The Texan's Baby Bombshell Read online

  “No pictures,” he assured. He finished tapping the screen and held the phone to his ear while he paced back and forth in the limited space between her bed and the window. “No video—Hey. Need a favor.”

  He was obviously addressing the person he’d dialed.

  She turned back to the wardrobe and grabbed her underwear, tucking the panties down into the corners of the bag.

  “See if you can get another ticket on my flight tonight,” Adam was saying behind her. “I’ll text you everything you’ll need for the reservation.”

  The space between her shoulder blades tickled and she looked back to see his gaze on her.

  The second he realized she was looking at him, he made a point of looking out the window. As if the view of the clinic’s small parking lot below was the most interesting thing in the world. “If there’re no more seats on mine, then get us both on the first available one tomorrow.”

  Laurel focused on her own task. She could hear the faint buzz of words coming out of his phone but couldn’t make out the words. Except the buzz sounded agitated.

  Or maybe she was just projecting.

  “Kane, save it for now,” Adam spoke again. “You going to help me or not? Yeah. I’ll text you her birthday. You’ll need it to get the ticket. Thanks.”

  The wardrobe was empty. The canvas bag bulging. She still made herself wait a moment before she turned around to face him again. “That plane ticket you’re talking about. It’s for me?”

  “Obviously.”

  She chewed the inside of her cheek. He didn’t look exceedingly happy about it. “Thank you. Soon as I...figure out things, I’ll pay you back.”

  He looked pained. “I’m not worried about the money, Laurel. I’m worried about you.”

  “Well, don’t be. You’ve done more than enough for me already. I understand why you came here now.”

  His head jerked back an inch, his eyebrows lowering warily. “You do?”

  “My... Eric...couldn’t very well make the trip. Not now with the baby in the hospital. It was very decent of you to come all this way instead.”

  His lips twisted. “That’s me. Decent.”

  She set the loaded bag on the foot of the bed and went into the bathroom. She plucked her toothbrush from its cup on the countertop, avoiding her reflection in the mirror. Then it occurred to her. “Was Eric at UB, too?” She pulled open the little drawer beneath the sink to grab the rest of her toiletries and went back into the bedroom.

  “No. You told me you met him a couple years ago.”

  “Oh.” She pushed her handful into the pocket stitched on one side of the canvas bag. Then she peered at Adam. “When did I tell you that?”

  He twitched the window curtains and looked out the window again. “We ran into each other last year. Spent a little time catching up.”

  There were still things he wasn’t telling her. She could see that so clearly on his face. She squinted, her artist’s eye imagining him ten years younger. “Strange, isn’t it? You ending up in Rambling Rose. Being a match for—”

  “It’s a small world,” he said, cutting her off.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of fate.”

  His lips twisted. “I don’t believe in fate. People make their own choices in life.”

  Her chest tightened. “My choices seem to be about heading away from the ones who should matter most.”

  He looked ready to say something, then gestured at the stuffed bag. “You’re not going to fit anything else in there.”

  “I don’t have anything else except my sketch pad and pencils. They’re in the common room.”

  He’d frowned, looking pained all over again. “Go on and get them. I need to speak with Dr. Granger. She’s going to want to check you out before letting you leave with me.”

  “I’m an adult. More or less competent if you don’t count the absence of all memories BA. If I want to leave, I can leave.”

  “Then humor me,” he said flatly. “Let her be the doctor.”

  “Fine, but I’m still getting on a plane with you.”

  * * *

  Kane succeeded in getting another ticket on Adam’s original flight back to Houston.

  The problem, though, was that Laurel had no form of identification. So even though she had a ticket, she wouldn’t be able to board the plane.

  Adam felt like a dunce when Dr. Granger pointed that out to him after he went down to her office on the main floor and informed her of the change in plans.

  “It’s not an insurmountable problem,” she said in the face of his consternation. “If you know where she was born, you’ll be able to get a copy of her birth certificate. From there, it’s a matter of obtaining copies of the rest of her identification. Driver’s license. Maybe even a passport. It’ll just take some time.”

  Exactly, Adam thought. Time.

  Ashley had been understanding about the time he’d taken off work lately. First to get through the rest of the donor screening after he’d been chosen as the most viable possibility. The times he’d had to drive to Houston for more tests. And then for the bone marrow harvest itself. And now this trip to Seattle.

  Regardless of the mess between him and Laurel, and Laurel and Eric, and Eric and the baby, Adam needed to get back to work.

  And Laurel needed to see her son.

  Their son.

  Flying was the quickest. He briefly considered contacting Eric to see if he had any copies of Lauren’s identification conveniently lying around.

  Adam wasn’t proud of it, but he tossed out the idea just as fast. Knew he would have done so even if Laurel hadn’t wondered if she’d been running from Johnson.

  “If we drove, we could be in Boise tonight,” he said.

  “Drive to Texas?” Dr. Granger looked alarmed. “It has to be close to two thousand miles!”

  Slightly more than twenty-two hundred. He wisely kept that to himself.

  “It’ll take you days,” the director emphasized, as if he didn’t grasp the point.

  “Then it’ll take us days,” Laurel said from the doorway behind Adam. She was holding her sketch pad against her chest with a fistful of pencils clutched in her hand.

  Dr. Granger half rose from her seat. “Lisa—”

  “It’s Laurel.” She lifted her chin. “And I know you’re concerned, Dr. Granger. But this is something that I have to do.”

  Dr. Granger slowly sat back down. She watched Laurel closely. “Sit in a car for hours on end?” She shook her head. “I really have to advise against it. What’s behind this sudden rush? You still need physical therapy and—”

  “Nothing’s behind it,” Laurel said a little defensively. “I’ll find a way to get PT in Texas. One way or another I’m going to get back everything that’s trapped in here.” She tapped her forehead. “I’m going to get back my life. Once I’m settled, you can forward my records.”

  “Settled where?”

  “I don’t know,” Laurel said. “But I’ll figure it out. I was going to have to move to a shelter when I left here anyway until I got a job, and I imagine there are—”

  “I’ll see to it,” Adam interrupted abruptly. He ignored the looks from both women. “She’s not going to be homeless.”

  “There you go,” Laurel said as if the matter was settled, even though nothing really was settled at all beyond that moment.

  The doctor opened her mouth, looking ready to protest, but then she leaned back in her chair. “Well.” She looked from Laurel’s face to Adam’s. “Of course I have no authority to stop you.” She plucked a pen from her plastic cup and pointed it at Adam. “This isn’t the best of plans for you either, young man.” She shook her head—whether at them or at herself he couldn’t tell—and scribbled something on a small pad. She tore off the sheet and handed it across to Adam.

  It was a prescri
ption pad with the doctor’s information preprinted on it. Yet it wasn’t a prescription she’d written out, but a phone number.

  “That’s my personal cell phone,” she said, her gaze pinning Adam’s. “If you need me for anything, and I mean anything, you can reach me twenty-four seven at that number.”

  He nodded and stuffed the paper in his pocket. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll make sure the charges are refunded on your credit card.” As if she’d decided to embrace their departure, she planted her hands on her desktop and stood. Adam shoved to his feet, too. “Stop by the kitchen before you leave,” she ordered as she rounded her desk and paused in front of Laurel. “Lunch is nearly over but you might still be in time to get a plate from Maria. The least you can do is set off with a decent meal in your stomachs.”

  Laurel looked bewildered. “That’s it?”

  Dr. Granger smiled gently. “I’d tell you to stay in touch, but it’s been my experience that patients who recover enough to leave on their own steam generally don’t.”

  Laurel looked like she was about to cry. “I don’t know what to say. ‘Thank you for everything’ doesn’t seem to be enough.” She hugged the director. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “And we’ll miss you, too.” Dr. Granger patted her back and sniffed before stepping away and leading them out of her cramped office. “Fortunately, I have a meeting to get to, so there’s no time to wallow. I am going to call you, Adam,” she warned, as she shooed them in the direction of the kitchen while she went in the other. “To make certain you’re taking proper care of things. I expect you to answer.”

  “Always,” he said seriously. “You’re the only reason I have her back.”

  The director smiled and sniffed again and turned on her heel.

  Even though he said the words, he knew they weren’t exactly true. For now, he was the one person Laurel vaguely recalled BA. Before Accident.

  What would happen when she remembered everything else?

  When she got her life back?

  When she remembered Linus? Not that she had been the one to give the baby that name.

  Until five days ago, Adam hadn’t had any reason to wonder what actual name the baby’s mother had bestowed on him when he’d been born.

  “You’re frowning,” Laurel said. “Are you changing your mind before we’ve even begun our road trip?”

  “No. Just wondering. Why didn’t you tell Dr. Granger about the baby?”

  “Because I didn’t want to give her another reason to talk me out of going.”

  He wasn’t sure that would have been the result, but he hadn’t been exactly forthright with the director, either.

  “So if you haven’t changed your mind,” she said, smiling gamely even though he could see the uncertainty in her eyes, “let’s get moving.” She tugged his sleeve. “Lunch on Saturdays is always fish and chips. If we want to get any, we’ll need to beat Mr. Grabinski before he has a chance to have his third helping.”

  * * *

  Two hours and a helping of fish and chips later, they were finally on their way.

  The plane tickets were canceled.

  Laurel had shared hugs and goodbyes with every person at Fresh Pine—employee and patient.

  The car rental agency had traded in the light gray minuscule economy car for a light gray slightly less minuscule economy car. They’d even provided a map highlighting the best route to get out of Seattle.

  And since Adam had checked out of his motel that morning before he’d brought the maple donuts, it was at least one less thing that had needed doing.

  “That morning” seemed a lot longer ago than mere hours.

  He glanced at Laurel sitting in the passenger seat beside him.

  Her window was rolled down a few inches and her hair blew lightly around her shoulders. Her hands were folded together in her lap. But the nail beds were white because of the ferocity of her grip.

  “You want to change your mind?”

  She gave him a quick look. “No.” She looked away. “No,” she said more firmly. Less defensively. She stopped clenching her hands and rubbed her palms down her thighs.

  “You could have waited until we sorted out your identification so you could fly.”

  She shook her head. “Who knows how long that’d take? At least this way, I feel like I’m doing something. Linus needs his mother. If I let him down again—” She broke off and caught her blowing hair in her hand, looking out the window at the city they were leaving behind. “I can’t stay here and just wait, sitting on my thumbs wondering about questions that don’t seem to have an answer. Even if there is a part of me saying it would be the safest thing to do.”

  He shifted in the seat. He’d pushed it back as far as it would go to give himself more leg room, but he’d become accustomed to driving a truck since moving to Rambling Rose. The car felt particularly small with Laurel sitting next to him, so close that his arm brushed hers whenever he rested it on the narrow console between them. “The answers’ll come. When they’re ready.”

  “You sound very properly coached by Dr. Granger.”

  He smiled despite himself.

  And she did, too.

  “So,” she said after he’d navigated to the freeway that was crawling with traffic even on a Saturday afternoon, “how long will it take for us to get there?”

  Too long. “Is this your version of Are We There Yet?”

  She gave him an offended look that wasn’t very convincing considering the smile still in her eyes. “I’m not a whiner.” She frowned. “Am I?”

  She had been many things. But a whiner wasn’t one of them. “Not that I recall. We’ll know if that’s changed about five hours from now and you’re sick of sitting in this car with me.”

  “I’m not going to get sick of that.” She reached out and began fiddling with the radio buttons. “I will get sick of listening to sports talk, though. We need music. Do you have a preference?”

  “Yeah. Sports.”

  She made a face.

  “You liked sports well enough,” he told her. “Participating, anyway. Track. Volleyball.”

  “Sure, but not for hours and hours on end. And definitely not golf. About as exciting as waiting for a pot to boil.”

  And yet, golf lessons had been something Sylvia and Nelson had insisted upon. They were members of the country club, after all, and they couldn’t very well have a daughter who didn’t excel at golf. And tennis. She’d even had cotillion lessons.

  “You think you ever learned, then, to actually boil something? Maybe, say, water?”

  She made a sound in her throat that—far as Adam had ever determined—only a disgusted woman could make. “Are you suggesting I can’t cook?”

  He couldn’t help smiling. “Unless you learned somewhere along the way, I’m saying it outright. The only thing I ever saw you use an oven for was to dry socks. And then you set off every smoke alarm in—” he barely caught himself from saying our “—in the apartment.”

  She stopped fiddling when she found a station playing the Temptations and adjusted the volume slightly. “I’ll have you know, I make a mean chicken piccata.”

  He changed lanes to get around the SUV. Even with her memory impaired, she’d chosen classic Motown.

  At least it wasn’t “Just My Imagination.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll even prove it one day. I learned from the owner of a little trattoria in Tuscany who—” She broke off and thumped her palm lightly against her forehead. “This is maddening. Why can I suddenly recall something like that, but I can’t remember my own flesh and bl—”

  He reached over the console and closed his hand over hers. She’d clenched them together again. “Stop.”

  “But—”

  “Stop.” He squeezed her hands. They were
so slender he could enclose both in one hand. Dr. Granger must have told him a dozen times not to allow her to push herself too hard too fast. “Give yourself a break. You’ll get there.”

  She was silent for a long while. Long enough for him to work his way around a semi, an SUV and a cherry-red Corvette. Then her fingers twitched against his palm. “What if I don’t?” she asked in a small voice.

  Then maybe he’d have a chance.

  The fact that he thought it at all shamed him.

  “Where’s that confidence you showed Dr. Granger?” He put his hand back on the steering wheel. “Not remembering everything about your past won’t stop you from having a future.”

  Her shoulders rose and fell with the huge sigh she gave. “I should be grateful that Linus is so young,” she said after a while. Her head was resting against the seat back, her focus on the window beside her. “He won’t remember anything about me abandoning him with his father.”

  Adam’s hands tightened around the steering wheel.

  Four days, he figured. They had at least thirty-five hours on the road ahead of them. He could drive faster, longer. Do it in three days. But four would be better for her. Less taxing. It would still mean eight hours on the road every day.

  So four days. Four days to figure out how he was going to tell her that she hadn’t left Linus with either the father who’d claimed him or the father who’d made him.

  Everyone in Rambling Rose knew the truth about what she’d done.

  Which meant he couldn’t let her get there without making sure she knew that truth, too.

  Chapter Six

  “Is it bigger than a bread box?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it smaller than a—” Laurel tapped her finger against her lips, thinking.

  It was their third round of Twenty Questions. So far, he was two games ahead of her. They’d been driving nearly four hours now, stopping once at a rest area on the side of the road to eat the sandwiches that Maria had sent with them. Laurel had been more grateful for the chance to get out of the car and stretch her legs than she had been for the food.