Redeeming Travis. Kate Welsh

“What I need is you out of my way, but I know you too well. You as much as said there was no way you were pulling out of this investigation. If I can’t intimidate you off the case, I have to ask you to join in on it.” She grinned slyly, her eyes wise with knowledge of his character.

      It was Travis’s turn to glare. He hated that she still knew him so well.

      She crossed her legs, drawing his attention momentarily. He’d always loved her long dancer’s legs. “I can’t intimidate you, can I?” she asked, dragging his attention off her assets and annoying him further.

      Not trusting himself to speak, he sent her a wiseacre grin and shook his head.

      She grimaced slightly. “Then I guess we’re in this together. And that means it’s on General Fielding’s terms. In that case, it’s your turn to tell me what you have so far.”

      Travis sighed mentally. It looked as if they were partners for the duration. And he had to give her credit—she’d told him all she seemed to know. “Ramirez is the name of the guy I was tailing. He’s Venezuelan. Which fits with Sam’s theory and, I suppose, Ian Kelly’s that Diablo and La Mano Oscura are linked.”

      “I didn’t find any reference to La Mano Oscura in his notes but I still think he was working on proof of a connection.”

      “But the crime scene investigators found that note in his pocket when his body was discovered. It had both Diablo and La Mano Oscura on it. So we knew he must have thought there was a link.”

      She nodded. “Ian was the best. He probably got the evidence and was killed for it.”

      “So we’ll be a little more careful than he was.”

      “And we’ll each have someone to watch our back. That was more than Ian had. He liked to work alone.”

      Sensing that she did, too, and hoping to dissuade her from going off on her own when he wasn’t with her, Travis found himself adding, “And it probably got him killed.”

      The day after Travis agreed to work with her, they planned for Tricia to meet him at the Stagecoach Café. Since his mother worked there with her old friend Fiona, Travis dreaded this very public meeting they’d set up. They were supposed to act as if they had run into each other only days before—which was quite literally true. The problem was this was to be their first date, which was supposed to explode into a whirlwind romance—which was a big fat lie. It would never happen.

      He wouldn’t let it happen.

      Tricia didn’t seem to mind lying to his family, and had in fact insisted on it. But it wasn’t all that easy for him. His mother was going to be sixty-two inches of trouble. The woman had an eye for the lies her children told and always had. He thought he could pull off today, but then to act wildly enamored of Tricia considering their past? Now that was going to be a feat.

      Because everything about Tricia just plain annoyed him. From her self-confidence to her uniform, she wasn’t the girl he’d loved. The problem was that somehow she was all the more fascinating for the changes he’d seen in her so far.

      If he were completely honest with himself, Travis knew he’d have to admit his real problem with the differences was that she had grown and stretched beyond the potential he’d seen in her. She had been right. He would have held her back.

      And that really frosted him.

      Pulling open the door of the Stagecoach Café, Travis nearly cringed. Both his mother and Fiona were there, as he’d thought they would be. And they’d seen him. It was too late to back out and call off this hoax of a date.

      “Travis!” Lidia Vance called out. “Come back here and sit where I can talk to you, while I fold these napkins.” She rushed to him, braced her small hands on his forearms and tiptoed from her slight height to peck him on the cheek. Instinctively, Travis wrapped his arms around her small round form and hugged her.

      “I can only chat for a few minutes, Mom. I’m meeting someone for lunch. It’s a…uh…it’s a date.”

      Travis felt his face heat. This was never going to work. As he expected, his mother was more than mildly surprised. Her eyebrows rose as her big brown eyes widened. “Here? You’re bringing a girl here? Is it that nice woman who you met through the auction?”

      He almost burst that bubble of hope he’d seen so often in the past and saw again now. She wanted, and he knew even prayed, that he would pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Much as he would like to make his mother happy, he didn’t deserve to go on with his life when his wife and child were dead because of his failure as a husband and father. But for now he’d have to let her think her wish was about to come true. Telling her the truth some day in the weeks to come wasn’t going to be easy.

      Pushing away dark thoughts, Travis explained, “I ran into Patty…uh…Tricia Streeter, I mean. We decided to meet for lunch.”

      “Tricia?”

      He forced a smile he didn’t feel, feeling instead like one of the jack-o’-lanterns that were decorating the town. Cardboard. Fake. A sham. “It was good to see her again. I was…surprised how much.” That at least was true, much to his disgust.

      “That’s so nice. You were always such a cute couple,” his mother said, patting his arm. There was a mixture of emotions reflected in her dark, almost all-seeing eyes. Principal among them was delight. She’d bought it and Travis watched his last chance for a reprieve vanish with the blooming of his mother’s delighted smile.