Larkspur Road (32 page)

“Lock it,” she ordered with a grin as he lowered her to the bed. “Hurry.”

“Hey, always happy to oblige a lady.” His lips quirked and his eyes were warm as he obeyed, then moved back toward her, watching her peel that pink tank top over her head in one smooth movement and toss it to the floor. Suddenly they couldn’t get each other out of their clothes fast enough.

But for all their hurry, once they were free of their clothing they made slow, gentle love. They kissed and nibbled and stroked. Took their time. Celebrated being alive and being together, and knowing they had tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

It was only when they were both dressed again, and had shared coffee and scones in the kitchen, and she was walking him out onto the porch so he could pick up Grady and take him home to the cabin, that he remembered the conversation he’d had earlier in the day with Val.

Mia listened in shock as he clasped her hand in his and told her about it.

“His interview’s next
week
? They can’t do that to him, Travis. You can’t let them.”

Her eyes blazed into his, and Travis pulled her to him, kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry, I won’t. I never had a chance to return Val’s call today—but tomorrow…” He sighed, and his eyes narrowed with purpose. “Tomorrow I’m calling my lawyer, and I’m telling Val that we’re revisiting our custody arrangements. If she can’t—or at this point won’t—care for Grady full-time, I sure as hell can. And I want to. Let her go to Europe or wherever she wants, or should I say, wherever
Drew
wants, but they’re not dumping our son at Broadcrest Academy, not for a single day.”

“Will she listen?” Mia’s face was tight with worry.

“I’ll make her listen. Val knows deep down this is wrong. She’s trying to please Drew.”

“Going a little overboard, don’t you think?” Mia muttered. “Throwing her son away.”

He touched his forehead to hers. “Believe me, I don’t understand this any more than you do. All I can think is that she’s become so caught up in this supersized lifestyle she and Baylor have going that she’ll sacrifice anything, even her own son, to hang on to it. To hang on to Drew. And somehow, she’s justifying it in her own mind. Who knows, maybe she’s convinced herself it will be good for him in the long run. But deep down, I think Val knows it’s wrong. Wrong on her part and wrong for Grady. I hear it in her voice. She feels guilty as hell but she’s trying to drown it in denial.”

Mia could only pray that was true. “Travis, if he could stay with you, stay in Lonesome Way…” Her eyes searched his. “He’s been making such good progress. He’s worlds happier than he was when you first brought him here—that first day he looked like he didn’t have a friend in the world. Now he’s blooming. He’s so incredibly bright—with the right guidance and structure, he’ll not only pass that proficiency test, he’ll probably get straight A’s in sixth grade. And he has friends here already and he could have so many more—”

Travis stroked a gentle hand across her cheek. “You don’t have to convince me, baby. Maybe I should let
you
talk to Val,” he added with a laugh in his voice.

“I’d be glad to,” she shot back, chin up, a martial light in her eyes.

There on the porch, with misty moonlight streaming down and only the faint howl of a faraway coyote and the hum of a thousand insects breaking the deep silence of the Montana night, he stared at her. At her lovely upturned face, at the care and willingness to fight for his son that shimmered in her eyes.

He was overwhelmed by the generosity of her heart. By
the light and kindness that seemed to flow effortlessly from her, like the purest water cascading from a falls in the wild.

Something hard and almost painful swelled and tightened in his chest, in his throat. Every muscle in his body clenched. He tugged her closer, into the circle of his arms, breathing in the clean, flower-light scent of her, feeling that gorgeous, sexy body pressed to his, hardly able to believe his good fortune—that he’d somehow been granted a second chance with her.

“Do you have any idea—any idea at all—how much I love you?” His voice was low, almost fierce. The words seemed to come of their own accord from someplace deep within his soul. He saw the smile curve her lips even as a glaze of shock softened her eyes.

“No…but I’m listening.” Her arms slid around his neck. Her voice was slightly unsteady. “Feel free to tell me in great detail.”

“I can do that.” His mouth brushed hers and his eyes glinted in the moonlight. “How much time you got, Ms. Quinn?”

“Enough to tell you that I love you, too.”

Pulling his head down toward her, she kissed him. He gripped her waist and their mouths made silent promises their bodies yearned to answer. But just as he tugged her back toward the door, their lips and hearts locked together, the sound of a car’s engine turning into the drive drove them apart.

Travis groaned. Was this some kind of a joke? He wanted to kiss her all night long. It almost physically hurt to let her go.

“Damn.” The growl came from his throat but it seemed pitifully unequal to the situation as Britt and Seth got out of the car.

“Hi, Aunt Mia, hi, Travis.” Mia’s niece sounded quiet but calm. Her face was pale, Travis noted, watching the
teens’ approach, but after the explosion of tears earlier, she seemed to have remarkably pulled herself together.

“To be continued,” he vowed in Mia’s ear as Samson barked, demanding to be let outside to join the group.

“You know where to find me,” Mia whispered, longing filling her as his words—
Do you have any idea how much I love you?
—circled through her head.

And the heat of his kisses singed her heart.

“Dad, is Mom
really
coming here to see me before she goes to London?”

Travis stood at the kitchen counter in the cabin, pouring himself a second cup of coffee. He and Grady were finishing their breakfast before heading to Sage Ranch for a ride.

Outside the window, an early morning rain had stopped, and the sun peeked out above the mountains in a clean-washed sky the color of a denim shirt fresh out of the dryer.

“Absolutely. Your mom promised she won’t go overseas without seeing you first.” He returned to the table with his steaming mug and saw that Grady had polished off his fried eggs and hash browns and wore a trace of a milk mustache. His son was oblivious of this, though—oblivious even of the buttered biscuit still on his plate as he studied Travis, his eyes big and worried.

“She misses you, buddy. She’ll come. And if for any reason she
can’t
make it out here,” he added carefully—because who knew if Val might for some crazy reason
decide ultimately she didn’t have time for a trip to Montana?—“then I’ll take you to L.A. to see her before she leaves. That’s a promise.”

“I don’t have to stay in that house, though, do I, Dad? I hate that house.”

I know you do,
Travis reflected, a pang twisting through him at the thought of how much time Grady had already spent in Drew Baylor’s home.
Way too much time
. “If we end up going to L.A., we’ll stay in a hotel. One with a swimming pool,” he added, eyes twinkling.

“Awesome!” With a satisfied grin, Grady suddenly noticed his uneaten biscuit. He popped it into his mouth. “And if we don’t have to see Drew, even better,” he said, chewing. “That guy’s a jerk.”

I know that, too,
Travis thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. “You’ll have to see him and stay at that house sometimes, remember, but not this time,” he warned the boy, who already knew the score.

Travis and Val had talked extensively in the past weeks—almost as extensively as their lawyers had.

After Travis had made it clear he wanted full-time custody of Grady and that he’d fight full-out in court if Val refused to let the boy stay in Lonesome Way, it hadn’t taken anywhere near as long as he’d expected for her to throw in the towel.

He’d guessed she wouldn’t have the time or the will for a protracted legal battle and all its entanglements. And that Baylor didn’t have the patience for it—or the willingness to spend an exorbitant sum of money trying to retain custody of a boy he had no interest in and who didn’t measure up to his standards.

So with a quickness that filled Travis not only with relief but also with disgust, she’d agreed to drop the whole Broadcrest Academy notion
and
to let Travis take over custody. All in return for generous visiting privileges.

Obviously Val and her new husband had decided she had
better things to do than to be saddled full-time with the raising of an adolescent son.

She could see Grady on prearranged weekends and on spring and winter breaks, and she had the right to visit him in Montana once a month if she chose after she returned to the States.

“I know what you must think of me, but I’m not abandoning my son,” she’d insisted to Travis the last time they talked. Defensiveness had bristled in her tone. “I’ll see him a lot—as often as I can. It’s just that all of these opportunities have opened up for me. Things I could never dream of before. And after everything I’ve gone through, being a widow so young, a single mother…” Her voice wavered. “Travis, that was all so hard. My therapist says I deserve this. And I do. It doesn’t mean I don’t love Grady with all my heart. I’ve always been a good mother, you know that, don’t you?”

“I know you love him, Val.”
As much as you’re capable of loving anyone besides yourself—and Baylor—right now
. But Travis hadn’t said that aloud. He’d chosen his words carefully and left it at that.

She didn’t need to know that Grady had been overjoyed when he learned he didn’t have to go back to school in L.A. Or that he’d been thrilled at the idea of living full-time with his father in Lonesome Way, only a stone’s throw from his aunt and uncle and cousins.

He hadn’t been able to stop talking about being able to ride Pepper Jack whenever he wanted and learning from Rafe and Will Brady how to start horses.

Not to mention his excitement about going to school with Evan and Justin—a school where Mia taught, where he already had a teacher who was an ally and a friend.

He was a little torn about not seeing his mother regularly, but for the most part he’d taken it so much in stride it made Travis wonder just how little time Val had been spending with him once she married Drew. During all the weeks he’d
been living with Travis, the boy had talked more about Drew and the housekeeper than he did about Val.

“Can we take Evan and Justin camping with us when we go?” Grady took a last swig of his milk. “They want to see the planets, too. And Evan said he checked out a library book about the stars. We need to go on a really clear night so we can see as much as possible.”

“I’ll speak to their parents, and if they give the go-ahead, it’s a plan.”

Grinning, the boy snagged another biscuit. As he broke it in half, a serious look came over his face. “There’s something bothering me, Dad.”

That hint of worry still hovered in his eyes.

“What is it?” Travis asked, bracing himself.

His son leaned forward, his face earnest. “I can’t make up my mind. About what I want to be when I grow up,” he explained.

A grin broke across Travis’s face. He tried to hide it by taking a quick swig of coffee.

“Some days I want to have a horse ranch like Uncle Rafe’s. I want to start horses and raise them and ride them all the time. But other times I think I want to be an astronomer or maybe even an astronaut.” The worry left his eyes. They began to gleam. “I want to learn everything there is to know about the stars and the sky and the planets. I want to go to Mars. Wouldn’t that be cool? Or maybe Mercury. What would it be like? I could be an explorer and find out all kinds of new stuff. But on the other hand, I love horses and riding. So what should I do? I can’t pick.”

“Well.” Travis studied him calmly. “Seems to me you don’t have to pick anything yet. You can learn about both. See where it leads. There’s no rush.”

“But Justin wants to be a football player. His mind’s made up. And Evan knows he wants to own a hardware store because he loves being around tools and making things and
stuff. I’m the only one who can’t decide. I think there must be something wrong with me.”

Travis fought back a smile. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re bright and you’re curious. You have all kinds of options—and some of them you don’t even know about yet. For now, go to school and do your best. And be a kid. When you’re older, like another seven, eight years, then you’ll have a better idea.”

“But what if I still don’t know?” Grady fretted.

Travis looked into that young face and saw a boy so full of ideas and dreams and worries that a thick, almost overpowering rush of love swept over him like a tidal wave.

“If you still don’t know, then you’ll try one thing. And if something inside you tells you it’s not right, you’ll try another.” He set down his coffee. “Always listen to what’s inside of you, Grady. Your instincts will lead you to the right thing.”

“Instincts,” Grady repeated, trying out the word. “Okay.” He took a breath. “Thanks.”