Natural Born Daddy

What was unusual about this particular plane was the message trailing through the clear blue sky behind it: Marry Me, Kelly.

She stared at it with a sort of horrified fascination. She supposed a case could be made that it was exactly the sort of impulsive, outrageous thing the old Jordan would have dreamed up, the sort of thing she’d claimed only moments ago to miss. Her heart, in fact, turned a somersault in her chest, a slow loop-de-loop that very nearly made her giddy.

Her gaze riveted on that message, she bit back a groan. The whole blasted county was going to know about Jordan’s proposal now. Well, maybe not that Jordan was behind it, though that news would come quickly enough. Los Pinos was small enough that nothing ever stayed secret for long, including the identity of the man who’d taken his family’s plane up from the local airstrip to make his proposal in such an outrageous way. Her phone was probably ringing off the hook already.

Even as she watched, the plane made another slow loop and circled back. Just when it reached a spot directly overhead, she saw something being scattered through the sky. Like confetti falling, it drifted down until the first touch of pink landed on her cheek. Rose petals, she realized at its silky touch against her skin. The man had filled the sky with rose petals.

She sucked in a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of them, then lowered her head and rode deliberately away from the cascade of pink. Tears stung her eyes. He was making it awfully damned hard to say no. So far, though, he hadn’t come close to the one thing that would have guaranteed a yes.

She reached the house just in time to see him settling his tall, lanky frame into a rocker on the porch. At the sight of her he stilled and waited, his expression oddly hesitant. That was a new side of Jordan altogether, one that stole her breath away. Not once in all the years she’d known him had he ever appeared the least bit vulnerable. He’d always been terribly, terribly sure of himself.

“You have rose petals in your hair,” he said quietly.

“Funny thing about that,” she said just as quietly, her gaze caught with his. “They were falling from the sky.”

His mouth curved into a slow smile. “Amazing.”

“Not many men could make that happen.”

“Maybe not. I suppose it takes a man intent on making an impression.”

Kelly sighed. “Jordan, you’ve never needed messages in the sky or rose petals to make an impression on me. Don’t you know that?”

He seemed to sense that she hadn’t been as impressed as he’d hoped. “What does it take?” he asked.

She reached up and patted his cheek. “I think I’ll let you think about that awhile longer.”

Undaunted, he followed her into the house, heading straight for the kitchen as always. This time, though, he maneuvered past her and reached for the cups himself. He looked as if he needed to stay occupied, so Kelly washed up at the kitchen sink, then settled herself at the table and waited.

He filled the kettle and put it on the stove, then lingered over her selection of herbal teas. “Which one?”

“Orange spice, I think. The situation seems to call for a little zing.”

“What situation would that be?” he inquired, leaning against the counter, his gaze on her steady and unrelenting.

She really hadn’t wanted to get into this again today. In fact, she had warned him the topic was off-limits. Those blasted rose petals had made that impossible. “This notion you’ve gotten in your head,” she said.

“About marrying you?”

She grinned at his quick-wittedness. “That’s definitely the one. It appears to me that this breakup with Rexanne has hurt you more than you’re willing to admit. Perhaps it’s addled your brain.”

His eyebrows rose a fraction. “Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. Did you really love her, Jordan? Was I mistaken in thinking that she just came along at the right time, at the precise moment when you’d decided you needed a wife to complete your transformation into solid citizen?”

He went very still. “Transformation?”

Kelly almost chuckled at his expression. “I seem to recall a boy who ran away from home at seventeen to be a wildcatter on the oil rigs. Then there was the disruption you caused at the high school when you got on the public address system and performed a rock song you had composed. The lyrics, as I recall, had every teacher blushing. The principal had to take the rest of the day off, she was so stunned. And let’s see now, there was the summer you rustled a few of your own daddy’s cattle, so you could start your own herd.”

A once-familiar impish grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Not fair,” he accused. “I was only seven when I did that.”

“It was, however, the beginning of a highly notable career as the family rebel. I’m sure Harlan despaired of your ever turning into someone respectable.” She surveyed him closely, from the neatly trimmed brown hair to the tips of his polished boots, and regretted that his hair no longer skimmed his collar and his boots weren’t worn and dusty. “I’d say you beat the odds. A wife would complete the package.”

“You make it sound so cold and calculating,” he objected.

She shrugged. “If the shoe fits…”

“It doesn’t. I’m thirty years old. It’s just time I settled down.”

“When was it you decided you needed a wife?” she asked.

“What do you mean, when?”

“What was the precise date?”

“I don’t recall,” he said stiffly. “Sometime last fall, I suppose.”

“I’ll tell you precisely. It wasn’t fall at all. It was January 12, your birthday. You turned thirty with a worse midlife crisis than most men have when they’re forty-five. You made your decision. Then you looked around and chose Rexanne. When that didn’t work out, you did another survey of the candidates and decided on good old Kelly. Did you figure all alone out here, I wouldn’t put up much of a fuss before saying yes?”

He had the grace to look embarrassed by her assessment.

“Well, isn’t that exactly how it happened?” she persisted.

“Something like that,” he agreed with obvious reluctance. He regarded her with a stubborn thrust of his chin. “That doesn’t make the plan any less sound.”

“Exactly how far have you thought this through?” she inquired carefully, barely keeping a flare-up of temper in check. “Have you chosen a wedding date? Picked the caterer? Reserved the church?”

“Not exactly,” he muttered in a defensive tone, which told her that was exactly what he had done.

She was going to lose it and fling her steaming hot tea straight at him in another ten seconds. “Let me guess,” she said. “You were figuring on the same date you’d set with Rexanne and you figured the caterer could just change one of the names on the cake. The minister wasn’t likely to care who was standing next to you, isn’t that right?”

“Those are just details,” he argued. “You can pick the date, the church, the caterer and anything else you want. The sky’s the limit.”

“How thoughtful!”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

“Oh, I think I do. When a man gets the romantic notion of letting me fill in for his originally intended bride, I definitely have to get a little sarcastic,” she said, clinging to her cup so tightly her knuckles were turning white. The idea of splattering that tea all over him was looking better and better. Unfortunately the stuff was cooling too fast to do much damage and far faster than her temper.

“You have it all wrong,” he insisted. “It’s not like I plucked your name off some computer network. You and I have known each other all our lives. We’re compatible.”

“Oh, really?” she said doubtfully. She seized on the most obvious thing she could think of to point out their differences. “Where did you plan on us living?”

He seemed taken aback by the simple question. “In Houston, of course.”

“I hate Houston,” she shot back.

“No, you don’t,” he said, as if he knew her better than she did herself. “You just had a bad experience there. Paul colored the way you feel about the city.”