Hidden Desires (7 page)

Then you realize that the feelings are normal. You accept that it doesn’t make you a bad person. You accept that it doesn’t mean you don’t still love the person, or miss them any less.” She smiled wryly. “That’s what the therapists say, at least. When I get over my anger, I’ll let you know how I did it.” He looked back to those glassy sage eyes and allowed himself to smile. “I overreacted.”

“Shh,” she said, pressing a finger to his lips.

Through her tender touch, her understanding words, he was overcome with the urge to kiss her again, but he held the impulse at bay. The woman was like a skittish little squirrel, the slightest wrong move sending her scampering away. And right now, he really wanted her by his side.

“We’re two broken souls, aren’t we, Rachel?”

She grinned and blinked, causing a small crystal tear to drop from her eye and catch between those long, feathery lashes. He lifted a finger and brushed it away, then took her hand in his.

“Come on, let’s go come up with a new plan,” he said.

Chapter Five

The drive back to the city was a quiet one. A calming one. Rachel leaned against her seat and shot a sideways glance at Travis. His eyes were on the road, and his strong hands held the steering wheel with the utmost of ease. Her gaze drifted lower, to his wide mouth and firm lips. No, soft lips, she remembered, as the memory of their kiss wafted into her tired brain.

What was happening to her? Why did she feel like she’d boarded a roller coaster and was in the process of a series of exhilarating highs and crashing lows? Since Travis had walked back into her life, her emotions had been on edge. The battle still raged inside of her, a war of pain and bitterness, desire and hesitation. And her greatest weapon, that defensive shell she’d constructed over her heart, didn’t seem to be holding out. Travis was slowly finding his way in.

“Do you want me to come in?” he asked, his voice telling her he wasn’t going to force her into anything.

She saw the sun setting in the horizon, dipping below the skyscrapers and office buildings of the city.

Did she want him to come in? Yes. No. She didn’t even know anymore.

He pulled up in front of her building and stopped the car, watching her with an expectant expression.

Her heart thumped in her chest at the sight of his light-brown eyes. God, she did want him to come in.

She couldn’t bear being alone anymore, sitting in her lonely apartment and eating Chinese leftovers. Her home had always been her haven, her shelter from the storm of uncertainty that raged outside. She’d never brought a man into that shelter, until Travis.

“Rachel?”

Temptation swirled in her belly. She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t like to be alone.

Hattie doesn’t like to be alone.

The bitter, nagging voice in the backburner of her brain moved to the center. Her mother’s complete dependency on men and alcohol had always sickened her. She’d vowed never to be like the woman who’d failed miserably at raising her, and letting Travis in would be breaking that vow.

No matter how sincere he seemed, no matter how much her heart cried out for her to spend just another ten minutes with him, she couldn’t let down her guard. Suzanna always teased her, saying she’d end up an old spinster, but it was better to be a spinster than be used by a man. Even if that man was Travis Gage.

“I’m actually really tired,” she said quietly, reaching for the door handle. “Why don’t you call me tomorrow and we can figure out our next move?”

She saw disappointment flash through his eyes and had to wonder what evoked it. Was he disappointed at the thought of not spending time with her? Or disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to get her into bed?

Not wanting to find out, she said a quick goodbye and hopped out of his car. She didn’t turn back once to look at him. Instead, she darted into the building, said hello to the security guard, and took the elevator up to the sixth floor.

Inside her apartment, Rachel let out the breath she’d been holding since saying goodbye to Travis.

“I don’t need him,” she muttered to herself. “I don’t need anybody.” An hour later, as she sat on the couch and listened to the overwhelming silence of her apartment, she was still trying to convince herself of that.

Call her.

Travis ignored the little voice in his head and tried to focus on the stack of paperwork on his desk.

What he disliked most about his job was the paper pushing involved after the solving of a case. He loved the thrill of the chase, tracking down suspects, interviewing witnesses, studying old evidence to find new clues, but writing everything down? Well, that was tedious.

Call her
.

No. Not yet. He knew he ought to call Rachel and tell her everything he’d learned, but he simply didn’t have the heart to tell her. Which only pissed him off royally. He wasn’t the kind of man to shy away from saying what was on his mind. He was good at presenting the facts, whether they were positive or negative, and then detaching himself from the consequences. So why couldn’t he do that now, with Rachel?

The thought of seeing her big green eyes widen with confusion and disbelief made him hesitant to tell her the truth. She’d loved her sister, and he knew what he’d learned might hurt her deeply.

Damn that woman. Why did he suddenly care if she got hurt? He may have kissed her, yes. He was growing more attracted to her as each day passed, yes. But he feared he was getting too close and he wasn’t sure he liked it. Jess’s death, devastating as it was, had brought a new focus to his life. His partner called it a crusade, but to Travis it was simply a mission. Solving cases and saving people, that’s what he did now.

Did he want to save Rachel? Was that it? He’d thought he’d needed his own answers about Carrie’s suicide, but he had them now. The ones pertaining to him, anyway. And yet he was still involved. Still determined to help Rachel find the closure she wanted, the closure she
needed
in order to put her painful past behind her.

“Trav, turns out the neighbor in the Davis case remembers seeing our suspect the night of the shooting,” Matt said, poking his head into Travis’s office. “I told her we’d be over there in twenty minutes to take her statement.”

Travis nodded absently. “Give me two minutes. I’ll meet you downstairs.” Matt didn’t move. “What’s going on with you today? You’ve been distracted all morning.” He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to pry. “Does your distraction have anything to do with that woman you spent an hour talking to on the phone earlier?”

Travis ignored the question. “Two minutes. Downstairs.”

Matt disappeared into the hallway, and as Travis collected his jacket and badge, he wished he’d never decided to do a little digging of his own today. After the less than successful conversation with Layla yesterday, he’d decided to track down some faculty members from their old high school, teachers Carrie might have confided in. Mrs. Greenley, the guidance counselor, had immediately come to mind, and so Travis had found the woman, who now lived in Maine. Since a trip to Maine was not an option at the moment, he’d picked up the phone and called her. He hadn’t thought Rachel would mind if he handled the phone call on his own, and now, he was glad Rachel hadn’t been around to hear what Mrs. Greenley had to say.

“Travis, Matt says to get your butt downstairs before he arrests you for procrastination,” Jenny’s voice crackled from the intercom.

Rolling his eyes, Travis left the office and maneuvered through the station until he reached the front lobby.

“Two minutes, my ass,” Matt cracked as he spotted Travis. “Ready to do your job?” Travis shot his partner a lazy grin. “I’m always ready to do my job.” By the time Travis called her at six o’clock in the evening, Rachel was near ready to pass out. She’d waited all day for his phone call, especially after the mysterious message he’d left on her cell phone around noon.

There’s a new development in our investigation. I’m on a case right now, but I’ll call you later to talk
about it.

She’d been hoping
later
would be an hour, two at the most. But six hours? Didn’t the man realize his cryptic message would spur her curiosity? Didn’t he realize that she’d never be able to focus on her work after he’d dropped that bomb on her?

She’d left the studio early and gone back to her apartment, just in case Travis called her at home, and she’d spent the last two hours sitting by the phone and sending telepathic messages for it to ring.

And now that it had, she hadn’t been expecting Travis’s first sentence.

“I’m taking you out to dinner.”

She almost dropped the phone. “What?”

His husky voice sent shivers through her body. “I’m starving. I’ve been working all day, so I thought maybe we could get a bite to eat. We can talk over dinner.” Impatience tugged at her insides. A bite to eat? How could she possibly eat when these new developments lingered in the air?

As if taking her silence as a sign of agreement, Travis said, “I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. See you soon.”

She heard a click in her ear and hung up the phone, feeling perplexed. She was desperate to know what Travis had found out today, but along with desperation came a tingle of apprehension.

Was this a date? No, it couldn’t be. It was a business meeting, that’s all. Besides, she didn’t date. She had no need for that awkward social ritual which revolved around only one thing—sex.

Rachel glanced down at the ratty sweatpants and baggy T-shirt she wore. She needed to change.

Not because it was a date, she thought quickly as she made a beeline for her bedroom. She didn’t want to look good for Travis. Nope. She just didn’t want to go out in public looking like a bag lady.

Ten minutes. Not nearly enough time to spruce herself up for this date.

It’s not a date!

She stood in front of her closet and examined the contents. After a moment, she grabbed a knee-length black skirt and an emerald-green sleeveless top. She dressed quickly, and then rushed over to her vanity table to brush her hair. She saw a tube of lipstick next to her hairbrush and eyed it warily. Did women wear lipstick to business meetings?

She fiddled the small tube between her fingers, just as the ring of the telephone echoed in her bedroom. The short rings indicated that someone was downstairs, wanting to be let up. Travis.

Before she could analyze her motives, she smeared red lipstick over her lips and reached for the phone.

“I’ll be right down,” she said into the receiver.

She hurried back to the living room and rifled around for her purse and keys. After she had everything, she took the elevator downstairs.

The second she saw Travis standing in the lobby, she regretted her efforts for beauty.
He
obviously didn’t see this as date, she noted, as she took in his appearance. He was dressed casually, in blue jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. She suddenly felt silly in her skirt. Suddenly wished she could wipe that lipstick off her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Hi,” Travis said as their eyes locked.

She swallowed. “Hi.”

“Ready to go?”

“Sure.”

She followed Travis to his car, which was parked in the no-parking zone in front of her building. She raised her eyebrows as he opened the passenger door for her.

“Do cops not need to obey the law?” she asked, pointing to the no-parking sign.

Travis shot her a delicious-looking grin. “Special privileges come with the job.” She settled in her seat as Travis walked around the side and got in the car. “Where are we going?” she asked as he pulled away from the building.

“The Owl Pub. Is that okay with you?”

A snake of sickness slithered up her body, crawling around her stomach before traveling north to form a ball of acid in her throat. The Owl Pub. Or Marty’s Diner, as she better remembered it. The diner had been
the
hangout for the popular kids in high school back in the day. It was the place kids went to after school, on the weekends, where guys took girls for milkshakes before they went to the movie theater nearby. It had been transformed into a pub about five years ago, but Rachel hadn’t ventured inside the place since the one humiliating time she’d been there. There were too many bad memories there.

Swallowing back the acid in her throat, she had the urge to tell Travis to go somewhere else, but she felt a little presumptuous doing do. “It’s fine,” she lied.

The pub was a ten-minute drive from her building, and when they neared the small establishment, her stomach churned. The bright neon sign read something different, but she could still remember the one and only time she’d been inside. With Scott Wade, a boy she’d had a crush on. She’d been so thrilled when Scott had asked her out, so impressed when he’d brought her to this cool place for their date. And so damn shattered when he’d tried to have sex with her in the alley behind that cool place.

What’s the matter, Foster? Think you’re too good for me?
His harsh laughter still rang in her ears.

Well, that’s not what I hear. You’ll do it with anyone. Just like your whore mother.

“Rachel? You okay?”

She pushed aside the painful recollection and forced a smile. “I’m fine. Let’s go in.” They walked into the pub, and Rachel was grateful to see that the interior had been completely transformed. Instead of booths, the place now boasted scattered tables and a small dance floor. Instead of bright fluorescent lights, a dim yellow glow bathed the room, mingling with the cigarette smoke that hung in the air. The front counter had been turned into a bar, and Rachel saw that only adults occupied the stools.

This wasn’t the same place, and with the new atmosphere, she didn’t feel as uneasy.

Travis led her to a table in the corner of the room, and they sat. Seconds later, a tall, redheaded waitress sauntered to their table with a pair of menus.

“I have a weakness for bar food,” Travis admitted, perusing the menu. “There’s something about juicy burgers and greasy fries that really gets my blood going.” Rachel picked up her menu and pretended to study it, but inside, she was trembling. It wasn’t burgers and fries that got
her
blood going. It was this attractive, no,
sexy
man sitting in front of her.