The Delacourt Scandal (16 page)

“Maybe they weren’t real,” she said, voicing her greatest fear.

“Then you’ll have lost nothing and you’ll move on,” he said confidently. “So when can we expect you? Janet—that’s my wife—is fixing up a room, even as we speak. And the editor of the paper is chomping at the bit to have you get started.”

On the darkest day of her life, she finally had something that brought a smile to her lips. “Awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“If you don’t have faith in yourself, who will? Now get yourself behind the wheel and point that car of yours in this direction.”

“I don’t know,” she began, wondering if she shouldn’t stay right here. Maybe force Tyler to deal with her in due time.

“If you’re worrying that Tyler won’t know where to find you, I think you can count on his brother and sister to see that he knows.”

“They won’t welcome me,” she said.

“They’re good people. They will eventually. You have any place you’d rather be?”

“Alaska has crossed my mind, but it’s too darned cold.”

“Then stop arguing with an old man and come on. If you don’t like it over here, you can move on, but for now think of it as a safe haven while you get your bearings.”

A safe haven? Maddie certainly needed one. She had to face the decisions she’d made. There were the mistakes, too. So many of them.

She thought of Bryce Delacourt’s promise to show her the evidence of her father’s embezzlement, then dismissed it as a poor reason to stay in Houston. If the papers existed, she could see them anytime. Now they would be only an excuse to linger as she waited to see if Tyler would ever change his mind about her.

“I’ll be there tomorrow,” she promised Harlan Adams.

“You won’t regret it,” he said. “This is a good place to live and an even better place to heal.”

Maddie hoped so, because healing was what she desperately needed.

T
yler’s parents had been back from their trip for two weeks, looking rested, tanned and more devoted than ever. He knew he could no longer postpone going back to Baton Rouge, not just to work, but to see Daniel.

As he had when Jen had died, he longed for the hard, physical labor that would tax his energy and keep his thoughts at bay. He was less anxious to see the man who was his biological father. There were too many conflicting emotions.

He was stunned, therefore, when his father called him into his office and asked bluntly, “When are you going back? It’s about time, don’t you think? You can’t put it off forever.”

“I never thought I’d hear you encourage me to go back to working on the rigs.”

“It would suit me just fine if you never set foot on another one,” his father said. “It’s…Daniel you have to deal with.”

“Frankly, I never thought I’d hear you say that, either.”

His father sighed. “I never thought I’d have a need to, but the truth is what it is. There’s no ignoring it and no turning back. To be perfectly honest, it’s a relief having everything out in the open. I’ve spent the past twenty-some years waiting for the secret to slip out, resenting every minute you and Daniel spent together. I think I finally realize that there’s room in your heart for both of us. I just hope you realize that, too. It doesn’t have to be a contest, Tyler, even though for years I tried to make it one. I hope you’ll forgive me for that.”

Tyler heard the regret in his father’s voice, and he trusted that as he’d trusted very little in recent days. “There’s nothing to forgive. No man could have a better father than you’ve been to me.”

“Or a better mother,” his father said pointedly. “You haven’t seen her since we’ve been back. It’s tearing her heart out.”

“I don’t know what to say to her.”

“How about telling her that you love her no matter what?” Bryce suggested mildly. “That would go a long way to easing the tension she’s under. The rest can be worked out with time.”

Tyler nodded. “I can do that.”

“Soon?”

“Today, if it’ll get you off my back.”

His father grinned. “It will, for the time being, any
way.” His expression sobered. “What about Maddie?”

“I don’t want to talk about Maddie.”

“You have to. I’ve done little else the past few days myself. Think about that little girl who lost her father. How can you blame her for wanting to lash out? You’re a grown man, and
you
want to strike out against your mother and Daniel.”

“I don’t,” he denied, then sighed. “Yes, I suppose I do. But I would never set out to destroy them.”

“Because, despite everything, you knew you always had their love and mine. Maddie lost everything. And her target was me. You just got caught in the cross fire.”

“She
used
me.” He still couldn’t get over how deeply that hurt him.

“But she also backed away from using what she had on me because of her feelings for you.”

“The way I hear, what she had wasn’t exactly on the money.”

“Perhaps not, but Griffin Carpenter’s not above using half-truths if they suit him. And Maddie didn’t know what she had was only a part of the story. She wanted to believe the best about her father. Then, when she was confronted with what he’d done, she fought like crazy to prove it had been a mistake.”

“I can’t forgive her, Dad.”

“Well, that’s up to you, of course, but in case you change your mind, you might want to know she’s living in Los Pin˜os now.”

Tyler regarded his father in stunned disbelief. “How the hell did that happen?”

“Harlan Adams took her under his wing, the way
I hear it. He heard your sister giving her a tongue-lashing on your behalf and went to bat for her. Not with Trish, of course. Nobody would want to tangle with your sister when her protective instincts are aroused, but Harlan spent a little time with Maddie, found her a job on the paper over there and took her into his home till she gets back on her feet. Trish is still spitting mad about it, but she concedes that Maddie’s already doing a good job for the paper. She can’t find a single fault with her reporting, much as she’d like to for your sake.”

“I can’t believe it,” Tyler said. For some reason he’d just assumed Maddie had stayed in Houston. Maybe he’d wanted to believe that she would be nearby whenever he was ready to go looking for her. Obviously, she had taken him at his word, that he wanted nothing more to do with her. Her leaving bothered him more than he cared to admit.

Why? he asked himself. Was it because it was proof that she thought she could make a life for herself without him? Was it because she might meet someone over there in that blasted town where his sister and his brother had both met their soul mates? Harlan Adams was a notorious meddler. If he’d taken a shine to Maddie, it wouldn’t be long before he tried to find someone for her to marry, Tyler thought, feeling thoroughly disgruntled by the prospect.

First things first, though. He had to see Daniel.

“Okay, you win,” he told his father. “I’m taking off.”

“For?”

“The house to see Mother, then out to the rig to see Daniel.”

“And Maddie? I saw the way the color drained out of your face when you heard she was in Los Pin˜os. You afraid of what Dylan and Trish might do, or are you worried about Harlan and his matchmaking?”

“I wish to hell I knew,” he said honestly.

A half hour later he was sitting across from his mother getting a similar lecture about not letting Maddie slip through his fingers.

“What is it with you and Dad?” he demanded. “Shouldn’t you hate her for busting in here and stirring things up?”

“She was just protecting her own, or thought she was. It seems to me that a woman like that would make some man a good wife. She’d be someone he could count on, someone who’d be in his corner no matter what.”

Tyler shook his head. The whole world was going loony on him. He leaned down and gave his mother a kiss and a warning.

“Stay out of my love life.”

“From where I sit, you don’t have one,” she said tartly. She grabbed his hand when he would have walked away. “Tell Daniel…” Her voice trailed off and she sighed.

“Tell Daniel what?”

“What I would have told him if I’d seen him—that I’ll always be grateful to him.”

“For?”

“Why, you, of course,” she said with a tender smile.

Tyler found Daniel in his office, his expression grim as he grappled with a list of figures that apparently weren’t doing his bidding. “Blasted numbers,”
he grumbled when he saw Tyler. “Don’t know how I ever let your father talk me into running this operation.”

Tyler met his gaze, then said quietly, “I think I know how.”

Daniel’s expression faltered. “What is it you think you know?”

“The truth.”

“Is that so? How did you come upon this truth you think you know?”

“It’s too complicated to explain, so let’s just leave it that I know you’re an honorable man and you agreed to come back here rather than stay in Houston and stake a claim on your son.”

The color washed out of Daniel’s face. “Stop talking crazy, boy.”

“I know everything,” Tyler said. “Mother told me.”

Of all the shocking statements Tyler had made since entering Daniel’s office that was the one that seemed to shake him the most.

“But why?” he asked, regarding Tyler with total disbelief. “We’d made a promise, all of us.”

“She was afraid it was going to come out in a tabloid. She wanted me to know first.”

“And your father agreed to that? Over the years he’s warned me on a regular basis that we had an agreement. As if I could have forgotten,” he said with a shake of his head. “What changed his mind?”

“Mother didn’t give him a choice.”

He chuckled at that. “Helen always did have a stubborn streak. She and I locked horns on more than one occasion while we were…” His voice faltered.

“Lovers,” Tyler said. “It’s okay, Daniel. I’m old enough to know that’s how I came to be. She said to tell you she’s grateful for that, by the way.”

“No more than I am,” he said. “You’ve made me proud, Tyler. Even though I wasn’t the one who raised you, and have no right to take the credit, I can’t help feeling proud of the man you’ve become. You’re strong and decent and honorable.”

“A part of the credit for that does go to you,” Tyler insisted. “Don’t you know what an influence you’ve been on my life? Don’t you know how much I’ve relied on you, even without knowing that you were my father? Look at Jen. You were the only one I trusted with that.”

“It broke my heart when she and my granddaughter died,” Daniel said. “It broke my heart even more to see you grieving so.” He studied him intently, then said with his usual lack of subtlety, “I thought maybe that young woman who was here a few weeks ago might be changing that.”

Tyler groaned. “Not you, too.”

“What?”

“I’m not discussing Maddie with you. I’ve already had an earful from Mother and Dad.”

Daniel chuckled. “Then I’m sure that was more than enough.” He regarded Tyler with a hopeful expression. “You coming back to work?”

Tyler almost said yes, seizing on the suggestion as a way to put off what he knew he had to do where Maddie was concerned. “No,” he said reluctantly. “Not just yet. There’s one more person I have to see.”

He just wished to hell he knew what he was going to say when he saw her.

Maddie was slowly but surely falling in love with Los Pin˜os and the people in it. Harlan Adams and his wife were at the top of the list. They had made her feel a part of their extended family from the moment she had stepped across the threshold.

Her job was…well, it was safe, after the walk she had almost taken on the journalistic wild side. She was getting back to basics, covering everything from weddings to cattle rustling and being meticulously accurate about all of it.

She was also willing to admit that she was content living in Los Pin˜os partly because there were Delacourts living here, and she knew that, sooner or later, Tyler would come to visit. Maybe she would eventually catch a glimpse of him, though not if Trish or Dylan had their way.

Dylan usually muttered a greeting when their paths crossed, but Trish scowled and turned away. They were still treating her as if she were a carrier of the bubonic plague or worse, but she could understand how they felt. She had hurt their baby brother and their parents. Their attitude was simply the price she had to pay for the damage she’d caused to their family.

Whatever happened with Tyler or the rest of the Delacourts, she was determined to make the most of the opportunity she’d been given to start over. She wanted to prove that she could be a different kind of journalist, one who stuck to the facts and—even more importantly—one with heart.

Harlan Adams certainly seemed to think she had it in her. He continued to amaze her. She’d interviewed him on his ninetieth birthday, sprinkling bits of his wisdom on life and love and family through the article. The story had been picked up around the state. She couldn’t help wondering if Tyler had seen it and, if so, what he’d thought, especially about Harlan’s declaration that love should never be squandered but rather seized and savored, no matter how difficult the path sometimes seemed.

“Did you send a copy to your young man?” he’d asked, once he read it.

“Of course not.”

“Then maybe I will. There’s a message in here, if only he’s bright enough to find it.”

“Don’t you have enough people falling in with your plans without going after Tyler?” Maddie asked.

“You changed your mind about wanting him?”

“No, but—”

“No buts about it,” Harlan said emphatically. “Sometimes people need a little nudge.” He folded up the clipping and stuck it in an envelope. He started to hand it to Janet, then snatched it back. “Never mind. I think I’ll put it in the mail myself.”

His wife regarded him indignantly. “Harlan Adams, are you suggesting I can’t be trusted with a piece of mail?”

“Now usually the answer to that would be an unequivocal no, but sometimes you tend to take the shortsighted view when it comes to my matchmaking.” He patted his pocket. “I think I’ll play it safe.”

Janet looked at Maddie and rolled her eyes. “The man’s had a few little successes with getting his
grandbabies married and settled down. His ego’s out of control. Lord help the great-grandchildren.”

Maddie met his gaze. “Would it matter if I asked you not to send that clipping?”

“No,” he said flatly. “And it has nothing to do with my ego. I just know a thing or two about love.”

Maddie resigned herself to the inevitable. “I’m out of here.”

Harlan regarded her with alarm. “What do you mean by that? You’re not leaving just because I won’t back down, are you?”

She laughed at his stunned reaction. “No, actually, I’m just going to cover a town council meeting, but I’ll have to remember that threat for another time.”

He scowled at her. “You go, missy, but you’ll thank me in the long run.”

The town council meeting was uneventful, but on the walk back to her office Maddie saw a man step out of the shadows. She knew at once who it was, because the jolt of her pulse had less to do with fear than anticipation. He had come, and it hadn’t taken a letter from Harlan Adams to get him here. She considered that promising.

“Tyler,” she said, hoping her voice sounded far calmer than she felt.

“Can we talk?”

“Of course.”

“Where?”

“I was on my way to the newspaper office. There won’t be anyone else around at this time of night.”

“Fine.”

She led the way down the block, then used her key
to enter the darkened office. All the while, her pulse was scrambling, her thoughts racing.

“Coffee?” she asked, more for something to do than out of politeness.

“If it’s no trouble.”

She filled the coffeemaker, then turned it on. After that she was at a loss. Her gaze kept straying to the man perched on a corner of her desk. She couldn’t seem to get enough of just staring at him. He looked tired and maybe a little thinner than he’d been the last time she’d seen him.