“If you can leave first thing in the morning, I’ll take you to her.”
He nodded. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
“Seven o’clock, then. I’ll pick you up.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Buzz Jensen promised, his expression eager despite the questions the people inside were likely to have about the stranger who’d come calling.
Later, alone in a nearby motel, Harlan Patrick thought back over the meeting and tried to reassure himself that it was all going to work out. Or was he just setting a whole lot of people up for heartache?
* * *
As she left the stage after the last Louisville concert, Laurie was totally, thoroughly drained. All she wanted was to take a long hot shower and crawl into bed. Before she could do that, though, she had a group of VIP fans waiting to meet her backstage.
Val arranged these meet-and-greet sessions at the behest of local radio stations. When she wasn’t so tired, Laurie actually enjoyed them. Tonight, though, she could barely keep her eyes open. An idea for a new song had come to her the night before right at bedtime, and she’d stayed awake most of the night fiddling with it. A half-hour nap before tonight’s show hadn’t made up for the lost sleep.
As she walked into the green room where drinks and hors d’oeuvres had been set up, she forced a smile and moved from one cluster of people to another, making small talk, thanking the DJs who played her music, flattering their wives and sponsors. For a solid hour she played the part of gracious hostess, before Val whipped in and whispered in her ear.
“What?” she asked, staring at her assistant incredulously.
“Harlan Patrick’s here,” Val repeated. “He’s in your dressing room.”
“Why didn’t you bring him in here?”
“He wanted to wait there,” Val said. “I’ll make your excuses. Go.”
Laurie didn’t have to be urged twice. She flew down the hall and threw open the dressing-room door, but instead of Harlan Patrick, there was a stranger waiting, an older man who looked vaguely, disturbingly familiar. Her breath lodged in her throat.
The man stood slowly, took a hesitant step toward her, then stopped. “Hi, baby.”
“Oh, my God,” she murmured, thunderstruck. “It’s you.”
“It’s your daddy,” he confirmed.
Filled with wonder, she stepped closer, reached up with trembling fingers and touched his lined cheek, traced the deeper grooves that fanned out from the corners of his eyes—lines that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him.
But the scent of his aftershave was the same, tantalizing her with the memory of being lifted high in strong arms, then cuddled against a broad chest.
“It really is you,” she said in amazement. “But how did you get here?”
“Harlan Patrick found me. He came to California and brought me here.”
She realized then that he was in the room, too, standing to the side, watching intently as if ready to intercede the instant the meeting started to sour. She rushed into his arms.
“Thank you,” she said, peppering his face with kisses. “Thank you.”
“You’re okay?” he asked, searching her face.
“Better than okay,” she said, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
“Why don’t we get out of here, then?” he suggested. “You two could use someplace private to get reacquainted. I’ve already talked to the sitter about staying with Amy Lynn till I get there.”
“Yes, of course. The hotel, then.” She gazed at her father. “I’ll get you a room, next to mine if possible.”
“Already done,” Harlan Patrick said.
“He doesn’t miss much, this fellow of yours,” her father said with evident admiration.
“No,” she agreed. “He doesn’t miss much.”
At the hotel Harlan Patrick retreated to the adjoining suite while she and her father sat opposite each other. Suddenly she was as tongue-tied as a four-year-old confronted with a stranger.
“I don’t know what to say to you, what to ask,” she admitted eventually.
“Would it help if I told you I was pretty much at a loss, too?”
“Some,” she said with a smile that came and went. Finally she blurted out the only question that really mattered, the one that had tormented her for all these years. “Why, Daddy? Why did you go?”
“What has your mother told you?”
“Just that you were bored, that you needed to move on.”
He regarded her with regret. “Sad to say, that’s probably as close to the truth as I could tell you. I was immature and irresponsible back then. I wasn’t ready to be tied down. I tried—for five years I did the