Larkspur Road

by Jill Gregory

  “Not bad. Not bad at all. Grady was a little shell-shocked at the amount of homework, but he’s so smart, Travis. And very sweet. I contacted his English teacher and according to her, he was doing great in English all year long and only got that D because he didn’t turn in half of his assignments during the last month of school—and then there was that little matter of skipping class several times a week. Which in turn helped get him suspended. Up until that point, Mrs. Larson said he was pulling mostly A’s and a few B’s.”

  “And earth science?”

  She sighed. “I’m guessing he failed that class in part because he hated his teacher. He told me Mr. Fracken was so boring he could put a rock to sleep. I think I’ll be able to make things a little more exciting for him.”

  A slow smile tugged at the corners of Travis’s lips. “You only have to look at me and I get excited.”

  “Give me a break.”

  “The lady thinks I’m kidding.” He captured her hand in his, closing his fingers snugly around hers.

  His hand felt warm and strong. Solid, she thought. A hand to hold on to.

  “I’ve never been more serious,” he insisted.

  “And I’ve got a stake in a gold mine up in Wild Bull Basin I want to sell you,” she shot back. Keep it light, she told herself. He’s flirting with you. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean anything.

  And she didn’t want it to, she told herself. But it would be so much easier if she didn’t yearn to kiss him every time they were within a dozen yards of each other.

  “Did you speak to Val yet? Or Drew?” She deliberately changed the subject.

  The smile faded from his face. “Tried to, but it was a bust. For now. Val blew me off. Said they were still busy getting ready for this party they’re throwing, and claimed Drew was far too swamped to talk to me. She said it would have to wait. It sounded like she was on the verge of telling me something else, too, but then she seemed to change her mind.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His booted foot absently pushed the swing. The gentle rhythmic movement felt relaxing as Travis held her hand in his and the sun sparkled across her daffodils and peonies.

  “Don’t be. This is a battle that hasn’t even started yet. I’ll give her a few more days and then I’m going to get Drew on the line. But”—he grimaced—“it’s Val I don’t understand. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what’s gotten into her. She seems to care more about her lifestyle now than her son. Val was an assistant manager at a temp agency when I met her. She was down-to-earth, hardworking. A bit nervous and, I guess, needy, after losing her husband, but she was a devoted mother. I mean, yeah, she always liked nice things, and she was maybe a little too into buying ‘stuff,’ just for the sake of buying it, but now…” He blew out a breath. “Now she acts like having that fancy mansion and lots of rich friends and being married to Mr. Corporate Hotshot are the most important things in her life. I don’t even recognize the woman I was married to.”

  “Grady’s lucky to have you right now, Travis. And since you’re his father legally you have as much of a say as she does about his schooling. About everything.”

  “That’s for damned sure.” His tone hardened. “I’ve already put in a call to a lawyer. And whether he likes it or not, I’m going to have a few choice words for Drew Baylor—even if it means I have to fly out there and crash their fancy party.” His eyes glinted the cool blue of mountain frost. “Think it would get his attention if I threw Mr. Big Shot into the swimming pool in front of all their guests?”

  “You wouldn’t.” Mia’s dimples popped out as she looked into Travis’s determined blue eyes. Suddenly she had to bite back a laugh. “Seriously, Travis, not a good idea.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “I do have a few good ideas, though. Like kissing you. Right now. Long and deep and slow. Sounds damned good to me.”

  “Um, I don’t think so.”

  Following her glance he saw that Grady, Justin, and Evan had just raced to the front of Ellis’s house and were now sharing two skateboards, each of them taking turns riding up and down the street.

  Grady waved happily to him and Travis let go of Mia to wave back.

  “Bad timing,” he muttered as she laughed and slid away, putting a few respectable inches between them.

  “Okay, I’ll take a rain check on the good stuff.” Travis settled his back against the swing, looked at her with a grin. “So how about dinner? You, me, Grady—Lucky Punch Saloon. I hear there’s a Monday special on T-bones.”

  Mia was trying not to stare longingly at his mouth. She knew from past experience—too many past experiences—how those firm lips felt against hers, how they tasted of fire and spice.

  She knew what his kisses did to her.

  “I have a better idea.” With an effort, she willed her attention back to practicalities. The boys were yelling as they skateboarded, and Samson was barking at them from her front lawn like he’d never seen boys playing before. “I already have chicken ready for frying. And I was going to fix fresh green beans and mashed potatoes, too. There’s some leftover chocolate-frosted brownies for dessert.” Her head tilted as she studied him. “Why don’t you and Grady join me and Britt?”

  Britt. He needed to talk to Mia about Britt. But first things first. She was watching him, waiting for an answer.

  “Would that be your mom’s fried chicken recipe?” Travis’s smile was hopeful. He’d been invited to Mia’s house for dinner countless times when they were dating. Her mother knew how much he loved her fried chicken and made it more often than not when he was joining them.

  “The one and only.”

  “And your grandmother’s chocolate-frosted brownies?”

  “None other.”

  He grinned. “You got yourself a deal. But I get a rain check on the Lucky Punch.”

  Mia wanted so much to reach out, brush her hand across his dark-stubbled jaw. She wanted to smile at him and lean closer, breathing in his scent, his strength, the easygoing warmth that had drawn her to him since that day when she was fourteen and he lifted up her fallen backpack, making everyone else in the high school hallway fade to a nondescript grayish blur.

  Instead she exercised every bit of her willpower and merely nodded and stood up. “Sure,” she said casually. “You want a rain check, cowboy, you’ve got one.”

  Before he could guess how close she was to doing something impulsive and dangerous, like smiling at him, running her fingers through his dark hair, or kissing him in broad daylight, she walked into the safety of the house and started fixing supper.

  As it turned out, Britt wasn’t able to make it home for dinner. She called Mia to say she had a date with Seth and promised to be home by ten thirty.

  Grady, on the other hand, devoured his supper. He seemed to love her mother’s fried chicken recipe every bit as much as Travis did. After making short work of four chicken legs, a thigh, and three helpings of mashed potatoes, he pronounced it the best supper ever. He was halfway through his second brownie when Ellis called Mia’s cell, inviting Grady to join her grandsons at a sleepover.

  Ellis’s daughter and her husband had gone out of town overnight and Ellis said she had the night off from the hospital and would be keeping the boys until tomorrow. “We’re going to roast marshmallows in just a few minutes, and then Justin and Evan are planning an Indiana Jones movie marathon. They want to know if Grady can join them. He’s very welcome to come.”

  Grady turned eagerly toward Travis when Mia repeated the invitation, his face flushed with excitement. “Can I? Please, Dad?”

  “Sure. It’s nice of Mrs. Stone to invite you, so remember to thank her, okay? How about if I go home and pack up your pajamas and toothbrush and bring them back for you?”

  He might have offered the boy the moon, the stars, and all of the planets Mia had been teaching him about that afternoon.

  Grady leaped out of his chair. “Can I go over there right now? Please?”

  Ellis hear
d him over the phone. “We’re about to roast those marshmallows,” she reminded Mia with a laugh. “So the sooner he gets here the better.”

  Mia relayed the message and Travis said, “First you might want to thank Mia for the wonderful supper.”

  “Thank you for the wonderful supper. It was great!” he added enthusiastically. “Especially the mashed potatoes and the chicken!”

  Then he hugged his dad, grabbed his backpack with his books and homework, and raced out the door.

  Travis helped her clean up and load the dishes in the dishwasher. He insisted on washing the pots and pans while she wrapped up the leftovers and wiped the table.

  “Come back to the ranch with me while I get Grady’s gear,” he said when the kitchen was tidy. “After we drop his stuff off at Ellis’s, we’ll go for a ride.”

  “A ride?” Her brows lifted. “Where?”

  “The cabin. It’s in pretty good shape now, if I do say so myself. I want to show it to you.”

  Say no.

  She and Travis all alone out there at the old Tanner cabin? Half a mile from Sage Ranch and no one around except the rabbits, deer, and coyotes?

  It was a terrible idea.

  She opened her mouth to tell him a more tactful version of that. The words Maybe another time were on the tip of her tongue. But instead she heard herself say, “I need to take Samson for a walk first.”

  “Great.” He flashed her a quick, easy grin that made her stomach do a few somersaults. “I’ll go with you. You never know what kind of lowlifes might be lurking on Larkspur Road.”

  With that, he picked up the dog’s leash from the countertop, and Samson, done with his kibble, came running.

  Watching him snap the leash on her little dog, Mia wondered if she should be running, too. In the opposite direction.

  But, she thought as the three of them slipped out the front door into the early evening hush of the neighborhood, maybe it was time she stopped running from her feelings for Travis. Maybe what she needed was to stand her ground and figure out where they went from here.

  Chapter Seventeen

  During the drive to the cabin, Travis filled Mia in on everything that had gone down with Brittany at A Bun in the Oven.

  She listened in taut silence, hearing him out completely before speaking.

  “And she was frightened? You’re sure? Or was she only upset about dropping that pie?”

  “She looked frozen.” Travis glanced away momentarily from the empty road to note the apprehension in Mia’s eyes. “I’m not trying to scare you, but something definitely didn’t feel right. I’d never seen the guy before, but from the instant he walked in, Brittany seemed to freak out. Right before he arrived, she was doing fine, and then she dropped that pie and…” He shook his head. “She was scared. I’d swear to it. Not that she admitted it when I asked her if anything was wrong.”

  Tension knotted in the pit of Mia’s stomach. Her heart began to race—and not in a good way. “I really don’t like the sound of this. At all. Tell me what he looked like.”

  Travis made a left turn off Squirrel Road onto Hawk’s Way. They were nearing the cabin.

  “I’d put him at five ten, eleven tops. Husky build, short, sandy-colored hair. Smiled a lot. He wore flashy cowboy boots so I took him for a tourist. I’d put his age around nineteen or twenty. I haven’t seen him around before.”

  A tiny chill quivered down Mia’s spine as a memory struck her.

  That day she and Britt had gone shopping at Top to Toe. She’d watched Britt head toward the bakery, and Seth hold the door open for her.

  A boy was watching from across the street. A boy with a husky build, short fair hair…

  “I think I may have seen him—or someone who looks like him. There was a boy who stared at Britt one day when she was going back to work. I didn’t think anything of it at the time—she’s so pretty, and boys always look at pretty girls.”

  “Where was he exactly? Did he approach her?”

  “No, he wasn’t anywhere near her. He’d just come out of Ponderosa Earl’s. He seemed to be watching her while she was fooling around with Seth. They were just talking and laughing in the doorway of the bakery, like kids do. Then they went inside and…” Mia broke off. “He saw me looking over at him. But it didn’t seem to bother him at all. He smiled at me and then he walked away. He had a large shopping bag—lots of purchases from Earl’s. It looked like one of them was a sleeping bag. I didn’t think anything of it. And I haven’t seen him around since.”

  She grabbed her purse and dug for her cell. “Travis, Brittany left Butte for some reason she never explained. She showed up at my house right before Sam left for her honeymoon. She refused to stay with her father as she’d planned, and wouldn’t tell me or Sam why.” Panic rose in her chest as she finally seized her phone and began punching in Britt’s cell number. “What if this boy had been bothering her? Following her, stalking her or something? And she was trying to get away from him? What if that’s why she came to Lonesome Way? I need to talk to her right now and see if she’s all right.”

  Travis was silent as he parked the Explorer in front of the cabin. He hated seeing the tension in her face as she pressed the cell to her ear, her fingers clamped around it. Even the muscles in her slender throat were tight.

  “She’s not answering. I don’t like this.” Mia chewed her lip in frustration. “Maybe we should…Oh! Britt! Britt, honey, are you okay? Where are you?”

  The tension in her face eased as she listened to her niece’s voice. “All right, enjoy the movie. But I need to talk to you. As soon as possible. No, honey, your mom’s fine and so’s your dad. We just need to talk. So come straight home after the movie, okay? Promise me.”

  Slowly she lowered the phone and dropped it back into her purse. “She’s okay, she’s with Seth. They met for supper at the drive-through and now they’re at a movie.” Her shoulders slumped with relief.

  “The movie’s about to start, but I told her…well, you heard. I’ll talk to her later and this time I’m going to get some answers.”

  “If you want I’ll hang around and talk to her, too. If you think it would help.”

  Gratitude welled in her throat. “Thank you. I might take you up on that.”

  Her heart rate was finally returning to normal. At least, she thought, as normal as it could get with Travis sitting two feet away, looking too handsome for words, and as at ease in this big open clearing as a mountain lion on a bluff.

  She pushed the door of the Explorer open and climbed out before she could get lost in those distractingly sexy blue eyes.

  But as she closed the SUV’s door and glanced around, she got lost in something else—the delicate beauty of the rose and gold sunset—and the sight of the sprawling cabin before her.

  Nestled amid tall cottonwoods and pines, the cabin looked big and sturdy against the sunset-painted sky. Her gaze took in the generous-sized porch. There was plenty of space for a garden and a barbecue pit, along with a patio or deck.

  The setting couldn’t have been lovelier with its backdrop of trees and the sweep of grassland and mountains as far as the eye could see. Tall peaks loomed dark in the distance as the glowing apricot sun dipped behind the pines, and lavender night rolled in like soft thunder.

  A sharp wind blew down from the mountains, rustling the summer leaves. Mia had changed into jeans and a tan cotton sweater before leaving her house since even in the summer the temperature could dip into the forties at night, but she realized she could have actually used a jacket tonight. Shivering a little, she turned toward Travis as he came up beside her.

  “It’s wonderful. I’d forgotten what a beautiful spot this is.”

  “I’d forgotten, too. I’ve been away too long.” As she shivered again, he took her hand and drew her toward the house.

  “Come on, I’ll get a fire going, then give you the tour. If we open any of the windows facing west, you can hear the creek. And there’s a great view of the Crazies from the maste
r bedroom.”

  The moment the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to bite them back. Master bedroom. Now she’d think he was trying to steer her into his bed.

  But…wasn’t he?

  “I didn’t mean that the way it came out,” he said, stopping short.

  “Uh-huh. Sure you didn’t.”

  Slipping free of his grasp and trying to hide a smile, she moved ahead of him toward the wide porch, leaving Travis to linger a moment behind her, enjoying the delicious sway of her hips. Not to mention the way her snug jeans hugged her curvy little butt.

  “This porch looks plenty big enough for a swing,” she remarked over her shoulder.

  “There’ll be one soon. I have some fond memories of porch swings.”

  He heard her little choke of laughter ahead of him and suddenly wanted her with an intensity that rocked him. No one laughed like Mia. Soft and low and sexy, full of joy. Something about the sound made him hungry to make love to her that very minute. On the swing that he didn’t yet have.

  He lengthened his stride to catch up to her and caught her hand as they went up the steps.

  Inside, he flicked on the lights and waited as she stared around in amazement.

  “Travis, it’s incredible. I can’t believe what you’ve done. The last time I was here…”

  Her voice trailed off, but he remembered. The last time he’d brought her here the outside of the cabin had been muddy, the grounds choked with weeds, all the windows smudged and filthy. They’d been in high school then and Travis had wanted to show it to her, since one day, according to his grandfather’s will, the cabin would be his.

  But it had been dark and musty then, the corners shadowed with spiderwebs, and mouse droppings littering the scarred old floor. It had given Mia the creeps and they hadn’t stayed long. She couldn’t wait to get out of there.