Lone Star Lonely by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page B

and that was sober. Right now her
imitation of Celine Dion would have brought tears to the
superstar’s eyes. But at least it guided him to where she was.
    He found her in a huge room at the rear of
the house with skylights, a big pool and a gigantic hot tub
surrounded on three sides by glass walls that looked out onto a
starry Texas night. The ceiling directly above the hot tub was
glass, too. Kirsten’s arms were stretched to either side and
resting on the marble edge. She held a half empty JD bottle in one
hand. Her head was tipped back, her eyes were closed and she was
bellowing to the heavens. By all appearances, she was well and
truly snockered.
    Adam walked over to the hot tub and waited
for her to run out of wind on the closing note—if it could be
called a note. She did, finally. Lowered her head and opened her
eyes to look directly at him.
    “Found me, huh?”
    “Looks like. So how drunk are you, hon?”
    “Not drunk enough.” She looked at her half
empty bottle. “You want some?”
    “Well, maybe I’d best stay sober tonight.” He
glanced at her hands. “Your fingers are starting to prune up. You
think you’ve been in there long enough?’’
    She shrugged.
    “I made you some dinner. Come on.” He held
out a hand.
    She didn’t take it. “I love my father, you
know,” she said.
    Adam swallowed hard. “So you’ve been sitting
here getting drunk and thinking I don’t know that?”
    She looked up at him. Big eyes, totally
without pretense now. Her makeup had washed off in the water.
    Her face was as naked and as honest as he’d
ever seen it, and he liked it that way.
    “I know you love Max. I shouldn’t have said
what I did.”
    “I had to take him to Sunnyside. I had to.”
She shook her head, shot him a look. “You think I would have taken
him there if I’d had a choice?”
    Adam shook his head. “I know you wouldn’t
have. It’s okay. C’mon, get out of the water now.”
    Kirsten shook her head. Her eyes were
moistening, and her lower lip protruding a bit. She sniffed. “If
he’d known what I did to you…if he’d known we never…and he was so
sick anyway, just before the wedding. All the excitement, it was
just too much for him.”
    Adam frowned at her. “Wait a minute. He was
sick? That was why he never showed that day? I thought you must
have just told him it was off.”
    He’d been truly worried when Max hadn’t shown
up…but not for long. Within minutes his worry had focused on
Kirsten. And when he learned what she’d done, his worry had turned
to rage.
    “I took him to see Doc the day before,” she
said, speaking softly, as if she was thinking it all through in her
mind and just saying it aloud to solidify the thoughts. “Doc said
he ought to be in the hospital. Daddy…he said he’d go, but he made
me promise to go ahead with the wedding anyway. Said it would kill
him if he thought we’d postponed it because of him. So I just…I
just let him think we–”
    “You never told him the difference?” Adam
said slowly. “I can’t believe this. Your father thinks we’ve been
married all this time?”
    She closed her eyes, let her head rest on the
cushion behind her. The hand holding the bottle relaxed so much
that the whiskey all ran out into the water, but he didn’t think
that was a bad thing. “I couldn’t tell him about Joseph. He hated
Joseph. All his life, he hated him.”
    Adam hunkered down beside the hot tub, his
curiosity piqued. “Why?”
    Kirsten shrugged. “I don’t know. But Joseph
hated Daddy right back.” She sat up, tipping her bottle to her
lips, then frowning at it because it was empty.
    “Come on. Out of the water,” Adam said. He
held out his hand once more. She set the bottle down and lifted
hers. Adam clasped it. Cool and damp. Small and fragile. She got to
her feet, and he steadied her up the marble steps, out of the
water. She closed her eyes and breathed in slowly. Then she took
her hand away. “I can manage by myself.”
    “Yeah,