the base of the steps, he turned. Neither she nor the dog had moved. And she wouldn’t. Not until she got an invitation. Not after that remark. She would get in his way?
“You coming?” Travis all but snarled.
Tricia wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to, her or the dog. But since it looked like the only invitation she was likely to get, she started forward.
The dog shot ahead then toward the front door, the plume of his tail wagging jubilantly. “Traitor,” Travis muttered to his canine companion who ran happily past his perturbed master.
It was nice someone was happy with the situation, she thought, and asked, “So, what’s your dog’s name?”
As she entered an open, tiled foyer, the name “Cody” on Travis’s lips barely registered in her brain. Her mind was suddenly ambushed by the flashes of insight the house gave her into his barren life. She could swear her heart actually ached for him.
The rooms before her had wonderful dark wide planked floors that stood out in perfect contrast to the cream color on the rough, adobe-look walls. Unfortunately, that was the only good thing she could say about the two rooms that flowed off the foyer.
She looked around at the emptiness the rooms reflected and wondered how he thought she might make herself too comfortable in such an utterly soulless place. The walls and windows were bare while the living room and dining room areas were lined with card tables. She counted a dozen tables in all and one desk. Strewn with numerous files, each table held folders of a different color. Stacked underneath most of the tables were boxes also filled with the same color files. There was also an industrial-sized shredder in the corner opposite the Spanish-tiled fireplace.
It was, she realized, exactly what it looked like. A disaster of an office with a nod given toward organization. This must be the life center of AdVance Security and Investigations. Which meant he ran the company the way he did everything—alone.
“Oh, my,” she said, in control of her thoughts if not her mouth, “I don’t think you need to worry that I’ll get too comfortable in here.” She walked to the first table and picked up a folder. “I’ve seen jail cells in Third World countries that were more homey than this place.”
“Yuk-yuk,” he said. “I don’t have to please anyone but me. And this pleases me. And—” She heard his footsteps moving quickly toward her and, as she whirled to face him, he snatched the folder out of her hand. “I know where everything is.” He dropped it back on the table. “Don’t touch my stuff. Besides, that’s confidential. And don’t go getting any ideas about messing with my filing system. I remember how you like to organize. So what’s this about information?”
Tricia spotted the kitchen that lay beyond a half wall. It had two counter stools pulled up to a breakfast bar that was set into the half wall between the dining room and the galley kitchen. She walked to the bar, pulled out a chair and sat.
“Why, thank you, Travis. I’d love a nice hot cup of tea. Suppose you tell me what you’ve learned while you fix it for me.”
“I said I’d participate. I didn’t say I’d feed you. That comes under the heading of ‘too comfortable.’”
“Oh?” She fiddled with a drawing he’d left on the counter. It was done by a small child and showed a tall man and a dog running. Only the dog smiled. Travis and Cody, no doubt about it. She imagined the budding artist was Amy Mathers, his brother Sam’s stepdaughter.
“What’s ‘oh’ supposed to mean? Women never say ‘oh’ in that tone when it doesn’t mean a whole lot more.”
“It means that I thought the offer of refreshments fell under the heading of civilized.” She looked pointedly at the kitchen beyond where he now stood. Wall-to-wall dirty dishes, several empty bread wrappers and three scraped-clean peanut butter jars. It was anything but civilized. “Decorated by Neanderthal Interiors?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.
“I like my kitchen the way it is, too. Come on. We’ll talk in the den. It’s neat so it won’t put your female cleaning hormones into overdrive.”
She followed when he gave her no opportunity to protest. “Sit,” he ordered when she entered the small room.
His idea of neat and hers were worlds apart. Stack after stack of magazines and newspapers from all over the world took up about a third of the floor space and the end tables and coffee table. There was also a medium-size TV, a wall of bookcases stuffed haphazardly with books, a futon and an old beat-up leather recliner. The room fit his personality: rumpled, grumpy and brooding.
She chose the futon and, after picking up and stacking several of the newspapers and magazines into a neat pile, she sat in the newly cleared space.
“You’re already driving me crazy and we haven’t been working together five minutes,” he said, raking his hair off his forehead. “So tell me what all you’ve figured out about Ian Kelly’s murder.”
“He was killed on the flight line.”
“Then it really was about Air Force business.” Travis leaned back in his seat. “Sam thought it was something to do with this influx of drugs that are driving him and the rest of CSPD crazy. In that case, I don’t see what I can do for you.”
She couldn’t very well blurt out that his father was looking pretty good as the kingpin of Diablo, the syndicate she thought was the Colorado Springs arm of La Mano Oscura. She was nearly sure the proof of the connection between the two organizations had been within Ian’s grasp but couldn’t confirm it yet.
“Five or six of our pilots look good for the runners. One of them is the guy I was following yesterday. We can’t afford to trip over each other again.”
“And how on earth do we explain our being together all the time, or haven’t you and your general thought that far?”
Tricia swallowed, and crossed her legs carefully to hide her nervousness. “Well…er…the general has decided on a way to handle it.”
Travis raised one eyebrow. “And what is the general’s brilliant idea?”
“We’re inseparable because—” she tried to make her expression as neutral as she could “—we’re dating again.”
Chapter Four
“What did you say?” Travis bellowed.
And Patricia Streeter, the girl who’d broken his heart and sent his life into a tailspin didn’t even blink at his outrage. Instead she sat back, crossed her long legs once again and settled into the soft cushion of the futon.
“I said we’re supposed to be dating. We have to act as if we’re crazy about each other. You’ll go where I go, I’ll go where you go. Officially, I’ll take leave to give us the time to decide if I want to get out of the Air Force to be with you or if you’ll be following me to my next duty station.”
“And they say I’m crazy,” he muttered, and caught himself raking his fingers through his hair again. Why was it he kept blowing his cool with her? She just plain unnerved him. That’s all there was to it. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t. To be near her. See her all the time. It wasn’t going to happen.
But if he didn’t and
