The Angel Tasted Temptation

by Shirley Jump

  "Uh, no. I think cowprint looks much better on you than it ever would on me." He gave Bessie a gentle rub behind the ears. "Nice cow."

  Bessie let out a moo of agreement and clopped her hooves on the pavement as she moved from foot to foot.

  "I don't see too many of these around here, and I bet neither do any of those people," Travis said, gesturing to the circle of gawkers who had spilled out of the office buildings and were pointing at the cow in wonder. Travis stroked Bessie's nose, which gave the Holstein an invitation to move closer to him.

  "Welcome to my world," Meredith said. "If you lived in Heavendale, this would be about all you'd see. Cows, corn and crows."

  Travis looked at Meredith, his gaze not on Bessie at all anymore. "I happen to think the view is very pretty."

  Meredith turned away, refusing to be drawn back into the soft sound of his voice or the gentle way he gazed at her.

  "Meredith," Momma scolded, turning to her daughter. "Why didn't you give this nice young man some cookies?"

  "I've been trying to figure out the same thing, Mrs. Shordon," Travis said. He put out a hand to her. "Travis Campbell."

  Momma smiled appreciation at his good manners, then shook with him. When she was done, she withdrew her hand and squirted a dab of Purell onto it from under the table, as she always did after any mano-a-mano contact.

  Travis put out his hands for a dab of antibacterial gel to wipe off the cow germs. Momma obliged, flashing Travis a smile that said he and his good hygiene had been immediately accepted into her circle. "And which paper are you with?"

  "None. I'm here to see Meredith. And to help you both with your milk campaign."

  Momma looked from Meredith to Travis, and back again. "You're with my daughter?"

  "He's not with me, Momma. He's—"

  "Here to help," Travis interrupted, circling the table and grabbing a fresh gallon of milk from the cooler by their feet. He peeled off the seal, then started pouring. Momma beamed. There was nothing she liked better than a man who put some actions behind his words. "He's a nice looking one," she whispered into Meredith's ear.

  "I thought you wanted me to marry Caleb."

  Momma tugged Meredith over to help her arrange more cookies on the tray—and so she could put in her two cents without Travis overhearing. "As much as I'd like the family discount on a plot at Heavendale Gardens, what I really want is whatever will make you happy, dear."

  "Even if it means not living in Heavendale anymore?"

  Her mother paused, a raspberry thumbprint halfway between the Rubbermaid container and the silver tray. "Not living in Heavendale? But why?"

  Oh, this wasn't the time. Or the place. Or how she wanted to tell her mother at all. She was wearing a cow costume, for God's sake, and clutching a leash attached to a 1,300-pound Holstein.

  It wasn't exactly the right outfit for telling your mother you wanted to leave home for good.

  And then there was Travis, two feet away and sending her a jumble of messages that had her heart running through a continuous spin cycle.

  "We can talk about this later," Meredith said, waving a hoof at the group forming a perimeter around their public display.

  Momma perched a hand on her hip. "I don't care if the entire free world is watching. My little girl just said she wants to leave me forever."

  "It's not like I'd be moving to another planet."

  Momma turned back to the cookies. "You might as well be." She sniffled. "Apparently Heavendale isn't good enough for you."

  Travis, who had kept busy during the conversation by pouring milk, now crossed over to them. Oh great. He thought he could fix this, too?

  "Boston's not such a bad place, Mrs. Shordon. We do have flights to Indiana, every day, too."

  "It's not the same. I always thought my daughter would live right next door to me."

  "You never know," Travis said, handing Momma a cup of milk and a smile. "Things can change down the road. Priorities change." At this, his eyes met Meredith's.

  As if he had some kind of message to communicate.

  She scowled at him, as best as one could scowl while wearing udders and holding a Holstein. What did he think he was doing? Every time this man got within five feet of her, he screwed up her life. Now he was practically telling her mother that if she left Heavendale, it would only be temporarily.

  She'll be back on the farm in no time, Mrs. Shordon.

  No, thank you. Meredith may have thought she was going back to Indiana when she'd first left, but now, she couldn't imagine leaving any of this for the predictable and confining life she'd had before.

  "I like you," Momma said, patting Travis on the shoulder. "You must make your mother proud."

  Travis let out a chuckle. "I don't know about that, Mrs. Shordon. I don't think she thinks about whether or not I'm making her proud."

  "Doesn't she live near you?"

  Travis finished with the milk, capped the jug and put it back into the cooler. "My mother is in Florida, doing a good job of retiring."

  "Then who takes care of you?"

  "Takes care of me?" Travis grinned. "Me."

  Momma scoffed. "Well. That explains everything." She gave Travis an appraising glance that swept over his frame, taking in what Meredith saw as a trim waist but she knew Momma saw as a too-thin body. "You come to Aunt Gloria's house some night. I'll feed you right and take care of you."

  This was not going well at all. Next her mother would be getting out her tape measure for Travis— for a very different reason.

  And so, she imagined, would Caleb, should Travis ever come to Heavendale. But he'd be measuring to make sure he could fit Travis into the back part of the hearse.

  Meredith grabbed the only thing she could think of to break the two of them apart. Bessie.

  She tugged on the leash, but Bessie didn't want to move. The Holstein let out a whiny moo and stayed put. Meredith scooted around to the cow's flank and pushed, but Bessie didn't budge. Momma and Travis kept on chatting, going on and on about dinner possibilities, as if he'd been invited right into the family already.

  Meredith spun to the right and grabbed some hay from the pile that had come with Bessie—the bribe that had gotten her off the trailer and into Government Center. Earlier that morning, she had trotted after the hay like a Greyhound after an electric rabbit, eager to go anywhere as long as she could have a bite.

  But now, she couldn't care less.

  "You'll just have to try my biscuits and gravy for breakfast," Momma was saying. "You haven't lived until you've had that. Meredith makes it even better than me, I think."

  Travis smiled her way. "Is that so? Well, I'll just have to try some of both recipes. I bet they're both wonderful and Meredith learned some great cooking skills from you. I'm sure you run a tight ship in the kitchen."

  Travis's comment sent him soaring to notches unknown on Momma's approval rating. Meredith's mother gestured to her to come over and play nice with him.

  Instead, Meredith gave Bessie another shove. The cow looked back at the annoyance on her butt, flicked an ear and went back to chewing her cud.

  Meredith muttered several curses under her breath. She'd moved cows at home before, hundreds of times. What was wrong with her?

  "Travis has a cleaning lady to help him keep his place spic-n-span, did you know that?" Momma said, her voice bright with appreciation for this cleanliness luxury. "A cleaning lady, Meredith."

  This time, Meredith slipped in front of Bessie, reached behind her own butt and wiggled her tail, then sashayed forward, tugging on Bessie's leash at the same time. The cow plodded after her, a lemming going wherever the other spots in front of it were headed.

  Meredith and Bessie slipped right between Momma and Travis, effectively ending their conversation with the insertion of a half-ton beast. "I think Bessie's getting bored over there," Meredith said. "She wants a change of view. And company."

  Momma frowned. "Travis, dear, could you put these cookies at the end of the table while
I get another tray together?"

  "Certainly." He took the silver tray and moved a few feet away.

  "He's a good man," Momma whispered again. "You could do worse than marry him."

  "Will you quit with that? God, I feel like a heifer at an auction. Highest bidder gets the bride."

  Momma pursed her lips and kept stacking the round desserts in concentric circles.

  From his place down the table, Travis sent her a grin. Meredith flapped a hoof at him and wished she could disappear into the ground, udders and all.

  She was saved from a shotgun wedding by one of the reporters from the Middlesex News. He approached the table and Travis handed him a cup of milk and a couple of cookies.

  "Hey, thanks," the guy said, introducing himself as Sherman Maxwell before taking a gulp. "This is good stuff."

  "Real milk, it's the best way to go," Travis said. "And the healthiest."

  Sherman finished one of his cookies, then put his cup down and readied his pen and skinny pad. "Yeah, but I thought I saw her," he said, indicating Meredith with the tip of the ballpoint, "on a billboard drinking some chemical crap."

  Travis shook his head. "That billboard was a mistake. It's gone now."

  Gone? When had it come down? No one had told Meredith anything about that. She glanced across the plaza at her brothers, realizing just now that they had never come over to eject, or duct tape, Travis. Which meant only one thing.

  They were on his side.

  When she caught Ray Jr.'s eye, he gave her a confident tip of his chin and a thumbs-up that said the Shordon boys had taken care of it.

  "Miss Shordon, did Belly-Licious Beverages use your image without your permission?" Sherman asked.

  She glanced at Travis. Saying yes would open up the firestorm she'd been hoping to avoid. And it would undoubtedly get him fired, especially because he was here, cavorting with the "enemy."

  But saying no would essentially be lying, which went against who she was as a person. Meredith Shordon might have come here to Boston for a change, but she didn't want one that took with it her basic morality.

  "Well, did they?" the reporter pressed, his pen poised to write down her next words. Apparently the cookie hadn't sweetened him up too much.

  Lying might not save her soul, but it would save Travis. She watched him, the gallon of milk in his hand, and decided where her priorities lay. "Belly-Licious did nothing—"

  "Did nothing but stop a bad ad campaign," Travis cut in. "They did use Miss Shordon but realized it would be a bad reflection on one of Nature's finest treasures. So they've come up with a better idea."

  "They have?" the reporter asked.

  "They have?" Meredith echoed.

  "They sure have," Ray Jr. announced, stepping forward and grinning. That kind of smile on her brother meant only one thing.

  Trouble.

  "What do you know about this new ad campaign?" Sherman turned to Travis.

  "I helped design it, with the amazing talents of Kenny Gerard, my assistant, and Larry Herman, the vice president. We launched it early this morning."

  "And can you give me a sneak preview?" Sherman gave him a hopeful tip of his chin.

  "Just get on 93 and head up to exit 26. All the answers you're looking for are right there."

  Sherman shrugged, noted the information, and put his pad away before reaching for a couple more cookies. Apparently, he had what he'd come looking for.

  But Meredith was more confused than ever. What had Travis meant by that? "All the answers you're looking for?"

  When it came to figuring out Travis Campbell, Meredith doubted even a psychic in a fortune cookie factory could help her.

  Momma's Matchmaking-Two-Peas-in-a-Pod Shrimp and Snow Pea Stir-Fry

  2 tablespoons canola oil

  1 tablespoon garlic, minced

  1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced

  1/4 cup chicken broth, separated

  2 cups broccoli florets

  1 cup cauliflower florets

  2 carrots, sliced

  1 red bell pepper, julienned

  1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

  1 pound fresh snow peas

  3 tablespoons soy sauce

  1 teaspoon sesame oil

  See, even Momma can learn a new recipe or two. If I can learn to love food that doesn't come from a farm, then you can learn to love that man who has the best hygiene habits I've seen in a long time.

  Start by heating the oil in a wok (yes, I said "a wok." Told you Momma could change ... some). Add the garlic and ginger and sauté for about 30 seconds, then add a tablespoon of the chicken broth and toss in all the vegetables except the snow peas. Stir-fry until they're crisp-tender.

  Mix in the shrimp and the snow peas and blend them all, nice and harmonious, in the wok. Sort of like bringing Indiana and Massachusetts together in one place. Add the remaining ingredients, heat for another minute or so, then serve over hot rice.

  And stop being so stubborn. You know that Momma always knows best. The sooner you start listening to her wisdom, the sooner you'll be happier.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  An hour later, Vernon, Ray Jr., Travis and Meredith had loaded up Bessie—using the hay and Meredith's tail as bait—into the borrowed trailer attached to the back of Cecil's pickup truck and were heading out of the city and back to the Happy Acres farm.

  Travis and Meredith followed behind in Travis's car. The seating arrangement had been completely arranged by Momma, who had shooed off the boys, then jumped into Meredith's car and put it into gear, shouting that she needed to rest her feet and Meredith should just go along with Travis to bring up the rear and see Bessie home.

  He could tell Meredith wasn't happy. She refused to talk to him, sitting in the passenger's seat of his car in stony silence, letting the air conditioner cool her body—and hopefully her temper, too.

  She'd stripped off the top half of the cow costume, revealing a white fitted T-shirt. He wanted to run the back of his hand down the soft cotton fabric, tracing the outline of her curves, but he knew if he came anywhere near her right now, she'd likely pound him into the ground with one of those plastic hooves.

  They followed the pickup for a few minutes, until they approached the exit for Storrow Drive and Fenway Park. Travis veered off, while Vernon and Ray Jr. kept going, barreling on up I-93 in the bouncy pickup, their heads bopping up and down with the bad springs like human popcorn. Travis slowed and parked his car on the shoulder of Exit 26, then killed the engine.

  "What are we doing? We have to go with them to return Bessie."

  "I want to show you something."

  He got out of his side, came around and opened her door, leading her out of the car before she could protest. The traffic hummed along by them, the tires making their own kind of music against the pavement. The city bustled around them, buildings looming like sentries. "Look up."

  She did. "I see sun. Clouds. Sky." She pivoted back, hand on the door's latch. "Okay? Let's go."

  "Turn a little to the right."

  She let out a gust of breath, but did as he asked, a question on her lips that never got voiced. When her gaze connected with the massive sign that overlooked the highway, Meredith's jaw dropped open.

  "That's what replaced you," he said.

  "How... What... When?"

  He chuckled. "Vernon and Ray Jr. helped me last night."

  "But..." She gaped at the moving parts, the gleaming smile above her head. "This is not what the company was planning for No-Moo. You're going to get fired for this."

  He shrugged. "Probably."

  "Doesn't that worry you?"

  "Not anymore." Travis circled around to the front of Meredith and reached for her hands. When she didn't resist, he felt a tiny surge of hope that maybe all this tension between them was as fixable as the billboard had been. "I did it for you."

  "Me? Why?"

  He took a deep breath. "You were right; I did use you for the No-Milk focus group."

  "Y
ou were behind the whole thing, weren't you? The newspaper articles, the billboard. All of it." She tried to tug away from him but he held fast.

  "No, I wasn't. I met you and I thought you'd be great for helping us figure out how to sell No-Moo to people in the Midwest, the hardest market to crack." He shook his head, knowing that if he had met Meredith today, two weeks after all the changes he had made in his life, he would not have even thought of doing the same thing. "At the time, I thought it was a fair trade. You wanted me, I wanted you."

  "But you never came through on your end of the bargain."

  A smile crossed his lips. Oh how he'd wanted to. Then, and even more so now. "We'll get to that later," he said. "I promise."

  For the first time in days, he saw a spark in her eyes. Maybe all wasn't lost with Meredith, maybe they could indeed fix the mess they'd made of everything.

  She arched a brow. "You promise?"

  "Here in front of God and Larry." He gestured toward the billboard.

  She laughed. "I'm not sure that's much of a promise."

  He nodded, agreeing. "Probably not. But it's the best I can do standing on the highway."

  She grinned. "It'll do."

  A bus sped past them, so close to the shoulder it nearly sideswiped his car. The whoosh of air going by sent Meredith's hair whipping around her face. Travis reached up and brushed the tendrils off her soft, peaches-and-cream cheeks, allowing his hand to linger for a long moment. "I was a different man when I met you," he said. "Back then, I didn't notice if people got hurt by the stupid things I did. I made idiotic choices, lived a life without many consequences and basically skated along, doing what I had to, to keep my job and pay my bills."

  "And now?"

  "And now I want more. More out of me, and more out of my life."

  "And this"—she motioned toward the twelve-by-twenty-four image—"is part of that?"