Texas Redeemed (3 page)

After the meeting, he’d visit his grandfather. Then he’d
check in at Blue Longhorn Motel if he wanted bare basics and privacy, or at Peridot,
the only hotel in Wellesley County that had withstood the Civil War, if he
wanted comfort and a continental breakfast that consisted of more than day-old
doughnuts and watered-down coffee. If need be he’d find a room in Meridien, but
from there the city was accessible only by means of the bridge, which was, even
in autumn, quick to bottleneck with tourists coming to and fro like the tide.

Peyton hadn’t brought much—clothes, laptop, paperwork and
some keepsakes he hadn’t wanted to leave behind in the minimalist Baltimore
apartment he’d sublet to a fellow surgeon who was freshly divorced and out on
his ass. With an excess of amenities, a killer view of the city and the most
incredible plasma screen television he’d ever laid eyes on, the place was a
bachelor pad. But it had never been home, and handing over the keys hadn’t been
hard.

The car ahead of him continued toward the staff parking
garage, and he drew in a steadying breath before relinquishing his own to a
valet and entering the hospital.

Though he’d spent more than enough time in this place—as
a patient sidelined with sports injuries growing up and then as a visitor
haunting the place after each of his grandmother’s three heart attacks—the
hospital’s aesthetic changes made the place seem foreign to him, from the
spacious, three-story glass foyer to the array of exotic plants and paintings,
display cases and tapestry. A plump receptionist instructed a guide to give him
a tour of the hospital and escort him to Chief Lindsey’s office.

“Two of our most recent developments are the children’s
library, built a few years ago, and the completely renovated and modernized
trauma wing. It was just finished last year when I joined the hospital,”
Shannon Dash, a member of the hospital’s public relations team, said as she led
him through a labyrinth of halls. “It’s the finest hospital in the county, but
our benefactor’s been making noise about funding a neuroscience center, hoping
to break ground in the next two years—if, of course, the land issues are worked
out and the new road built.”

His response to Shannon was a slight nod of
acknowledgment, and Sully Joe’s words came back to him.

“Yup, if it wasn’t for the hospital and the old hotel and
the mountains here that God gave us—and all the money folks’re piping into
it—this town would just dry up,” the gray-whiskered man had said, his dentures
clicking as he spoke. He'd taken his sweet time handing over Peyton’s gasoline
receipt. “But we ain’t for givin’ up our property just so some folks can show
off fat wallets.”

Now that he understood his grandfather was at the center
of a town debate, Peyton definitely wouldn’t dip into a conversation about the
“benefactor” who was very likely Nathaniel. Not that it was any surprise that
he’d put his stamp on the hospital that had cared so compassionately for his
wife in her final days. The facility in Los Angeles, connected to the
university where Nathaniel had intended for Peyton to earn his medical degree,
lay in the palm of Nathaniel’s hand. A position had been unofficially offered
to Peyton during a dinner party before he’d even graduated from UT Dallas, and
he’d spent the remainder of the evening downing vodka to drown the greasy
sensation in his gut that came with knowing his grandfather had bought his
future—and finally realizing he couldn’t keep living that way.

As he let Shannon lead him, he wondered whether Chief
Lindsey was a man whose integrity was for sale to the highest bidder. And he
hoped like hell this wasn’t the case, because after over a decade of earning
everything he got, he refused to relapse into being silver spoon-fed his
success.

The children’s library was mammoth. Arches resembling
stacks of colorful books towered high to the hand-painted dome ceiling. The
outer room boasted a bold electric fireplace and grand curios that contained
children’s books and artwork. The bookshelves, tables and desks with hutches
were crafted from the finest wood. Autumn and Halloween décor offered a festive
atmosphere.

When he followed the guide into the library a large gold
plaque stole his attention. He ventured forward. “The Anna Christine Jordan
Foundation Award,” he read aloud. Below the plaque was a list of the recipients
who’d received grants for medical care.

“We were recognized by the state for this foundation.
It’s very noteworthy—at least in these parts,” Shannon said with a satisfied
toss of her glossy white-blond ponytail.

Peyton frowned, looking closely at the plaque. How many
people with the last name Jordan lived in Night Sky?

“What do you know about this Anna Jordan?” he asked.

Shannon’s brow wrinkled. “Uh, not much, I’m afraid. Just
that this library was created in her honor after she died, and, of course, the
foundation. Your meeting’s starting shortly—”

He didn’t care about the meeting.

“Find me someone who can tell me about this foundation,”
he told her, feeling as if a blade was slowly being raked along his spine.

“Oh … right away, then.” Confused but obviously eager to
accommodate him, Shannon hurried off.

Peyton waited, his mind whirling. The hum of whispered
conversations, muffled giggles and cheery music from the intercoms swirled
around him. A burst of color in his periphery made him pivot sharply, his
senses on high alert.

The person standing close flinched but didn’t back away.
She was a willowy girl dressed in hospital scrubs, boots and a colorful scarf.

“I—I didn’t see you walk over,” he said. A half-assed
apology but the best he could do at the moment.

She pointed to the plaque with a browning apple core. “Do
you have a sick kid?” she asked in a butterfly-soft voice.

“No, I don’t.” He was anxious for answers and wasn’t up
for small talk with a child he doubted should be wearing hospital scrubs.

Finally Shannon returned, accompanied by a middle-aged
Hispanic man. “Manuel Esteban,” she said, “I’d like you to meet Doctor Peyton
Turner. He’s interested in the background of the foundation. Doctor Turner,
Manuel is a librarian here and can tell you more about this than I can.”

Manuel had extended his hand to Peyton, but faltered when
the girl gasped. The apple core slipped from her hand and fell to the carpet.

“Is there something we can do for you?” Shannon asked
her.

“Uh … uh …” An incoherent response from a girl who’d just a minute ago
seemed perfectly comfortable launching a conversation with a stranger. “No. No, you
can’t.
”

Peyton halted. Blood pumped hard at his temples and the
world around him ceased to exist as he looked into the girl’s face. His sulky
blue-and-pewter eyes saw an almost identical pair glowering back.

She sprinted out of the library, leaving behind a
discarded apple core and a speculation that was already turning Peyton’s life
inside out.

He looked toward the library’s vacant entryway. “Who—who
was that kid?” he demanded, his voice jagged.

Shannon was silent and looked to the librarian for an
explanation.

“That was Lucy. Her mother’s on the board here at
Memorial. You see, Doctor Turner and Miss Dash, Lucy is Anna Christine Jordan’s
sister.”

F
OLLOWING
A
DISCUSSION
on hospital policy, a review
of financial projections for the upcoming quarter and an update on the
children’s foundation, the board chair announced a recess and summoned to the
boardroom two servers who wheeled in carts loaded with refreshments.

“Can I get you a bagel or …?” one of the members offered
Valerie, his eyes clearly asking, as well, whether she was all right after the mention
of her deceased daughter.

She removed her reading glasses and hooked them onto the
V opening of her black silk blouse. “I’m good,” she said, addressing both his
spoken and unspoken questions.

The irresistible scent of coffee and baked bread beckoned
her and she made her way to the carts. Discussing the foundation, remembering
all it stood for and the person it honored, never got any easier. She missed
Anna every day but was grateful that something positive had come out of her
death.

Valerie had just taken a sip of her frothy latte when a
figure in blue scrubs barreled into the boardroom and clenched her arm.

“Lucy!” she shrieked, as a spot of hot liquid splashed
her shirtfront. “You’re not allowed in here!” Valerie grabbed a wad of napkins
and her purse and ushered Lucy into the hallway. “Have you been
running?
”

“Oh, Mom …” Lucy flung herself into Valerie’s arms. The
impact made Valerie hope that her glasses were still intact. The girl fisted
her hands in the back of her mother’s blouse and hid her tear-stained face
against her shoulder.

A pair of nurses stopped to help, seeing the girl
crumpled against her mother.

Strands of Lucy’s hair clung to Valerie’s chin and tears
had begun to wet the front of her top, but none of that mattered. “Start
talking, Luce. What happened?” Icy panic coiled around her heart. Lucy didn’t
cry—hadn’t since her sister’s funeral.

“It’s private.” That was Lucy’s way of dismissing the
other nurses who stifled their curiosity and continued on their way. No
question that the scene would fuel the hospital’s rumor mill by morning. Then
the hall was void of an audience and filled with the faraway noise of sirens
and intercom pages. “Mom,
he’s
here.
I don’t want to see him. Ever.”

“Who’s here …?”

And the words fragmented on Valerie’s tongue.

The man she’d spent years searching for stood at the end
of the hall. She clutched her daughter tighter, her eyes drinking in the sight
of Peyton Turner.

He seemed rougher, almost dangerous, and impossibly sexy.
Jaw tight, lips set in a grim line, he stared hard into her eyes in silent
interrogation.

Sensing that the ambiance had shifted, Lucy scooted to
Valerie’s side and frowned at Peyton as he approached. “Go away.”

“Valerie.” His voice was an intimate touch, sliding
beneath her clothes, claiming her body, seducing her soul. His very presence
stripped away anger and fear, baring her to him and making her want to know if
she had the same devastating effect on him.

She
needed
to
know. Drawn into the inferno she found in his gaze, she reached out a hand to
him.

“No!” Lucy protested, jerking her back. “D-don’t go to
him.” Then, hiccupping, she said to Peyton, “You don’t g-get to talk to her. Or
me. You were never h-here for us before, and we don’t w-want you here now.” She
turned teary eyes to Valerie, her body shuddering with hiccups and sobs. “He
w-was in the library asking a-about Anna’s foundation.”

“Tell me, Valerie.” His words were laced with
desperation. “I need to hear it from you.”

Over the years she’d fantasized about what she would say
to him if this moment ever came. But those thoughts danced away like ghosts in
the night, and there was only the raw truth. “Anna’s your daughter, Peyton.
Yours and mine. And so is Lucy.”

T
HE REALITY
OF it all sank deep into
Peyton like a hot, sharp blade—painless for that first nanosecond, then
excruciating, shocking. It floored him, and how could he have thought that it
wouldn’t? He’d demanded the truth from Valerie and there it was. There
she
was. His daughter.

“My daughter,” he said, then regretted it once Lucy’s
eyes narrowed.
Yeah, I get it,
he
wanted to respond.
You don’t want me to
stake a claim on you.

He flicked his gaze about the hallway—from the polished
toes of his Italian shoes to the pendant lights affixed to the ceiling to the
janitor emerging from the public restroom with a cleaning cart in tow. Anything
to avoid staring at Valerie. He’d gotten one full look at her when he’d found
her holding Lucy and had hoarded in his memory every detail of her
appearance—lithe-as-a-cat body, tousled dark hair, olive complexion with
freckles dusted across her nose, serious brown eyes holding panic and surprise,
and a scar halfway between her temple and left eye. Now he wanted answers, and
looking at her would only take him in a direction he didn’t want to go.

“The plaque in the children’s library … the foundation …
Anna.” He stumbled over the words, suddenly inarticulate, confused and so damn
frustrated with his inability to bounce back from a punch to the gut like this.
“Please. Tell me about—”

“No.”

The single word had Peyton snapping his head up and
pinning Valerie with a glare.

“No, we can’t talk here,” she said evenly, her solid
push-me-and-I’ll-push-you-back tone a contrast to the uncertainty in her
expression. “I was in the middle of a board meeting in there.” She indicated
the mahogany double doors a few feet down the hall. “Give me a minute to say my
goodbyes.”

He watched her turn and stride to the boardroom with Lucy
not far behind. The girl waited outside the door with her back to him, a
deliberate message to
back off.
He
could respect her space and could even understand her distrust of a man who was
practically a stranger, but it left him feeling cold to be shooed away from the
family he didn’t know he had. And it cut to the bone that he would never get
even this close to Anna.

“I didn’t know about you.” He’d almost spoken her name.
Still, it was apparent from the slight turn of her head and the abrupt way she
crossed her arms that she’d heard him. He could figure that to a teenage girl
who’d been reduced to crying on her mother’s shoulder, his not knowing about
her didn’t matter one damn iota.

The double doors opened and Valerie joined Lucy. She
whispered something that the girl instantly protested, then laid a firm hand on
her shoulder and continued whispering. The second she tugged a keychain from
her purse and handed it to Lucy, the girl whirled and stomped down the hallway
without a backward glance.

Valerie moved toward Peyton. “We can talk at my place—on
one condition.”

A man who’s just
meeting his daughter shouldn’t have to bow to anyone’s “conditions,”
he wanted
to bark back. Instead, he said, “Name it. Doesn’t mean I’ll agree.”

“Stay away from Lucy. She doesn’t want to see you.
And—and I don’t think you should see her, either. Not today, Peyton, okay?” She
lifted a hand toward his, then snatched it back. Twice already she’d made a
move to touch him. What would happen if she did? “Give her time.”

“You mean settle for a glimpse of my daughter?” His voice
felt thick, rough. “No—”

“Peyton,” she said tightly, “you don’t have a choice.”
The savagely determined glint in her eyes was something different, something
formidable he just couldn’t associate with the Valerie he remembered as an
eighteen-year-old who craved ranching and music and star-gazing as much as a
starving man craved his next meal. There was a disturbed look about her that he
could feel rather than see; he’d lived with it every day, had since his first
mission.

Had Anna’s death or the fact that he’d cut himself out of
her life put that look there?

Prepared to ask outright, he opened his mouth but clamped
it shut when a pale, blue-eyed brunette with a pixie-cut finger wave emerged
from the boardroom. In a camel-colored tweed dress with a thin black belt that
matched her ice-pick stilettos, she could have passed for a European fashion
model.

But only at first glance. There was an uninhibited flare
in her stride and a Texas flavor in her voice as she hurried to them, calling
out to Valerie, “Great, you’re still here!”

Valerie tensed visibly at the interruption. “Yes?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed with interest, emphasizing her
winged eyeliner. “Left this on the conference table.” She surrendered a
spiral-bound notebook, then pointed a French-manicured finger at Peyton. “You
look familiar.”

“Meet Peyton Turner—somebody I knew once upon a time,”
Valerie said with a frown. “Peyton, this is Felicity Moss.”

“Moss,” he repeated, recalling the surname of the
physician-in-chief emeritus who’d been on staff before Peyton had left Night
Sky. “What’s your relation to Chief Moss?”

“Daughter, though I’m a little put off that you remember
my father but not me.” Felicity smiled charmingly as if to say all was
forgiven. “Sophomore biology. Junior chemistry—we were lab partners that year.”

In the recesses of his mind he remembered the girl who’d
been sentenced to detention for calling him a dick in class after finding out
that he’d split her football jock boyfriend’s lip. There had been so many
scuffles and brawls during high school that he’d easily—and gladly—forgotten
half the people who’d been involved.

“Do you work here?” he asked her. “Take after your
father?”

“No, no. You likely don’t remember, but I absolutely
sucked in science.” The admission had even Valerie cracking a smile. “I’m the
concierge at Peridot. And you’re Lucy’s—” The slip had Felicity blushing fiercely.
“Um … small world, small town.”

That was for damn sure the truth. A beat of silence
passed before Felicity touched Valerie’s shoulder. “I’d better get back before
all the pastries are gone. Call me later.”

Valerie nodded, her eyes on Peyton as Felicity trotted
back to the boardroom. “Junie Peera at the diner’s going to be serving up
gossip about you and me by tonight’s dinner rush.”

Peyton didn’t even blink, because as absurd as it
sounded, people in Night Sky had always talked too much for their own good, and
the only thing more interesting than a newcomer was someone who’d disappeared
from town—under questionable circumstances—and come back.

“What happens tomorrow? Or the next day, Valerie?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting you to—to just
materialize
out of nowhere.”

“And I wasn’t expecting to come here and find out that
I’m a father … and that one of my daughters is dead.” His emphasis on the last
word sent a shadow of hurt fluttering over her face.

Then it was gone, replaced with cool resolve. “Should I
feel sorry for you? I raised them—and lost Anna—without you here. Don’t expect
an open door to Lucy’s life. Or mine.”

“Don’t expect me to back down. I won’t.”

“Really?” she said with a glance at his suit. “So you’ll
sample the family man lifestyle until it bores you. Lucy’s not a designer
jacket you can try on and then chuck aside once you’re bored. That’s your M.O.,
right? Get sick of something—or someone—and leave without a backward glance?”

It didn’t catch him off guard in the least that she
thought she had him pegged with one look at his clothes. She probably figured
he’d dusted the residue of Texas off his soles to taste the luxury of every
corner of this world. Once he’d been certain he wanted that. He’d been wrong—so
damn wrong.

And so was she.

“About eight-thirty or nine’s good for us,” Valerie went
on as she pivoted on her heel to leave. “Lucy should be settling down for the
night by then, and we can talk.”

“Hey.
Hey!
” he
said sharply. She paused. “Where do you live?”

“Prosper Boulevard. The Battle Creek Ranch.” She
continued on toward a row of elevators, but he unmistakably heard her say, “All
this time
I’ve
never been hard to
find.”

V
ALERIE’S
BRAVADO
FLED
like the air out of a
balloon the moment the elevator doors slid shut, enclosing her in the silver
car with the sounds of a saxophone’s sultry jazz and her own heartbeat pulsing
in her ears. Her fingers fumbled over the touch screen of her cell phone as she
speed-dialed the ranch’s business line.

“Battle Creek,” a distinctly hoarse female voice
answered.

“I need a favor, Cordelia.” She forewent phone etiquette
altogether, which was something her cousin didn’t care for anyway. “Take Lucy
tonight. Let her stay at the carriage house with you and Jack. I’ll pick her up
in the morning for school. Can you do that?” A pregnant pause followed and she
checked her phone to see if it had dropped the call. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard you, and yes, Luce can spend the night with
us. But why?”

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “Can’t
explain now,” Valerie said, rushing out to the hospital lobby.

“Fine,” Cordelia relented with a throaty chuckle. “Be
ready to ‘explain’ when you get back to the ranch. In the meanwhile I’ll be
under the impression that you’re finally plannin’ on pulling an all-nighter
with some hot cowboy.”

A visceral image surfaced of Peyton standing combatively
as he confronted her outside the boardroom. He was no cowboy. And the thought
of him being alone with her in the main house
all night
was downright dangerous. “Not quite the case.”

“If you say so.” Then, with a decisive click, Cordelia
disconnected the call.

Valerie hardly noticed the heavy rain as she dashed to
her car. All she could concentrate on was getting her daughter settled at the
carriage house before Peyton arrived. Up until six years ago she’d searched
doggedly for him, but now that he’d appeared in front of her almost like an
apparition, she had no maneuvers and no plan.

Protect yourself,
an internal voice warned as screenshots of all that she’d built for herself and
her children flitted through her mind. At eighteen the lies had been hell to
carry and she’d stood to lose Peyton’s friendship. Now her entire world was
balanced on everything she had to hide. The game had changed. And losing—her
business, her home, her daughter—was
not
an
option.
Protect yourself so you can
protect Lucy—and Anna’s memory.

With fresh resolve, Valerie threw open the driver’s door
and found Lucy hunched in the passenger seat scrolling through her iPod with one
ear bud in place.

“Mom.” Lucy half turned toward her, but didn’t stop
fiddling with the device. “Promise I won’t have to see him.”

“You won’t.” Not tonight, at least, but Valerie figured
this could be hashed out once they returned to the ranch.

“Good.” She flashed her teeth in a pseudo-smile that was
contradicted by her white-knuckled grip on the player.

Knowing where Lucy’s loyalties lay was a hollow
reassurance. “Peyton never knew I was pregnant. You need to remember that,
Lucy. He didn’t run out on you and your sister. It just wasn’t like that.”

“But he ran out on
you!
”
Lucy cried, tugging out the ear bud and tossing the player into her hobo. “He
was supposed to be your best friend, right? What kind of guy hooks up with a
girl and then just leaves? Forever?”

“He’s here now.” Except he wasn’t. Not like he’d been
before—as her friend, her rock … a man who said he needed her as desperately as
she needed him. Even as she said the words Valerie wasn’t foolish enough to
think Peyton had returned to Night Sky for her. In fact, he’d seemed sucker-punched
to see her. “Thirteen years is a long time, but it’s not forever.”

“Whatevs. It was forever for Anna.” Lucy twisted around
and began doodling with her finger on the foggy car window. “I want to go
home.”

Even with the radio up and 1970s chart-toppers
reverberating throughout the car, the drive to the ranch seemed uncomfortably
quiet. Having brought her daughter up on a healthy diet of music from
Tchaikovsky to Sinatra to Usher, Valerie tried to coax her into a
guess-the-song-title game. Tried, and failed. The girl was more interested in
watching the cobblestone Square and main road that were the heartbeat of town,
the grungy warehouse district and the smattering of tree-lined residential
streets fading into the wide-openness of hilly terrain and luscious green
forests near their cattle ranch on the outskirts.

This three-thousand-acre chunk of Hill Country was what
Valerie had fallen in love with as an orphan living under her uncle’s watchful
eye and iron fist. The grasslands, the clusters of pecan and oak trees, the
shadows of whitetail deer and quail moving through the trees and in the sky fit
together to create the brightest spot of her life growing up.