by Judy Duarte
In the next room Carla looked at Tyler in frustration. “I don’t hear anything.”
Tyler laughed, drawing her away from the double doors. “I think this time that’s a good sign.”
And it was.
THE RICH MAN’S SON
BY
JUDY DUARTE
Judy Duarte, an avid reader who enjoys a happy ending, always wanted to write books of her own. One day, she decided to make that dream come true. Five years and six manuscripts later, she sold her first book to Special Edition.
Her unpublished stories have won awards, and in 2001 she became a double Golden Heart finalist. Judy credits her success to Romance Writers of America and two wonderful critique partners, Sheri WhiteFeather and Crystal Green.
At times, when a stubborn hero and a headstrong heroine claim her undivided attention, she and her family are thankful for fast food, pizza delivery and video games. When she’s not at the keyboard or in a Walter Mitty-type world, she enjoys travelling, spending romantic evenings with her personal hero and playing board games with her kids.
Judy lives in Southern California and loves to hear from her readers. You may write to her at: PO Box 498, San Luis rey, CA 92068-0498, USA. You can also visit her website at www.judyduarte.com.
To Crystal Green and Sheri WhiteFeather, who always
go above and beyond the call of critique partner duty.
Your dedication, support and friendship mean the
world to me. Without you, I might still be labouring
over Chapter Twelve. Thank you, ladies, from the
bottom of my heart. And to my daughter, Christy
Freetly, who took time to look over this book in
manuscript form. thanks for the thumbs-up.
I love you, T.
Chapter One
“Want some company?”
Rowan Parks looked up from his long-necked bottle of beer and caught the appreciative smile of a bleached-blond cowgirl in a red, low-cut blouse that threatened to pop a button if she took a deep breath.
“Afraid not.” He motioned for the waitress, indicating he wanted to close out his tab and get on his way to nowhere in particular.
The blonde took a seat across from him anyway, put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “My name’s Charlene.”
Rowan didn’t respond. Women often sidled up to him in a bar with the intention of warming his bed. But sex was the furthest thing from his mind this evening.
And so was company.
“What’s your name?” she asked, not at all put off by his silence.
Rowan wasn’t up for this. He’d been stewing in his anger and his grief for days. And he wasn’t ready for a change of mood. Nor was he willing to knock off the chip that weighed heavily upon his shoulder.
It felt too damn good to be miserable. Especially in a seedy little hole-in-the-wall like this.
Brenda Wheeler, his father’s housekeeper and the woman who’d raised him and his siblings, had always made a big deal about being courteous. Polite.
But Rowan couldn’t see any point in being honest. He glanced at the wood-paneled room, caught a whiff of stale beer and tobacco. Listened as an old country western song boomed from a red-and-chrome jukebox—Hank Williams at his best.
The tune wafted through the air like a curl of cigarette smoke, giving Rowan a quick and easy pseudonym. “My name is Hank.”
Her blue eyes lit up, and she smiled, revealing a chipped front tooth. “Hank? No kidding? Just like the singer?”
He nodded, wishing the waitress would hurry up. The Watering Hole had been nearly empty when he’d first parked his Harley outside, trudged up the graveled walk and took a seat in the far corner, hoping to quench his thirst and wash the dust from his throat. But as more and more locals began to fill the wooden tables and red-vinyl corner booths, their laughter and Southern twangs played havoc with his sullen mood.
The blonde, Charlene, glanced at the diamond stud he wore in one ear, the platinum Rolex on his wrist, then studied his face with a good deal more interest than he wanted to cultivate.
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
She had that right.
Rowan was as out of place in this Texas honky-tonk as he’d always been in the San Francisco mansion in which he’d grown up. But he didn’t see any reason to comment. He wasn’t into chitchat. Or revelations of his hell-bent flight to anonymity and peace.
When the waitress brought his check, he reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out a roll of cash wrapped in a rubber band, withdrew a twenty-dollar bill and set it on the brown Formica tabletop.
“Things really get hoppin’ around here on Friday nights,” Charlene said, offering him a friendly grin. “And the band will be settin’ up pretty soon.”
Rowan wasn’t interested in boot scootin’ or twosteppin’, and the only mood music he felt like listening to was the blues. But something told him he wouldn’t find a darkened jazz club out in the sticks.
“The band is really good. In fact, they’ve even had gigs in Austin. I know, ’cause my brother plays steel guitar.” She tried to urge a smile from him, but it didn’t work. “You’re not going to up and walk away, are you?”
That’s exactly what he was going to do. And it was exactly what he’d done a couple of days ago—he’d walked away for good. And right now he only wanted to be left alone.
“Has anyone ever said that you look like Antonio Banderas?” she asked, apparently not giving up. Not used to being ignored.
Blessed with black hair, deep-set dimples and blue eyes, Rowan was the only one in the whole family to inherit his mother’s ability to stop people in their tracks because of his good looks.
It had been a double-edged sword, though, since he’d had a feeling it was his physical resemblance to his mother that caused his father to shun him.
“I like the look of a five o’clock shadow on a man,” Charlene said. “It makes y’all look kind of dangerous and sexy.”
And rebellious, Rowan supposed. His refusal to shave every day had really irritated his old man. So had his troublemaking. But at least his rebellion had finally finagled a reaction out of his father.
You ungrateful bastard. Why can’t you be more like your brother, Cade?
And less like your mother, Rowan had always internally supplied.
Was that what made his dad ignore him? The fact that Rowan looked like the woman his father had committed to a sanitarium in Switzerland?
Or had the jewelry baron merely found Rowan lacking?
Either way, as the black sheep of the family, Rowan had done everything he could to rebel against his father, a man who’d shown his ruthless side one time too many.
And now Rowan was out to shed his roots and prove himself. He’d never been one to pretend to be something he wasn’t, to follow the crowd or to blend into the woodwork. But the problem was, he’d been keeping his pain and his dreams a secret for so long, that even he wasn’t sure who he really was.
“Cat got your tongue?” Charlene asked.
“I’m just passing through. And as pretty as you are, Charlene, I’m not in the mood for conversation.” He slid her a half smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Thanks for the company.”
Then he sauntered out of the bar with his helmet under his arm. But instead of wearing it, he strapped it to the side of the bike, revved the engine and sped away, letting the wind blow through his hair and hoping it would clear his mind, his heart. His soul.
The Harley kicked up dust as Rowan raced down a country road. He had no idea where he was heading, other than as far away from the mighty Parks Empire as he could get. He’d been riding aimlessly for days, hoping to find some peace—away from the spider of a man who tried to keep his family and everyone else within his web of control.
Having made only brief, overnight stops from his trek, Rowan had grown tired of the reckless pace and decided to find a decent place to spend the night.
Where the hell was the
interstate? He would need to head toward Austin to find something more than a run-down motel with a surging neon light that advertised Vacancy.
As the bike picked up speed, a jackrabbit dashed across the road, a coyote on its tail. Rowan swerved to avoid the mangy dog-like critter, and the Harley skidded into a deep gully that ran along an expansive string of worn-out barbwire fence.
When the bike hit the ditch, it bucked like a mechanical bull, throwing Rowan into the air.
He expected the raw pain upon impact, as flesh and bone met dirt, rocks and fencing. Even getting the wind knocked out of his chest hadn’t really surprised him.
But he hadn’t anticipated a fade to black.
Louanne Brown hated the Lazy B Ranch—always had and always would. But as fate would have it, the place she’d always been ashamed of had become a miracle when she’d needed it most.
Still, the never-ending chores began before dawn and continued nonstop until after supper. And at night, when she finally slipped between the clean but worn sheets of the hundred-year-old bed that had once belonged to her parents, she collapsed into an exhausted, bone-weary slumber.
Yet in spite of the calluses, the chapped hands and reddened knuckles, she whispered a prayer of thanks-giving that she and her sister hadn’t put the ranch on the market after her folks died. And that Pete and Aggie Robertson had agreed to stay on, even though they’d reached retirement age.
The older couple had lived on the ranch for nearly as long as Louanne could remember and had become more than the foreman and his wife. They were surrogate grandparents to her son and friends to her. Friends who didn’t pry. They’d noticed that she’d cloistered herself on the property, but hadn’t said too much about it.
As the white, beat-up Ford pickup bounced along the potholes in the country road that surrounded the cattle ranch, she squinted in the late morning sunlight, her arm resting along the window of the passenger side. She’d been up since before daybreak, fixed a hearty breakfast for herself and given Noah a morning bottle before taking him to Aggie, who would care for the baby until Louanne came in for the noon meal.
“Here’s that stretch of fence that needs mending,” Pete said, from behind the wheel. “We really need to replace the whole blasted thing.”
Imagine that. Every time Louanne turned around, she was met with one expense or another. “It’s an ongoing battle to stay on top, isn’t it?”
Pete nodded and clicked his tongue. “Sure seems that way.”
Louanne didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. Money had always been tight, more so now than ever. And there was no way they could splurge on something that major, no matter how sound the investment.
“Well, I’ll be go-to-hell.” Pete pointed to the northwest. “Look over there.”
Louanne, following his direction, spotted a dark-haired man wandering along the road, dazed and battered. “He’s hurt, Pete. Pull over.”
When the pickup stopped, Louanne opened the door and slid out the passenger side. But before either of them could reach the wounded stranger, he crumpled to the ground.
His hair was caked in dried blood, probably coming from the gash near his temple. A dirty, white T-shirt bore blood spatters, and faded jeans sported a frayed rip in the knee.
A single diamond earring and a heavily bristled beard made him look like a rock musician or maybe an artist—just the kind of guy her sister Lula would date.
“Mister?” Louanne asked. “Are you all right?”
He didn’t respond.
Was he unconscious? Or just drifting in and out?
She knelt and checked for a pulse, found it beating strong and steady.
Pete stood to the side, blocking the sun and casting a shadow on the man. “Maybe we ought to take him back to the ranch, then call an ambulance.”
The stranger opened his eyes—blue as the summer sky—and shook his head. “No ambulance…no hospital. I’m…okay.”
Louanne didn’t believe him. He was obviously hurt. So why didn’t he want medical treatment?
Was he running from someone? Hiding out?
Like she was?
She decided to honor his request—if possible.
“Are you able to climb in the back of the truck?” Pete asked him.
The man nodded, then slowly got to his feet. His knees seemed to buckle, so Pete and Louanne stood at his side to offer their support.
She supposed she ought to be worried about taking the battered stranger back to the house, but for some reason, she wasn’t. Maybe because he appeared to be such an interesting contradiction. The kind of character who would fit nicely into the novel she’d been writing.
A handsome but rugged stranger.
Dangerous and vulnerable.
A hellion with angel eyes.
Even the clothes and accessories he wore mocked one another—the expensive platinum Rolex, faded denim jeans torn at the knee and dusty, leather boots that must have cost a pretty penny.
Of course, looks could be deceiving. Louanne had learned that the hard way. Still, she couldn’t very well leave the injured stranger to the elements.
“Be careful,” she told Pete, as they helped him into the back of the pickup. Once he was sprawled out on the dirty, work-worn, metal bed, Louanne climbed in beside him.
On the bumpy ride back to the house, the man opened his eyes and searched her face. “What happened?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.” She mustered a smile, trying hard not to lose herself in his deep blue gaze. She had a feeling many women found it hard not to stare when he was clean and freshly shaven. In fact, she had a hard time keeping her eyes from settling on the angular jaw, the bristled cheeks. The spike of thick, black lashes seen only in a mascara commercial.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“At a ranch in Pebble Creek.”
He grimaced, furrowing his brow—a near perfect brow, except for an old scar that tweaked his left eyebrow. He’d have another scar now. Higher. Near the temple. “Pebble Creek? Where the hell is that?”
“About an hour or two from Austin.”
“Texas?”
She nodded.
He snagged her gaze with those baby blues, then reached out his hand and caught her wrist. “I’m glad you found me.”
The warmth of his touch stirred up a flutter in her stomach, a reaction she hadn’t had in nearly two years and hadn’t expected to ever have again. “I’m glad, too. This road isn’t very well traveled, so you might have had a long wait.”
He searched her hair, her eyes, her face, as though looking for something. “I’m sorry. But I don’t remember your name.”
She wanted to say Lanay Landers, the name she’d created as a teenager and used while in college, but the name had died, along with her dreams. Instead, she told him the simple, unadorned truth. “Louanne Brown.”
He nodded, as though it suited her. And the fact that he thought it had twisted inside her heart.
Hadn’t her sister been the one to initiate the dream by insisting the key to a new life was in finding a new identity? Lula created a stage name, calling herself Tallulah Brown. And it had worked. She was now an up-and-coming starlet in Hollywood.
But fate hadn’t been as kind to Louanne. And the pen name she’d planned to use now hid in a darkened corner of the closet, along with the manuscript that would never again see the light of day.
“You look familiar,” the wounded man said. “Like I should know you.”
She wished she could say the same. The handsome, raven-haired stranger didn’t look like anyone she’d ever known. Or anyone she’d ever meet in Pebble Creek—better known as Nowhere, Texas.
Back east, when she was a graduate student in English, people used to think she looked familiar. But she’d dressed differently then, worn her hair in a loose, shoulder-length style.
Richard Keith, the college professor who had fathered Noah, always said Louanne looked a bit like Cindy Crawford, only not quite as glamorous. She also res
embled her sister, who was becoming more and more well-known. But with each step Tallulah Brown inched toward superstardom, Louanne seemed to slip backward.
Her once promising literary career was over before it even had a chance to begin.
Mr. Enigma closed his eyes before she could ask him his name. But there was plenty of time for that, she supposed.
Pete parked near the house, then climbed from the truck and peered at the injured man, assessing him. Louanne couldn’t be sure whether he was trying to make a judgment on his character or his wounds. Both, she supposed.
“His injuries could be serious,” Pete told her. “We probably ought to take him to the city.”
Louanne had been avoiding Austin because Richard would focus his search for her there. For that reason, she’d remained low-key, not leaving the ranch, not even going into Pebble Creek for groceries. Instead, she allowed Aggie to do the shopping.
Call her paranoid, but she wasn’t eager to draw attention to herself by calling for an ambulance or filing a police report.
“Why don’t we let Doc Haines come out and take a look at him?” she asked Pete.
The foreman nodded. “Sounds like a good idea. Doc might be getting on in years, but he knows his stuff.”
Thank God for that. The country physician who still made house calls had not only delivered Noah, he’d provided her son’s pediatric checkups and immunizations, too.
Once Doc had suggested Louanne go to a younger doctor in the city, but she refused, explaining that she wanted her son to have the same quality care she’d had as a child.
There was more to it, of course. Much more.
But the nightmare she’d experienced at the small eastern college was a secret she would keep to herself.
Before either Louanne or Pete could ponder how to get the injured man from the truck into the house, he stirred again. “Where am I?”
“You’re at the Lazy B Ranch.”
“Where’s that?”
“Texas,” she repeated.
He’d already asked that question. Had he forgotten? Or was he confused and suffering from a concussion?
