Kitabı oku: «Travis's Appeal», sayfa 2

“No,” she answered simply. “But I think I might be able to help you.”

“I don’t—”

He was about to say that he didn’t understand what she meant, but the final words never materialized. They stopped, mid-flow, drying up on his lips as he felt her fingertips delicately touch the corners of his temples. Ever so gently, she slowly began to make small, concentric circles along his skin, pressing just enough to make contact, not enough to aggravate the tension and pain that were harbored there.

“What are you doing?” he finally asked, the words coming out of his mouth in slow motion. When he received no answer, his eyes shifted to Shawn who seemed content just to sit and wait. “What is she doing?”

“Making you better,” Shana’s father answered matter-of-factly. “Don’t fight it, boy, the girl’s got magic hands. You should see what she can do to a man’s spine. Make him feel like a kid again. ‘Course, in your case, that’s not much of a trip, but for someone like me…” He chuckled. “Well, it covers a lot more territory than I like to think about. But she can make you feel brand new.” There was unabashed affection in the man’s eyes as he looked at Shana. “Don’t know where I would be without her.”

“You’d be fine, Dad,” she assured him. Travis could hear the smile in her voice.

“Not by a long shot.” The tone of his voice changed as he added. “Susan would have never looked after me the way you do.”

“Susan?” Travis asked, looking at Shawn. “Is that another daughter? Or your wife?”

“My wife passed two years ago,” Shawn informed him stiffly. Travis had a feeling the shift in tone was to keep the emotion from gaining control of him. But he could see the pain in the man’s eyes. Two years and he still missed her. It was nice to know that love actually did enter some people’s lives for more than a weekend. “Susan’s my daughter.”

“How many do you have?” Travis asked, desperately struggling to focus on the conversation and not the woman whose fingertips still moved seductively along his temples.

“There’s just Susan and Shana,” Shawn said, “now that Grace’s gone.”

“Grace?”

“My wife,” Shawn clarified. He nodded toward Shana behind him. “How’s that feel?”

“Good,” Travis admitted.

But he knew nothing could be done for the pain he was experiencing. The headache had to run its course. He still fed it aspirins because a part of him was ever hopeful that, this one time, he could beat it back with pills. It was mostly a useless endeavor.

“But I don’t want to waste your time,” he added, intending the remark for Shana. He tried to turn his head, but paid dearly for that. The resulting pain shot through the top of his head, his nose and his jaw.

To his surprise, Shana didn’t withdraw her hands but continued massaging, making her small circles against his temples, sliding her fingertips in progressively larger and larger areas.

“Shh,” she soothed. “You have to give it a little time,” she advised. “The pain will go away soon, I promise.”

Not soon enough for him, he thought sarcastically. Hopefully before he liquefied right in front of her. It became increasingly more difficult to concentrate on what the woman’s father was saying when she stood behind him like that, wrecking havoc on his temples as well as his system. Her perfume, something light, heady and seductive as hell, seemed to seep into all his senses.

Ordinarily, in his present condition, the scent—any scent—would just contribute to his headache. But for some reason, hers didn’t. Instead, it soothed him even as it aroused him.

How was that possible?

“Dad, you and Mr. Marlowe go on talking,” Shana was saying. She’d bent forward ever so slightly as she spoke, just enough for him to feel her leaning lightly against his back.

Every nerve ending in his body felt as if it as hot-wired.

“You familiar with my restaurant?” Shawn was asking him.

With effort, Travis focused. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “What’s it called?”

Right now, if the man called the restaurant after himself, Travis wouldn’t have been able to make the connection. His brain was taking a definite time-out. He was struggling not just with an all-invasive headache, but with a sudden, startling desire to pull Shana onto his lap. Not just to pull her onto his lap, but to kiss her, as well.

Definitely not his style.

Not that he aspired to the role of hermit or someone who lived and breathed work to the point that he did nothing else, but he had become the controlled one in his family. The one who always thought things out, looked at the consequences of any action. He was no longer given to the rash behavior of his childhood.

So what were these urges doing, suddenly dancing through him with reckless abandon?

“Shawn’s Li’l Bit of Heaven.” Travis realized that he had been staring at the man, because Shawn added, “That’s the name of the restaurant. I named it for my daughter,” he confided.

“Shana?” Because if that was the case, Travis couldn’t help thinking, the man was given to serious understatement.

Shawn flushed and his complexion instantly turned a ruddy shade. “No,” he corrected, “Susan. That’s…my older girl,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. And then, because the woman’s presence was conspicuously absent, he added, “She couldn’t come. She’s been too busy to take time out for her old man these days,” Shawn grumbled. The frown on his face seemed to go deep, down to the very bone.

And then, the next moment, the man’s frown vanished and he was jovial again, caught up in a memory.

“But you should’ve seen her as a little bit of a thing. Sunshine in a bottle, that was her. Or maybe I should’ve said sunshine with a bottle,” he chuckled at his own joke. “She was a baby back then. Once she started walking and talking, she made it clear right from the beginning that she marched to her own tune.” He cleared his throat, pushing away whatever thought was troubling him. He raised his eyes to Travis’s face. “Anyway, you hear of it?”

Saying yes might leave him open to questions that he couldn’t answer. At the risk of bruising the man’s ego, Travis said, “I’m afraid not.”

To his surprise, rather than look put out, Shawn smiled and nodded. “The truth. You could’ve lied, trying to get on my good side, but you didn’t. You told the truth. I like that.” He nodded his head several more times, as if carrying on a debate that only he could hear. And then his eyes lit up. “Okay, boy, I’m gonna go with you.” He eyed him closely. “I’m putting my trust in you. Don’t let me down.”

“Thank you,” Travis said with feeling. “I won’t let you down.” Still seated, he slid forward and extended his hand to the man. At the same time, he felt Shana withdraw her fingertips from his temples.

For a moment, he thought it was because he was leaning forward.

And then it hit him.

Raising his eyes to her face as she came around to rejoin her father on the sofa, Travis stared at her incredulously.

“It’s gone,” he said like a mesmerized child watching a magician who had just made a full-grown tiger disappear from the stage. “My headache’s gone.” He was stunned. Migraine headaches, when they came, which fortunately for him was not often, moved in for the duration of the day. Sometimes longer. “That’s not possible,” he murmured.

Shana smiled at him. “Is your head throbbing?” she asked innocently.

“No.”

The look of pure satisfaction that came to her face was spellbinding to watch. “Then it’s possible,” she concluded.

Shawn chuckled, clearly pleased with the outcome. “Didn’t I tell you she was something?”

She certainly was. And the fact that her fingertips seemed to work miracles had nothing to do with it.

Chapter 3

The first meeting ended with Travis giving Shawn O’Reilly a list of documents he needed to review in order to ultimately place them beneath the protective umbrella of a living trust. In exchange, Shawn tendered an invitation to Travis to drop by the restaurant for a “meal that you’ll never forget.”

Whether by instinct or because being in such close proximity to Shana had temporarily rendered his ordinarily sharp thought process null and void, Travis refrained from mentioning that one of his brothers was a chef and owner of the popular Kate’s Kitchen, a fivestar restaurant overlooking the ocean in Laguna Beach. Trevor had named the restaurant as a tribute to their stepmother because of all the encouragement she’d given him over the years.

Travis accepted the light-green business card that Shawn held out to him, tucking it into his wallet.

“What about our next appointment?” Shawn asked.

Travis flipped through several pages on his desk calendar, searching for an empty block of time. “How’s two weeks from tomorrow at ten sound?” he asked. Fully expecting the man to agree to the date, Travis picked up his pen and was about to write in Shawn’s name when the man stopped him.

“Don’t you have anything sooner?” Shawn prodded. “I’d like it sooner than later,” he added, then explained, “I’m really not a very patient man and when I make up my mind, I like to see things start moving. You understand how it is.”

It was a perfectly plausible explanation, one Travis felt confident was used by countless people every day. Impatience was a by-product of the present fastforward, fast-track world. Yet for some unknown reason, Travis couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Shawn was leaving something unsaid. That the man’s motivation for the request and his desire for speed was driven by something other than just impatience.

Travis didn’t push the subject.

But it did make him curious.

Travis worked his way backward through the calendar, starting with the slot two weeks in the future. Every space seemed to be taken. Business was good, he thought, but by the same token, it did make things difficult if he wanted to get O’Reilly in earlier.

He decided to give up his lunch. “How about two days from today, at noon?” he suggested. “Does that work better for you?”

“Don’t you ordinarily eat lunch around then?” Shana asked.

Travis dismissed the question. “I can send out for a sandwich later on,” he told her. “No problem.”

“Or, I can bring you something from the restaurant,” Shawn offered. “We’ll be here,” he said, confirming the appointment. “And in the meantime,” the man went on, “you come on by the restaurant tonight. Say, around eight? Unless you’ve got other plans.” His expression, though amiable, challenged him to come up with an acceptable excuse for not showing up at his restaurant this evening.

Travis did have other plans. Communing with his pillow and catching up on some well-earned sleep before he drifted into the land of the zombies. But he couldn’t very well turn down the enthusiastic invitation. For whatever reason, having him drop by to see the restaurant seemed to mean too much to his new client.

He wondered if Shana would be there.

“No,” Travis answered, “no other plans.”

Shawn immediately beamed in response even though, from his behavior, the outcome was a foregone conclusion to the man.

“Good, then we’ll see you there.” He nodded.

Hope bubbled up inside of him. Travis shifted his glance to include Shana before asking, “We?”

“Shana’s my right hand,” O’Reilly told him with a great deal of pride. “In more ways than one.” He groaned at the end of the second sentence as he attempted to get up from the sofa. Instantly, Shana tucked her arm through his, providing the leverage and support he needed to rise. “Couldn’t run that without her, either.” He took a deep breath, like someone who had just made it to the top of a mountain and then shook his head sadly. “Don’t get old if you can help it, boy. There’s little dignity to it.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Dad. You’ve got enough dignity for two people. You’re just a little creaky right now, that’s all,” Shana comforted simply.

Her arm still threaded through her father’s, she gently guided Shawn to the door. Opening it, he stepped across the threshold and was out in the hall when Shana suddenly remembered that she’d left her purse on the sofa.

Reentering the room, she flashed a conspiratorial smile at Travis who was about to follow them out. She’d left her purse behind on purpose, wanting the opportunity to get the attorney alone for a moment.

“You don’t have to come if you have other plans,” she told him, lowering her voice. “Dad tends to overwhelm people a bit. It’s the Texas in him,” she added with a laugh.

Her laugh was like music, Travis thought. Spellbinding music. It took him more than a second to shake himself free.

“That’s all right,” he assured her. “I really don’t have any plans.” And even if he had, he wouldn’t have passed up this opportunity, not if she was going to be there.

“No more midnight-oil burning?” Shana asked innocently.

Her eyes were smiling. He liked that. They seemed to highlight her entire face—making it even more perfect.

“I try not to do that two nights in a row,” he told her as he reached for the still-cold coffee on his desk. “It makes me a little sluggish mentally in the morning.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get to bed early,” she promised.

He’d just raised the coffee cup to his lips and taken a sip. Hearing her comment caused the coffee to slide down the wrong way. He started coughing.

Instantly alert, Shana quickly crossed over to him and began to pound him on the back. Still coughing, Travis held up his hand, signaling that he was all right.

“Excuse me?” he finally got out, albeit rather hoarsely.

Shana replayed her last words, then grinned. If she realized how he’d interpreted the line, she gave no further indication.

“Dad has a tendency to do a lot of buttonholing at the restaurant. Sometimes he doesn’t know when to stop. He’s got a thousand stories to tell,” she explained. “I’ll just make sure you go home at a decent hour so you get some sleep.”

“Oh.”

The single word echoed simultaneously with enlightenment and just a touch of disappointment. For a moment there, he’d let his mind drift and her words conjured up an image he’d found both infinitely pleasing and damn arousing.

Of course that was what she meant. He knew that. What was the matter with him? “That’s all right,” he told her. “I come from a large family. I know how to make an exit without hurting anyone’s feelings.”

“Then I’ll look forward to seeing you tonight,” Shana said. “We’re right in the middle of the block. You can’t miss us.” Humor curved her lips and then she winked. “We’re the ones with a shamrock in the sign.”

With that, she left the room and joined her father. Travis heard them walking away, their voices growing fainter as they made their way down the hall to the elevator.

Shana’s wink had repercussions. Travis felt as if he’d just been shot with another arrow. Unlike the ones that had assaulted his temple earlier, this one had a soft tip and went straight to his heart.

He slid bonelessly back into his chair.

To the best of Travis’s recollection, he’d never responded to a woman like this before. Oh, there’d been attractive, even beautiful women who had crossed his path, but he couldn’t recall a single one making him feel as if he’d been struck by lightning. And been happy about it.

Shifting to slip his hand into his pocket, he pulled out his wallet and took out the card Shawn had handed him. He stared at it, committing the address to memory just in case he lost the card between now and this evening. It was a date he intended to keep. For a number of reasons. And humoring a client was way down on the list.

“You’re checking out another restaurant?” Even over the phone, Trevor’s voice sounded incredulous when Travis called him later that afternoon.

“Not checking it out, I’m seeing a client there,” Travis explained.

So far, Travis hadn’t been able to get to the crux of why he’d called. Trevor sounded a bit harried and definitely put out that he was asking about another restaurant.

“Why don’t you bring him over to mine?” Trevor suggested. “I’ll make your personal favorite,” he coaxed, adding, “on the house. You can pretend to pick up the check to impress your client and I’ll reimburse you the next time I see you. See, the best of all worlds. Besides, you’ve been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to see you lately.”

“Look in the mirror,” Travis quipped. “That’s almost like seeing me.”

“We’re not mirror images of each other,” Trevor reminded him. There was a noise in the background and for a moment, Travis heard the sound of a hand being placed over the receiver. Trevor’s muffled voice called to his assistant, Emilio, to take care of a late delivery. When his attention returned to his telephone conversation with Travis, he said, “You, Trent and I are identical images of each other.” And then a thought obviously struck Trevor. “Unless you don’t want him to see me because it might confuse him. It is a him that we’re talking about, aren’t we?”

“It’s a him.” Travis thought it prudent not to mention Shana or the odd, almost overwhelming attraction he felt for her. Ever since his brothers had married, they waited for him to make the set complete. Telling Trevor about Shana would just set his brother off on a tangent that really had no basis in reality. “The restaurant I just asked you about belongs to my client,” Travis explained. “He wants me to drop by to see it.”

“Why?”

“Because I get the feeling that he’s as proud of it as you are of yours.”

There was a slight pause and Trevor capitulated. “What did you say the name of it was again?”

That was more like it. This was the reason why he’d called Trevor in the first place. He’d assumed that, just like lawyers and doctors, restaurant owners had their own little network, keeping tabs on one another and being more in the know about a particular restaurant than the average person on the street.

“Shawn’s Li’l Bit of Heaven,” Travis told him. “Have you heard of it?”

“Rings a bell,” Trevor admitted. The silence told Travis his brother was trying to remember something. “They specialize in Irish food—and in Tex-Mex. To each his own, but it’s a strange combination if you ask me.”

“Not if you know the owner,” Travis told him. “The man’s from Texas and he had ties to Ireland somewhere along the line in his ancestry. His last name’s O’Reilly.”

“Ah. And another mystery has been laid to rest,” Trevor cracked. “I can ask around if you want,” he offered. “Just what is it you want to know?”

“If the restaurant is doing well. If there were any health code violations in the last year, things like that. The usual. I need to assess its present value,” he explained.

“Is the owner selling it?” Trevor asked, mildly interested. He’d been toying with the idea of opening a second restaurant and leaving Emilio to run the one presently open.

“No, he wants to put it into a living trust for his daughters.”

There was a low whistle on the other end of the line. “Nice,” Trevor commented. “But instead of taking the roundabout route, why don’t you just ask to look at his books?”

“I will, but I thought I’d get a heads up first so that I’d know what to expect,” Travis confided. “O’Reilly invited me to drop by for a meal tonight. It’s strictly social.”

“All right, I’ll see what I can find out,” Trevor said. “I can have Venus ask around. If anyone has ‘dirt’ on anything, those high-society people she used to hang out with would probably be the first to know.”

The mention of Trevor’s wife momentarily took the conversation in another direction. “So she still wants us to call her Venus, huh?”

The idea amused him. “Venus” was the name his brother had given her the night he’d rescued the woman who eventually became his wife from a watery grave. When Trevor had finally managed to pull her to shore, she had absolutely no recollection of who she was or how she happened to land in the middle of the water.

It was only after Trevor had built a relationship with the woman and fallen hopelessly in love with her that Venus’s memory returned. Rather than someone who had fallen on hard times and was down on her luck, she turned out to be the heiress of a vast fortune. She had accidentally fallen overboard while attempting to escape from a yacht and a pending wedding ceremony that would have bound her to a man she ultimately decided she didn’t love.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Trevor told him with feeling, “she is Venus.”

Travis laughed softly to himself. “Works for me,” he said.

“No offense, brother,” Trevor responded genially, “but that really doesn’t have top priority in the equation.”

He saw the light on his phone turn on. Bea’s way of letting him know his next appointment was here. It was time to go. “Just see what you can find out for me, okay?”

“When do you need to know?”

Travis glanced at the desk calendar to see who his next appointment was. On days like today, people tended to run together. And if not for Shana, he recalled with no small amount of gratitude, he’d really be in a bad way because he’d still have his migraine. “As soon as you can would be nice.”

He heard his brother laugh. “That’s what I love about you, Trav. You’re never in a hurry.”

Trevor should talk, he thought. But he chose neutral ground for his response. “Hey, compared to Kelsey, I’m standing still.”

“Compared to Kelsey, a hurricane is standing still,” Trevor said with a laugh. “I’ll get back to you,” he promised.

“You do that,” Travis said, ending the conversation. Hanging up, he slipped Shawn’s business card back into his wallet. It was already getting worn around the edges.

For no reason, an image of Shana flashed across his mind’s eye.

It had to be lack of sleep that made him act like this, he decided. Like some adolescent with a terminal case of overactive hormones. Hell, he thought, even when he’d been a teenager, he hadn’t behaved so intensely.

Although there was that time when he and Trent had switched places, going out with each other’s girlfriends just to see if the girls could tell them apart. Problem was, he’d found himself falling for Trent’s girl. There’d been a lot of guilt involved before he finally confessed his feelings to Trent. When he did, to his relief, Trent told him that he really wasn’t that into the girl.

Trent’s heart really belonged to Laurel Valentine, the girl who, years later, became his wife.

The romance between Travis and Trent’s former girl hadn’t fared nearly that well. It lasted all of three months. Like a flash fire, it was way too hot not to burn out.

But even that hadn’t felt like this, Travis thought.

Of course, back then, he was getting enough sleep, he recalled with a touch of humor.

Glancing at his calendar again, he saw that, mercifully, he only had two more appointments for the day. And, for once, there were no court appearances scheduled in the late afternoon, like yesterday.

He was going home right after the last appointment, he told himself. What he needed before he went to the restaurant was a well-deserved nap. Lucky for him, he could fall asleep pretty quickly.

That was what he needed. Just some sleep and then, although beautiful, Shana O’Reilly would no longer look like an earthbound angel to him.

He leaned forward and pressed the intercom on his desk. “Please send Mrs. Baxter in, Bea.”

He thought he heard her murmur “It’s about time,” but he couldn’t be sure and there was no way he would ask her to repeat herself.

Kate hadn’t raised any stupid children, he thought with a smile as he rose to greet his next client.