Suddenly, Annie's Father

“Is that so? And here I thought you enjoyed pestering me.”

“Getting you to talk is a challenge,” she admitted. “And you know how we women react to a challenge.”

He regarded her intently. “So, if I just blab away, you’ll go away eventually?”

She grinned. “Maybe. Try it and see.”

“Sorry. I’m too busy right now. Maybe another time.”

The dismissal didn’t even faze her. “Busy doing what? Looked to me like you were daydreaming when I came in.”

“Which is why it’s all the more important for me to get started with the work around here now,” he said, and headed for the kitchen again. He’d seen cleaning supplies in there on his first stop. He snatched up a broom, a vacuum, dust cloths and furniture polish. He figured he could give the place a decent once-over in an hour and be back on the job before noon.

Val reached for the broom. “Give me that. I’ll help.”

Slade held tight. “There’s no need. You’ll ruin your clothes.”

The woman always dressed as if she were about to meet with the press or go out for cocktails. He doubted she owned a pair of jeans or sneakers, much less boots. In fact, today was one of the rare occasions when she wasn’t wearing those ridiculous high heels she paraded around in. He had to admit those shoes did a lot for her legs. It was almost a disappointment when she traded them for flats, as she had today.

In flats, she barely came up to his chin, reminding him of just how fragile and utterly feminine a creature she was. It brought out the protective instincts in him, despite the fact that there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Val Harding could look out for herself. Heaven knew, she protected Laurie with a ferocity that was daunting. No one got anywhere close to the singer without Val’s approval. Slade secretly admired that kind of loyalty. Too bad Suzanne hadn’t possessed even a quarter as much. They might have stayed married.

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, give me the broom,” Val said. “A little dust never hurt anything. You’ll get finished that much sooner if you let me help. Otherwise, I’ll just trail around after you asking more questions you don’t want to answer.”

She had a point about that. It wasn’t likely she’d respond to his dismissal and just go away. Reluctantly, Slade relinquished the broom and watched as she went to work with a vengeance on the wide-plank oak floors in the living room. She attacked the job with the same cheerfulness and efficiency with which she ran Laurie’s professional life.

When she glanced up and caught Slade staring at her, she grinned. “Get to work. I said I’d help, not do the whole job.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said at once, and turned on the vacuum. As he ran it over the carpet in the bedrooms, he could hear her singing with wildly off-key enthusiasm. He wondered if Laurie had ever heard one of her country music hits murdered quite the way Val was doing it.

With her help, he had the house tidied up in no time. Fresh air was drifting through the rooms and filling them with the sweet scent of recently cut grass and a hint of Janet’s roses from the gardens at the main house.

An odd sensation came over him as he stood in the living room and gazed about, listening to Val stirring around in the kitchen. The place felt like home, like some place a man could put down roots. For a man who’d spent most of his adult life on the road, it was a terrifying sensation.

* * *

Slade Sutton was the most exasperating, frustrating man on the face of the earth. Val watched him take off without so much as a thank-you. He looked as if he were being chased by demons as he fled the house. The limp from his accident was more exaggerated as he tried to move quickly. She knew his expression, if she’d been able to see his face, would be filled with annoyance over his ungainly gait and, most of all, over her.

Of course, he had that look a lot when he was trying to get away from her, she admitted with a sigh. It had been months since she’d first met him, and she could honestly say that she didn’t know him one bit better now than she had when she’d paid her first visit to White Pines.

No, that wasn’t quite true. Today she’d learned he had a daughter. Amazing. How could anyone keep a secret like that, especially around the Adamses, who made her look like an amateur when it came to nosing into other people’s lives? Laurie had tried to keep Harlan Patrick’s baby a secret from him and that had lasted less than six months. Of course, the tabloids had had a hand in leaking that news and sending Harlan Patrick chasing after Laurie.

A lot of women would have given up if they’d had the same reception from Slade that Val had had. Why go through the torment of rejection after rejection? Why poke and prod and get nothing but a shrug or a grunted acknowledgment for her persistence? She’d asked herself that a hundred times while she’d been in Nashville this last time. She’d hoped that a little distance from the ranch would give her some perspective, maybe dull the attraction she felt for him. After all, Slade Sutton wasn’t the last man on earth.

But he was the only one in years who’d intrigued her, the only one who hadn’t been using her to get closer to Laurie. In fact, he was the only man she knew who barely spared a glance for the gorgeous superstar. Val had caught him looking at her, though, sneaking glances when he thought she wasn’t aware of him. Maybe that hint of interest, reluctant as it was, was what kept her going.

Or maybe it had something to do with how incredibly male he was. Handsome as sin, a little rough around the edges, he had eyes a woman could drown in. She’d discovered that when he finally took off his sunglasses long enough to allow anyone to catch a glimpse of them. A dimple flirted at the corner of his mouth on the rare occasions when he smiled. His jaw looked as if it had been carved from granite. In fact, he was all hard angles and solid muscle, the kind of man whose strength wasn’t obtained in a gym, but just from living.

Bottom line? He made her mouth water. She sometimes thought that if he didn’t kiss her soon, she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.

Then again, she preferred to think she wasn’t quite so shallow. That it wasn’t all about lust and sex. Maybe she just liked a good mystery.

Slade was certainly that. He’d told the Adamses no more than he had to to get hired. He’d told her even less. There’d been times in the last six months when she’d found that so thoroughly frustrating she’d been tempted to hire a private investigator to fill in the gaps, but that would have spoiled the game. She wanted to unearth his secrets all on her own. It was turning out to be a time-consuming task. At the rate of one revelation every few months, she’d be at it for a lifetime.

It was a good thing her daddy had taught her about grit. Nobody on the face of the earth was more determined or more persistent than she was. She’d used those lessons to get the job she wanted in Nashville, pestering Laurie’s agent until he’d made the introduction just to get her out of his office. Now she was personal assistant to the hottest country music star in the country. Those same lessons made her the best at what she did.

Now they were going to help her get Slade Sutton, too.

She watched him hightail it back toward the barn and his precious horses. She grinned, understanding fully for the first time that she made him nervous. He was every bit as skittish as one of those new colts he found to be such a challenge. That was good. It was a vast improvement over indifference.

Yes, indeed, he could run, but he couldn’t hide, she concluded with satisfaction. Laurie was home for a much-deserved breather, and Val had a whole lot of time on her hands. Slade didn’t stand a chance.

Chapter Two (#u4b441edf-c270-5aa5-a5c5-96d54d54a7b6)

Sunday morning dawned with a sudden storm that rivaled the turmoil churning in Slade’s gut. Lightning and thunder split the air. From inside the house, he could see the creek rising rapidly, though it was not yet in danger of overflowing its banks as it had on a few terrifying occasions in past summers. Just a few years ago, he’d been told, it had flooded out this house, destroying most of the previous tenants’ belongings and washing away a lifetime of memories. In the tenacious manner of the Adamses and everyone around them, they had cleaned it up without complaint and started over.

He shuddered at another crack of thunder, though his unease had more to do with the next few hours than with the storm. Annie would be here all too soon. He had no idea how she felt about him these days. On his few visits to Wilder’s Glen, she had been withdrawn, clearly blaming him for the changes in her life.

As for him, he was nowhere near ready to deal with the changes her arrival would bring to his life. Oh, he’d made a few preparations. He’d moved his things over to their house. He’d gone into town and picked up enough frozen dinners to last for a month. The freezer was so crowded with them, there wasn’t even room for ice cubes.

He’d even gone into a toy store and impulsively bought a huge stuffed bear to sit in the middle of Annie’s bed. When she was little, he’d bought her a stuffed toy or a doll every time he’d come home. She’s always loved them then. Her eyes had lit up with unabashed joy and she’d crawled into his lap, hugging the latest toy tightly in her arms. Her smile had wiped away the guilt he’d always felt at leaving her behind. Maybe it would work one more time.

He trudged over to the barn through the pouring rain, finished up his chores, regretting the fact that they didn’t take longer. When he was through, he went back to the house to shower and wait. That gave him way too much time to think, to remember the way his life had been not so long ago.

He’d been a celebrity of sorts, a champion, whose whole identity had been wrapped up in winning rodeos. He’d had plenty of money in the bank. He’d had a beautiful, headstrong wife who could turn him on with a glance, and a daughter who awed and amazed him. Life was exciting, a never-ending round of facing the unexpected. There’d been media attention and applause and physical challenges.

What did he have now? A decent-paying job working at one of the best ranches in Texas. It was steady employment, no surprises. That’s what he’d told himself he wanted after Suzanne had walked out. Routine and boredom had seemed attractive after the turbulence of their last few weeks together. No emotional entanglements, not even with his own kid. He sighed heavily as he considered the selfishness of that.

He’d pay for it now, no doubt about it. Annie was no longer the joyous, carefree sprite she’d been a year ago. Suzanne was to blame for some of that, but he had to shoulder the rest. It was up to him to make up for the fact that Annie’s mother had walked out on both of them. If he’d been neglectful in the months since, Suzanne had been cruel. He knew for a fact she hadn’t written or called in all that time.

Rainwater dripped from the roof as he watched and waited. The summer storm finally ended almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving the air steamy and the dirt driveway a sea of mud. Dirt splattered every which way when his father’s car finally came barreling in just after one o’clock. Slade grinned at the sight. His father was driving the way he always did, as if he were ten minutes late for a military dress parade. The marine in him had never fully died.

Slade stepped off the porch and went to greet them, wrapping his mother in a bear hug that had her laughing. Only when he’d released her did he notice the exhaustion in her eyes, the tired lines around her mouth. Surely she hadn’t looked that old the last time he’d seen her. Knowing the toll Annie had taken on her was just one more thing for him to feel guilty about.

He studied his father intently as he shook his hand. He didn’t see any noticeable changes in Harold Sutton’s appearance. His close-cropped hair had been gray for years, so Slade couldn’t blame that on Annie. His grip was as strong as ever, his manner as brusque and hearty. He didn’t look like the kind of man who’d let a child get the better of him. Slade had to wonder if that hadn’t just been an excuse to force him to take Annie back into his life.

“Good to see you, Son.”

“You, too, Dad.”

“Annie, girl, get on out here and say hello to your daddy,” Harold Sutton commanded in a booming voice left from his days as a marine drill sergeant. None of his sons had ever dared to ignore one of his orders. Punishments for disobedience had been doled out swiftly. For a minute, though, Slade thought that Annie might. She stared out at them from the back seat, her expression mulish.

Eventually, though, she slipped out of the car with obvious reluctance and stood there awkwardly, refusing to come closer. It was all Slade could do not to gape when he saw her.

How the devil had his daughter gone from being a little angel in frilly dresses to this? he wondered, staring at the ripped jeans, baggy T-shirt and filthy sneakers Annie was wearing. He’d been prepared for the cast on her arm, but not for the fact that it appeared she’d been rolling in mud wearing it.

And what the dickens had happened to her curls? The last time he’d seen her, she’d had pretty, chestnut-colored hair, braided neatly and tied with bows. Now it looked as if someone had taken a pair of dull scissors and whacked it off about two inches from her scalp.

Annie regarded him with a sullen expression, while he tried to figure out what to say to her.