West Texas Nights

by Sherryl Woods

  Because Annie was dragging her feet and Slade looked as uncomfortable as if she’d coaxed him unwittingly into a lingerie shop, Val seized the initiative. She selected several bathing suits in various styles from the rack and held them up for Annie’s inspection.

  “That one, I guess,” Annie said without enthusiasm, pointing at a bright red one-piece suit.

  Val held it up for Slade’s approval. “What do you think?”

  “Whatever Annie wants.”

  Val wanted to shake the pair of them. “Well, I like the green,” she said instead. “It’s the color of your eyes. Try them both on,” she instructed, handing them to Annie.

  When the girl had gone off to the dressing room, Val whirled on Slade. “Could you possibly manage to show just a little enthusiasm? You’re acting as if this is a worse chore than mucking out stalls.”

  Something that might have been guilt flickered in his eyes. He sighed. “Okay, you’re right. I’m being a pain in the butt.”

  “Any particular reason or is this just your general nature?”

  “Shopping’s not my thing, okay? I don’t know what she should get.”

  “Then, unless it is totally inappropriate, let her pick what she likes.”

  “How am I supposed to know that? She looked pretty miserable no matter which one you held up.”

  “That’s because she’s reacting to your mood. Now when she comes back out here, give her a compliment. Tell her she looks great. Tell her she looks grown-up. Just show some enthusiasm. Fake it, if you have to.”

  He regarded her with unexpected amusement. “You’re recommending that I lie to my daughter? You, the queen of directness, are suggesting that I fib?”

  “As a general rule, a lie is not the answer, but some situations call for drastic measures,” she retorted. She glanced up and saw Annie standing hesitantly just outside the curtain of the dressing room. The red suit that Annie had liked best was clearly intended for someone who actually had a bust. Val swallowed hard at the sight, then muttered so only Slade could hear, “This is one of them.”

  She could see him struggling with a smile, but he managed to say cheerfully, “That suit’s real bright, honey. Is it the one you want?”

  Annie’s gaze faltered. “I’m not so sure. It’s kinda big.” She gestured. “Up here.”

  “Too big,” Val said decisively, greatly relieved that Annie had voiced it first. “Try the other one.”

  When Annie had retreated to the dressing room, Slade glanced over at Val. “So, tell me, what happened to the little white lie?”

  “You gave her moral support. I gave her the truth,” she replied. “It balances out.”

  “You could give her both and I could keep my mouth shut,” Slade suggested. “I don’t seem to be getting the rules. Or is it that you keep changing them?”

  Val frowned at him. “You really don’t have much instinct for this sort of thing, do you?”

  “Not a bit,” he agreed without remorse.

  “Well, you’re just going to have to learn,” she said decisively. “And now’s your chance.”

  Annie reappeared in the green bathing suit. It was a perfect fit. “How about this one?” she asked, glancing hopefully straight at her father.

  He surveyed her intently, then gestured for her to turn around. She did a slow pirouette and then he nodded. “Real flattering,” he said at last, the compliment all the more meaningful because he had clearly struggled for it. “You’ll glide through the water like a little fish in that.”

  As compliments went, it wasn’t all that pretty, and he looked awkward as the dickens as he said it, but Val had to give him points for trying. As for Annie, she looked as if he’d just told her she looked like a princess.

  “You used to say that to me a long time ago, didn’t you?” she asked shyly. “That I could swim like a fish?”

  Slade appeared startled, then a slow smile spread across his face. “You couldn’t have been much more than a baby back then. I took you down to the pool when we were on a visit to your grandmama’s.” He regarded her with amazement. “You actually remember that?”

  “I remember a lot,” she said, her eyes suddenly glistening with unshed tears. Then she spun away and ran to the dressing room.

  Slade gazed helplessly at Val. “What did I say wrong?”

  She reached up and touched a hand to his cheek. “Nothing. For once, I think you got it just right.”

  “But she’s crying.”

  “Because you connected with her. You shared a memory, made her see that there was a time in the past when something you did together was as special to you as it was to her.”

  Slade shook his head, still staring after Annie, his expression miserable. “I never could stand to see her cry.”

  Val tucked that little tidbit away right next to his secret addiction to chocolate. She was beginning to discover that despite his gruff, tough exterior, Slade Sutton was an old softie, after all. It made her more determined than ever to snag him for herself.

  Five

  When Annie finally reappeared, clutching the green bathing suit, her eyes were puffy from crying. Slade’s first instinct was to gather her in his arms as he would have when she was a toddler. It had been so long, though, that he was afraid she’d rebuff the gesture.

  “Let’s pay for this and get some lunch,” he suggested instead. “I vote for pizza.”

  He was rewarded with the faintest glimmer of a smile on Annie’s face. He grinned back at her. “Still your favorite?”

  “With pepperoni and sausage,” she said.

  “What about anchovies?” he teased.

  “No way you’re putting little fishies on my pizza. If you want ’em, get your own.”

  He turned to Val. “And you? Can I talk you into anchovies?”

  “Not a chance.”

  He feigned a disappointed sigh. “I guess I’ll just have to make the sacrifice and go with pepperoni and sausage.”

  Annie regarded him wisely. “You never get anchovies. I don’t think you really like them.”

  “Well, of course I do,” he insisted. “Biggest sacrifice of my life, giving up those little fishies.”

  “Then get your own pizza,” Val suggested, winking at Annie. “She and I can share.”

  “Yeah, Daddy. Why don’t you get your own and have it just the way you like it?”

  “Nope. Can’t eat a whole one. I’ll just have what you guys are having.”

  Val gave Annie a knowing look. “Yep, you’re right. He’s faking it.”

  Just to prove them wrong, he ordered anchovies on two slices of their large pizza and forced himself not to gag while he took the first bite.

  “Best I ever had,” he claimed as he finished the first piece.

  Annie watched him intently, then reached for the second slice. “Let me try it.” She bit into it, then grimaced. “Oh, yuck. How can you eat that?”

  “Because we all but dared him to,” Val said. “Some men will do anything if they’re challenged.”

  “Is that it, Daddy?” Annie asked skeptically. “Was it just because we dared you?”

  “Okay, yes,” he said finally, his gaze locked with Val’s. “You caught me.”

  Annie grinned, apparently satisfied that her first instincts about the anchovies had been accurate. “You don’t have to eat the other slice. You can have some of ours.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Val chimed in, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “I think he should finish what he started. Wasting good food’s a crime, when so many people around the world are starving.”

  “I’ll mail the leftover slice of pizza to anyone you care to suggest,” he responded, already reaching for one of the more appetizing wedges. Val snagged his wrist in a grip that suggested, for a pipsqueak, she’d been doing some strength training in Laurie’s home g
ym. “I take it you object.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “That pizza has my name on it.”

  He leaned over and pretended to study it intently. “I can’t see it. Can you, Annie?”

  His daughter stood up and glanced at the slice carefully. “It’s Val’s, all right,” she said at last.

  His head snapped up. “You took her side,” he said, genuinely bemused by it. “What kind of kid takes the side of a stranger over her own father?”

  Though he’d said it in jest, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he could see Annie’s expression clouding over. He’d done it again—spoiled the mood for reasons that escaped him.

  “Annie?” he prodded gently. “What did I say?”

  “Nothing,” she mumbled. “May I be excused?”

  Slade noticed that she addressed the question to Val.

  Looking troubled, Val asked, “Where will you be?”

  “Outside, I guess.”

  “Slade?” Val said, turning to him.

  “Fine, go,” he said tersely. When Annie had left, he scowled at Val. “Okay, I blew it again. Mind telling me how?”

  “You all but told her that, for siding with me, she wasn’t a good kid,” she said. “I know you were teasing, but she took it to heart.”

  “Are you telling me that every time I open my mouth, I’m going to be walking through a minefield?”

  She nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Which one of us do you think is going to crack first?” he asked.

  “My money’s on you, unless you can learn to roll with it. Think about this,” she said with a certain amount of glee. “Puberty’s going to be much, much worse.”

  Slade held up a hand. “Don’t even say it.”

  “People survive it,” Val assured him. “Kids and their parents.”

  “Maybe if there are two parents, who can bolster each other’s spirits,” he said.

  “Oh, no, single moms survive it, too. Mine did.”

  Startled, he studied her face, saw the unexpected shadows in eyes that usually glinted with good humor. “Where was your dad?”

  “He died when I was eight.”

  Which explained why she empathized with Annie, why she was fighting like a tigress to see that the lines of communications between him and his daughter were opened. No doubt it pained her to see a child with a perfectly good, healthy father going through life as if she had none.

  “I’m sorry,” Slade said. “That must have been tough.”

  “It was.” Her expression turned from sad to thoughtful. “Funny, I’ve lived most of my life without him, yet I still miss him. I can still remember the scent of his pipe tobacco, the way it felt when he scooped me up and hugged me. I felt such a sense of security, as if no harm could ever come to me. After that, there were just years and years of uncertainty, even though my mom was terrific and worked her butt off for us.”

  She shook her head, as if clearing it of unwanted memories. “Sorry. We were talking about you and Annie.”

  Slade nodded. “Yes. I think we were. That’s why you care so deeply what happens between her and me, isn’t it?”

  She seemed surprised by the suggestion. “I hadn’t thought about it, but, yes, I suppose it’s one reason. I wouldn’t have expected you to pick up on that.”

  “Because I’m just an insensitive jerk?”

  “Some of the time,” she agreed bluntly.

  Her gaze met his with that directness he sometimes found so disconcerting.

  “Other times you can be...surprising,” she added.

  “You said your past might be only one of the reasons my relationship with my daughter matters to you. What’s another?”

  “Maybe I’m just a sucker for a happy ending.”

  Slade had the feeling that it was a whole lot more complicated than that, more personal. He’d known from the beginning that she was attracted to him, but he’d figured his refusal to get involved had only turned him into a challenge. Now he wondered if he’d been wrong. Could she be developing real feelings for him? He hoped not. He could have told her he was a bad bet. Hell, she could surely see that for herself after all these months.

  Finally, he dragged his gaze away from hers, tried to ignore the rock-hard arousal that long, lingering glance had stirred. If he’d been a different kind of man or she’d been a different kind of woman, maybe they could have done something about it. As it was, she was off-limits.

  “We should probably be going,” he said, his voice gruffer than he intended. He busied himself with calling for the bill, carefully counting out the money, taking enough time to assure that his body settled down.

  When he finally risked another look at Val, the color was still high in her cheeks, as if she were embarrassed at unwittingly revealing some innermost secret.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said, her controlled facade slipping neatly back into place. She moved briskly from the restaurant, allowing him no more than a glimpse of that swaying walk of hers. Just outside the door, she halted abruptly.

  “What’s wrong?” Slade asked.

  Val glanced up and down the street. “I don’t see any sign of Annie. She promised to stay right out here and she’s gone.”

  “She’s probably just popped into one of the stores,” Slade said, stepping out onto the sidewalk to see for himself. “Come on, let’s check Dolan’s. She seems to have developed a real fondness for the ice cream there. She’s probably trying to talk Sharon Lynn into giving her a cone right now.”

  But Annie wasn’t at the drugstore soda fountain and Sharon Lynn said she hadn’t seen her.

  “I had a bad feeling when she asked to go outside,” Val said. “She was upset. I should have stopped her.”

  “What about me? I’m her father. I didn’t think she’d take off. Let’s take a minute and think about this. It’s a small town,” he said, as much to reassure himself as Val. “How far could she have gone? It’s been less than a half hour since she left the restaurant.”

  He thought of the tale Harlan Adams had told him about Jenny. Surely he hadn’t shared the same story with Annie. If so, was she impetuous enough to have tried the same stunt herself?

  “Is the car still where we parked it?” he asked, peering down the street.

  “Well, of course,” Val said, without even looking. “She can’t drive, Slade.” She dangled the keys in front of him. “I have these.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. It was one less thing to worry about. He doubted Annie’s skills ran to hot-wiring a car, unless she’d been hanging out at his father’s garage. Still, he couldn’t prevent the gut-sick sense of dread that washed through him when he realized that Annie was definitely missing.

  Even though he’d just let her off the hook—and rightly so—he still wanted to rail at Val for getting them into this fix in the first place. If they hadn’t been planning a party, if they hadn’t come into town, if, if, if...

  Bottom line, though, he had to find his daughter, and when he did, he was going to tan her hide, no matter what the so-called experts had to say about spanking these days.

  For the next twenty minutes, he and Val searched high and low, but there was no sign of Annie in any of the likely places.

  “You don’t suppose she’s gone to the bus station?” he asked Val, not quite able to bring himself to believe that his daughter was upset enough to truly run away. Had she decided to go back to his parents in Wilder’s Glen? Could she possibly have enough money in her pocket for the ticket?

  Val gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “Stop it right this minute. That child adores you. She’s not going to run away. All she really wants is your attention. She learned that misbehaving guaranteed that somebody would take notice. She’s going to test you the same way she did her grandparents.”

  “That all sounds ve
ry logical, but she’s a kid. Do you really think she’s plotting this out in a reasonable manner?”

  “No. It’s instinctive with her. The best way to make sure you pay attention is to infuriate you.”

  Slade regarded her with impatience. “Didn’t you tell me not a half hour ago that she ran out because I hinted she wasn’t a good kid? Why would she deliberately do something to prove just how bad she can be?”

  “Because any attention is better than none.”

  “I’ve just spent the whole blasted day with her,” Slade all but shouted in frustration.

  Val touched his arm in a soothing gesture. “Slade, she’s ten. It doesn’t have to make sense. Come on. This is no time to panic. Let’s settle down and think about this for a second. Where would she go?”

  “We’ve looked at Dolan’s. You’ve already looked at the pet shop, the toy store and the general store. I’ve been to the bookstore and the hardware store.”

  Val stared at him. “Why on earth would you think to look in a hardware store?”

  “She likes tools.” He shrugged. “Don’t ask me why.”

  “Could be she’s trying to be like you,” Val said thoughtfully. “In which case, what about the feed and grain store? Did you look there?”

  “She’s never lived on a ranch before. Why would she go to a feed and grain store?”

  “For the same reason she’d go to the hardware store—because it’s something that interests you.”

  Slade didn’t believe for an instant that they would find Annie standing amid bags of oats, but by golly, there she was, and she was rubbing her hand over a saddle with a look of pure longing on her face.

  “Don’t you dare yell at her,” Val warned.

  “I wasn’t going to yell,” Slade insisted, though he very likely would have if Val hadn’t grabbed his arm and slowed him down. He took a deep breath, then shot a look at Val that apparently reassured her. She released his arm. He slowly crossed the store to stand beside his daughter.

  “Hey, short stuff, we’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  Her expression guilty, Annie snatched her hand away from the saddle. “I just figured you’d turn up here sooner or later,” she said defensively.