What the Heart Wants

Book 1: What the Heart Wants

by Jeanell Bolton

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Western Romance

Synopsis

The love he left behind . . . Laurel Harlow was once the princess of Bosque Bend, Texas: every door was open to the only daughter of the beloved minister and his well-bred wife. Then scandal rocked their family-and those same doors slammed shut. Now preparing the family mansion for sale, Laurel wants nothing more than to put the past behind her and move on. But when Jase Redlander appears on her doorstep, sixteen years after he left her heartbroken, she can't turn him away . . . especially when he needs her help. . . . is the only thing worth coming home for Jase never intended to come back to this one-horse town. But then his teenage daughter runs away, headed straight for Bosque Bend and the woman he once loved. The moment Jase sees Laurel again, he knows he never should have left all those years ago. There's a secret she's keeping from him, though-he's certain of it. Over the course of sunny days and sultry nights, Jase aims to find out what it is. And this time he'll show Laurel that this bad boy can be the man of her dreams . . . if she'll let him.

Release date: September 2, 2014

Publisher: Forever Yours

Print pages: 370

Sample

Chapter One

Laurel held the long rope of pearls up to the brilliant midsummer sunset shining in her bedroom window.


Here she was, sitting at her dressing table and wondering if pawning Gramma’s necklace would provide enough money to pay the bills for the next couple of months. Her finances would straighten themselves out once she sold the house, but she’d had it on the market for almost seven weeks now, and not one soul had expressed interest in her six-thousand-square-foot white elephant.

She should have tried to sell it last fall, but managing her mother’s funeral was all she could accomplish back then. Besides, she’d had another year to go on her teaching contract, and her work had become her life after Dave left her and Daddy died.

The past three years had been mind-numbing, one blow after another. Not that she really missed Dave. She’d married him because it was time for Bosque Bend’s favorite daughter to march down the aisle, and he’d seemed like the logical choice. Too bad he’d ditched her when being married to Laurel Harlow became a liability rather than an asset.

The last blow came seven weeks ago, when her principal told her she wouldn’t get another contract. She should have seen it coming, but she’d thought she was safe in the elementary school across the river, in Lynnwood, the new subdivision populated by new people who didn’t know the protocols of old Bosque Bend, and who seemed to care more about her effectiveness as a teacher than her family history.

She’d driven home in a trance from the meeting with her principal, and as soon as she entered the safety of the house and locked the door, she’d whirled into a spate of activity to counteract the numbness that fogged her brain and made her feel like she was dragging around a fifty-pound weight. First she called the Realtor father of one of her students and put the house she’d lived in for most of her life on the market. Next she started contacting school districts in the Rio Grande Valley for jobs. Her days of servitude to Kinkaid House and her family legacy were over.

She rolled the pearls between her fingers. Living alone was the pits. Mrs. Bridges, across the street, employed a live-in maid, had a daughter who visited regularly, and was followed by a big, happy-looking dog everywhere she went. Laurel was her own maid, had no friends anymore, and Kinkaid House hadn’t housed a dog since Mama’s older sister died of rabies seventy-five years ago.

The doorbell chimed from downstairs. She sighed and nestled the rope of glowing beads back in its padded box. Who was it? Prince Charming magically appearing to rescue her from Bosque Bend?

She stood up and squared her shoulders. She didn’t need Prince Charming. She’d make her own happy ending.

The bell rang again as she headed down the hall toward the stairs. Probably the ill-mannered paperboy come collecting, though it didn’t seem time for him yet. He always peered behind her down the hall as she handed him the money, then ran as if all the demons in hell were chasing him.

Her overactive conscience, part and parcel of being a preacher’s daughter, charged into action. Of course the paperboy was afraid. Who could blame him? This house was notorious. Everyone in town knew what had happened here.

She started down the wide stairway.

If she could just mail in her payment, like when she used to take the Dallas Morning News, but Art Sawyer, who put out the town’s biweekly newspaper, had never met an innovation he didn’t dislike. Thus the Bosque Bend Retriever was printed on the same press he’d been using for the last forty years and was still hand-delivered by an army of schoolboys on bikes.


The doorbell pealed a third time. She gritted her teeth.

Sorry, whoever you are. I’m not about to break into a gallop. I might not have anything else left, but I can still muster a shred of dignity.


Three generations of family portraits on the staircase wall watched in approval as she regally descended the steps. As a child, she’d sped past them as fast as she could go to avoid their see-all stares, but now she drew strength from them. She might have to sell the house out from under their gilded frames, but she’d do it with her head held high.

And she’d burn the house down to the ground before she’d let it go for taxes.

Think positively, Laurel Elizabeth. Maybe your caller is a prospective buyer that the Realtor has sent over to look at the house.


She opened the heavy oak door a few cautious inches. Just last week someone had lobbed a string of firecrackers at her when she was out in the yard, searching for her newspaper. Of course, it was right before the Fourth, but she doubted that those firecrackers were a patriotic salute.

Dear God in heaven, who was this on her doorstep?

Her caller was a giant, a big man darkly silhouetted against the red blaze of the high-summer Texas sunset. She couldn’t make out his face because of the glare behind him, but he was built like a tank and stood maybe six four, six five. Definitely not Prince Charming. More like the Incredible Hulk. She glanced down to make sure the screen door was still locked.

“Laurel? Laurel Harlow?”

The voice seemed familiar. She couldn’t quite place it, but her visitor sounded more surprised than dangerous. She pushed the door open wider, and the man’s face came into focus as he moved forward to examine her through the wire mesh.

She stepped back a pace. He responded by taking off his dark glasses and smiling, a slight baring of his teeth.

“It’s Jase Redlander, from old Bosque Bend High.”

Her heart did a quick rabbit hop. Jase Redlander, of course. His voice was deeper now, his shoulders broader, and he’d grown a good three inches in height, but it was definitely Jase.

Jase, whom she’d loved to distraction. Jase whom she thought she’d never see again. Jase, who sixteen years ago had been run out of town for having sex with his English teacher.

He folded his sunglasses and put them in his pocket. “Sorry to bother you, but I just drove in from Dallas and I’ve got sort of a…well, a family emergency that might end up in your lap.” He grimaced and glanced behind himself at the evening traffic moving along Austin Avenue. “Can we talk inside?”

The noise got bad this time of day, with everyone driving home from work and out to play. Back in the 1880s, when Great-Grampa Erasmus built Kinkaid House on a narrow dirt road that headed toward the state capital, he never could have imagined that it would one day be widened to four lanes, with a central turn lane being proposed for next year.

Laurel tried to keep her hand from shaking as she unlocked the screen.

“Of course. Come in.” Her voice got stuck somewhere in the back of her throat. “How nice to see you,” she managed to murmur.

But, standing aside as he entered, she saw that this was a different Jase Redlander than the teenager she’d fallen in love with sixteen years ago. The cut of his coal-black hair, the upscale Levi’s and European-style polo shirt, the set of his shoulders—everything about him signaled money and power and confidence. Obviously he’d wrestled with life and won. She, on the other hand, had lost big-time. Could he tell?

Not if she could help it.

She relocked both outside doors, led him down the wide central hall, and unfolded the doors into the drawing room.

Three generations of her mother’s people, Kinkaid women with money to burn, had managed to make the overlarge room, originally a double parlor, into a popular gathering place for Bosque Bend’s moneyed elite in times past. Victorian sofas, heavy chairs, and grotesquely carved little tables, all flanked by potted greenery, formed intimate conversation groups, while fragile undercurtains, confections of snowy lace, filtered the harsh Texas sun coming in the front windows into fantastic arabesques on the oriental carpet.

Jase had always loved this room. Years ago, he’d told her that if he ever died and sneaked into heaven, God’s front room would look like this.

She hoped he wouldn’t notice that heaven was somewhat the worse for wear. The upholstery was threadbare, the drapes faded, and the windows dingy. She glanced uneasily at the dark rectangles on the far wall, where the more saleable paintings had hung, then at the entrance to Daddy’s study, which looked positively naked since she’d sold the fig-leafed marble youths who’d guarded the doorway for as long as she could remember.

The antiquities man from Austin had almost salivated as he loaded them into his van, and the money had, fittingly, paid off the last of Daddy’s obligations.

Claiming a spindly ribbon-back chair for herself, Laurel gestured Jase toward the same velvet-upholstered sofa on which the two of them would sit and talk while Jase was waiting for Daddy to emerge from his study and summon him for his weekly counseling session. At first they had discussed school events in stilted little conversations, but after a while, when he started coming half an hour early, they’d relaxed with each other and began talking about what was going on in their lives. Jase had shared her joy when she made straight As and was elected sophomore representative to student council, and he’d consoled her when Mama and Daddy said she couldn’t have unchaperoned dates until her next birthday.

In turn, she tried not to look shocked as she learned about the way he lived. Everyone in Baptist-dry Bosque Bend knew that Jase’s father was a bad-tempered bully who kept a rowdy tavern just over the county line, but Laurel had been horrified to learn that Growler Redlander was such a poor excuse for a parent that his son had been working odd jobs since he was nine to support himself.

Jase had shrugged off her concern. “Laurel, I was five six when I was in the fourth grade. By the time I hit middle school, I was five ten and could pass for an eighteen-year-old any day of the week. The car wash is easy, and it’s only one night a week. The only problem with the yard work is hiding the mower from my father so he can’t toss it in the river like he does everything else.”

Laurel’s fifteen-year-old heart had opened to him. He was so brave, so valiant—and so handsome, just like the heroes on the covers of the romances she borrowed from Mrs. Bridges’s extensive collection of paperbacks.

But that was sixteen years ago. What had brought Jase back to Bosque Bend? What sort of “family emergency” could possibly involve her?

She watched him deposit himself carefully on the delicately carved sofa, as if afraid it would break under his weight. He focused his gaze on her, and she took a quick breath. She’d forgotten how dark his eyes were—so black that iris and pupil seemed to blend into one. But why was he staring at her like that? Was something wrong? She glanced down at her silky white blouse. None of the buttons had come undone, and the zipper of her gray slacks was still closed tight.

He blinked, waved his hand in apology, and shifted his gaze. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you seem so much the same. Somehow I expected you to look, well, older.”


Suddenly nervous, she pushed a heavy sheaf of dark hair back behind her ear and gave a little laugh, flattered but disbelieving. She was thirty-one years old, had been through hell, and didn’t doubt that every bit of it showed on her face.

Nothing to do but seize the conversational bull by the horns. “You said you have an emergency?”

He exhaled deeply and rubbed his fingers along the nap of the sofa. “It’s my daughter. She ran away from home this morning and left a note saying she was going to Bosque Bend to find her roots. I think she might try to contact you.”

His daughter? Jase had a child?


Through the years, Laurel’s mind had frozen him at age sixteen, standing alone against the world, her tragic lost love. The idea that he would marry one day and have a family had never even entered her head. Jase Redlander hadn’t seemed to be the type to settle down. Instead, she’d pictured him as an unshaven roughneck putting out oil fires—or maybe a steel-jawed hero fighting off a Mexican drug cartel. Year by year, he’d become a fantasy figure to her—a heroic dark knight. Certainly not a father.

He pulled a photo from his wallet. “Here’s a picture of Lolly from last year. She looks a lot older than she is, but don’t be fooled—she’s only fifteen.”

Using a thick-barreled pen, he scrawled something on the back of the picture before offering it to her. Laurel reached for it. Their fingers touched and a sizzle of awareness shot through her. The picture fell to the carpet.

Jase bent down to retrieve the photo and placed it on the rococo table beside her, his eyes catching hers for one long moment. “I’m at the old house,” he said, his voice a bit deeper. “It’s between renters right now.” His gaze moved to her mouth, and his pitch dropped even lower. “You remember it. You were there…once.”

Laurel picked the photograph up from the table, willing her hand not to tremble, and forced herself to study it. Jase was right. His daughter did look older than she had any right to, but that was how fifteen-year-old girls always looked, even when she herself was in high school. Probably back to caveman times. Lolly was lovely, just as pretty as Jase was handsome. Butter-yellow hair swooped down across her forehead, almost covering her right eye, while her pouting lips and lazy-lidded eyes were studiously sexy. Her eyebrows were long, like her father’s—Hollywood eyebrows.

But did she have her father’s smile? Jase didn’t smile often in the old days, but when he did, it was like the sun coming out—a wide, brilliant, heartbreaking grin, perhaps more effective because it was so rare.

Well, from the looks of him, he had a lot more to smile about these days.

Laurel raised her eyes from the photo and held it out to him, this time careful to avoid all contact of the flesh. He’s married. Off limits.


“If she does show up, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Jase put up a refusing hand. “No, keep it. I wrote my number on the back. Show it to your parents too, in case she comes by when you’re not here.”

Laurel froze.

“Mama and Daddy are dead.” She kept her voice steady as she placed the photo on the little table again. “I’m living here alone now, and I’m between jobs, so I spend most of my time at the house.”

Jase’s mouth opened and closed. She’d caught him by surprise. Apparently he hadn’t kept up with the goings-on in his old home town. Who could blame him? He’d been all but ridden out on a rail.

“I’m sorry about that. I’d meant to come back here sometime to visit with your dad. Reverend Ed’s support meant a lot to me. He’s the only one who believed in me through that whole mess, you know. I guess I thought he was eternal.”

Laurel shrugged. “Nothing lasts forever.” And Daddy, her wonderful Daddy, had died in spirit long before his body finally gave out. She studied the philodendron in the wicker stand beside her guest. How long had it been since she’d watered the local vegetation? And why on earth had she focused on the stupid plant? Because she didn’t want to think about Daddy.

Jase exhaled softly. “I thought maybe you were here visiting your parents, but you and Dave are living in this house now? Aunt Maxie said you two—”

“Dave Carson and I were divorced three years ago,” she interrupted. “And we didn’t have any children. I’ve been teaching music for the past six years at Lynnwood Elementary, a new school over on the east side of the river, but my contract wasn’t renewed. I’m trying to sell the house so I can get a fresh start somewhere else.”

He leaned forward to lay his big hand gently on hers. His voice was soft and comforting.

“I’m sorry for that too. It’s hard to start over in a new place.”

Her eyelids quivered. What was this man doing to her? She refused to let herself dissolve into tears just because Jase Redlander had gotten her libido going, then offered her sympathy when no one else had.

Withdrawing her hand, she directed the subject back to Jase’s truant daughter. “What makes you think Lolly will come here?”

“Her history class did a unit on personal roots last semester, and she’s been after me ever since, wanting to know about my family.” He paused as if trying to decide what to say. “And her mother’s.”

His eyes avoided her questioning glance and wandered around the room.

Laurel held her breath. Had he noticed the Greek statues were gone? Daddy would have called it false pride, but she didn’t want anyone to realize she was pawning jewelry and selling off family heirlooms to buy her bread and butter. Having the FOR SALE sign in front of the house was different—the more people who knew she was planning to leave Bosque Bend, the better. Maybe then they’d get off her back.


She glanced at the baby grand in the corner next to Daddy’s office. There was no way to take anything that large with her when she moved. She’d tried to sell it—discreetly, of course—but it turned out that old pianos were a drag on the market. Her hands flexed. The Steinway was so out of tune that she could hardly bear to play it anymore, but how could anyone not love a piano?

Jase began again. “I cleaned up my father’s memory as much as possible for Girl Child, but had to do some pretty fast talking when it came to her mother. I tried to keep things vague, but she added two and two and came up with five.”

“Five?”

“She left a note. She’s come to Bosque Bend to find you. She—she thinks you’re her mother.”

Laurel’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped open. What? Had she heard him right?

“Me? Why? Your wife—”

His gaze held steady. “I’m not married and never have been. Lolly’s mother abandoned her at birth.”

Laurel felt like she was treading water. “You’re a—a single father?”

He nodded.

She reached for a lifeline. “But…usually the mother takes the baby.”

“She wasn’t the maternal type.”

The tide was rising. “But I still don’t understand. Why me? Why does your daughter think I’m her mother?”


Jase dropped his gaze and moved his hand as if trying to back off from the question.

“I…well…it just happened. It wasn’t deliberate. I think she misinterpreted some of the stories Maxie told her from when we used to live here.” He cleared his throat. “You remember Maxie, don’t you? Maxine Hokinson, Swede Hokinson’s daughter, my mother’s oldest sister? She’s the one who subbed at your friend Sarah Bridges’s house that summer their regular housekeeper got swarmed by Africanized bees. Anyway, you don’t need to get involved—just call me if Lolly shows up on your doorstep, and I’ll come fetch her.”

“All right.” What else could she say? She was way out of her depth.

He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go now. It’s getting late, and I don’t want to be gone from the old house too long, in case Lolly shows up there.”

Laurel stood up to walk him out. “I’m sure you’ll find her soon.”

She was sure of no such thing, but at least she hoped so. A fifteen-year-old could land herself in a lot of trouble in an unfamiliar town, no matter how small. The Retriever had reported that a group of rowdy teenagers had been gathering in the parking lot of old Bosque Bend High School every night this summer and disturbing residents nearby. Art Sawyer had accompanied the story with a blistering editorial about underage drinking and promised more to come as the investigation continued.


Lord only knows how Art always got the inside scoop. Probably because his wife was a Hruska and her cousin’s nephew was the new chief of police. That’s how things worked in Bosque Bend. The old families, the ones that had been anchored there for generations, all knew each other, and—good, bad, or indifferent—the news got around.

Laurel unlocked the big front door, then held the screen open with one hand while offering the other to Jase in farewell. He enveloped it in his own for a single warm second and smiled at her—that dazzling, absolutely devastating smile that people saw so rarely, the smile that had sealed her to him for all eternity when she was just fifteen.

“Thank you, Laurel. You’re kinder to me than I deserve.”

Her heart thumped so loudly that he should have been able to hear it. She watched as he crossed the lawn to the long driveway on the south side of the house, waved once, and opened the door of his car—a big black Cadillac, just like Daddy used to drive.

*  *  *

Accustomed to Dallas’s big-city traffic, Jase made his way through Bosque Bend’s rush hour without even noticing it.

Where the hell was Lolly? Girl Child was quite a handful, but she’d never pulled a stunt like this before. A shiver shot through him as he glanced at the rapidly setting sun.

Relax, Jase. Everything’s going to be all right. Lolly’s a smart kid. She can take care of herself. In fact, she’s probably sitting on the front porch of the old house right now, waiting for you to come pick her up. Where else could she be? You needn’t have bothered Laurel by barging in on her like that.


He changed lanes, moving to the left.

Laurel…instead of working himself into a panic about Lolly, he’d think about Reverend Ed’s daughter, like he always did when his life started going down the crapper. She was the only girl he’d ever loved, and remembering her kindness—her goodness—gave him peace and strength.

But this time, picturing Laurel Harlow in his mind’s eye made him feel even worse. His fingers tightened on the leather-covered steering wheel. Sixteen years to learn better, and he’d still made a complete ass out of himself when he tried to talk to her—but he’d never imagined she’d be orphaned and divorced, all alone in that big, cavernous house.

His mouth twisted. He should have figured out something was going on when Information told him the Harlow number was unlisted. That was quite a change from the old days, when half the boys in Bosque Bend were on the horn to Reverend Ed—or at least the “at-risk” half.

But how could anyone be stupid enough to let Laurel Harlow get away? Driving into town earlier this afternoon, he’d thought that ol’ Dave was one man who went to bed happy each night. As a teenager, Laurel had been sexy as hell—tall, with a full-breasted woman’s body, soft gray eyes fringed with long black lashes, her lips sweet and tender—the princess of Bosque Bend. Now, in full womanhood, she was in her glory.

He stomped on his brake as a traffic signal that hadn’t been there sixteen years ago went from amber to red in front of him. Time to switch on his headlights. The last of the radiant sunset had finally sunk below the horizon.

He’d better get a move on. His old neighborhood had always held a particularly prominent position on the Bosque Bend police blotter, and he didn’t want Lolly out there alone after dark.

The signal turned green. He hit the accelerator and shot forward.

Crap! He’d missed his turn.

No wonder. The old Alamo Drive-in on the corner of Crocket Avenue had finally been torn down, and in its place was a Walmart, complete with a large, white marquee advertising a post–July Fourth sale in patriotic red-and-blue letters.

Which meant that Overton’s Department Store, which had reigned supreme on the city square since before he was born, finally had some competition. Jase smiled grimly. At least Overton’s blatant racism ended when Reverend Ed threatened Dolph Overton, this generation’s CEO, with a congregational boycott. You didn’t fuck around with the pastor of the biggest church in town.

Exiting at the next street, he circled back, driving through the crowded parking lot. A constant stream of customers entered the store through the sliding door on the right, slowing him down to a crawl. Another wellspring exited from the slider on the left, the adults carrying bags of merchandise and pushing grocery baskets while the children bounced red, white, and blue balloons on strings. He maneuvered carefully around a little boy dashing about in the near dark with a blue balloon tied to his wrist, U-turned, and eased out onto Crocket again.

How much time had he lost? The streetlights were glimmering now. Night was falling fast.

Chapter Two

Laurel stayed outside on her porch to watch the last of the dying sun dodge behind the English half-timber directly across the street. The early evening had dissolved into a humid, uncomfortable twilight, but she felt reborn. She’d been in a haze for six weeks, ever since she’d been laid off, but the scent of honeysuckle was on the breeze, Jase Redlander was back in town, and she was alive again.


Losing her job had been the ultimate shock after almost three years of shocks. First there was the business about Daddy, then the inevitable repudiation by their friends and neighbors, then the divorce. Through it all, Laurel continued driving across town every day to teach her music classes at Lynnwood Elementary. In fact, she had to—with Daddy unemployed, she was the family breadwinner.

She’d always enjoyed teaching, but as Mama’s health declined, her students became even more important to her. No longer was she a twinkle-toed fairy who danced through life with her feet scarcely touching the ground, no longer a two-dimensional representation of her saintly father and well-bred mother, but someone who brought the joy of music into children’s lives.

She sang with them, taught them rhythm instruments and recorders, explained elements of music theory, planned performances, stayed after school to teach basic piano to those w. . .