Suddenly, Annie's Father

“But—”

“Let me finish now. Your mama and I aren’t up to raising Annie the way the girl ought to be raised. We had a houseful of boys. Girls just aren’t the same, even though Annie seems bent on being the toughest little tomboy in the whole town. Besides that, times have changed since you and your brothers were kids. The world’s a different place.”

“Not in Wilder’s Glen,” Slade protested. “It’s perfect for Annie. It’s a small town. She’ll be as safe there as she could be anywhere.”

“Her safety’s not the only issue. Even if it were, she’ll be just as safe in Los Piños. No, indeed, there’s a more important issue, and you know it. She misses you. She belongs with you. We were glad enough to fill in for a while, but it’s time for you to take over now and that’s that. Otherwise the child will be scarred for life, thinking that her own daddy didn’t want her any more than her mama did.”

“But—”

“No buts, and you can forget coming after her. We’ll bring her to you this weekend,” Harold announced decisively, as if he no longer trusted Slade to show up for her.

Slade sighed heavily. The sorry truth was he wouldn’t have, not even with a deadline staring him in the face. He would have called at the last minute with some excuse or another, and counted on his parents to hang in with Annie a little longer.

Hearing a date and time for assuming responsibility for his daughter all but made Slade’s skin crawl. Much as he loved Annie, he wasn’t cut out to be a parent to her. His experience with her mother was pretty much evidence of his lack of understanding of the female mind. He was also flat-out terrified that the resentment he felt toward Suzanne would carry over to their daughter in some way he wouldn’t be able to control. No kid deserved that.

Annie was the spitting image of his ex-wife in every way, from her gloriously thick hair to her green-as-emerald eyes, from the dusting of freckles on her nose to her stubborn chin. Apparently she had her mama’s wicked ways about her, too. She’d caused more trouble in the last year than any child he’d ever known. She’d topped his own imaginative forms of rebellion by a mile and she hadn’t even hit puberty yet. What on earth would her teenage years hold? To be fair, he couldn’t blame his parents for not wanting to find out.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his own voice desperate now. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea for her to come here. She’s comfortable there with you. She’s starting to think of that as home. She spent the school year there. She’s made friends. Uprooting her all over again won’t be good for her. Besides that, the Adamses don’t even know I have a daughter. I’m living in a bunkhouse. Some days I don’t get to bed till midnight and I’m back up again at dawn.”

He’d ticked off a half-dozen excuses before he was done, most of them flat-out lies. He knew that a staunch family man like Harlan Adams would never object to Slade bringing his daughter to the ranch. If anything, he’d be furious Slade hadn’t brought her to be with him before now.

As for the living arrangements, Harlan Adams would make adjustments for that, too. It had been Slade’s choice to live in the bunkhouse, rather than one of the other homes dotted across Adams land. He’d wanted to stay close to the horses that were his responsibility. Horses were something he understood.

He tried one last panicked ploy. “I could get you some help,” he offered. “Maybe a housekeeper.”

“This isn’t about cooking and cleaning,” his father scoffed. “It’s about a little girl needing her daddy. We’re coming Sunday and that’s that.”

There was a finality to his tone with which Slade was all too familiar. Just to emphasize his point, Harold hung up before Slade could think of a single argument to convince him to keep Annie with them.

“Looks like it’s time to face the music, bud,” he muttered under his breath. Way past time, some would say.

Resigned to his fate, first thing in the morning he arranged to sit down with Cody Adams to discuss his housing situation.

“If there’s no place available, I can call my folks back and tell them to give me more time to work it out,” he told Cody, praying for a reprieve.

“Absolutely not,” Cody said at once, then grinned at Slade’s heavy sigh. “Uh-oh, were you counting on me to bail you out of this?”

“I suppose I was,” Slade admitted. “Annie and I haven’t spent a lot of time together. I’m not sure how good I’ll be at this parent thing.”

“Then you’re lucky you’re here. Anytime you’re at a loss, just ask one of us for help.” The rancher’s expression turned sly. “I know one woman who’d be glad to step in and do a little mothering if Annie needs it.”

An image of Val Harding came to mind without Cody even having to mention her name. A petite whirlwind with a nonstop mouth, she had set her sights on Slade during a visit to the ranch a few months back. She hadn’t let up since. Thankfully, she was in Nashville right now with her boss, country music superstar Laurie Jensen, who was married to Cody’s son.

“Thanks all the same,” Slade said curtly. “Last I heard Val was out of town.”

Cody’s grin spread. “Got back last night. The way I hear it from Harlan Patrick, Laurie’s going to take a break for a while. She’ll be working on the songs for her next album. Val should have plenty of time on her hands.”

“I just hope she finds a way to spend it besides pestering me,” Slade muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Thankfully, Cody let the subject drop. He held out a key. “Check out that house down by the creek. It’s been vacant since Joe and his wife left. It’s probably a little dusty, but it should be fine for the two of you once it’s aired out and had a good cleaning. If it needs anything—dishes, extra blankets, whatever—let me know. I’ll get somebody to handle the horses today. You get the place ready. Call up to the main house. One of Maritza’s helpers can come down to give you a hand.”

“No need,” Slade said. “I’ll take care of whatever needs to be done. Thanks, Cody. I owe you.”

Cody regarded him speculatively. “Family counts for a lot around here. We’ll welcome Annie as if she were one of us. You can rest easy on that score.”

Slade knew he meant it, too. The Adamses were good people. Maybe they would be able to make up for whatever he lacked.

He took the key Cody offered and headed toward the small house made of rough-hewn wood. It wasn’t fancy, but there was a certain charm to it, he supposed. Pots of bright red geraniums bloomed on the porch and a big old cottonwood tree shaded the yard. The creek flowed past just beyond.

The house had been closed up since the last tenant had left, a married hand who’d retired and moved to Arizona. A cursory glance around the small rooms told Slade it had everything he and Annie could need, including a small TV that had been hooked up to cable. The kitchen was well stocked with dishes and pots and pans. Fortunately, the refrigerator had a good-size freezer, big enough to accommodate all the prepared meals he and Annie were likely to consume. His cooking skills ran to cold cereal and boiled eggs.

The closets revealed a supply of linens for the beds, a small one in what would be Annie’s room, and a big brass bed with a feather mattress in what was clearly the master bedroom. Staring at that mattress was disconcerting. All sorts of wicked images came to mind, images of being tangled up with a woman again. One particular woman, he conceded with some dismay. He could all but feel her breath on his chest and sense the weight of her head tucked under his chin. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy, much less the reality.

“Quite a bed, isn’t it?” an all-too-familiar voice inquired with a seductive purr.

Slade scowled at the intrusion by the pesky woman whose image had just flitted through his mind. “You ever heard of knocking?” he asked.

Val didn’t flinch at his impatient tone. “I wasn’t sure anyone was in here. Nobody’s been living here and the front door was standing open. I was afraid someone had broken in.”

Slade regarded her incredulously. “So you decided to do what—wander in and talk them to death? Didn’t it occur to you that if a robber was in here, you could get hurt?”

She grinned, looking smug. “Worried about me, cowboy? That’s progress.”

She slipped past him into the room, leaving a cloud of perfume in her wake. Slade tried not to let the scent stir him the way it usually did. Sometimes he thought he smelled that soft, flowery aroma in the middle of the night. Those were the nights he tossed and turned till dawn and cursed the day Val had come to live at White Pines and taken an interest in him.

“Nice view,” she observed, gazing out at the creek. “What are you doing here, by the way?”

“Moving in,” he said, backing out of the room before his body could get any ideas about tossing her onto that feather mattress to see if it—and she—were as soft as he imagined.

She turned slowly. “Alone?”

“No.”

Something that might have been disappointment flared briefly in her eyes. “I see.”

Guilt over that look had him admitting the truth. “My daughter’s coming to stay with me.” He tested the words aloud and found they didn’t cause quite so much panic since his talk with Cody. Knowing he’d have backup had eased his mind. Maybe Annie could survive having a father as inept as him, after all.

Val’s expression brightened with curiosity. She seized on the tidbit as if he’d tossed her the hottest piece of gossip since the world had discovered that singer Laurie Jensen had a secret baby by the man who was now her husband.

“You have a daughter?” she asked. “How old? What’s she like? Where’s she been all this time? What about her mother?”

Slade grinned despite himself. “You care to try those one at a time?”

“Oh, just tell me everything and save us both the aggravation,” she retorted. “I wouldn’t have to pester you so if you’d open up in the first place.”