The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter. Sherryl Woods

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