dead set on keeping us apart? Are you afraid if you and I have a happy ending, you’ll lose your touch?”
She stared at him, clearly shocked by the suggestion. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not turning myself inside out just so I can be inspired to write another song with a sad ending. People write about all sorts of things without having to live them. A decent mystery writer doesn’t have to gun somebody down to write about it.”
“You sound a little defensive. Are you so sure you’re not just the teensiest bit worried that loving me will ruin your way with a lovesick turn of phrase?” he asked, because the more he thought about it, the more sense it made to him. “You’re afraid to be happy, Laurie. You think that well of misery that you draw on for your music will dry up if you’re not careful.”
“That is the most absurd notion you’ve ever expressed, Harlan Patrick. I don’t want to be miserable. I don’t want to make you miserable.”
“Then do something to change it. Take a chance on us, Laurie. Come back here after your tour. If you won’t marry me, live with me for a while. See what kind of balancing act we can come up with.”
“No,” she said practically before the words were out of his mouth.
Pulse pounding with fury, he backed away from her. “You didn’t even think about it.”
“I don’t have to think about it. I will not bring Amy Lynn to live here with you. It’ll only confuse her when it’s time for us to go.”
He slammed a fist into the wall, scraping his knuckles. “Dammit, you won’t even try, will you? I don’t even matter that much to you.”
“You do matter,” she insisted. “But—”
“But what?”
“You’ll overwhelm me, Harlan Patrick. If I do as you ask, it will be too easy to settle in and stay.”
“What the hell is wrong with that?”
“You know what’s wrong with it,” she insisted, tears streaming. “I’ve told you. You just haven’t been listening, as usual.”
“Because of your father?” he asked incredulously. “This is all because of a man who left you when you were four?”
“Yes,” she said, regarding him defiantly. “Because the first man I loved, the one who was supposed to love me forever, walked out and there was nothing I could do to stop him.”
He could hear the anguish in her voice and knew that her reasoning made perfect sense to her, even if it made next to none to him. He cupped her tear-streaked face in his hands.
“Sweetheart, I am nothing like your father. I’m not going to leave you. Not ever. We’ve been apart for years now, yet I’m still right here, waiting. Doesn’t that prove anything at all to you?”
“That you’re stubborn mostly,” she said with a rueful expression. “You can’t guarantee feelings. I could drive you away. I wouldn’t mean to, but it could happen.”
Finally he began to understand the real cause of her anguish. “Is that what you think happened with your dad? You think your mother did something to drive him away?”
“That must have been it.”
He regarded her incredulously. “This is something that’s so important to you that you’re shutting me out because of it and you’ve never asked your mother what really happened?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I could see how she was hurting. She never mentioned him again, so neither did I.”
“Then I think it’s time you did.”
“No. I can’t.”
“What are you really afraid of?” he asked, startled to think of the brave, adventurous woman who’d once taken any dare being scared of anything. He studied her intently, saw the shadows in her eyes and realized suddenly what it was. It was the nightmare of every child of divorced parents. Why hadn’t he seen it sooner?
“You’re afraid it was something you did that made him go, aren’t you?” he asked quietly but insistently.
“Of course not. I was a kid, a baby, practically.”
“That’s right. You were a kid, and whatever happened was between grown-ups,” he reminded her. “Laurie, you have to talk to your mom. Until you know for sure, until you lay that to rest, you will never let any man into your life. Do you want to spend the rest of your life alone?”
“I’m not alone,” she said with a defiant thrust of her chin. “I have Amy Lynn and Val and the band. I’m surrounded by people.”
“You can’t make Amy Lynn your entire world,” he argued. “It’s too big a burden to put on