a little girl. As for the others, there are no guarantees they’ll stay, either.”
“They will,” she insisted.
Rather than arguing with her about the uncertainty of the future, he settled for forcing her to take a long hard look at the present. “Are they there when you get scared in the middle of the night? Can they keep you warm when it’s cold? Can they kiss away your tears?”
He saw her struggling with the truth.
“No,” she admitted finally, “but—”
“You deserve more, Laurie. You deserve someone who’ll be there, someone who knows you inside and out, someone who’s not just drawing a paycheck.” He held up a hand before she could protest. “I know they care about you, but it’s not the same.” He gazed into her eyes. “Is it?”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “No,” she conceded, her expression bleak. “It’s not. But it’s all I have.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Yes, it does,” she insisted. “I can’t risk any more.”
He knew then that he was losing her all over again. “Talk to your mother,” he pleaded again. “Please, Laurie. For us. For Amy Lynn. Find out what happened all those years ago.”
* * *
Laurie was silent all the way back into town, struggling with herself. A part of her knew that Harlan Patrick was right. Her whole future, whether with him or someone else, rested on finding out the truth about what had happened all those years ago. She’d been hiding from the need to do it for years now, pretending that the long-ago hurt wasn’t affecting every choice she made.
In fact, she had to wonder if her father wasn’t the real reason she had remained so stubbornly determined to spend her life on the road, cramming in concert appearances in tiny, out-of-the-way places, hoping that one day she would glimpse a familiar face in the crowd. Even as the thought occurred to her, she knew that she had finally grasped something that had been eluding her for years.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured.
Three startled faces turned to her in the car.
“What?” Harlan Patrick asked.
“Nothing,” she said at once.
“Laurie, is everything okay?” her mother asked from the back seat.
She glanced over her shoulder and forced a smile for her mother and for an equally concerned Val. “Fine. I just remembered something, that’s all.”
Her gaze came to rest on her sleeping daughter, buckled securely into her car seat. Would Amy Lynn grow up with the same terrible insecurities if Laurie kept Harlan Patrick out of her life? Was she dooming her precious baby to the same sort of future she faced?
Never! She resolved then and there to begin looking for answers and she would start first thing in the morning, before she left for Ohio. As soon as she’d made the decision, she felt better, more at peace than she had in years. And she owed it to Harlan Patrick and his persistent refusal to take no for an answer. He had prodded her into heavy-duty soul-searching.
When they got to the house, she let the others go inside, lingering beside him in the car.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“For what?”
“For forcing me to face the past.”
“Have you really done that?”
She shrugged. “Not exactly, but I’m getting there. I’m going to have that long-overdue talk with my mom in the morning. You could do me a huge favor if you’d come and take Amy Lynn and Val out for breakfast.”
“Gladly. I’ll take ’em over to Dolan’s. Sharon Lynn will love introducing another Adams to her cooking. The rest of us are proof that you can survive it.”
“You know perfectly well she makes the best hotcakes around.”
“When her mind’s on it,” he agreed with a grin. “Lately, with little Ashley getting ready for preschool, she’s been listening to her biological clock ticking and she tends to get a little distracted. With Amy Lynn there for her to fuss over, I’m liable to have to do the cooking myself.”
“I’ll warn Val,” she promised.
He tucked a finger under her chin and turned her head to face him. “I’m glad you’re going to do this.”
“I just pray I won’t regret it.”
“You should never regret asking for the truth. It’s living with lies and secrets and guesswork that’ll do you in.”
“I suppose so.”
He leaned over and pressed a kiss against her forehead. “Sure you don’t want me to be here when you talk to your mom?”
“No. I have to do this on my own.” She rested her palm against his cheek. “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?”