Free Natural Born Daddy by Sherryl Woods Page A

his gleaming muscles entrancing.
    How on earth did he stay so fit sitting in an office all day long? she wondered. His shoulders and chest were thicker than she’d recalled, no longer an adolescent boy’s body, but a man’s. An intriguing line of dark hair arrowed down his washboard-flat stomach and vanished beneath the snap of his faded, snug jeans.
    For years now she had forbidden herself to study him with so much carnal fascination. First of all, she had been married and she would have died before allowing herself even a hint of disloyalty toward a man she’d belatedly discovered didn’t deserve it.
    Then, more recently, it had seemed like a very bad idea to allow her old feelings for Jordan to stir to life again. She hadn’t needed the pain of another rejection. He’d never given her a second glance during all those years when she had worn her heart on her sleeve. There was no reason to believe his feelings toward her had changed.
    * * *
    Now, though, with his proposal on the table—albeit for all the wrong reasons—she felt she had a right to study him from his windblown hair to his dusty boots. The sight of that expensive snakeskin layered with barnyard dirt made her smile. This was the old Jordan, the one she’d missed, the one who didn’t give a hang about appearances. The most rebellious of the brothers who’d filled the days of the lonely, only child next door, allowing her to tag along with them and later to compete with them as an equal.
    â€œWhat are you looking at so intently?” he inquired, his voice laced with amusement.
    She could feel herself blushing to the roots of her hair. “I was just worried you were going to mar that beautiful expanse of chest.”
    His gaze settled on her. “Would you have kissed it to make it better? It might have been worth it.”
    Dazed by the very idea, she slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said in a choked voice.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBad idea,” she mumbled, forcing herself to look away.
    â€œWhat was that?” he taunted.
    She stared at him defiantly. “I said you’re a flirt and a tease and proper women aren’t safe around you.”
    He nodded seriously. “I thought it might be something like that.”
    â€œDon’t sound so proud of yourself.”
    He winked at her. “I’m not the only one around here for whom pride is a character defect.”
    â€œJordan, I…” Her voice trailed off. There was no point in arguing with him, no point in trying to explain that pride wasn’t keeping her from accepting his proposal. It just wouldn’t work. She couldn’t marry a man she loved so desperately and spend the rest of her life pretending that she didn’t.
    Still, knowing that the one thing she’d always dreamed about—marrying Jordan—was finally within her reach and yet so far away, filled her with wistfulness.
    She was so lost in imagining a life with Jordan that she never noticed that the sun was beginning to sink toward the horizon in a blaze of orange. When she felt a shadow fall over her, she looked up and saw Jordan staring down at her. He’d shrugged into his shirt, but left it unbuttoned. The impish gleam that had been in his eyes all day had given way to a look that was far hotter and more dangerous.
    When he held out his hand to assist her up, Kelly briefly considered ignoring it. Something inside her, though, longed for some contact, no matter how innocent. His earlier inspection of her arm had made her heart pound. Her blood had sizzled with thememory of his quick, unexpected kiss on the tip of her nose and, despite her best intentions, she wanted him to repeat it.
    No, she corrected, what she wanted was a repeat of that spine-tingling kiss they’d shared in her kitchen a month ago. There had been the kind of magic in that kiss she could almost believe in. It was the kind of magic that