into the high cab on her own while he secured the tailgate. She slid across the blanket-upholstered seat and straddled the gearbox with her legs, bracing for a very long three-hour ride.
Nicole plopped in beside her, grinning as she slammed the door of the truck and began rolling down the window. “Thanks. You’re cool, Eden. And I can already tell my daddy’s got the hots for you.”
“Nicole!” Eden’s heart sank as she felt the detested blush flame her cheeks. “You don’t know what you’re—”
“Psych!”
Nicole giggled, then, seeing Eden’s puzzled expression, she explained, “That means I was just kidding—wanted to see what you’d do. Boy, I’m sure glad I don’t blush like that! Hey, look at that buff guy…” She swiveled toward the open window, craning her neck to see past the side mirror.
Eden shrank into the upholstery, willing herself to vanish as Travis swung in beside her and buckled himself into the driver’s seat. Too late, she realized what close quarters the inside of a pickup truck could be. Barring visible contortions, there was no way she could sit comfortably without pressing against him from shoulder to knee.
A flutter of panic teased Eden’s diaphragm, climaxing in a nervous hiccup. Travis’s eyes stared straight ahead beneath the brim of his Stetson, as if she did not exist. His jaw tightened as he jammed the key into the ignition, then, as the engine roared to life, thrust his hand between her knees to grab the gearshift knob. Eden pressed her lips together as the oddly intimate contact touched off a little scherzo of hiccups.
Edna Rae had returned in all her glory.
Travis shot her a sidelong glance as he backed out of the parking space. “Put your seat belts on, ladies,” was all he said.
“Oh, you’re such an old fussbudget!” Nicole fumed. But she did snap her shoulder harness, then reach around to help drag the ends of Eden’s lap belt from under the back of the seat.
“Daddy, we need to stop and get sodas,” she piped up.
Travis ignored her. His elbow grazed Eden’s breast as he negotiated the corkscrew exit of the airport parking garage, igniting a tingle of awareness that caused them both to jerk apart.
“We need sodas,” Nicole persisted. “Eden’s got the hiccups. Listen.”
“I’m fine—really.” Eden punctuated her protest with an ill-timed hic as Travis pulled through the parking tollgate.
“Well, the sodas are going to have to wait till we get a few miles down the freeway,” he said. “There’s no place to stop out here.”
“Please don’t bother on my account,” Eden said, feeling woefully out of place. She did not belong in this role, playing buffer between a father and his willful young daughter. She especially did not belong in this truck, scrunched tight against the man who had made her pulse skitter since she was as young as Nicole. She was sick and tired of attractive males. Most of them, she’d sadly learned, were bullying, self-centered manipulators, and Travis Conroy was clearly no exception.
So why, then, was she reacting to him like a teenager in hormone overdrive?
Eden sat rigid as glass, excruciatingly aware of the heat that simmered along the line where her thigh lay against his. He smelled of the outdoors, of grass and sun and the kind of good, plain supermarket soap her mother always bought on sale. His flesh was warm and hard through the worn fabric of his jeans.
She took a deep breath, struggling to ignore the forbidden flutters his touch aroused in her body. A downward glance confirmed that her nipples had shrunk to tight little raspberries. They stood out through the wispy silk of a blouse she would never have chosen to wear without the concealing jacket. Too late, she missed the briefcase she’d allowed Travis to stow in the back. At least, she could have clutched it to her chest and hidden herself behind it.
Eden hiccuped wretchedly as the dry summer wind blasted her face through Nicole’s open window. The bus would have had air-conditioning, but she had no right to complain. She’d gotten herself into this mess. If she was miserable, it was no more than she deserved.
Lending Nicole her jacket had been an act of pure impulse, well motivated perhaps, but not well thought out. She had wanted to be friendly to the girl and to ease Travis’s obvious discomfort with her appearance. It had not occurred to her that she was walking into her own trap until it was too late to back out.
But why had she really done it? Eden scrunched, into the Navajo-blanket upholstery, lost in speculation. Did she feel some need to repay Travis Conroy for the embarrassment she’d caused? Or had she just wanted to show him that she was a big girl now, and savvy enough to handle a willful fourteen-year-old?
Oh, what was she doing here? If she had any sense, she would leap out of the truck, flag down a taxi and head straight for the bus depot!
The worst part was the way Travis had lapped it all up. He probably thought she was great with teenage girls. Well, she wasn’t. Apart from the memories of her own painful adolescence, she understood nothing about them, especially pretty, self-assured creatures like Nicole. To her, they were like bubbly little space aliens, beings from a world she had always envied but never inhabited.
Travis’s knuckles bumped her knees as the truck growled into second gear. Eden tensed, fearful of what the contact might arouse in her.
She could hold her own in the workplace, where she knew exactly what was expected. But when it came to relationships, especially with men, Edna Rae was alive and well. A few months ago she had almost believed she could change-but no, she could not afford to think about her broken engagement now. She would only get maudlin, and that wouldn’t do. Especially not in front of Travis Conroy.
She would make the best of the next three hours, Eden resolved with a hiccuping sigh. She would be civil to Travis and patient with the high-spirited Nicole. And when the ride was over, she would thank them kindly and run for her life—or at least for her sanity.
She would have to.
Any way you looked at him, Travis Conroy was trouble, more trouble than she ever wanted to deal with again.
Travis shifted into third, his wrist skimming Eden’s thigh as the truck ground up the on-ramp and nosed onto the interstate. He was making every effort to appear cool, but the veneer was already wearing thin. The changes in Nicole had thrown him off balance, and now, with no time to recover, he found himself plastered side by side against one of the most disturbingly attractive females he had ever encountered.
And the hell of it was, she was Edna Rae Harper.
This was crazy, Travis lashed himself as he gunned the engine and roared into the center lane. This lady was the original ugly duckling. Worse, her misguided fantasies had triggered one of the most embarrassing episodes of his life.
All he had ever wanted to do with Edna Rae Harper was forget her.
He stared fixedly at the black butt of the Pontiac LeMans in front of him, doing his damnedest to keep his eyes off Eden’s peach silk blouse. The way the fabric clung—No, he vowed, not one glance. But even the best intent could not stop his imagination from working. Her fragrant warmth invaded his senses, stirring a vision of ripe peaches in the summer sun, round, lush, silky to the touch of his fingertips…
