Coming Home to Texas Read online

  He didn’t know how to relate to Jodie, but he had an idea that an apology was a good place to start. Still, he waved to his friends and turned right onto the farm-to-market road leading to his ranch before he found the words.

  “Jodie,” he started as they passed Ralph Biggerstaff, his banker, and Ralph’s wife traveling in the opposite direction, as though they’d been to his ranch. He waved again, then took a deep breath. “Jodie, about the other night…”

  “I really don’t want to argue anymore, Travis. It’s not good for me or the baby.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say. I overreacted to the news you were leaving so soon. And the reason I overreacted,” he said, sucking in another deep breath, “is because I was having such a good time. I was looking forward to our already short honeymoon. I was looking forward to getting to know you…again.”

  As the road straightened, he glanced over at Jodie. She sat still, watching her folded hands and frowning. Okay, maybe he hadn’t done a very good job apologizing. That wasn’t a skill he used often. He tried not to get himself into situations where he needed to admit he was sorry.

  But finally she said, “I was really angry at you, Travis, and I overreacted, too. I’m sorry.”

  “I suppose we need to start over yet again.”

  “We seem to be doing that a lot lately,” she said with a slight smile.

  “Maybe one day we’ll get it right,” he said as he turned off the road into his long driveway.

  “Maybe.” She sighed. “I’m willing to try.”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence. When he pulled around the house, he noticed Helen’s car parked in her usual spot beside the garage.

  “That’s odd. She’s not scheduled to work today.”

  “Maybe she decided to get caught up on some things while we’re gone.”

  “I suppose,” he said, but he wasn’t convinced. Helen had come to work for him after her father, affectionately known as “Crazy Ed” because he’d suffered from senile dementia, had died a couple of years ago. Helen’s daughter and grandson lived with her now, and being his housekeeper gave Helen just the right amount of work so she had time to spend with them.

  When they opened the door from the garage into the house, the mix of aromas made Travis’s mouth water.

  “It smells like a church social in here,” Jodie said.

  “I think you’re right. I guess this is what my neighbors have been up to while we were gone.”

  “I hope it tastes as good as it smells.”

  Travis silently concurred. He hadn’t had much of an appetite for breakfast after their argument last night.

  “What a surprise!” Helen said as they entered the kitchen. “I told everyone you weren’t going to be home for a couple of days.”

  “Jodie has a previous commitment in California,” Travis explained, keeping his opinion out of his neutral comment.

  “Everyone was so happy for you, and to thank you for the Valentine’s Day meal at Bretford House and inviting them to your wedding, they’ve been bringing casseroles, salads and desserts since this morning.”

  “I noticed Ralph and his wife—I forgot her name—on the drive from town.”

  Helen nodded. “The Biggerstaffs were the last ones. Some came before church.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “Some folks asked me if I was going to be at the house, and I thought it might be a good idea to properly store any food they brought out.”

  “Thank you very much, Helen,” Jodie said. “I’m sure everything is delicious. I was just telling Travis that it reminds me of the church socials my mother, sister and I went to when I was a child.”

  “We have some good cooks in Ranger Springs.” She turned to Travis and smiled. “Not Robin Parker, though, dear thing. She still can’t cook.”

  He chuckled, looking at Jodie.

  She smiled back. “I can’t cook, either.”

  “You big-city girls,” Helen said, shaking her head. “Maybe there’s hope for you. Travis can teach you.”

  “That’s no guarantee,” Travis replied. “Ethan cooks like a pro and he can’t teach Robin.”

  Helen shrugged. “Maybe he’s not trying. He didn’t take fancy classes like you did.”

  “Really?”

  “My mother wasn’t much of a homebody. Ethan, on the other hand, had an aunt who taught him the basics.”

  Travis sincerely believed that Jodie wouldn’t be in town long enough to learn how to cook, but maybe he was wrong. He hoped so. She was a sensual person and he could imagine her up to her elbows in dough or dusted with powdered sugar or surrounded by ripe, fresh produce.

  “Now that you two newlyweds are home, would you like for me to stay to answer the door and put the food away? Or would you rather be alone?”

  Jodie looked at him and raised her eyebrows in question. “Whatever is best for you.”

  “If you don’t have plans with your family, why don’t you stay for a while? We need to get unpacked and settled in.”

  “Of course. I don’t have any special plans this weekend.”

  Travis didn’t say anything. Helen had been alone for a long time, he’d been told, but he didn’t know her whole story since he hadn’t grown up in Ranger Springs.

  He carried their two suitcases into the house, then paused. Faced with the same dilemma as at Lake Buchanan, he wasn’t sure where to put Jodie’s bag. Was she ready to move into his bedroom, or was she still angry or upset?

  “Maybe I’d better use the guest room for now,” she said, obviously sensing his quandary.

  “If that’s what you want,” he said, heading up the stairs.

  She followed close behind, admiring the play of muscles in his long legs and butt. “What I want is to establish some sort of truce with you. I don’t want us to keep on arguing.”

  “Agreed, but I thought we were going to have a real marriage.”

  “We are. Just give us some time to settle in.”

  “I’m not trying to rush you,” he protested, pausing in the hallway. At her skeptical look he amended, “Well, maybe a little. But I really don’t want us to get into a rut of not being…close. The longer we keep separate beds, the more difficult it will be to readjust.”

  “Nonsense! Maybe it will just make it that much better.”

  Travis leaned close. “If it gets any better than it was in Monte Carlo, you’re going to need a new husband, because I’ll be dead.”

  Jodie laughed and took her suitcase out of his hand. “Stop rushing me, Travis. Believe me, the wait will be worth it.”

  “Ah, so you are intentionally torturing me. I never knew you had a mean streak.”

  “I think you’re torturing yourself. Ask anyone. I’m not a mean or difficult person.”

  “I’d ask someone, but I don’t know any of your friends.”

  “You know Felicia and Neil.”

  “They work for you. They’re biased.”

  “My mother and sister?”

  “Relatives don’t count.”

  “Well, those four nearly exhaust the potential candidates, because I travel too much to make a lot of friends outside of modeling.”

  “You’ll have the opportunity to make friends here in Ranger Springs.”

  Jodie wheeled her suitcase toward the guest room doorway. “I’ll just put this away so Helen won’t think anything’s up. Or not up, as the case may be. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  Travis stood in the hallway until Jodie retreated to the guest bedroom. Her room for the past several days and still her refuge. She hadn’t replied to his suggestion that she could make new friends in Texas. Why was that? Didn’t she believe she was going to be here long enough to establish relationships? Jodie was being evasive and he didn’t have a clue as to what she was thinking…or planning.

  JODIE QUICKLY UNPACKED, placed her dirty clothes in the bathroom hamper and freshened up to meet the neighbors. Not that anyone lived within walking distanc
e of Travis’s house. Back in Newport Beach, houses were packed side by side to take advantage of an ocean view and the high cost of land. Even the smallest house with a view went in the mid-six figures. Her own condo had seemed outrageously expensive when she’d bought it four years ago, but she loved the view from her balcony, the short walk to restaurants and the beach.

  Here in Ranger Springs, she doubted anyone had a security system. Unless you lived around the town square, you couldn’t really walk to shops or restaurants—not that there were many of them to begin with—and the view…Well, she hadn’t seen the countryside at the best time of the year.

  Travis had told her that spring would come very soon to the Hill Country, changing the landscape completely. Flowers would cover the hills, grass would sprout overnight and the sky would be a brilliant blue with white cotton-puff clouds. The picture he painted seemed a bit inflated, but she’d have to judge for herself. She would have plenty of time to view Texas between trips to New York and California.

  After brushing her hair into a ponytail, she closed the door on the guest bedroom—just in case Helen decided to have a peek upstairs—and descended the stairs. She followed the sound of voices to the kitchen.

  “We’re just so happy for you,” Charlene Jacks was saying. She stood across the large kitchen island from Travis. Two blond-haired young women, which Jodie assumed were her other two daughters, stood with her.

  “I’m glad you could come to the wedding yesterday.” He looked over his shoulder. “Ah, here’s Jodie now.”

  She smiled at the group. “Hello, Mrs. Jacks. How are you today?”

  “I’m just fine, and please, call me Charlene. This is my middle daughter Carole,” she said, turning to a striking young woman in jeans, a Western shirt and a fake fur vest. “And my youngest, Cheryl.” Cheryl resembled Kerry much more than the middle daughter, with shorter hair and a fresh-scrubbed appearance.

  “I’m very glad to meet you. Kerry has told me so much about you that I feel I know you already.”

  “When Kerry gets a little homesick, she talks about family in very glowing terms. I remember things a bit more realistically,” Carole said with a laugh.

  “That’s not true!” Charlene protested. “She’s very grounded.”

  “Yes, she is, but you’ve got to admit, Mama, that Carole and I were a pain in the—”

  “Now, Cheryl, don’t start telling tales to Jodie. She’ll think we’re a bunch of hooligans.”

  “No, I don’t, Charlene. I think your family, like the town, is charming.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to stay?” Carole asked. “It’s a great place to live—and to raise a family.” Jodie saw her place a hand over her gently rounded tummy—something she’d missed until now because of the furry vest—and assumed she was expecting a baby with her new husband. She remembered Kerry mentioning the wedding to Huntington Foods’s CEO Greg Rafferty last fall.

  “Well, of course I wouldn’t expect Travis to move to California.”

  “No, he’s a Texan through and through,” Charlene added. “You can’t get a Texan out of Texas for long.”

  “Hey, I’m right here!” he protested.

  “We know that, honey,” Jodie said sweetly. “This is just girl talk.”

  Everyone chuckled, then Charlene said, “We’d best be going. You two are on your honeymoon, after all, and here we are intruding.”

  Travis placed his arm around Jodie’s shoulders. “No, it was good to see you. And thanks again for the cookies,” he said. “It’s always a treat to check out a new ‘Ms. Carole’ recipe before the general public.”

  “I hope you like chocolate,” Carole said to them both.

  “Love it!” Jodie had forgotten that Kerry’s sister was the famous “cookie queen,” as the media had dubbed her, whose cookie recipes were produced by her husband’s company in Chicago.

  They said their goodbyes, then stood side by side and watched the truck pull away. “Carole is going to have a baby, too,” Jodie said.

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “It was a subtle thing.”

  “Ah, one of those private female moments.”

  “Right. The thing is, I’m not ready to let anyone know about the baby, yet. If it’s okay with you, let’s just keep it quiet for a while.”

  “Sure. I understand.”

  “There’s no reason we have to be specific about when the baby is due, is there? I mean, do you think people will come right out and ask?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never been an expectant father before. But my guess is that they’ll accept something fairly vague like ‘in the fall.’”

  “Good. When it’s time to tell people, that’s what we’ll say.”

  “Fine with me.” He looked back at the kitchen. “I hope we don’t get much more food or we’ll have to open a restaurant.”

  “We could always go for another jog.”

  “I have a better idea. Do you ride?”

  “Not like a rodeo queen, but yes, I do.”

  “Then let’s go for a ride. My horses are so well mannered that even my sister and her son ride them. I’ll show you around the property—”

  “The ranch.”

  “Yes, technically. It’s not like I have to make my living selling cattle, though. I don’t think I’d be very good at keeping up with a big herd or shipping them off to the stockyards.”

  “Ugh. I wouldn’t, either.”

  “See if you have some leather-soled shoes and maybe a light jacket. I’ll saddle the horses and meet you in the barn.”

  JODIE REALLY ENJOYED their ride in the pleasant temperatures on this sunny day. Back at his ranch, Travis had seemed different than at the cabin, as though the pressure was off. Of course, the atmosphere was different because they’d both carefully put aside any sexual feelings for the moment. She wasn’t sure of his motives, but she needed time to think about how angry she’d been at his reaction to her work plans. He had seemed to accept her explanation and apology, though, so that was a start.

  He showed her his favorite spot, a sparkling pool of water he said was fed by the underground aquifer of the Hill Country. The area was isolated and surrounded by trees, so she imagined it would be a good place to get away for a little R and R. Travis had mentioned that his friend Hank ignored the fence separating the two properties and used the spot frequently for a getaway with his wife Gwendolyn. He’d tried to sound disgusted, but Jodie thought his outrage was a bit for show. Travis and Hank were obviously close.

  They’d urged the horses into a slow, controlled canter and skirted his small herd of longhorns. When he’d said he had cattle, she’d assumed Herefords or some other beef animals. But now she realized he raised the old-fashioned kind of cow that had populated Texas a hundred and fifty years ago, not the more modern varieties. The speckled, spotted and solid-colored animals looked perfectly at home on Travis’s ranch. She didn’t want to get too close, though, because of their huge and lethal-looking horns.

  When her bottom and inner thighs got a little sore from the unaccustomed Western saddle, they headed back to the house. Her cotton shaker sweater and flared embroidered jeans smelled strongly of horse and had genuine wear marks and real dirt rather than the designer kind. Neil would have turned up his citified nose, she thought with a smile.

  When they pulled up at the barn, she noticed a different car in the driveway.

  “Who’s that?” she asked as Travis dismounted.

  Travis turned to look at their visitor. “Thelma Rogers.”

  “Oh, the newspaper lady.”

  “I wonder what she wants.”

  “If you want to go see her, I’ll take care of the horses.”

  “I’d rather help you, then we can go inside together.”

  “Fine by me. I don’t blame you for wanting to avoid the press as long as possible, even the local one.”

  “She seems very nice, and you said she didn’t print the kind of articles that slammed people.” Still,
they would have to be on their toes and play the loving newlyweds.

  “She doesn’t. I’m sure everything’s fine.”

  They unsaddled and brushed down the horses, then gave them a bead of hay each and turned them loose in the corral. Travis said he’d wait until tomorrow to clean up the tack so they could see what Thelma wanted now.

  “If you want to put your arm around me or hold my hand, I just wanted to let you know it’s okay with me,” she said as they walked to the house. “I mean, to keep up appearances.”

  “Of course,” he said, looping his arm around her shoulders. “You’ve had a lot more experience than I have at pretending for the cameras.”

  She felt like stepping away from him, but didn’t. Thelma could be watching from the darkened windows. “I didn’t realize physical contact would be so distasteful.”

  “It’s not,” he claimed, stopping in the middle of the yard. “But I would like to put my arm around you or hold your hand because we both feel like it rather than because it’s expected.”

  She looped both of her arms around his neck to keep him from escaping. “Oh, Travis, just get over it! We married fast and everyone’s going to be looking for the reason. That’s a fact. We don’t need to keep bringing this up. Or maybe you just like to argue.”

  He pulled back and glared at her. “Until last week, I never argued!”

  She smiled a little too sweetly and replied, “Well, you’re making up for it. Just quit looking for some dark motive in everything that happens. It won’t kill you to be nice to me, even if you are angry that we got married.”

  “I’m not angry with you!” His hands tightened around her waist.

  “Sounds like it to me.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.”

  “Smile, dammit. We may very well have an audience.”

  “What I’d really like to do at this moment is to forget all about Thelma Rogers, her possible interest in us as a couple and her possible camera lens.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you would. Then you could run away from me and—”

  “No! Because then I’d carry you into the house and show you what married couples are supposed to be doing on their honeymoon!”