when Libby had been two months old. The baby had been going through cranky spells in the middle of the night, and Marlene had said the only way she’d found to calm her was by rocking her, rubbing the small of her back and singing the Oscar Mayer wiener song—a ditty she’d accidentally discovered the baby enjoyed when it’d soothed her while Marlene had been up watching TV.
Humming the familiar strains, Travis clutched his niece as if his life depended on her. Hell, maybe his life did depend upon her. Ever since hearing of Marlene’s death, he’d been so wrapped up in the logistics of getting to IdaBelle Falls and making sure Libby ended up with him that it hadn’t even sunk in that his funny, opinionated, cute, talented sister was gone.
With Libby sound asleep against his chest, her slight weight and warmth bringing unfathomable comfort, Travis looked up to find Kit swiping at a few tears of her own.
“We have a winner,” she softly said.
Beulah snorted. “No one told me we could use the rocking chair. Oldest baby trick in the book. He clearly cheated. But seeing how I’m a God-fearing woman, I won’t be one to go back on my word. Long as you keep an eye on him, Kit, Travis’s welcome to take my grandbaby to her home. But if he so much as breathes a word about heading back to Chicago…”
“THANKS FOR YOUR HELP back there,” Travis said from behind the wheel of Levi’s truck. Libby was buckled into her safety seat on the passenger side, leaving Kit in the middle to care for her. Travis had to admit—out of Beulah’s earshot, anyway—he knew just enough to be dangerous when it came to caring for an infant.
When Marlene and Gary had named Travis as Libby’s godfather, he’d taken the title seriously, but it’d never occurred to him he’d actually wind up one day becoming the girl’s substitute father. In fact, the couple had often teased him that eventually, once he had kids of his own, he’d see there was more to life than business. Laughing, he’d always said, Yeah, yeah, that day’ll never come. Yet look at him now. An instant father halfway wondering if maybe Libby would be better off living with her grandmother.
“Not a problem,” Kit said. “I was winging it, hoping like the devil you’d remember Marlene’s wiener-song trick.”
“She never told Beulah?” Coming to a four-way stop on the dirt road, he cast a sideways glance at Kit. Back in the blazing heat, her skin glowed. She’d had her dark hair up all day, but sweat-dampened tendrils escaped. She’d raised her skirt above her knees, baring endless tanned legs that, on countless sweltering nights in Foster’s swimming hole, she’d wrapped around him, giving him teenage hard-ons so intense they’d hurt. Then, one thing had led to another and he was burying himself deep inside her. She’d made everything better. Good. Whole.
Why had he never told her how much she’d brought to his life?
With a sharp laugh, Kit said, “To say the two didn’t get along would be the understatement of the century.”
“Yeah. On a few of her calls, Marlene intimated as much. Said Beulah didn’t approve of her cooking.” Even as Travis had spoken, he couldn’t take his eyes off the elegant column of Kit’s throat. He should’ve told her. Maybe before returning to Chicago he would. Assuming he found the right moment or—
“Um, Travis?” She glanced at him curiously. “You forget how to use the gas pedal? I’d like to get Libby out of this heat.”
“Oh, sure.” He checked the intersection again and pressed the gas.
Truth be told, Kit thought, who she really wanted out of the heat was herself—only the rising temps in the truck’s cab had nothing to do with Mother Nature and everything to do with the boy she’d once fancied herself in love with who’d turned into one heckuva hunk of man. Not that she found him more attractive than Levi, just that she felt an unexpected familiarity with Travis and, in the same breath, a rush of city excitement and attraction she’d thought forever gone. On many lonely nights, wished forever gone.
She’d worked hard to get over what her mother and friends had considered a high school crush. So hard that after graduation she’d fallen right into another impossible relationship with Brad Foley, a B-movie actor in town filming a period piece about moonshining. After being burned twice by city guys looking for a temporary good time, Kit had learned her lesson and was now glad for her long-standing engagement to a local who had no plans to leave IdaBelle Falls and had been there for her for as long as she could remember. He was her rock. Solid. Dependable. Like the big brother she’d never had—only kissable! Levi hadn’t wanted to set a wedding date until he’d built a proper nest egg, which he’d promised would be soon six months ago.
Heading down the dusty road, Kit was relieved to get her thoughts back to the current matter at hand when Travis asked, “What do you make of Beulah contesting Gary and Marlene’s will?”
Kit shrugged. “I don’t for a second believe she’ll win. Levi and I used to double date with your sister and her husband at least once a week, and as far as I knew, Gary thought his mother was sweet but smothering. Well-intentioned but hopelessly controlling.”
“Think the judge will toss her case?”
“Don’t know,” Kit said. “I can’t imagine Marlene ever wanting this. As she was dying, she begged me to make sure Libby stays with us.”
“Us?” He cast her a cautious half smile that reminded her so much of when they’d been kids. Back when it had taken her a minute to breathe after he’d shyly confessed his attraction for her.
“Well…” Kit licked her lips. “She said us, you and me together, but I’m sure she meant me in the short term, then you for the long term.”
“Sure.”
“Because otherwise she would’ve meant us as a couple, only Marlene was never really the match-making type.”
“No. No, she wasn’t.”
“Besides which, she knows I’m happy with Levi.”
“Right. And that I’m not the relationship type.”
“Of course.” He’d braked for another stop sign, and though cars whizzed along the paved highway they faced, flooding the truck’s cab with much-needed breeze, for Kit, the temperature under Travis’s hooded gaze blazed as hot as ever.
His dark eyes were beseeching. As if he desperately wanted, needed something from her, but wasn’t sure what.
So she gave him a nudge when she asked, “Beyond losing Marlene, what’s hurting you, Travis?”
Chapter Three
“Excuse me?” Travis squinted at Kit, making her feel about as needed as a pesky fly. Obviously, as in her disastrous fling with Brad, she’d totally misread the current situation. Travis most likely didn’t need or want for anything but a refreshing, cool shower and a light meal. Least of all, he didn’t want her, making her feel silly and stupid and sentimental for even having asked the question. Most of all for the brief flash of wanting something from him—namely the comfort of just being near him. Of knowing that, in his own way, he’d loved his sister every bit as fiercely as she had.
“Nothing,” Kit said, fussing over the lace trim on Libby’s jumper. Why did she always want to fix not only things but people? Especially people who didn’t need to be fixed.
