Redeeming Travis

His eyes widened almost imperceptibly then his frown deepened. “Talk to Sam. They’re ultimately his problems,” he said, and turned away to retrieve the ball.

The basketball continued to roll down the hill. It got quite a distance with Travis walking after it at a leisurely pace. It had to be a delaying tactic considering that Manitou Springs was built entirely on hills. He would be a year before he caught it at that pace.

Finally, the ball got stuck beneath a parked car. He kicked it free and all the while, Tricia stood her ground in the middle of the driveway, watching his loose-hipped saunter as he came back up the hill. She saw through his act, though. He wasn’t as composed as he pretended. Of course, neither was she, but there was every chance he didn’t know that.

Travis finally glanced back at the driveway and looked surprised to see her still standing there. He didn’t know she could no longer be easily scared away. His expression turned thunderous and he confirmed his mood with his next statement, “You forget how to take subtle hints? Go away. I do not want to see your face. That too subtle for you, Patty?”

She didn’t blink at the name she’d left behind along with her major insecurities. “I prefer Tricia now. You should know that if we’re going to work together on this.”

That slow wiseacre grin replaced the frown on his craggy features. “Work together? Us? As in you and me? You’ve been out in the mountain sun too long, babe.”

Even in college before putting up with the Air Force’s own special brand of chauvinism, she’d hated to be called “babe.” “Look, Travis, let’s stop dancing around each other,” she snapped. “I’ve learned some things you’d give your eye teeth to know. I can save you months. And you may have information I need. You want to know who was ultimately responsible for the shooting of Adam Montgomery. I remember he’s an old friend. I understand that because I want to find the people responsible for Ian Kelly’s murder—my friend. And I think we both want to put a stopper in the drug pipeline running into Colorado Springs. Now, invite me in like a good boy, and we’ll learn to share.”

“I guess I don’t understand why you’re so willing to cooperate with me all of a sudden.”

She sighed. “Because General Fielding ordered me to. He’s a little touchy right now about his people nearly getting killed. And whether you want to admit it or not, you got in my way yesterday and one or both of us could have been killed in that alley.”

Travis stared at her, clearly weighing his options. “Fine, but don’t get too comfortable. Just because I’m listening, doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to anything. I work alone.”

He wasn’t the only one with options to weigh. If he found out about all of General Fielding’s stipulations regarding this joint venture, he’d bolt the door with her on the outside. And no way was she sharing what she suspected without his word that he’d work with her. She had a killer to catch, a drug pipeline to stop and a promotion to win. She couldn’t risk him getting in her way again, and the only way to prevent that was to know where he was and what he was up to. And that meant working together—closely.

“You agree to work this with me, or I don’t take another step.” Then she took a chance that the years had left that basketball-center ego of his intact along with that cocky grin he still had. She set her lips in a challenging smirk of her own and added, “Or are you afraid to work with me?”

His eyebrows climbed, furrowing his forehead even more, then his frown slid into a grin again. A grin she was quickly coming to believe was an artifice to hide his true feelings. Maybe it always had been.

“Me? Afraid of you? Oh, please,” he said, his eyes rolling just a bit. “Fine. We’ll work the cases together since you seem pretty certain that this is all linked. Besides, I don’t want you getting in my way again.”

He pivoted lazily and walked up the drive. When he reached the base of the steps, he turned. Neither she nor the dog had moved. And she wouldn’t. Not until she got an invitation. Not after that remark. She would get in his way?

“You coming?” Travis all but snarled.

Tricia wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to, her or the dog. But since it looked like the only invitation she was likely to get, she started forward.

The dog shot ahead then toward the front door, the plume of his tail wagging jubilantly. “Traitor,” Travis muttered to his canine companion who ran happily past his perturbed master.

It was nice someone was happy with the situation, she thought, and asked, “So, what’s your dog’s name?”

As she entered an open, tiled foyer, the name “Cody” on Travis’s lips barely registered in her brain. Her mind was suddenly ambushed by the flashes of insight the house gave her into his barren life. She could swear her heart actually ached for him.

The rooms before her had wonderful dark wide planked floors that stood out in perfect contrast to the cream color on the rough, adobe-look walls. Unfortunately, that was the only good thing she could say about the two rooms that flowed off the foyer.

She looked around at the emptiness the rooms reflected and wondered how he thought she might make herself too comfortable in such an utterly soulless place. The walls and windows were bare while the living room and dining room areas were lined with card tables. She counted a dozen tables in all and one desk. Strewn with numerous files, each table held folders of a different color. Stacked underneath most of the tables were boxes also filled with the same color files. There was also an industrial-sized shredder in the corner opposite the Spanish-tiled fireplace.

It was, she realized, exactly what it looked like. A disaster of an office with a nod given toward organization. This must be the life center of AdVance Security and Investigations. Which meant he ran the company the way he did everything—alone.

“Oh, my,” she said, in control of her thoughts if not her mouth, “I don’t think you need to worry that I’ll get too comfortable in here.” She walked to the first table and picked up a folder. “I’ve seen jail cells in Third World countries that were more homey than this place.”

“Yuk-yuk,” he said. “I don’t have to please anyone but me. And this pleases me. And—” She heard his footsteps moving quickly toward her and, as she whirled to face him, he snatched the folder out of her hand. “I know where everything is.” He dropped it back on the table. “Don’t touch my stuff. Besides, that’s confidential. And don’t go getting any ideas about messing with my filing system. I remember how you like to organize. So what’s this about information?”

Tricia spotted the kitchen that lay beyond a half wall. It had two counter stools pulled up to a breakfast bar that was set into the half wall between the dining room and the galley kitchen. She walked to the bar, pulled out a chair and sat.

“Why, thank you, Travis. I’d love a nice hot cup of tea. Suppose you tell me what you’ve learned while you fix it for me.”

“I said I’d participate. I didn’t say I’d feed you. That comes under the heading of ‘too comfortable.’”

“Oh?” She fiddled with a drawing he’d left on the counter. It was done by a small child and showed a tall man and a dog running. Only the dog smiled. Travis and Cody, no doubt about it. She imagined the budding artist was Amy Mathers, his brother Sam’s stepdaughter.

“What’s ‘oh’ supposed to mean? Women never say ‘oh’ in that tone when it doesn’t mean a whole lot more.”

“It means that I thought the offer of refreshments fell under the heading of civilized.” She looked pointedly at the kitchen beyond where he now stood. Wall-to-wall dirty dishes, several empty bread wrappers and three scraped-clean peanut butter jars. It was anything but civilized. “Decorated by Neanderthal Interiors?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.

“I like my kitchen the way it is, too. Come on. We’ll talk in the den. It’s neat so it won’t put your female cleaning hormones into overdrive.”

She followed when he gave her no opportunity to protest. “Sit,” he ordered when she entered the small room.

His idea of neat and hers were worlds apart. Stack after stack of magazines and newspapers from all over the world took up about a third of the floor space and the end tables and coffee table. There was also a medium-size TV, a wall of bookcases stuffed haphazardly with books, a futon and an old beat-up leather recliner. The room fit his personality: rumpled, grumpy and brooding.

She chose the futon and, after picking up and stacking several of the newspapers and magazines into a neat pile, she sat in the newly cleared space.

“You’re already driving me crazy and we haven’t been working together five minutes,” he said, raking his hair off his forehead. “So tell me what all you’ve figured out about Ian Kelly’s murder.”

“He was killed on the flight line.”

“Then it really was about Air Force business.” Travis leaned back in his seat. “Sam thought it was something to do with this influx of drugs that are driving him and the rest of CSPD crazy. In that case, I don’t see what I can do for you.”

She couldn’t very well blurt out that his father was looking pretty good as the kingpin of Diablo, the syndicate she thought was the Colorado Springs arm of La Mano Oscura. She was nearly sure the proof of the connection between the two organizations had been within Ian’s grasp but couldn’t confirm it yet.

“Five or six of our pilots look good for the runners. One of them is the guy I was following yesterday. We can’t afford to trip over each other again.”

“And how on earth do we explain our being together all the time, or haven’t you and your general thought that far?”

Tricia swallowed, and crossed her legs carefully to hide her nervousness. “Well…er…the general has decided on a way to handle it.”

Travis raised one eyebrow. “And what is the general’s brilliant idea?”

“We’re inseparable because—” she tried to make her expression as neutral as she could “—we’re dating again.”

Chapter Four

“What did you say?” Travis bellowed.

And Patricia Streeter, the girl who’d broken his heart and sent his life into a tailspin didn’t even blink at his outrage. Instead she sat back, crossed her long legs once again and settled into the soft cushion of the futon.

“I said we’re supposed to be dating. We have to act as if we’re crazy about each other. You’ll go where I go, I’ll go where you go. Officially, I’ll take leave to give us the time to decide if I want to get out of the Air Force to be with you or if you’ll be following me to my next duty station.”

“And they say I’m crazy,” he muttered, and caught himself raking his fingers through his hair again. Why was it he kept blowing his cool with her? She just plain unnerved him. That’s all there was to it. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t. To be near her. See her all the time. It wasn’t going to happen.

But if he didn’t and something happened to her…

Travis had seen the crime scene photos of Major Kelly. The thought of seeing Patty like that… He shook his head. No, she was Tricia now. Major Streeter. That was even better. This woman bore little resemblance to the pretty coed he’d loved to distraction. But it occurred to him that, even with all that had happened and all the years that had passed, none of it mattered. Not in the face of the stark fact that she was searching for the person or persons responsible for Major Kelly’s murder, and that by working the case alone she could very well end up as the major had.

He felt himself start to hyperventilate and jumped to his feet to pace across the room then back to his chair. The idea of those men catching her. Of what they might do to her if they did. South American drug cartels were ruthless, and he’d lay odds the guy he’d been tailing the day before was South American. And Sam thought La Mano Oscura could be involved with Diablo. So it stood to reason the Air Force pilots she was after were probably linked to both organizations. It was the only thing that made sense. But proving it? Stopping it? That was another matter.

And why was she so determined?

Jealousy, hot and angry, reared its unreasonable head once again. “You must have been pretty crazy about Kelly to put yourself in this kind of danger to avenge him,” he growled. “You really think anyone will believe you’re with me only a couple weeks after his death?”

Her lips pressed into a firm line. “Don’t try to make more of this than it is. I said Ian was a friend. He, his wife and daughters made me feel like one of the family when I was transferred here. They deserve justice. I want the man or men who killed him. So does General Fielding. It’s my job and it could mean a promotion for me, too. Those are my reasons.”

Travis stared at her then nodded, feeling like a prize fool for his anger. They’d been apart for years. He’d had a wife and a child. He pushed away those thoughts. He couldn’t think about Allison or Natalie now. He had failed to protect them, but maybe in protecting Tricia he could make up for his failure just a little.

“You like anyone for Kelly’s murder?” he asked, pretending a calm he still didn’t feel. “The pilot you were tailing, maybe?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.” She looked even more troubled. “Maybe someone higher up.”

“How high is high?”

“Possibly as high as a brigadier general. George Hadley is his name. We transferred him and his wing to Peterson where they could be watched. They were stationed at Cascade.”

Travis remembered reading something about all that a few months back. “The base the Air Force is afraid has a major active fault running under it?”

She smirked. “There’s no fault. And no geological survey going on. It’s an elaborate ruse to get Hadley and his wing where we can track their movements better. A handful of pilots under him formed a club called the Buccaneers. There are seven members. They bought into a fifties-era F-100 Super Sabre together. They trade weekends taking her up.”

Travis narrowed his eyes. This was getting interesting. “That jet has over a thousand-mile range, doesn’t it?”

“Sixteen-sixty.”

Whistling, Travis grabbed for a notepad so he could take notes. “They could get to a lot of places with it. Tough places to track them to. How’d the Air Force get wise to them in the first place?”

“One of the Bucs reported an odd talk he had with General Hadley. He got the idea Hadley was feeling him out to see if he’d do anything illegal. At the time he thought he was suspected of something. He got indignant and General Hadley accepted his word that he’d done nothing wrong.”

“And that was Hadley’s misstep?”

“The first we’ve heard about. Within the following month, the pilot, Captain Kevin Johnston, started to notice some odd things about his fellow Buccaneers. Like more flight hours on the F-100 than those they logged. They all tried to pass it off as hotdogging midflight but they all also seemed to have a bit too much money to spend, considering the cost of those long flights and the loan payments on the plane.”

She paused and straightened the magazines, then caught his eyes and stopped, guiltily hiding her hands behind her. Then she cleared her throat and continued. “Then Captain Johnston noticed nearly the same number of miles on each flight the other members took no matter where they claimed to have gone on their time off. He put that together with seeing them looking a little too comfortable around the highest-ranking officer at Cascade, General Hadley. Captain Johnston was in basic with Ian so he came here to Peterson and went to him with his suspicions. Ian took it to Lieutenant General Charles Fielding, the base commander. General Fielding put Ian Kelly on it and Ian suggested the geological survey as an excuse to get them all to Colorado Springs where his presence wouldn’t be suspicious and there’d be someone superior to General Hadley. Two months later Ian Kelly was found dead and I was handed the case. I’m trying to nail General Hadley along with the Buccaneers.”

“And for that you think you need my help?”

She glared. “What I need is you out of my way, but I know you too well. You as much as said there was no way you were pulling out of this investigation. If I can’t intimidate you off the case, I have to ask you to join in on it.” She grinned slyly, her eyes wise with knowledge of his character.

It was Travis’s turn to glare. He hated that she still knew him so well.

She crossed her legs, drawing his attention momentarily. He’d always loved her long dancer’s legs. “I can’t intimidate you, can I?” she asked, dragging his attention off her assets and annoying him further.

Not trusting himself to speak, he sent her a wiseacre grin and shook his head.

She grimaced slightly. “Then I guess we’re in this together. And that means it’s on General Fielding’s terms. In that case, it’s your turn to tell me what you have so far.”

Travis sighed mentally. It looked as if they were partners for the duration. And he had to give her credit—she’d told him all she seemed to know. “Ramirez is the name of the guy I was tailing. He’s Venezuelan. Which fits with Sam’s theory and, I suppose, Ian Kelly’s that Diablo and La Mano Oscura are linked.”

“I didn’t find any reference to La Mano Oscura in his notes but I still think he was working on proof of a connection.”

“But the crime scene investigators found that note in his pocket when his body was discovered. It had both Diablo and La Mano Oscura on it. So we knew he must have thought there was a link.”

She nodded. “Ian was the best. He probably got the evidence and was killed for it.”

“So we’ll be a little more careful than he was.”

“And we’ll each have someone to watch our back. That was more than Ian had. He liked to work alone.”

Sensing that she did, too, and hoping to dissuade her from going off on her own when he wasn’t with her, Travis found himself adding, “And it probably got him killed.”

The day after Travis agreed to work with her, they planned for Tricia to meet him at the Stagecoach Café. Since his mother worked there with her old friend Fiona, Travis dreaded this very public meeting they’d set up. They were supposed to act as if they had run into each other only days before—which was quite literally true. The problem was this was to be their first date, which was supposed to explode into a whirlwind romance—which was a big fat lie. It would never happen.

He wouldn’t let it happen.

Tricia didn’t seem to mind lying to his family, and had in fact insisted on it. But it wasn’t all that easy for him. His mother was going to be sixty-two inches of trouble. The woman had an eye for the lies her children told and always had. He thought he could pull off today, but then to act wildly enamored of Tricia considering their past? Now that was going to be a feat.

Because everything about Tricia just plain annoyed him. From her self-confidence to her uniform, she wasn’t the girl he’d loved. The problem was that somehow she was all the more fascinating for the changes he’d seen in her so far.

If he were completely honest with himself, Travis knew he’d have to admit his real problem with the differences was that she had grown and stretched beyond the potential he’d seen in her. She had been right. He would have held her back.

And that really frosted him.

Pulling open the door of the Stagecoach Café, Travis nearly cringed. Both his mother and Fiona were there, as he’d thought they would be. And they’d seen him. It was too late to back out and call off this hoax of a date.

“Travis!” Lidia Vance called out. “Come back here and sit where I can talk to you, while I fold these napkins.” She rushed to him, braced her small hands on his forearms and tiptoed from her slight height to peck him on the cheek. Instinctively, Travis wrapped his arms around her small round form and hugged her.

“I can only chat for a few minutes, Mom. I’m meeting someone for lunch. It’s a…uh…it’s a date.”

Travis felt his face heat. This was never going to work. As he expected, his mother was more than mildly surprised. Her eyebrows rose as her big brown eyes widened. “Here? You’re bringing a girl here? Is it that nice woman who you met through the auction?”

He almost burst that bubble of hope he’d seen so often in the past and saw again now. She wanted, and he knew even prayed, that he would pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Much as he would like to make his mother happy, he didn’t deserve to go on with his life when his wife and child were dead because of his failure as a husband and father. But for now he’d have to let her think her wish was about to come true. Telling her the truth some day in the weeks to come wasn’t going to be easy.

Pushing away dark thoughts, Travis explained, “I ran into Patty…uh…Tricia Streeter, I mean. We decided to meet for lunch.”

“Tricia?”

He forced a smile he didn’t feel, feeling instead like one of the jack-o’-lanterns that were decorating the town. Cardboard. Fake. A sham. “It was good to see her again. I was…surprised how much.” That at least was true, much to his disgust.

“That’s so nice. You were always such a cute couple,” his mother said, patting his arm. There was a mixture of emotions reflected in her dark, almost all-seeing eyes. Principal among them was delight. She’d bought it and Travis watched his last chance for a reprieve vanish with the blooming of his mother’s delighted smile.

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