Larkspur Road Page 4

  “He was with his mom—you thought he was covered. Give yourself a break. You did bust that smuggling ring. Your country thanks you. So how long until the bureau needs you back?”

  Travis frowned out the window at mountain peaks rearing up like giants to punch the June sky. It was a much better sight than a lot of what went on inside his head these days, like the dark trails he’d followed recently, the hellish sounds of human screams and gunfire that came back to him unbidden—and far too often—in the middle of the night. Not to mention the endless reports and paperwork, the interrogations and directives from rigid, out-of-touch supervisors who hadn’t set foot in the field for decades.

  He was burned out. Trying to come to grips with Joe’s death. He needed this change. Needed at this point in his life to shift gears.

  He’d almost forgotten how beautiful it was here. How peaceful. Arizona had its own wild spare beauty, but Montana…Montana was both lush and hard, a land of contrasts with its soft meadows and sharp peaks, its creeks and cattle, white-tailed deer on distant bluffs, mountain goats and elk.

  It was at times an unforgiving and possibly dangerous land that welcomed visitors, challenged them, and nurtured them with deep beauty and adventure—even as it tempted them across high ridges and isolated hills where the unwary could topple off a cliff into a bottomless ravine or stumble across a puma or grizzly.

  This land was good to those who called it home. It cradled its cities and towns in rough-hewn grandeur and it nourished cattle and horses and everyone who loved wide-open spaces. And it seemed to Travis it had always cupped the gentle community of Lonesome Way with particular care, tucked as it was in the shadow of the Crazy Mountains.

  “Travis? Where’d you go?” His brother’s voice pulled him back to Sage Ranch. “How long until you have to report back to the bureau?”

  “Good question.”

  “You got a good answer?”

  “Yeah.” Travis spoke quietly. “Maybe never.”

  There was silence in the kitchen as he turned to meet his brother’s eyes.

  “Care to explain what that means?”

  “I requested an official leave of absence. And I’m considering making it permanent.”

  Startled, Rafe set down his mug of coffee. “Does this by any chance have something to do with losing your partner so suddenly? I know you were close to Joe Grisham, but do you really think he’d want you to—”

  “Joe’s death was a body blow, but it doesn’t have anything to do with why I’m leaving the bureau.” Pacing across the kitchen with the smooth deliberate gait of a federal agent at ease with his own strength, savvy, and skills, Travis took a seat at the table where he’d shared countless meals with his parents, his brothers, and his sister. For a moment, it almost seemed as if he could hear their voices all at once, teasing, laughing, arguing with each other over big country breakfasts, quick lunches, and hearty suppers.

  With an effort, he shook off the ghosts and reeled his thoughts back to the present, meeting his brother’s intent gaze.

  “Joe’s heart gave out. It might have happened anytime; it just so happened that he got hit with that heart attack in a hospital while waiting to interview some scumbag human trafficker who’d been shot by another agent on our team. Even the doctors on-site couldn’t save him. It was too fast, too devastating.”

  His voice was low. The grief still sat on his chest like a fifty-pound anvil. “I still think about Joe’s wife, the way she looked when she got there.” Travis’s mouth tightened as he remembered Caroline’s eyes, dazed with grief, how her small, sturdy body seemed to fold in upon itself as he kept her from crumpling to the spotless hospital floor.

  “They’d been married thirty-seven years.”

  Rafe nodded. “And you’ve been partnered with him for the past six.”

  “Yeah.” It was a vastly inadequate response. But Travis had no words to express what Joe Grisham had meant to him. His heart felt leaden with the same weight he’d borne when his parents died. Joe had been more than his partner. The tall, grim-faced agent, always fighting a paunch, always quick with a story about the old days, had been his mentor, his friend, his ally from almost the first week he’d joined the bureau. And Caroline—she’d become like a second mother to him.

  Which was why he’d spent nearly every off-duty moment of the past month helping her sort through all the legal and financial matters bombarding her after Joe’s death. Why he’d tried to be there for her whenever he could while still following every lead to tie up the last case he and Joe would ever work together.

  “I miss Joe,” he said gruffly. “But that’s not the reason I’m thinking of moving on from the bureau.”

  “And that would be…?”

  Travis frowned. “Too many suits. Breathing down my neck for too many years. Tight-assed, pencil-pushing supervisors on power trips. Sometimes, big brother, a man can only take so much red tape crap. It’s time for a change.”

  “Maybe you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and do some real work. Come into the horse ranching business with me.” Rafe grinned. “Maybe we’ll kidnap Jake from the rodeo life and rope him in, too.”

  “Haven’t you heard? Kidnapping’s a federal offense.” Travis spread his big hands on the table. “Besides, I’ve got another idea circling in my head.”

  He laid out for Rafe what he was thinking. First about settling down in Lonesome Way, fixing up his cabin. And then his business idea. Starting up his own private security company, designed solely to protect individuals, corporations, and organizations.

  The notion of being his own boss had started appealing to him six or seven months before. He sure as hell knew enough former FBI, Secret Service, and military personnel to power ten companies. He had the know-how, the contacts, and the experience to make it work. And he could do it all from the comfort of a rented office in town and a home office he intended to build on his two hundred acres of land just north of Sage Creek.

  Rafe gave a low whistle. “Maybe I should think about going into business with you,” his brother joked. “Guess my wife isn’t the only entrepreneur in the family.”

  “Speaking of Sophie—she call yet? Any word on Aiden?”

  Travis’s sister-in-law had whisked his nephew to the pediatrician early this morning. The little boy had been under the weather for the past few days and today had started running a fever.

  “He has a double ear infection. Sophie’s picking up a prescription right now at Benson’s Drugstore. They’ll be back soon.”

  “Aw, poor kid. I heard him crying in the middle of the night—he sounded miserable. He’s plenty cute, though, bro.” Travis cocked a brow. “Good thing he got his mom’s gorgeous looks. The boy’s going to break a few dozen hearts in a couple of years.”

  “Why not? Runs in the family,” Rafe drawled.

  Travis eyed him across the table. “You got something you want to say? Seems to me you did your share of heartbreaking in your younger days.”

  “I was an amateur compared to you and Jake.”

  “Bullshit. Jake’s a serial heartbreaker. He has a different girl every month. I only…” He stopped.

  “Broke one heart? That what you were about to say?” Rafe took a slow sip of coffee.

  “Why are we talking about this?” There was an edge to Travis’s voice.

  “No reason.”

  “You got something to say, bro, spit it out.”

  The dogs began to scratch at the kitchen door and Starbucks let out a single bark. Rafe pushed to his feet, let them in. The moment they were inside they rushed toward Travis, clamoring for his attention. Rafe watched in amusement as Travis scratched both mutts behind their ears.

  “Mia still lives in town, you know.” Rafe spoke casually. “She teaches fifth grade at the middle school.”

  The words made Travis’s back go up. He stopped petting the dogs and they pattered to their water bowls and drank.

  “So?” he asked in his most indifferent drawl.

&
nbsp; “So…I saw how you looked at her at my wedding. It was pretty funny—a grown man, one who women seem to find attractive, though I can’t for the life of me figure out why.” Rafe’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “And yet, this beautiful woman you used to date wouldn’t give you a glance, let alone the time of day—much less her cell phone number.”

  “Let it go, Rafe.”

  “Just trying to get things straight.” His brother shrugged. “Does Mia have anything to do with why you’re back in Lonesome Way?”

  “What if she does?” Now why did he say that? He could have just said Hell no. But that would’ve been a lie. He’d been thinking about Mia ever since the wedding. Maybe not every minute, but steadily, relentlessly.

  Picturing her in that red dress. Curvy, sophisticated, sexy as hell. Her full mouth and thick-lashed amber eyes a combustible combination of sexy and sweet. Hard to believe she was even more beautiful now than she’d been in high school. But she was probably a completely different person from that sixteen-year-old girl, just as he was no longer that eighteen-year-old jerk who’d left her high and dry.

  They didn’t even know each other anymore. And yet…at the wedding, seeing her, something had happened to him.

  He hadn’t been able to get Mia—the petite, gorgeous, self-assured woman Mia was now—out of his mind.

  She wasn’t the reason he was back. Not the sole reason, at least. But a part of him had to admit, the idea of returning to Lonesome Way, of starting a business in the town where he’d grown up, where his family lived, where he had roots, had seemed even more appealing because he knew she was still there.

  And still single.

  It hadn’t taken an FBI agent to determine that. Lissie, now and then, seemed to enjoy catching him up on the goings-on of the town and that had included mentioning Mia. She always made it sound casual, but he wondered if there was more to it. Knowing his sister, there was.

  “If you still have feelings for Mia Quinn,” Rafe said, “I wouldn’t sit on my butt too long if I were you. She almost married Zeke Mueller a while back. They had a wedding date picked out and everything. Changed her mind all of a sudden.”

  “And why was that?”

  Rafe shrugged. “Who knows? Lissie and Sophie might have some idea, but all I know is that she gave him back his ring. Mueller was plenty pissed, too, from what I heard. But now he’s married to Deanna—you remember Deanna Scott—she used to work afternoons at her dad’s gas station on Route 5. They’ve got triplets on the way. So that could have been Mia, you know—pregnant with another man’s kids.”

  The knot that tightened in Travis’s gut felt like a block of caked clay. It took all of his training to keep the sudden tension inside him from showing in his face.

  “And you know what else?” Rafe stood, ambled over to the coffeepot and topped off his cup, and then Travis’s again, as he kept talking. “Just last month, I overheard Boyd Hatcher from the Lazy Q Ranch running his mouth over at the Double Cross. He was ogling Mia out on the dance floor, saying he wished he’d had a teacher who looked like that when he was in school, and he wouldn’t mind getting to know her better.” Rafe continued on as if he hadn’t noticed the almost imperceptible bunching of muscles in Travis’s neck. “Actually, he said he wanted to get her in the sack. Or words to that effect.”

  “Is that so?” Travis managed to keep his tone even. He and Hatcher went way back. They’d never gotten along, even in third grade when Boyd had gotten his kicks shooting spitballs at Lissie on the playground. Until the day Travis punched him in the nose, and then they’d both been marched down to the principal’s office.

  “She was dancing with Coop Miller at the time—Mia and Coop dated on and off a few months back,” Rafe explained casually. “But Hatcher wasted no time hustling over there to ask her for the next dance.”

  “Mia has every right to dance with whoever she wants.” But Travis heard his own voice. The words had come out in a kind of growl. “I’ve got a kid to take care of and a business to get up and running. Mia and I were over a long time ago.”

  “Right.” Rafe tried to hide a grin, and Travis had a feeling his brother could see right through him as no one else in the world could—except maybe Lissie or Jake. He and his siblings all knew each other too damned well.

  “Keep telling yourself that, bro. Next thing you know, you could be seeing Mia at another wedding—hers.”

  No chance of that, Travis thought. Not a chance in hell I’d be invited.

  He heard light footsteps treading down the stairs. Ivy, Rafe’s thirteen-year-old daughter by his irresponsible ex-wife—was still at a friend’s sleepover party, so it had to be Grady finally up and about.

  His gaze softened as the boy appeared in the kitchen doorway. Grady was still a little small for his age, but time would take care of that. Grady’s biological dad had been tall and rangy. And Val was five foot seven. The boy hadn’t hit his real growth spurt yet, but he was a good-looking kid with even features, shaggy brown hair, a dusting of freckles, and those long-lashed serious green eyes under slanted brows. He’d be handsome by the time he reached his teens. This morning Grady had ditched his pajamas for jeans, a light green T-shirt, and athletic shoes. His longish hair flopped over his eyes. But the sullen look was still firmly entrenched on his young face.

  “First time we go to town, we’re buying you some boots, buddy.” Travis smiled. “You must be hungry. How about some scrambled eggs before we head out to the cabin?”

  “Sure.” Grady hovered near the refrigerator, looking uncertain.

  “Come on in, take a seat,” Rafe said easily. Taking out a plate from the cupboard, he sliced off a hunk of the banana bread Sophie had baked that morning while he was busy changing Aiden and trying to give him a bottle. “You can start with this while your dad rustles up those eggs.”

  He watched as the boy leaned down, a smile breaking across his face for the first time as the dogs rushed to him, scrappy little Tidbit and the strapping Starbucks both competing to see how many times they could lick his face.

  “You have a dog at home?” Rafe asked.

  Grady shook his head. “My mom’s allergic to animals. She let me have a hamster once, but Drew made me get rid of it when we moved to L.A.”

  Travis turned from the stove where he had sausage sizzling in a skillet alongside the eggs. His gaze met his brother’s briefly, then shifted to his son’s face.

  “We’ve got tons of animals around here—two new barn cats, two dogs, and a whole bunch of horses,” Rafe said. “You can pick out the horse you want to ride. There’s at least three or four that should be right about your speed. I think Pepper Jack would be a good fit for you, but you need to decide if you like him.”

  “Pepper Jack?” For the first time, eagerness lit Grady’s eyes.

  “He’s a lot of horse, but I think you can handle him if your dad starts you off slow.” Rafe poured the boy a glass of orange juice from the white pitcher on the table, then glanced out the window as Sophie’s Blazer rolled down the long driveway.

  “They’re back.” He strode swiftly into the hall and was out the door in a flash.

  “Can I ride Pepper Jack after we go to the cabin?”

  “Sure.” Travis carried the skillet of fried eggs and sizzling sausage to the table and heaped the food on Grady’s plate. “Once we get a good day’s work done, we’ll come back and go for a ride.”

  “Yes!” Grady dug into the food as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. He only stopped to look up as Sophie breezed in, little Aiden in her arms and Rafe right behind her.

  “Good morning, Grady, Travis.”

  Travis thought his sister-in-law looked as gorgeous as always, though tired and distracted. The slight shadows under her eyes indicated she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before—he’d heard Aiden crying more than once through the walls of his old bedroom, down the hall from Jake’s old room, now the nursery.

  The little boy was fussing in her arms right now, making small unhappy s
ounds. Whew, his ears probably hurt like hell, Travis thought with sympathy. He remembered when Grady had an ear infection. It was a few months after he’d met the boy, while he and Val were dating. The poor kid had been miserable.

  “Sorry,” Sophie murmured as Aiden let out a wail. “He’s not going to feel much better until the antibiotics kick in tomorrow.”

  Rafe dug the prescription bottle from the diaper bag and studied it, then took his son from his wife’s arms. “Let’s get you some meds, big guy,” he said gently. “Show this rotten infection who’s boss.”

  “Do you need anything?” Sophie glanced from Travis to Grady after Aiden choked down the liquid medicine with a wail of outrage. “I’m going to try to get him down for a nap. Think I’ll grab one at the same time.”

  “You do that,” Travis told her. “Don’t worry about us. I’m only sorry we dropped in on you with such short notice.”

  Gently, he swept his big hand across his nephew’s tufts of fuzzy, golden brown hair and smiled into his sister-in-law’s eyes. He’d known Sophie almost all his life. She and Lissie had been friends since they were no bigger than a couple of chipmunks.

  “I promise Grady and I will be out of your hair as soon as we get the cabin fit for the two of us.”

  “Hey, there’s no hurry,” Rafe said.

  “We’d love for you to stay, both of you. Aiden will be better in no time and he’s going to want to get to know his uncle and his big cousin.” Sophie’s smile was genuine and warm, directed first at Travis, then at Grady. The boy didn’t even look up, just kept eating his breakfast, eyes on his plate.

  “There’s an apple tart in the pantry and a blueberry pie in that white bakery box on the counter. Feel free to help yourselves,” she called over her shoulder as she brushed a kiss against Rafe’s mouth, then hurried upstairs with the baby.

  Rafe left shortly after, for a meeting in town with a horse breeder, but not before taking Grady out back to introduce him to his foreman, Will Brady, and a few of the other wranglers.