Hometown Wedding. Elizabeth Lane
music blasting, she wouldn’t be expected to carry on a conversation.
“Seat belts, ladies!” Travis swung the truck out of the parking lot and back toward the freeway. Eden complied groggily as the long day’s fatigue caught up with her. The traffic, the billboards and the gray-green June landscape swam and blurred in her vision. Even Nicole’s radio music dimmed as her eyelids grew heavier…
Travis exhaled as the weight of Eden’s head plopped against his shoulder. Take it easy, he cautioned himself as he worked his hand between her linen-clad knees to reach the gearshift knob. Just shift your mind into neutral and keep it there until you’ve left this lady where she belongs.
Moving slowly, he put the truck into high gear and cranked the growling engine up to sixty-five for the long drive home. His eyes risked a glance at her sleeping face, even as he battled the temptation to let his gaze drift lower.
No, he reflected darkly, it had not been a smart idea, bringing her along. Over the years, he had managed to distance himself from Edna Rae and the trouble she’d caused him. He had buried her image, freezing it in the past like a photograph in an old high-school yearbook. For a long time now, he had felt safe.
But he could feel safe no longer. Not with Eden’s sleepy weight against his arm. Not with her hair blowing soft and pale against his sleeve and the warm damp sensuality of her fragrance curling in his nostrils.
Edna Rae was back, invading his life with an impact he had never imagined. It was as if some long-barred door inside him had cracked open, and he could not see what was on the other side. He was intrigued, Travis conceded. He was also confused, angry, and plain damned scared.
The only sensible course was to play it cool. Be friendly with the lady. Talk to her. Joke with her as if nothing had happened. Then leave her at her front door and run like a five-point buck.
He had put the past behind him. Nothing—not even a sexy, vulnerable, funny lady with spun-sugar hair—was worth bringing it back.
The sun cast long fingers of shadow over the scrub-dotted hills as Travis pulled off the freeway at the Scipio cutoff. Nicole’s rock station had faded into static. Nicole had faded with it. She was curled sound asleep against the locked door, the half-empty bag of Chee-tos still clutched in her lap.
He reached out and switched off the radio, welcoming the silence. Eden stirred against his shoulder, whimpered like a dreaming pup and settled back into slumber. Her perfume had mellowed, blending with her own musky scent in a mélange that Travis found disturbingly erotic. For a man who savored smell, touch and taste, as well as sight, he reflected, Eden Harper possessed the makings of a sensual banquet.
The day had been long and hot. Travis was tired—too tired to stop his mind from imagining how that banquet would progress. He would start by nuzzling the windblown honey of her hair, then move on to explore the salty involuted shell of her ear with his tongue tip, taking time to nibble his way around to her mango-sweet lips and savor the dark wine-moist secrets of her mouth. Next he would ease up the hem of that luscious peach blouse and ripple his hands slowly over her—
Damn!
What the devil did he think he was doing? This was Edna Rae Harper he was getting so worked up about! Edna Rae, whose unrequited crush had touched off the biggest disaster of his high-school years.
But not, by any means, the biggest disaster of his life.
He had not wanted the divorce. But looking back from a perspective of nine years, he could see that the split with Diane had been inevitable. They had married far too young and become parents before either of them was ready. For Diane, raised in the posh world of Newport Beach, life in a tiny two-room apartment, with no money, a demanding baby and a husband preoccupied with school and work, must have been hell on earth.
A coyote darted out of the junipers and flashed across the road, a gray phantom in the twilight. Travis switched on the headlights and swung his attention back to his driving. There were plenty of deer on this road, not to mention stray cattle. It wouldn’t do to hit something or to swerve off the shoulder of the two-lane highway and roll into the barrow pit. Not with such precious cargo aboard.
His tired eyes gazed ahead of the lights, at the long blue ribbon of road. Things might have worked out differently if he’d done things Diane’s way, he reflected. But when he’d insisted on returning to Monroe and had taken a job at the high school…yes, it was a wonder the marriage had lasted as long as it did. Diane had hated small-town life. She had hated the ranch. Only Nicole had held them together. And in the end, even Nicole hadn’t been enough.
He glanced tenderly over at his daughter where she sprawled in her seat, wrapped in Eden’s jacket, clutching her Chee-tos as she slept. He hadn’t lost her, he reminded himself. She was here. She was his for the whole summer.
And things were bound to be all right between them. For all her grown-up airs, she was still his little girl. She was only fourteen, and she needed her father as much as she had ever needed him in her tender young life.
He would make the most of this summer, Travis promised himself. He would plan his time around being with Nicole, sharing fun, forging bonds of love and trust to last through the long months of separation.
As for Eden Harper, she had given him a turn, but the lady was only passing through. In an hour’s time, he would be unloading her bags in her driveway. If he had any sense, he would bid her a breezy farewell and put her out of his mind for good.
If he had any sense.
Aye, as Hamlet would say, there was the rub.
Eden’s head moved against his shoulder, her silky hair skimming his throat like a breath. The unexpected warmth that trickled through Travis’s body was so sweet that he almost moaned out loud.
No, he conceded, it wasn’t going to be that simple. Drab little Edna Rae Harper had evolved into a delicious woman, as tempting as homemade peach-vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day. The urge to steal a taste would torment him for as long as she was in town. If he allowed himself to weaken…
But he couldn’t afford to think of Eden now. Not while he was warm and muzzy and surrounded by the fragrant cocoon of her nearness. Any decision involving Miss Eden Harper would have to be made at a safe distance, with a cool clear head.
Travis dimmed his running lights as a car swished past in the opposite direction, headed for Scipio and the freeway. The sky was streaked with crimson above the escarpment that rimmed the lonesome little valley. The evening breeze was cool through the open window.
Restless now, he felt Eden’s sleepy weight against his arm and thought of home.
“Rise and shine, city lady.”
“Mmm?” Eden opened her eyes to Travis’s sinfully dimpled smile. His face was a hand’s breath from her own, so close that it startled her. She jerked backward.
He chuckled under his breath. “Wake up, Miss Harper. You’re home.”
“Oh…” She struggled upright as the truck’s dim interior swam into focus, including Nicole, sound asleep on her right.
“For what it’s worth, I came into town by the back road,” Travis whispered. “Nobody saw us. Our reputations remain unsullied.”
“Oh, shush!” Eden was too groggy and uncomfortable for pleasantries. The jab she gave his ribs was only half in jest. “Just get out of my way, and I’ll see if I can slide under the steering wheel and make my exit without disturbing your daughter.”
“Right.” With the engine still idling, he eased open the door of the pickup and dropped lightly to the ground. Eden forced her sleep-numbed body to stir. Sweat had plastered her clothes to her skin. The fabric