“You’re only changing the subject so I won’t probe anymore.”
“Is it working?”
“No. Afraid I’ll find out the truth?”
Yes! she wanted to scream. She bent her head, her loose hair draping the thin contours of her face. “I promise I will give your ideas serious consideration,” she murmured. “After all, you did come all the way out here to see me about modeling for you. The least I can do is listen to your ideas.”
“Are you sure you’re telling me the truth, or are you just humoring me?” he said challengingly.
Her head snapped up, her eyes flashing fire. “I may be weakening on part A, but don’t push for Part B unless you want to lose it all,” she warned in a hard voice. She walked out with her head held high and without saying another word.
Travis remained sprawled on the couch in the living room, watching the flames die down in the fireplace. He couldn’t understand the reason for the abrupt change in Kali’s personality. None of it made any sense. He couldn’t imagine he’d said anything that might have triggered such an emotional turnaround. Would he ever be able to figure her out?
As the room grew cooler he thought over the past few days he’d spent with her. She was feistier now than he remembered her to be, more willing to stand up to people and speak her mind. Of course, there was one thing about her that hadn’t changed—she was just as beautiful as ever. He closed his eyes to think of her, but that only gave him ideas about her he knew he shouldn’t be thinking. Oh, how he wanted to see her flushed with passion, those wicked eyes slumberous from his lovemaking.
Deciding the direction of his thoughts was leading him into dangerous territory, he pushed himself off the soft cushions and ambled over to the fireplace to bank the coals before heading to his lonely loft and equally lonely bed. If he had any brains at all, he’d pack up tomorrow, head for home, and throw himself into his work. If nothing else, the battles between him and Deke would keep his mind off the bewitching brunette in the next room.
He cursed under his breath as he pulled off his boots and socks and began peeling off his jeans. Nope, nothing was ever going to make him forget her. And bedding her would only turn the illness from critical to terminal.
Chapter 6
That night Travis lay in bed trying to figure out what had caused Kali’s abrupt mood change that day. He remembered the lines of strain around her eyes, the look of desperation on her face as she moved around the house. Something was very wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what. He finally dozed off but was unable to sleep more than short periods of time for worrying about her.
It was a few hours after midnight when he awoke to sounds filtering from the living room. Wondering if something was wrong, he climbed out of bed and looked over the railing to find Kali seated on the rug before the fireplace, photo albums scattered around her. She appeared to be crying. He quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and quickly descended the narrow stairs. She didn’t even look up when he approached.
Kali sat cross-legged on the rug, a floppy-eared teddy bear clasped in her lap as she stared at the photos before her. She was so lost in her thoughts, she didn’t even acknowledge Travis when he squatted down beside her. Even though the room was cold, she wore only a thin nightgown and showed no signs of chill.
“Kali?” He spoke softly, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
She didn’t look up. “She was such a beautiful baby, wasn’t she?” she murmured, holding up a color photo of a newborn child. “She wasn’t red and wrinkled like most babies when they’re born. And she always smiled, especially for me.”
Travis plucked the photo from her fingers and gazed at the tiny baby. Turning the photo over, he cursed softly as he read the date, written in a neat, feminine hand. Four years ago to the day. No wonder Kali had been so distraught. It was her daughter’s birthday and there was no little girl around to spoil shamelessly, no one to throw a birthday party for, no little friends playing in the yard, no happy shouts of excitement—only dreams of what might have been.
“This is Boo Bear.” Kali held up the lop-eared bear. “Cheryl never went anywhere without him. How she must miss him.” She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “I wish I knew where she was so I could send him to her.” Not missing a beat, she turned the pages, pointing out pictures that had special meaning to her. “She was beginning to walk here. We’d tease her because she seemed to waddle like a duck. She refused to hold on to anything. This was her first birthday party here. Poor thing, one of the older boys, our agent’s five-year-old son, decided to throw his piece of cake at her, then pushed her face in the ice cream. It seemed to take forever to clean her up. Cheryl’s first time on a pony, she wasn’t frightened at all. She was always so independent. Blayne said she got that from me, although he was certainly never one to back down from a battle.” Kali sniffled. “I miss my baby, Travis. God, how I miss her. Why am I being punished? I was never a bad girl. I always did what I was told. Why should my baby be taken away from me? Why can’t she be found? I want her back with me so badly.”
He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly. “You aren’t being punished for anything, Kali. Your ex-husband wanted you to suffer, and he found the perfect way to do it. You’ll get her back, I promise you.”
Kali sighed, burrowing her face against the cool skin of his bare chest. “Oh, sure, the detective agency says that every time I mail them a check, but I haven’t seen any results,” she said, scoffing. Warm tears slid down her cheeks and landed on his chest.
Feeling the chill of her skin and fearing she’d get sick, Travis stood up and gently pulled her up with him, steering her toward her room. “Like I said before, you’re using the wrong people. But you can’t afford to worry about it tonight. You get your rest and we’ll see what we can do.”
The rigors of the day had already caught up with her, and her eyelids drooped as Travis put her to bed and piled the covers around her. “Last year I tried to get drunk, and I couldn’t even do that right.” Kali’s words were slurred from exhaustion. “Hangovers are very disgusting.”
Travis grinned. “No kidding. Get some sleep, and everything will look brighter in the morning.” He only wished he could offer her more comfort than that.
Kali reached out and grasped his hand tightly. Her face was pinched from the tension still holding her emotions hostage.
“One more thing.” She turned her face away, as if unable to look at him. “I’m sure you know about the story Blayne told about my having the abortion to spite him.” Her hand tightened as she worked hard to relate a tale that still carried a great deal of pain in her heart. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Cheryl came down with a case of German measles, and I later had a bad case of them. Shortly afterward, I was told I was ten weeks’ pregnant.”
Travis swore softly under his breath. He felt her pain flow through her hand into his body.
“There was no question of my not having the baby,” she whispered, still staring off into space. Her free hand hovered over her abdomen, which once had protected a tiny life. “The doctor was adamant and Blayne was relieved. One child was more than enough for him, and I was feeling so bad, I doubted I could have made any other decision.”
Travis silently cursed the terrible misfortune that had befallen this woman. Without stopping to think, he sat on the bed and gathered her into his arms.
Kali didn’t hesitate. She accepted Travis’s comfort and relaxed against his hard frame. For the rest of the night they huddled together as if they were all that was left to ward off the evil in the world. Even after Kali finally fell asleep, Travis remained awake. Now he knew he could never let her go. It was just a question of convincing her of that.
When Kali woke up late the next morning, she felt a jumble of emotions; embarrassment over spilling her woes to Travis; and relief that he wasn’t still lying in bed with her. She wasn’t used to betraying her feelings to anyone, and she didn’t feel she could face him just yet.
She lay under the warm covers and realized this was the first time she’d woken up the day after Cheryl’s birthday not feeling as if her world had ended. By talking about the pain of three years ago, she felt freer and more relaxed than she had in a long time.
A hot shower helped clear away the balance of the cobwebs in her brain, and she dressed in record time. She walked out to the kitchen feeling a bit shy at meeting Travis.
“Mornin’.” He greeted her in a casual voice, as if nothing had happened, which Kali appreciated. He smiled at her as he filled a mug with coffee. “Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day,” he commented. “What would you say to a hike?”
Kali would have preferred staying around the cabin but knew she would only start moping again. “I guess the exercise wouldn’t hurt after so many days of inactivity.” She didn’t sound convinced.
Travis recalled the feel of a soft, yielding body in his arms and thought of another kind of exercise that was very beneficial but knew better than to suggest it. He hastily pushed the idea aside and handed Kali a plate of warm toast topped with butter.
“At least I didn’t burn it,” he said with a grin. “Just don’t look in the trash or you’ll see what happened with the other thousand attempts.”
Kali wanted to protest that she had no appetite, but thought better of it. Instead, she ate all four slices, then shyly suggested that she would fix a picnic lunch for them to take along on their walk. Travis hid his triumphant smile and went to put on his hiking boots. Within twenty minutes they were walking outside in the early spring sunshine.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I still have to feed the horses.” Kali sighed, heading toward the barn.
Travis grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “It’s already done.”
She stumbled, and only his restraining arm kept her from falling. She looked up, seeing the expression she remembered seeing the night before—the very male expression that stated he wanted her. She slowly pulled her arm away and stepped back a few paces.
“Thank you for taking care of them for me,” she murmured, afraid to look up at him again.
“You can’t run away forever, Kali.” His low voice reached her ears, but she refused to acknowledge it. He wanted to bring back the memories she had successfully kept hidden for years, and she wasn’t going to allow him to revive them now.
Their hike was a disaster. Kali couldn’t seem to relax enough to enjoy their walk into the hills, and Travis continued to watch her with knowing eyes that made her even more uncomfortable. During their stop for lunch Kali sat against a tree trunk and only nibbled at her food. All she could think about was the way she’d confessed her sorrows the night before and practically invited Travis into her bed. What was wrong with her?
“Is something the matter?” she asked waspishly when she noticed him staring at her.
He shook his head. “Just watching the way the sun shines on your hair. It’s beautiful, like gold.”
Kali sniffed but said nothing. She may not have known what was wrong with her, but Travis did. He wasn’t vain about his charm, but he knew there was some kind of attraction between them; there had been since that New Year’s Eve. And Kali wasn’t sure how to handle it. She had bottled up her feelings for so long, she didn’t know what to do with them. He chose not to say anything at the time, preferring to give her space enough to come to terms with her feelings.
Finally unable to take any more of the tension festering between them, Kali suggested after lunch that they return to the cabin. Her unspoken suggestion that Travis return to his own home hovered in the air around them.
Muttering an excuse about checking on the horses, Kali disappeared into the barn. Deciding not to give her time after all, Travis followed her.
“What is this? Are you bucking for the job as my keeper?” she demanded, spinning around to face him when she realized he had entered the barn after her. Why did he have to look as if he understood the pain she was still going through?
“You’ve got to stop running away and face your past, Kali.”
“I don’t recall hearing that you’ve recently obtained a degree in psychology, so I believe I’ll pass up the advice.” Her mutinous gaze speared him with no lasting effect. “Just go back to California, Travis, and leave me alone. It was a mistake to have you stay when I don’t even like you or the so-called books you put out.” Not ashamed of her rude outburst, she continued to glare at him, watching his anger build in terrifying degrees. Then something began to change. Feeling something else more elemental begin to pass between them, she hurriedly turned away before she got caught up in something she couldn’t handle.
But Travis wasn’t about to let her walk away from him again. He grabbed her arm and spun her back around, pinning her against a stall door.
“All of this has nothing to do with what’s going on now,” he said in a rumbling voice. “It’s still because of what happened that New Year’s Eve, but you refuse to admit it. That’s also the reason you don’t want me here, so go ahead and admit that right along with everything else.”
Her face froze. If her arms hadn’t been pinned to her sides, she probably would have hit him, because the last thing she wanted to remember was that particular night. She managed to free her arms and push Travis away. Before she could take more than three steps, he had caught hold of her braid and was wrapping it around his hand, slowly pulling her toward him. With each step his head lowered until his lips hovered just above hers in a light touch. Kali’s eyes opened wide, and his own dark ones stared down into hers just as he took her into his arms and brought her flush against his body.
“Let’s make sure it wasn’t due to too much champagne and holiday spirit the last time,” he muttered roughly as his mouth covered hers. His tongue thrust roughly between her parted lips in an intimate motion that should have been meant for longtime lovers. There was no doubt that their other kiss had not been a fluke. Travis felt the heat steal up from his booted feet, through his thighs, and into the part of him that ached so badly for her. She felt so good against him that he never wanted to let her go. His hands roamed up and down her back, from the base of her spine to the soft area of her nape. He was unable to stop touching her.
Kali found herself falling under the same bewitching spell as before. She caressed his face, neck, and broad shoulders, which were covered by flannel under the heavy jacket. She was eager to touch all of him, the angle of his hips, the hard curve of his buttocks, the rock-hard muscles in his tensed thighs. Her hands, her entire body, ached for the feel of him. There was no blaming her hormones this time; now it was a pure and simple case of wanting a man so badly, she was blind to everything else. She opened her mouth wider, hungry for the taste of him, her tongue darting into his mouth to mimic the same motions. One arm curled around his neck while the other hand crept along his chest and downward, to press boldly against the surging heat of his arousal. Her senses were starved for him. She wanted to press closer to the warmth of his skin, burning through the heavy layers of clothing; she ached at the feel of his hands roaming over her, and the hard, lean body that pressed against hers, not to mention the bulging masculinity nestled in the soft cradle of her thighs. She wanted it all. One of his knees gently nudged her legs apart and moved even more rhythmically against her. The warm, musky scent of his body wove another spell around her.
“Travis!” She gasped, pulling her mouth away from the tempting lips that turned her to fire.
“You know how much I want you, Kali,” he breathed in a rough voice that betrayed his arousal. He drew air into tortured lungs, feeling an almost uncontrollable urge to make love to her there and then.
She wanted him just as much but was afraid to accept even the slightest idea of a commitment. She shook her head and whispered, “I can’t.”
“Because we hardly know each other, or because of the past?”
She raised her hands and pushed him away. “Because of me,” she said tautly.
Travis couldn’t miss the tears in Kali�
��s eyes, and knew they weren’t caused by what had just happened. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her unbridled behavior, it was because of the pain she had known in the past. He could feel it just as surely as if she had told him so.
“I’m not Blayne, Kali. I’m not the kind of man to promise you one thing, then strip you of all you know and love,” he said harshly, instinctively knowing that any sign of pity would raise the barriers between them.
She smiled wanly. “I realized that within five minutes of talking to you.” She stepped away to escape the spell his nearness had wrought. She had to think clearly to explain her fears. “You have to remember that I’ve been living alone for a long time and that I’ve chosen not to have a man in my life. Oh, not because of what Blayne did to me, but because of what I felt I did to myself by allowing him to hurt me so badly during the years we were together. Not that he ever hurt me physically; he had other ways that hurt just as much, if not more, and he left very deep scars. I made a lot of mistakes I can only blame on youth. I ran away from a set of problems instead of trying to work them out, not realizing I was only running into another set of problems that were just as bad.
“By the time the smoke cleared from the divorce and Cheryl’s kidnapping, I was in pretty bad emotional shape. So I did what I knew best; I ran away. I came back to the home where I had grown up, and the people who knew the person I used to be. It took a lot of months of self-imposed solitude and a great deal of soul-searching before I felt that I was growing into the person I should have been in the beginning. Maybe if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to get in such a complicated mess. The biggest mistake I made was in not protecting myself. The media, with Blayne’s help, found all my weak spots, and I could only hide away, licking my wounds instead of fighting back. It taught me never to allow myself to be victimized again.”
Her voice suddenly hardened. “The fashion model Kali Hughes isn’t the Kali Hughes standing before you, or even the Kali Hughes I hope to be in time. Even the name isn’t real; I was christened Calliope Sue Howard a little over thirty-four years ago.” She smiled bitterly. “I was a sham out there, Travis, just a figment of my agent’s imagination, but I went along with it because I thought that was what I wanted. Then the time came when I couldn’t live with that particular Kali Hughes, and it’s taken me this long to find the real me. And I’ve just begun to like what I’ve learned about myself. I don’t intend to lose my self-respect again.”
Only Love Page 8
