Secrets, Lies & Loves

by Judy Duarte

  No, she told herself. She’d been careful. She’d covered her tracks.

  Still, apprehension settled over her.

  She needed to talk to someone, to hear a comforting voice on the line. Her first instinct was to call Rowan. But she didn’t want to bother him. Besides, her imagination was probably doing a number on her. And her fear would probably prove to be unfounded.

  Another option came to mind.

  Louanne had confided in her sister earlier—sort of. She’d told Lula that a guy she’d been dating at college had become too attached, and that she’d gone home without giving him any idea of how to reach her.

  “Just in case he tries to find me through you,” Louanne had said, “I don’t want you giving any information out about me or the ranch.”

  “Good grief, Lou. I’ve held on to a glamorous childhood for so long, I doubt that I could even find my way back home.” Her sister had laughed in that bubbly way that made Louanne believe Lula had everything figured out and under control. “Why don’t you and Noah come live with me in California?”

  Louanne had declined because the limelight was something she’d wanted to avoid. Living in Beverly Hills, within the range of a bursting flashbulb, wasn’t a good idea. Not when she needed to keep her whereabouts and Noah’s existence a secret.

  She fumbled through the nightstand drawer in search of her sister’s number at the hotel in which she was staying. What chance did she have of finding Lula in her room?

  There was only one way to find out.

  When a man answered, Louanne introduced herself, and he passed the phone to her sister.

  “Hey, Lou. How’s my nephew?”

  “He’s walking now. And saying a few words.” Louanne twirled the telephone cord around her finger. “You know, I’ve been thinking about your invitation to come and visit.”

  “Great.”

  “And if it’s all right,” Louanne added, “I might bring a friend.”

  “A friend?”

  A smile tugged at Louanne’s lips. “Just a man I’ve met.”

  Lula, who’d been paired with some of Hollywood’s biggest male stars, laughed. “Well, I’m looking forward to meeting him. Tell me about him.”

  Louanne gave her sister a brief description, lingering more on the way Rowan made her feel than his appearance. “His name is Rowan Parks, and he’s from San Francisco.”

  “San Francisco?” Lula asked. “He isn’t part of the Parks jewelry empire, is he?”

  “His family is in the jewelry business. He’s a carpenter.”

  “You never have been attracted to glitz and glamour, not like me. But good job, honey.” Lula let out a long, slow whistle. “Parks is the west coast equivalent of Tiffany’s and makes other jewelry stores look like the five-and-dime.”

  “That wasn’t what turned my head,” Louanne said, her voice firm.

  “No one knows that better than me. You’ve always been the romantic one.” Lula laughed again. “Listen, sis, I have to go. We’ll have to finish the conversation soon.”

  “I’ll keep you posted on that visit.”

  “Good. I can’t wait to see you again. Or to hug and kiss my nephew. And I’d like to check out that new man in your life.”

  After saying goodbye and ending the call, Louanne didn’t feel much better. But to ensure a good night’s sleep, she turned down the ringer on the telephone.

  Rowan paused before the Poseidon fountain in the front courtyard of the opulent two-story mansion in which he’d grown up, remembering the day he’d put a bottle of dishwashing detergent in the water. The bubbles had swelled to a mountainous froth, running over the sides and into the drive. It had been a pretty cool sight, until his father roared his disapproval. Rowan had gotten a backhand that day, as well as a punishment. But he could still recall a ten-year-old boy’s pride at getting to the old man.

  But his days of pranks and scandals were over.

  He walked toward the front steps, the soles of his leather boots clicking upon the flagstone. But just as he reached the outdoor staircase that led to the house, the door swung open.

  His father and a young man Rowan didn’t recognize stood in the doorway, bodies tense, eyes glaring, expressions hard.

  The black-haired man who appeared to be in his twenties didn’t seem to be the least bit intimidated by the formidable Walter Parks. And Rowan couldn’t help admiring him for it.

  “This isn’t the end of my search,” the younger man said.

  Walter bristled, but didn’t speak. He just stared at the man, as Rowan did.

  The guy stood about six feet tall and had a muscular build and a cocky, don’t-mess-with-me stance that Rowan liked.

  As the man turned to go, his gaze met Rowan’s. He didn’t smile, but extended a hand in greeting. “I’m Tyler Carlton.”

  Rowan didn’t have any beefs with the man who claimed to be his half brother, so he introduced himself and shook hands. He hadn’t been trying to rebel or be disloyal. He was just being polite. But Walter didn’t appear pleased with the courteous gesture.

  When Tyler proceeded down the steps and to a car parked in the drive, Rowan continued his approach to the house. Walter must have been caught off guard by the younger man’s visit, because he stepped aside and let Rowan enter without the usual click of the tongue or snap of a criticism.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” Rowan said. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Join the club,” Walter muttered. “Let’s go into the library. I’m going to fix a stiff drink. Maybe two.”

  Rowan tried not to analyze what may or may not have happened before his arrival. His dog wasn’t in that fight.

  “You want something to drink?” his father asked, as they entered the massive room with a built-in bar.

  “I’ll have a beer.” Rowan took a seat on the plush, leather sofa and watched as his father first poured a glass of Scotch, straight up, and reached for a beer in the refrigerator behind the bar.

  “I thought the doctor told you to drink wine, instead of hard liquor.”

  “This is a special occasion,” he said, a scowl belying his words. “And a good stiff drink seems more apropos than passing out cigars, don’t you think?”

  Had the test results come back? Is that what Tyler came by to talk to him about? Rowan would have had a snappy comment in the past, but he kept it to himself.

  Walter handed Rowan his drink, then sank into a wingback chair. “What’s on your mind?”

  Rowan pondered his thoughts, as well as the best way to broach them. He wasn’t looking for love any longer, just an end to the problems they’d had in the past. “Our relationship hasn’t been good for years. And I thought we ought to clear up a few things.”

  Walter took a slow sip from his glass. “What kind of ‘things?’”

  “First of all, in case you haven’t noticed, I keep to myself. And I’m secretive by nature. I don’t open up easily. And I don’t divulge anything that pertains to me personally or to this family. If someone has been telling tales out of school, it wasn’t me.”

  Walter lifted his glass, watched the lamplight glimmer through the caramel-colored liquor, then looked at Rowan. “You’ve done your best to stir things up and create one problem after another for me. I’m sure you understand why I would suspect you first.”

  “That brings me to the second point. I’m not sure when our problems began. And I’m not about to rehash them. But I’d like to put the past anger and resentment behind us.”

  “You’ve behaved like a hellion all through your teenage years and well into college.”

  “And you were never a father to me,” Rowan countered, before taking a thirst-quenching swig from the longneck bottle. “So if we want to start throwing the rocks we’ve stored up over the years, we’ve both got an endless supply.”

  “That’s for damn sure.” Walter set his glass on a teakwood coaster that sat on the lamp table at his side, then, as if having second thoughts, picked it back up again and took a drin
k. “You know, I didn’t set out to fail you. Or the others.”

  It was the first admission or hint of wrongdoing Rowan had ever remembered his father uttering. And quite frankly, it took him aback.

  “Like everyone on this earth,” Walter said. “I made mistakes.”

  “What kind of mistakes?”

  “Just things I wish I’d done differently.”

  It was, Rowan realized, the first time he and his father had a conversation that wasn’t loaded with hostility and accusations. They would probably never be close, but maybe Louanne had been right. Maybe he and his father could at least be cordial to one another.

  “By the way,” Walter said. “You have two brothers to acknowledge, Tyler and Conrad Carlton. According to the paternity test the court ordered, I fathered them.”

  Fathered? That was a stretch. Walter had merely been a sperm donor. But true to his decision to offer an olive branch, Rowan kept the thought to himself. If he felt any compassion over the test results, it was for the two men who had to claim Walter as a father.

  Since Jeremy Carlton, their mother’s husband, had died before the twins’ birth, they’d grown up without a father’s love, just as Rowan had.

  Just as Noah would.

  Unless, of course, Rowan stepped up to the plate and adopted him. The thought put the first bit of warmth in Rowan’s heart since he’d left Pebble Creek. And he actually liked the idea. Would Louanne want Rowan to be a father to her son?

  Unlike the women he’d dated in the past, Louanne was different. And so was Rowan—when he was with her. He’d softened, opened up. And being with Noah had touched something in Rowan, too. He actually enjoyed the family-like feelings that had settled around him since staying at the ranch.

  In the past, he would have run from something like that. But not this time. He didn’t even want to walk away from Louanne and Noah.

  The family he’d always wanted was in Pebble Creek.

  Rowan finished his beer, then looked at his father. At sixty years of age, Walter’s dark hair was more salt than pepper. And the brown eyes that could grow so cold and ruthless seemed haunted and troubled now. In a way, it made Rowan feel a bit sorry for his father—but just a tad. “Like I said, we’ll probably never be close. But I want you to know that my days of stirring up trouble to set your life on end are over.”

  Walter nodded. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Rowan had never shared much of anything with his father, not since the day Walter had caused him to split his head open on the glass-top table. But things were changing. Rowan was changing.

  “To what do I owe your new attitude?” Walter asked.

  “The love of a good woman. And if she’ll have me, I’d like to marry her.”

  “Then I wish you the best of luck,” Walter said. “The constant fights with you have been exasperating, to say the least. And quite frankly, I have enough to worry about.”

  It wasn’t exactly what Rowan wanted to hear, but it was a start.

  “I never have liked drinking alone,” his father said. “Why don’t you have another beer? I know you’ve got a long ride back to your place, but you can stay the night in the guest room.”

  “I just might take you up on that offer.” Rowan stood and glanced at the door. “Will you excuse me for a moment? I want to make a phone call.”

  “Sure.”

  Rowan wanted to tell Louanne that he was ready to face the future, that he’d tied up all those loose ends. And that even if the past couldn’t be altered, a person’s perception and attitude could be. Of course, he wouldn’t discuss all that now. Not here. But he could hint at it.

  And he could also hear the soft lilt of her voice.

  He picked up the phone in the hall and dialed her number. As the line continued to ring with no answer, he grew concerned.

  Where was she? Louanne never left the ranch.

  He returned to the library, where he and his father continued to have a cautious, yet generic conversation. But off and on that evening, he kept trying to call Louanne.

  And there hadn’t been an answer, even long after she should’ve been home and in bed.

  Was the phone off the hook?

  An uneasiness settled over him. And he wasn’t at all sure why.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rowan woke before dawn and tried to call Louanne again.

  There was still no answer.

  He didn’t know where his uneasiness came from. Was that what happened when a guy fell in love? He grew more concerned about his lover than himself?

  Maybe so.

  When Rowan went downstairs, he found Brenda bustling about the kitchen. She hadn’t noticed him yet, so he watched her, a smile forming on his face, a warm glow in his heart. After her husband died, the Parks children became Brenda’s life. And she was the only mother Rowan had ever really known.

  At sixty-five, Brenda looked the same as she always had, although he suspected she’d shrunk a tad in height, if she’d ever actually reached the five foot mark, as she’d always claimed.

  The scent of yeast and spice wafted through the room, as Brenda prepared a homemade cinnamon twist Rowan had always favored. She was a darn good cook, which contributed to her ample girth. But neither her age nor her weight stopped her from kicking up the heels of her sensible shoes, once the Parks kids moved out of the house and didn’t need her anymore.

  Rowan heard she was taking an aerobics class, answering personal ads for companionship and enjoying her golden years by traveling, taking cruises and seeing the world.

  But when she was home, the Parks house was still her castle.

  “Breakfast ready?” he asked.

  Brenda turned and grinned, her pleasure at seeing him hard to ignore. “Rowan! You get over here and give me a hug, you little rapscallion.”

  Rowan chuckled and gave her a hug, her familiar embrace wrapping him in warmth, her lavender scent bringing back memories of her maternal love.

  She patted his back affectionately. “It’s so good to have you home.”

  “Wheelie,” he said, using the nickname he and Cade had come up with years ago, “I love you.”

  She gasped, stepped back from the hug and grabbed his forearm. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. “You’ve never told me that before.”

  No, he hadn’t. He’d kept a lot of his feelings under wraps. And when he’d come home to make things right, this was one of them. “I should have told you how much you meant to me years ago.”

  “I always knew, but it feels so good to hear you say it.” Her eyes grew watery, and she swiped at them with the back of a plump hand. “I love you, too, Rowan. And in spite of your penchant for mischief, you’ve always held a special place in my heart.”

  Okay, so he’d said the words he should have voiced years ago and was glad he’d finally leveled with her, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable with sappy stuff like that. He slid her a boyish grin. “Like I said, what’s for breakfast?”

  Her familiar laugh, loud enough to be heard throughout every estate in Pacific Heights, rang throughout the kitchen, making him feel more at home here than he had in years. “You sit right down and have a cup of coffee and a cinnamon twist while I fix you a hearty breakfast. Your dad left the morning paper on the table.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Rowan picked up the newspaper, glanced at the headlines, then scanned the front page. A picture of his father drew his attention.

  Well, what do you know? The press was quick to report the news about the paternity results of the DNA test. They hadn’t included a photo of the twins, which was too bad. Rowan knew what Tyler looked like, but he was curious about Conrad.

  “Did you read this?” he asked Brenda.

  She nodded. “And so did your father before he left for the office. The papers don’t take long to print what they consider sensational stories.”

  “You know anything about Tyler Carlton?”

  “Not much. He’s a detective.”

  Before Rowan could
respond, the telephone rang.

  “Will you answer that for me?” Brenda asked, as she whisked scrambled eggs in a glass mixing bowl.

  “Sure.” Rowan picked up the receiver off the wall-mounted kitchen telephone. “Hello.”

  The caller introduced himself as Tyler Carlton and asked, “Is Walter in?”

  “This is Rowan. Can I give him a message?”

  “I called to tell him that I’m sorry about the media coverage. I don’t know how in the hell the press got wind of the paternity results. That wasn’t my intent.”

  “The press loves a good story about this family.” Rowan remembered his own scandal while in college and all the national coverage it had received.

  “I’m not the kind of guy who likes to be frontpage news,” Tyler said.

  “Neither is our father. By the way, I guess a ‘Welcome to the family’ is in order.”

  “I didn’t expect any kind of welcome. Your dad will probably never get used to the idea.”

  “Hell, he’s still getting used to the idea of having me in the family,” Rowan said.

  The men spoke for a while, then agreed to meet for drinks sometime.

  “My best friend’s brother, Mark Banning, is getting married this weekend,” Tyler said. “So I’ll be busy with that.”

  “And I’ll be going back to Texas soon. We can talk about it more when I get back.”

  After they said goodbye and the line disconnected, Rowan held the receiver in his hand. He ought to call Louanne one more time. Something wasn’t sitting well with him.

  But when he dialed the number, the phone continued to ring and his uneasiness mounted. He couldn’t put his finger on what had him on edge. It was more than missing her, more than just knowing that she and Noah were alone on the ranch.

  His discomfort had begun with that phone call he’d received the evening before he left the ranch. Had it been a wrong number? A random call?

  Or had hearing a man’s voice surprised the caller? Had the man expected Louanne to answer?

  Rowan’s imagination kicked into high gear. Had it been Noah’s dad calling to check up on his kid? To check up on Louanne?

  No, the guy was dead. Louanne had told Rowan so. Of course, when he’d asked her how the man had died, she’d refused to talk about it.