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Elizabeth began cutting the cherry cheesecake in front of her and placing the slices on plates. “If you’re the sheriff, why do you give out tickets at all? I wouldn’t have thought that was part of your job.”
He made the mistake of looking at Kyle, who was making cow eyes at him, mocking him before he’d even started to answer the questions.
He balled up his napkin and tossed it across the table. Kyle burst out laughing, Elizabeth remained calm, Louise muttered about boys being boys and Austin stayed out of it. As always, his friend was on the fringe of the group, watching but never actually belonging.
“I don’t ask my men to do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“That’s fair,” Elizabeth said, as Kyle clutched his hands over his heart and pretended to swoon. “If you don’t behave, Kyle,” she said, her voice staying even and friendly, “I’m going to make you stand in the corner and not give you any dessert.”
Travis burst out laughing. Kyle looked suitably chastised. Even Austin smiled.
“He also parks his car in one place,” Austin said, taking the plate she offered. “By the main highway. Whenever he’s out looking for speeders, we all know where to find him.”
Elizabeth glanced at him. “I’m glad you were there,” she said. “If you hadn’t been, who knows what would have happened.”
“Travis took Mommy to the hospital,” Mandy said, taking her serving of cake and picking up her fork. “I was scared, but he used the siren and made sure Mommy was all better.”
“Just doing my job,” he said, slightly embarrassed.
Elizabeth saved him by changing the subject. She cut the last piece of cake and started to hand it to Kyle. His baby brother was her age, but she treated him as if he were several years younger. Travis couldn’t help being pleased by that.
“Are you going to behave?” she asked, holding out the plate.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. No more trouble from you, young man.” Her voice was stern, but her eyes danced.
Travis watched her tease Kyle and felt a warmth burning deep in his chest. He glanced around the table, at the people he loved most in the world. It felt right to have Elizabeth share in this part of his life. Louise chatted with Austin. Mandy scraped her plate clean. For the first time in years, he felt content.
Elizabeth looked up at him and their eyes met. The sadness and wariness from that morning was gone. In their place something soft and lovely flared to life. He wanted to make love to her. Instantly heat boiled through him, burning in his blood and engorging his groin. An answering passion made her lean forward slightly and lick her lower lip.
He wanted to feel her and taste her, loving her until she writhed with need. The room faded and all he saw was her. The V neck of her sweater had slipped slightly, allowing him to see the valley between her breasts and the hint of a curve. He wanted her naked, next to him. Under him. As much as he’d loved the feel of her mouth on him, this time he wanted to be inside, claiming her. He figured that line of thinking meant he was pretty primitive, but that didn’t make his erection go away.
Louise stood up and asked if anyone would like coffee. Her prosaic question broke the spell between them, and Elizabeth looked away. After a few minutes, Travis managed to quench his desires. The conversation moved from speeding tickets to the local high school football team and the chance they had at the local championship.
Mandy climbed onto his lap. He put his arm around her back to support her. She leaned against his chest.
“You’ve got gravy on your shirt,” he said, pointing to the spot on her sweatshirt.
She glanced down and held the shirt out so she could see it. “I always spill, huh?”
“Yeah, but I like it.”
“You like it?” She grinned. “That’s silly. You’re not supposed to like it.”
“Well, I do.”
He bent over and tickled her under her arms. She squirmed and laughed. When he stopped, she sagged against him and sighed. “You’re nice, Travis.”
“You’re not too bad yourself.”
“There’s a boy in my class. He said he lost his parents, but then he found new ones. I guess his mommy and daddy were too lost to ever find their way home.”
He didn’t know whether or not he should explain what the boy had meant by “lost.” Before he could decide, she continued.
“He loves his new mommy and daddy, but he misses the old ones. He says new parents are fun. I lost my daddy. Mommy says he’s not ever coming back. Could you be my new daddy?”
He felt as if he’d been hit by a speeding train. All the air rushed out of him and his chest ached. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. His throat was too dry.
Mandy stared up at him, her wide blue eyes trusting him with her heart. He glanced around the table. Everyone else was busy with their own conversation. No one had overheard Mandy’s question.
“I’m flattered you would ask me,” he said at last, touching her soft cheek, then tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “But I don’t know how to be a daddy. I don’t have any children of my own. Why don’t I just be your friend instead?”
She frowned. “Do you have to learn how to be a daddy?”
“I think so.”
She raised her shoulders and let out an exaggerated sigh. “Okay. You can be my friend, and then when you learn how to be my daddy, you can be that, too, okay?”
He hadn’t cried in about twenty years, but suddenly he felt a burning behind his eyes. He pulled Mandy close and hugged her tight. “It’s better than okay, Mandy. It’ll be great.”
* * *
The house was still. Elizabeth stood by the door and listened to the creak creak of the swing on the front porch. She balled her hands into fists, then consciously relaxed them. The company had gone home, Mandy was asleep in her bed. Elizabeth couldn’t avoid Travis forever, even if she wanted to. But what was she going to say?
She shook her head. The problem wasn’t what to say, it was where to start the conversation. They had many things to discuss, not the least of which was what had happened between them last night.
She walked toward the front door, placed her hand on the handle and paused. All of this would be a lot easier if she knew what she wanted. She knew what she didn’t want. She didn’t want to make another mistake like the one she’d made with Sam. She didn’t want to be a fool again for a man. The easiest and safest way to ensure that was to never get involved again. Especially with someone even worse than Sam. Travis was too good-looking by far. He was kind, tender, sweet with her daughter and hot in bed. By comparison, Sam was an amateur, his smooth-talking ways falling far short of Travis’s charm. Logically, she had to steer clear of Travis Haynes. If not, she would be risking herself all over again, and she would have learned nothing from her false marriage.
False. Just the word was enough to send waves of shame surging over her. Her cheeks heated. She pressed her hands against her face and prayed that she would one day be able to look back on what had happened and not feel so disgusted with herself. Friends had told her she was overreacting. Even Travis had told her to stop beating herself up about it. They didn’t understand, she told herself. They didn’t know what it was like to have made that big a mistake in judging someone’s character. They weren’t going to have to explain it to Mandy when she was old enough to understand. They didn’t have to spend the rest of their lives knowing they had been taken in by a con man. Elizabeth knew she had been so starved for love and affection, too eager to believe that someone—a man—finally loved her, that she hadn’t wanted to see that Sam was using her.
She drew in a deep breath. One day she would be able to look back on this without wanting to crawl away and die. It had to get better; time was all she had. She grabbed the door handle and turned it, then pulled open the door and stepped out onto the porch.
The night was dark, the moon a faint sliver in the inky sky. Stars hung low, as if they wanted to eavesdrop on what she had to say. She knew Travis had seen her come outside, but the creaking of the swing continued in the same rhythm—slow, steady, seductive.
She told herself to go lean against the railing where it was safe. Better to keep her distance. But she was too tired and tense to be sensible. She moved over to the swing and sat next to him.
One long arm stretched along the back of the wooden seat. She relaxed and rested her head against the slats. He shifted, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her close against him. She told herself to resist, to stiffen and move away, but she couldn’t. Her cheek rested against his hard chest. She could feel the muffled thudding of his heartbeat. The slow, steady sound reminded her of last night. She awakened several times to find herself in his arms. The warmth of his body, the scent of their lovemaking, and the sound of his heart had soothed her back to a restful sleep. For the first time in months, she’d felt safe.
“The meal was terrific,” he said. His voice rumbled through his chest, vibrating against her skin. “Thanks for going to all that trouble. You’ve spoiled everyone. They’re used to me cooking hot dogs or something out of a can.”
“I enjoy cooking,” she said, fighting the urge to look up at him. She wanted to see what he was thinking, she wanted to read the expression in his eyes. She was equally terrified of what she would see there. What if he didn’t want her? Worse, what if he did?
“Do you cook a lot?” he asked.
“Some.” She smiled and snuggled closer. “I used to think if I was a better wife, Sam would stay home more. So I took a couple of courses given by a restaurant and started really doing some exotic things. It didn’t seem to help. For the longest time I assumed it was my cooking.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Of course not. It was his wife and kids. The fanciest beef dish in the world can’t compete with that.”
“Elizabeth, Sam cared for you.”
She grimaced. “Maybe. Sometimes, when I’m feeling rational, I believe that he did. In a sort of sick, twisted way. If he’d really cared, he would have told me the truth about himself.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore. Thanks for including me today. I enjoyed having your friends around. Sam never wanted— Damn. Now that I’ve spilled the beans about him, I can’t seem to stop talking about what happened. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Travis slid his hand up her shoulder to her head. His long fingers slipped through her hair to the band that was holding her ponytail in place. He tugged gently, easing it down the strands until her hair was loose and falling over her shoulders. She should probably tell him not to touch her so intimately. She was giving him the wrong idea. But she couldn’t help herself. She liked the feel of his hands on her. He made her feel safe and cherished. She hadn’t felt any of those things in a very long time.
He bent down and kissed the top of her head. “You were saying Sam never wanted what?”
“Sam never wanted us to have friends over. He didn’t want me to have friends at all. But the crowd today was nice.”
He chuckled low in his chest. “If you think this was a crowd, you should wait until my other brothers join us. Between Craig’s three boys and everybody’s dates trying to figure out who belongs with whom, it’s a madhouse. I’ll give you plenty of warning before letting that group descend on you.”
It sounded lovely, she thought wistfully, thinking of her own solitary childhood. She shifted on the swing. Her right breast pressed against his chest. Her nipples hardened in response to his body, but she ignored the tingling sensation.
“I wouldn’t mind,” she said, then realized she would be gone by the time Travis’s family invaded. She would be driving at the end of the week and moving out to her own place next weekend.
A sharp stab of regret and disappointment startled her. She didn’t want to think about what it meant, so she recalled what Travis had just told her.
“You mentioned dates,” she said. “I thought the Haynes brothers didn’t want to get involved with anybody.”
“We all want it to work out, so we seem to keep trying. I guess each of us is praying for a miracle.”
The bitterness in his voice surprised her. “You sound upset.”
“It gets damned lonely,” he admitted. “It’s probably a matter of wanting what we can’t have. Craig got burned big-time. His wife walked off with one of his closest friends, leaving him with a pile of bills and three little kids. Damn fool keeps looking for the right woman. Kyle dumps his girlfriends before they have a chance to dump him. I’m sure it has something to do with our mother abandoning him when he was fifteen and the string of women Dad brought into the house right after. We went through three stepmothers in three years. And then there’s Jordan.”
Travis paused. Elizabeth wished she could move closer to offer him comfort. She could feel his pain. It radiated out from him like the heat of a fever. In the past, he’d talked about his family and his resistance to believing relationships lasted, but this was the first time she’d really understood all that he and his brothers had been through. She was the last one to be giving him any kind of advice, though. Her own track record was pretty awful. So she didn’t say anything. She reached up her hand to his face and stroked his cheek. His evening beard poked at her palm. He felt warm and alive. A quivering began low in her belly; she told herself this wasn’t about sex.
“Jordan, hell, I don’t know about him. He keeps everything inside. He was always the odd one out. The rebel.” He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth. His kiss on her palm was sweet and damp, his tongue tracing an erotic line from the base of her thumb to her little finger. She shivered.
“After all,” he continued, “look at what he does for a living. He’s a fire fighter, the crazy fool.”
He laughed and she joined him. It felt good to be with Travis like this. He turned toward her, angling one knee across the bench. His position moved them a little apart, but now she could see his face.
He looked good by porch light, she thought, studying the way stubble darkened the hollows of his cheeks and made his eyes more mysterious. She wanted to lean close and touch him all over, relearning the body she had caressed so intimately the night before. His pleasing scent made her remember other smells and tastes, his laughter made her think of other sounds. The way he’d called her name, his voice husky with disbelief and pleasure. Her breasts grew more sensitive inside her bra; her most secret place dampened in anticipation. Desire filled her, but she kept it firmly in check.
“I had an interesting conversation with Mandy at dinner,” he said, resting his palm on her thigh.
“I thought I saw you two talking. What about?”
“Her father.”
She started to fold her arms over her chest. He grabbed her hands, pulled them down on top of his knee and held her in place. “She was telling me that a boy at school lost his parents. She assumes that they’re physically lost and won’t be able to find their way back to him. She thinks Sam is lost to her, as well.”
Elizabeth tried to ignore the soft denim of Travis’s jeans, the heat of his leg below and the warmth of his hand above hers. She tried to ignore the feeling of panic boiling to life in her belly. She’d known it would come to this with Mandy, but not yet. She wasn’t ready.
“I told her that Sam wouldn’t be able to see her again,” she said. “But I can’t explain the rest of it to her. Not yet. She’s too young.”
She dropped her head so that she could stare at her lap. No doubt Travis would disagree with her decision. She didn’t care. When she’d asked Sam to sign away the rights to see Mandy, he hadn’t even bothered to protest. He’d never been much interested in the girl. Not having him visit every few months would make it less confusing for Mandy.
“I agree,” he said, surprising her. “But I think you should be willing to let her talk about missing her father if she wants to.”
“Thanks for the advice,” she said, surprised she wasn’t irritated with his interfering.
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