West Texas Nights

by Sherryl Woods

  With his grandfather in his eighties and his father, Cody, getting older, the fate of White Pines was all but his. Ranching was in his blood; it defined who he was, but that didn’t make it any less of a burden at times. Day in, day out, 365 days a year, the demands were unceasing. The damned ranch was what stood between him and Laurie, and yet, when the chips had been down, the ranch was what he’d chosen, just as surely as she’d chosen her music over him.

  His heritage over his heart. It was pitiful enough to be the heartbreaking theme of a country-music megahit. He was surprised Laurie hadn’t written it herself. She’d turned everything else they’d shared into top-ten hits. There was something downright eerie and irritating about hearing his life played out on the radio.

  Thinking back, he realized that maybe he’d made the decisions he had because he hadn’t believed for a minute that she’d really leave. Despite repeated warnings from his sister, his cousin Justin, his grandfather, just about everyone, he’d trusted that their love was stronger than anything else on earth. By the time he’d recognized his mistake, it was too late. Laurie had been gone and with her, his soul.

  Ironically he’d gotten another chance a little over a year ago, but his pride had kicked in with a vengeance and he’d watched her run out on him all over again. Pride, as his granddaddy had told him more than once, made a mighty cold bedmate. Even knowing the truth of that, he still hadn’t been able to make himself go after her. He’d called for a while, but when those calls hadn’t been returned, he’d cursed her every which way and given up.

  Okay, so he was a damned fool. He admitted it. She’d made things clear enough the last time he’d seen her. She’d told him flat out that she still loved him, just not enough to come home and be his wife. He’d accepted her decision. What choice did he have? He couldn’t go chasing halfway around the world to be by her side, could he? What was he supposed to do? Run White Pines long-distance?

  But he hadn’t forgotten about her, not for a single second. Now she had a child? He didn’t believe it, couldn’t believe that some other man had shared her bed, not when she’d so fiercely declared that she was still in love with him. Theirs simply wasn’t the kind of love that died overnight, no matter how badly they’d mistreated each other. No one had replaced her in his heart or even in his bed. He’d managed to convince himself that she’d do the same. Apparently that was just one on a whole long list of delusions he’d held about Laurie.

  He yanked open the screen door, then let it slam behind him as he stared into two shocked, guilty faces. “Let me see it,” he demanded, his voice deadly calm.

  Sharon Lynn moved between him and the table, blocking his view of the paper. “Forget about it,” she said. “Forget about her.”

  He watched as her sense of indignation and family loyalty kicked in and loved her for it. His big sister had a mile-wide protective streak. All of the Adamses did.

  “Laurie Jensen isn’t worth one more second of your time,” Sharon Lynn declared. “She’s never been any good for you, and this proves it.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do, sis, but you and I both know that Laurie is the only woman for me.”

  Sharon Lynn blushed. “Okay, I’m sorry. It just makes me so mad the way she keeps walking out on you.”

  He decided not to remind her that that was only half of the story. The first time Laurie had gone, Sharon Lynn had actually taken her side, accused him of being a short-sighted jerk for not going after her, for not trying harder to become a part of her new life, maybe using his business degree to become her manager or something. When Laurie had gone this last time, Sharon Lynn had positioned herself staunchly behind him. Rarely did a kind word about Laurie cross her lips. The rest of his family tried never to mention her at all.

  He scowled at Sharon Lynn. “Just hand over the paper, okay?”

  His sister wasn’t quite finished. Once she got wound up, it was impossible to slow her down. She gave him a defiant look. “You have to forget about her, Harlan Patrick. Move on. There are a zillion women in Texas who’d love to be with you. Pick one of them, one who’ll treat you right instead of running out on everything you have to offer.”

  “Easier said than done,” he said.

  He ought to know. He’d cut a wide swath through the available women in three or four counties after Laurie had left the first time. He hadn’t had more than a date or two with any of them then and he hadn’t bothered to call even one of them after Laurie had left this last time. He’d accepted the possibility that no one would ever measure up.

  “Sis, I appreciate your loyalty. I really do,” he assured her, then glared. “Now let me see the blasted paper, unless you’d prefer to have me drive all the way into town to pick one up. Do you want me to be standing in the supermarket with half the town gawking at me when I read it? That ought to keep the gossips busy for a while.”

  His mother, who’d been letting the two of them battle it out up until now, sighed. “Let him see it, Sharon Lynn. The horse is out of the barn anyway.”

  His sister handed him the paper with obvious reluctance. The front page was folded in two. He opened it slowly, regretting that he had even his mother and sister as his audience.

  The sight of Laurie, all done up in her fancy, rhinestone-studded cowgirl stage costume, brought his pulse skidding to a halt. No matter how many times he saw her picture, he never got over the wonder of her beauty—the thick chestnut-colored hair, the dare-you curve of her smile, the sparkle in her eyes. Despite the fancy getup, there was no artifice about her. She didn’t need a lot of makeup to enhance what nature had given her.

  He’d pretty much stopped looking at these rags, because the sight of her always had the same effect and he figured sooner or later it was going to turn deadly. How many times could a man’s heart grind to a halt before it stopped pumping altogether?

  This time, though, the photographer hadn’t done her justice. There was no glint in her eyes, no smile on her lips. He’d caught her in an instant of stunned disbelief, one hand held up, futilely trying to block the lens, while she turned to try to shield the baby in her arms.

  She’d been too slow. The baby was in perfect focus, round faced, smiling, with a halo of soft brown curls and blue, blue eyes sparkling with pure devilment. Adams eyes, Harlan Patrick thought at once, unmistakably Adams eyes. There was a whole mantle full of baby pictures just like this up at Grandpa Harlan’s. He was surprised his mother and Sharon Lynn hadn’t guessed the truth—but then they hadn’t known about that last meeting—the one where he lost his head and made love to her one last time.

  This time it wasn’t love or even lust that kicked his pulse into overdrive. It was fury. The suspicion that had been nagging at him from the moment he’d heard his mother and Sharon Lynn talking was all but confirmed. Laurie Jensen had had his baby and kept it from him. Betrayal cut through him like a lance. He was surprised he wasn’t bleeding from the wound.

  In less than an instant, fury was replaced by icy resolve. He whirled around and without a word went out the way he’d come in, slamming the door behind him, the tabloid crushed in his hand.

  “Oh, my God,” Sharon Lynn murmured. “Did you see his face?”

  “I saw,” his mother said, racing out the door after him. “Harlan Patrick, get back here!”

  He ignored the command and headed straight for his pickup. A half hour later he was at the airstrip with Uncle Jordan’s corporate jet fired up and waiting for him.

  He was going after Laurie Jensen and his baby and when he found them, there was going to be hell to pay.

  Two

  Laurie had been heartsick ever since her manager had shown her the tabloid a week after that fateful night outside a Kansas concert hall. From that moment on she had prayed over and over that Harlan Patrick would never see it. Whether he recognized the baby as his or not, the picture was going to break his heart. She’d vowed the last t
ime she’d seen him not to ever do anything to hurt him again. As it was, she’d broken his heart more times than she could count.

  She’d tried to prepare for the possibility that her prayers wouldn’t be heard. She’d warned everyone in her agent’s office that her schedule was not to be given to anyone, no matter what name they gave, no matter what ruse they used. She had described Harlan Patrick to Nick’s secretary from his thick, sun-streaked hair, to his laser blue eyes and angled cheekbones.

  “And you don’t want this man to find you?” the woman had said incredulously. “Are you nuts?”

  “There are those who’d say I am,” she agreed. “And, Ruby, let me know the instant he shows up, okay? I need to know what kind of mood he’s in.”

  “Fit to be tied would be my guess,” Ruby said bluntly. “Can’t say I blame him, either. It’s a hell of a way to find out you’re a daddy.”

  “Ruby,” Laurie protested.

  “Okay, okay, I’m just the hired help around here. You don’t want the man to find you, I’ll make sure the man doesn’t find you, at least not with any help from me. Just don’t forget, honey, you’re the kind of woman who tends to make news, especially in this business. Entertainment Tonight’s scheduled to shoot that club date in Montana. It’s way too late to back out. Nick would have a cow. He worked like crazy to get it set up.”

  “It won’t matter. By the time it airs, I’ll be on the road again. With any sort of luck at all, Harlan Patrick will be one step behind me.”

  “Maybe you ought to slow down and let him catch up,” Ruby suggested one more time. “Have it out and get it over with. Hiding’s no good, not in your profession. This was bound to happen sooner or later. And, forgive me for saying it, but that little girl of yours has a right to know her daddy. This plan of yours to keep ’em apart seems a tad selfish to me.”

  Laurie winced. Ruby was young, but she had terrific common sense and a mile-wide streak of decency. A part of Laurie wanted to follow her advice, but another part wasn’t at all sure she could cope with one more battle with Harlan Patrick, not with the stakes as high as they were.

  “I know,” Laurie conceded. “But I can’t deal with him yet. I just can’t. You’ll see what I mean if he shows up there. It’s like trying to talk sense with a bulldozer that’s rattling toward you in first gear.”

  Of course, she consoled herself, there was always the outside chance that Harlan Patrick had never even seen the tabloid. Maybe he hadn’t been anywhere near a supermarket checkout stand. Maybe the entire shipment to Los Piños had been lost in transit. Maybe the delivery truck had caught fire. Maybe...

  Dammit, she had to know. She had to find out if he’d seen it and what his reaction had been. She had to be prepared, in case he was coming after her. For all of her attempts to cover her tracks, she knew Ruby was right. If Harlan Patrick wanted to find her badly enough, he could. Ruby and Nick could only stall him for so long. Any private eye worth his license could pinpoint her location quicker than that photographer had snapped her picture. The only real question was whether Harlan Patrick was furious enough to come chasing after her or so hurt he’d written her off once and for all. If he’d recognized that baby as his, she was pretty sure which it would be. He’d be mowing down any obstacle in his path to get to her.

  She could call her mother, but her mom almost never crossed paths with Harlan Patrick’s family. She could call Sharon Lynn, but after this last visit, Harlan Patrick’s protective older sister had all but written her off. Sharon Lynn had told her more than once that she was a selfish fool for running off and leaving the best man in the whole state of Texas pining after her. His parents had never echoed the same sentiments in so many words, but they clearly hadn’t been her biggest fans. When she’d come back this last time, they’d regarded her with suspicion at worst, caution at best. The attitude had hurt, because once they’d considered her another daughter.

  That left his grandfather. Harlan Adams was a wise man, a fair man. He’d protect his family with his dying breath, but he also had the ability to see that there was more than one side to most stories. He’d always treated Laurie with kindness, and there’d been no judgment in his eyes when she’d left yet again, only sorrow. He would tell her what she needed to know and he wouldn’t pull any punches.

  It took her most of the day to work up the courage to call White Pines. She told herself it was because she wasn’t likely to find Harlan Adams at home much before nightfall. Despite his age, he still worked the ranch as best he could. And when his aches kept him off a horse, he was busy meddling in everyone’s lives.

  The truth, though, was that she was scared to hear whatever he had to say, even more afraid that this time he wouldn’t be so kind at all if he thought she had betrayed his grandson.

  She shouldn’t have worried. Either he didn’t know about the baby or he’d taken it in stride. At any rate, he greeted her with his usual exuberance.

  “Laurie, darlin’ girl, how are you? Pretty as ever, I know, because I see your picture in the paper and on TV all the time. You still singing up a storm?”

  “I’m busier than ever,” she told him. “I’m right in the middle of a concert tour now. I won’t be back in Nashville for another month.” She figured it wouldn’t hurt to reiterate that, in case the conversation was repeated to Harlan Patrick. Maybe he’d stay away from Nashville if he knew she wouldn’t be there.

  “And you enjoy all this wandering around, instead of taking the time to sit a spell in one place?” Harlan Adams asked.

  “Most of the time,” she admitted. “It’s part of the job.”

  “Tell me about the next album. You finished it yet?”

  “No. I haven’t even started. This one’s only been out a couple of months now. I probably won’t get back into the studio until a few months after I get back to Nashville. It’s a good thing, too. I’ve been scribbling down a few things, but I still haven’t settled on the last two songs.”

  “You still writing them all yourself?”

  “Most of them.”

  “You always had a way with words. I still remember that song you wrote and sang for me when I turned eighty. Not a dry eye in the place when you were done singing. I knew then you were going to be a superstar.”

  “That’s more than I knew then.”

  Silence fell, and it was Harlan who finally broke it when Laurie couldn’t find the words she needed.

  “So, darlin’ girl, you just calling to say hi, or is something on your mind?” There was a sly, knowing tone to his voice.

  Just say it, she instructed herself firmly, then swallowed hard. “Actually, well, I was wondering about Harlan Patrick. He’s been on my mind a lot lately.”

  “I see.”

  Clearly he didn’t intend to give away a thing without her asking a direct question. “How’s he doing?” she asked finally.

  “Still misses you, if that’s what you’re asking. I suspect he always will. Never seen a man as lovesick as he was from the minute you left town.”

  That wasn’t what she’d been asking, but in some tiny corner of her heart, she was glad to hear that he hadn’t forgotten her. Talk about conflicting emotions. Her life was riddled with them.

  “You’ve seen him in the last couple of days?” she asked, broaching the subject of his whereabouts cautiously.

  Harlan hesitated. “Now that you mention it, his daddy did say that the boy had taken off unexpectedly. Never did mention what it was all about, though. Business, I suppose. You want me to have him call you when he gets back?”

  Laurie sighed heavily. She had a feeling there would be no need for that. The timing of his unexplained departure had to be more than coincidence. If she knew Harlan Patrick, she’d be seeing him any day now, as soon as he could get someone to give him her concert itinerary.

  “That’s okay,” she said, then added quietly, “thank you.”


  “Thanks for what?”

  “For not hating me.”

  “Oh, darlin’ girl, I could never hate you,” he said, his tone sympathetic. “There was a time when you were practically family. As far as I’m concerned, you’re as good as that now.”

  “But I brought so much pain into Harlan Patrick’s life.”

  “And so much joy, too,” he reminded her. “Don’t forget that. Sometimes the best you can hope for in life is that it all evens out in the end. You take good care of yourself and come see me next time you’re home. I’ll get the piano tuned, and we’ll have an old-fashioned sing-along. I can’t carry a tune worth a hoot, but it’ll be fun all the same.”

  “I will,” she promised. “Give Janet my love, too, will you?”

  “Of course I will. You take good care of yourself, Laurie. Don’t forget all the folks back here who love you.”

  As if I could, she thought, but didn’t say. “Goodbye, Grandpa Harlan. I miss you.”

  Only after she’d hung up did she realize there were tears streaming down her cheeks. For the first time in more than six years, she realized just how much she missed home. And when she thought of it, she didn’t remember the little house in which she’d grown up, didn’t even think of her mother, though she loved her dearly. No, she remembered White Pines and the close-knit Adamses, who back then had been more than willing to accept her as one of their own.

  And she remembered Amy Lynn’s daddy and the way she’d always loved him.

  * * *

  He might as well have been traveling in a foreign country, Harlan Patrick thought on his first day in Nashville. He’d taken off without thinking, without the slightest clue of how to go about tracing a woman who didn’t want to be found.

  On the flight, which he’d piloted himself, he’d had plenty of time to try to formulate a plan, but images of Laurie and that baby had pretty much wiped out logic. All he’d been able to feel was some sort of blind rage. Aside from a friendly tussle or two with his cousins growing up, he wasn’t prone to violence, but for the first time in his life he felt himself capable of it. Not that he’d have laid a hand on Laurie, but he couldn’t swear that her furniture would be safe. Smashing a few vases and chairs might improve his mood considerably.