talking was all but confirmed. Laurie Jensen had had his baby and kept it from him. Betrayal cut through him like a lance. He was surprised he wasn’t bleeding from the wound.
In less than an instant, fury was replaced by icy resolve. He whirled around and without a word went out the way he’d come in, slamming the door behind him, the tabloid crushed in his hand.
“Oh, my God,” Sharon Lynn murmured. “Did you see his face?”
“I saw,” his mother said, racing out the door after him. “Harlan Patrick, get back here!”
He ignored the command and headed straight for his pickup. A half hour later he was at the airstrip with Uncle Jordan’s corporate jet fired up and waiting for him.
He was going after Laurie Jensen and his baby and when he found them, there was going to be hell to pay.
Two
Laurie had been heartsick ever since her manager had shown her the tabloid a week after that fateful night outside a Kansas concert hall. From that moment on she had prayed over and over that Harlan Patrick would never see it. Whether he recognized the baby as his or not, the picture was going to break his heart. She’d vowed the last time she’d seen him not to ever do anything to hurt him again. As it was, she’d broken his heart more times than she could count.
She’d tried to prepare for the possibility that her prayers wouldn’t be heard. She’d warned everyone in her agent’s office that her schedule was not to be given to anyone, no matter what name they gave, no matter what ruse they used. She had described Harlan Patrick to Nick’s secretary from his thick, sun-streaked hair, to his laser blue eyes and angled cheekbones.
“And you don’t want this man to find you?” the woman had said incredulously. “Are you nuts?”
“There are those who’d say I am,” she agreed. “And, Ruby, let me know the instant he shows up, okay? I need to know what kind of mood he’s in.”
“Fit to be tied would be my guess,” Ruby said bluntly. “Can’t say I blame him, either. It’s a hell of a way to find out you’re a daddy.”
“Ruby,” Laurie protested.
“Okay, okay, I’m just the hired help around here. You don’t want the man to find you, I’ll make sure the man doesn’t find you, at least not with any help from me. Just don’t forget, honey, you’re the kind of woman who tends to make news, especially in this business. Entertainment Tonight’s scheduled to shoot that club date in Montana. It’s way too late to back out. Nick would have a cow. He worked like crazy to get it set up.”
“It won’t matter. By the time it airs, I’ll be on the road again. With any sort of luck at all, Harlan Patrick will be one step behind me.”
“Maybe you ought to slow down and let him catch up,” Ruby suggested one more time. “Have it out and get it over with. Hiding’s no good, not in your profession. This was bound to happen sooner or later. And, forgive me for saying it, but that little girl of yours has a right to know her daddy. This plan of yours to keep ’em apart seems a tad selfish to me.”
Laurie winced. Ruby was young, but she had terrific common sense and a mile-wide streak of decency. A part of Laurie wanted to follow her advice, but another part wasn’t at all sure she could cope with one more battle with Harlan Patrick, not with the stakes as high as they were.
“I know,” Laurie conceded. “But I can’t deal with him yet. I just can’t. You’ll see what I mean if he shows up there. It’s like trying to talk sense with a bulldozer that’s rattling toward you in first gear.”
Of course, she consoled herself, there was always the outside chance that Harlan Patrick had never even seen the tabloid. Maybe he hadn’t been anywhere near a supermarket checkout stand. Maybe the entire shipment to Los Piños had been lost in transit. Maybe the delivery truck had caught fire. Maybe...
Dammit, she had to know. She had to find out if he’d seen it and what his reaction had been. She had to be prepared, in case he was coming after her. For all of her attempts to cover her tracks, she knew Ruby was right. If Harlan Patrick wanted to find her badly enough, he could. Ruby and Nick could only stall him for so