Added to everything Annie had said earlier, suddenly it was all too much for Sarah. She needed to get out of here. She needed to think. And she couldn’t do that where, with one seductive glance, Travis could make her forget everything that common sense was all but shouting at her.
24
Travis could feel Sarah withdrawing. After weeks of getting closer, weeks of feeling as if he’d found not just the perfect town, but also the perfect woman and business partner, he knew he was losing her. What he didn’t understand was why.
When he tried to analyze it, he thought he could trace it to the day Trina had appeared at Rosalina’s with the tale of Greg’s cheating. By now he understood how Sarah’s mind worked well enough to guess that she’d translated his father’s behavior into a foreshadowing of how he would treat her, which was utterly absurd, to say nothing of infuriating. He didn’t deserve to be judged for something his father had done.
For days he’d been trying to pin Sarah down so they could talk, but she managed to slip away every time, usually with the excuse that she had to get home to the kids.
When she deliberately locked the studio door one morning in an attempt to keep him out, he came close to losing it. He had his own key, but given his anger, he decided it was best not to use it. He was, however, waiting for her when she emerged.
“We need to talk,” he said tightly.
“Sorry. I have an appointment,” she said, trying to brush past him.
“Station business?”
She flushed, then shook her head.
“Then it can wait. Let’s go.”
Alarm filled her eyes. “Where?”
“Someplace where we can talk without the prying eyes of an entire community on us.”
“I don’t have time…” she began, but her voice trailed off when he regarded her with an unyielding expression.
She remained silent in the car. She didn’t say another word, in fact, until they reached a waterfront restaurant far enough away from Serenity that they weren’t likely to be recognized.
“This was a long way to come just so you can yell at me,” she said.
“I’m not going to yell,” he said, exasperated. The temptation to yell, however, was so powerful, it was a wonder he didn’t give in to it despite his promise.
“You seem angry.”
He stared at her incredulously. “You think?” He snatched up the menu, glanced at it and zeroed in on a shrimp platter. “I’m having the shrimp. How about you?”
“I’m not hungry.”
He stared at her until she eventually sighed. “Fine. I’ll have the shrimp, too.”
Travis placed their orders, then waited until their iced tea arrived before finally meeting her gaze.
“Okay, start talking.”
“About?”
He scowled at her. “Don’t do this. Don’t play games. This is too important. If I’ve upset you, I want to know how. I can’t fix things if you just shut me out.”
“You didn’t break anything,” she admitted, surprising him.
“Then who the hell did? Somebody must have.”
“No, I just woke up from the fantasy,” she said, her expression bleak.
“What fantasy? You’re not making any sense.”
“No, Travis, what didn’t make sense was us.”
“How can you say that? We’re perfect together.”
“Now, maybe, but not forever.”
“That’s crazy.” He looked deep into her eyes. “Does this have something to do with my father and what he did to Trina?” he asked point-blank.
She looked startled that he’d nailed it. Then her chin set stubbornly. “Does it really matter how I came to this epiphany?”
“I think it does. Dammit, Sarah, you can’t blame me for my father’s flaws. He has a ton of them, no question about it. So do I, but they’re not the same ones, at least not when it comes to the way I treat women. I have always, always, played fair with every woman I ever dated, you included. When I told you the other day that I love you, I meant it, along with all that implies about commitment.”
He could see in her eyes how desperately she wanted to believe him, but she shook her head anyway. “Words are too easy, Travis.”
More frustrated than he’d ever been, he tried again to get through to her. “I know life doesn’t come with guarantees, not the kind you obviously want, but if we both know what we want, we can make it happen.”
She obviously remained unconvinced. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t want it enough?” he asked, scrambling to make sense of her determination to throw away their future.
“I do,” she said.
“Well, you can’t be talking about me, because you’re all I want.”
“Now,” she said again.
“We’re right back to my father again, aren’t we? You’re convinced I’ll cheat on you.”
She nodded, looking miserable. “It’s bound to happen.”
Travis opened his mouth to argue, but how could he? The future might come with well-meant promises, but guarantees? Life just didn’t work that way.
“See,” she said triumphantly. “You see it, too. You can’t deny it.”
“Because that’s not how relationships work. I can tell you I’m one hundred percent committed to you, but only you can decide whether to believe that or not.” Filled with frustration, he met her gaze. “Are you really willing to give up on us because neither of us knows what tomorrow will bring?”
“I have to,” she said. “I survived what Walter did to me, but I don’t think I could survive losing you.”
“Yet you’re the one walking away,” he said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
She shrugged. “It does to me.” She shoved aside her untouched plate of food. “I’d like to go home now.”
“Come on, Sarah, let’s talk this out.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
Travis might have tried to make her see reason, but it was evident that right this second she believed every defeated word she was uttering. He wanted to call his father and rail at him for setting this into motion, but the truth was Sarah’s insecurities had always been there, buried just under the surface. It wasn’t only him she’d lost faith in. It was herself and her ability to keep his interest. And that was a battle he had no idea how to fight.
Sarah managed to hold back her tears until she was inside the house. She headed directly for her room, hoping to escape Raylene’s probing questions. Unfortunately, the two friends came close to colliding in the hallway. Raylene took one look at her and steered her into the bedroom and urged her to sit on the bed.
“What happened?” she demanded. “You look like death warmed over.”
“It’s official. I broke up with Travis,” Sarah admitted, then let the tears flow.
Raylene, bless her, didn’t say a word. She just kept handing her tissues until the waterworks ended.
“Okay, then,” Raylene said as Sarah wiped away what she hoped was the last of the tears. “What did the bastard do?”
Sarah frowned at her. “Don’t call him that,” she said fiercely.
“You’re very quick to jump to the defense of a man you’ve just dumped. Whatever he did can’t have been too awful.”
“He didn’t do anything,” Sarah admitted. “Splitting up with him had to be done, that’s all.”
“So, you broke up for no specific reason?” Raylene asked, looking justifiably bewildered.
“Not really. I just looked into the future and saw the inevitable.”
Raylene feigned amazement. “Oh, my gosh! You’re psychic!”
Sarah frowned at her. “Don’t be sarcastic. You know perfectly well it’s possible to know when things just aren’t going to work.”
“Sorry, actually I don’t know that. If it were that easy, more people would skip the walk down the aisle.”
“More people probably should,” Sarah said bitterly. “Look, can we not discuss this? It’s
too depressing.”
“Yes, I imagine walking away from the perfect guy for no good reason would be depressing,” Raylene said.
“Travis is hardly perfect.”
“He’s perfect for you. And until very recently, you thought so, too.”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m a bright woman. Try me.”
Sarah described Trina’s visit, Greg’s cheating right before their wedding, the whole tawdry mess.
Raylene didn’t look impressed with the argument. “So, you’re kicking this amazing man to the curb because his father’s a jerk. Do I have that right?”
“Like father, like son,” Sarah insisted. “Travis says himself that lots of people believe that about the two of them.”
“Oh, sweet heaven, will you listen to yourself? Are you sure this isn’t a lesson you learned from bitter experience with Walter? He was certainly a chip off the old block, right?”
Sarah couldn’t deny anything she was saying. “The genetics certainly held true in that family,” she agreed.
“And you’ve seen no changes in Walter since he got away from their influence?”
“Sure, but…”
“But what? You don’t trust those changes either?”
Sarah was beginning to lose steam. As Raylene went on, Sarah was beginning to see just how irrational she’d been. “Something like that,” she muttered halfheartedly.
Raylene regarded her with apparent pity. “You know for months now I’ve thought I was the one in this house with a problem moving on with my life, but, sweetie, you have me beat by a mile. We might just as well lock the door here and throw away the key, because the way I see it, we’re both destined to waste the rest of our lives living in the past.”
“I’m not doing that,” Sarah said defensively.
“Really? Then prove it.”
“How?”
“Go after the man you want and do everything you can to hold on to him. If I were in your situation, I couldn’t get out of this house fast enough. I’d grab onto Travis and start making wedding plans. Sweetie, surely you know that life doesn’t come with guarantees. If you look for problems, you can always find them. Why not opt for hope?”
When Sarah didn’t move, Raylene just shook her head, her expression filled with exasperation. “I don’t want to hear another word about Greg McDonald or Travis and their flaws, Sarah Price. This is all on you. You’re throwing away your future, and if you ask me, it’s a crying shame.”
She walked out before Sarah could think of a single way to defend herself. Most worrisome was the nagging sensation that there was no defense.
Mary Vaughn and Sonny stared at the image of the sonogram in wonder.
“That’s our baby,” she whispered, clinging to Sonny’s hand. “Just look at that.”
“Can you tell if it’s a boy or a girl?” Sonny asked the technician.
She nodded. “Do you both want to know?”
Mary Vaughn met Sonny’s gaze. “Do we? Or do we want to be surprised?”
“I think maybe the fact that we’re having a baby at all is enough of a surprise,” Sonny replied. “Let’s find out so we can plan for it. You know you’re not going to be happy until you’ve decorated the nursery and bought about a thousand little outfits.”
“You do know me well,” she said, turning back to the technician. “Tell us.”
“Congratulations, Mom and Dad! It’s a boy.”
Mary Vaughn saw the delight in Sonny’s eyes and nearly cried. “You’ll have your son. I know how much you wanted this. And your dad…” She shook her head. “He’s going to be over the moon when we tell him.”
“Rory Sue told me she wouldn’t mind having a baby brother, too.”
“She just doesn’t want to share the spotlight as daddy’s little darling,” Mary Vaughn said.
“Let’s go celebrate,” Sonny suggested. “What do you say? I’ll get some sparkling cider and pick up some food from Sullivan’s.”
“I wish we could actually go there,” Mary Vaughn said wistfully just as the obstetrician returned.
“If you promise me you’ll only stay an hour, I don’t see why you can’t. Your blood pressure’s been better the last few weeks,” she said. Her expression turned stern. “But this is not a license for you to start working and running around all over town, you hear me? Bed rest is still necessary, but I don’t think one brief meal out will hurt.”
Mary Vaughn could have hugged her. “I’ll be very careful, I promise.” She turned to Sonny. “Call Rory Sue and your dad and have them meet us there. We can celebrate the good news with them.”
A half hour later they were seated at Sullivan’s when Sonny made the announcement about the baby being a boy.
“I knew it,” Howard gloated. “I’ve been telling those old geezers at Wharton’s I was finally going to have a grandson.”
“My money was on a boy, too,” Rory Sue said. “Here, I’ll prove it.” She pulled a large envelope from her oversized purse and handed it to Mary Vaughn. It was filled with pictures of nurseries, all of them decorated for little boys. She had fabric swatches as well, all in blue patterns with the occasional hint of yellow or green. There wasn’t a shade of pink anywhere.
“You pick what you like, Mom, and I’ll take care of the rest. Decorating the nursery is going to be my gift to you.”
Mary Vaughn simply stared at her. Rory Sue actually sounded excited about the prospect. “You sure about that?”
“I have the money from my share of the commission on the Simpson house, and I really want to do this for you and Dad. Besides, if I do it, you get to supervise to your heart’s content.”
Mary Vaughn regarded her with delight. “Now, there’s an offer I can’t resist.”
“Looks as if we’re finally destined to be one big happy family,” Sonny said enthusiastically.
Mary Vaughn met his gaze. “It’s about time, don’t you think?”
“Past time, if you ask me,” Howard grumbled.
Sonny scowled at him. “The timing’s just the way it’s supposed to be.”
That’s what Mary Vaughn loved most about her husband. For Sonny, the glass was always half full. And she’d finally figured out just how much that kind of optimism really mattered.
Travis spent a couple of miserable weeks nursing the wounds Sarah had inflicted with her unyielding attitude. The tension at the station was so thick it could be cut with a knife, but they were both too stubborn to break the unnatural silence. He hadn’t set foot in the studio with her, leaving her to answer the callers who were filled with questions about his absence.
Worse, he had to watch as Walter started hovering around her every darn day. It looked to Travis as if the man had had second thoughts about letting Sarah get away. She didn’t seem to be ignoring him the way she once had, either. If those two found their way back to each other, Travis was going to start breaking things, beginning with every piece of expensive equipment in the radio station.
“If you want her back, you’re going to have to fight for her,” Bill said mildly, when he caught Travis scowling at his two employees laughing in the main office.
“She can’t be considering taking Walter back,” Travis grumbled. “She has to know what a mistake that would be.”
“No worse than you walking away without a fight,” Bill said.
“Has she said anything to you?” Travis asked. “Do you know for a fact that her feelings for Walter are changing?”
Bill rolled his eyes. “Forget Walter, you idiot. Sarah’s yours unless you decide your pride is more important than getting her back.”
“My pride’s not the issue. She told me flat out she doesn’t want a future with me.”
“The way I hear it, she said she’s scared to risk a future with you.”
“The same thing,” Travis said, then frowned. “Where’d you hear that, anyway?”
“Wharton’s, of course. Grace is having a field day over this. I think the pool over whether
you’ll reconcile or not is somewhere around five hundred dollars.”
Travis wasn’t shocked that there was a pool. Nor was he sure he wanted to know the current odds for a reconciliation.
“Did you place a bet?” he asked Bill.
“Thought about it,” Bill admitted. “But I’m not convinced you’ve got the sense God gave a duck.”
“Thanks,” Travis said, annoyed.
“Just telling it like I see it.”
“It’s not as simple as me trying to sweep her off her feet, you know,” he said in his own defense.
“You sure about that? Because what I know for sure is that if you do nothing, it’s a hundred percent certain you’ll lose her.”
Bill’s words lingered in his head, mocking him for the next few days. By Sunday afternoon he was sick of his own foul mood. He was also determined to make Sarah see the light, that they were the ones who’d determine what kind of future they could have. Not his jerk of a father, that’s for sure.
By the time he reached her house, he’d worked up a full head of steam. He was more than ready to state his case for the two of them living happily ever after.
Then he saw Walter in the backyard with the kids. Sarah was nearby. The scene was so darn domestic, he almost turned around and walked away. Some kind of need to torture himself kept him in place. To make matters worse, Walter paused beside Sarah’s chair, then leaned down and kissed her like he meant it. She didn’t pull away, and Travis’s heart plummeted. Was it possible he was too late, after all?
He stood there, wallowing in his own misery for about sixty seconds, and then his temper kicked in. He was no better than Sarah, leaping to conclusions, ready to give up without a fight. That simply wasn’t going to happen. He’d come here to convince her they had a future, and he intended to do just that.
To get his temper under control and solidify his strategy, he made himself go for a walk so he could remind himself just how badly he wanted Sarah in his life. For a man known for glib chatter, this time he wanted to make sure his words were exactly right.
Sweet Tea at Sunrise Page 31
