“You!” she began. “You’ve put me through hell for years. I missed you and I couldn’t find you and—” She broke off when he kissed her.
“I want to make it up to you.” He kissed her nose. “I want to spend years and years making it right between us.”
For all that she liked what he was doing, she drew back to look at him. “What does that mean? Exactly.”
“I love you and I want to marry you. If you’ll have me, that is.”
Kim suddenly lost the power of speech. “But . . .”
“But what?”
“We hardly know each other. You’ve been back for a week and before that—”
He kissed her again. “How about this? You take as long as you want to get to know me, and every day I’ll ask you to marry me. When you feel that you know me well enough, say yes and we’ll go find a preacher. How’s that?” Turning, he put his feet on the floor. “I’m starving. What about you? Penny has an uncle who eats so much she said I wouldn’t be able to afford his bill. I’d like to see that, what about you?”
“I, uh . . .” Kim’s head was still reeling from what he’d just said to her. “Where will you live?” she managed to get out. Travis was on his way to the bathroom.
“With you if you’ll have me. I like your house, but I think you should move your workroom to Joe’s place. You want to take a shower with me? That way your garage will be free. I believe in taking care of automobiles. Are there any good mechanics in town?”
As he disappeared behind the bathroom door, Kim sat there, staring. The sheet fell away but she didn’t notice.
Travis looked around the door. “If you keep sitting there like that, I’ll have to come back and make love to you again and I really am hungry. Have mercy on me, will you?”
He moved out of view but Kim still sat there. She wasn’t at all sure of what she’d heard or what she was feeling. This weekend she’d expected a man she’d known for months to ask her to marry him. Instead, she’d just received a proposal from . . . From Travis, she thought and smiled. She envisioned him on the bicycle as he flew down the hill of dirt. His face and clothes were filthy, his teeth were coated in grime—but she’d never seen anyone happier. That boy had just asked her to marry him!
She heard the shower water. She took a few more seconds to blink, then she went running. “I like where my workroom is,” she said. “I don’t have to get in a car to get there, so I can work late at night. You can’t—” She didn’t say any more because Travis’s long arm swept out and encircled her waist. The shower curtain was trapped between them.
“I’ll drive you,” he said before he kissed her again. “I’m good at driving.”
“Yeah, if you like roller coasters without brakes.”
“And you do,” he said as he kissed her again.
Thirteen
Kim was sitting outside the B&B waiting for Travis. Just as they were at last dressed—the shower had taken a very long time—his cell phone rang. “On this number it’s either Penny or my mother or you,” he said as he dug the phone out of his trouser’s pocket. “Penny,” he said as he answered the call.
Minutes later he told Kim that “an incompetent moron named Forester” was having a meltdown and needed some help. “Sorry,” Travis said, “but this will take some time. He’ll destroy the entire deal if I don’t walk him through it. Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” Kim said. “I’ll wait for you outside.” As she left the room, she picked up her sketchbook. Maybe she’d have an idea or two for her designs. She doubted that she would, since all she could think about was what Travis had said to her. Had he really planned his entire life around her? Was that possible? But then, a part of Kim wondered if she’d done the same thing. Not consciously, as Travis seemed to have done, but unconsciously. Since she was a child and began sneaking into her brother’s room where there was an Internet connection that wasn’t ruled by her mother’s iron parental controls, Kim had been searching for him. Her quest to find Travis had fluctuated with how her personal life was going. After a breakup with a boyfriend she had cried, eaten ice cream, and spent whole days on the Internet.
Now she realized that she’d probably seen photos of the rich Travis Maxwell, but she hadn’t given them a second glance. She’d long ago figured out that Travis and his mother had been running from an abusive father. No one ever thought of super rich young men as having been anything but pampered and spoiled. She’d kept her searches off the society pages.
As for what Travis said about their getting married, more than anything in the world, Kim wanted to throw her arms around his neck and say yes. But she couldn’t do that. There were too many problems yet to solve. Travis was still too connected to his other life, to his bastard of a father. How could they be happy until all that was settled? And his mother was going to need a great deal of help. As much as they all loved Joe, he was a small town man; he’d never be a match for Travis’s notorious father. Randall Maxwell was known all over the world as a man who held his own against anyone—on a global scale. How could Joe, the owner of a small hardware store, cope with that? Travis would have to step in and take care of it all. How long did it take to divorce a superwealthy man who didn’t want to part with a dime? Years?
How could she and Travis have a life when he was constantly wrapped up in that mess?
It seemed that the obstacles around them were insurmountable. Not that she’d give him up. Not ever. But it was a question of time before they’d have their own lives, their own home, their own . . . children.
When she stepped outside into the cool evening air, she took a breath. She reminded herself that no matter what the obstructions, they’d have each other and there was light at the end of the tunnel. The thought that she did have a future where she wasn’t alone—as she’d started to fear—made her smile, and as she did, her mind began to clear. And as she had since she was a child, she began to think about jewelry. In the fading light the leaves on a nearby maple tree looked like moonstones. Or maybe cut quartz. Of course the ones in the shadows were pure garnets. She hadn’t used garnets in a long time so maybe now was the time to start again.
There was a little seating area set back under the trees, and she sat down on a pretty wooden bench and began to draw what she saw in her mind. The stones, even the curve of the leaves reminded her of a woman’s neck. She could make the gold flow along the skin, then angle up over a collarbone. If she did it right, the necklace could be really sensual. Of course each one would have to be fitted to the wearer, but that would be nice to do. She hated those necklaces that were a stiff, round circle. No one had a perfectly round neck and she thought the jewelry stood out awkwardly.
She was so busy with her thoughts and her drawing that she didn’t see or hear anyone until a man almost tripped over her feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Kim looked up to see a short, stout, sixtyish man standing to her right and holding a broom. He had on an old pair of jeans and a plaid shirt that looked as though it had been washed hundreds of times. He was smiling at her in a way that reminded her of people at home.