Jan Freed - Talk To Me

It hadn’t changed at all!

There were the five one-room log cabins scattered to the left of the clapboard and fieldstone house. There was the long pier capped by a rusting tin boat shed, and the cement launch ramp lapped by gentle shoreline waves.

And there—oh rats—there, glittering a shade deeper than the cloudless sky, extending as far as the eye could see across the horizon, was a magnificent faceted sapphire reflecting the October sunshine.

Lake Kimberly, her beautiful enemy.

Kara schooled her features into a mask of indif ference, hoping her turtleneck would hide her frantic pulse. If it killed her, she wouldn’t reveal the power of either this place—or its owner—to hurt her again.

CHAPTER FOUR

TRAVIS UNLOCKED the boat-shed door, slipped inside and waited for his eyes to adjust from the bright sunshine. Built straddling the end of a fiftyfoot pier, the structure sheltered eight boat slips—four on each side of the “dock”—and a large workbench and tool cabinet against the far wall.

The single large window might’ve provided adequate light minus the layer of grunge coating the lakeside glass. One more chore he never got around to starting. Putting out fires claimed most of his time.

Turning his Evinrude cap backward, he headed for the latest sorry piece of junk to go up in flames: a nine-horsepower outboard motor on one of his four aluminum skiffs. At the last slip on his left, he stepped down from the dock into the boat.

The day before, a lawyer and his ten-year-old son had stalled out in this skiff at about noon. When Travis had returned at three from fishing the lake’s northern points, he’d had an uneasy feeling that the two were in trouble. At four, he’d set out in search of the pair and found them at six—hungry and panicked—far down the isolated southern shore.

That was one customer who wouldn’t help the camp’s reputation any. The fact he was a lawyer really helped. Sheesh. All Travis needed was a screwy lawsuit to make his life complete.

Shaking his head in disgust, he set the throttle on neutral, pumped the primer and yanked the starter cord. Water bubbled and boiled. The engine smoked, sputtered and spit.

And Travis spewed out a stream of curses.

Only last spring, he’d overhauled each skiff’s ancient outboard, plus his tournament Skeeter’s 150-horsepower Yamaha. Yet all five motors had malfunctioned periodically throughout the busy summer. This current mechanical failure sounded like a compression problem.

Perfect. More lost rental income. More time spent wielding tools instead of a fishing rod.

He cut the engine, resentment spreading through him like the oily foam above the stilled propeller.

Bass Busters Fishing Camp was supposed to have freed him to do what he loved most, not trap him into a life of indentured servitude. He hadn’t spent years studying bass behavior and how it related to a lake’s structure and cover only to piddle away the prime of his life on tedious greasemonkey jobs.

Damn, but he was tired of jerking around with repairs! Tired of exhaust fumes, creosote and latent mildew filling his lungs. Tired of this ramshackle tin-roofed boat shed blocking wide Texas skies and cool lake breezes.

Lately if he wasn’t in here sweating, he was outside on the campgrounds sweating even more. Hell, he’d had to withdraw from the Sam Rayburn tournament last month when Cabin Three’s septic tank backed up. Talk about stinky luck!

Snorting a laugh, Travis wiped his brow with the hem of his cropped-sleeved sweatshirt. All his grand plans for this place had wound up in the toilet. Oh, he’d developed a customer base for the camp, all right. But not the substructure to service it. Traveling to tournaments and guiding clients left little time to do more than crisis management.

Kara had predicted as much nine years ago....

Travis lowered his sweatshirt.

Her again. The real reason for his foul mood and discontent. He’d slept lousy since seeing Kara last week, and not at all since helping take inventory at Malloy Sporting Goods store the night before.

Enlisting Nancy for the chore as well, he’d let the fishing camp take care of itself. Cameron had left his ad agency clients in Austin to join them. Seth had trusted his veterinary practice in Wagner to an assistant and driven in. And Jake, who worked full-time with their dad in the store, had tormented them all with bad jokes and ceaseless clowning. The usual routine.

Taking inventory had become a sacred annual tradition. The one guaranteed night of the year all the Malloy men were under one roof.

Bending to rummage in the toolbox at his feet, Travis admitted he’d been a tad touchy to begin with. Then the inevitable happened. Despite threats of bodily harm, Jake had described Kara and Travis’s TV debut to Cameron, who’d squealed to Seth, who’d snitched to Dad, who’d blabbed to Nancy.

His brothers, to a man, had been smitten with Kara and opposed to the divorce. They would’ve interfered at the separation stage if Travis hadn’t said a line had been drawn, and it was up to her to step over to his side. He’d vowed, dead serious, never to forgive the Malloy who approached Kara. Even Jake had believed him.

But last night, the brothers had decided fate had given Travis a second chance to correct his bonehead mistake.

Only his father, who’d never remarried in the twenty years since Kathryn Malloy’s death, had advised Travis to keep his distance from Kara and leave the past buried. Divorce was almost like having a spouse die, after all.

Frowning, he shook off the thought, lifted a wrench from his toolbox and turned to the problem at hand.

Minutes later he cocked his head as car doors slammed. The dentists booked for Cabin Two? Whoever was here, Nancy would have to show them around. In one smooth movement, Travis hoisted the detached motor from the boat onto the dock.

Uh-oh.

Ver-ry gingerly, he clambered up himself, then knuckled the shooting pain in his lower back. Defending his I-Am-Sibling-King title in the store’s home gym section had taken its toll. A small price to pay for keeping his brothers humble.

The sound of footsteps killed his smirk. Someone was heading up the wood-plank pier. Fast. He turned, his senses on high alert. The door twenty feet away burst open.

Nancy Royce jogged inside, dressed in jeans and a Tweety Bird T-shirt, her dark ponytail swaying. Despite looking more like a college coed than a woman twelve years his senior, she commanded his full respect and attention. Hiring her after Larry died had been the smartest business move he’d ever made.

“You have visitors,” she announced as she neared, her gaze sweeping his thong sandals, cutoff jeans and cropped sweatshirt critically.

She stopped close enough for him to read anxious excitement in her gray eyes. “I can try and stall them while you go shower and change—and scrape that stubble off your face. Put on the cologne I gave you for Christmas.”

His skin prickled in warning. A second pair of feet now walked the pier.

“Oh, Lord, she didn’t wait,” Nancy blurted, confirming his premonition. “Brace yourself, Travis. Kara wants to talk to you.”

His pulse leaped first, his gaze second, landing on the silhouette framed in the doorway.

Staring at the maturation of youthful promise walking toward him, Travis found himself searching for something—anything—that didn’t please him.

No luck in her form-fitting black pants and turtleneck. His gaze lifted desperately. She’d twisted up and clipped her hair with a tortoiseshell gizmo, the style flattering her high cheekbones, wide-set eyes and long aristocratic nose.

He liked her hair better down.

She’d applied dramatic cherry-red lipstick to her kiss-me mouth, the color emphasizing her pale smooth complexion and small stubborn chin.