“French chef extraordinaire.” Travis’s reply cut off these disturbing musings. “The sucker just lives to cook!” he added with the smile that made her feel giddy and nearly stumble over her own feet.
“Watch it, darlin’,” he warned, running his eyes down the slim length of her white slacks to her rubber-soled shoes. “The carpet’s not always footwear friendly.”
His arm curved around her back as he helped her down the stairs; it was sure and strong, in no way overly familiar, yet she’d seen the gleam of appreciation in his eyes when he looked at her. His attentions left her oddly uncertain, breathless even, and she wondered why she couldn’t relax with him. This was Travis, a man she knew and trusted, not some stranger. With an effort to appear calm, she glanced about.
The yacht’s interior was done in turquoise and terracotta, with varying shades in between. The cooler hues ranged from the carpet’s rich blue-green to the soft aqua of the silk wall covering; warm earth tones in the upholstered furniture gave way to paler apricots and peaches in various accessories, and tasteful objets d’art graced tables and walls. Everything spoke of luxury and sophistication, with an emphasis on comfort, and was a far cry from anything in her experience.
And if the yacht’s interior wasn’t imposing enough, she was still all too aware of Travis’s closeness. Of the mere inches that separated them as he guided her past a grand piano to a cozy lounge with floor-to-ceiling windows affording a view of the bay. Here, two deep comfortablelooking velvet chairs faced a low table of heavy hammered brass; it bore a tray of delicious-looking hot hors d’oevres. A silver ice bucket held a foil-capped bottle; two fluted glasses rested beside it.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Champagne?”
He shot her a lopsided grin and winked. “Louis Roederer at last!”
“With or without marshmallows?” she quipped, still trying to ignore the effect he was having on her. But that was like trying to ignore a tidal wave, and the results were just as devastating. Tall, tanned and masculine to the last pore, his golden perfection radiated strength and quiet confi- dence. As he seated her, she caught the clean male scent of him; it mingled with the hint of salt air and sunshine that clung to his hair and clothes.
Taking a deep breath, she released it slowly, trying to dispel the teasing assault to her senses. Yet despite all this, she found herself regretting the loss of his warmth when he moved to his chair. What’s wrong with me? Do I want the nearness or don’t I? Make up your mind, Terhune!
“No marshmallows at the moment, darlin’, but if you want some—”
“Oh, no…no, that’s all right. Um, what were you saying about the chef?” She fiddled nervously with the ends of the knot that tied the tails of her navy silk blouse at her waist.
“Oh, Etienne.” Travis reached for the champagne. “He’s a former Michelin four-star chef, and a permanent fixture aboard. My father won’t say, but rumor has it he bribed him away from Onassis some years back.” He grinned. “We’ll be samplin’ his specialty for dinner.”
“Dinner?” She checked her watch; it was only four in the afternoon. “But I’m just here for a quick tour to—”
“To see if it’s safe for Matt to sail on the Sarah Anne, I know. But you can’t make that decision while she’s in port,” he added smoothly. “Any decent tour’s gotta include a little run across the bay.” He wasn’t about to add that Etienne’s dinner was scheduled to be served around midnight, and by then, they’d be far out to sea. Randi didn’t know it, but she was about to be courted. Yes, courted. An old-fashioned term, maybe, but he meant it, which was what had convinced Jill to agree to what he had in mind; he wanted to marry this woman, to build a life with her—and their son.
“Oh. I see.” She felt warmed and foolish at the same time. She recalled her disappointment back at the house, that he’d asked Matt and not her; yet it seemed she’d been invited to sail, after all. And these hors d’ouvres were just a beginning. Imagine—dinner by a four-star chef. She flashed Travis a bright smile. “How long a run?”
God, that smile! How in hell can they dub her an ice queen with a smile like that? A man could die happy, drinking it in. “Uh, how long? Oh, a couple of hours or so,” he said vaguely as he gently popped the champagne cork.
He told himself the white lie was necessary; his object was to help her past her fears, past the reasons she came across as an ice queen, and to do that, he needed a few days, at least. Besides, by the time she realized what was up, he’d have her too relaxed to care. He hoped so, anyway. If he didn’t, she’d likely never trust him again.
WHEN THEY’D CONSUMED enough champagne and hors d’ouvres to make Randi wonder how she’d ever make room for Etienne’s dinner, Travis introduced her to Captain Baker. Baker, who joined them in the lounge, was a soft-spoken man of about fifty, with silver hair and a closecropped beard to match. In his crisp navy jacket and white slacks, he looked like someone straight out of an ad in a yachting magazine.
For Randi’s benefit, the captain described the standard for maritime safety regulations. He also explained how the Sarah Anne met and exceeded the standard in every respect.
“Does that ease your mind, darlin’?” Travis asked after Baker excused himself to see about getting them under way.
“Oh…um, yes,” she answered tentatively. She’d had no idea of the extent of such regulations, and she certainly felt relaxed about the impending cruise. On the other hand, why was he insisting on taking Matt our separately? She’d feel a lot more at ease if she could go along when they…
Your little boy’s growing up, love. Jill’s words slipped into her thoughts, and Randi put a lid on her misgivings. Matt would be with Travis, and she trusted Travis, didn’t she? Of course she did.
As if on cue, with the captain’s departure, a sound system began to pipe in soft orchestral music. It was languid and dreamy, drenched in long mellow chords carried by the strings.
Travis smiled lazily and reached for her hand. “May I have this dance, ma’am?” Without waiting for a reply, he caught her hand and led her to a polished wooden floor tucked discreetly behind the piano.
As he took her in his arms and began to move to the soft romantic music, she felt light-headed. Maybe she should have passed on the champagne. Yet she suspected it wasn’t the champagne but Travis’s nearness that was intoxicating, stealing along her senses like curling wisps of smoke.
Since he was more than a head taller, she found herself breathing in the scent of him rising from his open-throated shirt: a faint hint of spice from the soap he’d used, maybe a trace of cologne, and the essence of clean healthy male.
“Penny for your thoughts, darlin’.” Throaty and low, his voice drifted somewhere over her ear. She had a fleeting thought that he was holding her just right: comfortably, and not too close, guiding her over the mirror-smooth floor with just the slightest pressure of his hand at her back.
“Mmm? Oh, I was just thinking what a good dancer you are.” She surprised herself with this. Jill had taught her to dance when they were teenagers, and she’d enjoyed learning. Yet she’d always hated school dances. Dancing meant being held by a male partner. She invariably found herself stiff and awkward in the embrace of some adolescent boy she barely knew. After a while she began to invent excuses for not going.
Later on, when she was in college, she limited herself to fast numbers that didn’t require the partners to touch. Yet even then, she’d had to force herself to participate. Just the sight of all those gyrating bodies on a dance floor made her uncomfortable. She realized with a start that Travis McLean was the first adult male who’d ever held her in his arms on a dance floor. More surprising yet, it felt…easy, as if they’d been doing it for years.
“Funny,” he murmured, “I was just thinkin’ the same ‘bout you. Knew you’d be a good dancer, though.”
She glanced up at him questioningly.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you? You’re grace itself, Randi. The way you move, the way you carry you
rself, it’s as if you can’t set a foot wrong if you try. Where’d you come by all that, hmm?”
“I—I’m not sure but, well, I guess it could come from athletics. I’ve always loved sports.” She laughed. “When I was a little girl, Daddy used to say I was a natural athlete and wasn’t I lucky. I could just plunge in and enjoy a sport, while the rest of the world had to work at it.”
Travis found himself as entranced by the sound of her laugh as he was by her smile. She didn’t laugh nearly enough and should do it more often. He made a mental note to work on it. “Sounds like your daddy was a real special person.”
“Oh, he was!” Her eyes closed for a moment and a soft smile curved her lips. The smile widened as she looked up at him. “He was a big blond bear of a man, and the gentlest person I’ve ever known. And he was funny. He was always making us laugh with the craziest antics you could imagine. Lord, when I think of some of the things he did, I still get the giggles.”
Travis smiled into her shining eyes. “Tell me,” he encouraged softly.
She chuckled. “I remember a Mother’s Day when I was about six or seven. Jill and I conspired with Daddy to surprise Mama with a special breakfast in bed. He woke us at an ungodly hour—it was still dark outside—and we sneaked downstairs to make flapjacks. Jill and I mixed the batter while Daddy fried sausages.”
Another chuckle. “Jill and I got flour everywhere, all over the kitchen and ourselves. But Daddy didn’t scold. He just announced that we’d all be clowns. Said flour made the best clown makeup in the world.
“And before we knew it, he was helping us smear butter on our faces and dust them with flour. We found a do-ityourself cake-frosting kit in the pantry, and we used the little tubes of colored frosting to draw clown eyes and big smiling lips. There was a powder room off the kitchen, and we closed the door before crowding around the mirror to apply our ‘makeup,’ so our giggles wouldn’t wake Mama.”
She smiled reminiscently. “Then we carried Mama’s breakfast to her singing ‘All the world loves a clown’ at the tops of our lungs. Lord, if Mama hadn’t been in bed, she’d have been on the floor she was laughing so hard.”
Chuckling, Travis executed a graceful spin on the dance floor that brought her closer, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was telling him about other comical things her father had done: the time he’d coaxed Jill into practicing her piano lesson by covering himself in tin foil and pretending to be a metronome; the way he didn’t just read bedtime stories, but acted out all the parts.
“Our favorite was Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are,” she finished. “The faces he made! And he roared the funniest loudest roars.”
Travis was still chuckling. “Sounds like one hell of a guy. Wish I’d known him.”
“I…I wish you had, too.” She thought of the things he’d told her about his own father, and her heart ached for him, for the child he’d been. “And I wish you’d had…uh, that is…” The words trailed off awkwardly, but Travis only smiled.
“Well, I didn’t,” he said, looking down at her as he drew her right hand to his chest and curled his fingers around it. “Have a warm ‘n’ lovin’ father, that is. But miracles do happen, even if they arrive a little late.”
He went on to tell her more about Trent McLean’s transformation. When he told her about his father’s eagerness to meet Matt and teach him to swing a golf club, his voice caught and he had to look away.
But she’d seen the sheen of moisture in his eyes, and was greatly moved by the certainty that the estrangement from his father had cut more deeply than he’d let on, for Travis wasn’t a man easily given to tears. That she somehow knew this, without understanding how she knew, was something she didn’t stop to ponder; it simply was.
“Travis,” she found herself saying in a burst of enthusiasm, “what if…well, I suppose we’ll have some careful explaining to do, to prepare Matt, but perhaps we can arrange for them to meet?”
He wondered if she realized what this would mean. Careful explaining could involve telling Matt who Trent was. And if he learned who Trent was, then it followed that he’d learn…His heart began to pound. Was that what she was saying? Did he dare pursue this now?
Randi watched a frown cross his face and misinterpreted it to mean he was uncertain about his father, after all. “I mean,” she hastily put in, “if your dad’s really had a change of heart…”
“He has,” Travis said, an image of his father in the living room at Sunnyfields that day filling his mind. He found himself suddenly blinking back tears as he looked at her. “He means it, Randi, though I sometimes need to mentally pinch myself to believe it.”
She smiled into his eyes. “I’m glad. Better late than never, as they say.” Searching his face, she gave her head a rueful shake. “I only wish it’d come while you were still…”
“I know,” he said quietly. They’d stopped dancing; the soft music flowed around them, blending with the easy movement of the yacht through the water.
“But it means just as much to me that it’s happened in time for Matt. I love that kid, Randi. I want a life that’s better for my son than what I’ve had. I mean, isn’t that what bein’ a parent’s all about? I know I’m no expert, but…” He shrugged.
She felt as if she could drown in the blue blue gaze that held hers. How had she ever doubted this man’s sincerity? His need to be involved in the life of the child he’d fathered, no matter how that had come about. His ability to care deeply for him in a healthy way, a selfless way.
“Sometimes, Travis,” she began quietly, “love creates its own expertise.”
A shaky smile trembled on lips that fought to contain a sob, and to conceal the emotions threatening to tear him apart, he captured her hand and led her to a sofa beyond the piano. Dear God, she’d accepted that he loved Matt! A small miracle in itself, he thought as his pulse tripped into double time. Now to work on the bigger miracle. Please, Lord, let me be right.
His emotions finally under control, he stopped before the sofa, lifted her hand and raised it to his lips. Placing a kiss on her palm, he closed her fingers over it, feeling a shiver course through her as he met her gaze. “Sit with me, darlin’. It’s time we talked ‘bout a few things.”
A look of uncertainty crossed her face. What things? she wanted to ask, but then he joined her, draping his arm along the sofa behind her back, and the words evaporated on her tongue. His nearness drove her crazy with an ambivalence she didn’t understand; she both wanted it and feared it, and she still didn’t know why.
“Randi,” he began, choosing his words carefully, “I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear you acknowledge my love for Matt. We’ve come a long way, darlin’, from that standoff on the beach.”
She nodded, managing a small smile. “You terrified me, you know, coming on the scene that way. All I could think of was—” she swallowed, staring down at her tightly folded hands “—that you’d come to take him away from me.”
“Oh, sweetheart—” he captured her chin, turning her face toward him “-not in a million years. But then, you couldn’t know that, could you? Lord, darlin’, I’m sorry. I should’ve been more sensitive. You didn’t know me well enough to realize I’m not—”
“Not the sort of man to do such a thing?” she said, stilling him with her fingers on his lips. “You’re right. I didn’t know that about you. I didn’t know you at all.”
“And now?” he asked, capturing her hand and kissing the tips of her fingers before releasing it.
Trying to ignore the wild leap of her pulse, she cocked her head to the side and managed a smile. “Well, uh, now that I know you a little better…”
He grinned. “Yes?”
“I know you don’t mean to…to do the things I feared back then. It isn’t in you. You…care.”
He nodded solemnly. He’d hoped she felt this way, sensed she did, but he wanted her to articulate her feelings. “And my presence in Matt’s life now? In both your lives?” He held his
breath. “Randi…where d’you see us goin’ from here?”
She swallowed past the lump of trepidation his words called up and didn’t answer. It was one of the things she’d been wrestling with, both awake and in her dreams. Matt’s asking about Travis being his daddy had brought such things to a head; she couldn’t continue to sweep them aside.
Travis chuckled softly. “I think we both know where Matt sees us goin’,” he said as if reading her mind. Again he turned her toward him; his gaze was intense as he studied her face. “I’d like him to know, Randi. I think I’d trade my soul for him to know I’m his father.”
“Don’t say that!” she exclaimed for want of something better to say. But she was stalling and she knew it.
“Just a figure of speech, darlin’,” he said. His gaze became even more intense. “But, Randi, I need for you to know how important this is to me…as I feel it’s important for Matt. For all of us.”
She swallowed and managed a small nod. It was out on the table now; more importantly, he was telling her the decision was hers to make. But could she do it? Make him Matt’s father in name, as well as in deed? Share her son?
There, she’d acknowledged it. That it sounded selfish was something she also realized, and she felt herself flush. But it was true, wasn’t it? She’d lived for five years now with the idea that Matt was hers and hers alone. She was a single mother—not an easy thing, by any means—but she’d done it, and she felt a certain pride in knowing she’d done it well.
But as a mother, a good mother, which was what she’d always tried to be, she had her child to think of first. And Matt wanted a daddy. He wanted Travis.
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