West Texas Nights

by Sherryl Woods

  “You could never be lousy company. Besides, you promised me an evening out,” he reminded her. “Don’t worry. You’ll have time to catch a little catnap on the way.”

  Her gaze narrowed at the gleam in his eyes. “On the way to where?”

  “Dinner, of course.”

  She met his gaze in the mirror, didn’t like what she saw and turned around. “What are you up to, Harlan Patrick?”

  “Just think of it as living out a fantasy.”

  “Oh, no,” she protested. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  He grinned. “Everybody has a fantasy, darlin’.”

  “Yes, but yours and mine can sometimes be worlds apart.”

  “Trust me.”

  She was troubled by the soft-spoken plea. Harlan Patrick had a way of asking her to trust him, then leading her straight into a whole mess of trouble. He’d been doing it forever.

  There’d been more than once when he’d lured her out her bedroom window to go skinny-dipping in the creek out at White Pines. There’d been the time he’d insisted they both needed hot-fudge sundaes at midnight and broken into Dolan’s to get them. When they’d been caught, he’d counted on Doc Dolan’s high tolerance for Adams shenanigans to get them out of the fix they were in. Heck, he’d even told her he had protection the night Amy Lynn was conceived and he had. It was just that their passion had outlasted his supply.

  “Harlan Patrick, read my lips,” she said quietly. “I do not trust you.”

  He seemed stunned by her response, but as always, his eternal optimism and supreme self-confidence kicked in. “Give it time, darlin’. You did once and you will again.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It is simple.”

  “No, it’s not. It has never been simple between the two of us.”

  That square-cut Adams chin jutted up in defiance. Blue eyes challenged her. “We’ve loved each other forever. What could be simpler than that?”

  “We’ve also broken each other’s hearts. If you ask me, that complicates things.”

  His expression wavered just a little at that. “Okay, you have a point. Let’s not try to solve everything in one night. You’ll come with me tonight, have a nice dinner, some quiet conversation and we’ll see where it leads.”

  He made it sound so easy, so nonthreatening, when his very presence in her life was a danger. With his glib tongue and determination, he could make her believe in anything, even the two of them.

  “I don’t know, Harlan Patrick. Another night would probably be better.”

  His eyes caught hers, held. “Please.”

  In all the years she’d known him, she couldn’t remember him ever using that word before. With strangers, maybe. His family, definitely. But not with her. With her he teased. He cajoled and coaxed. He commanded, but a simple please had always seemed beyond him.

  In the end that was what got to her. It hinted at his desperation, maybe even at his willingness to change if that’s what it took to get her back.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “I did make a promise. But it can’t be a late night, Harlan Patrick. Val’s with Amy Lynn now, but I can’t ask her to baby-sit half the night. She already works way too hard.”

  “Deal,” he said at once. “Now, shake a leg, darlin’. We’ve got places to go, things to do.”

  “In the middle of nowhere?” she said, shooting him a wry look in the mirror. “We’ll be lucky if there’s a fast-food restaurant open.”

  “I can do better than fast food,” he assured her. “You just wait and see.”

  Harlan Patrick packed while she finished dressing. She hid a grin at the sight of him folding everything and tucking it into her bag in nice, neat piles. She would have been satisfied to stuff it all in helter-skelter and worry about the wrinkles later. The man did have a thing about neatness, especially when it came to clothes. Except when he worked, his were always impeccable. His blasted jeans had precise creases in them. It was just another contradiction between them.

  “All set?” he asked when he was finished.

  She regarded him with amusement. “I’ve been ready. You’re the one who’s been dillydallying over the packing. What is this obsession of yours with neatness?”

  He scowled. “It’s not an obsession. If you have things, you take care of them. That’s all.”

  “Did that come from your father and grandfather teaching you to take care of the ranch?”

  “The ranch, family, whatever.”

  They were waltzing close to dangerous territory now. Laurie regarded him cautiously. “In other words you protect what’s yours?”

  “Something like that.”

  She concluded there was a point that needed making. “Clothes are one thing, Harlan Patrick. I’m another. It’s not your job to protect me.”

  “I think it is. You and Amy Lynn are my responsibility,” he insisted emphatically. “Just because you ducked out on me and hid Amy Lynn for months doesn’t make it less so now that I’ve found you.”

  She winced at his stubborn expression. “Forget it. I am not having this conversation with you, not tonight.”

  “Wise decision,” he commented as he ushered her out of the club and into a waiting car. “It’s an argument you can’t win. Now just sit back, close your eyes and rest till we get where we’re going.”

  “Oh, no,” she retorted. “I’m not closing my eyes or turning my back on you for one single second, Harlan Patrick Adams.”

  He grinned. “Suit yourself.”

  But despite her vehement protest, Laurie felt her eyes drifting shut within a matter of minutes. Lulled by the car’s motion, she was sound asleep in no time.

  When she eventually awoke again, she had no idea how much time had passed. Her eyes snapped open as she realized that the sound she was hearing couldn’t possibly be a car’s engine. One glance around confirmed that she was riding in an airplane—Jordan’s corporate jet, unless she was very much mistaken.

  “Harlan Patrick!” she bellowed when she didn’t spot him right away.

  He poked his head around the back of her seat. “Hush, darlin’. You’re going to wake the baby.”

  “I’m going to do more than wake the baby,” she threatened. “I am going to wring your sneaky, conniving neck, right before I toss you out of here. Where are we and where are we going?”

  “We’re in a plane.”

  “That much is clear.”

  “Jordan’s plane.”

  She sighed heavily. “I thought so. I thought you’d sent it back to Texas.”

  “I had.”

  “Your uncle must be thrilled with all the use his jet is getting these days.”

  “Let’s just say he’s resigned to it.”

  “Let’s move on to the other question I asked. Where are we going?”

  He met her gaze evenly. “Home, darlin’. We’re going home.”

  Laurie felt her heart begin to thud dully. “Home,” she repeated in disbelief. “You’ve kidnapped us and you’re taking us back to Texas?”

  “I haven’t kidnapped you,” he insisted, looking offended.

  “What would you call it?”

  “You agreed to come to dinner. I picked the place. Mine.”

  “I’m in the middle of a concert tour. I can’t go to Texas,” she protested.

  “Of course you can,” he contradicted. “You told me yourself, you have a couple of days off before you’re due in Ohio. We’ll fly up day after tomorrow. The band will meet you there.”

  “And you took care of all these little logistical details yourself?” she asked skeptically.

  He looked vaguely uneasy. “Not exactly.”

  To Laurie’s astonishment, Val popped up just then.

  “I helped,” she announced unrepentantly.

  “You?” Laurie
asked incredulously. “Might I point out that I am the one who pays your salary. I’m the one who should be giving the orders.”

  Val grinned. “You pay me to make things happen. I made this happen.”

  “But I didn’t want this to happen,” Laurie all but shouted.

  “Sure, you did, darlin’. You just didn’t know it,” Harlan Patrick responded in a low, soothing tone. “Don’t blame Val. It was my idea.”

  “Oh, I am very sure of that,” she agreed. “I’ll deal with you in my own good time.”

  Despite the threat and her scowl, apparently he concluded it was safe enough now that the initial explosion was over, so he slid into the seat next to her. She glared at him. He smiled right back at her.

  “I ought to hate you for this,” she said.

  “But you don’t,” he said confidently. “Do you?”

  “I’m still debating.”

  “Laurie, face it. You couldn’t hate me if you tried. Not really.”

  “You know, Harlan Patrick, one of these days someone’s going to come along and bring you down a peg or two. Not everyone finds your inclination to control things amusing.”

  He chuckled at that. “Maybe so, but it won’t be you.”

  “Don’t count on it,” she said grimly. “This little jaunt may prove to be just the incentive I needed to change my ways where you’re concerned.”

  She folded her arms across her middle, settled back in her seat and prepared to endure the rest of the trip. As she stared out the window into the inky black sky with its dusting of stars, she reached a decision. Harlan Patrick might have won this battle with his clever little scheme, but the night wasn’t over yet. She could turn the tables on him when they landed. In fact, she had the perfect scheme in mind.

  A half-hour later they were on the ground at the tiny Los Piños airstrip. Harlan Patrick had a car waiting for them. Laurie gazed into his triumphant eyes and felt a moment’s unease. He was going to be really, really unhappy when he realized what she intended.

  So what? she consoled herself. He was the one who’d dragged her back here without asking. He was the one who was so hot to recapture the past. She’d take him back a few years, all right. Right down memory lane. There was one person on earth who’d never been charmed by Harlan Patrick, one person who’d been able to keep him in his place.

  She turned and regarded him innocently. “Swing by my mom’s, okay?”

  “Now? It’s the middle of the night.”

  “She’s never seen Amy Lynn,” Laurie explained, keeping her tone innocent.

  “She can see her in the morning,” he countered.

  “Indulge me.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” he muttered, but he turned the car toward town.

  There wasn’t a lot of sight-seeing to be done between the airstrip and Los Piños and it was too dark to see anyway, but with every mile they covered, Laurie felt herself drifting back to another time in her life. She was a teenager again, and a reluctant Harlan Patrick was driving her home from a date.

  He pulled into her mother’s driveway just moments later, and Laurie got out, along with Val and the baby. Harlan Patrick followed, feet dragging now that he’d lost control of events.

  “You’re going to scare her to death turning up here like this,” he warned as Laurie rang the bell, rather than using the key she still had in her purse.

  “Whose fault is that?” she countered.

  Lights began coming on all through the house as her mother made her way to the door. Then it was open, and her mother’s bemused, worried expression turned to pure joy when she saw the little crowd on her doorstep.

  “Hi, Mama,” Laurie said, walking into her tearful embrace. “I’m home.”

  “Oh, you beautiful child, come in here. Come in here right this minute. And you must be Val. I’ve heard so much about you. Now let me see that precious granddaughter of mine,” she said, reaching for Amy Lynn and taking her from Val’s arms.

  “Oh, my, she is beautiful,” she whispered. “She reminds me of you when you were a baby, Laurie.”

  Her gaze fell on Harlan Patrick then, and she beamed at him, too, obviously feeling more benevolent toward him tonight than she usually did.

  “You did this, didn’t you? You brought our girl home again. I can’t thank you enough. You just carry her bags right on up to her old room and don’t pretend you don’t know which one it is, because I remember all too well how many times you climbed that tree outside her window.”

  Harlan Patrick stared at her, clearly flabbergasted by the unexpected turn of events. “But—” he began.

  “Go on, Harlan Patrick. Do as Mama said,” Laurie said, shooting him a triumphant grin.

  “This isn’t what was supposed to happen,” he muttered under his breath.

  Her grin widened. “No, I’m sure it isn’t.”

  He scowled at her. “You will pay for this, darlin’.”

  “I’m sure you’ll try to see to it that I do,” she agreed. “You might want to remember, though, that when it comes to being sneaky, I learned from a master.”

  Eight

  She had bamboozled him! Harlan Patrick drove out to White Pines still cursing the fact that Laurie had actually managed to trump him at his own game.

  He couldn’t very well stand in Mrs. Jensen’s living room and demand that Laurie, Amy Lynn and Val leave with him. For one thing the woman was so clearly ecstatic about having her daughter home again. For another, Mary Jensen was no pushover. She had very strict ideas about morality. She would have managed to shame him for even thinking of taking Laurie to his home, when the two of them weren’t married. Never mind the fact that they had a little girl as proof that their relationship had ventured beyond hand-holding.

  Oh, Laurie was a sneaky one, all right. She had known just what would happen when she walked through that front door. She had also known that he would indulge her whim to stop by, because he had always given her everything she’d ever wanted.

  She would pay for it, though. She would pay the minute he could think of something devious enough to get the upper hand again.

  A half-hour later he walked into his small house on a far corner of Adams land and slammed the door behind him. The thud gave him a moment’s satisfaction, but he wouldn’t be truly satisfied until he had his daughter and Laurie under this roof with him.

  If there’d been any choice at all, he would never have left them in town where they were free to sneak off the instant his back was turned. He’d just have to trust that Mrs. Jensen would be no more anxious than he was to let them go or that Val was strong-willed enough to rat out her boss if Laurie got a notion to run. That was an awful lot of blind faith for a man who’d had some lousy lessons in broken trust lately.

  He sank down on the sofa, too exhausted to even bother with taking off his boots or hauling himself up to bed. Besides, he’d had too many very erotic images the past couple of days of Laurie being back in that bed with him to want to climb into it alone.

  Why did he have to want her so damned much? Life would have been a whole lot less complicated if his daughter were the only one who mattered to him. He could battle to get custody of her and forget all about her mama.

  But that wasn’t possible. He might have been furious with her, but one look at Laurie up in Montana and he’d known that he was going to have to fight tooth and nail for both of them. He was as captivated by Laurie as he’d ever been. She enchanted him as much as she infuriated him, a mix that had been dangerous to a man forever.

  Anger, rage, betrayal all paled beside the white-hot need to hold her in his arms again, to bury himself deep inside her and hear her cries of pleasure mounting with every thrust of his body. Images hot enough to singe burned behind his eyelids and kept him restless.

  When daybreak came, he hadn’t slept a wink. He was in no mood at all for the poundin
g on his door that had him dragging his butt off the sofa.

  “All right, all right,” he muttered as he yanked open the door to find his father on his doorstep.

  “So, you are here. Your mother told me she’d seen you come flying by in the middle of the night,” Cody Adams said, scowling at him. “I told her she had to be wrong, that it must have been one of the hands coming in late. Aren’t you supposed to be in Montana with Laurie?”

  “It was four o’clock in the morning,” Harlan Patrick grumbled, ignoring the reference to Laurie. He figured they’d get back to her soon enough. “What was Mom doing up?”

  “She never sleeps well when one of her chicks is far from the nest. She figures Sharon Lynn has Cord looking out for her now, so she can concentrate on you.”

  “Heaven help me,” Harlan Patrick said fervently.

  His father grinned. “You could go a long way toward settling her down if you brought Laurie and Amy Lynn back with you. Are they here? Did you convince them to come home?”

  “More or less. I’m surprised Uncle Jordan didn’t fill you in.”

  “What does that mean? What does Jordan know that I don’t?”

  “It means I pulled a fast one to get them back here and they wound up in town with her mother,” he admitted reluctantly.

  His father’s infamous grin broadened. “Not what you had in mind, was it?”

  “No. That woman’s sneakier than Grandpa Harlan.”

  “I doubt that,” his father said. “You’d better hope he hasn’t gotten wind that Laurie’s back or he’ll be meddling in your life, too.”

  If turning the matchmaking over to his grandfather would have worked, Harlan Patrick was just about desperate enough to try it, but he wasn’t prepared to admit that to his father.

  “I haven’t spoken to Grandpa Harlan since I left,” he said.

  “But Laurie has,” his father reminded him. “He told me all about it. That conversation got his hopes for the two of you up real high, and that was before he found out about the baby.”

  “He knows about Amy Lynn?”

  “Oh, yeah. We tried to stop it, but that tabloid has made the rounds. Janet finally decided it was pointless trying to keep it from him.”