The Merciless Travis Wilde

* * *

Jake got there before the others.

He snagged a booth with a crisp fifty dollar bill and when he saw Travis come through the door, he got to his feet and signaled.

“Caleb’s client got it wrong,” he said. “If it were winter, the amount of tweed in this place would keep us warm straight through until spring.”

“Yeah,” Travis said, “I noticed. There’s some kind of party up front, lots of skinny guys with beards and women with hair under their arms.”

Jake laughed. “You always did have a way with words, but what the hell, we’re here. And I just saw a platter of rib-eyes go by.”

“Always knew you understood the basics,” Travis said solemnly. He cocked his head. “Married life agrees with you, buddy. It’s made you less ugly, anyway.”

Jake grinned and they exchanged quick bear hugs.

“A fine compliment, coming from you, considering everybody says we look like two peas in a pod.”

“Three peas,” Caleb said, as he joined them. More quick embraces, a few jabs in the shoulder, and then the brothers slid into the booth.

“How’d the trip to Germany go?”

“Great. I closed one hell of a deal.”

“Perfect,” Jake told Caleb. “He’s handsome, like us. And modest, too. What a guy.”

“And your love life?” Caleb said. “How’s that going?”

Travis looked at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Caleb raised an eyebrow.

“It means,” he said with deliberate care, “how’s your love life going?”

“It’s going fine.”

Jake laughed. “Hey, man. It’s not a trick question. Our ladies are certain to ask.”

Travis let out a long breath.

“Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I guess I’m still jet-lagged.”

“Nobody special yet?”

“No,” Travis said evenly. “But you know what I think about this line of questioning?” He sat forward, eyes narrowed. “I think—”

“What I think,” Caleb said lazily, “is that we’d better decide what we’re having, ’cause here comes our waitress.”

Their orders were identical.

Porterhouse steaks, baked potatoes with butter, sour cream and chives.

“And an extra-large basket of fried onion rings,” Travis said.

“Of course,” Jake said, his lips twitching. “Every meal should include a vegetable.”

Two beers, an ale for Travis.

The waitress brought those right away, along with a bowl of cashews.

They all dug in, drank, munched, talked about guy stuff.

Travis started to relax.

Why had he reacted so negatively to a simple question? It didn’t make sense.

Talk helped.

Everyday stuff. Baseball, still going strong. Football, coming up soon. Jake’s progress in remodeling the house and sprawling ranch that adjoined El Sueño. Caleb and his wife’s search for a house and land of their own, and the news that ten thousand acres in Wilde’s Crossing had just come on the market.

Their steaks arrived. They ordered more drinks. And just when Travis had almost decided he was home free, his brothers exchanged a look, laid their knives and forks on their plates and Caleb said, “Something bothering you, Trav?”

Travis forced a smile.

“Not a thing. Something bothering you, Caleb”

“Hey,” Caleb said lightly, “watch yourself.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m a trained interrogator, remember?”

Travis laughed, just as he was supposed to do. He thought about playing dumb, tossing back a look of complete innocence and saying he had no idea what they were talking about, but you didn’t grow up with two guys who knew everything about you and lie to their faces.

Besides, until this moment, he hadn’t realized how much last Friday night—correction, his reaction to last Friday night—was gnawing at him.

Still, he didn’t have to tell them all the details.

So he shrugged, put down his knife and fork, too, blotted his mouth with his napkin and said, “I met a woman.”

“He met a woman,” Caleb said to Jake.

“Wow. Amazing. Our brother, the hotshot hedge fund manager, met a woman. So much for avoiding that question about his love life.”

“I didn’t avoid anything,” Travis said tersely. “This has nothing to with love. And I have nothing to do with hedge funds. I run an investment firm—and why were you talking about me as if I’m not here?”

“Because the last time you were involved with a woman and wouldn’t talk about her was when you had that thing going with Suzy Franklin.”

Travis sat back, folded his arms over his chest.

“I was in fifth grade. And I wasn’t ‘involved’ any more than I’m ‘involved’ now.”

“He protests too much,” Jake said.

“What did I just say about that ‘he’s not here’ routine? And I’m not protesting. There’s nothing to protest.” He’d meant to make it all sound light but one glance at his brothers and he knew it hadn’t worked. He took a breath, let it out and leaned over the table. “Look, it was nothing. See, I was minding my business in this place way downtown...”

“What were you doing downtown?”

“Actually, it was your fault. Your faults. Can you say ‘faults’? Because it was. It was last Friday night, you guys couldn’t make it, and...”

What the hell.

He told the story.

Most of it.

Some of it.

Finally, he got to the part he was still having trouble with.

“...and,” he said, “then the door opened, this woman walked in and she was, ah, she was attractive.”

“You mean, she was hot.”

A muscle knotted in Travis’s jaw.

“You could say that, yeah.”

“And?”

“And, I figured if I could convince the drooling yahoos at the bar that I’d been waiting for her to show up, everything would be fine.”

“Drooling yahoos,” Caleb said dryly.

“What did I say? He has a way with words,” Jake said, just as dryly.

“You want to hear this or not?”

“We wouldn’t miss it. Go on. A hot babe came strutting through the door—”

“She didn’t ‘strut,’” Travis said, a little sharply. “And she was—she was good-looking. Not hot. Not the way you’re making it...” His words trailed away. His brothers were looking at him as if he’d lost his mind.

Dammit, he thought, and he cleared his throat.

“So, anyway, I, ah, I approached her. I told her I had a problem and asked her for her help. And, after a little, uh, a little persuasion, she agreed.”

“Persuasion?”

“What’d you do? Talk her into a coma?”

Travis was silent for a long, long minute. Then he sighed.

“I kissed her,” he said in a low voice because, hell, maybe if he talked about it he’d stop thinking about it.

About Genevieve.

Caleb stared at him. “And she went along with it?”

“Yeah.”

“Aha.” Jacob grinned. “Not just a hot babe. A hot babe looking for a night’s diversion.”

Travis looked at his brother through narrowed eyes.

“I told you, it’s wrong to call her that.”

Jake held up his hands. “Okay. Sorry. A lady looking for a night’s—”

“She’d walked into the wrong place, that’s all,” Travis said tightly.

“So, you weren’t just looking for her to get you out of there in one piece, you were going to protect her.”

“Yes. No. Dammit!” Travis sat back, wrapped his hands around his half-empty mug of ale. “Look, let’s drop it, okay? I got into a stupid situation, and that’s the end of it.”

“Yeah, but I don’t see how this played out,” Caleb said. “This jerk and his friends were on you because they figured you’d been hitting on his woman. You said no, you were waiting for your date. This babe—sorry. This woman walked in—”

“She had a name,” Travis said, in a dangerously quiet voice. “Genevieve.”

Jake waggled his eyebrows. “Wow. Not just good-looking but French.”

“Better and better,” Caleb said.

Travis opened his mouth, then quickly shut it. All at once he didn’t want to talk about last Friday night, not when it would involve giving away details that suddenly seemed far too personal.

“Never mind.”

“Never mind? Bro, you can’t leave us hanging. We’re married men. Happily married, I hasten to add, but still, there’s no harm in living vicariously.”

“And it was just getting interesting. There you were, in this dive and, wham, a woman walks in, you kiss her, she’s warm and willing...and what? You took her home? Went to her place? Or maybe—”

“Enough,” Travis snapped.

His tone was cold, hard and flat. His brothers stared at him, then exchanged a quick glance. What in hell? that glance said, but they both knew that the line between asking questions and expecting answers had been crossed.