Slade shrugged. He figured arguing was a whole lot safer than the kissing he was seriously tempted to do. “More than likely.”
“Maybe we could call a truce,” she suggested. “For Annie’s sake.”
“Won’t work,” he said succinctly.
“Why on earth not?”
“Well, now, the way I see it, you and I are destined to butt heads.”
“Because that’s the way you want it,” she accused.
Slade grinned. “No, because you’re a woman and I’m a man. Simple as that.”
“Tell me something I didn’t know. Why does that mean we have to fight?”
“Human nature.”
“Sweetheart, if that were human nature, the population would dwindle down to nothing.”
He gazed directly into her eyes, then quaked inside at the impact of that. Still, he managed to keep his voice steady. “Now, you see, sweetheart, that’s where God steps in. He set it up so all that commotion would be counterbalanced by making up. Bingo, you’ve got babies.”
Val listened to him, her eyes sparkling with growing amusement. When he’d finished, she grinned at him. “Seems to me like you’ve just given me something to look forward to, cowboy. Let me know anytime you’re ready to start making up.”
She turned then and sashayed off, leaving Slade to stare after her in openmouthed astonishment. Just when he thought he finally had her on the ropes, dadgumit, she won another round.
Slade was just starting to check out a prized new stallion that had been delivered when he glanced up and saw Harlan Adams waiting just outside the stall, his gnarled hands curved over the top rail.
“Something I can do for you?” he asked the rancher. Slade had to wonder if this had something to do with the party. They’d already discussed it, and Harlan had embraced the idea with the expected enthusiasm.
Harlan Adams might have relinquished the day-today running of White Pines to Cody and Harlan Patrick, but no one who knew anything about him doubted the influence he still held over the place. Even in his eighties, his mind was sharp as a tack. Only the physical limitations of aging kept him from doing everything his son and grandson did. Slade always tried to grant him the respect he was due, even when the man hadn’t just done him a huge favor.
“Just came down to get a look at that horse you and Cody spent a fortune of my hard-earned money on,” he replied, his gaze moving over Black Knight as if he expected the horse to be nothing less than solid gold.
“We’ll get some excellent foals for you in a year or two,” Slade said. Even though Harlan’s grumbling remark about the stallion’s cost had been made good-naturedly, Slade was unable to keep a hint of defensiveness out of his own voice. “He was worth every penny.”
“Oh, he’s a beauty, all right,” Harlan agreed readily. “Don’t get all lathered up, Son. I trust your judgment. Cody carried on so, I just wanted to see him for myself. Thought it might give us a chance to talk some more, too. You were in too big a hurry when you stopped by the house to ask about the party.”
The casual announcement set off alarms. Harlan Adams never came out to the stables merely to chat. He came when he wanted to poke and pry into matters that were none of his concern. Slade waited warily to hear what was on his mind.
Harlan found a stool and dragged it over so he could observe as Slade expertly went over the horse. Not used to having anyone watch his every move— except when he’d been in the rodeo ring—Slade was unsettled by the intense scrutiny. His nervousness promptly communicated itself to the powerful stallion. Black Knight turned skittish, prancing dangerously close to the walls of his stall. Slade smoothed a hand over his flank and murmured to him until he settled down.
“You’ve got a way with these animals, don’t you?” Harlan observed with apparent admiration. “Cody claims he’s never seen anyone better.”
Slade shrugged, though he was pleased by the compliment. “I suppose. I just treat ’em like the magnificent creatures they are.”
“The way a man treats his stock says a lot about him, if you ask me.” The rancher paused, then asked with disconcerting directness, “You as good with your daughter?”
Startled by the abrupt shift in subject to something so personal, Slade snapped his head up. Defensiveness had his stomach clenching again. “Meaning?”
Seemingly oblivious to the tension in Slade’s voice, the old man pointed out, “You kept her hidden away long enough. Didn’t even mention her when you applied for work. Never knew a man to hide the fact that he had family, especially a daughter as clever as your Annie. Why was that?”
“With all due respect, sir, I think that’s my business.”
Harlan Adams regarded him unrepentantly. “Well, of course it is. That doesn’t mean I can’t ask about it, does it? Around here, we like to think of the people working for us as part of the family. You’ve been here long enough to know when it comes to family, we tend to meddle. It’s second nature to us.”
Slade managed a halfhearted grin at that. “So I’ve heard.” He just hadn’t expected to become a target of it. It made him damned uncomfortable having to answer to his boss about his relationship with Annie. He doubted an outsider would understand all the complicated emotions at work.
“Well, then, tell me about your girl,” Harlan prodded again, clearly not intending to let the matter drop. “She made a real good impression when I met her. Val brought her by the house for a visit the other day.”
“What can I say, sir? She’s a handful.” A worrisome thought struck him. “She hasn’t gotten into some sort of mischief around here already, has she?”
‘Of course not,” Harlan said, dismissing that worry. “We’re glad to have her. She reminds me of my Jenny, the way she was when her mama and I first started going out. Whoo-ee, that girl was a hellion back then. Gave her mama and me fits. Not a one of my boys was as much trouble, and believe me, they weren’t saints.”
“Is that so?” Slade doubted Jenny Adams had ever gotten into the kind of mischief Annie could pull off.
“Stole my truck, for starters,” Harlan told him.
Slade stared, thinking of the beautiful, self-possessed young woman he’d met at ranch gatherings. He could think of a lot of ways to describe Jenny, but car thief wouldn’t have been among them. She’d been an activist for Native American affairs. Now she taught school and was darn good at it, from what he’d heard. A bit unconventional, perhaps, but effective.
“You’re kidding me,” he said, sure the old man had to be pulling his leg to make him feel better about Annie’s misdeeds.
“No, indeed. Girl was just fourteen, too. Smacked the truck straight into a tree.” He almost sounded proud of her accomplishment.
“I take it she wasn’t hurt,” Slade said.
“No, thank the Lord. When I caught up with her, she was cursing a blue streak, like the car was to blame. I brought her back into town to face the music. That’s how I met her mama. Janet had just opened up her law practice here in town. Jenny was none too pleased about her mama’s divorce or about being uprooted from New York. She was mad at the world. I brought her out here and put her to work. She tended to be mischievous like your Annie, to put a generous spin on it.” A grin spread across his face. “Took a paintbrush to some of the buildings around here, too. I never saw such a mess.”
Slade shook his head, baffled by Harlan’s amused expression as he told the story. “And you and Janet still got married? Amazing.”