An excerpt from

HIS DAUGHTER'S LAUGHTER

by Janis Reams Hudson

(ISBN 0-373-24105-4)

a June 1997 release from Silhouette Special Edition®, in stores May 1997

©1997 by Janis Reams Hudson

(published here by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.)

CHAPTER ONE

"Why do you want to leave her here?"

"I don't want to." Tyler Barnett rubbed his face, then let his hands fall to his lap. "She's only six years old. I don't want to leave her anywhere, but I don't know what else to do. I can't get the kind of help she needs at home. That last therapist terrified her. I was told you were the best. If the only way to help my daughter is leave her with my aunt and have her bring Amanda in for appointments, I'll just have to find a way to live with it."

"I don't think it's in Amanda's best interest for you to leave her here." Dr. Sanders folded his hands atop his spotless desk blotter. "She's obviously still suffering from the trauma of her mother's death. She may very well look on your leaving her here as abandonment."

Tyler clenched his fists against the hopelessness eating at him. "So what do I do? How do I help her?"

"I have a colleague in Cheyenne. Let me give him a call."

Tyler nodded. "Fine. I appreciate it. But keep in mind, Cheyenne's an eight-hour drive from my ranch."

"I understand what you're saying."

"Do you? I said I'd do anything for Amanda, and I meant it. But if I have to shut down my training facilities and move to Cheyenne for several months--or longer--I'll lose my income. Not only will I need to pay for her treatment, but we'd have to have a place to live. Don't get me wrong. I'm not poor. I don't care if her treatment costs me every penny I have. But if my money runs out before she's well, and I have no income . . . ." Frustrated, he shrugged.

"What about insurance?" Sanders asked.

Tyler shook his head. "Amanda hadn't lived with me for two years before her mother died. She was covered on Deborah's policy, but it didn't cover this."

"I see." The doctor frowned. "How far are you from Jackson?"

"A couple of hours."

"Let me talk to that colleague I mentioned and see what we can come up with. If you can stick around for a few minutes, I'll call right now."

Tyler nodded and pushed himself from the chair. "Thank you." The two men shook hands. "I'll be in the lounge with Amanda."

In the hall, Tyler straightened his shoulders and put on a smile. He didn't want Amanda to see the despair and tension eating at him. If Dr. Sanders couldn't help, Tyler didn't know what he would do.

The private, exclusive San Francisco clinic was hushed with quiet. Not the peace-giving quiet of his Wyoming sage flats, but the unnerving quiet of the hundreds of troubled souls who had passed through these halls over the years. The soft whish of his boots across the plush carpet made the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

At the end of the hall, Amanda and a young woman wearing a white lab coat over blue jeans were the only people in the waiting room. From her perch on the edge of a child-size chair, Amanda, her back to the hall, leaned toward the woman kneeling at her feet. Both were engrossed in whatever they were doing with their hands. The woman laughed. She was a cute little thing with short, straight hair the same light golden chestnut shade as one of Tyler's favorite stallions.

Then Tyler heard another sound that stopped him in his tracks and backed the breath up in his lungs. It squeezed his heart and flooded his eyes. Had he imagined it? Did he want to hear it so desperately that his ears had invented the sound to soothe his soul?

But, no, there it was again, soft and faint, but oh, so real. His heart kicked in with a giant thud against his sternum, and his lungs expanded to suck in air. Heat and ice rippled side by side down his spine. Lightheaded, almost dizzy, Tyler sprinted the rest of the way to Amanda's side and dropped to his knees. As he reached to touch her dark, precious head, his hand shook violently. "Amanda, honey?"

Amanda whipped her head around toward him, her blue-green eyes, the mirror image of his own, big and bright and filled with delight. Her lips parted in a silent smile; her eyes questioned.

Tyler scooped her up in his arms and stood. "Oh, baby, baby, you did it!" He hugged her tight, his eyes squeezed shut.

After a long, silent prayer of thanks, he opened his eyes and pulled back enough to see her face. "You laughed." He planted a big kiss on her nose. "Oh, baby, you laughed out loud."

Amanda's eyes widened. Her lips moved. I did?

But no sound came. She put her hand to her throat and tried again. Nothing.

Disappointment stabbed sharp and quick, but Tyler ignored it. She had laughed. He'd heard her. This was more than the vague mumbling he'd heard one night in her sleep, which had assured him her inability to speak was not physical. This had been a wide-awake, broad-light-of-day, unself-conscious laugh. If she did it once, she would do it again. He refused to let doubt and disappointment mar the moment.

"Yes," he told his daughter with an uncontrollable smile. "You laughed. I heard you."

The child opened her mouth and worked her throat again. When nothing came out but breath, her brows drew together in an agonized expression.

"Don't worry, honey. It may take awhile, but your voice is coming back. It really is. Now," he said, tweaking her nose to take her worry away. "What was so funny that I heard you laugh clear down the hall?"

With a silent giggle, Amanda pointed to the doctor or technician, whoever she was, still kneeling before the now-empty chair, watching the two with curiosity. The young woman's hands seemed trapped in a tangle of string.

"She made you laugh?" he asked Amanda.

Amanda grinned and nodded vigorously.

Even that small, seemingly ordinary action thrilled Tyler and brought a lump to his throat. Since Deborah's death, expressing an opinion of any kind was unusual for his too-docile daughter.

Tyler studied his child's face, the relaxed happiness he saw there that had been missing for so long. "I promised we'd find somebody who could help you. You think maybe she's the one?"

Amanda's eyes widened with sheer delight. This time she nodded so hard her teeth clicked.

"Okay." Tyler let her slide down his leg until she reached the floor. "I'll see what I can do."

Amanda ran to the young woman's side and tugged on her arm until the woman stood. While the woman tried to extract her fingers from the web of string, Amanda dragged her forward.

"I'm Tyler Barnett," he said, extending his hand. "Amanda's father."

Still focused on the struggle to free her fingers from the string, the young woman muttered a distracted, "Hang on."

Her voice, soft, quiet, unexpectedly sexy, sent a warm tingling down Tyler's spine, surprising him.

"There." She pulled her fingers free of the tangle and met his gaze.

She looked young, he thought at his first full glimpse of her cute face. Mid-twenties at the most, with hair shorter than his, and eyes so big and brown they nearly swallowed her face.

But there was something in those eyes, something not young, not cute. Their expression spoke of . . . sadness? Was that what he saw?

He shook his head. Whatever was there was none of his business.

She shook his hand. "Carly Baker."

Her firm, no-nonsense handshake was at odds with her pixie looks, her sad eyes, and her soft, sexy voice. Yet as businesslike as her grip was, it could not disguise how tiny her hand felt in his, how soft and smooth and warm. Thrown off balance by the contrasts, Tyler released her slowly.

"I don't know how you did it, but I'll pay you to come home to Wyoming with us and do it again."

The woman named Carly Baker blinked slowly. "Do what?"

For a moment, just one brief instant, even Tyler wasn't sure what he was asking. But the child at his knee was never far from his thoughts. He took Amanda's hand. "Make her laugh out loud again."

The woman tilted her head, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "You're kidding."

"I'm not. That's essentially the first sound she's made in six months. She obviously responds to you. I'm offering to hire you to work with her. I'll make it worth your while."

Eyes still narrowed, she asked, "How much?"

The new pickup and enclosed horse trailer would have to wait another year or two. "Would fifty thousand lure you away from this place?"

Her eyes flew open wide. "Now I know you're kidding."

Hell, Tyler thought, how much did a few weeks of a child psychologist's time cost these days? "All right, seventy-five," he offered, kissing the new barn good-bye.

"You're a patient here, right?" the woman asked, one eye narrowed. "Suffering from delusions?"

"Look," Tyler said, feeling her slip away from him. He needed her. Amanda needed her. He would just have to forego buying that mare he'd looked at last week. Another horse would come along later. Maybe not as promising as Magnificent Cutter, but if he had to sell his right arm to help Amanda, he'd do it.

He took a deep breath. "Whatever you've got, my daughter needs it. I'll make it a hundred thousand. Without selling some things I can't afford to sell, that's every dime I've got in the world."

The woman blinked. "If you're not a patient here, you should be."

"He's not crazy, Carly."

Tyler and Carly turned to find Dr. Sanders leaning against the wall, looking as though he'd been there several minutes.

"And I think," the doctor added, "that you should take him up on his offer."

Carly rammed her hands, one of which still clutched a wad of string, into the deep pockets of her lab coat. "I think you're just as nuts--"

"Before you get into that," Dr. Sanders said, holding his palm out to stop her. He called to a woman heading down the hall toward them. "Stephanie, do you have a few minutes?"

The woman smiled. "Of course, Doctor. What can I do for you?"

Dr. Sanders reached a hand toward Amanda, and the girl took it. "This young lady," he said, "has had about all the tests she can stand for one day, but I still need the results from one more. Could you take her next door to the Baskin-Robbins 'laboratory' and find out just how much ice cream she can eat without making herself sick? With her father's permission, of course," he added, turning toward Tyler.

Tyler wasn't about to argue. Not with the gleam of pleasure in Amanda's eyes at the thought of ice cream, nor with the obvious support Dr. Sanders was offering in getting Carly Baker to cooperate.

"How 'bout it, funny face?" Tyler tweaked her nose. "Are you up to the test?"

Amanda looked from him to Dr. Sanders to the woman named Stephanie. Stephanie held out her hand and winked at her. Amanda looked back at Tyler with a shy smile.

"Well, okay," he said with feigned worry. "If you're sure you're up to it."

Amanda gave a careful nod and went off with Stephanie.

* * * *

Carly Baker sat in one of the two arm chairs before Eric Sanders's desk. The man named Tyler Barnett tugged on the legs of his brown Western-style slacks and sat in the other. He looked hard. The chiseled features of his tanned face, including that hawk-like nose and square jaw, his broad shoulders, flat stomach, even his callused hands, all looked carved from seasoned oak. Everything about him appeared rugged, solid, and unyielding. Except when he'd smiled at his daughter.

Carly couldn't forget that natural tenderness she'd glimpsed. It hadn't fit with her first impression of him as he came down the hall. His dark, shaggy hair proclaiming he probably wasn't a corporate executive tumbled down onto his furrowed brow and hung over the back of his collar. Frowning, he had threaded his long fingers through the slightly wavy mass and shoved it back. He'd looked deeply troubled. Until he'd seen Amanda. As far as Carly was concerned, any man who could smile like that at his daughter deserved the benefit of the doubt.

Still, his ridiculous . . . proposition, for lack of a better term, was something to doubt. Rational people simply did not walk up to total strangers and offer them a hundred thousand dollars. Not that a nice hundred grand wouldn't solve all of her current problems.

"What did you do to make her laugh?" Dr. Sanders asked her.

With a wry grin, Carly pulled the wad of tangled string from her pocket. "I was showing her how to make a cat's cradle. I mangled it so badly, there wasn't much else to do but laugh."

Sanders smiled and shook his head. "I really think you should consider Mr. Barnett's offer." He placed his clasped hands in the center of his immaculate desk pad. "With your background, you could be of real help."

"I'm in enough trouble already without adding taking money under false pretenses to my credit. What are you trying to do, land me in jail?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Dr. Sanders said.

"Besides," Carly added, "you know I'm not trained to help Amanda."

"Whoa, there." Tyler Barnett eyed them both. "Maybe I've been a little hasty. Would one of you like to explain about jail? I was under the impression that Ms. Baker was part of the staff here," he said to Dr. Sanders.

Carly chose to answer for herself. "Must have been the white coat that fooled you. I'm just a lowly volunteer."

Barnett eyed her carefully, making her feel as though she were under a giant microscope. "Why does he think you can help Amanda?"

Carly shifted in the chair and shrugged.

"She's not aware of Amanda's background," the doctor said, "so she doesn't realize just how much she could help."

Carly felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. "Are you saying she and I have something in common?" she asked Dr. Sanders.

"May I?" Dr. Sanders asked Barnett.

Barnett nodded.

"Amanda's mother was killed in a car accident several months ago. Amanda hasn't spoken since."

Carly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn't need any further explanation. She could only guess what Tyler Barnett felt at the loss of his wife, but she knew exactly what the child was going through. Feelings crawled through her memory one by one. Old, shadowy nightmares of guilt and anger, betrayal, pain, loss.

"Now you see why I think you can help?" Dr. Sanders said softly. "Who better than you, Carly? Who else can understand why she can't talk?"

Carly felt Tyler Barnett staring at her. She opened her eyes, but wouldn't look at him. She'd overcome the problems from her childhood. She understood fully what she had done to herself and wasn't necessarily uncomfortable with the subject. She just wasn't sure she was ready to discuss it with this hard-looking stranger. The tenderness she'd seen in him seemed reserved solely for his daughter.

"I take it that means you experienced something similar," Barnett said.

Carly looked at Dr. Sanders. "You started this. You might as well do the explaining."

"All right." He turned to Barnett. "The reason I think Carly can help Amanda is, first of all, Carly has helped several children here at the clinic over the years."

"You're exaggerating. I haven't done anything."

"What about Jeff Hawkins, just last month?"

"All I did was talk to him while he waited for his appointment with you."

"Yes, and the first thing he said to me was that he didn't hate his baby sister any more. I'd been working with him for weeks without getting anywhere. There are others she's helped, too," he told Tyler. "Children just seem to respond well to Carly."

Dr. Sanders frowned and glanced down at his hands briefly. "The other reason I think she can help, particularly in Amanda's case, is that Carly's father died when she was nine. She developed severe stomach problems. After dozens of tests and probably gallons of Pepto Bismol, her doctors could find no physical explanation. Through counseling, she was able to deal with her guilt--"

"Guilt?" Barnett asked.

"Children often assume a great deal of responsibility for things that happen around them. It's not uncommon for a child to blame him- or herself for divorce, an accident, the death of a sibling or a parent. The more traumatic the incident, the greater the guilt. 'If only I'd been better, Daddy wouldn't have gone away.' That sort of thing."

"You think that's what Amanda's doing? Blaming herself?"

"I think it's a possibility. Then there's the sense of betrayal some children feel when they lose a parent. Sometimes there's anger. There's always pain. We won't know for certain what Amanda is going through until we can get her to tell us what she's feeling. That's where therapy comes in. And that's also where I think Carly can help."

"I'm no therapist, for heaven's sake," she protested.

"No, but there's not exactly an abundance of child psychologists in the Wyoming wilderness," Dr. Sanders said. "I'm waiting on a phone call right now about a colleague who's moving from Cheyenne to Jackson. As I understand it, that's still quite a distance from Mr. Barnett's ranch. Amanda's not going to be able to see him as often as I'd like. The way she responds to you, you could fill in the gap, talk to her about what you went through, let her know she's not alone with whatever she might be feeling."

"Isn't that a little unorthodox?" Carly asked.

Dr. Sanders smiled. "It might be, but I believe Mr. Barnett is right in thinking you can help her. And admit it. You could use the money."

Carly shook her head. "I can't take the kind of money he's offering. I'd feel dishonest."

"Well, now, there's a first," Barnett said. "A woman with a financial conscience."

Carly arched a brow at Dr. Sanders. "You want me to work for a man with an attitude like that?"

Barnett threaded his fingers through his hair. "Sorry. I meant it as a compliment. Will you take the job?"

"You made the offer when you thought I was something more than a volunteer. I can't hold you to that."

"Then name your price. What do you think Amanda is worth?"

Carly stiffened. "I wouldn't dream of putting a price on a child's welfare. All I would be doing essentially is baby sitting."

Barnett shrugged. "Call it whatever makes you comfortable. All I want to know is, will you do it. You'd be living on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. No big city nearby, no night life or fancy stores."

Carly waved away those concerns. She hadn't had a night life or shopped in a fancy store in months, and hadn't missed either. "That wouldn't matter to me. I could use the peace and quiet."

Barnett gave her a half smile. "You'll probably go stir-crazy in less than a week. That's one reason I'm offering so much money."

"I can't take that kind of money. I don't know anything about you, and you expect me to just ride off into the sunset with you?" She looked to Dr. Sanders. "What if he's an ax murderer, for heaven's sake?"

The doctor grinned. "He's not. I checked."

Barnett raised a brow.

Dr. Sanders shrugged. "I thought of suggesting Carly when I first looked at Amanda's file. I made a few calls."

"Find anything dastardly in my background?" Barnett asked with a definite drawl in his voice.

"Not hardly, unless you mean hard work, loyalty, and honoring your word more than most people honor a written contract."

Carly watched, fascinated, as a slight blush stained Barnett's cheeks.

He looked back at her. "He says I'm trustworthy, and I swear I'm not an ax murderer. So do we have a deal?"

As much as she needed money, Carly could not bring herself to accept his offer. It was too good to be true. There had to be a catch somewhere. A big one. Miracles like this just didn't happen to her.

"You need a job," Dr. Sanders reminded her.

"I know. But don't you think he should know why I need a one?"

Dr. Sanders rolled his eyes. "Don't start with that."

"Are you an ax murderer?" Barnett asked with a slight twitch to his lips.

"No," Carly countered, "but I eat little children for breakfast."

Barnett's smile widened. "I don't think so."

"Are you willing to gamble your daughter's welfare on it?"

The way he stared at her, they might have been alone in the room. She could practically feel his eyes probing into her mind, reading her thoughts, her feelings. Her secrets.

"Yes," he said softly. "Because I don't think it's a gamble at all. You wouldn't hurt a child if your life depended on it."

"This is ridiculous," Carly said, trying not to scream. "I can't take a hundred thousand dollars for baby sitting."

He stared at her another minute before speaking. "Do you cook?"

Carly blinked. "Why?"

"Do you cook?" he repeated. "And I don't mean anything fancy. Can you cook good, hearty food for working men? Meat and potatoes. Bacon and eggs. That sort of thing."

It was Carly's turn to smile. What would he say if she told him she cooked meat and potatoes every day? That it was her job? But she supposed slinging hamburgers onto a grill and dunking French fries into a vat of hot grease down at the Burger Barrel wasn't exactly what he had in mind. "Yes, I can cook."

"Can you keep house? Dust, vacuum, mop, do laundry?"

"Why?"

"I'll pay you five thousand dollars right this minute, if you agree to come home with me. At the ranch, I'll pay you one thousand dollars a week to cook for Amanda, my father, four ranch hands, and me, plus keep house. And another thousand a week to spend time with Amanda."

"I was right the first time," she told him. "You're out of your mind."

-- end of excerpt --

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