West Texas Nights

by Sherryl Woods

  “How’d he take it?”

  “Needless to say, he’d be down here himself building a nursery, but Janet won’t let him do it since he came close to breaking a hip the last time he climbed up on a ladder. Don’t be surprised, though, if a whole crew shows up here later today with lumber and baby supplies. You know your grandpa once he gets a notion into his head.”

  Harlan Patrick studied his father intently. “For a man who recently claimed he didn’t like Laurie, that she wasn’t good enough for me, you seem mighty amused by all of this.”

  “It’s your opinion of her that counts. As for me, I’m reserving judgment on Laurie for the moment. Meantime, I have to admit, there’s nothing I like better than watching your granddaddy stir things up. Keeps him young.”

  Despite the levity, something in his father’s voice stirred alarm. “He’s okay, isn’t he?” Harlan Patrick asked.

  “He’s fine. You know your grandfather. He’s a stubborn old cuss. He’ll probably outlive us all, especially if there’s another grandbaby or great-grandbaby he feels the need to see settled in life. You’re his number-one project these days, so consider yourself warned.” His expression sobered. “You planning on coming back to work today? We could use the help.”

  Guilt washed over Harlan Patrick. He’d left the ranch in a bind when he’d taken off, though his father had been gracious enough not to belabor the point. Still, he couldn’t just get back on his horse and ride off on some chore when his whole damned life was so unsettled.

  “Never mind,” his father said before he could reply. “We’ll manage. You won’t be worth a hoot to us as long as Laurie’s on your mind. Just do me one favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Stop by the house and see your mother. She’s worried about you. Has been ever since you took off. She and Sharon Lynn were carrying on the night you left, blaming themselves for your going, for letting you get a glimpse of that picture. She won’t rest easy till she sees with her own eyes that you’re doing okay.”

  “I’ll go by for breakfast on my way into town,” Harlan Patrick promised.

  “That’ll make her happy. She’ll start the waffle iron the minute I tell her. From the day she married me and stopped working at Dolan’s, she’s happiest when she’s serving up a big breakfast. If we hadn’t had you kids, she would probably have taken over that lunch counter the way Sharon Lynn has done.”

  “Surely you’re not complaining,” Harlan Patrick teased. “Seems to me nobody likes breakfast better than you, especially when you get a chance to sneak a kiss whenever Mom passes by the table. Better than sugar, you used to tell us.”

  His father grinned. “It was and is.”

  “Spare me the details,” Harlan Patrick replied. “Just tell Mom to make those waffles blueberry.”

  “As if she’d make anything else but your favorite when she’s feeling a need to baby her youngest.” He put his hand on Harlan Patrick’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You bring those gals of yours by when you can. I have to admit, I’m a little anxious to see my granddaughter, too.”

  “I’ll have ’em out here just as soon as I can,” Harlan Patrick promised.

  It was one vow he intended to keep before the end of the day. Whether he could get them to stay, though, was another matter entirely.

  * * *

  Harlan Patrick consumed a plateful of waffles and let his mother fuss over him for the better part of an hour before he insisted on getting into town to check on Laurie. The minute he was out of sight of the house and his mother’s watchful eyes, he hit the accelerator and drove into town at a pace all but guaranteed to have the local sheriff on his tail. Fortunately the local sheriff was his cousin Justin. He grinned when he saw the flashing lights behind him.

  “Dammit, Harlan Patrick, you keep driving like that and I won’t have any choice except to give you a ticket,” Justin grumbled. He waved his citation book under Harlan Patrick’s nose before stuffing it back in his pocket. “Where’s the fire?”

  “I’m going to see Laurie.”

  His cousin’s expression turned sympathetic. “Ah, I see.”

  “I don’t see why you say it like that.”

  “Because you never knew any way to chase after Laurie except full speed ahead.”

  “And the problem with that would be...?”

  “She always knows exactly what to expect. In fact, she probably counts on it.”

  Harlan Patrick didn’t like what Justin was suggesting. “Are you talking in general here or are you referring to that tabloid picture?”

  “It is possible she planned it,” Justin mused. “Who’d know better how to plant publicity designed to catch your attention?”

  “She was trying to block the baby from view. Anybody could see that.”

  “She didn’t do a very good job of it, though, did she? That baby of hers was in plain view.”

  “You’re spending too much time around the criminal element. You’re starting to see conspiracies everywhere you look.”

  “I’m just saying the woman had to know that you’d come hightailing it after her, the minute you saw that picture.” Justin regarded him intently. “She was expecting you, wasn’t she?”

  “Of course not,” Harlan Patrick retorted, then thought of all the roadblocks Laurie had put in his path. Half of Nashville had been warned to keep her whereabouts secret. “Okay, she assumed I’d come running, but she didn’t want to be found. In fact, she did everything she could to see that I couldn’t find her.”

  Justin gave him a pitying look. “Oh, please, Harlan Patrick. Who knows better than Laurie how you respond to a challenge. The more difficult she made it for you, the more determined you’d be to track her down. That’s your nature.”

  “Am I that predictable?”

  “You are where Laurie Jensen is concerned. Maybe you ought to think about being the one to turn your back this time. Let her do the chasing.”

  The idea held a certain appeal. Unfortunately he and Laurie weren’t the only ones whose fate was at stake. “You’re forgetting about Amy Lynn.”

  “No, I’m not. It is precisely because of your daughter that I want to see the two of you get it right. Let Laurie find her way back to you, Harlan Patrick. Maybe she needs a challenge in her life, too. If you don’t believe me, just look at how hard she worked to become a superstar, when she could have done nicely as a singer right here in Texas. Every time you mentioned a roadblock to her back then, she found some way to scramble over it.”

  What his cousin said made a lot of sense, but Harlan Patrick pictured Amy Lynn, imagined losing her if he made the wrong decision. “I can’t turn my back on them,” he said finally. “I can’t take that chance.”

  “I know it would be hard,” Justin said sympathetically. Then his eyes lit up, and he grinned. “Remember that little bird we found when we were kids, the one that had fallen out of its nest?”

  “Are you sure you’re not confusing me with Dani? Your sister is the vet in the family.”

  “Think back. We were maybe five or six. We nursed that little bird for a week or more, fed it what seemed like a hundred times a day.”

  Slowly a dim memory began to take shape. “It was a scrawny little sparrow, wasn’t it? I kept wanting it to be a baby eagle.”

  Justin’s grin spread. “You were delusional. Anyway, remember when it was strong enough and Grandpa Harlan told us it was time to set it free? You’d gotten real attached to that bird by then and didn’t want to let it go. You said you loved that little bird, and it loved you.”

  It all came back to him then, the feeling of panic that had come over him at the thought of letting the tiny creature fly away. “I remember,” he said quietly.

  “Do you also remember what Grandpa Harlan told us? He said when you love something, you have to let it go, that it’s only when it comes back to you of its
own free will that you can truly know the meaning of love.”

  The parallels to his current situation were obvious. Harlan Patrick sighed. “Quite a philosopher, our grandfather. He has a nasty habit of being right most of the time, too.”

  Justin grinned. “Don’t look so downcast. Do you remember what happened with that sparrow once Grandpa Harlan convinced you to set it free? It came back and sang its little heart out for us all summer long.”

  Harlan Patrick’s spirits lifted. “Yeah, it did, didn’t it?”

  “And the moral of this story is...?” Justin prodded.

  “Okay, okay, I get it. You don’t have to whack me over the head with it.”

  “Then I’ll be on my way,” Justin said. He’d walked only a couple of steps before turning back. “By the way, cousin. If I catch you going so much as one mile over the speed limit, there won’t be enough money in the family coffers to bail you out of my jail.”

  Harlan Patrick laughed, which put a scowl on his cousin’s face.

  “I’m dead serious.”

  “I know you are. That’s why it’s so funny. You can lock me up and throw away the key, but I flat out guarantee you that granddaddy will have your badge for it. Weigh that while you’re chasing me down.”

  He let that warning hang in the air as he put the car into gear and took off, kicking up a trail of dust just to taunt Justin. The man really did need to loosen up. He’d hoped marriage to Patsy would do the trick, but it hadn’t. Therefore Harlan Patrick considered it his personal—if not his civic—duty to see to it.

  * * *

  Laurie expected Harlan Patrick to show up at her mother’s again before dawn. When he still wasn’t there by nine, she began to wonder what he was up to. As the morning dragged on with no sign of him, her gaze kept straying toward the window.

  “Expecting someone?” Val inquired as she sipped another cup of coffee.

  Val had settled into Laurie’s mother’s kitchen as if she’d been visiting there for years. She’d appropriated the portable phone to follow up on publicity arrangements for the final stops on the tour. She had papers spread all over the Formica-topped table. One thing Laurie had to say for her: Val could work efficiently just about anywhere. She didn’t require the trappings of an office.

  Val continued to regard her with amusement. “Not answering, huh? Must mean the answer’s yes.”

  “Just how furious do you think he was when he left here last night?” Laurie asked.

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think?” Laurie growled. “Harlan Patrick was the only man who left here in the middle of the night, wasn’t he?”

  “As far as I know,” Val said evenly. “I’m just surprised it matters to you. You seemed mighty anxious to see him go. You were looking downright pleased with yourself when he walked out the door.”

  “I wasn’t anxious for him to go,” Laurie protested. “I was just trying to make a point.”

  Val tried unsuccessfully to smother a grin. “Well, I guess you succeeded, then, didn’t you? He knows now that you are even trickier than he is.”

  “Do you suppose I should call him?” Laurie fretted.

  “If you want to.”

  “I don’t want to,” she snapped.

  “You just said—”

  “I’m just worried that something might have happened to him. It was awfully late. He was ticked off at me. He was probably driving too fast the way he always does. The roads out here are dark as sin. What if his car’s in a ditch or something? Who besides us would know to go looking for him?”

  “Worried about me, darlin’?” the very man in question inquired from behind her.

  Laurie almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice. She whirled around and glared. “Don’t you sneak up on me.”

  “I thought you’d be relieved to hear my voice. Weren’t you picturing me in a ditch?”

  “With pleasure,” she retorted.

  His crooked smile mocked her. “Liar, liar,” he taunted.

  “Well, you’re just fine, aren’t you, so it hardly matters what I was thinking.”

  He gave Val a wink, then bent and brushed a light kiss across Laurie’s lips. “Glad to know you missed me.”

  “I never said I missed you,” she said, though an unmistakable shiver had washed through her at the touch of his lips against hers.

  “Didn’t have to,” he said, helping himself to a cup of coffee. “That blush tells the story.”

  “I do not blush, Harlan Patrick.”

  He cast a look toward Val. “What do you say? Did her cheeks turn pink just now or not?”

  Val held up a protesting hand. “Leave me out of this. The woman pays my salary.”

  “If she fires you, I’ll hire you,” Harlan Patrick promised. “We can always use a whiz like you out at White Pines.”

  Laurie tried to stop herself, but she couldn’t help it. She chuckled at the image of the dainty whirlwind before her herding cattle. “Somehow I don’t see Val on a ranch. Getting up close and personal with a cow is not her style.”

  “We have an office, darlin’. We have books to keep, logistics to plan. Something tells me Val could grasp the details in no time.”

  “But she’d hate it,” Laurie countered. “Val likes the world of country music, don’t you, Val?”

  “All that singing about heartache and cowboys and you don’t think she’d like to meet the real thing,” Harlan Patrick retorted before Val could reply. “I say we take her on a tour and let her decide for herself.”

  Laurie’s gaze narrowed. “This is just your sneaky way of getting us out to White Pines, isn’t it? You’re just itching for the family to get a look at your daughter.”

  “Well, of course I am,” he agreed. “Nothing says we can’t include a little sight-seeing for Val along the way.”

  “Val has things to do.”

  Harlan Patrick turned to her assistant. “Is that right? Are you too busy to pay a visit to the ranch?”

  Val heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Finally. I am so glad that somebody noticed I was still in the room.” She shot a defiant look toward Laurie. “And I would absolutely love to see the ranch.” She stood up. “I’ll get Amy Lynn ready to go, if I can pry her away from your mama, that is.”

  She scooted out of the room in the blink of an eye, leaving Laurie alone with the most impossible man on earth.

  “How is it that you have managed to twist that woman around your finger already?”

  “Charm, darlin’. It used to work on you, too.”

  “That was before I knew you better.”

  “You really are going to have to do better than that, if you intend to insult me.”

  She regarded him curiously. “You really do let my barbs roll right off your back, don’t you?”

  “Most of them,” he agreed. His expression sobered. “Not all.”

  “Funny,” she observed. “I never thought I got to you at all.”

  “Except by leaving,” he said quietly. “You knew that one was a real killer, didn’t you?”

  Laurie was startled by the genuine pain in his voice, the flash of vulnerability in eyes that normally twinkled with mischief. The accusation stung because it implied that she’d gone only to hurt him.

  “I didn’t leave to make you miserable, Harlan Patrick. Surely you’ve figured that out by now. Or do you still think my music is some clever little game I play, a nasty habit you’re forced to tolerate?”

  He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “No. I know how important your music is. I ought to. You’ve chosen it over everything else in your life.”

  She frowned. “I won’t have this conversation with you again. It never changes. You try to make me feel guilty for loving what I do. I blame you for trying to take it away from me, for making me choose. What’s the point, Har
lan Patrick? We always end up right back where we started.”

  “Amy Lynn’s the point.”

  “Amy Lynn is doing just fine with the things the way they are.”

  “Now, maybe,” he conceded grudgingly. “She’s a baby. What happens when it’s time for her to go to school? You planning on dragging a tutor along on tour with you? Or do you intend to shuffle her off to some boarding school?”

  “For heaven’s sakes, Harlan Patrick, it’ll be years and years before she goes to school,” she protested impatiently. “When the time comes, I’ll make whatever arrangements are necessary.”

  “What about friends? How’s she supposed to have friends if she’s always on the go? A kid needs a home, roots, family, just the way you and I did.”

  “You had that, not me,” Laurie countered. “I had a mother who struggled every day of her life to keep a roof over our head. That’s it. Talk about living with insecurity. Been there. Done that.”

  She stared at him defiantly. “And I survived. It certainly wasn’t the same as you living all safe and secure out at White Pines, surrounded by family.”

  “All the more reason why you should want what I had for Amy Lynn.”

  “Who knows better than I do that you can get by with less?” she countered, even though the truth was that not a day of her youth had gone by that she hadn’t envied what Harlan Patrick had. Not the money so much, but the ranch and what it represented—history and family.

  “And that’s what you want for Amy Lynn?” he inquired softly. “Less than the best?”

  “That is not what I meant,” she said, shoving her chair back and leaping to her feet so she could pace in the small kitchen. He was twisting her words, trying to instill enough guilt so she would cave in and let him have his way. Once he would have gotten away with it, too, but she was stronger now, tougher and smarter. She could see right through him.

  “That’s what you said,” he insisted.

  “Only because you make me so crazy I don’t know what I’m saying half the time,” she said, pausing to glower at him. “Besides, thanks to my career, I can provide Amy Lynn with all the financial security she’ll ever need and then some. We don’t need you.”