The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter

Janet wasn’t sure what to expect when she drove back out to White Pines late that afternoon. She supposed it wouldn’t have surprised her all that much to find the ranch in ashes and Jenny standing triumphantly in the circular driveway.

Instead she found her daughter sound asleep in a rocker on the front porch. Harlan was placidly rocking right beside her, sipping on a tall glass of iced tea. He stood when Janet got out of the car and sauntered down to meet her. Her stomach did a little flip-flop as he neared.

To cover the tingly way he managed to make her feel without half trying, Janet nodded toward her daughter. “Looks like you wore her out, after all.”

“It took some doing. She’s a tough little cookie.”

“At least she thinks she is,” Janet agreed. She allowed herself a leisurely survey of the man standing in front of her. “You don’t appear to be any the worse for wear. You must be a tough cookie, too.”

“So they say.”

He tucked a hand under her elbow and steered her toward the porch and poured her a glass of tea. Jenny never even blinked at her arrival.

“Business any better today?” Harlan asked only after he was apparently satisfied that her tea was fixed up the way she wanted it.

Rather than answering, Janet took a slow, refreshing sip of the cool drink. It felt heavenly after the hot, dusty drive. Her car’s air-conditioning had quit that morning on her way back to town and she hadn’t yet figured out where to go to have it fixed. The sole mechanic in Los Piños, a man with the unlikely name of Mule Masters, was apparently on vacation. Had been for months, according to Mabel Hastings over at the drugstore.

“My, but this tastes good,” she said, sighing with pure pleasure. “It’s hotter than blazes today. I thought I’d swelter before I got back out here.”

“What’s wrong with your car? No air-conditioning?”

“It quit on me this morning.”

“I’ll have Cody take a look at it when he comes in,” he offered. “He’s a whiz with stuff like that.”

“That’s too much trouble,” she protested automatically. For a change, though, she did it without much energy. It seemed foolish to put up too much of a fuss just to declare her independence. That was a habit she’d gotten into around her ex-husband. Weighing her independence against air-conditioning in this heat, there was no real contest. Air-conditioning would win every time.

“Nonsense,” Harlan said, dismissing her objections anyway. “It’ll give Cody a chance to snoop. He’s dying to get a closer look at you, so he can tell his brothers that I’ve gone and lost my marbles.”

Startled, she simply stared at him. “Why would he think a thing like that?”

His gaze drifted over her slowly and with unmistakable intent. “Because I’m just crazy enough to think about courting a woman like you.”

Janet swallowed hard at the blunt response. She could feel his eyes burning into her as he waited patiently for a reaction.

“Harlan, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here,” she said eventually.

It was a namby-pamby response if ever she’d heard one, but she’d never been very good at fending off the few men bold enough to ignore all the warning signals she tried to send out. She’d ended up married to Barry Randall because he’d been persistent and attentive…until the challenge wore off.

With that lesson behind her, she should be shooting down a man like Harlan Adams with both barrels. Suggesting he might be getting the wrong idea hardly constituted a whimper of protest.

He reached over and patted her hand consolingly, then winked. “Darlin’, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the ideas I have. You’ll have to trust me on that.”

That, of course, was the problem. She didn’t trust him or, for that matter, herself. She had a feeling a man with Harlan’s confidence and determination could derail her plans for her life in the blink of an eye. She couldn’t allow that to happen for a second time.

“You running scared?” he inquired, his lips twitching with amusement.

“Scared? Not me.”

His grin broadened. “You sound like Jenny now. I didn’t much believe her, either.”

“Harlan—”

“Maybe we’d better get this conversation back on safer ground for the moment,” he suggested. “Wouldn’t want you getting too jittery to drive home tonight. Now, tell me about your day. You never said how business was.”

Janet’s head was reeling from the quick change of topic and the innuendos Harlan tossed around like confetti. With some effort, she forced her mind off of his provocative teasing and onto that safer ground he’d offered.

“I had a call from somebody interested in having me draw up a will,” she told him. “They decided I was too expensive.”

“Are you?”

“If I lowered my rates much more, I’d be doing the work for free, which is apparently what they hoped for. The man seemed to assume that since I’m Native American, I handle pro bono work only and he might as well get in on the ‘gravy train,’ as he put it.”

Harlan’s gaze sharpened. “You get much of that?” he asked.

He said it with a fierce undertone that suggested he didn’t much like what he was hearing. Janet shivered at the thought of what Harlan Adams might do to protect and defend those he cared about.

“Some,” she admitted. “I haven’t been around long enough to get much.”

“Maybe it’s time I steered a little business your way.”

She suspected that was an understated way of saying he’d butt a few heads together if he had to. She understood enough about small towns to know that a sign of approval from a man like Harlan would guarantee more clients coming her way. As much as the idea appealed to her, she felt she had to turn it down. Barry had always held it over her head that her career had taken off in New York because of his contacts, not the reputation she had struggled to build all on her own.

“No,” she insisted with what she considered to be sufficient force to make her point even to a man as stubborn as Harlan appeared to be. “I need to make it on my own. That’s the only way people will have any respect for me. It’s the only way I’ll have any respect for myself.”

“Noble sentiments, but it won’t put food on the table.”

“Jenny and I won’t starve. I did quite well in New York. My savings will carry us for a long time.”

“If your practice was thriving there, why’d you come here?” Harlan asked.

“Good question,” Jenny chimed in in a sleepy, disgruntled tone.

“You know the answer to that,” she told her daughter quietly.

“But I don’t,” Harlan said. “If it’s none of my business, just tell me so.”

“Would that stop you from poking and prodding until you get an answer?”

“Probably not,” he conceded. “But I can be a patient man, when I have to be.”

Janet doubted that. It was easier just to come clean with the truth, or part of it at least. “My divorce wasn’t pleasant. New York’s getting more and more difficult to live in every day. I wanted a simpler way of life.”

She shot a look at Jenny, daring her to contradict the reply she’d given. Her daughter just rolled her eyes. Harlan appeared willing to accept the response at face value.

“Makes sense,” he said, studying her with that penetrating look that made it appear he could see straight through her. “As far as it goes.” He grinned. “But, like I said, I can wait for the rest.”

Before she could think of a thing to say to that, a tall, lanky cowboy strolled up. He looked exactly like Harlan must have twenty or so years before, including that flash of humor that sparkled in his eyes as he surveyed the gathering on the porch.