“He died a while ago, but Mrs. Harlow went just last year. Laurel is living in Kinkaid House all alone now. She and Dave Carson are divorced.”
“Divorced?” Another gasp. “Laurel Harlow? I wouldn’t have expected that either.”
“Yeah.”
Maxie’s voice softened. “I’m sorry, Jase.”
She understood. Reverend Ed’s daughter was the princess of Bosque Bend, the golden girl, the one for whom everything worked out, the one who lived happily ever after, giving hope to people like Jase and her that their lives would eventually turn out right too.
He nodded into the phone. “Well, anyway, I left one of those school photos with her in case Lolly shows up.”
“Jase, what about your old house?” Maxie’s voice perked up with hope. “Lolly might remember us talking about renting it out.”
“That’s where I am now. She’s not here.”
“Think we should contact the police?”
“I did, and they won’t even talk to me. She left home on her own, even wrote that damn note about how she was going to Bosque Bend to find her mother and would be back later this evening. Officially she’s a runaway and the police won’t get involved.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this much—I’m not leaving Bosque Bend till I find her!”
He put the phone down on the floor beside the bed and lay back on the pillow. Brave words, but what should he do next? Drive every street in Bosque Bend, calling out her name like she was a lost puppy?
But maybe she hadn’t even made it to Bosque Bend…
He looked out the window at the dark sky. It had been a long day, and the night would be even longer. He was exhausted, but there was no way he could sleep.
It was all his fault. He’d wanted Girl Child to have everything Laurel Harlow had—a beautiful home, financial security, the respect of the community, a stable family. But somewhere along the line, he’d screwed up. Somehow he’d done such a shitty job as a father that Lolly had taken off a hundred miles down the freeway in search of a mother who didn’t give a flying fuck about her. He didn’t know where Lolly’s mother was now or even if she was still alive, and he doubted if anyone in Bosque Bend did either.
But what if Lolly was hiding somewhere, avoiding him because some bastard had told her why he’d been run out of town? Was it already too late? Had he lost his daughter at the same time that he was busting his butt trying to give her the world?
Even as he watched, the wishing star was beginning to fade.
His spirits sagged. He prayed that Lolly was safe, but in his heart, he’d begun to fear the worst.
Chapter Three
Laurel switched on the porch light and opened the heavy door enough to see a bedraggled teenager with tangled yellow curls and big, apprehensive eyes standing in front of her.
She looked like a fashion ad gone mad: shiny pink shorts, a bandanna halter top in a black-and-white splashy print, dangly pink plastic earrings that glowed in the dark, flip-flops glittering like Fourth of July sparklers. From one hand hung a bulging pink backpack and from the other, incongruously, a Louis Vuitton shoulder bag.
Almost certainly this was Jase’s Lolly. Not the flirtatious, sexy Lolly of the school picture, but a younger, more vulnerable version. Laurel pushed the door the rest of the way open. Her visitor looked at a crumpled piece of paper in her hand, then at the numbers on the side of the door, then stepped forward to stare at Laurel just as Jase had done two hours ago.
“Are you Laurel Elizabeth Harlow?” The girl’s voice came out thin and edgy.
Laurel stared back. “Yes. Who are you?”
The girl wet her lips and darted her eyes away.
Laurel tried not to smile. It was Jase’s daughter, and she was trying to figure out what to say. What was it going to be? Magazine subscriptions? A lost dog? How does one explain landing on a total stranger’s doorstep at nine o’clock at night?
The girl ducked her head a little and looked up from under her long, movie-star brows, as if unsure how Laurel would react. “I’m…I’m Lolly. I think you, like, used to know my dad, Jason Redlander.”
Those were the magic words.
Laurel unlocked the screen, flung it wide, and greeted her visitor with a big smile. “Welcome to Bosque Bend. Your father dropped by a couple of hours ago and told me you might come by. You look as though you’ve had a long day.”
“Dad? Is he here?” Lolly’s eyes went wide with alarm, and she shifted her balance to her back foot.
Laurel caught her tongue between her teeth. Wrong thing to say. Would Lolly make a run for it? Obviously she was not overjoyed at the prospect of returning to the bosom of her family. The situation must be more fraught than Jase let on.
Continuing to hold the screen open, Laurel did her best to seem harmless. “No, I’m quite alone, I promise. I think your father’s spending the night at the family homestead.”
“Did he tell you I ran away?”
“Yes.”