Both boys’ eyes widened hopefully. “Really? Maybe you could invite us to dinner sometime,” Zachary suggested.
“Yeah, we really, really love spaghetti, especially if it doesn’t come out of a can,” Joshua added.
“Hey, guys, it’s not polite to invite yourselves over to someone’s house,” Duke said.
“Oh, we don’t stand on formality around here,” Sharon Lynn said. “Do we, Dani?”
Dani gave her a sour look, then forced a smile. “Of course not. The next time I’m doing more than grabbing a sandwich for dinner, I’ll give you guys a call.”
Duke’s eyebrows rose. “A sandwich? That’s your idea of a healthy dinner?”
“Sometimes it’s all I feel like fixing after a long day.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Duke chided. “You should know better. I propose that we all go out tonight. My treat. Since everybody’s so keen on spaghetti, how’s that Italian place? We haven’t tried that yet.”
“It’s the best,” Sharon Lynn enthused. “Dani loves their lasagna, don’t you, Dani?”
“It’s very good,” she conceded. “Really, though, I can’t. Not tonight.”
Duke’s gaze clashed with hers. “Busy?”
“Yes.”
“Doing?”
She seized on the first thing that came to mind. “I have to keep an eye on Honeybunch.”
“Who’s Honeybunch?” Zachary asked as chocolate dripped down his shirt. He was oblivious to the melting ice cream. Dani instinctively reached for a napkin and blotted it up, then wiped a streak off his cheek.
“Honeybunch is an injured dog I’m treating,” she explained.
“Is he hurt bad?” Joshua asked.
“He’s getting better,” she conceded.
Duke shot her a triumphant look. “Then we can stop in and check on him on the way to the restaurant. That should put your mind at ease, right?”
She sighed heavily. She might as well give it up. There wasn’t an excuse on the face of the earth that would work now, not unless she said flatly that she didn’t want to go with them. There were two problems with that one: first, it was rude, second, it was a lie. A huge lie, in fact. She did want to go. Obviously, some part of her didn’t care that a situation all too similar to this one had practically destroyed her.
“Why don’t I go on ahead while you boys finish your ice cream,” she suggested eventually. “You can meet me at the clinic when you’re ready.”
“Perfect,” Duke said. “Fifteen minutes?”
“Yes,” she said without enthusiasm.
Sharon Lynn grinned at her. “Have a good evening.”
Dani nodded. “I’ll speak to you tomorrow,” she said, a deliberately dire note in her voice.
“Can’t wait,” her cousin said, clearly not the least bit repentant over her part in the night’s turn of events.
Outside the drugstore, Dani briefly considered bolting, but dismissed it. It would be a cowardly thing to do, and no Adams had ever been a coward. Not that it was Adams blood flowing through her veins, but too many years of the family’s influence had had an effect.
Ah, well, she only had to get through the next fifteen minutes of dread and what? Maybe another hour for dinner. An hour and a half, tops. That was hardly an eternity. Nor was it really long enough to feed this ridiculous attraction she was starting to feel toward Duke Jenkins. They would be chaperoned, too.
By ten o’clock she would be home, tucked in bed with a good book, just the way she had been on every single night of the past two years, except for those occasions when she’d been coerced into spending the evening with one family member or another.
The prospect reassured her. She was actually feeling reasonably upbeat when she heard the doorbell ring in the main part of her combination home and clinic. That optimism lasted until the moment she opened the door and saw, not Duke, but Rob, standing on the front stoop.
6
Dani stared incredulously at the disheveled man standing on her doorstep. It wasn’t so much his identity that shocked her, as his appearance. Rob had always dressed impeccably. Tonight he looked as if he’d grabbed clothes from a laundry basket.
“What are you doing here?” she asked with an icy calm she was far from feeling.
“Can I come in? We need to talk.”
“We do not need to talk,” she retorted. “And no, you may not come in.”
He blinked at her in obvious surprise. “What’s the matter with you?”
His total lack of understanding of what he had done to her infuriated her as nothing else could have. Either he was blind or she had been so submissive that he’d anticipated being able to steamroll over her as if nothing had ever happened. Dani didn’t like either explanation much. Both said things about her she would rather not have believed true. Well, then, it was about time she stood up for herself and made her feelings perfectly clear.
She stared at him coldly. “That’s the problem, Rob. You never did have a clue about anything that mattered. It was always about what you wanted, what you needed.”
When she would have slammed the door, he blocked it and for the first time she felt a niggling sense of unease. “Rob, please. Don’t make a scene.”
“Afraid that shining Adams image will get tarnished?” he asked sourly.
Dani was stunned by his bitterness. What the heck did he have to be bitter about? “Just go away, please. I’m expecting company.” She spotted Duke and his sons strolling along the sidewalk less than a block away. “In fact, they’re on their way right now.”
Rob turned and followed the direction of her gaze. “Still looking for a built-in family, I see. You always were predictable.”
Dani winced at the mean-spirited accusation. Any second now rage was going to overcome common sense and she was going to throw a tantrum that would set Los Pinos on its collective backside.
Fortunately, Duke had apparently picked up on the scene even from a distance. He spoke quietly to the boys, who stopped where they were without argument. Then Duke quickened his pace. Before Dani could say anything more, he was casually, but effectively sliding between her and Rob. He dropped a deliberate kiss on her forehead, then fixed an interested stare on her visitor.
“Hey, darlin’, who’s this?” Duke asked.
“Rob Hilliard. He’s an old acquaintance from Dallas.”
Duke’s gaze narrowed, which suggested he’d heard the name mentioned. Since she’d never told him the identity of the man who’d hurt her, she could only assume that someone else in the family had filled in the blanks she’d left in the story.
“Glad to meet you,” Duke said. His tone was polite, but any reasonably bright man would not have found it welcoming.
“Rob was just leaving,” Dani prompted, since he appeared not to have taken Duke’s hint.
Neither man paid a lick of attention to her. They were squaring off like contestants in a championship boxing match.
Rob was no hero, though. Duke was at least four inches taller and twenty pounds of pure muscle heavier. Eventually her ex-fiancé backed down.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” he said pointedly to Dani. “Sometime when you’re not so busy.”
Duke shook his head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said. He studied Dani. “Is it?”
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not a good idea at all.”
“Fine. Have it your way.” Rob smiled at Dani, but there was little warmth in his expression as he added, “The girls send their love. They miss you.”
Dani felt as if she’d been sucker-punched. She could deal with Rob. She could dismiss him as if he were no more than an inconvenience, but the girls... She couldn’t pretend to be disinterested.
“Are they okay?” she asked.
Rob shot a triumphant smirk at Duke to indicate his belief that he’d bested
the other man, after all. “They’re unhappy.”
“Why?”
“As I said, they miss you. They’d like to see you.”
The offer was nearly two years too late. Dani didn’t want to ask, but he’d left her no choice. “What about Tiffany? Won’t she object?”
“We split up.” Ignoring Duke’s presence, he added, “They want you to come home. We all do.”
The thought of holding Robin and Amy in her arms again, the prospect of reading them bedtime stories and drying their tears, all of it was almost enough to make her weaken. Duke’s steady hand on her waist gave her the strength to shake her head. It reminded her that what she felt for those two darling girls was not nearly enough to compensate for the fact that their father was a weak, insensitive fool.
Steeling herself against his likely reaction she said coolly, “I would love to see the girls again, anytime you’d like to bring them for a visit. But we will never be a family, Rob.” She met his gaze evenly. “Never. I’m surprised even you would be foolish enough to think it possible.”
“But...”
“I think you heard her,” Duke said quietly. “Now it’s time you were on your way.” He glanced at Dani. “Right?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
Only after Rob had turned and walked away, did Dani feel her knees sag. Duke’s arm circled her waist protectively. “You okay?” he murmured.
She nodded, unable to speak. There was too much emotion clogging her throat. This time she was the one who’d cut the ties to Robin and Amy, severed them beyond repair. Rob would never bring them for a visit, not now that he knew there was no place for him in her life. He’d been using those poor, sweet babies of his as pawns, just as he always had.
“Josh, Zack,” Duke called to the two wide-eyed boys who were still standing where he’d left them. “Why don’t you go into the clinic and spend a little time with Honeybunch.” He looked at Dani. “Is that okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “Just remember he’s still hurt. Don’t try to touch him.”
When they were gone, Duke prodded her into the house. “Sit. Do you want something? Some tea? A stiff drink?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
He studied her worriedly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She managed a faltering smile for him. “Believe it or not, I’m relieved.”
He stared at her incredulously. “Relieved? I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain that one to me.”
“All this time I’ve worried what would happen if I ever saw him again. At first I prayed that he would come after me, beg my forgiveness and take me back to be a part of his family again, just the way he did tonight.”
“I didn’t hear a whole lot of begging,” Duke pointed out.
“For Rob, what you heard was close enough. Anyway, I imagined myself falling into his arms and going back. It’s taken me a long time to realize that I was never half as much in love with him as I was with the girls. I adored his daughters. From the beginning I loved them as much as if they’d been my own.”
She sighed. “And I worked so hard to win them over. I had Jordan’s example to go by. Did you know he once thought he would be a terrible father? He was scared to death of me when he and mom were first seeing each other, but he made me a part of his life just the same. I wanted to make Rob’s girls feel just as safe. Tonight when Rob asked me to come back, though, it was like a giant light bulb switching on. I realized I couldn’t go just for them. Sooner or later their father and I would have split up and they would be hurt all over again.”
“So all in all, this visit was a good thing?” Duke asked, his expression skeptical.
“I think so, yes.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay, I’m glad, then. How the hell did you fall for a weasel like that in the first place?”
Dani grinned at his indignant tone. “He wasn’t at his best tonight.”
“An idiot in sheep’s clothing is still an idiot.”
Dani shrugged. “Much as I hate to admit it, maybe you’re a better judge of character than I am, even if you do play havoc with old clichés. At any rate, Rob no longer matters. Let’s eat. Suddenly, I’m starved.”
“I do love a woman who has her priorities in order,” he said approvingly. “Before we get the boys, though, one last thing.”
“What’s that?”
“If second thoughts about this Rob person start to sneak up on you in the middle of the night, don’t call him,” he warned. “Call me. I’ll set you straight again before you go and do something rash.”
At the moment, Dani couldn’t conceive of having second thoughts. Nothing was clearer in her mind than the decision she’d reached just moments earlier to leave the past in the past.
“Promise,” Duke insisted, when she hadn’t responded.
“I promise,” she said. “But—”
“No buts, darlin’. When it comes to love, second thoughts are a given.”
“I don’t love him anymore,” she said with absolute certainty. Relief about that almost left her giddy.
“But you did once. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, that’s enough to get you thinking crazy.”
She regarded him speculatively. “You’ve been there?”
“Been there, done that. I don’t recommend it.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
“Maybe I will,” he said. “If you ever make that call to me at three a.m.”
* * *
Duke had been itching to plant his fist in that Rob person’s face from the moment he’d walked up the sidewalk and seen him attempting to intimidate Dani. A thoroughly primitive, possessive instinct had flooded through him, startling him with its intensity. Only the certainty that Dani would have hated the resulting scene had kept him from following through on the urge. Something told him, though, that one of these days he’d get his chance. Men like Hilliard rarely learned their lesson the first time out.
All through dinner he kept his gaze pinned on Dani, watching for signs that she was already having those second thoughts he’d warned her about. She would, too. He’d heard enough to know just how much she’d loved those two kids of Hilliard’s. Given the opportunity to have them back in her life, she wouldn’t walk away without a single backward glance. The maternal instinct in her ran deep. He’d seen it in her reluctant interaction with Zack and Joshua. Not even past hurts could keep her from treating his sons with genuine warmth. Even now she was asking them about the day camp they were attending and showing the kind of genuine interest that could never be faked.
“Then the lifeguard at the pool said, ‘Zachary Jenkins, you get out of the water right this instant,’” Joshua was telling her, his tone mimicking the teenager’s precisely. “I said, ‘But I’m not Zachary.’ She didn’t believe me. I got out of the water and five seconds later, Zachary swims smack in front of her. She turned real red and started to yell again, but then she saw me standing next to her. ‘Told you so,’ I said.”
“And what did she do?” Dani asked.
“She said, ‘Oh, never mind,’ and walked away.”
“Interesting story,” Duke observed. “What exactly did Zachary do in the first place?”
“Uh-oh,” Josh said, a guilty expression replacing the glee with which he’d told the story.
“Told you to keep your big mouth shut,” Zack grumbled. “This is payback for the goldfish, isn’t it?”
“Is not,” Joshua insisted.
“Is, too.”
“I’m waiting,” Duke said, cutting off the exchange.
“It wasn’t anything bad,” Joshua said valiantly. “Not really.”
“Maybe you should let me decide that,” Duke said. “Zack?”
“I just dove into the water,” Zack said, his expression totally innocent.
“A cannonball, by any chance?”
Duke asked.
“Uh-huh,” Josh said, nodding, his eyes alight at the memory. “A real whopper.”
“And naturally someone was standing right beside the pool who didn’t take kindly to getting splashed from head to toe,” Duke guessed. “Who was it?”
“Some old guy,” Zack said. “In a suit. Who’d wear a suit to a pool, anyway?”
“The mayor,” Dani guessed, not even trying to smother a laugh. “He likes to stop by to see how things are going.”
Duke stared at her. “The mayor? Terrific. My boys have been here less than six months, and they’ve already tried to drown the mayor.”
Dani reached over and patted his hand. “Don’t worry. A lot of people in town have considered doing far worse.”
“Then why do they keep electing him?”
“No one else is willing to run.”
“Why? Because everyone knows that it’s Harlan Adams who really runs things?” Duke suggested.
Dani grinned. “Something like that. Grandpa Harlan does make his opinions known and people do tend to listen to him.”
“Something tells me I ought to send the man a sympathy card,” Duke said.
“No need to do that. He’s heading over here right now,” she told him, nodding toward the tall, silver-haired man striding purposefully their way. Even from a distance the water spots on his suit were evident.
“Ohmigosh,” Zachary murmured, sliding down until he was all but under the table.
Duke latched on to his arm and forced him to his feet as he rose himself to greet the older man. Dani’s expression suggested she was finding the whole thing just a little too amusing.
“Danielle,” the mayor said politely. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too, Frank. Have you met Duke Jenkins and his sons? Duke is a vice president at Dad’s oil company.”
If he hadn’t been assessing the man so closely, Duke might have missed the subtle shift in his demeanor when he realized that Duke was tied very tightly to the Adams clan. His tone was suddenly deferential and whatever he’d intended to say about the incident at the town pool was swallowed. Duke refused to let his son off so easily.
The Heart of Hill Country Page 26
