the gated community. Besides, sitting in the drive were Travis’s two questionable vehicles—both she was sure he considered vintage. One of them brought back too many memories so she forced her gaze away to knock on the door to his pueblo-style house. No one answered, however. It looked as if all that mustering of courage would go to waste.
Not one to waste anything, even energy—nervous or otherwise—she looked around. She was curious about how Travis lived these days, this man whose life she’d once thought was too far removed from the one she’d known. So Tricia stepped back to analyze what she saw, rather than just leave.
She looked back to the driveway, her eyes drawn to the dark green 1969 Firebird, and the memories rolled over her. Glorious ones. The night he almost single-handedly took the college’s basketball team to the state championships. The day she’d aced the first final in her major. Then devastating ones. The morning on the way to school when they learned two friends had been killed in a car accident. And most especially the night he proposed, when she’d tried to put him off, ending their relationship almost by default.
Tricia shook her head. The past was past. There was no shame in having made mistakes as long as you made up for them—or at least tried. She’d hurt Travis by turning him down so clumsily. He’d hurt her by turning to Allison. Now she was going to make sure he and his family were protected from his father’s folly even if not exactly on her terms. Thinking of the general’s terms, she turned her mind back to his house. She needed to size up her opponent.
Travis’s deep terra-cotta-colored house looked a bit forlorn. There was a rock garden that artfully tumbled away from the walk to the lawn but both lawn and garden were sadly neglected. There were the craftily placed pots scattered on the steps and in the entranceway but those were as empty as the house.
The hollow slapping sound of a bouncing ball and the deep woof of a large dog drew her attention. Tricia turned and looked down the hill in the direction of the noise. It was Travis jogging along the street while he dribbled a basketball. Her heart ached at the sight as she walked back down the drive to meet him. How many times had she seen him like this in her memory…in her dreams?
Reality was different, though, because a huge German shepherd galloped happily along at his side. Travis laughed at the dog’s antics but a frown took over his expression the second his gaze fell upon her. He stopped in his tracks at the foot of the drive, the ball falling to the ground and rolling behind him into the street.
The dog immediately trotted to her side and sat, smiling up at her, encouraging affection with his big brown eyes and a raised paw. “I wondered if we could talk,” Tricia said to Travis as she automatically stooped to shake the dog’s proffered paw. Rather than focus on Travis’s thunderous expression, Tricia gave the dog a chance to sniff her hand before petting his soft fur. He very nearly purred.
The dog—not Travis.
Travis was the one who growled, “This is a gated community. How’d you get in?”
“Actually, I called your brother and he gave me the code to the gate.”
“I’ll have to remember to thank him. I can’t imagine that he thought we’d have anything to talk about.”
She shrugged, trying for nonchalance as she straightened, her hand resting on the big dog’s head. She didn’t want Travis to think she wanted this partnership General Fielding had outlined. Though she did indeed want it because it would mean she’d know he was safe. And if she refused to examine that particular reason, using instead the excuse that she liked his mother and worried that his father had put Lidia Vance in danger, then so be it. She could stay up nights worrying and thinking about only so many problems at once.
“I thought you were interested in Diablo. The increase in Colorado Springs’s drug problems. La Mano Oscuro,” she challenged him.
His eyes widened almost imperceptibly then his frown deepened. “Talk to Sam. They’re ultimately his problems,” he said, and turned away to retrieve the ball.
The basketball continued to roll down the hill. It got quite a distance with Travis walking after it at a leisurely pace. It had to be a delaying tactic considering that Manitou Springs was built entirely on hills. He would be a year before he caught it at that pace.
Finally, the ball got stuck beneath a parked car. He kicked it free and all the while, Tricia stood her ground in the middle of the driveway, watching his loose-hipped saunter as he came back up the hill. She saw through his act, though. He wasn’t as composed as he pretended. Of course, neither was she, but there was every chance he didn’t know that.
Travis finally glanced back at the driveway and looked surprised to see her still standing there. He didn’t know she could no longer be easily scared away. His expression turned thunderous and he confirmed his mood with his next statement, “You forget how to take subtle hints? Go away. I do not want to see your face. That too subtle for you, Patty?”
She didn’t blink at the name she’d left behind along with her major insecurities. “I prefer Tricia now. You should know that if we’re going to work together on this.”
That slow wiseacre grin replaced the frown on his craggy features. “Work together? Us? As in you and me? You’ve been out in the mountain sun too long, babe.”
Even in college before putting up with the Air Force’s own special brand of chauvinism, she’d hated to be called “babe.” “Look, Travis, let’s stop dancing around each other,” she snapped. “I’ve learned some things you’d give your eye teeth to know. I can save you months. And you may have information I need. You want to know who was ultimately responsible for the shooting of Adam Montgomery. I remember he’s an old friend. I understand that because I want to find the people responsible for Ian Kelly’s murder—my friend. And I think we both want to put a stopper in the drug pipeline running into Colorado Springs. Now, invite me in like a good boy, and we’ll learn to share.”
“I guess I don’t understand why you’re so willing to cooperate with me all of a sudden.”
She sighed. “Because General Fielding ordered me to. He’s a little touchy right now about his people nearly getting killed. And whether you want to admit it or not, you got in my way yesterday and one or both of us could have been killed in that alley.”
Travis stared at her, clearly weighing his options. “Fine, but don’t get too comfortable. Just because I’m listening, doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to anything. I work alone.”
He wasn’t the only one with options to weigh. If he found out about all of General Fielding’s stipulations regarding this joint venture, he’d bolt the door with her on the outside. And no way was she sharing what she suspected without his word that he’d work with her. She had a killer to catch, a drug pipeline to stop and a promotion to win. She couldn’t risk him getting in her way again, and the only way to prevent that was to know where he was and what he was up to. And that meant working together—closely.
“You agree to work this with me, or I don’t take another step.” Then she took a chance that the years had left that basketball-center ego of his intact along with that cocky grin he still had. She set her lips in a challenging smirk of her own and added, “Or are you afraid to work with me?”
His eyebrows climbed, furrowing his forehead even more, then his frown slid into a grin again. A grin she was quickly coming to believe was an artifice to hide his true feelings. Maybe it always had been.
“Me? Afraid of you? Oh, please,” he said, his eyes rolling just a bit. “Fine. We’ll
