Jan Freed - Talk To Me

“For what? Being yourself? No offense, but it’s time she got with the program. It’s the new millennium. True ladies will get mowed down by real women who speak up for themselves. When you spar with Travis in the pilot, I want you to take off your gloves and use your fingernails if that’s what it takes to make your point. The audience will love it. And the station will fund at least eight shows for sure.”

She had to laugh. “You really are incorrigible.”

“So I’ve been told. Good thing I’m too cute to stay mad at”

Amazingly, she believed him. Remembering Lisa’s befuddled reaction to meeting Ross, Kara experienced a twinge of concern.

Watch out, girlfriend This one is dangerous.

Not only cute, but also knowledgeable about still photography, if the high-dollar camera in the back seat was any indication. Together with video camcorder, tape recorder and remote microphone, the equipment prepared him for anything, he’d explained when Kara had commented earlier.

He leaned forward now and squinted through the windshield. “We’re looking for the Lake Kimberly exit, right?”

Her stomach took a nosedive. She followed his gaze to the upcoming 1-45 sign. “Our exit is about twenty miles ahead,” she managed.

And to think she’d almost conquered her nausea.

Ross had gotten a friend to call the fishing camp that morning. Travis would supposedly be on the premises all day, and prospective guests could “stop by and give the place a look-see” any time. If she was lucky, the siren call of the lake had lured him out onto the water. He’d certainly heeded the call often enough during their marriage.

Glancing casually at Kara, Ross did a double take. “Hey, none of that, now. Don’t wimp out on me.”

She swallowed a hysterical laugh. “Now why would I wimp out? Just because my divorce was—” devastating “—not exactly amicable, and Travis already made it clear he thinks your plan is crazy doesn’t mean he won’t listen quietly to what I have to say and not kick me off the premises.”

Ross reached over and patted her arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right there with you.”

Travis will chew you up and spit you out for catfish bait. “I appreciate your chivalry, but I’d like to have a few minutes alone with him at first. I owe him that much, since he’s not expecting us.”

“Good thinking. You can smooth the way.”

Kara simply nodded. Let the man have his illusions a bit longer.

Within a mile of leaving the interstate highway, she was hard pressed to give Ross accurate directions. The area had grown dramatically in the past nine years. Familiar landmarks had been camouflaged or replaced by encroaching development.

That Texaco station was new. As well as that laundromat, convenience store and Fisherman’s Cafe. Good heavens, Larry’s Bait Shop was now a Dunkin’ Donuts! How could that be? The ramshackle shop had been a local institution.

Her outrage retreated beneath an onslaught of guilt. Larry Royce would be around eighty years old now—if he was still alive. To her shame, she didn’t know. When she’d left Lake Kimberly she’d severed all ties, including her link to Nancy, the gruff old fisherman’s daughter. She’d been a good friend when Kara had needed one most.

Remorse joined the noose of emotion tightening slowly around her throat.

Closer to the lake, the towering pines she remembered so well littered the winding blacktop road with rusty needles and crushed cones. The handful of vacation homes she’d passed daily on her way to and from Houston still remained. What had once seemed like palaces were actually modest structures, she realized now.

Yet their aged condition and small size weren’t what shocked Kara. No, it was the neighboring houses that blew her away.

She gaped at the new fences, many constructed of elaborate wrought iron or imposing brick, that guarded private lakefront showplaces shimmering through the trees. Travis had always said Houston’s well-to-do would discover Lake Kimberly one day.

How he must loathe the modern castles that, rather than blending naturally into their setting, shouted visually for attention.

“Slow down,” she croaked to Ross. “We should be getting close to the turnoff soon.”

“You sure? This doesn’t look like ‘a godforsaken frontier settlement’ to me.”

Heat stung her cheeks. Her favorite description of the area sounded shrewish within sight of veritable mansions.

“Things have changed along the access road,” she admitted. “Wait’ll we get to the fishing camp itself.”

Intense curiosity wove through her dread. What changes would she find? There were bound to be a lot after so many years, even if Travis had kept his vow to impact the lake’s ecosystem as little as possible.

“There!” She nodded toward a small sign mounted above a battered blue mailbox.

Ross drove close and shifted into park, leaving the engine idling.

The words Bass Busters Fishing Camp topped a directional arrow pointing to a sagging aluminum gate. On the other side, two gravel ruts disappeared into woods wilder and thicker than any they’d passed. It was hard to imagine a person on foot getting through unscathed, much less a luxury automobile.

Turning off the radio, Ross looked from the gate to Kara. “You’re kidding.”

“I tried to tell you. Lord knows how clients find Travis.” If, in fact, he had any clients left for his fishing guide service, the stubborn fool. “He never did listen to me about the importance of advertising and first impressions.”

Frowning, she studied the faded sign, the drooping barbed wire fence, the closed gate and wilderness beyond.

“Well, he listened to somebody,” Ross said thoughtfully. “His answering machine gives a web site address for Bass Busters Fishing Camp. I checked it out.”

Kara whipped her head around.

“He’s booked through next July as a guide. The man’s almost a legend, Kara. You could’ve at least told me.”

She closed her mouth. “Legend?”

He removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses with a bit of shirt, his sea-blue eyes both vaguer and sharper than before. “Boy, when you divorce someone, you really move on, don’t you? Your ex-husband has won every major bass-fishing tournament in Texas. He caught the record largemouth bass in the state two years ago. His list of published magazine articles is damned impressive.”

“Magazine articles?”

Ross slipped on his glasses and cocked his head. “We’ll have to work on that echo before the pilot, Kara. But yes, when it comes to bass fishing in Texas, Travis Malloy is a top player.”

The emotion choking her now was dangerously close to pride. She flung open her door and slid out.

“I’ll open the gate,” she said, slamming the door on his astonished expression.

Kara trudged to the disreputable hunk of metal, shoved the bolt aside, then pushed the sagging gate forward. By the time she’d plowed a long enough furrow to allow room for the Mercedes to pass through, she’d regained a safe measure of irritation.

So Travis had done well for himself. Why shouldn’t he have earned a reputation as a great fishing guide? The man had been obsessed with the slimy creatures, after all.

If he’d put half as much effort into understanding her as he had into deciphering bass feeding patterns, she wouldn’t have fled the fishing camp crying so hard she could barely see to drive away.

The return drive now would be different, Kara promised herself, wrestling the gate shut and ramming the bolt home. She wasn’t a defenseless broken-hearted girl anymore, but a mature capable woman. She could handle whatever lay ahead, and then some.

Holding tightly to that thought, she walked to the car and slipped inside. She continued holding tightly throughout the winding drive through dense forest. As the Mercedes broke into the five-acre clearing Travis had christened Bass Busters Fishing Camp, she clutched her righteous courage even tighter—a puny shield against the merciless pounding of her heart.