The Angel Tasted Temptation (12 page)

Travis kept Meredith behind him with one arm, then stepped forward, putting himself squarely between the twin Mr. Everests. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

"We're your ride to the preacher," the bigger one said, pointing a finger at Travis's chest, "because if you're doing
that
to our baby sister, you better have a ring in your pocket, buster."

"A preacher? Are you nuts?" Travis said. Then the words sank in.
Baby sister
. These two hulking giants were Meredith's
brothers
? What the hell did they feed men in Indiana?

"These two very rude individuals," Meredith said, stepping around Travis and inserting herself between the three men, "are my brothers, Ray Jr. and Vernon." She gestured from one to the other. "And they're leaving."

"Nope. No can do," said the smaller of the two, smaller being a misnomer since Travis suspected the six-foot-three man weighed in around two-fifty. "We're here to keep an eye on you." He gave Travis a glare. "Seems a good idea, considering you got a deer tick on you."

"Travis is not a deer tick and for your information, Vernon,
I
was the one who kissed
him
."

Vernon scratched his head beneath his cap, the tractor logo riding up and down before settling back into place. "Seems to me he was the one doing all the fence crossing. And when a coyote wanders onto your property—"

"You either shoot him or chase him off with a bigger dog." Ray Jr. gave Travis a look that left no doubt which option he voted for.

Meredith stepped up to her elder brother and poked him in the chest. "Get back, Ray Jr." To Travis's surprise, the huge man took a step back at his little sister's touch. "I do not need babysitting. I'm an adult."

"Right. You're acting like a two-year-old," he said. "Running off like that, leaving everything—and everyone—behind. You need to go home with us. Rebecca can get on without you and you know it."

"I think you should leave Meredith alone," Travis said. "She—"

"And we think you should go away, deer tick," Vernon said, taking a step forward. Ray Jr. moved in unison with him, two soldiers marching to blot out the enemy. "Now."

Travis started to protest, ready to take this to the mat if need be. Then Meredith laid a soft hand on his arm. "Go ahead," she said. "I can handle them. They are, after all, my brothers."

Travis's gaze went from her to the Hulk twins. They hadn't moved any closer, but seemed to have multiplied in size as if the mere act of inhaling made them bigger. He thought he could maybe take down one, but two...?

And besides, they were Meredith's flesh and blood. Getting into a fistfight in front of her, he suspected, wasn't the best way to endear himself to her. "Are you sure?"

"They may seem menacing," she said, "but really, they have my best interests at heart."

Travis didn't comment on what those best interests might be since they seemed to come attached to a preacher and a courthouse, but did as she asked, leaving Meredith outside her cousin's house and in the meaty paws of Tweedle-big and Tweedle-bigger. "I'll call you."

She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips. "If I don't call you first."

Ray Jr. blanched and started to sputter admonishments but Meredith just put up a finger of warning and started up the stairs to her cousin's house. Her brother backed off, looking like a sulky puppy.

When he was sure she was going to be okay, Travis got into his car and left. Meredith could definitely handle Ray Jr. and Vernon better than he could— and do it without her fists.

For the second time that night, he thought about the contradiction of this woman from Indiana. She said she wanted things to be so simple, and yet she was anything but.

And her kisses ... Well, they were more than he'd expected, too. They led him down a path he'd vowed to avoid, if only long enough to figure out who Travis Campbell was and why he was more often on the receiving end of a pocketbook than a pillow.

He turned right onto the Mass. Ave. connector, heading toward the highway and home, instead of going left, which would take him toward the bar where Kenny undoubtedly was seeing how far he could stretch the limits of his Visa and his charm.

As Travis eased onto I-93, his cell phone jingled. He flipped it open, half expecting Kenny to be on the other end, about to badger him into coming to the bar. "Hello?"

"Whatcha doing on the nineteenth of November?"

"Brad?" His younger brother's voice was nearly drowned out by the festive sounds of a party behind him. Laughing, clinking glasses, a popping champagne cork and several congratulatory shouts.

"I did it," Brad said. "I proposed to Jenny. We're doing it up right, and I need a best man."

"You're getting married?
You?"

"Hey, everybody's gotta settle down someday."

"Yeah, but not you. You're ..."

"Not the commitmentphobe I used to be." There was the sound of giggling, then a loud lip smacking as Brad kissed someone. Jenny, Travis presumed. A nice woman, whom he'd met several times in the two years she and Brad had been dating. Still, the news that Brad was getting
married
came like a Mack truck at his head. "This beauty has got my heart but good," Brad added.

"But we swore—" When they'd been kids, it had been a solemn oath. The kind you never broke. A blood oath, he went to add, but didn't.

"Trav, I was twelve. Who knew how I'd feel at twenty-eight? Besides, there's no guarantee I'll turn out like Dad."

"There's no guarantees either way, Brad. That's why we decided not to take chances."

There was a long moment of silence, punctuated only by the ongoing celebration on the other end. "Never expected you, of all people, to rain on my parade, Trav."

"Brad, it's not that. It's just—" What? How could he explain? That he felt betrayed because his brother had broken an adolescent promise? That he couldn't celebrate something that filled him with a sense of dread as surely as the opening of a Stephen King movie? That he'd give Britney Spears better odds on her next love match than he would any of the Campbell boys? "I'm happy for you, Brad. Really I am." He worked up a little enthusiasm into his voice.

"Yeah. Sure. I'll send you an invite. If you have time, maybe you can make it." Then Brad clicked off, returning to his party and leaving Travis in a convertible filled with regrets and words he couldn't take back.

Ray Jr.'s Keep-Your-Claws-to-Yourself Crab Salad

1 pound fresh cooked crab meat

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons sour cream

Salt and pepper

Cayenne pepper to taste

Want to work out a little frustration? Well, this ain't the dish to do it. For that, you gotta get yourself a punching bag or a bale of hay and have at it. This is for protein, which gives you muscles and energy so you can kill the next man who comes within ten feet of your baby sister.

Pick through the crab meat and make sure there aren't any shells. The last thing you want to do is end up needing the Heimlich, just when you're about to pulverize someone. Kind of ruins your credibility as a menacing threat.

Mix the other ingredients in a separate bowl, then add the crabmeat. Make it as spicy as you want with the cayenne. Hell, I don't care if you add so much you're howling at the moon. It's your damned tongue.

Eat it plain, on bread, don't matter to me. Just eat it fast so you can get to back to dragging that city boy away from your sister. 'Cause he definitely spells trouble.

"You can just get right back on the Mass Pike and drive back home because I don't need watchdogs." Meredith said, turning around when her brothers followed her up onto Rebecca's porch. She parked her fists on her hips and tipped her head up, eyeing them.

"Sorry, Mer, no can do. This is direct orders from Momma and you know how she gets if we don't do what she says. Besides, we have a standing invite to stay at Aunt Gloria's, for as long as we need to."

Meredith let out a muttered curse. "I don't need, or want, a keeper."

"Seems someone needs a leash at least," Vernon muttered, cocking his head in the direction Travis had gone.

"Do I ever interfere in your lives?"

"Well..." The two brothers looked from one to the other.

"I didn't think so. I would appreciate it if you would kindly stay out of mine." She turned on her heel, intent on heading into Rebecca's house. With her brothers staying next door, her plan had been shot with more holes than an archery target.

"Caleb is real broken up, Mer," Ray Jr. said. Meredith paused midstep. "He ain't been the same since you dumped him."

"He'll get over it."

Ray Jr. laid a big palm on her shoulder, the width and breadth of his grip nearly encompassing her entire clavicle. "You used to be softhearted, sis. You changed that much since you got here?"

Something sharp ricocheted around her chest. "I want something different from what I've always had, that's all."

"I can understand that," Vernon piped up from the sidewalk. "The boys at Petey's damn near banned me from the bar when I started drinking Coors Light instead of Bud. Said I wasn't a real man anymore. I gotta tell you, though, that mountain stream stuff they say ain't no bull—"

"This isn't about a beer commercial," Ray Jr. growled.

"Hell, I know that." Vernon ran a hand through his mop of brown curls. "Just making a point."

"You don't understand. Neither of you do." Meredith pivoted toward her eldest brother. "I don't want to work in Petey's the rest of my life and be married to Caleb and go to church every Sunday and make a Jell-O cake every July fourth for the Heaven-dale town picnic. I want more than that."

Ray Jr. shrugged. "Then get another job. Marry another guy. Buy a different cake mix. What's the problem?"

Meredith let out a gust. "Don't you see? I don't want any of that! The farm life. The Sunday picnics, the boy-next-door romance. I want..." She swept her arm out in an arc, gesturing toward the rush of traffic passing by on the distant highways, the bright lights of the bustling city that twinkled so bright, they blotted out most of the night sky. "This."

"So move to Indianapolis. It's a city."

"Maybe I will," Meredith said. "Later. For now, I want to be here. Tasting all Boston has to offer."

"You were sure having a taste earlier," Vernon muttered. "Surprised you didn't choke, what with his tongue that far down your dang throat."

Ray Jr. jabbed him in the arm and gave him a shut-up glare. "Meredith says she wants to stay. We'll let her do that." He gave his sister one last look. "For now."

She let out a gust. "What are you going to do, Ray Jr.? Hogtie me and throw me in the back of the truck if I don't come home before curfew?"

He grinned. "If it comes down to that we'll do what it takes to protect your honor."

The very thing she was so desperate to get rid of.

To do that she was clearly going to have to get rid of her brothers first.

A little while later, Meredith went inside her cousin's house and found Rebecca on the sofa, eyes closed, surrounded by a little girl's paradise of Barbie dolls, miniature stilettos and teeny garish outfits that would have made Yves Saint Laurent turn over in his grave. Meredith slipped off her shoes and went to tiptoe past Rebecca and up the stairs to the guest room. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash the appearance of her brothers. With any luck, they'd go home instead of staying next door and making her life a living hell.

"I'm awake," Rebecca said. "Just playing possum."

"Possum?"

"Emily was up a few minutes ago, making a good case for playing all night instead of sleeping. I told her if I was asleep she couldn't play, so I'm asleep." Rebecca shut her eyes and feigned sleep again.

"Impressive. You should be in movies."

Rebecca smiled and opened her eyes. "I know. Oscar-worthy, isn't it?" She sighed and pushed herself into a sitting position, her belly leading the way. "I suppose I should get all these toys picked up now. Considering I've been waiting two hours for my husband to come help me. I think he's lost forever in the den."

"Working?"

"No. Watching the Patriots. As long as it's football season, Jeremy is invisible. He loses all his peripheral vision to the television."

Meredith bent over and started putting some of the dolls into the big plastic bin marked
Barbies
. "Sounds like my father. My mom can barely get him to come to the table when Notre Dame is playing."

"You don't have to do that," Rebecca said, raising herself into a sitting position. "I can manage."

"And you can go into labor right here, too. I'm here to help."

"You're a guest, not a slave."

"Rebecca, this isn't a hotel. And you aren't my maid."

Rebecca smiled, relief clear on her face. "Okay, but only because you insisted." From the sofa she made a three-pointer toss of a Barbie doll into the bin. "I take it from the look on your face that Vernon and Ray Jr. found you. They stopped by here earlier looking for you."

"Oh yeah, they found me. Me and Travis. Together."

"Oh. How ugly did it get?"

"Well, no broken bones. Just a lot of manly glares and puffed-up chests."

Rebecca laughed. "Typical older brother stuff, huh?"

"I told them to butt out and let me be a grown-up.''

"Good for you!" Rebecca sent her a high five from across the room. "You do know they went over to my mom's for the night, right?"

Meredith nodded. "I was hoping they'd get the hint and go home."

Rebecca laughed. "They're Shordons. No one in this family gives up easily."

"I know. It's one of those traits, passed on down along with Great Grandma's family baby teeth necklace."

"Eww. That still exists?"

"Yep. And growing by the year. Keeps the Tooth Fairy pretty busy."

"That's what I need to do." Rebecca stuffed a pillow beneath her back and settled into a more comfortable position. "Steal that necklace, put it under my pillow and in the morning, wake up to a mint." She grabbed an afghan off the back of the sofa and draped it over her legs. "Time for a hotter, and younger, topic. How was your date?"