might be the root of their troubles made him too uncomfortable to stay in the room a moment longer. While the show went on, he slipped out the door and made his way to the club’s back entrance, which was also standing open to permit the night’s breeze to drift inside the overheated club.
Harlan Patrick had no trouble slipping past the bulky, fiftyish guard. The man was too busy gazing at the woman on stage, his foot tapping to the beat of her song, a smile on his lips and a yearning in his eyes. That was when Harlan Patrick realized that part of Laurie’s success was her ability to touch hearts and inspire dreams, even the impossible ones.
The backstage area was cramped, with barely enough room for an office, a storeroom and one remaining room that had to be Laurie’s dressing room. He opened the door, saw the tumble of clothes and cosmetics and smiled for the first time in ages. Laurie never had been much for picking up after herself.
It was a no-frills dressing room, with a metal rod for a clothes rack and bare bulbs around a square mirror. The chair in front of the dressing table was molded plastic, but the bouquet of flowers beside the scattered makeup was lavish enough for the biggest superstar.
While he waited, he tidied up, folding this, hanging that on the bare metal rod stuck in an alcove. He lingered over a scrap of lace and prayed to heaven no man had ever seen her wearing it. He’d have to rip his eyes out. Finally he tucked the panties into the suitcase sitting on the floor in the corner and pulled out the room’s only other chair—a straight-backed monstrosity with a seat covered in tattered red plastic. He turned it around until he could straddle it and face the door.
He heard the last refrain of the encore die down, then the thunder of applause, then the sound of laughter in the corridor and boots on the hardwood floor outside the door. His pulse thundered as loudly as a summer storm.
The door swung open and there she was, pretty as ever, with her color high and her long, chestnut brown hair mussed and glistening with glints of gold and damp with perspiration. He’d seen her looking just like that after sex, only without so many clothes on.
Her mouth formed a soft “oh” of stunned dismay. The color washed out of her cheeks, and for just an instant he thought she might faint, but Laurie was made of tougher stuff than that. She squared her shoulders and met his gaze evenly.
“Hey, darlin’!” Harlan Patrick said in his friendliest tone. “Surprised to see me?”
* * *
Laurie’s pulse was racing so fast, she was certain she was only a beat or two shy of a medical emergency. She’d guessed Harlan Patrick would hunt her down—known he was coming, thanks to Ruby’s warning call—but seeing him here, so at home in her dressing room, had caught her off guard.
How many times had she found him waiting for her just like this in the old days? How many times had she come offstage, giddy with excitement, and rushed into his waiting arms to be twirled around until her head spun? Of course, there was no crooked grin tonight and his arms were crossed along the back of that pitiful chair, not waiting to catch her up in an exuberant hug.
Lordy, he was gorgeous. Under other circumstances her pulse would have been scrambling from pure desire, rather than panic. The Adams genes were the best in Texas, maybe the best on earth. Even travel weary, Harlan Patrick was pure male, from that angled jaw to his broad shoulders and right on down to the tips of his dusty boots. The sensual curve of his mouth was a reminder of deep, hot kisses that could rock her to her soul.
But the look on his face, so cool and neutral and composed, was worrisome. Harlan Patrick’s emotions were usually right out there for anyone to see. Only when she looked into his eyes did she detect the fire of complete and total fury. That’s when she knew that not only had he seen the tabloid, but he’d also realized that Amy Lynn was his.
That left her with a quandary. She could fold right now and throw herself on his mercy or she could stand up to him the way she’d been doing since their first playground scuffle so many years