Smooth Talking Stranger

EIGHTEEN

During the next month we spent every night together, and all the weekends, and still it seemed that I could never see Jack enough.

There were moments when I hardly recognized myself, laughing and playing like the child I had never been. We went to a roadhouse honky-tonk, where Jack led me onto the wooden dance floor, sticky with the residue of beer and tequila, and taught me how to two-step.

Another day we went to an indoor butterfly garden and let hundreds of colorful wings flutter around us like confetti. "He thinks you're a flower," Jack whispered in my ear as one of the butterflies perched on my shoulder.

He took Luke and me to an arts and flowers market, where he bought me a huge basket of handmade soaps and two pails of melting-ripe Fredericksburg peaches. We dropped off one of the pails at his father's home and visited for about an hour, going out to the back with him to view a putting green that had just been installed.

Discovering that I had never played golf, Churchill gave me an impromptu putting lesson. I told him I didn't need to take on a new hobby that I was bad at, and Churchill told me that golf was one of the two things in life you could enjoy even if you were bad at them. Before I could ask what the other thing was, Jack shook his head with a groan and dragged me out of there, but not before his father had made him promise to bring me back soon.

There were elegant occasions when Jack and I attended a charity event for the Houston Symphony, or went to the opening of an art gallery, or out to dinner at a luminous restaurant located in a renovated 1920s church. I was amused and also annoyed by the reactions of other women to Jack, the way they fluttered and flirted. He was courteous but distant, but that only seemed to encourage them. And I realized Jack was not the only one with a possessive streak.

I relished the weekend afternoons when I hired a babysitter to look after Luke, and I went up to Jack's apartment. We lay together for hours, talking or having sex, sometimes at the same time. As a lover, Jack was inventive and skillful, guiding me into new levels of sensuality, easing me back carefully. Day by day I felt myself changing in ways that I couldn't bring myself to examine. We were getting too close, I knew that, but I couldn't think of how to stop it.

I found myself telling Jack everything about my past, things I had previously confided only to Dane, memories still painful enough to make my eyes water and my voice crack. Instead of saying something philosophical or wise, Jack simply hugged me, offering the comfort of his body. It was what I needed most. But I often felt the tension of conflicting desires when I was with Jack. I was so powerfully drawn to him, and yet also trying hard to maintain any fragile barriers I could. And he was so damnably smart, too smart to push me. Instead, he seduced me constantly, with gentleness and strength, with sex and charm and steely patience.

One day jack brought luke and me to gage and Liberty 's home in the Tanglewood subdivision, for an afternoon of swimming and relaxation. He explained that he would have to spend part of the time helping his brother Gage work on a twelve-foot salt bay skiff they were building in the garage. It had started as a project for Liberty 's eleven-year-old sister, Carrington, whom Liberty had raised since birth. Gage was helping her to make the small boat, but they needed an extra pair of hands to get the job done.

Tanglewood was in the Galleria area, the residential lots generally smaller than River Oaks, the main boulevard lined with live oaks and wide paths and benches. Gage and Liberty had bought a tear-down property, one of the last few crumbling "rambling ranch" homes built in the fifties, and they had built a European-style mansion of limestone and stucco, with a black slate roof. The entrance featured a two-story rotunda and a curving staircase with a wrought-iron balustrade, and more ironwork at the circular balcony of the second-floor level. Everything was serene, agreeably textured and roughened, as though it was a centuries-old home.

Liberty welcomed us at the door, her hair pulled back in a pony-tail, her slim but curvaceous figure dressed in a neat black swimsuit and a pair of frayed denim shorts. She wore flip-flops decorated with sequined fake flowers. Liberty had an interesting quality I could only describe as wholesome sultriness, a sort of clear-eyed, sexy niceness.

"I love your shoes," I said.

Liberty hugged me as if I were an old family friend. "My sister Carrington made them for me at summer camp. You haven't met her yet." She stood on her toes to kiss Jack's cheek. "Hi, stranger. We haven't seen much of you lately."

He grinned at Liberty while he held Luke against his shoulder. "Been busy."

"Well, that's good. Anything that keeps you out of trouble." She took the baby from him and cuddled him. "You forget how little they are at the beginning. He's adorable, Ella."

"Thanks." I felt a glow of pride, as if Luke were my own child instead of Tara 's.

Two new figures entered the hall- Liberty 's tall, black-haired husband, Gage, and a young blond girl. Carrington looked nothing like Liberty, which led me to conclude they were half-sisters.

"Jack!" she exclaimed, hurtling toward him, all skinny legs and flying braids. "My favorite uncle."

"I already said I'd help with the boat," Jack said ruefully as she tackled him.

"It's fun, Jack! Gage banged his finger and said a bad word, and let me use the cordless drill, and I got to hammer nails into the side boards-"

"Cordless drill?" Liberty repeated, darting a half-worried, half-chiding glance at her husband.

"She did great." Gage smiled and reached out to shake my hand. "Hi, Ella. I see your taste in company hasn't improved."

"Don't believe anything he tells you, Ella," Jack said. "I am and always have been an angel."

Gage snorted.

Liberty was trying to look at Gage's hand. "Which finger did you hurt?"

"It's nothing." Gage showed her his thumb, and she frowned as she inspected the place on the nail that had begun to bruise. I was struck by the way his expression changed as he looked at his wife's down-bent head, the way his eyes softened.

Retaining his hand in hers, Liberty glanced at her little sister. "Carrington, this is Miss Varner."

The girl shook my hand and smiled at me, revealing two crooked front teeth. She had porcelain skin and sky blue eyes, and a barely discernable tracery of pink lines on the bridge of her nose and her forehead, as if she'd been wearing a mask.

"Call me Ella, please." I glanced at Liberty and added, "She was wearing protective eyewear, by the way."

"How did you know?" Carrington asked, impressed and mystified. Before I could answer, she caught sight of Luke. "Oh, he's so cute! Can I hold him? I'm really good at holding babies. I help with Matthew all the time."

"Maybe later when you're sitting down," Jack said. "For now, we got work to do. Let's go have a look at the boat."

"Okay, it's in the garage!" She took his hand and tugged eagerly.

Jack resisted for a moment, looking at me. "You okay hanging out with Liberty by the pool?"

"There is nothing I'd rather do."

Liberty took me through the house and out to the back. She carried Luke, cooing to him, while I followed with the diaper bag. "Where is Matthew?" I asked.

"He went down for his nap a little early today. The babysitter will bring him out when he wakes up."

We went through a kitchen that looked like something out of a rustic French chateau. A pair of French doors led to a fenced-in backyard, which was landscaped with a green lawn, flower beds, and a party deck with a grill. The dominant feature of the half-acre yard was a stone-and-tile pool made of two connecting lagoons, one shallow and one deep.

The end of the shallow lagoon ended in a sandy white shore with a real palm tree growing in the center. "Hawaiian sand," Liberty said, laughing as she noticed my interest. "You should have seen us picking it out-the landscaper must have brought twenty samples, while Gage and Carrington tried to figure out which kind would make the best sandcastles."

"You mean it was shipped all the way from Hawaii?"

"Yes. A truckload. The pool guy wants to kill us on a weekly basis. But Gage decided it would be fun for Carrington to have her own little beach. He would do anything for her. Here, let me hand the baby to you, and I'll turn on the misters."

"Misters?"

Liberty went to flip a switch near the barbecue pavilion, activating nozzles that had been recessed in the deck to create a light cooling mist around the pool.

I was very nearly awed. "That is amazing," I said. "Don't take this the wrong way, but your life is unreal, Liberty."

"I know." She made a face. "Believe me, this isn't how I grew up."

We settled into a couple of green cushioned patio chairs by the pool, and Liberty adjusted an overhead umbrella to shade Luke as I held him.

"How did you meet Gage?" I asked. Although Jack had told me their father Churchill had introduced Liberty to the family, I didn't know the particulars.

"Churchill got his hair cut at the salon where I worked, and we became friends. I was his manicurist for a while." Liberty glanced at me with a spark of mischief in her eyes, and I knew she was studying my reaction. No doubt most people made a lot of assumptions based on that information.

I decided to be blunt. "Was there anything romantic between the two of you?"

Liberty smiled and shook her head. "I loved Churchill immediately, but not at all in a romantic way."

"He was a father figure, then."

"Yeah, my own dad died when I was young. I guess I always had a feeling of something missing. After we'd known each other a couple of years, Churchill hired me as a personal assistant, and that was when I met the rest of the family." She laughed. "I hit it off with everyone except Gage, who was an arrogant jerk." A pause. "But very sexy."

I grinned. "I'll admit, the Travis men have some great DNA going for them."

"The Travis family is… unusual," Liberty said, kicking off her flip-flops and stretching out her tanned, gleaming legs. "They're all very strong-willed. Intense. Jack's the most easygoing of all of them, outwardly at least. He's sort of the mixer of the family-he keeps everything balanced. But he can be stubborn. He does things his own way, and he's willing to butt heads with Churchill when necessary." She paused. "You've probably figured out by now that Churchill is not the easiest of fathers to get along with."

"I know he has high expectations of his children," I said.

"Yes, and he has strong ideas of how they should live, what choices they should make, and he gets mad or disappointed when they don't do things his way. But if you stand your ground with Churchill, he respects that. And he can be incredibly caring and under-standing. I think the more you get to know him, the more you'll like him."

I stretched out my legs and studied my unpolished toes. "You don't have to talk me into liking Churchill or the other Travises, Liberty. I already do. But this relationship between Jack and me isn't going anywhere. It's not going to last."

Liberty 's green eyes widened. "Ella… I hope you won't let Jack's past reputation get in the way. I've heard some of the stories about him running wild around Houston. He's sown his oats, though, and I think now he's finally ready to settle down."

"It's not that-" I began, but she interrupted earnestly.

"Jack is one of the most loving, loyal guys you could ever meet. I think it's been hard for him to find a woman who could look beyond the money and the Travis name, and want him for who he is. And Jack needs someone who is strong and smart enough to handle him. He would be miserable with a passive woman."

"What about Ashley Everson?" I couldn't help asking. "What kind of woman is she?"

Liberty wrinkled her nose. "I can't stand her. She's the kind of woman who has no female friends. She says she just likes men better. And what does it say about a woman who can't be friends with other women?"

"It says she's competitive. Or insecure."

"In Ashley's case, probably both."

"Why do you think she left Jack?"

"I wasn't around at the time, but Gage was, and he says the problem with Ashley is that she can't ever stick with any guy for long. Once she gets a man, she's bored and wants to move on. In Gage's opinion, Ashley never meant to end up married to Pete. She would have divorced him right away if she hadn't gotten pregnant."

"I don't get why Jack fell in love with her in the first place," I grumbled.

"Ashley is good with men. She knows all the football stats, and she hunts and fishes, and she cusses and tells filthy jokes, and on top of all that she looks like a Chanel model. Men love her." Her mouth quirked. "And I'm sure she's great in bed."

"Now I can't stand her, either," I said.

Liberty chuckled. "Ashley is no competition for you, Ella."

"I'm not competing for Jack," I told her. "He already knows that I'm not interested in getting married, ever." I saw her eyes widen. "It has nothing to do with how great he is," I continued. "I have a lot of reasons for being this way." I gave her a sheepish smile. "And I'm sorry if I sound defensive, but telling a married person you never want to get married is like waving a red flag at a bull."

Instead of looking offended or trying to debate the matter, Liberty nodded thoughtfully. "That must be frustrating. It's hard to swim against the tide."

I liked her even more than I already did, for such ready acceptance of my feelings. "It was one of the great things about my boyfriend Dane," I told her. "He never wanted to get married, either. It was a really comfortable relationship."

"Why did you break up with Dane? Was it because of the baby? "

"Not really." I pulled out of the diaper bag an infant toy, a musical inchworm, for Luke to play with. "Looking back on it, I guess there wasn't enough to hold me and Dane together. Even after all the years we'd spent with each other. And when I met Jack, there was something about him-" I stopped, conscious that for all the variety of words I knew, there was no way to describe why and how I had been so completely captivated by Jack Travis. I looked down at Luke, stroking back the little dark feathers of his hair. "Hey, why are we with Jack?" I asked him, and he gazed back at me as if similarly mystified.

Liberty laughed gently. "Believe me, I know. Even when I couldn't stand Gage, it seemed like the temperature in the room went up about a hundred degrees whenever he was there."

"Yes. That's the fun part, the attraction. But I don't see the relationship lasting forever."

"Why not?" Liberty seemed genuinely puzzled.

Because I lose everyone I care about, sooner or later. I couldn't say that aloud-although it had a potent inner logic for me, I knew it would make me sound crazy. There was no way to explain that the very thing I craved, the intensity of a relationship with Jack, was what I feared most. It wasn't a rational fear, of course… it was purely visceral, which made it that much harder to fight against.

I shrugged and made my lips in the shape of a smile. "I think I'm just the flavor of the month as far as Jack is concerned."

"You're the first woman he's ever brought around the family," Liberty said in a low voice. "He could get serious in a hurry, Ella."

As I cuddled Luke and struggled with my thoughts, I was relieved when Liberty 's nanny emerged from the house with a robust, handsome toddler. The boy was dressed in a swimsuit and a T-shirt printed with cartoon lobsters.

"Matthew, honey…" Liberty hopped up and went to get him, lavishing him with kisses. "Did you have a nice nap? Do you want to play with Mommy? We have a friend visiting, and she brought her baby… do you want to see him?" He responded with an enchanting wide grin, conversing with his mother in a few garbled sentences, his plump arms wrapped around her neck.

After giving us a cursory inspection, Matthew decided that playing in the sand was far more interesting than the new baby. Liberty stripped down to her swimsuit and took her son to the edge of the water, where they sat and began to fill a bucket with sand. "Ella, come put your legs in the water," she called. "It feels great."

I was dressed in a printed halter top and matching Bermuda shorts, but I had packed a swimsuit. Pulling it from the diaper bag, I said, "Give me a minute to go and change."

"Sure. Oh, this is our nanny, Tia… let her take care of Luke while you put on your swimsuit."

"Is that okay?" I asked Tia, who came forward with a smile.

"Yes, he's no problem," she exclaimed.

"Thank you."

"There's a guest bathroom off the kitchen," Liberty told me, "or if you need a little more space, go into any of the upstairs bedrooms."

"Got it." I went into the house, relishing the coolness of the kitchen, and found a small bathroom with earthy-hued striped walls and a stone vessel sink and a black-framed mirror. I changed into my pink swimsuit, a retro-styled one-piece. Padding barefoot through the kitchen, carrying my clothes, I heard the sound of voices, one of them Jack's deep murmur. The voices were accompanied by hammering and sawing, and the occasional squeal of a power drill.

I followed the sound to a partially opened door that led to the spacious garage, where a huge shop fan circulated the warm air. The space was brilliantly lit from the secondhand sunlight that bounced in through the open garage doors. Tapping the door a little wider, I watched unobserved as Jack, Gage, and Carrington worked on the wooden skiff, which was propped up on padded sawhorses.

Both Jack and Gage had removed their shirts in the heat. I wondered wryly how many women would have paid good money to see the two Travis brothers dressed only in jeans, all sun-burnished muscles and long, lean bodies. As my gaze lingered on Jack's sweat-glittered back, I had a flash of recent memory, my hands urgently gripping those hard muscles on either side of his spine, and a pleasant riff of awareness went through me.

Carrington was busy spreading a thick layer of glue on the last of three strips of wood that would be joined and fastened to the top edge of the skiff as a gunnel. I had to smile at the sight of Gage crouched beside her, murmuring instructions, holding back one of the braids that threatened to drag through the glue.

"… and then at recess," the girl said, squeezing a huge bottle of wood glue with both hands, "Caleb wouldn't let anyone else play with the basketball, so Katie and I went and told the teacher-"

"Good for you," Gage said. "Here, put more glue on the edge. Better to use too much than not enough."

"Like this?"

"Perfect."

"And then," Carrington continued, "the teacher said it was someone else's turn to play with the ball, and she made Caleb write an essay about sharing and cooperation."

"Did that fix him?" Jack asked.

"No," came Carrington's disgusted reply. "He's still the terriblest boy you could ever meet."

"They all are, honey," Jack said.

"I told him you were going to take me fishing," Carrington went on indignantly, "and you know what he said?"

"That girls aren't good at fishing?" Jack guessed.

"How did you know?" she asked in amazement.

"Because I was a terrible boy once, and that's probably what I would have said. But I'd have been dead wrong. Girls are great at fishing."

"Are you sure about that, Uncle Jack? "

"Of course I-wait a minute." Together Jack and Gage lifted the assembled wood strips and fit them to the edge of the boat.

"Sweetheart," Gage murmured to Carrington, "bring that bucket of clamps over here." Carefully he placed clamps along the gunnel, pausing to adjust the wood strips when necessary.

"What were you saying, Uncle Jack?" Carrington pressed, handing him some paper towels to wipe up dripping glue.

"I was about to ask you: Who is the fishing expert in this family?"

"You."

"That's right. And who's the expert on women?"

"Uncle Joe," she said, giggling.

"Joe?" he asked in feigned outrage.

"Humor him, Carrington," Gage said. "Otherwise we'll be here all day."

" You're the expert on women," Carrington told Jack promptly.

"That's right. And I'm here to tell you, some of the best anglers in the world are women."

"How come?"

"They're more patient, and they don't give up easy. They tend to fish an area more thoroughly. And women can always find the spot with the hidden boulders or underwater weeds where fish are hiding. Men, we just look right past those spots, but women always find 'em."

As Jack spoke, Carrington caught sight of me in the doorway, and she threw me a grin. "Are you gonna take Miss Ella fishing?" she asked Jack, who had picked up a Japanese saw and was cutting off the protruding end of the gunnel at an angle.

"If she wants to," he said.

"Is she gonna catch you, Uncle Jack?" Carrington asked slyly.

"She already did, darlin'." At the sound of her titter, Jack paused in his sawing, followed her gaze and saw me standing there. A slow smile spread across his face, and his gaze turned dark and hot as he glanced over my pink swimsuit and bare legs. Dropping the saw, he muttered to the other two, " 'Scuse me, I've got to talk to Miss Ella about something."

"No, you don't," I protested. "I just wanted a peek at the skiff. It's beautiful, Carrington. What color are you going to paint it?"

"Pink like your bathing suit," she said cheerfully.

Jack was coming toward me. I retreated a few steps.

"Don't take him away for good, Ella," Gage said. "We still need to fasten the gunnel on the other side."

"I'm not taking him away at all, I… Jack, get back to work." But he headed for me without pausing, and I giggled and retreated into the kitchen. "Leave me alone, you're all sweaty!" In a few seconds, I found myself pinned against a countertop, his hands gripping the beveled granite edge on either side of me.

"You like me sweaty," he murmured, his denim-clad legs corralling mine.

I leaned backward to avoid contact with his damp chest. "If I have caught you," I told him, still giggling, "I'm going to throw you back."

"You only throw the little ones back, darlin'. The big ones you keep. Now give me a kiss."

I tried to stop smiling long enough to comply. His lips were warm as they moved over mine, the kiss erotic in its careful lightness.

After the boat-builders had finished gluing and nailing the gunnels in place, they cooled off in the pool, and we spent the rest of the afternoon lazing and swimming. Lunch was brought out, big bowls of field greens tossed with grilled chicken, red grapes, and walnuts, and we shared a bottle of ice-cold white burgundy in chilled glasses. The nanny took the children inside the cool house, while Gage, Liberty, Jack, and I ate at a table shaded by a huge umbrella.

"I'm making a special toast," Gage said, lifting his glass. We paused and looked at him expectantly. "To Haven and Hardy," he continued, "who by now have become Mr. and Mrs. Gates." He smiled as we all stared at him in surprise.

"They got married?" Liberty asked.

"I thought they were going to Mexico for a long weekend," Jack said, looking torn between pleasure and annoyance. "They didn't say anything to me about any wedding plans."

"They had a private ceremony at Playa del Carmen."

Liberty was laughing. "How can they get married without us? I can't believe they wanted privacy for their own wedding." She turned a mock-scowl on Gage. "And you didn't say anything to me. How long have you known?" But she was glowing with obvious happiness.

"Since yesterday," Gage said. "Neither of them wanted a big show. But they're going to plan a big celebration party when they get back, which I told Haven was a fine idea."

"I think that's great," Jack said, raising his glass to the unseen couple. "After everything Haven's been through, she deserves any kind of wedding she wants." He took a swallow of his wine. "Does Dad know?"

"Not yet," Gage said ruefully. "I guess I'm going to have to tell him… but he won't like it."

"He approves of Hardy, doesn't he?" I asked with a touch of concern.

"Yeah, he's given his blessing to the match," Gage said. "But Dad never misses the opportunity to turn a family event into a three-ring circus. He wanted to be in charge of it."

I nodded, understanding immediately why Haven and Hardy hadn't wanted their wedding to be a big production. For all that they were a friendly and gregarious couple, they were both protective of their private life. The feelings cut too deep for them to be put on display.

We all drank to the newlyweds and talked for a few minutes about Playa del Carmen, which apparently was known for its beaches and fine fishing, and was far less touristy than Cancun.

"Have you been to Mexico, Ella?" Liberty asked.

"Not yet. Eve wanted to go for a while."

"We should go one of these weekends, all four of us, and take the kids," Liberty told Gage. "It's supposed to be a good place for families."

"Sure, we'll take one of the planes," Gage said easily. "Do you have a passport, Ella?"

"No, not yet." My eyes had widened. "The Travises have a plane?"

"Two jets," Jack said. A smile touched his lips as he saw my expression. He picked up my free hand and played with it lightly. I supposed that by then I should have been used to the little shock that occurred whenever I was reminded of the financial stratosphere the Travises occupied. "Gage," Jack said to his brother, still staring at me, "I think the mention of the planes is scaring Ella. Tell her I'm a regular guy, will you?"

"He's the most regular guy in the Travis family," Liberty told me, her green eyes twinkling.

I couldn't help laughing at the qualifier.

Liberty smiled. And I realized she understood how I felt. It's okay, her gaze seemed to say. You'll be fine. She lifted her glass again. "I've got some news to share, too… although it's not a surprise to Gage." She glanced at Jack and me expectantly. "Guess."

"You're pregnant?" Jack asked.

Liberty shook her head, her smile widening. "I'm going to start my own salon. I've been thinking about it for a while… and I thought before we had another child, I'd like to do this. I'm going to keep it small and exclusive, just hire a couple of people."

"That's wonderful," I exclaimed, clinking my glass with hers.

"Congratulations, Lib." Jack extended his own wineglass and followed suit. "What are you going to call the place?"

"I haven't decided yet. Carrington wants to call it Clippety-Do-Da or Hairway to Heaven… but I told her we have to be a little bit classier."

"Julius Scissors," I suggested.

"Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow," Jack joined in.

Liberty covered her ears. "I'll go out of business in the first week."

Jack raised his brows into mocking crescents. "The big question is, how is Dad going to get more grandchildren? That's a Travis wife's job, isn't it? You're wasting prime childbearing years, Lib."

"Stow it," Gage told him. "We're just now starting to catch up on our sleep, with Matthew getting a little older. I'm not ready to go through it again just yet."

"No sympathy from this side of the table," Jack said. "Ella's been going through all of it-the sleepless nights, the diapers-for a kid who's not even hers."

"He feels like mine," I said without thinking, and Jack's fingers tightened protectively on my hand.

There was silence except for the quiet spray of the misters, and the splashing waterfall.

"How long do you have left with the baby, Ella?" Liberty asked.

"About a month." With my free hand, I reached for my wineglass and drained it. Ordinarily I would have put up a bright false smile and diverted the subject. But in the company of sympathetic listeners, with Jack beside me, I found myself saying what I really thought. "I'm going to miss him. It's going to be hard. And lately it's started to bother me that Luke won't remember the time he spent with me. The first three months of his life. He won't know any of the stuff I did for him-I won't be any different to him than a stranger off the street."

"You won't be seeing him, after Tara takes him?" Gage asked.

"I don't know. Probably not often."

"He'll remember deep down," Jack said gently.

And as I looked into his steady dark eyes, I found solace.