Suddenly, Annie's Father

“Oh, he’s a beauty, all right,” Harlan agreed readily. “Don’t get all lathered up, Son. I trust your judgment. Cody carried on so, I just wanted to see him for myself. Thought it might give us a chance to talk some more, too. You were in too big a hurry when you stopped by the house to ask about the party.”

The casual announcement set off alarms. Harlan Adams never came out to the stables merely to chat. He came when he wanted to poke and pry into matters that were none of his concern. Slade waited warily to hear what was on his mind.

Harlan found a stool and dragged it over so he could observe as Slade expertly went over the horse. Not used to having anyone watch his every move— except when he’d been in the rodeo ring—Slade was unsettled by the intense scrutiny. His nervousness promptly communicated itself to the powerful stallion. Black Knight turned skittish, prancing dangerously close to the walls of his stall. Slade smoothed a hand over his flank and murmured to him until he settled down.

“You’ve got a way with these animals, don’t you?” Harlan observed with apparent admiration. “Cody claims he’s never seen anyone better.”

Slade shrugged, though he was pleased by the compliment. “I suppose. I just treat ’em like the magnificent creatures they are.”

“The way a man treats his stock says a lot about him, if you ask me.” The rancher paused, then asked with disconcerting directness, “You as good with your daughter?”

Startled by the abrupt shift in subject to something so personal, Slade snapped his head up. Defensiveness had his stomach clenching again. “Meaning?”

Seemingly oblivious to the tension in Slade’s voice, the old man pointed out, “You kept her hidden away long enough. Didn’t even mention her when you applied for work. Never knew a man to hide the fact that he had family, especially a daughter as clever as your Annie. Why was that?”

“With all due respect, sir, I think that’s my business.”

Harlan Adams regarded him unrepentantly. “Well, of course it is. That doesn’t mean I can’t ask about it, does it? Around here, we like to think of the people working for us as part of the family. You’ve been here long enough to know when it comes to family, we tend to meddle. It’s second nature to us.”

Slade managed a halfhearted grin at that. “So I’ve heard.” He just hadn’t expected to become a target of it. It made him damned uncomfortable having to answer to his boss about his relationship with Annie. He doubted an outsider would understand all the complicated emotions at work.

“Well, then, tell me about your girl,” Harlan prodded again, clearly not intending to let the matter drop. “She made a real good impression when I met her. Val brought her by the house for a visit the other day.”

“What can I say, sir? She’s a handful.” A worrisome thought struck him. “She hasn’t gotten into some sort of mischief around here already, has she?”

‘Of course not,” Harlan said, dismissing that worry. “We’re glad to have her. She reminds me of my Jenny, the way she was when her mama and I first started going out. Whoo-ee, that girl was a hellion back then. Gave her mama and me fits. Not a one of my boys was as much trouble, and believe me, they weren’t saints.”

“Is that so?” Slade doubted Jenny Adams had ever gotten into the kind of mischief Annie could pull off.

“Stole my truck, for starters,” Harlan told him.

Slade stared, thinking of the beautiful, self-possessed young woman he’d met at ranch gatherings. He could think of a lot of ways to describe Jenny, but car thief wouldn’t have been among them. She’d been an activist for Native American affairs. Now she taught school and was darn good at it, from what he’d heard. A bit unconventional, perhaps, but effective.

“You’re kidding me,” he said, sure the old man had to be pulling his leg to make him feel better about Annie’s misdeeds.

“No, indeed. Girl was just fourteen, too. Smacked the truck straight into a tree.” He almost sounded proud of her accomplishment.

“I take it she wasn’t hurt,” Slade said.

“No, thank the Lord. When I caught up with her, she was cursing a blue streak, like the car was to blame. I brought her back into town to face the music. That’s how I met her mama. Janet had just opened up her law practice here in town. Jenny was none too pleased about her mama’s divorce or about being uprooted from New York. She was mad at the world. I brought her out here and put her to work. She tended to be mischievous like your Annie, to put a generous spin on it.” A grin spread across his face. “Took a paintbrush to some of the buildings around here, too. I never saw such a mess.”

Slade shook his head, baffled by Harlan’s amused expression as he told the story. “And you and Janet still got married? Amazing.”

“Nothing amazing about it. Janet and I were suited. I could see that right from the start, though it took a little longer to bring her around to my way of thinking,” he said. “As for Jenny, she came around, too, once she knew I’d go on loving her no matter what she did. Persistence, that’s the ticket. Something you ought to remember. It’s a trait to value.”

Slade didn’t ask why. He was afraid he knew, and it didn’t have a thing to do with his relationship with Annie. An image of Val flitted through his mind. That woman could write the book on persistence.

Harlan clearly wasn’t through doling out advice. “You know, Son, a little spirit in a girl’s a good thing, especially in this day and age. A woman needs to know how to stand up for herself. How else is she supposed to learn that without testing her wings as a kid?”

He grinned. “Besides, most always what goes around, comes around. Being reminded of that gets you through the bad times. Jenny certainly got her comeuppance in due time. She’s a teacher now and a stepmom to a little hellion herself. She’s getting all that trouble back in spades. Knows how to handle it, though, because she’s been there herself.”

“Maybe I should send Annie over to you to raise,” Slade said, only partly in jest. “You sound far better equipped to cope with her than I am.”

“Oh, I suspect you’ll get the hang of it soon enough. In the meantime, you’ve got a pretty little stand-in,” he said, his expression sly. “Val seems to be taking quite an interest in Annie. In you, too, from what I’ve observed.”

Slade had no intention in discussing his love life— or lack thereof—with Harlan Adams. In addition to meddling for the sheer pleasure of it, the man was the sneakiest matchmaker in Texas. Prided himself on it, in fact.

“Val’s been very kind to Annie,” Slade agreed, and left it at that. “So have you. Thank you again for agreeing to this party. It’ll go a long way toward making her feel more at home here.”

“That’s what a ranch like this is meant for,” Harlan said. “What’s the fun in living to a ripe old age, if you can’t surround yourself with family and lots of young people? I’m looking forward to seeing ’em all splashing around in that big old pool out back. Plus it gives me a chance to hear Laurie sing. Nobody has a voice like Harlan Patrick’s wife. Millions of folks pay to hear her concerts, but I can usually coax her into singing a song or two just for family. Gives me pleasure.”

“I’m sure it does.”

“I heard she wrote a song for Annie.”

Slade was taken aback by that. “Are you sure about that?”

“First day they met, the way I hear it. Annie gave her the inspiration.”

“Imagine that,” Slade murmured. Annie must have been over the moon, but she hadn’t said a word.

Or maybe—as happened all too often—he just hadn’t been listening.

As Harlan Adams headed back up to the main house, Slade stared after him, then sighed. He had a feeling this was one time when the old man had been just as clever about passing along advice as he usually was about digging out secrets or meddling in affairs of the heart. He’d probably be keeping a close eye out to see just how well Slade followed it.

* * *

Val was in her element pulling the party together. Nothing gave her a sense of accomplishment like making lists and checking off every little chore. She’d helped Laurie with enough entertaining that it was second nature to her. This party would be smaller and less formal than something Laurie would have thrown in Nashville, but the details were essentially the same.

She enlisted Annie’s help, thoroughly enjoying the child’s wry sense of humor, which came out at the most unexpected moments, shattering that tough, sullen facade she wore the rest of the time. Then there were the rare moments of vulnerability that tore at Val’s heart.

“What if the kids don’t like me?” Annie asked for the millionth time a few days before the barbecue.

“They’ll like you,” Val reassured her. “Dani’s twins are about your age, but most of the others are younger. You’ll be like a big sister to them. They’ll look up to you. Look how well you get along with Amy Lynn. She toddles around after you like a puppy.”

“What does she know?” Annie scoffed. “She’s just a baby.”