by Kara Lennox
ELENA FORCED BACK her tears as her father revved the engine of his SUV and put it in gear. “Papa, you have no idea what you just did.”
“I saved you from a life of ruin. That’s what I did.”
“Oh, what, you imagine that I’m some virgin whose reputation you have to protect, so you can marry me off?”
“A woman’s reputation is important.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not a virgin.”
“I knew it! That man ruined you. He is going to have to pay—”
“No, Papa. I lost my virginity in college. And I’ve had lovers since then, too. Will you please get your head out of nineteenth-century Cuba?”
He paid her no attention. “I’ll ask Cesar to pick up your things. I would do it myself, but I am afraid of what I might do to that man.”
That wouldn’t be happening, but she didn’t argue. She would wait until they got home. Her mother would calm her father down, make him see reason. Maybe they didn’t like Travis. That was their right, their choice. But they couldn’t stop her from seeing him. Or continuing to live with him, for that matter, though she had a terrible feeling he no longer needed a nanny.
“The social worker was at Travis’s house to approve him as a foster parent. You showing up and acting like a crazy person, making threats—you probably ruined that for him.”
“What kind of social worker lets a kidnapper have a child?”
“He would have been a wonderful parent. He was so excited. You should have seen how he decorated MacKenzie’s room. And he hung this tire swing in the backyard and he was asking me about what kinds of foods kids like...” She couldn’t go on. Her voice was cracking, her eyes filling with tears.
“Pequeña, don’t cry. That man has brought nothing but trouble into your life. Since you met him you’ve left your job, you’ve upset your mother, you’ve compromised your reputation—where will it end?”
He was wrong. Travis had brought a lot more than trouble into her life. He’d brought something warm and alive and wonderful to her. He’d allowed her to hope and dream and plan, to work toward something really good.
And now her father had spoiled it.
Of course her papa didn’t understand. He thought he was protecting her. But did he have to be so...so Cuban? Elena’s mother was actually standing on the front porch, wringing her hands, when Elena and her father pulled into the driveway.
“I told him not to go,” Rosalie said the moment Elena got out of the car. “I told him not to interfere, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I’m so sorry, Elena. I wasn’t going to tell him but he found out somehow—”
“A guy called me,” Elmer said as they all went inside the house. “Said I should talk to the police about my daughter’s kidnapping. You think I should have just ignored him?”
Elena stopped in the foyer. She had a bad feeling about that phone call. “What man? Did he give his name?”
“Actually, he made a point of giving his name. Stover.”
“Stover. That jerk,” she muttered.
“You know this Stover?” Rosalie asked.
“I know of him. He was the foster father to MacKenzie, the little girl I was going to be looking after. He was doing some bad things—Travis reported him to the authorities and they took MacKenzie away from him. Now I guess he’s returning the favor.” Stover had probably done some research on Travis, looking for something he could use to hurt Travis’s reputation, and he’d found the arrest record.
“You have no concept, do you?” Elena continued. “By showing up at Travis’s house acting like a lunatic, you’ve ruined four lives.”
Her mother led them all into the kitchen. She rubbed the top of Elena’s back, right along her spine, as she’d done when Elena was a girl, to soothe the pain of a skinned knee or when she’d been teased at school. “What four lives, pequeña?”
“Travis’s, for starters. He was finally starting to believe in himself, to believe he could make a positive change, that he could do something good for his brother. Now he’ll just go back to thinking he doesn’t deserve to succeed or be happy. MacKenzie’s—she’d have had a happy home with her uncle Trav, someone who truly loves her and wants what’s best for her. Eric’s, MacKenzie’s father—because MacKenzie is going to get adopted before Eric’s proven innocent, and he’ll lose her forever. And mine.”
Maybe it was melodramatic to say her life was completely ruined, but it sure felt like that in the moment. “I know you can’t see it, but Travis is a good man. Yes, he has a criminal record. But all he did was defend himself. And, yes, he did kidnap me. But I was never in any danger. He treated me with the utmost kindness and respect. All he wanted was for Daniel to look into his brother’s case. All he wanted was to get his brother out of prison, because Eric didn’t kill his wife.”
“How do you know any of this is true, Elena?” her father asked. It was a reasonable request. All she had on most of this information was Travis’s word.
“I know. I am a good judge of character. Everything Travis has told me is the truth. He is a man with integrity. And I think...I think I might be falling in love with him.”
It was all too much for Elena. How could everything have gone so wrong, so fast? She felt so helpless. There was nothing she could do to help Travis now except... She could be with him. She never would have left that house in the first place, except that was the most expedient way of removing her father from the scene.
“Elena, please.” Her father sounded as if he was about to cry, too. He never could stand her tears.
She pulled herself together as best she could. “Now that we’ve cleared everything up, I’m going back to Travis’s house. My house.” At least for now. He wouldn’t want her to stay there—he’d only grudgingly agreed to let her move in, and only because he was in desperate need of childcare. But she couldn’t let him deal with this setback alone, to think she didn’t care.
“You can’t go back there,” her father declared. “I forbid it.”
“Elmer.” Rosalie jumped to Elena’s defense. “Our daughter is a grown woman. You can’t forbid her to do anything. You’ll only make her more determined. And you’re due at the hospital in thirty minutes.”
“If you defy my wishes, daughter, I will disown you.”
“Elmer!”
“Sorry, Papa,” Elena said sadly. “I have to do what my heart tells me.” She walked over to the small table by the front door, where a bowl full of change sat. She fished out a handful of quarters.
“Elena,” Rosalie said, “what are you doing?”
“Bus fare. I’ll pay you back.” She gave her mother a hug and a kiss, and did the same for her father, who grudgingly returned the affection. Then she walked out the door.
* * *
FOR THE FIRST few minutes after Elena and Missy left, Travis operated on autopilot. The rain was clearing up. He called his roofing guy, Paulie, and asked him to round up a crew to fix his roof. He went upstairs and cleaned up the mess in MacKenzie’s room. Or rather, the room that would never be MacKenzie’s. He brought a ladder upstairs and got a good look at the damage. A couple of support beams were rotted; he’d have to replace those. Then a large sheetrock patch, some mud, some paint—he’d been planning to repaint this room, anyway.
He was going to let MacKenzie pick the color. Now maybe he’d just go with white.
Anyway, he couldn’t do any of that until the roof was fixed. He put another tarp down on the floor to protect it from fallout during the repair.
It was noon, and he knew he should be hungry, but the thought of food was unappealing. He could get in his truck, check on the Marigold Circle house, but Leo was there and he would let Travis know if there were any problems.
When he realized he was wandering from room to room like a ghost, he stopped and forced himself to sit d
own and think. What the hell should she do? Did he have any recourse? Maybe once Missy had a chance to think about it, she would change her mind. He could try to make her understand...but hell, there was no getting around the fact that he had kidnapped a woman. It didn’t matter that, in her broad-mindedness, Elena had forgiven him. He’d still done the deed.
For the hundredth time, he wished he could go back to that morning when he’d shown up at Daniel Logan’s house and choose a different path.
The doorbell broke into his thoughts. What the hell? The way this day was going, it could only be trouble, and he thought about ignoring it. But the bell rang again; whoever was there wasn’t going away. He made his way to the door and yanked it open. “What?”
Elena was standing there, looking like an angel. She must have come to collect her things—at least her purse. She’d left with only the clothes on her back.
“Travis. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah. Of course.” He stepped aside and she entered.
“It was my father who showed up here acting crazy. He ruined everything. I should have anticipated that something like this might happen. I never told him the truth about...about how we met—”
“That I committed a felony against you. Let’s not sugarcoat it at this late date.”
“Whatever. I told you he had a temper. I knew if he found out—if Mama told him—he would explode.”
“Still not your fault.” God, she was so beautiful. More than anything he wanted to fold her into his arms, to feel her heart beating against his. He wanted to strip her clothes off and bury himself in her and stay there forever.
“If I hadn’t volunteered to take care of MacKenzie, if I hadn’t pushed—”
“If I hadn’t thrown you into the back of my truck. How about that?”
“I just feel so bad about...about all of it. I understand why you did it. I forgave you. So why can’t everyone else?”
“Because that’s not how the world works, Elena. People are full of anger. No one wants to forgive anyone for anything. They want revenge. They want to see people pay. The fact that you’re so understanding and forgiving, that’s great, but you can’t expect the rest of the world to hop on board the peace train with you.”
“Well, I’m sorry, anyway.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
She frowned disapprovingly. “If you say so. Are you giving up? Because I never took you for a quitter.”
“I don’t think you understand. Game over. Missy isn’t going to change her mind.”
“What if I talk to her? I could take her out to lunch and take the time to explain what really happened.”
Travis shook his head. “I looked into that woman’s eyes. Her mind is made up. Even if I did what I did for the most sympathetic reasons, I still have ‘poor impulse control.’ I still committed a serious crime.”
Elena digested this for a few moments. “Are you going to make me move out? It would be extremely uncomfortable staying with my parents.”
“Then maybe you should ask Daniel for your old job back.”
She flinched. He felt bad for hurting her, but it had to be done. Elena needed to unhitch her wagon from his—sooner, rather than later. Her father was right. She was ruining her chances to succeed on her own by associating with him.
“I know the nanny job is off the table,” she said. “But you could use a business manager.”
That threw him. “Excuse me? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Travis, you’re really good at what you do—building, repairing, renovating. But let’s face it, there’s only so much business you can carry around in your head. You need someone to organize you, to do your billing, your accounting. Do you even own a filing cabinet?”
“That is beside the point. Me and my freakish memory carry the business just fine. I’ve been doing it that way for years.”
“But wouldn’t you like your business to grow? I’ll work for free. If I can’t significantly increase your income within a couple of months, fire me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re trying to fix something that’s not broken. You’re trying to fix me. When my ex and I got divorced, I swore I would never be some woman’s project. I’m not a diamond in the rough—I’m a plain old rock. And you know what? The world needs rocks. You want a diamond? Look elsewhere.”
She stared at him without speaking for a good thirty seconds. “I like rocks.”
For God’s sake. “Get your things. Get out. Leave me be.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You are the most obstinate woman I’ve ever met!”
“I’ve been called worse.”
If she wouldn’t leave, then he would. Because if he stayed, with her looking up at him with those doe eyes, he was going to cave in and take the temporary comfort she offered. He turned his back to Elena and strode through the kitchen to the garage door, grabbing his jacket on the way out.
Elena trailed behind him. “Wait. Where are you going?”
“I’m doing what I should have done from the beginning. I’m going to find out who killed Tammy. If Project Justice won’t do it now, I will.” He hit the garage door opener and climbed into his truck.
The brazen woman clearly wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She had his passenger door open before he could lock it.
“Elena—”
“Just shut up and listen to me, you pigheaded ass!”
* * *
ELENA DIDN’T THINK too long about what she wanted to say. She’d shocked Travis into silence, but it wouldn’t last long.
“Maybe last night didn’t mean anything to you. Okay, I get it. I’m the one who seduced you, and it’s not like you promised me anything. So forget the whole idea of us as a couple. And forget me working for you. It was pushy of me to even suggest such a thing. You’ve been running your business for a long time, and clearly it’s working for you. I made the mistake of visualizing how Daniel would have done things. But Daniel is Daniel and you are you, and I didn’t mean to judge you.”
“Last night did mean something to me,” he objected. “I shouldn’t have...knowing there was no future—”
“I don’t want to rehash it, okay? You don’t owe me an explanation. I want to talk about what’s going on here, right now.”
“I told you. I’m going to find the real murderer.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“Well...I thought I would start by talking to the detective who worked on the case. See if they’ll let me look at the case file.”
Elena made a sound like a buzzer. “Wrong answer. I can guarantee you the detective will blow you off. The case is solved as far as he or she is concerned, and he has zero interest in anyone trying to prove he arrested the wrong guy. The police don’t let civilians anywhere near their notes or evidence. Especially when appeals are still ongoing.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve been privy to how Project Justice works for a while now. Daniel gets involved in all the more difficult cases. And when he’s involved, I’m there—taking notes, acting as a sounding board. I understand how cases get solved. If finding Tammy’s murderer is really what you’re after, I can help. Let me help.”
She could tell Travis wanted to object. He couldn’t seem to understand why she wanted to help, but she was tired of trying to explain it to him.
“So you don’t want anything in return?”
She shook her head.
“Elena, there’s no such thing as an utterly selfless act. Everyone acts in their own self-interest. People give to charity so they can brag about it, or at least know th
ey look good to the accountant who does their taxes. If not that, then they do it to feel good about themselves. That’s the payoff.”
“Okay, if you just have to assign me a motive, I want to feel good about myself.”
“I think it’s more than that.”
She made a strangled noise of sheer frustration. “Of course you do.”
“You’re angry with Daniel. And you’re trying to get back at him the only way you know how—by allying yourself with someone he finds...appalling.”
Elena shook her head. “That’s not the reason.”
“Then why?”
She was scared to admit her true motivation—that she couldn’t stand the thought of Travis going it alone. He’d spent way too much of his life alone. He might not know it, but Travis Riggs needed people in his life. He needed a child of his own to spoil and nurture. He needed love.
“Can’t you just accept that I’m here because I want to be here?” she finally asked. “If I can help you accomplish your goal, why do you care what my reasons are?”
“I don’t want you hurt.”
“I’m not going to get hurt.” At least, not physically. Her heart was a different matter.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I can’t fight you anymore. You’re like the wind— relentless, blowing sand at a rock until the rock wears away. So, tell me. How do Project Justice cases get solved?”
ERIC’S HOUSE WASN’T terribly far from Travis’s—it only took about seven minutes to get there.
“I hadn’t realized your new house was so close to your brother’s.”
“I go to Eric’s every couple of weeks to mow the lawn, keep it looking decent enough to make the neighbors happy. I passed that ‘rent to own’ sign probably a dozen times before I really noticed it.”
Travis pulled into the driveway of the elegant colonial and cut the truck’s engine. A forlorn “for sale” sign, a bit faded now, stood in the yard.
“It’s a gorgeous house,” Elena couldn’t help commenting. “What a shame that someone can’t overlook the tragedy and turn it into a happy home again.”