The Texan's Baby Bombshell

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  He caught her wrists before she hurt herself and shoved open the door with his foot, carrying her around the waist to get her inside. “You’re not a monster.”

  “What else is a mother who abandons her own child?”

  “A woman who obviously believed she had no other choice.” The door swung closed behind them, latching hard. “And you didn’t abandon him. You left him at a place you trusted to keep him safe.” He cautiously set her free. “How did you find out?”

  “So you knew. You really knew.” Her eyes were ravaged. She was trembling wildly and she wrapped her arms around herself, backing all the way across the room to the window overlooking the freeway. “And you said nothing!”

  He raked his fingers through his hair. He’d never done well with feeling helpless. He wanted to slam his fist into something. He wanted to find a way to take away her pain and there wasn’t one damn thing he could do to make that happen. “Laurel.” He kept his voice steady. “How did you find—”

  “The internet,” she practically screamed.

  They both jerked when someone pounded on the door. “Mr. Fortune, please open the door immediately or we’ll enter without your help.”

  Laurel covered her face with her hands, sinking down into a ball right there against the wall next to the window. She’d gone from screaming to crying, and great wrenching sobs shook her too-narrow shoulders, ripping right through Adam’s soul.

  He jerked the door open. “What the hell—”

  A hotel security guard and a female police officer stood on the other side. “Please move aside, sir,” the officer said brusquely. Her hand rested on her her billy club.

  He backed away. “What—”

  “A disturbance was reported.” The guard’s tone was flat. He stepped in front of Adam, as if he intended to block him if necessary. “Ma’am,” he called above Laurel’s sobs, “are you all right?”

  “Does she look all right?” Adam asked between his teeth. He was a foot taller than the guard. He could have easily pushed him out of the way, but knew he’d only exacerbate the situation if he did. “She’s upset. She’s had a shock.”

  The officer was approaching Laurel.

  “Let’s move out into the hallway, sir.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “You don’t understand,” the guard returned, looking combative. “Hallway. Now.”

  Muttering an oath, Adam moved into the doorway. One foot in the hall, one foot not. “This is as far as I go, buddy. I’m not leaving her.”

  The police officer was crouched next to Laurel now. Whatever she was saying was too low for Adam to hear.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen your type,” the guard said. “Think you can keep a woman against her will—”

  “I’m not keeping her against her will!”

  “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”

  The police officer had risen again and was crossing the room toward them. “She says she’s here voluntarily, but she has no identification.”

  “Right, because she—”

  “Sir, you’d best keep your mouth shut,” the guard cut him off pugnaciously. “And of course she’s gonna say that. She’s been terrorized—”

  “She has not been terrorized,” Adam said through his teeth. “Not by me.”

  “You’d say that, wouldn’t you?”

  “For the love of—” Adam reached for his wallet and the guard slammed his arm across Adam’s chest, pinning him back against the door of the room.

  “Now’s not the time for sudden moves,” the guard warned.

  The door handle dug painfully into Adam’s back. “And now’s not the time for you to be enjoying your job so much,” he warned in return.

  Laurel was no longer crying hysterically. Her head was buried in her arms, resting on her raised knees. If she was aware of what was happening in the doorway of the hotel room, she wasn’t showing it.

  He looked toward the police officer, hoping for more reason from her than the guard. “Her name is Laurel Hudson,” he said evenly. “She doesn’t have identification because it was destroyed in an accident nearly six months ago.”

  The guard snorted disbelievingly. “Who’re you trying to kid?”

  Adam ignored him and the damn handle digging into his back and kept his focus on the police officer. “Her doctor’s name is Mariel Granger,” he said steadily. “She’ll confirm what I’m telling you. She’s in Seattle, at Fresh Pine Rehabilitation, and her phone number is in my wallet. Which is in my back pocket if Rambo here will back off an inch.”

  The guard pressed his forearm even harder against Adam’s chest. “Sounds like more bull if you ask me.”

  “I’m not,” the police officer said curtly. She gestured. “Let him go, Frankie.”

  “But—”

  “Frankie.” The officer’s voice sharpened.

  Frankie didn’t bother masking his reluctance. He dug his elbow into Adam’s sternum one last time before he finally stepped back.

  “Take your duties real seriously,” Adam muttered.

  “When it comes to scumbags who take advantage of women,” the guard agreed, sneering.

  Adam ignored him and yanked out his wallet to extract his driver’s license and the paper that Dr. Granger had given him. “Here.” He extended them toward the police officer. “Talk to her yourself.”

  The officer took both. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting outside the room, Mr. Fortune—”

  “I do mind.” He shoved the guard away and probably took too much pleasure from the way the guy stumbled slightly. He stepped around the police officer to crouch in front of Laurel. “Sweetheart.”

  She lifted her head. Her eyes were swollen and red, her hair dangling over her face.

  His hand shook slightly as he gently slid the strands out of her eyes. “Come on, baby. You don’t really want to sit here on the floor, do you? Be mad at me if you have to. I should have told you. I was going to. I just—” His throat was tight. “I didn’t know the right words. I’m sorry.”

  She pressed her hand to her chest. “My heart—” she drew in a harsh, stuttering breath “—is breaking.”

  So is mine.

  He sat on the floor, his feet on either side of hers. He took her hands in his. “It’ll get better, Laurel. I promise.”

  Her raw eyes searched his. “How?”

  “Because Linus is going to be fine.” He had to believe it. “He’s going to grow up tall and strong and one day give you a hell of a time but he’s always going to love his mother.”

  “Mr. Fortune.” The police officer stopped next to them, extending his driver’s license and the prescription paper. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I spoke with Dr. Granger. She requested that you phone her as soon as possible.”

  He barely spared the officer a look. “Thank you.” He dropped the license and paper on the carpet next to him. Now get out. It took all of his self-control not to say it aloud.

  Didn’t matter, though, because she walked to the door. “Come on, Frankie.”

  “I’m not satisfied.”

  “I am. Come on.” The door closed on them while they were still arguing.

  “Do you really believe he will love me?” There was such longing in her shaking words that he hurt inside.

  He brushed another lock of hair away from her face. He cupped her wet cheek. “I’m sure of it.” He rubbed his thumb over the trail of tears. “How could he not?”

  * * *

  Three hours later, Adam finally remembered to call Dr. Granger. Explaining the situation to her meant confessing a few more details than he’d offered in Seattle. Namely the way that Laurel had actually given up her child.

  The connecting doors were open between his room and Laurel’s. He stood in the doorway between, his cell phone at his ear while the doctor talked.

&
nbsp; Laurel was lying on the bed closest to the window. She was fully dressed but had still piled the covers up to her chin.

  Adam couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not.

  He figured not was more likely.

  “It’s unfortunate that Laurel discovered something like that the way she did,” Dr. Granger was saying. She’d already given him what-for for not having been more forthright before. “Given the situation, I wouldn’t classify her reaction as entirely excessive. As long as she doesn’t exhibit increased signs of anxiety or depression, I think you should continue with your plans. The alternative would be to return to Seattle. Not here at Fresh Pine—the need for our services is too high and we’ve already filled her place here—but the shelter we’d found for her might be able to still accommodate—”

  “She’d never agree.” Adam knew that much.

  “As sudden as it was, Laurel now seems highly motivated to regain her life,” Dr. Granger said. “Or, at the very least, to find a new place for herself within that life. Progress rarely occurs without growing pains. But it is still progress.”

  Adam was hard-pressed to classify what had happened as progress. Nightmarish, more like. What would Laurel do when she learned the truth about everything else?

  “Nevertheless, it’s important not to place too much pressure on her.”

  “Easy to say,” he muttered.

  “Not so easy to do,” Dr. Granger finished sympathetically. “I can authorize a mild antianxiety—”

  “She doesn’t want drugs, remember?”

  “I was thinking more about you,” the doctor said wryly.

  He stepped out of the doorway and into his own room, though he left the connecting doors fully open. “Think I’ll manage,” he told the doctor. “Sorry to disturb you.”

  “I told you. Call me whenever you need. Laurel is a special girl. She’s lucky to have someone who loves her as much as you do.”

  Adam jerked. “I’m just an old—”

  “Friend?” Dr. Granger laughed skeptically. “We should all have old friends who care so deeply,” she said before disconnecting.

  Adam tossed his phone on the bed and rubbed his face.

  Caring about Laurel had never been the problem.

  Keeping her had.

  Chapter Ten

  “Are you sure you’ve had enough to eat?”

  Laurel looked up at Adam. Or rather, she directed her face in his direction.

  Actually looking at him was proving increasingly difficult since she’d behaved so monstrously the previous evening at the hotel in Utah.

  Now they were another several hundred miles down the road at yet another hotel. This time in Durango, Colorado.

  But even after sitting beside him in the car for seven hours that day—maybe because of those hours spent beside him—she felt more awkward than ever.

  He was still waiting for an answer and she glanced at her dinner plate. She’d managed to force down half of the Southwestern salad she’d ordered. “It was a huge salad,” she excused.

  And she’d ordered it only to keep him from looking at her with that worried expression he’d been wearing for nearly twenty-four hours. If it had been up to her alone, she’d have skipped the meal altogether. He, on the other hand, had demolished a porterhouse and a baked potato with all the fixings.

  She glanced toward the entrance of the restaurant to the hotel lobby. “Do you suppose the room is ready yet?”

  He finished signing the meal receipt and slid his credit card back into his wallet. “They said it’d be ready by six and it’s well after.” He pushed his chair back and stood.

  She quickly followed suit and they left the restaurant that had grown progressively busier as they’d dined.

  While he went to the registration desk, she hung back pretending to study a painting hanging near the imposing staircase.

  If she hadn’t been right beside him when they’d come into the hotel to get a room, she might not have believed that there was only one room available. But she’d heard the desk clerk herself. Otherwise, she’d have believed Adam had done it deliberately.

  He hadn’t really let her out of his sight since the night before.

  “Think it’s museum quality?” Adam asked as he stepped beside her, nodding up at the painting.

  “It’s good enough for someone to buy and hang over their couch, I suppose.”

  “I think that’s what’s called being damned with faint praise.”

  She shook her head, denying. “I wouldn’t know museum quality anyway.”

  “Yes, you would. You were an art curator.”

  Startled, she tried to absorb that.

  “You deciding if that fits or not?”

  She looked at him. “Are you reading my mind?”

  “Doesn’t take a lot of intuition,” he said quietly. “Anyone would feel that way.”

  She frowned and turned back to the painting for another look. “What I was thinking was that this is better than mediocre but not worth an outrageous price like that.” She nodded toward the card affixed to the wall next to the rustic frame. “That has two too many zeros. And then I was thinking what a terrific snob that made me seem.”

  “Maybe you’re an art snob, but you’re not one otherwise.”

  It was the most personal words they’d exchanged all day. She let out a mock huff. “I think now I’m being damned with faint praise.”

  He smiled slightly. “Room’s ready. You can head up now. I’ll go get the bags from the car.”

  She stifled a sigh. Another stretch of endless hours with nothing on her mind except her own appalling behavior. Both last night and five months ago. And her increasing confusion over why Adam was helping her the way he was, at all. Their college romance had ended long, long ago. She’d moved on. So had he.

  “What’s the room number?” she asked him.

  “Up the stairs. Two-twelve. Or,” he added when she took a step toward the staircase, “we could walk around town for a while. Weather’s nice and—”

  “Yes,” she said so quickly that she felt her face flush.

  He gave a single nod and she had the sudden sense that he wasn’t all that sure his idea had been a good one. “Okay.” He led the way to the entrance and pulled open the oversize timber door.

  On the sidewalk, he closed his hand over her elbow.

  She was barely able to suppress a shiver. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to run off and find some computer for more internet creeping. I’ve learned enough.”

  His hold tightened for a moment, then relaxed again. But he didn’t release her. “I wasn’t worried. Which way do you want to go first?”

  Whichever direction she looked, the mountains watched over them. The peaks were verdant with summer growth, and for a moment, she imagined them covered in snow.

  Imagined Adam, his hair, longer than it was now, blowing around his head despite the ski goggles.

  “We skied once at Holiday Valley.” Her fingertips fluttered to the necklace hidden beneath her blouse. “It was Christmastime.” Her throat tightened.

  This was not imagination. She was certain of it. “The lodge where we stayed had an enormous tree.” She could see it in her mind as clearly as if it stood in the middle of the sidewalk in front of them. The fat, shining red globes hanging from the magnificent branches. The hundreds of tiny gold lights that seemed like stars when the lights were low. “It was even larger than the one my parents always had.”

  She caught the flicker of something in his dark eyes. “Yes.” He let go of her elbow and gestured. “Let’s go that way first. Maybe I can find a shirt in that souvenir shop. I’m sick of the ones I’ve been wearing.”

  She pressed her lips together and fell into step with him. But her mind wasn’t on the shops they passed or the other pedestrians or bicyclists, even though they outnumb
ered the cars on the street.

  When Laurel hadn’t gone home that year for Christmas, choosing to spend it with Adam, her mother had been livid. Screaming at her over the phone. Then refusing to talk to her at all for weeks and weeks.

  Screaming just the same way that Laurel had screamed at Adam the night before.

  Her Southwestern salad churned inside her stomach.

  “I’m like her.”

  Until Adam stopped walking, she wasn’t even aware that she had done so first. He ignored the people behind them as they parted and flowed around them. “Like who?”

  “My mother.” Her head swam and she thought for a moment that she might be sick. She looked around blindly, but all she could see were people.

  Adam’s hands closed over hers. “No. You’re not. Look at me.”

  His touch, his voice, helped center her, and his deep brown gaze seemed to surround her, making the crowds and chaos disappear.

  “You are nothing like Sylvia Hudson.” His voice was quietly adamant.

  “She used to scream at me for nothing at all.” Nothing and everything. And if it wasn’t screaming, it was silence. Dreadful, weight-of-the-world silence. Designed to ensure Laurel knew exactly how much devastation she was causing her mother.

  “I know.” His voice was low.

  “Sylvia and Nelson,” she whispered. “The epitome of culture and refinement. Envy of their friends. Pillars of society. Mother never screamed in public.” Laurel couldn’t recall everything but she remembered that much. Her mother reserved her screaming for behind closed doors. And she’d have died of pure mortification if a police officer had ever been called to those doors.

  Adam looked over her head toward the hotel. “I’ll take you back to the room.”

  “No.” She tugged her hands back until he let go. “I don’t want coddling.” She started to yank on the sleeve of her cardigan and, realizing it, forced her hands down to her side. She took advantage of a brief break in cross traffic and stepped off the curb, hurrying across. “I’d rather walk every mile of this town than sit in a hotel room for hours, fearing what else I’ve done.”