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Jake took her hand, his smile utterly charming. She found herself staring into his arresting blue eyes and said, “Pleased to meet you, Jake.”
“Well, hello, pretty lady. Did he happen to tell you it was his fault I got stuck up there? He dared me to go higher and I wasn’t one to turn down a dare from one of the older kids. It would have meant I was still a baby.” He shrugged. “So I climbed higher. And got stuck. Then Travis knew he’d really catch it if he didn’t get me down, and he got stuck, too. So we both got punished. His mother made us write ‘I will not climb a tree until I’m twelve’ twenty-five times.”
Travis chuckled. “Twenty-five for you. Fifty for me, because I was older.”
Jake never took his eyes off her. It was unnerving. “Where’s Travis been hiding you?” he asked, still holding her hand.
Tricia smiled back, not knowing what else to do, and shrugged. He simply made you look at him by his sheer presence. “At Peterson Air Force Base, I guess,” she said, unsure how to handle his singular brand of attention. At the moment, with his intense eyes staring into hers, she felt like the only woman in the world. Had it been Travis looking at her like that she’d have melted, but she had no interest in a playboy of this man’s caliber.
“Oops. Sorry,” Jake said, and pulled his hand back as if he were afraid it would get bitten off. Surprised and wondering if she’d sent out some unconscious signal, she noticed Jake’s eyes were all of a sudden on Travis. “I didn’t mean to poach on your territory, Trav,” Jake added.
Tricia looked quickly toward Travis and was surprised to see his green eyes glittering with what she could only call jealousy. She felt a little thrill but then she realized he was putting on an act and the feeling evaporated like smoke on the wind. She was nothing to Travis Vance but the woman who had ruined his life.
“Just back off, Casanova,” Travis grumbled, furthering his pretense of jealousy. “Pay attention to your own date. It’s taken me years to find Tricia again.”
My, but he was putting on quite a show for the sake of their investigation. He must be more resigned to it than she’d thought. More resigned than even she was now that it had been put into motion. She only wished it was all pretense for both of them. But as much as Travis had hurt her by turning so quickly—so easily—to Allison, she was still drawn to him and she hated seeing how empty his life had become.
“Not to worry,” Jake said, grinning again. “I was just trying to figure out if Lidia and Aunt Fiona were barking up the wrong tree. Glad to see they aren’t. You deserve some happiness, Travis. Nice to meet you, Tricia.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Jake?” a sultry voice asked from behind Jake.
Jake blinked and stepped to the side, then looked down at his pouting companion, clearly having forgotten her. “Oh. Uh…sorry. Cheri Wilson. This is Travis Vance and his friend, Tricia Streeter.”
Jake’s date wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you hate wearing that uniform? It’s so unfeminine. So are you a secretary or something like that at the Air Force base, Ms. Streeter?” Cheri’s catty tone wasn’t lost on either man, Tricia noticed, and neither looked particularly happy at the subtle but out-of-the-blue attack.
Tricia wondered if her response would surprise Travis. It would if he didn’t realize yet how much she’d changed. In college she would have backed down and let the prettier, richer, smarter girl win the encounter by default. But the new Tricia stuck up for herself. “That’s Major Streeter and I’m an investigator with the Air Force Office of Special Investigation. Travis, I think Fiona has that table ready. Perhaps we should leave Jake and Cheri to their meal. It was wonderful meeting such an old friend of Travis’s, Jake. Perhaps we’ll run into each other again.”
She heard Travis mutter, “Not if I have anything to say about it, you won’t.” For a split second, Tricia felt another little thrill but then Jake laughed, having heard, as well, and she was again sure Travis’s jealousy was all part of an act.
After Fiona seated them and took drink orders, she bustled off and Tricia cautioned, “I thought this was just supposed to be our first date. Your reaction to Jake was a little bit of overkill, though I commend your acting ability.”
“Well, I don’t commend yours,” he snapped. “What was all that starstruck staring into his eyes supposed to be about? The premise is that you’re here with me, beginning a wild romance, remember?”
Tricia refused to rise to the bait. She was good at her job and she wouldn’t let him undermine her confidence in herself or in her ability to do whatever was necessary to get her job done. “I have a job to do but I’m not dead. Jake’s a very attractive man. Tell me more about him.”
“He’s dangerous to women and he doesn’t even know it. That’s what makes him so dangerous. Women from two to ninety-two fall under his spell with no effort on his part. He’s left a trail of broken hearts starting from grade school, through high school and college right up to Cheri over there.”
“She looked pretty happy to me. Not very nice but pleased with herself as we moved away.”
“But what she doesn’t know is that she just overstepped the invisible boundaries of one of his relationships.”
Fiona came up and dropped off their drinks. “Are you two ready to eat? If not, I can come back later. I don’t want to intrude.”
Travis smiled indulgently and shook his head. “Let’s just let Mom feed us. She knows what I like and Tricia spent a few weekends at our house when we knew each other before. Mom never forgets anyone’s eating habits.”
“Okeedokee,” she said, scribbling on her order pad and flitting away.
“She’s a real character,” Tricia said.
Grinning Travis nodded. “Yeah, a real menace. Uh-oh. Looks like Cheri just flounced out ahead of Jake. Another one bites the dust.”
“So her jealous act really did earn her the boot. What does Jake do for a living, by the way?”
“He’s with the FBI. A computer expert.”
“Hmm. Maybe at some point we’ll be able to tap him as a resource.”
Travis pursed his lips and nodded, thinking deeply for a long moment before saying, “Yeah, maybe. I have in the past. When I first got into corporate espionage I needed to learn about computers and Jake taught me a lot. He’s a whiz.”
“If we need to call in a whiz then we’ll know who to call.”
Lidia bustled up with a tray laden with Italian delights. “I remembered how much you liked my manicotti and braciole when you visited. Made fresh this morning. Here you go, dear.”
“Thanks, Lidia. I can’t believe you remembered that after all these years.”
“A mother never forgets.”
“I thought that was ‘A Vance never forgets,’” Travis teased, then looked down at his plate as Lidia set it in front of him.
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