A Promise at Bluebell Hill (18 page)

Then again, she couldn't be blamed for questioning things, when she'd never gone into a relationship already knowing how—­and when—­it would end. It seemed strange . . . anticlimactic, even.

He stirred and drew her closer. “Anticlimactic” was the wrong word for what was happening between the two of them. Travis had been sexy and overwhelming and so good for her ego.

She looked up at his silhouette and touched the slight bend in the bridge of his nose. “So how'd you do that? Afghanistan?”

He glanced down at her with heavy-­lidded eyes and gave her a slow, sexy smile. “That would be the heroic answer. But that's not what happened. I was in college, and my fraternity was participating in the Greek games. We might have been drinking beforehand—­”

“No!” she said, eyes wide with innocence.

“I was in the chariot race, just one of the guys pulling the chariot someone else was riding in. Ours was made of steel, so we were faster. As we were pulling ahead of the next team, me and another guy started elbowing each other, and I lost the battle. I blame the alcohol.”

She winced. “He elbowed you in the nose?”

“No, I went down. First the guys ran over me. I rolled around a bit and got hit in the face by the chariot wheels.”

“Ooh, that sounds painful.”

“Did I mention the drunk part?”

She felt him kiss her on the top of the head.

“I should go soon. I can't fall asleep here though I'd like nothing better.”

She snuggled deeper into the crook of his shoulder. “Sounds wonderful,” she murmured.

He tilted her chin until she met his serious gaze. “Are you okay with all this?”

She gave him a sleepy, contented smile and leaned up to give him a quick kiss. “Okay? I'm fabulous. How about you?”

He gave her an endearingly crooked grin. “I don't think I can find the words.”

“I don't believe it. You—­speechless? But then again, you did just fine with your mouth without words.”

He almost growled as he rolled her onto her back and leaned over to kiss her deeply, passionately. When she would have wound herself about him, drew him down into the bed again, he lifted away.

“I have to go, and we both know it.”

He stood and walked toward his clothes, and she came up on her elbow to watch him like he was a model on her private runway. He turned and saw her watching and gave her a sexy smile.

“Mind if I take a quick shower?”

“Go ahead. Towels are right on the shelves inside.”

When he emerged in his clothes, she was already dressed in a tank top and yoga pants and followed him from the bedroom. She watched the practiced ease with which he donned his belt and the holstered gun, then let his jacket conceal it.

“Now that you got what you wanted, will I see you again?” she teased and challenged at the same time, not afraid of the answer.

He pulled her against him and kissed her. “Every spare moment I have,” he answered meaningfully. “Which won't be many once the president arrives.”

“I know. I'll take what I can get. You're coming to the Mammoth Party at the community center tomorrow night?”

“I'll be there. I have to see this protest, don't I?”

He looked down at her with mock suspicion, and she tried for complete innocence in her expression.

He rolled his eyes and stepped toward the door before turning to give her a serious look. “About us in public—­”

She put a hand on his arm. “You don't even have to explain anything. You're on duty in the public eye. I get it.”

“Thanks.”

“Although I'm not going to keep you a guilty secret with my close friends. They can read me too well.”

“Just not too many, okay?”

“I promise.”

“Good night, Monica.”

“Good night, Travis. Say hi to Royce for me.”

He shot her a frown, and she laughed.

“What? I can't say his name? How can you be jealous after tonight?”

He shook his head as she followed him down the stairs. He closed the door behind him, and she turned the dead bolt. She headed back upstairs, feeling tired and sexy and happy.

 

Chapter Seventeen

A
n hour before her shop opened the next morning, Monica was sitting at her table eating berries and yogurt, reading the
Valentine Gazette,
and trying not to stare for the hundredth time at the sweet text Travis had sent, when her doorbell rang. She was still in her nightshirt, rumpled from a deep night's sleep. Surely, he wouldn't have come by nine hours later. Or maybe he wanted a running partner, while her limbs were still like Jell-­O from all their exercise in bed.

The bell rang with more insistence, and she pulled on her yoga pants and went to answer it. Through the peephole, she saw her brother impatiently glance at his watch.

Silencing a groan, she opened the door. “Hey, Dom, what's up? I don't have much time because I still have to get ready for work.”

He brushed past her. “I'll be quick.”

Gritting her teeth, she followed him up and into the galley kitchen, where he poured himself coffee. She didn't mind—­she'd help herself if she were at his place, too.

He was wearing a polo shirt and pants, office casual, so she didn't think he was visiting customers that day.

After a long sip of coffee, he held the mug between two hands, leaned a hip against her counter, and searched her eyes as if looking for something.

She tried not to tense. “What is it? My hair a dis­aster?”

“No, I'm just trying to understand you. I finally got the truth out of Missy.”

She struggled to keep a bland expression though she had a bad feeling. “What truth? Did she once steal your allowance and buy bubble gum?”

He didn't laugh. “She told me the truth about the photo, Monica. You lied to me—­you lied for
years.
”

She exhaled loudly but didn't bother to deny it. “Surely, she told you why we lied, why no one could know.”

“But I'm your
brother.
You knew how upset I was back then. I made no secret of it. It was like you deliberately didn't care how I felt.”

“Dom, come on, it wasn't like that at all. Missy was a wreck when she saw that photo. She had all those plans—­you remember how she was, how important her reputation was for her ‘journalistic integrity.' ” She gave him the air quotes.

“That's crap.” He set his coffee mug down a little too hard.

“No, it's not! I did it for her, not to hurt you. And if I was really going to go through with it,
no one
could know. We couldn't risk slipping up. Even Mom and Dad are clueless—­and you can't tell them.”

“Still, you could have trusted me.”

“Don't you remember how you were, all gung ho about the navy, especially when you weren't allowed to enlist? You looked down on our activism, as if our beliefs weren't as important as yours.”

He flinched at that but kept his lips pressed in a tight line.

“Our sister needed the help only I could give—­it was my idea to take the blame, by the way, and she wanted to refuse. But I didn't want her hurt.”

“I wouldn't have hurt Missy,” he said stiffly.

“No? But you had no problem hurting me.” Her voice was soft, full of the sorrow their uncomfortable relationship had given her.

At last he looked away, fingering the mug but not drinking. “I didn't mean to hurt you either.”

“Maybe you didn't mean it, but you did it anyway, Dom. You haven't forgotten it; it's carried over into other parts of our lives, and we haven't recovered. Maybe instead of blaming the two of us for keeping it from you, you could try just forgetting about it. It's old news.”

“Is it? Or does it matter to Travis Beaumont?”

“He knows all about it—­not that it was Missy, of course. And yeah, he can't understand why I'd do it, but he doesn't need to understand. He only has to accept it. Can you accept it, Dom?”

He finally met her gaze. “I'm willing to try. Are you? Willing to put it in the past, I mean, like you say?”

“I am, Dom. It
is
in the past. We have a lot of years in our future.” She turned to the stove. “I was going to make a quick omelet. Want one?”

“I can't. I have to work. Thanks for the coffee.”

She watched him walk out of her kitchen, not so sure he could get over it, the disappointment in their behavior, what he saw as their mistrust of him. She remembered being back in Valentine after college, the parties he “forgot” to invite her to, how in his eyes she could never do anything right during the holidays. Maybe she wasn't so sure she could get over the past, either.

She called Missy's cell.

“Melissa Shaw.”

“You don't even look at the caller ID and recognize your twin?” Monica asked.

“Oh, sorry. I'm waiting for the camera crew to shoot a piece in the lobby of the hotel, and I'm in business mode.”

“He just left,” Monica said grimly.

“Ooh, Travis?”

“No,
he
left last night. I mean our brother.”

Missy didn't say anything for a moment. “You're mad.”

“I'm disappointed. And so is he—­all over again.”

“I'm sorry,” Missy said softly.

“Don't be. I knew it was weighing on you, so I'm not exactly surprised. Just don't tell anyone else about our secret switch, okay?”

“I'll try.” She sighed. “He was pretty upset—­and hurt.”

“Tough. I told him his behavior toward me back then hurt even more. But he'll get over it. We got some things out, and, well, I just wanted you to know he and I'll be okay.”
Maybe.

“I'm so glad. Hold on.” She muted the phone a moment, then came back. “I've got to go. Will I meet this guy at the Mammoth Party tonight?”

“Probably. He said he was going to try to come.”

“I can't wait. So he was there last night, huh?”

“We rocked each other's worlds. That's all you're getting out of me.”

“Unfair. Bye.”

After a hectic morning working on the plans for flowers for the presidential suite—­much of which she spent assuring Mrs. Wilcox that she had it all under control by displaying her planning spreadsheet—­Monica was glad to head to the boardinghouse for an afternoon of sewing. It got a little crazy when Emily and Whitney barged in to discover the truth, trailed by an apologetic Brooke. But in the end, Monica was relieved that her best friends knew all her secrets—­maybe not all the details, she thought, feeling dreamy as she remembered her last hours with Travis.

T
ravis had been glad that work was getting busier, with the president's arrival Wednesday only three days away. But that still didn't stop him from thinking about Monica and texting her a ­couple times through the day. Her answers had been short and sweet, and he knew she was busy, too.

But doing what? She wasn't at the flower shop—­he'd seen Mrs. Wilcox through the window when he'd walked by once or twice, then the teenager, Karista, after school. Monica could have been in the back, but he didn't think so. He knew she'd claim to be working on the Mammoth Party. He'd gone to her apartment last night meaning to ask her more about it but hadn't been able to concentrate on anything but her.

She was intruding on his thoughts more and more, and he couldn't pretend it was all just about the protest and his concern for her. He kept thinking of Monica laid out on white sheets, her skin like rich caramel he'd had to taste. She was confident in her sexiness, aware and accepting of how they made each other feel.

She made him feel . . . great, better than he had in a long time.

And as he and Royce walked toward the community center that night, he was eager to see her even though being with her would test his promise to remain professional in public.

The Silver Creek Community Center was an old brick factory converted into multipurpose rooms. He'd toured the facility already, saw the rec room with pool table and giant screen for video games, the industrial-­sized kitchen for catered events, the big deck with trellises, where ­people ate lunch during the summer. But tonight, in the biggest event room, a party celebrated the area's emergence as a mammoth stomping grounds.

Hundreds of ­people milled up and down aisles where tables and booths had been set up. There were huge posters on every wall, with facts about mammoths and pictures of the dig itself: excavation grids roped off in the dirt, open-­sided tents over part of the find, scientists protecting a partially uncovered tusk by putting a plaster “cast” over it, men and women in construction hats and reflective vests using wooden boxes to sift through dirt for tiny fossils.

There was food, of course, following the caveman theme: giant, barbecued turkey drumsticks you could walk around and eat without silverware, ears of roasted corn on a stick, and brown cotton candy titled
C
A
V
E
D
U
S
T
B
U
N
N
I
E
S
. He had to clear his throat to keep from laughing out loud at that one.

The widows and their protest committee had done an incredible job, and for the first time, he wondered if he was wrong—­perhaps this really
was
the only protest, and Monica had wanted him to be just as surprised as everyone else. He'd be so relieved that nothing bad would happen to her or the ­people she cared about.

But what about the ghillie suits? Now that he knew more about the widows and their friends, he didn't believe any weapons were involved, but he still didn't know what the suits were for. His gut instinct told him they were important, so he'd keep an eye out.

In the aisles, he saw scientists ready to answer questions as they stood behind dinosaur-­bone displays, geology exhibits, a lineup of speeches to be held in front of several dozen chairs set up in a corner, wooden models of dinosaurs for kids to buy, and bins full of dirt for kids to pretend they were scientists and search for bones. That was where he found Monica, on her hands and knees showing a little boy how to use a paintbrush to carefully uncover a plastic dinosaur bone just like an archaeologist would do.

Though he didn't say a word, she looked up as if he'd spoken, and her smile deepened into an intimacy that seemed to make her embarrassed because she hastily went back to working with the little boy.

But he knew what she was thinking, what she was remembering, because he was remembering it, too. It would be easy to get lost in those sensations.

Without looking up again, she called, “Hi, Travis, hi, Royce.”

Royce elbowed him, but all Travis said was, “Hi, Monica. If you get a break, come find us. We have a more current wedding schedule for you.”

“Sure!”

Then something suddenly hit him hard in the legs, and he bent over and instinctively grabbed—­a toddler. The little boy had curly red hair and freckles, a sticky line around his mouth, and mischief-­filled eyes.

“Hey, little man, where you going?” Travis asked.

The boy arched his neck back and back to look up at him, and those mischievous eyes suddenly widened and filled.

“I'm out of here,” Royce said, both hands raised as he backed away.

Travis barely noticed, doing the only thing he could think of: he dropped right onto his butt, sitting cross-­legged to put himself closer to the kid's eye level.

He glanced briefly at Monica, wondering if he could ask for help, but she had her hands full of dirt, and a frustrated boy who suddenly began to whine because he couldn't uncover a dinosaur bone.

The redheaded toddler held a stuffed dinosaur in one fist and regarded Travis warily.

“Hey, buddy, where's your mom or dad?”

The boy wiped his nose on the dinosaur.
Great.
But at least he hadn't burst into tears.

“What's your name?”

He started chewing the dinosaur snout and spoke around it in a muffled voice.

“Sorry, buddy, I can't understand you.”

Travis tried to lower the dinosaur, but the little boy resisted fiercely.

“Hey, no problem,” Travis insisted, giving a friendly smile.

“He's Kyle Deering,” Monica called, when at last she got her own boy settled. “The red hair gives the whole family away. It makes your hair look positively brown.”

Travis looked around. “I don't hear anyone calling for him.”

“His dad, Howie Jr., probably hasn't missed him yet. They have an older son, Howie III, who might be taking up their time.”

Kyle still chewed on the dinosaur, one lone tear escaping his eye.

“It's okay, buddy, I'm sure your mom and dad are here somewhere.” He broke eye contact for just a moment to glance at Monica. “Should I go look?”

He suspected she was holding back a grin. He did feel pretty silly sitting on the floor, and more than one person did a double take as they passed by. But at least Kyle wasn't screaming.

“You've almost got him settled down,” Monica said. “Why don't we play in the dirt for a minute, then I'll sneak away. I know what his parents look like. Can I trust you with two little boys?”

“I'll have you know, I protected two Saudi princes once who weren't much older.” To the little boy, he said, “Come here, Kyle, there's a dinosaur buried in here!”

Kyle took a hesitant step, then another, put one chubby hand on the plastic bin, and peered over the edge. When he saw the dirt, he looked back at Travis, his face alight with sudden happiness. Travis felt like a Saudi king as he handed the little boy a paintbrush and watched him stab it into the dirt.

Monica looked intrigued. “So what do you do with Saudi princes, follow them around?”

“I got really good at Wii soccer.”

Her smile softened. “You're kidding, right? Secret Ser­vice agents aren't babysitters.”