The Angel Tasted Temptation

by Shirley Jump

  "So move to Indianapolis. It's a city."

  "Maybe I will," Meredith said. "Later. For now, I want to be here. Tasting all Boston has to offer."

  "You were sure having a taste earlier," Vernon muttered. "Surprised you didn't choke, what with his tongue that far down your dang throat."

  Ray Jr. jabbed him in the arm and gave him a shut-up glare. "Meredith says she wants to stay. We'll let her do that." He gave his sister one last look. "For now."

  She let out a gust. "What are you going to do, Ray Jr.? Hogtie me and throw me in the back of the truck if I don't come home before curfew?"

  He grinned. "If it comes down to that we'll do what it takes to protect your honor."

  The very thing she was so desperate to get rid of.

  To do that she was clearly going to have to get rid of her brothers first.

  A little while later, Meredith went inside her cousin's house and found Rebecca on the sofa, eyes closed, surrounded by a little girl's paradise of Barbie dolls, miniature stilettos and teeny garish outfits that would have made Yves Saint Laurent turn over in his grave. Meredith slipped off her shoes and went to tiptoe past Rebecca and up the stairs to the guest room. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash the appearance of her brothers. With any luck, they'd go home instead of staying next door and making her life a living hell.

  "I'm awake," Rebecca said. "Just playing possum."

  "Possum?"

  "Emily was up a few minutes ago, making a good case for playing all night instead of sleeping. I told her if I was asleep she couldn't play, so I'm asleep." Rebecca shut her eyes and feigned sleep again.

  "Impressive. You should be in movies."

  Rebecca smiled and opened her eyes. "I know. Oscar-worthy, isn't it?" She sighed and pushed herself into a sitting position, her belly leading the way. "I suppose I should get all these toys picked up now. Considering I've been waiting two hours for my husband to come help me. I think he's lost forever in the den."

  "Working?"

  "No. Watching the Patriots. As long as it's football season, Jeremy is invisible. He loses all his peripheral vision to the television."

  Meredith bent over and started putting some of the dolls into the big plastic bin marked Barbies. "Sounds like my father. My mom can barely get him to come to the table when Notre Dame is playing."

  "You don't have to do that," Rebecca said, raising herself into a sitting position. "I can manage."

  "And you can go into labor right here, too. I'm here to help."

  "You're a guest, not a slave."

  "Rebecca, this isn't a hotel. And you aren't my maid."

  Rebecca smiled, relief clear on her face. "Okay, but only because you insisted." From the sofa she made a three-pointer toss of a Barbie doll into the bin. "I take it from the look on your face that Vernon and Ray Jr. found you. They stopped by here earlier looking for you."

  "Oh yeah, they found me. Me and Travis. Together."

  "Oh. How ugly did it get?"

  "Well, no broken bones. Just a lot of manly glares and puffed-up chests."

  Rebecca laughed. "Typical older brother stuff, huh?"

  "I told them to butt out and let me be a grown-up.''

  "Good for you!" Rebecca sent her a high five from across the room. "You do know they went over to my mom's for the night, right?"

  Meredith nodded. "I was hoping they'd get the hint and go home."

  Rebecca laughed. "They're Shordons. No one in this family gives up easily."

  "I know. It's one of those traits, passed on down along with Great Grandma's family baby teeth necklace."

  "Eww. That still exists?"

  "Yep. And growing by the year. Keeps the Tooth Fairy pretty busy."

  "That's what I need to do." Rebecca stuffed a pillow beneath her back and settled into a more comfortable position. "Steal that necklace, put it under my pillow and in the morning, wake up to a mint." She grabbed an afghan off the back of the sofa and draped it over her legs. "Time for a hotter, and younger, topic. How was your date?"

  "Perfect... and not."

  "Did Travis turn into a werewolf when the moon came up?"

  Meredith laughed. "No. We just didn't have the same idea of how the date should end."

  "He didn't kiss you?"

  "Oh, he kissed me all right." Meredith closed her eyes for a second, remembering that kiss.

  "So what was the problem?"

  "I wanted... more. But he made it clear there wouldn't be more, even if my brothers hadn't come by and interrupted my lame attempt at seduction."

  "On the first date?" Rebecca's eyes widened. "Well, cousin, you do surprise me."

  "You didn't think we girls who lived on farms ever... well, did those kinds of things?"

  "I didn't think you did."

  "Well, I'm changing." Meredith gestured toward her new haircut. "In more ways than one. And as long as I'm here, I want to experience all the city has to offer."

  "Including Travis Campbell?"

  "Especially Travis Campbell."

  "Just be careful," Rebecca said, her voice softening with concern. "I don't want you to get hurt."

  Meredith shook her head. "I'm not going to fall in love."

  Rebecca smiled and tossed a couple more dolls into the bin. "You can't control that."

  Which was exactly what Meredith was afraid of but she didn't say it. She would not fall in love with Travis Campbell or any other man in the city of Boston. She'd get what she wanted, then be on her way. Guys did it all the time—why couldn't she? "Barbie managed not to fall in love with Ken. Hey, she's even on her own now."

  Rebecca chuckled as she stacked up a pile of Jeremy's books on the end table. "Yeah, she probably dumped him because he was always leaving her with a messy townhouse." As she finished with the books, she picked up a package sitting beside them. "I almost forgot. This came for you today."

  Meredith took the small box and glanced at the return address. "Perkins & Son Funeral Home."

  Meredith put the box to the side, unopened, and started tossing Barbie's extensive shoe collection into a smaller bin marked "Shoes."

  "You aren't going to open it?"

  "It's from Caleb. We're over. Done. He just can't take the hint."

  "You told him?"

  "Many times. He's a nice guy, but being engaged to him was like being wrapped in top-grade satin."

  "Suffocating, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  "So there's no chance of resurrecting the relationship with the mortician?"

  "Nope."

  "It's as dead as—"

  "A doornail," Meredith finished, laughing.

  "And you wouldn't date him again, even if..."

  "Dr. Frankenstein himself set us up."

  Rebecca laughed. "We are mean. You said he's a nice guy and here we are, making dead jokes."

  "The sad part is, Caleb would appreciate them. He's a big aficionado of death humor."

  "And Travis?"

  "He's, ah, very different from Caleb." Meredith tried to keep the smile from her face but didn't succeed. She had enjoyed her time with Travis, and the steamers at the Salty Dog, more than she wanted to admit. She was already looking forward to seeing him again.

  "Just be careful, cousin."

  "I am." Meredith reached into her purse and held up the package of Trojans. "I bought protection."

  Rebecca's face softened. "Condoms don't protect your heart."

  That was exactly what Meredith was afraid of.

  Travis's Can't-Get-Her-Off-Your-Mind Baked Cod

  1/4 cup breadcrumbs

  1/8 cup parmesan cheese

  1 teaspoon parsley flakes

  1/2 teaspoon dried dill

  1 pound cod fillets

  Ranch dressing

  Okay, so I'm not Wolfgang Puck. I may keep my meals simple, but lately my love life is as complicated as the latest IRS tax code.

  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the breadcrumbs, cheese and spices and put on a paper plate (if you hav
e a kitchen that has more than six utensils and two coffee cups, you might have a pie plate and can use that. Me, I'm lucky to have some Dixieware laying around). Dip the cod into the ranch dressing, then into the breadcrumb mixture, shaking off the excess.

  Yeah, that was tough. When you're mind is elsewhere, the last thing you want is something complicated in the kitchen. Put the fish on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until it flakes with a fork or, hell, looks done enough to eat.

  If that's not enough to get her off your mind, then you have worse troubles than learning how to cook.

  Chapter Eleven

  "So," Larry said the next morning, "did you convince our little Midwestern test market to come over to the No-Moo dark side?'

  "No." Travis poured himself a cup of coffee and averted his eyes from the bright blond toupee on Larry's head today. Apparently he was going for the white-gold overall look because he'd matched his belted polyester pants to his hair.

  At least something on Larry matched his wig. From his station by the doughnut box, Kenny shot Travis a grin filled with mirth.

  "Might I remind you, Travis, that we launch No-Moo Milk on the first and we still don't have a definitive ad campaign?"

  "You don't have to remind me. I'm the one working with the graphic designers on the ad conceptual."

  "Executing my ideas, you mean."

  "Uh, yeah. Whatever." Travis took a sip of his coffee and tried not to choke. Larry's ideas included buxom Swedish twins in fake cow-print bathing suits with smiles on their faces hoisting a glass, plus a naked supermodel wearing nothing but a few strategically placed bottles of No-Moo, with the words "Where's the Moo?" running across her abdomen.

  Advertising Federation award winners they were not. In fact, Travis was quite sure they were the kind of ideas that would get them sued or worse, on Bill O'Reilly's show, defending both misogyny and cow-ogyny.

  He was about to tell Larry where to stick his bottle of No-Moo but then remembered the e-mail from Brad this morning. "Don't let me down, man. I need the money. I'm about to become a married man," his brother had written.

  Talk about pressure.

  And talk about betrayal. A double one at that. He and Brad had always talked about walking out of Belly-Licious Beverages together someday to launch their own company. And most of all, of enjoying the single life until they were past collecting social security.

  In short, of never ever turning into their father. The autocrat who kept insane work hours and married women as frequently as most people changed their toothbrushes.

  "I'll have her in here," Travis said, ignoring the war in his gut that told him he was crossing some moral boundaries with Meredith even as he tried to uphold a pledge to his brother. "You can count on me, Lar."

  Kenny raised a brow in surprise, but stayed mute.

  "Knew I could, Travis." Larry gave him a bone-shattering clap on the shoulder and shot him a toothy grin as if they were now old buds. "How about tomorrow at four? I'd like to have her in the focus group room, let the ad people watch her reactions behind Big Ike."

  Big Ike, the one-way mirror that saw everything in the focus group room and felt a lot like being a peeping Tom. For a second, the thought of Larry and his toupee watching Meredith drinking No-Moo Milk, her pretty pink lips curved around the glass, her slim legs crossed at the ankle, revealing a hint of what lay beneath her skirts, her newly styled hair teasing around her chin and cheeks ...

  It made him want to tear Larry's eyes out and feed them to the foxes in the Franklin Park Zoo.

  That would probably not be the best way to keep his job. Or secure Brad's future at Belly-Licious.

  "So, now that you've mentioned the Midwest pixie we met at Slim Pickin's," Kenny said after Larry had left the room, "how are you doing with your new and might I add, very stupid, no-touch policy?"

  Travis laughed. "I'm surviving."

  "Suffering is more like it. You look like you didn't sleep at all last night."

  He hadn't, but he wasn't about to admit that to Kenny. He'd tossed and turned, dreaming of Meredith, of taking that pert, sweet mouth of hers and letting it venture into uncharted territory. They'd had a damned good thing going until her brothers interrupted. A good thing he'd continued in his mind, soon as he'd turned out the lights and climbed under the covers. His thoughts had drifted back to Meredith like a fish to a dangling lure—he couldn't resist her and he wasn't putting up much of a fight even trying.

  And if he wasn't careful, he'd end up hooked like a two-hundred-pound tuna.

  But when he closed his eyes, he thought of her kissing him, of how she'd started out soft and gentle, then quickly moved into aggressive territory, asking without any words for what she wanted. Heck, she didn't even have to ask. His body was running down the same thought paths. He wanted to kiss her, to undo the flimsy fasteners that kept her body covered from his eyes, then run his fingers and his mouth down her body, taking time to taste every inch before carrying her to his bed and—

  Whoa, cowboy. Better reign those thoughts back in before he broke his own self-imposed waiting period. Thinking about her late at night was one thing, but continuing the thoughts in broad daylight could get him into more trouble than he wanted.

  Plus, it could hurt Meredith if he slept with her. He had a feeling that no matter what she said, she was the kind of woman who wanted a dog and kids and ranch on a cul-de-sac. Despite all he had done wrong in his life, a deep-rooted sense of conscience in Travis didn't want to commit that particular sin— not against her. She deserved more, whether she wanted it or not.

  Not to mention that getting wrapped up in a woman right now would undoubtedly—as it always had before—distract him from his job. That was something he couldn't afford, as Brad's e-mail had reminded him.

  "Tell me again," Kenny said, wagging a jelly-filled in his direction, "just why the hell are you doing this?"

  "Doing what?"

  "Waiting thirty days before you have sex again?"

  Travis let out a sigh, and realized when he did that for the first time in a long time he could face the sunlight in the office without wincing. Clearly, not being hungover had its advantages. Like clearheadedness, and a weird enjoyment of the morning that he'd forgotten. "Because I'd like to try a relationship built on minds, not bodies."

  Kenny had been taking a sip of coffee when Travis answered him and now spewed half a sip over the smooth faux cherry surface. "That's bullshit!"

  "No, I'm serious."

  Kenny pressed a hand onto Travis's forehead. "Are you sick? Or did Olivia knock a few of your brain cells onto our bathroom tile? If she did, I'm calling the cleaning lady and having her save them for reinsertion. Because that is crazy talk, man."

  "Hundreds of men have real relationships every day, Kenny."

  "Hundreds of men besides you. You are the king of no commitment. Didn't you tell me once that you wouldn't settle down, even if Britney Spears attached a Hummer to your left hand and dragged you to an altar?"

  "That still holds true." And it always would. Travis was a Campbell and Campbell men did not make good boyfriends or husbands, despite what Brad was planning. He knew, as surely as he knew that Kenny would blow his 401k plan on a pair of shapely legs and a whispery laugh, that he was his father's son.

  And that alone was enough to convince him any woman in her right mind would be smart to stay away from him and an altar.

  Kenny shook his head. "Travis, Travis, Travis. Have you learned nothing in the four years we've been roommates? The minute you start dating women for their minds"—Kenny let out a snort—"is the minute they start getting those ring-bearing claws into you. Next thing you know, you're driving around in matching Volvos and picking up organic produce after work on Friday night."

  "I'm just working on getting my head straight for a little while, that's all. No wedding bells for me." All Travis wanted was some time to figure out why every day seemed so screwed up; why the bachelor life he'd once loved had lost its allur
e.

  And why everything he'd thought had been so clear had become fuzzy, as if his entire life plan had had a few too many rum and Cokes.

  Kenny rose and poured himself another cup of coffee from the carafe on the sideboard. "Long as your head doesn't end up on the other side of a long white aisle, we'll be square."

  "It won't."

  "If it does, I'm coming after you. My brother Tony has a tractor trailer that can out-pull Britney's Hummer any day."

  "He's out there. Again." Vernon stood at the entrance to Gift Baskets early Tuesday evening, looking like a bouncer for anyone who got out of line with the chocolate cookies.

  "He is?" Meredith strained to look past her brothers, but their imposing bulk all but blocked the view through the plate glass windows. Maria and Candace had said they didn't mind the male-dominated view, but Meredith was mortified.

  The two had even made friends with Candace's three-legged dog, Trifecta, who was relegated to the front glass partition of the shop. She had sidled up to Ray Jr., fallen asleep under his tender attention, and was now snoring happily at his feet.

  Travis strode up the sidewalk to the entrance. Vernon moved to block the door. "She don't want to see you," he said.

  Meredith slipped in beside her brother and gave him a sharp elbow beneath the ribs. He let out a surprised oomph and defensively moved to the left. "Hey!"

  "It worked when I was nine, it works now." Then she turned to Travis and despite her intentions not to get involved, not to feel a thing for him, a smile curved across her face at the sight of him and something hot and liquid ran through her.

  He must have come straight from work because he still had on a suit and tie, the dark blue a perfect contrast for the forest green of his eyes and the cocoa brown of his hair.