” she muttered, shooting him an accusing look. “What happens now?”

  “I’ll lead you around the paddock until you get used to it. Don’t worry about Misty. She’s placid as can be. She’s not going to throw you, unless you rile her.”

  “Is there anything in particular that riles her?” Jenny inquired, looking down at him anxiously. “I’d hate to do something like that by mistake.”