Читать книгу Redeeming Travis - Kate Welsh - Страница 12

Travis pivoted left, keeping one foot firmly planted then faked back, trying to get away from his attacker. It was a successful move, but his opponent was a cagey, free-thinker from way back. In a blink, he was there blocking Travis’s path. His standard five-second window of opportunity was nearly up, so he faked left, then whirled right. He took his shot and buried the opposition.

“Score, little brother. Twenty–sixteen. Age and experience win out once again.”

Sam was bent at the waist, sweat soaking his shirt in spite of the cool October temperature. “I’m just out of practice,” he huffed. “Too much rich food, I guess.”

“I’ll remember to thank Jessica,” Travis said, grinning as he snatched up two old towels they’d left on a bench near the driveway.

“I’ll get you next time, big brother.” Sam stood straight and winced as he caught the towel Travis tossed toward him. “Or the time after that. How come you just get harder to beat? You’re older. You’re supposed to fall apart and this is finally supposed to get easier.”

Travis grinned. “In your dreams, bro. So, are you going to pretend you didn’t know Patricia Streeter was the Air Force investigator who took over your murder case?”

“Why should I?” Sam asked, apparently a bit amazed by the question. “You’ve been telling Mom for months Tricia was ancient history. Is there a reason I should have mentioned it?”

For a long moment Travis could only stare at Sam. Caught, he could neither press his brother for his reason for keeping silent nor could he protest the fact that he had. Not without revealing the embarrassing truth that he’d been carrying a secret torch for his ex-girlfriend for years—right through his marriage to Allison.

He shrugged, reaching for nonchalance. “No. I just thought you might have thought to mention it in passing. She hasn’t changed much. Still drives like they gave keys to a lunatic let loose from an asylum.”

Sam gave Travis a sidelong look. “That’s funny. I thought she’d changed a lot. I remembered you bringing home a skinny, long-haired, tomboy who played the guitar.”

Travis scowled. “And your point is? Now she’s a skinny short-haired tomboy who plays with guns. Not much of an improvement, if you ask me.”

“When I had to hand over the case, the chief promised me she’s a top-notch investigator. I somehow doubt she was playing when she got that sharpshooter’s medal she wears on her dress uniform.”

“But then I didn’t see her in uniform. Or maybe I did. She had on a black turtleneck and Air Force-blue slacks.”

“She’s a conservative dresser. She usually attends church in her uniform. She sometimes wears a golf shirt and blue slacks when she volunteers at Galilee Women’s Shelter. But Jessi says Tricia stepped back from her volunteer works since taking over the case. I gather Ian Kelly was a special friend of hers.”

Travis hated the shaft of jealousy that shot through him. How could he be jealous of a dead man or his relationship with an old girlfriend? He pushed the thought away because it didn’t bear thinking about.

“Yeah, well, I’m out of here. There’s a shower waiting at home with my name on it. Let’s go, Cody,” he shouted, and gave a sharp whistle. Bounding out of the backyard came his best friend and almost constant companion. Three-year-old Amy followed, looking a bit forlorn.

Amy was Sam’s stepdaughter. Travis and Sam’s wife, Jessica, had a lot in common. They’d both lost spouses in accidents, but she’d been luckier. Her daughter had lived. His hand went instinctively to the small gold initial ring he wore on a thick sturdy chain. The ring that lay at the base of his throat had been his third birthday gift to Natalie. He rarely took it off.

It had been hard for Travis to even look at Amy Mathers at first, though the little blonde and his dark-haired daughter, Natalie, looked nothing alike. It was the shy but bright look in her eyes that sharpened his loss into such painful clarity whenever he came in contact with her. Yet like a moth to flame, he was drawn to her just the same.

Amy ran up to him and he found himself instinctively squatting down to her level. “Cody left his ball,” she announced.

Sure enough when Travis looked down, clutched in Amy’s hand was Cody’s slimy, muddy ball. Her dress was no better than the ball from a messy game of doggy catch. “Uh-oh, Mommy’s going to have my head for this one,” Travis said.

Sam scooped Amy up and the little blonde hugged him around the neck. “You can get dirty all you want. Right, Amy?” he said, his tone so full of love it made Travis’s throat ache.

Nodding vigorously Amy added, “Cody can stay?”

Sam shook his head. “He has to go now, but he’ll be back.”

Amy turned toward Travis, her bottom lip trembling. “Cody can’t stay?”

Travis groaned. “Aw, Sam. Get the kid a dog, will you? Every time Cody and I come over I feel guilty leaving with him.”

“You want a doggy?” Sam asked the apple of his eye.

Amy’s big blue eyes went round as saucers. Her blond ponytail bobbled as she somehow managed to hop up and down while still in Sam’s arms. “Can I, Daddy? Can I?”

Sam shot Travis a helpless look.

Travis held up his hand. “Don’t even try to put this one on me. You asked the kid. And let’s face it. If she called you Daddy in the same sentence with ‘Can I have the moon?’ you’d start calling NASA to see if there was a way to get it for her. I’ll catch you later, bro. Have fun explaining a puppy to your busy wife,” he said, and turned, snapping his fingers for Cody to follow.

“So, Cody, my boy, I’d say it looks as if you’re going to have another playmate soon.” He, of course, said this loud enough for his dumbfounded brother to hear. Sam was fast learning that fatherhood took practice, and with a three-year-old suddenly bursting into his life, he was going to have to speed up his learning curve…fast.

“Go home,” Sam yelled.

Travis turned and saluted his brother with a chuckle, then took off at a jog, dribbling his lucky boyhood basketball down Goldmine Lane. Cody ran ahead then doubled back to run alongside him until some woodland creature got his canine interest and he took off at an energetic run.

Tricia climbed out of her car, tugged her uniform jacket into place and squared her hat. There, she thought, armor in place, she was ready to beard the lion in his den.

Travis must be at home or Sam wouldn’t have given her the code when she called and asked for help getting past the gate at the entrance to the gated community. Besides, sitting in the drive were Travis’s two questionable vehicles—both she was sure he considered vintage. One of them brought back too many memories so she forced her gaze away to knock on the door to his pueblo-style house. No one answered, however. It looked as if all that mustering of courage would go to waste.

Not one to waste anything, even energy—nervous or otherwise—she looked around. She was curious about how Travis lived these days, this man whose life she’d once thought was too far removed from the one she’d known. So Tricia stepped back to analyze what she saw, rather than just leave.

She looked back to the driveway, her eyes drawn to the dark green 1969 Firebird, and the memories rolled over her. Glorious ones. The night he almost single-handedly took the college’s basketball team to the state championships. The day she’d aced the first final in her major. Then devastating ones. The morning on the way to school when they learned two friends had been killed in a car accident. And most especially the night he proposed, when she’d tried to put him off, ending their relationship almost by default.

Tricia shook her head. The past was past. There was no shame in having made mistakes as long as you made up for them—or at least tried. She’d hurt Travis by turning him down so clumsily. He’d hurt her by turning to Allison. Now she was going to make sure he and his family were protected from his father’s folly even if not exactly on her terms. Thinking of the general’s terms, she turned her mind back to his house. She needed to size up her opponent.

Travis’s deep terra-cotta-colored house looked a bit forlorn. There was a rock garden that artfully tumbled away from the walk to the lawn but both lawn and garden were sadly neglected. There were the craftily placed pots scattered on the steps and in the entranceway but those were as empty as the house.

The hollow slapping sound of a bouncing ball and the deep woof of a large dog drew her attention. Tricia turned and looked down the hill in the direction of the noise. It was Travis jogging along the street while he dribbled a basketball. Her heart ached at the sight as she walked back down the drive to meet him. How many times had she seen him like this in her memory…in her dreams?

Reality was different, though, because a huge German shepherd galloped happily along at his side. Travis laughed at the dog’s antics but a frown took over his expression the second his gaze fell upon her. He stopped in his tracks at the foot of the drive, the ball falling to the ground and rolling behind him into the street.

The dog immediately trotted to her side and sat, smiling up at her, encouraging affection with his big brown eyes and a raised paw. “I wondered if we could talk,” Tricia said to Travis as she automatically stooped to shake the dog’s proffered paw. Rather than focus on Travis’s thunderous expression, Tricia gave the dog a chance to sniff her hand before petting his soft fur. He very nearly purred.

The dog—not Travis.

Travis was the one who growled, “This is a gated community. How’d you get in?”

“Actually, I called your brother and he gave me the code to the gate.”

“I’ll have to remember to thank him. I can’t imagine that he thought we’d have anything to talk about.”

She shrugged, trying for nonchalance as she straightened, her hand resting on the big dog’s head. She didn’t want Travis to think she wanted this partnership General Fielding had outlined. Though she did indeed want it because it would mean she’d know he was safe. And if she refused to examine that particular reason, using instead the excuse that she liked his mother and worried that his father had put Lidia Vance in danger, then so be it. She could stay up nights worrying and thinking about only so many problems at once.

“I thought you were interested in Diablo. The increase in Colorado Springs’s drug problems. La Mano Oscuro,” she challenged him.

His eyes widened almost imperceptibly then his frown deepened. “Talk to Sam. They’re ultimately his problems,” he said, and turned away to retrieve the ball.

The basketball continued to roll down the hill. It got quite a distance with Travis walking after it at a leisurely pace. It had to be a delaying tactic considering that Manitou Springs was built entirely on hills. He would be a year before he caught it at that pace.

Finally, the ball got stuck beneath a parked car. He kicked it free and all the while, Tricia stood her ground in the middle of the driveway, watching his loose-hipped saunter as he came back up the hill. She saw through his act, though. He wasn’t as composed as he pretended. Of course, neither was she, but there was every chance he didn’t know that.

Travis finally glanced back at the driveway and looked surprised to see her still standing there. He didn’t know she could no longer be easily scared away. His expression turned thunderous and he confirmed his mood with his next statement, “You forget how to take subtle hints? Go away. I do not want to see your face. That too subtle for you, Patty?”

She didn’t blink at the name she’d left behind along with her major insecurities. “I prefer Tricia now. You should know that if we’re going to work together on this.”

That slow wiseacre grin replaced the frown on his craggy features. “Work together? Us? As in you and me? You’ve been out in the mountain sun too long, babe.”

Even in college before putting up with the Air Force’s own special brand of chauvinism, she’d hated to be called “babe.” “Look, Travis, let’s stop dancing around each other,” she snapped. “I’ve learned some things you’d give your eye teeth to know. I can save you months. And you may have information I need. You want to know who was ultimately responsible for the shooting of Adam Montgomery. I remember he’s an old friend. I understand that because I want to find the people responsible for Ian Kelly’s murder—my friend. And I think we both want to put a stopper in the drug pipeline running into Colorado Springs. Now, invite me in like a good boy, and we’ll learn to share.”

“I guess I don’t understand why you’re so willing to cooperate with me all of a sudden.”

She sighed. “Because General Fielding ordered me to. He’s a little touchy right now about his people nearly getting killed. And whether you want to admit it or not, you got in my way yesterday and one or both of us could have been killed in that alley.”

Travis stared at her, clearly weighing his options. “Fine, but don’t get too comfortable. Just because I’m listening, doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to anything. I work alone.”

He wasn’t the only one with options to weigh. If he found out about all of General Fielding’s stipulations regarding this joint venture, he’d bolt the door with her on the outside. And no way was she sharing what she suspected without his word that he’d work with her. She had a killer to catch, a drug pipeline to stop and a promotion to win. She couldn’t risk him getting in her way again, and the only way to prevent that was to know where he was and what he was up to. And that meant working together—closely.

“You agree to work this with me, or I don’t take another step.” Then she took a chance that the years had left that basketball-center ego of his intact along with that cocky grin he still had. She set her lips in a challenging smirk of her own and added, “Or are you afraid to work with me?”

His eyebrows climbed, furrowing his forehead even more, then his frown slid into a grin again. A grin she was quickly coming to believe was an artifice to hide his true feelings. Maybe it always had been.

“Me? Afraid of you? Oh, please,” he said, his eyes rolling just a bit. “Fine. We’ll work the cases together since you seem pretty certain that this is all linked. Besides, I don’t want you getting in my way again.”

He pivoted lazily and walked up the drive. When he reached the base of the steps, he turned. Neither she nor the dog had moved. And she wouldn’t. Not until she got an invitation. Not after that remark. She would get in his way?

“You coming?” Travis all but snarled.

Tricia wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to, her or the dog. But since it looked like the only invitation she was likely to get, she started forward.

The dog shot ahead then toward the front door, the plume of his tail wagging jubilantly. “Traitor,” Travis muttered to his canine companion who ran happily past his perturbed master.

It was nice someone was happy with the situation, she thought, and asked, “So, what’s your dog’s name?”

As she entered an open, tiled foyer, the name “Cody” on Travis’s lips barely registered in her brain. Her mind was suddenly ambushed by the flashes of insight the house gave her into his barren life. She could swear her heart actually ached for him.

The rooms before her had wonderful dark wide planked floors that stood out in perfect contrast to the cream color on the rough, adobe-look walls. Unfortunately, that was the only good thing she could say about the two rooms that flowed off the foyer.

She looked around at the emptiness the rooms reflected and wondered how he thought she might make herself too comfortable in such an utterly soulless place. The walls and windows were bare while the living room and dining room areas were lined with card tables. She counted a dozen tables in all and one desk. Strewn with numerous files, each table held folders of a different color. Stacked underneath most of the tables were boxes also filled with the same color files. There was also an industrial-sized shredder in the corner opposite the Spanish-tiled fireplace.

It was, she realized, exactly what it looked like. A disaster of an office with a nod given toward organization. This must be the life center of AdVance Security and Investigations. Which meant he ran the company the way he did everything—alone.

“Oh, my,” she said, in control of her thoughts if not her mouth, “I don’t think you need to worry that I’ll get too comfortable in here.” She walked to the first table and picked up a folder. “I’ve seen jail cells in Third World countries that were more homey than this place.”

“Yuk-yuk,” he said. “I don’t have to please anyone but me. And this pleases me. And—” She heard his footsteps moving quickly toward her and, as she whirled to face him, he snatched the folder out of her hand. “I know where everything is.” He dropped it back on the table. “Don’t touch my stuff. Besides, that’s confidential. And don’t go getting any ideas about messing with my filing system. I remember how you like to organize. So what’s this about information?”

Tricia spotted the kitchen that lay beyond a half wall. It had two counter stools pulled up to a breakfast bar that was set into the half wall between the dining room and the galley kitchen. She walked to the bar, pulled out a chair and sat.

“Why, thank you, Travis. I’d love a nice hot cup of tea. Suppose you tell me what you’ve learned while you fix it for me.”

“I said I’d participate. I didn’t say I’d feed you. That comes under the heading of ‘too comfortable.’”

“Oh?” She fiddled with a drawing he’d left on the counter. It was done by a small child and showed a tall man and a dog running. Only the dog smiled. Travis and Cody, no doubt about it. She imagined the budding artist was Amy Mathers, his brother Sam’s stepdaughter.

“What’s ‘oh’ supposed to mean? Women never say ‘oh’ in that tone when it doesn’t mean a whole lot more.”

“It means that I thought the offer of refreshments fell under the heading of civilized.” She looked pointedly at the kitchen beyond where he now stood. Wall-to-wall dirty dishes, several empty bread wrappers and three scraped-clean peanut butter jars. It was anything but civilized. “Decorated by Neanderthal Interiors?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.

“I like my kitchen the way it is, too. Come on. We’ll talk in the den. It’s neat so it won’t put your female cleaning hormones into overdrive.”

She followed when he gave her no opportunity to protest. “Sit,” he ordered when she entered the small room.

His idea of neat and hers were worlds apart. Stack after stack of magazines and newspapers from all over the world took up about a third of the floor space and the end tables and coffee table. There was also a medium-size TV, a wall of bookcases stuffed haphazardly with books, a futon and an old beat-up leather recliner. The room fit his personality: rumpled, grumpy and brooding.

She chose the futon and, after picking up and stacking several of the newspapers and magazines into a neat pile, she sat in the newly cleared space.

“You’re already driving me crazy and we haven’t been working together five minutes,” he said, raking his hair off his forehead. “So tell me what all you’ve figured out about Ian Kelly’s murder.”

“He was killed on the flight line.”

“Then it really was about Air Force business.” Travis leaned back in his seat. “Sam thought it was something to do with this influx of drugs that are driving him and the rest of CSPD crazy. In that case, I don’t see what I can do for you.”

She couldn’t very well blurt out that his father was looking pretty good as the kingpin of Diablo, the syndicate she thought was the Colorado Springs arm of La Mano Oscura. She was nearly sure the proof of the connection between the two organizations had been within Ian’s grasp but couldn’t confirm it yet.

“Five or six of our pilots look good for the runners. One of them is the guy I was following yesterday. We can’t afford to trip over each other again.”

“And how on earth do we explain our being together all the time, or haven’t you and your general thought that far?”

Tricia swallowed, and crossed her legs carefully to hide her nervousness. “Well…er…the general has decided on a way to handle it.”

Travis raised one eyebrow. “And what is the general’s brilliant idea?”

“We’re inseparable because—” she tried to make her expression as neutral as she could “—we’re dating again.”