by Trish Milburn - The Texan's Cowgirl Bride (Texas Rodeo Barons)
“In the balloon?” she asked.
“Yeah, I convinced this knucklehead to let us do a tethered ride. You up for it?”
“Are you kidding? It’s one of the things on my bucket list.”
A satisfied smile settled on Travis’s lips. “Am I good or what?”
“What, I’m the one with the balloon. Maybe I should take her up,” Evan said.
Travis playfully slugged his friend in the arm. Something about that action woke a very feminine part of her, a part she hadn’t even known existed but that liked having a guy establish with another that she was off-limits. Travis wasn’t being a brute or domineering about it, but there was definitely something sexy about his simple actions. Coupled with the fact of where he’d taken her on their first official date, and she was glad she’d said yes when he asked her. This was much better than watching HGTV, eating alone and worrying about her health and if they’d find her mom.
After a feinted punch back at Travis, Evan opened the door on the wicker basket and gestured for Savannah to board. Travis joined her and Evan released several of the weighted bags until the balloon started to slowly rise.
Savannah gripped the edge of the basket and scanned the ground below. Dozens of balloons stretched out in all directions, a rainbow of colors and designs. There was even one that was University of Texas orange and shaped like a longhorn, complete with horn extensions. As they rose higher, she could see beyond the trees to the highway. She glanced over her shoulder to look to the south. Ranch land dotted with cattle extended off to the horizon.
“This is amazing.” She’d flown numerous times, had marveled at how tiny everything looked from a plane. But this was different. She could inhale the early evening air, feel the sun warm her face, bask in the remarkable sense of freedom. “I can totally see why people take up ballooning.”
“Yeah, I didn’t expect to like it the first time Evan took me up, but it surprised me.”
“It’s as if your cares float away on the breeze.”
“Then I’m glad I brought you.”
Savannah turned to face Travis. “I am, too. Thank you.”
They spent a few minutes pointing out various balloons, impressed by the artistry of some and laughing at others, such as the one that was shaped like a giant pig.
“I guess pigs do fly,” Savannah said and laughed.
“It actually makes me hungry. What do you think of barbecue when we get down from here?”
“Sounds good.”
Savannah hated to see the ride end, even though all they did was float in one spot. But Evan needed to secure the balloon for the night.
When the basket settled back on the ground and Savannah stepped out, she looked up at Evan. “Thank you. That was awesome.”
“Maybe I’ll take you for a real ride sometime.”
“And maybe you won’t,” Travis said, a knowing smirk on his face. “This guy left a trail of broken hearts from boot camp to Afghanistan back to Texas.”
“I’ve not had any complaints.”
Travis snorted. “Just keep telling yourself that.”
After saying their goodbyes, Travis and Savannah walked back to his vehicle and headed in search of barbecue. They ended up at a little place on a country road called Amos’s Barbecue Shack. It looked like little more than the shack spelled out in its name, but judging by the number of trucks in the parking lot they must serve up some mean barbecue.
Inside, it was wall-to-wall people, but they were lucky to find one table open, a mini booth that had room for only one person on each side. Even among the crowd, it felt tucked away and oddly private.
A cute young waitress with bobbed black hair streaked with electric-blue came up to the table with an order pad in hand. “Hey, I’m Wendy. What’ll y’all have?”
“What’s good?” Travis asked.
“Everything, but Amos is the king of barbecued ribs. And we have a special tonight on the endless rib basket for two.”
“Sounds good.”
Savannah scanned the menu. “Sounds messy.”
“All the best food is messy,” Travis said as he tipped her menu down with his forefinger.
She dropped the menu onto the table. “You know, you’re right.”
Travis smiled as if he’d just won a bet and was looking forward to collecting his winnings. “One basket of ribs, it is. And I’ll have a Shiner.”
“Lemonade for me,” Savannah said.
When Wendy headed for the kitchen with their order, Savannah scanned the rest of the restaurant. Her gaze settled on the big guy on the other side of the order window. She nodded toward him. “He looks as if he could be a professional wrestler.”
“He was. That’s Amos Tucker.”
“I thought we happened upon this place by accident.”
Travis shot her a gotcha grin. “There’s a method to my meandering.”
“You planned all this just since I talked to you earlier?”
“What can I say? I’m a man who can get things done.”
Just like that, her thoughts veered off toward their professional relationship. “I know we’re supposed to have fun tonight, but what’s the latest with the search?”
“We talk about this until the food gets here, and that’s it for the night, okay?”
She nodded. “Deal.”
Travis leaned his forearms on the table. “I haven’t found any current records for her, no driver’s license, deeds, anything like that. It’s possible she changed her name, or that she doesn’t live in Texas anymore.”
Savannah swallowed against the lump forming in her throat. “Or she could be dead.”
Travis slid his hand across the table and clasped hers. “Don’t jump to that conclusion. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface. There are other places I can look, and I have some queries out. These things sometimes take time, especially if a person doesn’t want to be found.”
“Hard to believe a mother would hide from her own children, isn’t it?”
“Honestly, in this job I’ve seen just about everything. Nothing really surprises me anymore.”
“But you like it.”
He shrugged. “I’m good at it. I suppose it’s like any other job. There are good days and ones where you wish you could win the lottery and retire to the beach and fish your life away.”
Wendy made a quick reappearance with their drinks before hurrying off to refill the glasses of a large party a few tables away.
“What about you?” Travis asked. “How did you end up working at the family farm?”
“Sort of fell into it. I was helping out at the roadside stand one day when I mentioned I wanted to cut back on how much I was traveling to rodeos. Luke, the ranch manager, said he could use some help with the farm part of the operation, the peach and pecan crops. I already knew the land and what we grew backward and forward. And it kept me away from Baron Energies.”
“Makes sense. I can’t picture you working in an office.”
“No, that’s Lizzie’s area. I’d go completely crazy.”
“You said you had plans for the store. What are they?”
He couldn’t know how much it meant to have someone ask about her vision for the Peach Pit and seem genuinely interested. It touched her deeper than was probably wise.
“Gina and I produce pretty much everything now, but I’d like to devote a section to area craftspeople, people with a lot more talent than me. Continue to create new peach- and pecan-flavored bakery items, start a mail-order side to the business. Maybe even have tours of the farm, something that would bring in people by the busload and really make the venture profitable.”
“You should develop an agritourism plan and incorporate school groups into it. Evan’s brother has a farm in Tennessee, and school groups have been
a huge addition to his bottom line, especially in the fall. They have a pumpkin patch, hayrides, a corn maze, all kinds of stuff that the kids love.”
“That’s a great idea. Of course, we’d have to adjust it to our crops somehow.”
“You could host some sort of farm festival for the community.”
Excitement coursing through her veins, she pulled the small pad and pen from her purse and started jotting down all the ideas. “We could have a peach and pecan bake-off, a trail ride, dunking booth, roping lessons.”
“Cowboy poetry.”
She wrote that down, too.
Travis chuckled. “I was kidding on that last one.”
“No, it’s a good idea. It’s actually very popular. Jet’s even tried his hand at it.”
“Maybe I should start P.I. poetry.”
She wrinkled her nose at that.
“Okay, maybe not.”
Savannah was still writing down ideas as fast as she could when Wendy returned with a huge basket of ribs, a tub of coleslaw and another of potato salad.
“Oh, my God. That looks like an entire cow.”
Wendy laughed at Savannah’s assessment. “No one ever goes away from Amos’s hungry.”
After Wendy zipped away again, Savannah continued to stare at the mound of ribs for a few seconds, then lifted her gaze to Travis’s. “You’re going to have to roll me out of here in a wheelbarrow.”
As soon as she sank her teeth into the first rib, Savannah made a sound of appreciation. “I’m never eating barbecue anywhere else again.”
Travis grinned at her. “Maybe you can convince Amos to cater your festival.”
“Don’t tempt me. Only we’ll have to have a rule that everyone buys all their desserts from the Peach Pit first. They won’t have any room left afterward.”
Despite Travis’s bragging that he’d still have room for some blackberry cobbler when the ribs were gone, they only managed to eat half of them and a third of the two side dishes.
Savannah raised a mocking eyebrow at Travis as he leaned back in the booth with his hand on his stomach. “And he goes down in defeat.”
“I admit it. I feel like if I eat one more rib I’ll sprout horns and start mooing.”
Savannah wiped the barbecue sauce from her fingers and glanced at the long list of ideas they’d brainstormed. “Thanks for this.”
“Was nothing. Just tossing out any crazy thing that came into my head.”
“Well, it means a lot to me.”
“You already had a good foundation there. Sounds as if you’ve set the Peach Pit on the right path to growth.”
Savannah sighed. “I wish my dad could see what you do. Sometimes I wonder why I try so hard. It seems like no matter what I do with the store, he can’t see what is right in front of him.”
“Of course not. It’s your vision, not his. Not to mention he’s a stubborn old coot.”
Savannah laughed. “That he is.”
“You’ll just have to prove him wrong.”
Travis sounded so matter-of-fact, as if Savannah’s eventual success were a given, that something shifted inside of her. She was pretty sure it was her heart, and that she just fell a little in love with Travis. No one had ever accepted her vision as if it made perfect sense, as if he could see her dream realized as easily as he could see Amos Tucker dishing up countless baskets of ribs.
Movement at the front door drew her attention. “Crap.”
“What?” Travis looked over his shoulder.
“Yes, that would be my brothers who just walked in.”
Travis turned his gaze back to her. “It’s okay. We’re just two friends out having barbecue.”
She wanted to thank Travis for understanding, but Daniel and Jacob had already spotted them and were headed their way.
“Hey, Savannah,” Jacob said. “Fancy seeing you here.” He shifted his attention to Travis. “With a date.”
“And this is noteworthy?”
“Just didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”
“I wasn’t aware I had to run it by the entire family first.”
Travis leaned his forearms on the table. “Savannah and I ran into each other recently and decided to get together and catch up. It’d been years.”
Savannah admired how smoothly Travis had given that explanation without a hint that their night out was anything other than two old friends swapping tales about high school classmates. She supposed being smooth with half-truths would come in handy with his job.
“You should come over to the ranch sometime,” Daniel said. “We can all catch up.”
“Maybe I will.”
Jacob eyed the table next to them, as if willing the family sitting there to leave. But considering they’d just received their food, he was out of luck, thank goodness.
“You should try the ribs tonight,” Travis said. “They’re good. Hope you brought a big appetite though.”
After another moment, Jacob nodded. “Well, we better nab a table.”
Once Jacob and Daniel were out of earshot, she met Travis’s gaze. “Please ignore my hovering brothers.”
Travis shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be away from Jacob’s and Daniel’s watchful eyes, as she and Travis left the restaurant a few minutes later.
She wanted to recapture the warm feeling that had flickered to life in her chest at their little booth prior to her brothers’ arrival. But as Travis drove her home, she sensed a change in him. He was quieter, more distant. Her brothers might not have meant to put a damper on her date, but they had. Still, the closer they came to the ranch, the more she didn’t want the night to end.
As he parked in front of the Peach Pit, she tried to think of something to say that would extend the evening by even a few minutes. “We made it back without any flat tires or crazy storms. I guess that’s a step up.”
“Yes, but that means I still have an hour to drive home.”
Was he hinting that he wanted to come inside? Savannah had to admit that part of her wanted that very much, but she also knew she wasn’t ready to take that big of a step, especially after the run-in with Daniel and Jacob. Even if you counted her and Travis’s outing to the fair, they’d only been out twice.
She didn’t know what name to put on her feelings for Travis, but they were definitely more than professional or casual friends. But she didn’t know what the right move was at this point. She was used to casual dates, not ones that felt like...well, not exactly casual.
“Sorry about that,” she finally said when she realized she hadn’t responded.
He gifted her with a small smile. “No apology necessary. I had a good time.”
“Me, too.” Great, in fact. The quiet grew awkward, and she opened her door. “Good night, Travis.” She hopped out of the vehicle and headed for the porch before she could do something crazy like invite him to spend the night, and not on her couch this time. She already had too much on her mind. She didn’t need to add a serious relationship to the mix.
Her heart rate jumped into a higher gear when she heard Travis’s door shut behind her just as she reached the top of the porch steps.
“Savannah?”
She turned and watched him walk slowly toward her, still looking too good to be true in the dim light. “Yeah?”
“You going to let me take you out again sometime?” There was something in his expression, almost as if his thoughts were warring with each other, the ones prompting him to ask her out again barely winning.
“Maybe.” Damn if her voice didn’t crack a little.
The wooden steps creaked as he climbed one, then two, putting himself eye to eye with her. “I guess that’s better than a no.”
She smiled a little and reali
zed her butterflies had returned with a vengeance. “Be careful on your way home, okay?”
“Will do.”
She turned and headed for the door, but a voice inside her head started screaming at her to turn around, to not let him go. Not allowing the time to talk herself out of it, she changed directions yet again and crossed to Travis. She framed his face with her palms and brought her lips to his.
A solitary moment passed, probably as he processed the shock, maybe considered pulling away, before his arms came around her waist and tugged her close. As he deepened the kiss, his warm, firm lips taking more full possession of hers, her hands slid to the back of his neck. When he parted her lips and slid his tongue inside, she couldn’t prevent the sound of pleasure that escaped her. Travis reciprocated with a groan of his own and slid his hand up her back, leaving a scorching trail in its wake.
Savannah knew she should pull away, but the will to do so evaded her. Being held like this, kissed as if she were the last woman on earth, felt so good that she could stay there on the porch steps in Travis’s arms forever. But they eventually needed to breathe, and Travis was the one to break the kiss and take a step back.
“I think you should go inside, Savannah.”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. Had she just made a huge mistake? Had she misread his interest? No, how he’d kissed her said otherwise.
Travis caressed her cheek. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
“Okay.” She wasn’t able to disguise the doubt in her voice.
His thumb grazed her bottom lip. “The only reason I’m pulling away is because right now I want more than kissing. And if I’m reading you correctly, you’re not ready for that. I’m not sure I am, either, despite what my body is telling me.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh.”
He smiled at her. “Yeah, oh.”
Savannah took a step back, breaking contact. “Uh, well, good night then.”
“Good night.”
This time when she reached the door, she actually unlocked it and slipped inside, not allowing herself to look back at Travis. Because if she did, she wasn’t entirely sure they wouldn’t end up right where both of their thoughts had already taken them.