Cowboy Daddy (15 page)

“Maybe. But then I think about my career.”

“And your promotion?”

“That, too. It’s between me and this other guy.” She sighed. “Tim the Turkey.”

“Interesting title. Does it mean he’s in management?”

She laughed. “Yes. And that he has a reputation for cornering secretaries in the supply room. No one’s formally complained about sexual harassment, but the rumors have been running wild. He hates that I’m his competition.”

“He doesn’t like you?”

“He doesn’t like the fact that I’m a woman.” She looked up at him. “What kind of boss were you?”

“My dad made me work my way up through the ranks, so I knew what it was like to be forty stories up on a steel beam. I tried to be fair, to listen, then make the best decision. Pretty much an average kind of boss.”

“Sounds a little better than average to me,” she said, shifting until she was sitting straight in her seat. “I’ve worked so hard for this promotion. It was my goal from the time I hired on with the company right out of college.”

“How is the leave of absence going to affect your chances?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to think it won’t matter, but I’d be kidding myself. Tim will be there every day, getting his work done.”

Jake was surprised to find he wanted Anne to get the promotion, not because it would make his life easier, but because she’d worked hard and it was something
she
wanted. He was still a little wary, but the distrust was easing.

“I appreciate you taking the time to see this thing through with Laurel,” he said.

“I want to spend some time with her, but I’m so scared.”

“Of what? She thinks you’re the hottest thing since hand-held video games.”

“That’s it, exactly.” She glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping girl. Her lips curled into a smile. “Every day I spend with her, I grow to care more and more. Laurel is in the honeymoon stage. It’s working now, but we’re heading in different directions. Her case of hero worship is going to wear off. I think she’ll still like me, but it won’t be the same. I don’t want to get my heart trampled by a thirteen-year-old girl, but I can’t find a way to stop it from happening.”

He’d never thought about Anne’s risk in all this. He’d spent the past few days worrying about how Laurel’s relationship with Anne affected him. But she was right. Laurel would get over her intense feelings and then life would settle down to some semblance of normalcy.

“She’ll never want to let go of the relationship,” he said. “She needs a woman in her life.”

“She needs a woman, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll need me. What happens if you remarry?”

“That’ll never happen,” he said without thinking.

“Why?”

“It just won’t.”

Get married again? He shook his head. Not in this lifetime. He’d barely recovered from his last marriage, and Ellen had been gone for two years.

It had all started out so well. He and Ellen had been best friends. Marriage had been a natural extension of that relationship. Everything had been fine those first couple of years. Until Ellen had decided she wanted to have a baby. They’d tried and tried, but nothing had happened.

Jake gripped the steering wheel more firmly. He could still remember the look on his father-in-law’s face when he’d sat Jake down in his study.

“I’ve got some bad news, son.” Michael had taken to calling him “son” when Jake’s father had passed away. “It seems the problem is with you.”

He’d gone on with an explanation about low sperm and lack of production, but none of it had made sense. He hadn’t been listening, didn’t even remember leaving Michael’s large house. The next thing he knew, he was home and Ellen was crying. She hadn’t said a word about it to him. She hadn’t had to. He’d seen the sorrow and pity in her eyes. There would be no Masters son to carry on the family name. No child of his own to love and watch grow. That night Ellen had spoken to her father about adopting a child and within two weeks he’d arranged something private through a lawyer friend.

Jake glanced in his rearview mirror. Laurel shifted in her sleep. Her long brown hair hung over her shoulders. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew they were hazel. Like Anne’s mother.

Anne. He looked at her. She was staring at him. Their eyes met, then she quickly turned away. Bobby had given Anne what Jake could never give any woman. A child of her own.

He remembered the last years with Ellen. The arguments, the silences. Laurel’s pale face as she witnessed her parent’s marriage fall apart. He remembered last night and the sound of Laurel’s laughter as she had played with her cousins. He remembered her insistence on spending time with Anne. With her birth mother. He remembered the last two years and the way he’d pulled back from his daughter. The nights he’d spent alone mourning his late wife and the future they were supposed to have had. He remembered the times he raged against God for denying him a son.

Anne was right. They were all heading in different directions. He could only pray they weren’t on the road to disaster. He clenched his jaw. No matter what, he wasn’t going to lose Laurel. She was all he had left.

Chapter 8

T
he house stood in a shelter of pine trees. Behind it was a large barn and several corrals. Past them, Anne could see more buildings and a young man exercising a horse on the end of a lead.

“We’re here,” Jake said, turning off the engine. He glanced at her expectantly.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, staring at the peaked roof and wide bare windows. A big porch wrapped around the front of the house. The lawn looked new and a painfully bright green.

She stepped out of the Explorer. Her legs were stiff. She shook them and stretched. Jake hadn’t rushed to get them back, so the drive had taken three days. Laurel unfolded herself from the back seat. She ripped off her headphones and tossed them back into the truck.

“Give me the key,” she said, dancing around her father. “I want to show Annie everything.
⁹
*

He handed her his key ring. Laurel found the correct one, then took Anne’s hand and pulled her toward the house.

“Come on,” she said. “You’ve got to see the inside. It’s so big. But empty.” She climbed the porch stairs, let go of her hand and stuck the key into the lock. “I’ve been working on decorating it, but I don’t know very much, and it’s not that fun to do alone. You can help me now.”

She got the door unlocked and pushed it open. She dragged Anne across the threshold. Laurel had been right. The house was huge. A stone fireplace dominated the living room. A couple of couches were pushed up against bare walls, but other than that there wasn’t any furniture. Laurel showed her the dining room. Again, bare walls and floors, no window coverings. Just a tattered old table and four chairs.

“Dad says we should replace this,” Laurel said, running her hands over the pitted wood. “Through here is the kitchen.”

Modern appliances gleamed from their built-in spaces. Unlike her white-on-white, this kitchen was filled with color. The tiles were cream with a pale blue pattern. The oversize center island continued the theme with alternating blue and cream tiles. The bleached cabinets contrasted with the bright floral wallpaper. Plants hung in the corners. A cow-print table with four matching chairs sat in front of the bare window.

“I ordered this from a catalog,” Laurel said proudly, standing behind one of the chairs.

Anne stared. The furniture was wood, all right. But it had been painted white with black marks. Like a cow. “Oh, my. What did your father say?”

“He wasn’t very happy,” Jake said, coming into the kitchen. He had her luggage in one hand and Laurel’s bag in the other. “Where did you want to put Anne?”

“There’s an extra bed in my room,” Laurel said hopefully

“Not a good idea,” Jake said, before she could answer.

He shot her a glance as if daring her to defy him, but she had no intention of doing so. As much as she adored her daughter, she wanted her own room.

“How about that front bedroom?” Laurel said. “It’s big and it’s right next to me.”

He looked at her for confirmation.

“Sounds fine,” she said.

“I’ll go ahead and take these up.” He lifted the bags a few inches, then turned and headed toward the stairs.

Laurel took her hand and pulled her across the hall and into a library. “Daddy and I both like to read. Mom did, too. She liked to collect first editions. We’ve got bunches.” There were piles of boxes, some of them open. Anne could see the books inside. The walls of the room were floor to ceiling bookshelves.

She remembered telling Jake that before she’d left Paradise, she’d never owned a hardcover book in her life. Had he thought of his library then? Had he secretly laughed at her or had he understood her desire to be more than she’d been born to?

A pair of leather wing chairs stood in one corner with a table and a reading lamp between them. Scattered throughout the room were smaller tables covered with framed photographs. Anne stepped closer to study the pictures.

The first one she picked up showed a much younger Jake and a beautiful, elegantly dressed dark-haired woman holding a baby. A newborn, from the look of the infant’s scrunched-up face. The pain caught Anne like a blow to the chest. The air rushed out of her lungs and she had to gasp to breathe.

“That’s when Mom and Dad brought me home from the hospital,” Laurel said, blithely unaware of the hurt her words caused.

Anne stared. Her child. The baby they wouldn’t let her hold that horrible day over thirteen years ago. She traced the cool glass, but she couldn’t touch the infant’s face, feel her warmth or inhale her baby scent. She wanted to weep and scream against a fate that had been so unkind. But it wasn’t fate, she reminded herself. It was her. She’d made the decision to give Laurel up, and now she had to live with the consequences.

She swallowed hard and exchanged that photo for the one that had been next to it. This was a wedding portrait. Ellen looked stunningly beautiful in yards of white lace. The gown showed off her fashion-model’s figure to perfection. She carried a cascade of flowers. Next to her, Jake stood tall and handsome. The

look on his face as he stared at his bride made Anne’s heart clench even tighter. There was so much love between them. It was as tangible as the cool silver of the frame.

The rest of the photographs showed the happy couple together. Some with Laurel, some just the two of them. Anne glanced down at her rumpled shorts and T-shirt. At her freckled arms and generous breasts. She was nothing like Ellen Masters. Even on her best day, she could never compete with the tall, slender beauty.

She told herself it wasn’t a competition. She reminded herself that Laurel didn’t care what she looked like, and that Jake hadn’t minded her curves that night they’d made love. But it had been dark, a little voice whispered. Their joining had been about circumstance and mutual need. She had a bad feeling that he hadn’t specifically been making love to her. Any woman would have done.

She took a moment to compose her features, then turned away from the photos. “I don’t see any of your school pictures,” she said to Laurel.

“Oh, Dad keeps those in his bedroom.” She wrinkled her nose. “I hate some of them. There’s a photo album of me somewhere in one of these boxes.” She motioned to the stacks. “Maybe we can find it later.”

“I’d like that.” Anne drew in a deep breath to compose herself. “What’s next?”

“Through here are all the catalogs and stuff.” Laurel led the way into a smaller room. A long table stood against one wall. Decorating magazines, paint and carpet samples and catalogs from dozens of home furnishings manufacturers covered the surface. “I’ve been trying to figure all this out, but I don’t know where to start.” She brushed her bangs out of her face and sighed. “Dad told me I could do anything I wanted with the house, but everything is so expensive, and I am only thirteen.”

“Oh, you are, are you?” Annie walked over to the table and gave Laurel a smile. She forced her feelings of inadequacy into the back of her mind and concentrated on her daughter. “A couple of days ago you were trying to convince us all you were grown-up.”

“Maybe I am still a little, you know, young,” Laurel said, then grinned. “Can you help me with this stuff?”

“I’d love to.” If she really stayed for two months there wasn’t going to be much else to fill her time, Anne thought as she stared at her daughter. “I used to do a lot of crafts when I was growing up. I also sewed.”

“Really?” Laurel couldn’t have looked more shocked if Anne had told her she was a spy for a foreign government. “With a sewing machine and everything?”

“It’s a lot faster than doing it by hand. Why are you so surprised?”

Laurel shrugged. “I’ve never known anyone who could sew before.”

Anne thought about the pictures of Ellen. In all of them she was wearing expensive designer clothes. It made sense that Jake’s late wife hadn’t taken the time to sew anything.

“I haven’t done it in a while, but I think I could whip something up.”