“Looks like it’s time to face the music, bud,” he muttered under his breath. Way past time, some would say.
Resigned to his fate, first thing in the morning he arranged to sit down with Cody Adams to discuss his housing situation.
“If there’s no place available, I can call my folks back and tell them to give me more time to work it out,” he told Cody, praying for a reprieve.
“Absolutely not,” Cody said at once, then grinned at Slade’s heavy sigh. “Uh-oh, were you counting on me to bail you out of this?”
“I suppose I was,” Slade admitted. “Annie and I haven’t spent a lot of time together. I’m not sure how good I’ll be at this parent thing.”
“Then you’re lucky you’re here. Anytime you’re at a loss, just ask one of us for help.” The rancher’s expression turned sly. “I know one woman who’d be glad to step in and do a little mothering if Annie needs it.”
An image of Val Harding came to mind without Cody even having to mention her name. A petite whirlwind with a nonstop mouth, she had set her sights on Slade during a visit to the ranch a few months back. She hadn’t let up since. Thankfully, she was in Nashville right now with her boss, country music superstar Laurie Jensen, who was married to Cody’s son.
“Thanks all the same,” Slade said curtly. “Last I heard Val was out of town.”
Cody’s grin spread. “Got back last night. The way I hear it from Harlan Patrick, Laurie’s going to take a break for a while. She’ll be working on the songs for her next album. Val should have plenty of time on her hands.”
“I just hope she finds a way to spend it besides pestering me,” Slade muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Thankfully, Cody let the subject drop. He held out a key. “Check out that house down by the creek. It’s been vacant since Joe and his wife left. It’s probably a little dusty, but it should be fine for the two of you once it’s aired out and had a good cleaning. If it needs anything—dishes, extra blankets, whatever—let me know. I’ll get somebody to handle the horses today. You get the place ready. Call up to the main house. One of Maritza’s helpers can come down to give you a hand.”
“No need,” Slade said. “I’ll take care of whatever needs to be done. Thanks, Cody. I owe you.”
Cody regarded him speculatively. “Family counts for a lot around here. We’ll welcome Annie as if she were one of us. You can rest easy on that score.”
Slade knew he meant it, too. The Adamses were good people. Maybe they would be able to make up for whatever he lacked.
He took the key Cody offered and headed toward the small house made of rough-hewn wood. It wasn’t fancy, but there was a certain charm to it, he supposed. Pots of bright red geraniums bloomed on the porch and a big old cottonwood tree shaded the yard. The creek flowed past just beyond.
The house had been closed up since the last tenant had left, a married hand who’d retired and moved to Arizona. A cursory glance around the small rooms told Slade it had everything he and Annie could need, including a small TV that had been hooked up to cable. The kitchen was well stocked with dishes and pots and pans. Fortunately, the refrigerator had a good-size freezer, big enough to accommodate all the prepared meals he and Annie were likely to consume. His cooking skills ran to cold cereal and boiled eggs.
The closets revealed a supply of linens for the beds, a small one in what would be Annie’s room, and a big brass bed with a feather mattress in what was clearly the master bedroom. Staring at that mattress was disconcerting. All sorts of wicked images came to mind, images of being tangled up with a woman again. One particular woman, he conceded with some dismay. He could all but feel her breath on his chest and sense the weight of her head tucked under his chin. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy, much less the reality.
“Quite a bed, isn’t it?” an all-too-familiar voice inquired with a seductive purr.
Slade scowled at the intrusion by the pesky woman whose image had just flitted through his mind. “You ever heard of knocking?” he asked.
Val didn’t flinch at his impatient tone. “I wasn’t sure anyone was in here. Nobody’s been living here and the front door was standing open. I was afraid someone had broken in.”
Slade regarded her incredulously. “So you decided to do what—wander in and talk them to death? Didn’t it occur to you that if a robber was in here, you could get hurt?”
She grinned, looking smug. “Worried about me, cowboy? That’s progress.”
She slipped past him into the room, leaving a cloud of perfume in her wake. Slade tried not to let the scent stir him the way it usually did. Sometimes he thought he smelled that soft, flowery aroma in the middle of the night. Those were the nights he tossed and turned till dawn and cursed the day Val had come to live at White Pines and taken an interest in him.
“Nice view,” she observed, gazing out at the creek. “What are you doing here, by the way?”
“Moving in,” he said, backing out of the room before his body could get any ideas about tossing her onto that feather mattress to see if it—and she—were as soft as he imagined.
She turned slowly. “Alone?”
“No.”
Something that might have been disappointment flared briefly in her eyes. “I see.”
Guilt over that look had him admitting the truth. “My daughter’s coming to stay with me.” He tested the words aloud and found they didn’t cause quite so much panic since his talk with Cody. Knowing he’d have backup had eased his mind. Maybe Annie could survive having a father as inept as him, after all.
Val’s expression brightened with curiosity. She seized on the tidbit as if he’d tossed her the hottest piece of gossip since the world had discovered that singer Laurie Jensen had a secret baby by the man who was now her husband.
“You have a daughter?” she asked. “How old? What’s she like? Where’s she been all this time? What about her mother?”
Slade grinned despite himself. “You care to try those one at a time?”
“Oh, just tell me everything and save us both the aggravation,” she retorted. “I wouldn’t have to pester you so if you’d open up in the first place.”
“Is that so? And here I thought you enjoyed pestering me.”
“Getting you to talk is a challenge,” she admitted. “And you know how we women react to a challenge.”
He regarded her intently. “So, if I just blab away, you’ll go away eventually?”
She grinned. “Maybe. Try it and see.”
“Sorry. I’m too busy right now. Maybe another time.”
The dismissal didn’t even faze her. “Busy doing what? Looked to me like you were daydreaming when I came in.”
“Which is why it’s all the more important for me to get started with the work around here now,” he said, and headed for the kitchen again. He’d seen cleaning supplies in there on his first stop. He snatched up a broom, a vacuum, dust cloths and furniture polish. He figured he could give the place a decent once-over in an hour and be back on the job before noon.
Val reached for the broom. “Give me that. I’ll help.”
Slade held tight. “There’s no need. You’ll ruin your clothes.”
The woman always dressed as if she were about to meet with the press or go out for cocktails. He doubted she owned a pair of jeans or sneakers, much less boots. In fact, today was one of the rare occasions when she wasn’t wearing those ridiculous high heels she paraded around in. He had to admit those shoes did a lot for her legs. It was almost a disappointment when she traded them for flats, as she had today.
In flats, she barely came up to his chin, reminding him of just how fragile and utterly feminine a creature she was. It brought out the protective instincts in him, despite the fact that there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Val Harding could look
out for herself. Heaven knew, she protected Laurie with a ferocity that was daunting. No one got anywhere close to the singer without Val’s approval. Slade secretly admired that kind of loyalty. Too bad Suzanne hadn’t possessed even a quarter as much. They might have stayed married.
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, give me the broom,” Val said. “A little dust never hurt anything. You’ll get finished that much sooner if you let me help. Otherwise, I’ll just trail around after you asking more questions you don’t want to answer.”
She had a point about that. It wasn’t likely she’d respond to his dismissal and just go away. Reluctantly, Slade relinquished the broom and watched as she went to work with a vengeance on the wide-plank oak floors in the living room. She attacked the job with the same cheerfulness and efficiency with which she ran Laurie’s professional life.
When she glanced up and caught Slade staring at her, she grinned. “Get to work. I said I’d help, not do the whole job.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said at once, and turned on the vacuum. As he ran it over the carpet in the bedrooms, he could hear her singing with wildly off-key enthusiasm. He wondered if Laurie had ever heard one of her country music hits murdered quite the way Val was doing it.
With her help, he had the house tidied up in no time. Fresh air was drifting through the rooms and filling them with the sweet scent of recently cut grass and a hint of Janet’s roses from the gardens at the main house.
An odd sensation came over him as he stood in the living room and gazed about, listening to Val stirring around in the kitchen. The place felt like home, like some place a man could put down roots. For a man who’d spent most of his adult life on the road, it was a terrifying sensation.
* * *
Slade Sutton was the most exasperating, frustrating man on the face of the earth. Val watched him take off without so much as a thank-you. He looked as if he were being chased by demons as he fled the house. The limp from his accident was more exaggerated as he tried to move quickly. She knew his expression, if she’d been able to see his face, would be filled with annoyance over his ungainly gait and, most of all, over her.
Of course, he had that look a lot when he was trying to get away from her, she admitted with a sigh. It had been months since she’d first met him, and she could honestly say that she didn’t know him one bit better now than she had when she’d paid her first visit to White Pines.
No, that wasn’t quite true. Today she’d learned he had a daughter. Amazing. How could anyone keep a secret like that, especially around the Adamses, who made her look like an amateur when it came to nosing into other people’s lives? Laurie had tried to keep Harlan Patrick’s baby a secret from him and that had lasted less than six months. Of course, the tabloids had had a hand in leaking that news and sending Harlan Patrick chasing after Laurie.
A lot of women would have given up if they’d had the same reception from Slade that Val had had. Why go through the torment of rejection after rejection? Why poke and prod and get nothing but a shrug or a grunted acknowledgment for her persistence? She’d asked herself that a hundred times while she’d been in Nashville this last time. She’d hoped that a little distance from the ranch would give her some perspective, maybe dull the attraction she felt for him. After all, Slade Sutton wasn’t the last man on earth.
But he was the only one in years who’d intrigued her, the only one who hadn’t been using her to get closer to Laurie. In fact, he was the only man she knew who barely spared a glance for the gorgeous superstar. Val had caught him looking at her, though, sneaking glances when he thought she wasn’t aware of him. Maybe that hint of interest, reluctant as it was, was what kept her going.
Or maybe it had something to do with how incredibly male he was. Handsome as sin, a little rough around the edges, he had eyes a woman could drown in. She’d discovered that when he finally took off his sunglasses long enough to allow anyone to catch a glimpse of them. A dimple flirted at the corner of his mouth on the rare occasions when he smiled. His jaw looked as if it had been carved from granite. In fact, he was all hard angles and solid muscle, the kind of man whose strength wasn’t obtained in a gym, but just from living.
Bottom line? He made her mouth water. She sometimes thought that if he didn’t kiss her soon, she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.
Then again, she preferred to think she wasn’t quite so shallow. That it wasn’t all about lust and sex. Maybe she just liked a good mystery.
Slade was certainly that. He’d told the Adamses no more than he had to to get hired. He’d told her even less. There’d been times in the last six months when she’d found that so thoroughly frustrating she’d been tempted to hire a private investigator to fill in the gaps, but that would have spoiled the game. She wanted to unearth his secrets all on her own. It was turning out to be a time-consuming task. At the rate of one revelation every few months, she’d be at it for a lifetime.
It was a good thing her daddy had taught her about grit. Nobody on the face of the earth was more determined or more persistent than she was. She’d used those lessons to get the job she wanted in Nashville, pestering Laurie’s agent until he’d made the introduction just to get her out of his office. Now she was personal assistant to the hottest country music star in the country. Those same lessons made her the best at what she did.
Now they were going to help her get Slade Sutton, too.
She watched him hightail it back toward the barn and his precious horses. She grinned, understanding fully for the first time that she made him nervous. He was every bit as skittish as one of those new colts he found to be such a challenge. That was good. It was a vast improvement over indifference.
Yes, indeed, he could run, but he couldn’t hide, she concluded with satisfaction. Laurie was home for a much-deserved breather, and Val had a whole lot of time on her hands. Slade didn’t stand a chance.
Two
Sunday morning dawned with a sudden storm that rivaled the turmoil churning in Slade’s gut. Lightning and thunder split the air. From inside the house, he could see the creek rising rapidly, though it was not yet in danger of overflowing its banks as it had on a few terrifying occasions in past summers. Just a few years ago, he’d been told, it had flooded out this house, destroying most of the previous tenants’ belongings and washing away a lifetime of memories. In the tenacious manner of the Adamses and everyone around them, they had cleaned it up without complaint and started over.
He shuddered at another crack of thunder, though his unease had more to do with the next few hours than with the storm. Annie would be here all too soon. He had no idea how she felt about him these days. On his few visits to Wilder’s Glen, she had been withdrawn, clearly blaming him for the changes in her life.
As for him, he was nowhere near ready to deal with the changes her arrival would bring to his life. Oh, he’d made a few preparations. He’d moved his things over to their house. He’d gone into town and picked up enough frozen dinners to last for a month. The freezer was so crowded with them, there wasn’t even room for ice cubes.
He’d even gone into a toy store and impulsively bought a huge stuffed bear to sit in the middle of Annie’s bed. When she was little, he’d bought her a stuffed toy or a doll every time he’d come home. She’s always loved them then. Her eyes had lit up with unabashed joy and she’d crawled into his lap, hugging the latest toy tightly in her arms. Her smile had wiped away the guilt he’d always felt at leaving her behind. Maybe it would work one more time.
He trudged over to the barn through the pouring rain, finished up his chores, regretting the fact that they didn’t take longer. When he was through, he went back to the house to shower and wait. That gave him way too much time to think, to remember the way his life had been not so long ago.
He’d been a celebrity of sorts, a champion, whose whole identity had been wrapped up in winning rodeos. He’d had plenty of money in the bank. He’d
had a beautiful, headstrong wife who could turn him on with a glance, and a daughter who awed and amazed him. Life was exciting, a never-ending round of facing the unexpected. There’d been media attention and applause and physical challenges.
What did he have now? A decent-paying job working at one of the best ranches in Texas. It was steady employment, no surprises. That’s what he’d told himself he wanted after Suzanne had walked out. Routine and boredom had seemed attractive after the turbulence of their last few weeks together. No emotional entanglements, not even with his own kid. He sighed heavily as he considered the selfishness of that.
He’d pay for it now, no doubt about it. Annie was no longer the joyous, carefree sprite she’d been a year ago. Suzanne was to blame for some of that, but he had to shoulder the rest. It was up to him to make up for the fact that Annie’s mother had walked out on both of them. If he’d been neglectful in the months since, Suzanne had been cruel. He knew for a fact she hadn’t written or called in all that time.
Rainwater dripped from the roof as he watched and waited. The summer storm finally ended almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving the air steamy and the dirt driveway a sea of mud. Dirt splattered every which way when his father’s car finally came barreling in just after one o’clock. Slade grinned at the sight. His father was driving the way he always did, as if he were ten minutes late for a military dress parade. The marine in him had never fully died.
Slade stepped off the porch and went to greet them, wrapping his mother in a bear hug that had her laughing. Only when he’d released her did he notice the exhaustion in her eyes, the tired lines around her mouth. Surely she hadn’t looked that old the last time he’d seen her. Knowing the toll Annie had taken on her was just one more thing for him to feel guilty about.
He studied his father intently as he shook his hand. He didn’t see any noticeable changes in Harold Sutton’s appearance. His close-cropped hair had been gray for years, so Slade couldn’t blame that on Annie. His grip was as strong as ever, his manner as brusque and hearty. He didn’t look like the kind of man who’d let a child get the better of him. Slade had to wonder if that hadn’t just been an excuse to force him to take Annie back into his life.
West Texas Nights Page 20
