“I suppose that would be okay,” she conceded grudgingly. “I don’t want to get heatstroke.”

“Good thinking,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “Should we leave now? It’s almost five.”

She nodded and followed him to his car, a luxury model he kept in the garage. Her mouth dropped open when she saw it. “How come you drove that pickup, when you had this?”

“It was more practical. I’m always hauling stuff for the ranch.”

“Oh.” She touched the leather interior almost reverently. “I like this. It’s really soft. I’m going to have a car just like this someday.”

“I’ll bet you will,” he agreed. “Are you planning to earn it or steal it?”

“Hey, that’s not fair,” she protested, frowning. “I’m really not a thief.”

“You couldn’t prove that by me.”

She grimaced. “It’s not like I have a criminal record or something. What happened was just like an impulse or something. The truck was there. I could see the keys inside. I took it. I figured it served you right for leaving the keys inside.”

He nodded, hiding a grin. It was a bad habit he and all of his sons had. Half of Los Piños was aware of their reckless pattern. This was the first time, though, that anyone had taken advantage of them.

“I suppose it did,” he admitted.

She shot a look at him. “Does that mean I’m off the hook?”

“Not on your life. Even if I’d gone off and left it sitting wide open with the engine running, it wouldn’t give you the right to take what’s not yours.”

“Oh.” She looked more resigned that surprised.

At the end of the lane she started to climb out of the car. “It’s awful hot out there,” Harlan observed. “Not much shade, either. Why don’t I wait? You can sit in the air-conditioning.”

She promptly shook her head. “I’ll be okay. Mom ought to be here any minute.”

“What if she got held up?”

“By what? A traffic jam?” she asked sarcastically.

“Maybe a client,” Harlan said.

“Yeah, right.”

“You never know.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, if you want to wait, wait.” She closed the door, settled back in the seat and folded her arms around her middle, her gaze directed out the passenger window toward town.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked eventually.

“About what?”

“What you saw last night?”

“No,” she said succinctly.

Harlan weighed everything he knew about raising kids and decided once more to let it pass for now. Let Janet hash it out with her first. If they couldn’t settle it, then he’d step in and try to clarify what that kiss had been about...assuming he had it figured out by then.

“There she is,” Jenny announced, flinging open the car door. “See you.”