Larkspur Road (5 page)

This has to be more than mere stress because her mother’s just gotten married for the third time and going on an extended honeymoon. And because her dad has a new wife and son.

But…what?

Slipping out the front door, she headed back to the Jeep. The day was warming now, the sun glowing in the sapphire Montana sky. She stripped off her hoodie and tossed it in the backseat. With just her tank top and jeans, the sun felt good on her bare shoulders. She climbed behind the wheel and began automatically organizing her priorities.

First things first. Winny. Then home to play peacemaker with Samantha and Britt.

Lucky me,
she thought ruefully, starting the engine. A fun-filled day of Quinn women family drama.
Not
.

Though the smells of fresh coffee, fried eggs, sausage, and warm banana bread wafted through the Sage Ranch kitchen, Travis scarcely noticed. He barely even noticed the frantic activity outside as his brother’s two rescued dogs, the gangly black mutt Starbucks and the little brown and black Tidbit, with his stubby tail, chased each other around the perimeter of the house—until they sounded a frantic joint alarm after spotting a squirrel impinging on their territory.

“Hey, quiet, guys,” he ordered through the open window, halting the racket as the squirrel made its escape into the woods, and one of the horses whickered from the corral. Both dogs turned to gape at him, tails wagging.

Ah, home on the range. Where the dogs and the horses play.

Travis resumed rinsing his plate in the sink, then set it inside the dishwasher, hoping the two mutts hadn’t wakened Grady, still asleep upstairs as of fifteen minutes ago when he’d last checked.

The boy was as worn out as a stub from that two-day drive. And who knew, maybe from all the tension in his life—and, if Travis knew Val—from all the yelling. The kid had been through a lot in the past forty-eight hours—uprooted from his home, transported hundreds of miles to a place he scarcely remembered, plopped down amid family he barely knew.

My fault,
Travis thought as his older brother ambled into the kitchen.
I should have been there for him, kept him attached, connected to the ranch, to the family. But I was too busy with the FBI, chasing bad guys and trying to keep our undercover alive—while letting my kid’s life go all to hell.

He had a brief image of Nichols, the grungy undercover agent he and Joe had been monitoring for months. Nichols had infiltrated one of the largest human smuggling rings in the country, working hand in glove with soulless thugs who traded in human misery. They’d been trying to keep Nichols safe and alive as he stockpiled a landslide of evidence. Ironic that at the end of it all, it was Joe, tough, gritty Joe, Travis’s grizzled veteran partner, who’d ended up dead in the blink of an eye.

“I wouldn’t give a plug nickel for your thoughts right now,” Rafe commented drily, pouring himself a cup of coffee and automatically refilling Travis’s cup. “Looks like you woke up on the dark side of the planet.”

“Guess you could say that. The planet of hard truths.”

Rafe’s brows rose. “Such as?”

“I let Grady down. Big-time. I should have been paying more attention, visiting the kid a hell of a lot more and making sure he spent some time with me in Arizona. And here on the ranch.” Travis grimaced. “I’m legally his dad—and maybe if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in trying to bust that damned smuggling ring these past months, I’d have noticed that my own boy was in trouble.”

“He was with his mom—you thought he was covered.
Give yourself a break. You
did
bust that smuggling ring. Your country thanks you. So how long until the bureau needs you back?”

Travis frowned out the window at mountain peaks rearing up like giants to punch the June sky. It was a much better sight than a lot of what went on inside his head these days, like the dark trails he’d followed recently, the hellish sounds of human screams and gunfire that came back to him unbidden—and far too often—in the middle of the night. Not to mention the endless reports and paperwork, the interrogations and directives from rigid, out-of-touch supervisors who hadn’t set foot in the field for decades.

He was burned out. Trying to come to grips with Joe’s death. He needed this change. Needed at this point in his life to shift gears.

He’d almost forgotten how beautiful it was here. How peaceful. Arizona had its own wild spare beauty, but Montana…Montana was both lush and hard, a land of contrasts with its soft meadows and sharp peaks, its creeks and cattle, white-tailed deer on distant bluffs, mountain goats and elk.

It was at times an unforgiving and possibly dangerous land that welcomed visitors, challenged them, and nurtured them with deep beauty and adventure—even as it tempted them across high ridges and isolated hills where the unwary could topple off a cliff into a bottomless ravine or stumble across a puma or grizzly.

This land was good to those who called it home. It cradled its cities and towns in rough-hewn grandeur and it nourished cattle and horses and everyone who loved wide-open spaces. And it seemed to Travis it had always cupped the gentle community of Lonesome Way with particular care, tucked as it was in the shadow of the Crazy Mountains.

“Travis? Where’d you go?” His brother’s voice pulled him back to Sage Ranch. “How long until you have to report back to the bureau?”

“Good question.”

“You got a good answer?”

“Yeah.” Travis spoke quietly. “Maybe never.”

There was silence in the kitchen as he turned to meet his brother’s eyes.

“Care to explain what that means?”

“I requested an official leave of absence. And I’m considering making it permanent.”

Startled, Rafe set down his mug of coffee. “Does this by any chance have something to do with losing your partner so suddenly? I know you were close to Joe Grisham, but do you really think he’d want you to—”

“Joe’s death was a body blow, but it doesn’t have anything to do with why I’m leaving the bureau.” Pacing across the kitchen with the smooth deliberate gait of a federal agent at ease with his own strength, savvy, and skills, Travis took a seat at the table where he’d shared countless meals with his parents, his brothers, and his sister. For a moment, it almost seemed as if he could hear their voices all at once, teasing, laughing, arguing with each other over big country breakfasts, quick lunches, and hearty suppers.

With an effort, he shook off the ghosts and reeled his thoughts back to the present, meeting his brother’s intent gaze.

“Joe’s heart gave out. It might have happened anytime; it just so happened that he got hit with that heart attack in a hospital while waiting to interview some scumbag human trafficker who’d been shot by another agent on our team. Even the doctors on-site couldn’t save him. It was too fast, too devastating.”

His voice was low. The grief still sat on his chest like a fifty-pound anvil. “I still think about Joe’s wife, the way she looked when she got there.” Travis’s mouth tightened as he remembered Caroline’s eyes, dazed with grief, how her small, sturdy body seemed to fold in upon itself as he kept her from crumpling to the spotless hospital floor.

“They’d been married thirty-seven years.”

Rafe nodded. “And you’ve been partnered with him for the past six.”

“Yeah.” It was a vastly inadequate response. But Travis had no words to express what Joe Grisham had meant to him. His heart felt leaden with the same weight he’d borne when his parents died. Joe had been more than his partner. The tall, grim-faced agent, always fighting a paunch, always quick with a story about the old days, had been his mentor, his friend, his ally from almost the first week he’d joined the bureau. And Caroline—she’d become like a second mother to him.

Which was why he’d spent nearly every off-duty moment of the past month helping her sort through all the legal and financial matters bombarding her after Joe’s death. Why he’d tried to be there for her whenever he could while still following every lead to tie up the last case he and Joe would ever work together.

“I miss Joe,” he said gruffly. “But that’s not the reason I’m thinking of moving on from the bureau.”

“And that would be…?”

Travis frowned. “Too many suits. Breathing down my neck for too many years. Tight-assed, pencil-pushing supervisors on power trips. Sometimes, big brother, a man can only take so much red tape crap. It’s time for a change.”

“Maybe you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and do some real work. Come into the horse ranching business with me.” Rafe grinned. “Maybe we’ll kidnap Jake from the rodeo life and rope him in, too.”

“Haven’t you heard? Kidnapping’s a federal offense.” Travis spread his big hands on the table. “Besides, I’ve got another idea circling in my head.”

He laid out for Rafe what he was thinking. First about settling down in Lonesome Way, fixing up his cabin. And then his business idea. Starting up his own private security company, designed solely to protect individuals, corporations, and organizations.

The notion of being his own boss had started appealing to him six or seven months before. He sure as hell knew enough former FBI, Secret Service, and military personnel to power ten companies. He had the know-how, the contacts, and the experience to make it work. And he could do it all from the comfort of a rented office in town and a home office he intended to build on his two hundred acres of land just north of Sage Creek.

Rafe gave a low whistle. “Maybe I should think about going into business with
you
,” his brother joked. “Guess my wife isn’t the only entrepreneur in the family.”

“Speaking of Sophie—she call yet? Any word on Aiden?”

Travis’s sister-in-law had whisked his nephew to the pediatrician early this morning. The little boy had been under the weather for the past few days and today had started running a fever.

“He has a double ear infection. Sophie’s picking up a prescription right now at Benson’s Drugstore. They’ll be back soon.”

“Aw, poor kid. I heard him crying in the middle of the night—he sounded miserable. He’s plenty cute, though, bro.” Travis cocked a brow. “Good thing he got his mom’s gorgeous looks. The boy’s going to break a few dozen hearts in a couple of years.”

“Why not? Runs in the family,” Rafe drawled.

Travis eyed him across the table. “You got something you want to say? Seems to me you did your share of heartbreaking in your younger days.”

“I was an amateur compared to you and Jake.”

“Bullshit. Jake’s a serial heartbreaker. He has a different girl every month. I only…” He stopped.

“Broke one heart? That what you were about to say?” Rafe took a slow sip of coffee.

“Why are we talking about this?” There was an edge to Travis’s voice.

“No reason.”

“You got something to say, bro, spit it out.”

The dogs began to scratch at the kitchen door and Starbucks let out a single bark. Rafe pushed to his feet, let them in. The moment they were inside they rushed toward Travis, clamoring for his attention. Rafe watched in amusement as Travis scratched both mutts behind their ears.

“Mia still lives in town, you know.” Rafe spoke casually. “She teaches fifth grade at the middle school.”

The words made Travis’s back go up. He stopped petting the dogs and they pattered to their water bowls and drank.

“So?” he asked in his most indifferent drawl.

“So…I saw how you looked at her at my wedding. It was pretty funny—a grown man, one who women seem to find attractive, though I can’t for the life of me figure out why.” Rafe’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “And yet, this beautiful woman you used to date wouldn’t give you a glance, let alone the time of day—much less her cell phone number.”

“Let it go, Rafe.”

“Just trying to get things straight.” His brother shrugged. “Does Mia have anything to do with why you’re back in Lonesome Way?”

“What if she does?” Now why did he say that? He could have just said
Hell no.
But that would’ve been a lie. He’d been thinking about Mia ever since the wedding. Maybe not every minute, but steadily, relentlessly.

Picturing her in that red dress. Curvy, sophisticated, sexy as hell. Her full mouth and thick-lashed amber eyes a combustible combination of sexy and sweet. Hard to believe she was even more beautiful now than she’d been in high school. But she was probably a completely different person from that sixteen-year-old girl, just as he was no longer that eighteen-year-old jerk who’d left her high and dry.

They didn’t even know each other anymore. And yet…at the wedding, seeing her, something had happened to him.

He hadn’t been able to get Mia—the petite, gorgeous, self-assured woman Mia was now—out of his mind.

She wasn’t the reason he was back. Not the sole reason, at least. But a part of him had to admit, the idea of returning to Lonesome Way, of starting a business in the town where he’d grown up, where his family lived, where he had roots, had seemed even more appealing because he knew she was still there.

And still single.

It hadn’t taken an FBI agent to determine that. Lissie, now and then, seemed to enjoy catching him up on the goings-on of the town and that had included mentioning Mia. She always made it sound casual, but he wondered if there was more to it. Knowing his sister, there was.