Sherryl Woods - The Cowboy and His Wayward Bride

“Why should it have been your problem, your solution? I was the one who was pregnant.”

“With my baby, dammit!” He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, then said more calmly, “We could have figured it out together.”

“And done what? You’d be miserable away from White Pines. And I can’t live there. It was as simple as that.”

“We could have worked it out,” he insisted with the stubborn conviction that was pure Adams. It didn’t matter that they’d run into the same brick wall a thousand times before.

“And they’re always telling me I’m the romantic,” she said with a rueful sigh. “This time there wasn’t a happy ending, Harlan Patrick. Trust me.”

“Trust you,” he hooted. “That’s a laugh.”

He regarded her evenly and took a step closer. He was near enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body, smell the pure masculine scent of him. He reached out and ran his knuckle along the curve of her cheek, setting off goose bumps. She hated that he could make her react like that with just the skim of his fingers.

“Darlin’, we’ve got a whole passel of passion, no question about that,” he said. “We might even have a little love left. But I’m afraid trust is the one thing we’ll never have between us again. You’ve pretty much seen to that, haven’t you?”

Something died inside her at the cold, hard flatness of his words, but she knew it was the truth, had known it way back when she’d made the decision to keep the secret. Staying silent was going to cost her eventually. Now it had and it hurt more than she’d ever imagined.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“ Sorry won’t cut it this time. Now how about getting this stuff together and taking me to see my daughter?”

It was a command, not a request, and it sent a jolt of pure fear shooting through her. “Tonight?”

“I think it’s time, don’t you? Way past time, in fact.”

“She’ll be asleep,” she protested, trying to buy time. An hour from now she could bundle Amy Lynn up, wake the band and be on the bus heading for the next stop. No one would question the abrupt, middle-of-the-night departure, not aloud at any rate, and definitely not once they’d heard about Harlan Patrick’s untimely arrival.

He gave her a look that suggested he saw straight through her. “I’ll be quiet as a church mouse,” he countered. “And if she happens to wake up, well, I’d say a momentous occasion like this is worth losing a little sleep over, wouldn’t you?”

Laurie couldn’t think of a single argument that could possibly counter the bitter logic of that. “Give me five minutes,” she said tightly, then waited for him to leave the room.

He didn’t budge. Regarding her evenly, he said with wry humor, “You surely weren’t thinking I’d wait outside, were you? With that big old window right over your dressing table? I don’t think so. As I recall, climbing out windows in the middle of the night used to be one of your specialties. That’s how we got around your curfew way back when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”

“I was a kid back then,” she protested, then gave up. He was sticking to her like glue, and that was that. “Okay, then, at least turn your back.”

“Laurie, there’s not an inch of bare skin on your body I haven’t seen with my own eyes. It’s a little late to turn all prim and proper on me.”

She thought she detected a faint hint of laughter in his voice, and that alone was enough to give her hope that they could get through this mess tonight and go on with their lives. This was Harlan Patrick, after all. He’d always been quick to anger, but just as quick to forgive. He’d see Amy Lynn, satisfy himself that she was okay and go back to Texas. That would be that, she thought optimistically.

One glance at his expression told her she was delusional. Harlan Patrick wasn’t going anywhere. And once he’d seen Amy Lynn, what then? Would he really be able to walk away, or would that just be the beginning of her worst nightmare? Mad as he was, she couldn’t envision him demanding marriage at the moment. Would he try to take her baby? It was a distinct possibility.

Already gearing up for the fight, she scowled at him. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” she said, “if you’re so hard up you have to sneak a peek at my bare breasts, then have yourself a ball.”

She stripped out of her damp stage clothes and reached for fresh underwear. Only then did she notice that it wasn’t strewed all over the room the way she’d left it.

Without bothering to cover herself, she turned to him, laughter bubbling up. “You straightened up in here, didn’t you?”

He shot her a defiant look. “So what if I did?”

“Harlan Patrick Adams, I’m surprised at you. I thought you were long past tidying up my messes.”

“Old habits die hard, darlin’,” he said in a tone rich with hidden meanings. “Maybe you should remember that.”

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