More than a Mistress

He groaned, looked down at himself in dismay and turned the shower to icy-cold.

Dressed again, this time in jeans and a white T-shirt, his feet bare, Travis went into the kitchen and took a can of Coke from the refrigerator. It was late. Or early, depending on your point of view. The glass walls of his house looked out on a beach silent and deserted in the early morning.

Damn, he still felt restless. He needed a cigarette, but he'd given them up five years ago. He needed a cold beer or a glass of decent wine, but there was no beer in the fridge and he wasn't in the mood to check the wine rack. He needed to talk to one of his brothers, but what would he say to them? That he was furious and frustrated, and pacing the floor like a teenage kid?

What he needed was a woman. One who wouldn't turn him on and off like a faucet, who wouldn't drive him crazy. Who'd be honest about wanting to share his bed. That would put Alex Thorpe out of his head, once and for all.

Travis reached for his address book and thumbed through the pages. He'd met a gorgeous brunette just last week and said he'd call her. She'd probably be surprised to hear from him at this hour but he'd invite her to breakfast on the beach. Champagne. Caviar and scrambled eggs...

Who was he kidding? Dammit, he thought, and tossed the book aside. He didn't want a substitute for the Ice Princess. He wanted her.

Where was she now? He didn't even have her address or her phone number. What was she doing? Was she sleeping, dreaming of him? Or was she going crazy, the way he was, remembering...

The doorbell rang. Travis had never been so glad to have his train of thought interrupted. He went to the door, opened it and found a kid in an olive-drab uniform on the porch.

"Morning, sir. I have a delivery for Mr. Travis Baron."

"Great," Travis said briskly, signed his name to a receipt and took five bucks out of his pocket. "Thanks."

He shut the door, shot a puzzled glance at the package the kid had handed him and tore it open. A small vellum envelope, with his name elegantly scripted across the front, fell out.

Travis picked it up, frowned, examined it. He raised it to his nose and sniffed, but no perfume scent clung to the paper. What was inside? Something formal. An invitation? A thank-you? It might be either one, if Alex Thorpe...

Man, he was really losing it! No way the Thorpe babe would write him a note. The only envelope she'd send him would probably blow him to smithereens the second he opened it.

Smiling, he opened the vellum envelope and took out a note-card.

"Oh, hell," Travis said, and groaned.

Your presence is requested at

The eighty-fifth birthday celebration

Of Mr. Jonas Baron

Saturday and Sunday, June 14 and 15

At the Baron Ranch

"Espada "

Brazos Springs, Texas

RSVP

The script was handwritten and elegant but the message was a bummer. The sender knew it, too. The note, scrawled beneath the RSVP, made that clear.

"Yes, Travis," it read, "this means you!"

The words were followed by a bold capital C, and the drawing of a tiny heart.

He laughed. Caitlin. His little stepsister was some piece of work. Hard when she had to be, soft when she wanted to be. And, just now, she was going to be tough. This was no invitation, it was notice of a command performance. Just what he wanted, he thought wryly.

The old man, eighty-five? Wow. It was hard to believe. The last time he'd seen his father a year, two years ago, when Catie had conned them all into coming to the ranch for Thanksgiving or Christmas, some sort of holiday, Jonas had looked as tough and spare as ever. He certainly hadn't looked old. But he was; eighty-five years on this earth said it all.

But the party would just have to go on without him. No way was he flying to Texas in the middle of June for the privilege of subjecting himself to a weekend's worth of Jonas's sharp tongue...

A weekend with Catie, and Slade and Gage. A couple of days of reminiscing about the past, of maybe taking a swim down in the creek. Los Lobos style. Travis grinned. Well, Los Lobos style, pre-Catie. In those days, the Baron brothers used to swim bare-assed, proving their manhood by surviving the zillions of bloodthirsty, buzzard-size mosquitoes that swarmed from the banks along the stream.

A weekend like that might just clear his head.

Travis reached for the phone before he could change his mind, hit a speed dial button. Slade answered on the first ring.

"Slade, my man. How you doin'?"

In Boston, Slade Baron plucked a duplicate vellum invitation from the top of his desk and grinned.

"I was doin' fine, until a messenger turned up at my door this mornin'."

Travis chuckled. "Our Catie, efficient as always. She even took the time difference into consideration. I'll bet Gage is lookin' at this bombshell right about now, same as us. "