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“Hey, you’re waiting in the wrong place,” she said. “My bags’ll be coming off on number three…” Her voice trailed off as her gaze flickered to Eden’s sleek gray Pullman dangling from Travis’s hand, and then to Eden herself, who was scrambling to retrieve the matching garment bag.
“Uh…hi.” Nicole’s voice quavered uncertainly.
Sensing her mistaken impression, Travis stepped in quickly. “Nicole, this is Miss Eden Harper, one of my former schoolmates. She just flew in from New York and we, uh, sort of bumped into each other on the concourse.”
“Oh.” Nicole’s sharp brown eyes inspected Eden up and down before her face relaxed into a flippant grin. “New York, huh? That’s cool.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Nicole.” Eden extended a slightly nervous hand, which Nicole accepted with the jerky politeness of a marionette.
“Eden’s on her way to Monroe. I’ve offered her a ride, and I do believe she’s accepted.” Travis avoided Eden’s eyes. So what if he was railroading her? He was a desperate man.
“Cool.” Nicole was still sizing up Eden, weighing the possibilities. “Hey, that jacket kicks!” she said. “Did you buy it in New York?”
“Uh-huh. At Bloomingdale’s. On clearance, I’m afraid, but definitely Bloomingdale’s.” An intriguing spark danced in Eden’s light green eyes. “You know, with your coloring, I’ll bet this jacket would look great on you. Why don’t we find out?”
Nicole might have protested, but Eden was already shrugging out of the beige linen suit jacket. Travis blinked as Nicole dropped her tote bag and turned a submissive back, arms sliding into the proffered sleeves. Within seconds, she was modestly covered.
“What do you think?” She struck a model’s pose for Eden’s approval.
“Sensational!” Eden grinned. “Want to wear it home?”
“Hey, could I really?” Nicole angled her body this way and that, inspecting the lapels and pockets. “Bloomingdale’s, huh? Cool.”
“Come on, let’s cut the fashion show and round up the baggage,” Travis growled, shooting Eden a glance of unabashed gratitude. He’d half expected the woman to bolt or protest on the spot. Instead, she had smoothed things over with a deftness that left him stunned.
Avoiding his gaze, Eden turned swiftly away—but not before he’d caught a jarring glimpse of what the jacket had concealed. Eden’s sleeveless peach silk blouse skimmed a curvaceous chest that he’d certainly never noticed on Edna Rae Harper. Maybe it was those baggy sweaters she’d always worn to school. Travis cursed silently as he tore his eyes away from the shadowed outline of lace beneath the gossamer-thin fabric. It was a good thing Nicole would be along to sit between them in the pickup. Otherwise, he could be in serious trouble.
Nicole’s twin duffels were leaden. Travis slung one from each shoulder and, with Nicole and Eden managing the rest of the luggage, they trudged out of the elevator onto the third level of the parking terrace.
“There’s the truck!” Nicole bounded ahead, dragging Eden’s wheeled Pullman case behind her. Travis deliberately slowed his steps, hoping Eden would stay back with him.
“I wanted to thank you while I have the chance,” he muttered, leaning close to her ear. “I was geared up for a battle royal over that outfit of hers.”
The subtle aura of Eden’s perfume tickled his senses as she walked deliberately ahead without glancing up at him. “Stay geared,” she hissed. “This is only the first skirmish. And the rest of the war is your problem, not mine.”
“You’re annoyed, aren’t you?”
She shot him an exasperated glance. “I just don’t want any gossip when we get home. And neither do you. People in small towns have long memories.”
“Well, I could always dump you in Richfield and let you hitch the last ten miles.”
Eden muttered something under her breath before releasing an explosive sigh. “All right. Truce. But after this, you’re on your own. I’ve spent sixteen years putting that awful day behind me, and nothing’s going to bring it back!”
She lengthened her step, heels clicking on the concrete as her long legs carried her away from him toward the pickup where Nicole waited.
Travis hung back, his emotions churning even as his gaze followed her sensual lioness walk.
What the hell, maybe she was right. Stirring up that ridiculous old scandal would do nothing for his image in the town, especially when word got out that he and Eden had been seen together. Leave the lady alone—that would be the smart thing to do.
Smart, yes.
But as Travis inhaled, the lingering scent of her perfume aroused a warm tingle that had nothing to do with wisdom.
Eden had reached the truck. She stood waiting for him to bring the key, gazing out over the rows of parked vehicles.
Travis pulled himself together with a mental slap. What was she being so uppity about, anyway? He had been the innocent party. And he would be the one to take the heat if things got stirred up again. Weeks from now, Miss Eden Harper would return to her New York world—a world so remote it might as well be on the moon. But he was the one who lived in Monroe. If anything happened between them, he was the one who’d be mopping up the mess.
Play it safe, Travis cautioned himself. Leave the lady on her doorstep and forget her.
But even as he strode toward the truck, he knew his willpower was going to have an uphill battle.
“I want to sit by the window!” Nicole hung on to the open door of the weather-beaten Ford pickup, swinging back and forth until the hinges squawked.
“Just climb in, young lady!” Travis’s shoulders rippled as he hefted the baggage, including Eden’s precious briefcase, into the truck’s open back. The truck bed had been swept, but green hay dust clung deep in the metal grooves, rich with the smell of home.
Eden’s memory stirred, recalling the small ranch Travis’s family had owned west of town on Poverty Flat. She remembered warm summer evenings, riding her bike along the back roads, filling her senses with the aroma of fresh-cut hay as she pedaled slowly past his gate. She remembered the wind in her hair, the mosquito bites on her legs, the exquisite surges of longing as she gazed toward his house….
“Please, Eden!” Nicole wheedled. “I want to see out! I get claustrophobia when I sit in the middle!”
“Now, listen…” Travis turned sharply, his voice harsh with annoyance. Sensing a confrontation, Eden impulsively stepped between them.
“It’s all right,” she said swiftly. “I really don’t mind sitting in the middle of the seat. Let Nicole have the window, if that’s what she wants.”
The thunderous scowl Travis flashed her made Eden realize she had overstepped her bounds, but he said nothing to confirm it. With a curt “Suit yourself,” he swung away, leaving her to scramble gracelessly into the high cab on her own while he secured the tailgate. She slid across the blanket-upholstered seat and straddled the gearbox with her legs, bracing for a very long three-hour ride.
Nicole plopped in beside her, grinning as she slammed the door of the truck and began rolling down the window. “Thanks. You’re cool, Eden. And I can already tell my daddy’s got the hots for you.”
“Nicole!” Eden’s heart sank as she felt the detested blush flame her cheeks. “You don’t know what you’re—”
“Psych!”
Nicole giggled, then, seeing Eden’s puzzled expression, she explained, “That means I was just kidding—wanted to see what you’d do. Boy, I’m sure glad I don’t blush like that! Hey, look at that buff guy…” She swiveled toward the open window, craning her neck to see past the side mirror.
Eden shrank into the upholstery, willing herself to vanish as Travis swung in beside her and buckled himself into the driver’s seat. Too late, she realized what close quarters the inside of a pickup truck could be. Barring visible contortions, there was no way she could sit comfortably without pressing against him from shoulder to knee.
A flutter of panic teased Eden’s diaphragm, climaxing in a nervous hiccup. Travis’s eyes stared straight ahead beneath the brim of his Stetson, as if she did not exist. His jaw tightened as he jammed the key into the ignition, then, as the engine roared to life, thrust his hand between her knees to grab the gearshift knob. Eden pressed her lips together as the oddly intimate contact touched off a little scherzo of hiccups.
Edna Rae had returned in all her glory.
Travis shot her a sidelong glance as he backed out of the parking space. “Put your seat belts on, ladies,” was all he said.
“Oh, you’re such an old fussbudget!” Nicole fumed. But she did snap her shoulder harness, then reach around to help drag the ends of Eden’s lap belt from under the back of the seat.
“Daddy, we need to stop and get sodas,” she piped up.
Travis ignored her. His elbow grazed Eden’s breast as he negotiated the corkscrew exit of the airport parking garage, igniting a tingle of awareness that caused them both to jerk apart.
“We need sodas,” Nicole persisted. “Eden’s got the hiccups. Listen.”
“I’m fine—really.” Eden punctuated her protest with an ill-timed hic as Travis pulled through the parking tollgate.
“Well, the sodas are going to have to wait till we get a few miles down the freeway,” he said. “There’s no place to stop out here.”
“Please don’t bother on my account,” Eden said, feeling woefully out of place. She did not belong in this role, playing buffer between a father and his willful young daughter. She especially did not belong in this truck, scrunched tight against the man who had made her pulse skitter since she was as young as Nicole. She was sick and tired of attractive males. Most of them, she’d sadly learned, were bullying, self-centered manipulators, and Travis Conroy was clearly no exception.
So why, then, was she reacting to him like a teenager in hormone overdrive?
Eden sat rigid as glass, excruciatingly aware of the heat that simmered along the line where her thigh lay against his. He smelled of the outdoors, of grass and sun and the kind of good, plain supermarket soap her mother always bought on sale. His flesh was warm and hard through the worn fabric of his jeans.
She took a deep breath, struggling to ignore the forbidden flutters his touch aroused in her body. A downward glance confirmed that her nipples had shrunk to tight little raspberries. They stood out through the wispy silk of a blouse she would never have chosen to wear without the concealing jacket. Too late, she missed the briefcase she’d allowed Travis to stow in the back. At least, she could have clutched it to her chest and hidden herself behind it.
Eden hiccuped wretchedly as the dry summer wind blasted her face through Nicole’s open window. The bus would have had air-conditioning, but she had no right to complain. She’d gotten herself into this mess. If she was miserable, it was no more than she deserved.
Lending Nicole her jacket had been an act of pure impulse, well motivated perhaps, but not well thought out. She had wanted to be friendly to the girl and to ease Travis’s obvious discomfort with her appearance. It had not occurred to her that she was walking into her own trap until it was too late to back out.
But why had she really done it? Eden scrunched, into the Navajo-blanket upholstery, lost in speculation. Did she feel some need to repay Travis Conroy for the embarrassment she’d caused? Or had she just wanted to show him that she was a big girl now, and savvy enough to handle a willful fourteen-year-old?
Oh, what was she doing here? If she had any sense, she would leap out of the truck, flag down a taxi and head straight for the bus depot!
The worst part was the way Travis had lapped it all up. He probably thought she was great with teenage girls. Well, she wasn’t. Apart from the memories of her own painful adolescence, she understood nothing about them, especially pretty, self-assured creatures like Nicole. To her, they were like bubbly little space aliens, beings from a world she had always envied but never inhabited.
Travis’s knuckles bumped her knees as the truck growled into second gear. Eden tensed, fearful of what the contact might arouse in her.
She could hold her own in the workplace, where she knew exactly what was expected. But when it came to relationships, especially with men, Edna Rae was alive and well. A few months ago she had almost believed she could change-but no, she could not afford to think about her broken engagement now. She would only get maudlin, and that wouldn’t do. Especially not in front of Travis Conroy.
She would make the best of the next three hours, Eden resolved with a hiccuping sigh. She would be civil to Travis and patient with the high-spirited Nicole. And when the ride was over, she would thank them kindly and run for her life—or at least for her sanity.
She would have to.
Any way you looked at him, Travis Conroy was trouble, more trouble than she ever wanted to deal with again.
Travis shifted into third, his wrist skimming Eden’s thigh as the truck ground up the on-ramp and nosed onto the interstate. He was making every effort to appear cool, but the veneer was already wearing thin. The changes in Nicole had thrown him off balance, and now, with no time to recover, he found himself plastered side by side against one of the most disturbingly attractive females he had ever encountered.
And the hell of it was, she was Edna Rae Harper.
This was crazy, Travis lashed himself as he gunned the engine and roared into the center lane. This lady was the original ugly duckling. Worse, her misguided fantasies had triggered one of the most embarrassing episodes of his life.
All he had ever wanted to do with Edna Rae Harper was forget her.
He stared fixedly at the black butt of the Pontiac LeMans in front of him, doing his damnedest to keep his eyes off Eden’s peach silk blouse. The way the fabric clung—No, he vowed, not one glance. But even the best intent could not stop his imagination from working. Her fragrant warmth invaded his senses, stirring a vision of ripe peaches in the summer sun, round, lush, silky to the touch of his fingertips…
It was enough to make a man sweat.
“So, uh, how long do you plan to be in Monroe?” he asked, making a lame stab at conversation.
Eden’s bare arm grazed his shoulder as she shifted in her seat. “Let’s see…I’ll be running my mother back to Provo tomorrow, and they’ll be doing her hysterectomy the next morning at Utah Valley Regional. After that, maybe four or five weeks, depending on how fast she recovers.”
“At least you’ll have a vacation from your job.”
“Not really. That heavy briefcase you put in the back is full of manuscripts to read and edit.”
“Hey, you’re an editor?” Nicole, who’d been hanging out the window like a happy Labrador retriever, popped her head back into the cab. “That’s cool. Do you work with any kickin’ writers, like Stephen King?”
“I’m afraid not. Parnell is an educational textbook company. Compared to Stephen King, most of the stuff I work on is pretty dry.”
“Textbooks! Yuck!” Nicole twisted back toward the open window to wave at the blond male driver of a red Corvette. Travis ground his teeth, biting back the temptation to lecture her. Nicole was just keyed up from the trip, that was all. She would settle down fine after a day or two on the ranch. Then everything would be just like old times.
Eden was gazing past him now, toward the rugged Wasatch Mountains that jutted between the city and the eastern sky. “I noticed traces of hay in the back of the truck,” she ventured. “Does that mean you’re working the old family ranch?”
Travis forced a sidelong grin. “You have been away a long time,” he said. “I moved back to the ranch when I finished college. Been there ever since.”
“Ranching.” Eden fidgeted with her nails. “Somehow I always imagined you in a more glamorous role, like a sportscaster, or an FBI agent, or a male super model.”
“Oh, nothing of the sort. Running that ranch is all I ever wanted to do.” Travis edged the truck around the small Pontiac, striving to ignore the womanly warmth of Eden’s leg and the sensually whispered message of her perfume. Edna Rae Harper. He rolled the name in his mind as he took a deep breath and continued speaking.
“My dad barely made enough on the place to keep the family fed. The land’s too dry and rocky for most crops. Even the few cows he kept were poor milkers. But ten years ago, I started raising quarter horses. The horses do fine with extra hay and oats, and since I mortgaged the place to pick up a champion stud, the colts have been bringing decent money in Vegas and L.A.”
“You sound like a satisfied man.” She settled back into the seat beside him, the hot wind bannering her spun-honey hair.
“Satisfied?” Travis let the question hang on the air. If “satisfied” meant coming home to an empty house and eating supper alone, then drifting into solitary slumber in the big brass bed where his parents had conceived five children…
“Uh-huh,” he nodded, feigning smugness, “you might say I’ve done all right by the old place.”
“It sounds as if you have no plans to leave.” Eden stirred, her breast brushing his sleeve with the impact of a rocket burst.
“Leave?” Travis’s attempted chuckle came out sounding hollow. “My grandpa bought that land west of town when he came home from the First World War. My dad spent his whole life there, battling rocks and tumbleweeds to grub out a livelihood. He and Mom raised five kids before they passed on. I was the baby of the family—but then, I guess you know all that.
“Over the years, as I watched my brothers and sisters spread their wings, I promised myself that after I got my education, I’d come back and take care of the ranch, maybe even make something fine of it one day.”
He paused for breath. He’d been talking too much, he realized. Probably making a bore of himself. What was wrong with him today, anyway? With the women he occasionally dated, he was never at a loss for clever flattering things to say. But in the thirty-odd minutes he’d spent with Eden Harper, he’d done little more than talk about himself. He’d already unloaded a good chunk of his life in her lap. If he didn’t stop soon—
“Hey!” he announced, seizing the moment. “I see a Circle K sign just past that off-ramp. Anybody for sodas?”
“Me!” Nicole jerked her head back inside the cab. “I’ll have an extra-large Diet Coke. And can I have some Cheetos, too? And a Milky Way?”
“Sure.” Travis pulled into the exit lane, grateful that at least one thing about Nicole—her appetite—hadn’t changed. “What’s your pleasure, Eden?”
“Uh…iced tea. Plain. And thank you.”
“You won’t get much nourishment out of that. Sure I can’t get you a hot dog or something?”
“I had lunch on the plane. Tea will be fine.”
“Hey, Eden!” Nicole grinned. “I think your hiccups are gone!”
“Oh…” Eden blinked, then, as if on cue, emitted a lusty hic. Her cheeks flushed appealingly as she shrugged, then laughed, shaking her wind-tangled hair. She looked damned sexy, Travis observed. And he knew some very interesting cures for the hiccups. The thought flashed through his mind that, under different circumstances, he wouldn’t mind trying some of them on her.
But this was crazy, he reminded himself with a sharp mental slap. People in small towns had memories like elephants. Take up with Edna Rae Harper, and the whole idiotic scandal would come crashing down on their heads again.
