B.J. Daniels - Rodeo Daddy

He didn’t need to be reminded. He’d tried for ten years to put it behind him. To put Chelsea and the Wishing Tree and all of it behind him. Damn her for coming here.

“Believe it,” he said, walking away from her, just as he had ten years ago.

“I’m hungry,” his daughter said, watching him intently from a short distance away. She’d obviously seen his reaction to Chelsea, if not overheard their conversation.

“Then why didn’t you take the check?” Chelsea called after him.

He stopped and turned slowly. “Don’t do this. Whatever it is you’re looking for, you aren’t going to find it here.”

“Aren’t you going to ask her to have dinner with us?” Sam asked loudly.

He gave his daughter a warning look. Don’t do this to me, Sam.

“We have plenty, don’t we, Dad?” Sam persisted, flashing him her best wide-eyed innocent smile and completely ignoring his warning look. “We have that huge casserole.”

He ground his teeth. He knew what his daughter was up to and it wasn’t going to work. Sam had seen Terri Lyn bring over the casserole and now thought she’d found a way to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

“Don’t you want to have dinner with us?” Sam asked Chelsea, as if it were only good manners to ask.

Jack closed his eyes and lowered his head. When he looked at Sam again, he could almost see the mischief dancing in her eyes.

“Please!” she pleaded. “We don’t ever have company.”

Last night he’d forced her to sit through a dinner with him and Terri Lyn. Sam had never liked any of the women who came around trying to mother her and cozy up to him, and did everything in her power to discourage them. She especially didn’t like Terri Lyn for reasons he couldn’t understand. But he’d made it clear last night that Sam wasn’t going to pick who he dated. If he ever really got down to dating again.

This was payback and she wanted him to know it.

“Sam,” he warned. The girl had no idea what a hornet’s nest she was stirring up.

“I’m sure your mother—” Chelsea began.

“I don’t have a mother,” Sam said, cutting her off. She sounded so pathetic Jack almost laughed. “She left me on Dad’s doorstep when I was just a baby.”

Chelsea was appropriately startled.

“Sam,” Jack warned, but there was no stopping Samantha tonight. Tomorrow he’d ground her little cowgirl behind. A few days doing extra homework in the motor home should take some of the sass out of her.

“My mother was a barrel racer and couldn’t handle having a baby,” Sam continued as if she hadn’t heard his warning—just like all the other warnings she’d ignored. “I’m the product of a one-night stand. At least that’s what Terri Lyn says.”

Thanks a lot, Terri Lyn. Jack groaned as he saw Chelsea’s shocked reaction. He watched her glance toward the motor home and hesitate—the last thing he wanted her to do.

“So your father’s raised you alone all these years?” Chelsea sounded impressed, damn it.

Sam nodded. “Just the two of us.”

“Sam,” he said pointedly, “Chelsea needs to get going now—”

“No,” Chelsea said, her dark gaze coming up to meet his. “I’m not in that much of a hurry. And anyway, I didn’t get my questions answered.”

He swore under his breath. It was obvious that Chelsea could see the spot Sam had put him in and she planned to take advantage of it. “I thought you knew the answer before you came here.”

“I thought I did, too,” she said, her gaze hard. “Now I’m not so sure.” She looked down at Sam. “I’d love to stay and have dinner with you and your father.”

Sam beamed. The little scamp.

He gritted his teeth, knowing that he should put an end to this before it went any further. But maybe Chelsea had to see how he lived, had to taste Terri Lyn’s tuna casserole before she could leave. The two put together should have her hightailing it back to San Antonio in her expensive little sports car, thanking her lucky stars she was leaving it all behind.

“Fine,” he said. “I hope you like tuna casserole.”

“My favorite,” Chelsea said.

We’ll see about that, he thought.

“We can eat inside,” Sam said brightly. “You can help me light the candles that go with the casserole,” she told Chelsea. “Won’t this be fun?”

He scowled at his daughter, but she pretended not to notice. “Fun,” he echoed, and followed the two toward the motor home. Wait until Terri Lyn heard what happened to the little romantic dinner she’d had planned for later. But first he had to sit through an entire meal with Chelsea. Why hadn’t he just admitted to the rustling and sent her on her way?

CHAPTER FOUR

DAMN! So much for thinking one look in Jack’s eyes would tell her everything she needed to know. All she’d seen so far was arrogance and anger.

Not true. She’d glimpsed something when he’d first seen her. Surprise. And something that had set her heart running off at a gallop. It was one of the reasons she’d agreed to stay for dinner. That and the fact that Jack had been so dead set against it.

She knew she should turn tail and run. Hadn’t Jack pretty much told her everything she’d come to find out? What more did she want him to say? That he’d never loved her? That he’d used her? That he’d been stealing her cows while seducing her?

She felt tears rush her eyes. It seemed she was becoming a crier whether she liked it or not. She fought them back with the only weapon she had: anger. Damn Jack Shane—or whoever he was.

“So you changed your name?” she said. “Got tired of Shane, did you?”

He bristled but didn’t seem surprised, as if he’d been waiting for this. “Jackson is my given name and Robinson’s my mother’s maiden name. When she divorced my stepfather, I went back to Robinson.” He raised a brow as if to say, Satisfied?

She couldn’t think of anything else to say. For the moment. She could feel Jack’s gaze on her, hotter than a Texas summer night.

She felt the hair stand up on her neck and turned, unable to shake the feeling that Jack wasn’t the only one watching her. At the edge of the darkness, she would have sworn she saw a figure move, furtive as a cat, disappearing into the blackness beyond the camp.

“It’s a little small,” Jack was saying as he opened the door to the motor home and stepped back for Sam and Chelsea to enter.

Small was putting it mildly. The inside of the motor home was neat and clean but incredibly tiny, everything in miniature. How could she ever get through dinner in here with Jack so near? She wouldn’t be able to swallow a bite.

“Go wash up, Sam,” Jack ordered.

Sam seemed about to argue, but apparently changed her mind. As she slipped past her father, Chelsea heard Jack hiss something at his daughter.

Jack stepped toward the kitchen. Chelsea had to move to give him enough space in the tiny living room. He appeared as uncomfortable as she felt. “Look, I know you didn’t come here for dinner so—”

“No. I came for answers.” A thought pierced her heart, as unerring as an arrow. “Sam must be what? Nine?” she asked under the sound of water running at the back of the motor home.

He raised a brow as if that should have been answer enough. “She’ll be nine in July.”

It didn’t take an accountant to figure that one out. “You didn’t waste any time, did you?” she asked, turning her back to him so he couldn’t see her hurt. Damn the man.

Sam came back into the small kitchen, glancing back and forth between the two of them, her gaze full of open curiosity.

“Aren’t you going to set the table?” the girl asked her father.

He turned to open one of the cupboards. “I don’t think eating inside is a good idea,” she heard him tell Sam.