Her Single Dad Hero Read online

  Frustrated, Dean did the only thing he could think to do, the thing he most wanted to do.

  He took one long step, breaching the chasm between them, reached out with both arms and pulled her flush against him, capturing her lips with his.

  For an instant, everything froze. But then he tightened his arms and poured everything he had into that kiss, everything he’d felt for so long, everything he wanted with this woman. In seconds she melted, and her arms slid up around his neck.

  Kissing Jolly was everything he’d ever dreamed it could be.

  Not feminine? He wanted to shake her for being so stupid. Then he felt her smile, and he was lost to the wonder of having her, at last, exactly where he wanted her. Where she surely belonged.

  Didn’t she?

  If that were so, though, why was she suddenly pushing away from him? And laughing.

  Frowning, Dean watched her back up a step and raise one hand as if to hold him off. Her laughter faded to a huge grin, but he still didn’t like the look of it.

  Was she laughing at him?

  She clapped her hand to her chest then and said, “That was my fault. I know that men speak with actions more than words, and I didn’t exactly give you a chance to really say anything, so you made your point the most efficient way you could. And, well, I just want to thank you.”

  A chill ran through him, followed by an unexpected surge of white-hot anger that stunned him with its intensity.

  “Thank you,” he echoed with deadly calm. “That’s what you’ve got to say to me after that kiss? Thank you?”

  Her smile faded, and she dropped her hand, moving from gratitude to apology. “I’m sorry. I was having a big old pity party, and I dragged you into it. That wasn’t fair.”

  “You think that was about pity?” he demanded, aware that he was shouting but not quite able to control his tone. She just stared at him, clearly clueless. “You may not have ‘feminine accomplishments,’ as you call them,” he managed, leveraging volume into sarcasm and curling his fingers to indicate quotation marks for emphasis, “and you may be better at some things than most men, but the only masculine thing about you is your stubborn, blind, ridiculous inability to see what’s right in front of you!”

  Her eyebrows jumped into pointed little arches, and she looked down as if expecting to find something sprouting from the ground.

  “Uh, I don’t—”

  “I’m talking about me!” he snapped.

  “You?” Her gaze jerked up to meet his.

  Parking his hands at his hips, he bluntly admitted, “I’ve wanted to do that for years.”

  “You’ve wanted to kiss me for years?” she squeaked.

  “But never more so than recently,” he told her, “and I’m tired of you never seeing or acknowledging my—” he almost said feelings for you, but he was too much the stubborn, blind, ridiculous male himself to give away that much, especially now, so he settled for “—attraction to you.”

  She looked stunned as if he’d punched her in the gut, and he suddenly felt completely drained, emotionally and physically.

  “Dean,” she began, “I didn’t... I never...”

  The words just died away, and that was it, all he could handle.

  “I have to go,” he muttered abruptly.

  Striding around her, he hopped across the ditch in one long stride and kept right on going until he’d circled the truck and reached the driver’s door. She stood as if rooted to the ground while he opened the door, shoved aside his hat and wedged himself inside the slanting truck. After he started the engine, wrenched the steering wheel as far right as it would go and swung the truck in a wide U-turn, he hit the brake. She had followed the motion of the truck but still stood with her arms dangling at her sides, her jaw agape. Shaking his head, Dean pushed the gas pedal and drove away, leaving her there, staring after him.

  “Lord, help me,” he whispered.

  Would he never learn? He couldn’t just answer her idiotic questions and listen to her rant. He couldn’t let it go at the kiss. He’d had to tell her that he’d carried this torch for her for years.

  Oh, what had he done? What had he done?

  * * *

  What had she done?

  Ann watched the red taillights of Dean’s truck grow smaller and smaller in the darkening distance, torn between elation and shame.

  On one hand, she was thrilled beyond words that the most masculine man she knew found her attractive. That kiss left no doubt about that. None. She lifted trembling fingers to her lips and found them curved in a smile.

  On the other hand, she was an engaged woman, pledged to marry another, and he was the one who should be giving her such thrilling assurances. She should never have dragged Dean into it.

  The problem was that when she’d asked Jordan if he thought she was too masculine, he’d replied that what mattered was her brain. He’d then gone on to say that she had one of the finest managerial minds he’d ever encountered and how essential she was to the success of the Dallas hotel, which had run a slight deficit before she’d taken over, even with him at the helm. He’d talked about how much she was missed there and asked again how soon she could return. All of his words had been flattering, but the conversation had left her shaken. It had been as if she was talking to her boss rather than her fiancé, and doubts had suddenly overwhelmed her. She’d asked herself if Jordan truly loved her or if she was just a wise career choice for him.

  Feeling vulnerable and frightened that her perfect future might not be so perfect after all, she’d told herself to steer clear of Dean, but for some reason she hadn’t been able to stick to the plan. When Dean had actually gotten up to leave the ranch house, she’d panicked. In some strange way, he had become her anchor in a world that had turned upside down.

  Her father’s illness, her return to War Bonnet, her growing concerns about her engagement, Rex’s continued absence, her confused feelings about Dean and Donovan...it all whirled around her, a tornado of emotion. Even the good things seemed too much all of a sudden. Her success here at Straight Arrow—Rex seemed pleased with the way she’d kept things running—relaxing into a simpler lifestyle, feeling finally as if she’d really come home, reconnecting with her dad and sister, the comfort of church and Christian fellowship somehow piled one atop another until she felt buried by everything that had happened these past few weeks. She’d wanted to grab hold of Dean and never let go again.

  But that kiss...

  Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined anything like that kiss. Minutes later she still tingled all the way to her toes. Guiltily, she realized that not one of Jordan’s few kisses had ever made her feel even remotely like this. She had presumed that she was the problem. After all, hadn’t she known for years now that she was not like other women? Or was she?

  All through the night she tossed and turned, torn between the delight of Dean’s kiss and all that it seemed to reveal, and guilt that she had enjoyed Dean’s kiss so much more than her fiancé’s. By morning she had decided that the only thing to do was to call Jordan and have a frank talk with him.

  She did it early, very early, so she wouldn’t interrupt Jordan’s working day and in order to give them the time necessary to say all that needed to be said. She did it before she even got dressed. Because of the hour, she wasn’t surprised that he didn’t answer on the first or second ring. When at last he picked up, she immediately apologized.

  “I’m sorry to call so early, but we really need to talk.”

  “Ann,” Jordan groaned. “We spoke just last night.”

  “I know, but something’s happened.”

  “Your father?”

  “No, no. Me.” Drawing her legs up beneath the bedcovers, she held the cell phone to her ear. “I, um, kissed someone. Rather,” she hurried on, “someone kissed me. But... I—I did...pa
rticipate.”

  She heard dead silence on the other end of the line.

  “Jordan, I’m sorry, but I felt you had a right to know.”

  “Do you want to break our engagement?” Jordan asked carefully.

  “Do you?”

  “Ann,” he said softly, warmly, “these things happen when couples are separated. Given the stress you’ve been under and the fact that you’re a woman working in an almost exclusively male field now...” He sighed. “Well, I can’t say I’m happy, but I’m not surprised, either. Just don’t let your head be turned by one of the local yokels back there in Oklahoma. Your life is here in Dallas. We can really build something together, Ann. Don’t lose sight of us and the future we have. Please. I—I don’t think I can do this without you.”

  Melting, Ann said, “Jordan, that’s so sweet.”

  “It’s a onetime thing, right? Just a onetime thing.”

  She started to tell him that it wouldn’t happen again, but she barely got the first two words out before another call rang through. “It won’t—Oh, Jordan, I’m sorry. This is my brother. It must be important for him to call so early.”

  “That’s okay, darling,” Jordan said. “We can talk again later.”

  “Thank you. Yes. Just give me a little while to take care of this.” She quickly tried to put an end to the call and get to Rex, who sounded harried.

  “Oh, good. I caught you before you left the house,” he said as soon as he heard her voice. “I have a delivery of building supplies coming in two weeks earlier than expected. Some sort of scheduling mix-up. The transporter just called to say that his trucker has driven through the night to get to us first thing this morning so he can make another delivery somewhere in north Texas before nightfall.”

  Rex went on to detail where the supplies needed to be off-loaded and stored, just in case Duffy, whom he’d awakened from a sound sleep, didn’t understand or remember his instructions. Then Rex told Ann that she would have to coordinate with Stark Burns, the local veterinarian, who had partnered with Rex on the order so they could take advantage of a bulk discount. Only after Stark deemed the order complete would Rex transfer payment to the supplier.

  “I’ll call him after we hang up,” Ann promised. Because she hadn’t seen their father yet this morning, they had nothing to talk about there, so she ended the call.

  Only then did she realize that she’d accidentally put Jordan on hold. Remembering her parting words to him, that she just needed a little while to take care of Rex’s call, she feared that Jordan was still on the line.

  Swiping the correct button, she spoke. “Jordan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to hold.”

  The line was open, and she did hear him speak but distantly. “Don’t know,” he was saying, “and I don’t care. Some dusty, drawling redneck, I imagine.”

  Ann heard another voice, a feminine one, but she didn’t recognize it or understand the words until the speaker came closer. “Doesn’t seem her type,” the woman said, and Ann suddenly knew to whom that voice belonged. Gena Johns, one of the customer service clerks who worked the main reception desk. But what was Gena doing in Jordan’s—Ann’s—suite at this time of the morning?

  “Who is her type?” Jordan was asking, his tone dry.

  “You, obviously,” Gena answered, sounding petulant.

  “Guess that’s why Marshal gave me this assignment,” Jordan said, his voice growing louder then fading as if he bent toward the phone and backed off again.

  Assignment? Ann thought, freshly stunned as Jordan asked Gena to hand him his shirt. What assignment?

  As the ramifications of what she was hearing began to sink in, Ann dropped the phone into her lap. This couldn’t mean what it seemed to mean. Could it? Tears filling her eyes, she shook her head. It was a mistake. She’d misunderstood. Gingerly, she picked up the phone again and held it to her ear.

  “...believe she’s still buying it,” Jordan was saying, “but I may need to move up the wedding date.”

  “You said you’d jilt her before it got too far,” Gena whined.

  Ann closed her eyes, horrified.

  “That was the plan,” Jordan said. “If it could be done before the wedding arrangements were too far underway. But things change.”

  “You’re really going to marry her?” Gena demanded.

  “If that’s what it takes to get her back here and keep her with LHI,” Jordan answered bluntly.

  Ann slapped a hand over her mouth as a sound of horror escaped her.

  “Look,” Jordan said calmly, “if her father hadn’t gotten sick, she wouldn’t be playing cowgirl in Dirtville now and none of this would be necessary. But it’s like Marshal says, we can’t take the chance that her family will guilt her into staying on to run the family business. I promised him I’d get her back here ASAP, and trust me when I tell you this is the way to do it.”

  He would know, of course. Ann had told him exactly how to guarantee her cooperation.

  “I’ve got a huge promotion riding on this,” Jordan went on. “So if I have to drive down to that waste of space again to sell it and march her up the wedding aisle to get her back here, that’s what I’ll do. Not that it matters much because I’ll be living in another state, anyway.”

  Ann couldn’t bear to hear any more. Crushed, tears coursing down her face, she broke the connection and fell back on the bed.

  An assignment. A project. A promotion deal.

  That’s all she was to Jordan, all she’d ever been.

  Some small, sane part of her supposed that she ought to be flattered because Marshal Benton and Luxury Hotels, Inc., thought enough of her to go to such lengths to keep her on the job. Such filthy, underhanded, sneaky, hateful lengths. And she’d given them the nefarious plan herself.

  It all made terrible sense now. Jordan had shown up in Dallas not long after her dad’s cancer had been confirmed. Ostensibly, he had come to relieve her so she could take off time to help out here at the Straight Arrow, but he’d needed to be brought up to speed before she could leave the hotel that he had managed before she had taken over. Of course, he’d used that time to sweep her off her feet and get an engagement ring on her finger, ensuring that she’d return to Dallas as quickly as possible—long after she’d confessed her personal history and fears to him. And she’d fallen for the whole charade, hook, line and sinker.

  Foolish didn’t begin to cover her idiocy.

  Ann turned facedown into her pillow and sobbed, her entire world shattering around her.

  She had believed that Jordan loved her.

  She had thought that he wanted her for herself.

  She had trusted in the future that he had promised her. Maybe it wouldn’t have been quite traditional. Maybe she wouldn’t have been a mother or a homemaker, but she’d have been a wife, a partner, half of a couple.

  Or so she’d thought.

  In truth, she was nothing more to Jordan Teel than a means to an end, an assignment that he meant to leave behind at the first opportunity.

  Only one man, it seemed, had ever seen her as a woman, and now she had to wonder if even that could be real. Maybe all Dean wanted was a mother for his son. At best he might want Jolly, the silly, thoughtless girl Ann used to be. He didn’t really know the person she was now. How could he when she wasn’t sure that she knew herself anymore?

  She couldn’t trust anyone or anything right now.

  For the first time, her soul felt as dry as kindling.

  Oh, Father God, help me! she cried silently, but her prayers seemed to bounce off the ceiling and fall back to her shoulders, driving her deeper into despair.

  Eventually she heard the long blast of a horn and realized that the hauler with the building supplies about which Rex had warned her had arrived. Pulling herself together enough to crawl out of the bed
, she pulled on jeans, boots and a nondescript T-shirt then found her phone and dragged herself out of the room without so much as glancing at a mirror.

  She was creeping down the upstairs hall and looking up the veterinarian’s phone number when that horn blasted again. Meredith stepped out of her room, belting her robe over her pajamas.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Mix-up with a delivery schedule,” Ann explained dully, moving toward the stairs. Meredith caught her by the arm, turning her back.

  “You okay? You don’t look well, Annie.”

  “Couldn’t sleep last night,” Ann muttered. “Then Rex called early. Gotta go.”

  She tapped the number displayed on the screen of her telephone and let it dial Stark Burns’s number. Meredith’s hand fell away as Ann turned once more for the stairs, lifting the phone to her ear.

  Burns sounded wide-awake when he answered the call. Ann told him what was needed, and he replied that he was on his way. She flipped on porch lights to let the trucker outside know that she would be with him momentarily then trudged across the porch and along the path to the road. To her surprise, what awaited her was a full-blown tractor-trailer rig with a skid loader on the back.

  By the time Ann and the driver figured out how best to position the trailer to off-load the materials meant for the Straight Arrow, Duffy had arrived. Burns quickly followed in a one-ton flatbed truck. After Burns agreed that the order was complete, the trucker agreed to load certain bundles onto Burns’s truck if Rex verbally signed off on the arrangement and put through payment.

  Ann contacted Rex, who took care of his end of things, and the trucker proved he knew his business by quickly off-loading his shipment then backing the rig straight down that red-dirt road well over half a mile before he could turn it around and head it south to Texas. Burns, in his usual taciturn manner, wrote a check for his part of the order and took himself off again.

  Ann dragged back into the house to face Meredith’s frown. “What was that man doing here?”