The Cowboy and His Wayward Bride, page 17
“That means the man’s a bigamist,” Harlan Patrick said.
“With a happy new family in California, none of whom apparently have a clue about his past in Texas,” Justin confirmed. “Unless he found some way around the legal system that I can’t figure out.”
“Well, hell,” Harlan Patrick muttered. “This is a wrinkle I hadn’t counted on. What am I supposed to do now?”
“I don’t see that you have any choice. You promised Laurie you’d find her father for her. You’ve done that and you’re going to have to tell her.”
“How’s she going to take it when she finds out he’s got this whole new family? Hell’s bells, how are they going to take it when they discover that he’s been living a lie? What kind of can of worms are we opening here?”
“That’s the trouble with searching for the truth,” Justin noted. “Sometimes you find out a whole lot more than you ever wanted to know.”
“Maybe you’re wrong,” Harlan Patrick said. “Maybe Buzz Jensen did get a divorce.”
“Without Mary knowing about it?”
“It’s possible,” Harlan Patrick persisted.
“Doubtful,” his cousin countered. He removed his sunglasses and met Harlan Patrick’s gaze. “What are you going to do?”
“What do you think? I’m going to California.”
“With Laurie?”
“Not on your life. I’m going on my own to check things out first. I’m not taking her there until we know the whole story.”
“And then?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I wish to hell I knew.”
Five hours later, just past dinnertime, he was driving up to a small ranch-style house on a hillside just north of Los Angeles. The lawn was well tended, window boxes were filled with brightly colored flowers and toys and bicycles were scattered across the yard. A sedan that needed a paint job and a newer pickup sat in the driveway. Evidence of normal, everyday people just trying to get by, he concluded.
With a sigh of regret, Harlan Patrick climbed out of his car and walked toward the house. If this hadn’t been the only way to get the answers Laurie needed, he wasn’t sure he could have brought himself into these people’s lives to tear apart their tidy little world.
When he rang the bell, the door was answered by a teenage girl who bore such a striking resemblance to Laurie that it almost took his breath away. He’d always assumed Laurie had inherited her looks from her mother, but it was clear now that she had a good bit of her father in her, too.
“Hi,” she said with the same flirtatious, infectious grin that Laurie had used to captivate him years earlier. “Who’re you?”
“Harlan Patrick Adams.”
“Well, hey, Harlan Patrick. I’m Tess. What can I do for you?”
He had to hide a grin at the blatant suggestiveness she managed to put into those few little words. “I’d like to see your father if he’s at home.”
“Sure,” she said at once. “Would you like to come in?”
Her open, trusting nature made him feel like a heel. This was going to be tough enough without going inside. “No, thanks,” he said with a smile. “I’ll wait right here.”
“Hey, Dad,” she bellowed. “Somebody here to see you.” She regarded Harlan Patrick with interest as they waited. “I could get you something to drink if you like. Maybe a soda?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
A middle-aged man came from the back of the house. He gave the girl a stern look. “How many times have I asked you not to shout all the way through the house? You could have come and told me we had company.”
“I didn’t want to leave him standing on the doorstep all by himself,” she said. She gave Harlan Patrick a last wistful look. “See you.”
“Bye. Thanks for your help.”
After she’d gone, Buzz Jensen faced him. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Harlan Patrick Adams,” he said quietly. “From Los Piños.”
As he mentioned the name of the town, he saw the man’s shoulders sag with defeat. Dread spread across his face. He came out onto the front stoop and closed the door behind him.
“Why are you here? What do you want?”
“Just to talk, if you don’t mind.”
“Is it Mary? Has something happened to her?” There was genuine concern in his tone, that and a hint of panic.
“No. It’s about Laurie.”
The man staggered visibly. “Nothing’s happened to her, has it? I would have heard. It would have been on TV.”
Worried by the man’s sudden pallor, Harlan Patrick took his arm and guided him to a lawn chair. “Are you okay?”
“Just surprised, that’s all. Tell me what’s happened.”
“Laurie’s fine.”
He shook his head as if to clear it. “Then why are you here?”
“She’s been asking a lot of questions lately. She’s been thinking about you, wondering why you left all those years ago.” Harlan Patrick looked the older man straight in the eye. “I love her, sir, but, you see, she’s afraid I’ll leave her the way you did. She needs to understand what happened back then before she can trust me or any other man.”
“Hasn’t she asked her mother?”
“She has, but it’s not enough. There’s a bond between a father and daughter. I’m only beginning to realize it myself.” He met the older man’s gaze evenly. “You see, Laurie and I have a baby girl.”
He seemed startled by that. “You’re the one, then. I saw that tabloid picture of her and the baby. I wondered who was responsible for getting her into trouble.”
“I never knew about the baby, not until that picture. You have to believe that. There is no way I wouldn’t have been there for her if I’d known.”
Buzz Jensen nodded in sudden understanding. “You’re one of those Adamses, aren’t you? I should have guessed it straight off. Named after your granddaddy. Honor’s a big thing with an Adams.”
“Yes, sir. So is family.”
“Is that why you’re here, instead of Laurie. You want to buy me off or something?”
“No. I wanted to see you, talk to you, make sure that arranging for Laurie to see you wouldn’t lead to more hurt for her.”
“I would never hurt her,” he said indignantly.
“You already have,” Harlan Patrick reminded him quietly. “That’s the problem.”
Buzz Jensen uttered a sigh of acknowledgment. “I suppose you’re right.”
“What about your family? Do they know about Laurie? Will they be hurt by all of this when the whole story comes out?”
“My wife knows,” he acknowledged.
Harlan Patrick hesitated, then forced himself to ask, “Does she know you never divorced Laurie’s mother?”
He nodded. “She accepted that we couldn’t be married.”
Harlan Patrick was relieved to know the man wasn’t a bigamist, after all. That didn’t make the situation a whole lot less complicated, though. “What about your kids?”
“They don’t know about it.” His expression turned defiant. “I don’t want them to.”
“I don’t see how you can avoid it,” Harlan Patrick countered. “Not if you see Laurie. They’ll have questions.”
“You can’t bring her here,” he said adamantly. “It’s as simple as that.”
Harlan Patrick was shocked by the decision. “You won’t see her? Not even after what I’ve told you? How can you do that to her?”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t see her. I said she couldn’t come here. If you want to set up a meeting for somewhere else, I’ll go.” His eyes filled with tears. “I never thought I’d have the chance to see my baby girl again. I thought I’d go to my grave knowing that I’d failed her and that she’d never forgiven me.”
There was so much pain and sincerity in his voice that Harlan Patrick had no choice but to believe him. “She never knew about the cards and letters,” he told him then. “Her mother kept them from her until recently.”
Buzz Jensen’s hands shook as he reached over to clasp Harlan Patrick’s hand and relief washed over his face. “Thank you for telling me that. You don’t know how hard I prayed that it was something like that. I didn’t want to believe she’d just forgotten all about me.”
“No, sir, Laurie never forgot.” He stared straight into the older man’s eyes. “But the time has come to help her let go.”
“Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“If you can leave first thing in the morning, I’ll take you to her.”
He nodded. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
“Seven o’clock, then. I’ll pick you up.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Buzz Jensen promised, his expression eager despite the questions the people inside were likely to have about the stranger who’d come calling.
Later, alone in a nearby motel, Harlan Patrick thought back over the meeting and tried to reassure himself that it was all going to work out. Or was he just setting a whole lot of people up for heartache?
* * *
As she left the stage after the last Louisville concert, Laurie was totally, thoroughly drained. All she wanted was to take a long hot shower and crawl into bed. Before she could do that, though, she had a group of VIP fans waiting to meet her backstage.
Val arranged these meet-and-greet sessions at the behest of local radio stations. When she wasn’t so tired, Laurie actually enjoyed them. Tonight, though, she could barely keep her eyes open. An idea for a new song had come to her the night before right at bedtime, and she’d stayed awake most of the night fiddling with it. A half-hour nap before tonight’s show hadn’t made up for the lost sleep.
As she walked into the green room where drinks and hors d’oeuvres had been set up, she forced a smile and moved from one cluster of people to another, making small talk, thanking the DJs who played her music, flattering their wives and sponsors. For a solid hour she played the part of gracious hostess, before Val whipped in and whispered in her ear.
“What?” she asked, staring at her assistant incredulously.
“Harlan Patrick’s here,” Val repeated. “He’s in your dressing room.”
“Why didn’t you bring him in here?”
“He wanted to wait there,” Val said. “I’ll make your excuses. Go.”
Laurie didn’t have to be urged twice. She flew down the hall and threw open the dressing-room door, but instead of Harlan Patrick, there was a stranger waiting, an older man who looked vaguely, disturbingly familiar. Her breath lodged in her throat.
The man stood slowly, took a hesitant step toward her, then stopped. “Hi, baby.”
“Oh, my God,” she murmured, thunderstruck. “It’s you.”
“It’s your daddy,” he confirmed.
Filled with wonder, she stepped closer, reached up with trembling fingers and touched his lined cheek, traced the deeper grooves that fanned out from the corners of his eyes—lines that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him.
But the scent of his aftershave was the same, tantalizing her with the memory of being lifted high in strong arms, then cuddled against a broad chest.
“It really is you,” she said in amazement. “But how did you get here?”
“Harlan Patrick found me. He came to California and brought me here.”
She realized then that he was in the room, too, standing to the side, watching intently as if ready to intercede the instant the meeting started to sour. She rushed into his arms.
“Thank you,” she said, peppering his face with kisses. “Thank you.”
“You’re okay?” he asked, searching her face.
“Better than okay,” she said, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
“Why don’t we get out of here, then?” he suggested. “You two could use someplace private to get reacquainted. I’ve already talked to the sitter about staying with Amy Lynn till I get there.”
“Yes, of course. The hotel, then.” She gazed at her father. “I’ll get you a room, next to mine if possible.”
“Already done,” Harlan Patrick said.
“He doesn’t miss much, this fellow of yours,” her father said with evident admiration.
“No,” she agreed. “He doesn’t miss much.”
At the hotel Harlan Patrick retreated to the adjoining suite while she and her father sat opposite each other. Suddenly she was as tongue-tied as a four-year-old confronted with a stranger.
“I don’t know what to say to you, what to ask,” she admitted eventually.
“Would it help if I told you I was pretty much at a loss, too?”
“Some,” she said with a smile that came and went. Finally she blurted out the only question that really mattered, the one that had tormented her for all these years. “Why, Daddy? Why did you go?”
“What has your mother told you?”
“Just that you were bored, that you needed to move on.”
He regarded her with regret. “Sad to say, that’s probably as close to the truth as I could tell you. I was immature and irresponsible back then. I wasn’t ready to be tied down. I tried—for five years I did the best I could—and then I just had to go.”
The glib explanation filled her with anger. “You make it sound so simple, as if you were walking away from a business deal that wasn’t to your advantage. Didn’t I matter to you at all?”
He seemed stung by the accusation. “Of course you did. I regretted leaving you more than anything, but I couldn’t see any other way to figure out what kind of man I was. I suppose I thought I’d come back one day or that you’d come and visit me, but then this and that happened and I just stayed away, built a new life. When I never heard a word from either of you, I figured you and your mama had done the same.”
“I just found out about the postcards, the letters, everything you sent back then.”
“That’s what Harlan Patrick told me. I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t know your mother would keep them from you. After a while, when I knew you were old enough to answer and you didn’t, I figured it didn’t matter to you anymore.”
“You were my father,” she said angrily. “How could you not matter to me?”
“I’d been gone a long time.”
“But you were my father,” she repeated.
“I’m sorry, baby.”
He opened his arms and after a long hesitation, Laurie moved into them. “But I’m back in your life now and this time I’ll be a part of it for as much or as little as you want.”
“Are you still in California?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
“I’ll come to visit,” she said at once. “And bring Amy Lynn. Wait until you see her. She’s beautiful.”
“I saw the picture in the tabloid. I couldn’t believe I was really a granddaddy.” He met her gaze, then glanced away, his expression guilty. “You can’t come there, Laurie. Much as I want you to, you can’t.”
Her whole body seemed to go cold at his words. “Why?”
“Because I have a new family now, a boy and a girl. They…” He looked as if he might weep. “They don’t know about you.”
She stared at him in shock. “But you and Mama—”
“That’s right. We never divorced, so you see why I can’t let you come. They’re too young to understand what I’ve done to them. Their mother knows, but we’ve protected the kids. My girl’s a teenager. She’s at that impressionable age when this could tear her world apart.”
“You have another daughter,” she repeated, her voice flat as she envisioned a girl who’d grown up with her father’s love and attention the way she should have, the way she’d never had a chance to.
“How could you?” she asked, her emotions raging. “How could you do that to them? To me? What kind of man would do that?”
“One who’s weak,” he said at once. “A strong man would have stayed in Texas, made his marriage work, but I wasn’t strong then and I wasn’t strong when I settled down with Lucille in California, but she knew the truth. That’s how I justified it.”
“There is no justification,” Laurie all but shouted as she saw her happy ending slipping away.
He sighed deeply. “You’re right. There is no justification.”
“So this is it, then? You drop in, say hi and then run back to the life you’ve built on a lie? I’m supposed to wait around for you to sneak away for an occasional visit with me, an unfortunate reminder of the past you left behind.” She stood up and glowered down at him. “Well, thanks, but no thanks. As of this moment, I no longer have a father. I no longer need one in my life.”
She reached for her purse, fumbled inside until she found the package she’d been carrying with her ever since its discovery. She took one last look at the bright paper, then flung it in her father’s face. “Give this to your other daughter, the one who matters.”
“Laurie,” he whispered, reaching for her.
“No,” she said furiously, backing away and opening the door. She took one last look at her father’s haggard face, his shattered expression, and then she walked out and quietly closed the door behind her.
When she walked into the room next door, Harlan Patrick was waiting. He looked up at her entrance, studied her face, then opened his arms. She ran into them and burst into tears.
“He still won’t let me be a part of his life,” she whispered brokenly. “He still doesn’t want me.”
“You know that’s not true,” he consoled her. “It’s complicated. There are other people to consider. Maybe one day he’ll find a way to tell them everything. In the meantime can’t you accept that he does love you? He dropped everything and came here the minute I contacted him. Isn’t that proof of how he feels?”
She wished it were, but it wasn’t. Not when the bottom line was that he would be walking out again and leaving her behind.
Chapter Fifteen
Laurie was inconsolable. By morning she had retreated into a bleak silence that tore Harlan Patrick’s soul in two. No matter what he said to her, no matter how he pleaded with her to make allowances for her father’s new circumstances, she saw only that she was being essentially abandoned all over again.
“But I’m not leaving,” he reminded her. “I’m right here.”
