how she’d managed at each of the airports, handling both luggage and children by herself, then stopped wondering when he thought about the determined tilt to her chin.
It was too early to tell, but Jodie might be exactly what his brother needed.
Just what he needed?
Donovan mentally smacked his forehead. Cole didn’t need to get married, he needed his head examined. Marrying a woman like Jodie Richards might be appealing for the obvious reasons, but Cole had never seen her outside of a photograph. No matter how gorgeous she looked in that photo, it couldn’t be enough to make his brother’s hormones scream “marriage.”
“You got awfully quiet all of a sudden,” Jodie murmured, breaking his train of thought.
He cast a glance at her, noting the healthy pink color brought to her face by the exertion of walking and carrying Penny. Maybe he was silently arguing the merits of Cole’s proposed marriage because he was attracted to Jodie himself, but couldn’t make any moves on her. Only a heel would flirt with his brother’s fiancée.
“I was just trying to guess how you and Cole got hooked up together,” Donovan answered, more or less honestly. “He mentioned you lived in Florida, but he didn’t have time to explain much else.”
A small frown creased Jodie’s forehead, though he didn’t know if she was just thinking, or annoyed again. “My brother was stationed at Eielson Air Force Base a few years ago, and they got to be friends. As the story goes, David told Cole about me and suggested we start writing to each other.”
“Hmm.” Donovan suspected there was a lot more to the “story” than Jodie was saying. “Sounds simple enough.”
Jodie wrinkled her nose. “Not really. David is a lot like my father—which means he thinks he has the right to arrange everyone’s lives. At the beginning I wasn’t going to write back, but the first letter sounded interesting, so I…” She shrugged. “The McBride men can’t always be wrong, even if they do have the tact of stampeding buffalo.”
Donovan swallowed a laugh. He’d gotten an absurd image of Jodie holding a toreador’s cape as she fended off the men in her life. “How many ‘McBride men’ are there?”
“Five. Four brothers, one father.”
“All air force?”
“Except for Robert. He’s the black sheep in the family—he enlisted in the navy.”
“I see.” Donovan didn’t ask how Jodie fit into the picture, black sheep or otherwise. It was obvious that her family caused her a great deal of amused exasperation.
“You can imagine how well my father accepted the news,” she added, giving him a droll smile. “‘Third-generation air force and he wants to wear white sailor pants,”’ she mimicked.
“I guess the rivalry between the different armed services is just as intense as I’ve heard.” Donovan steered the small group downstairs.
Jodie shrugged. “At least it is for anyone who serves under my father’s command.”
“Including his family?”
“Especially his family,” she corrected. “It’s worse than being born into a dynasty. At least a dynasty doesn’t operate under military rules of engagement.”
Everything she said raised more questions for Donovan, questions he didn’t feel it was his place to ask. “Here we are,” he said as they approached the baggage claim area.
To his surprise, Jodie’s third suitcase wasn’t much bigger than the two she’d carried onto the plane. From his experience with flying tourists around Alaska, he’d gotten the notion that women always packed too much. Apparently she wasn’t guilty of that problem.
In the parking lot they belted Tadd and Penny into the back seat of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which he’d borrowed from the local branch office of Triple M Transit. It was convenient being one-third owner of a business that provided service over most of Alaska. Whenever he visited from his home on the Kenai Peninsula, he was able to have his own ground transportation in Fairbanks.
He’d reached to open the passenger door when Jodie shifted her feet uncomfortably. “Uh, Donovan?”
His hand dropped. “Yes?” he asked cautiously.
“About what happened at the terminal…?”
“Yes?”
“I was just trying to be spontaneous. And I thought you were Cole, so I thought a kiss would be an icebreaker.” Jodie stopped, deciding her explanation was just making matters worse.
“You don’t want me to tell Cole, is that it?”
She gave him an annoyed look. “That isn’t ‘it’ at all. I just didn’t want you thinking I went around like that, kissing strange men.”
“Boy, that hurts.”
He sounded serious and she frowned. “What hurts?”
“I may be frustrated some of the time, but I’m not strange.”
Irritation tensed her jaw. “You know perfectly well what I meant.”
His golden-brown eyes laughed at her. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Jodie’s fingers tightened on the strap of her purse. It wouldn’t be civilized to hit him over the head with it, but she was tempted. “Would you stop…It’s not a secret.”
“You worry too much. It’s no big deal. And I’m to blame—I should have said something when Penny ran up calling me ‘Daddy.”’ He opened the door and bowed, sweeping his arm down and around in a grandiose gesture. “I bet my mother is planning a great dinner to welcome you to Alaska, so we’d better head out.”
Still glaring, Jodie hiked her slim-cut skirt up a couple of inches and climbed into the high seat of the vehicle. She should have worn slacks for the flight, but feminine vanity had won out over common sense.
It’s no big deal.
In all honesty, she wasn’t so upset about the teasing, it was the way he’d brushed off their kiss. Her lips still tingled from the brief contact with Donovan’s mouth, but he said it wasn’t a big deal.
Jodie drew a deep, calming breath into her lungs. She needed to get a grip. Women invested too much meaning into things like kisses. Men were better off without the kind of feminine second-guessing she went through.
Like now.
She twisted in the bucket seat of the vehicle, wishing life was a little simpler. It had seemed simple, coming to Alaska. She could get her children away from the stifling life on an air force base, give them a father and build a new life in a place she’d loved as a child.
Simple.
Until she’d mistakenly kissed her fiancé’s brother and gotten more confused than she’d felt in a long time.
Jodie looked around with restless energy. Donovan stood just outside the
