The Angel Tasted Temptation (29 page)

"Well, did they?" the reporter pressed, his pen poised to write down her next words. Apparently the cookie hadn't sweetened him up too much.

Lying might not save her soul, but it would save Travis. She watched him, the gallon of milk in his hand, and decided where her priorities lay. "Belly-Licious did nothing—"

"Did nothing but stop a bad ad campaign," Travis cut in. "They did use Miss Shordon but realized it would be a bad reflection on one of Nature's finest treasures. So they've come up with a better idea."

"They have?" the reporter asked.

"They have?" Meredith echoed.

"They sure have," Ray Jr. announced, stepping forward and grinning. That kind of smile on her brother meant only one thing.

Trouble.

"What do you know about this new ad campaign?" Sherman turned to Travis.

"I helped design it, with the amazing talents of Kenny Gerard, my assistant, and Larry Herman, the vice president. We launched it early this morning."

"And can you give me a sneak preview?" Sherman gave him a hopeful tip of his chin.

"Just get on 93 and head up to exit 26. All the answers you're looking for are right there."

Sherman shrugged, noted the information, and put his pad away before reaching for a couple more cookies. Apparently, he had what he'd come looking for.

But Meredith was more confused than ever. What had Travis meant by that? "All the answers you're looking for?"

When it came to figuring out Travis Campbell, Meredith doubted even a psychic in a fortune cookie factory could help her.

Momma's Matchmaking-Two-Peas-in-a-Pod Shrimp and Snow Pea Stir-Fry

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 tablespoon garlic, minced

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced

1/4 cup chicken broth, separated

2 cups broccoli florets

1 cup cauliflower florets

2 carrots, sliced

1 red bell pepper, julienned

1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 pound fresh snow peas

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

See, even Momma can learn a new recipe or two. If I can learn to love food that doesn't come from a farm, then you can learn to love that man who has the best hygiene habits I've seen in a long time.

Start by heating the oil in a wok (yes, I said "a wok." Told you Momma could change ... some). Add the garlic and ginger and sauté for about 30 seconds, then add a tablespoon of the chicken broth and toss in all the vegetables except the snow peas. Stir-fry until they're crisp-tender.

Mix in the shrimp and the snow peas and blend them all, nice and harmonious, in the wok. Sort of like bringing Indiana and Massachusetts together in one place. Add the remaining ingredients, heat for another minute or so, then serve over hot rice.

And stop being so stubborn. You know that Momma always knows best. The sooner you start listening to her wisdom, the sooner you'll be happier.

An hour later, Vernon, Ray Jr., Travis and Meredith had loaded up Bessie—using the hay and Meredith's tail as bait—into the borrowed trailer attached to the back of Cecil's pickup truck and were heading out of the city and back to the Happy Acres farm.

Travis and Meredith followed behind in Travis's car. The seating arrangement had been completely arranged by Momma, who had shooed off the boys, then jumped into Meredith's car and put it into gear, shouting that she needed to rest her feet and Meredith should just go along with Travis to bring up the rear and see Bessie home.

He could tell Meredith wasn't happy. She refused to talk to him, sitting in the passenger's seat of his car in stony silence, letting the air conditioner cool her body—and hopefully her temper, too.

She'd stripped off the top half of the cow costume, revealing a white fitted T-shirt. He wanted to run the back of his hand down the soft cotton fabric, tracing the outline of her curves, but he knew if he came anywhere near her right now, she'd likely pound him into the ground with one of those plastic hooves.

They followed the pickup for a few minutes, until they approached the exit for Storrow Drive and Fenway Park. Travis veered off, while Vernon and Ray Jr. kept going, barreling on up I-93 in the bouncy pickup, their heads bopping up and down with the bad springs like human popcorn. Travis slowed and parked his car on the shoulder of Exit 26, then killed the engine.

"What are we doing? We have to go with them to return Bessie."

"I want to show you something."

He got out of his side, came around and opened her door, leading her out of the car before she could protest. The traffic hummed along by them, the tires making their own kind of music against the pavement. The city bustled around them, buildings looming like sentries. "Look up."

She did. "I see sun. Clouds. Sky." She pivoted back, hand on the door's latch. "Okay? Let's go."

"Turn a little to the right."

She let out a gust of breath, but did as he asked, a question on her lips that never got voiced. When her gaze connected with the massive sign that overlooked the highway, Meredith's jaw dropped open.

"
That's
what replaced you," he said.

"How... What... When?"

He chuckled. "Vernon and Ray Jr. helped me last night."

"But..." She gaped at the moving parts, the gleaming smile above her head. "This is not what the company was planning for No-Moo. You're going to get fired for this."

He shrugged. "Probably."

"Doesn't that worry you?"

"Not anymore." Travis circled around to the front of Meredith and reached for her hands. When she didn't resist, he felt a tiny surge of hope that maybe all this tension between them was as fixable as the billboard had been. "I did it for you."

"Me? Why?"

He took a deep breath. "You were right; I did use you for the No-Milk focus group."

"You were behind the whole thing, weren't you? The newspaper articles, the billboard. All of it." She tried to tug away from him but he held fast.

"No, I wasn't. I met you and I thought you'd be great for helping us figure out how to sell No-Moo to people in the Midwest, the hardest market to crack." He shook his head, knowing that if he had met Meredith today, two weeks after all the changes he had made in his life, he would not have even thought of doing the same thing. "At the time, I thought it was a fair trade. You wanted me, I wanted you."

"But you never came through on your end of the bargain."

A smile crossed his lips. Oh how he'd wanted to. Then, and even more so now. "We'll get to that later," he said. "I promise."

For the first time in days, he saw a spark in her eyes. Maybe all wasn't lost with Meredith, maybe they could indeed fix the mess they'd made of everything.

She arched a brow. "You promise?"

"Here in front of God and Larry." He gestured toward the billboard.

She laughed. "I'm not sure that's much of a promise."

He nodded, agreeing. "Probably not. But it's the best I can do standing on the highway."

She grinned. "It'll do."

A bus sped past them, so close to the shoulder it nearly sideswiped his car. The whoosh of air going by sent Meredith's hair whipping around her face. Travis reached up and brushed the tendrils off her soft, peaches-and-cream cheeks, allowing his hand to linger for a long moment. "I was a different man when I met you," he said. "Back then, I didn't notice if people got hurt by the stupid things I did. I made idiotic choices, lived a life without many consequences and basically skated along, doing what I had to, to keep my job and pay my bills."

"And now?"

"And now I want more. More out of me, and more out of my life."

"And this"—she motioned toward the twelve-by-twenty-four image—"is part of that?"

He chuckled. "That's mainly revenge. The point is, I'm not so worried about losing my job anymore. I've got a plan to take care of my brother and Kenny, if that happens. But I am worried about one thing."

"What's that?"

"Losing you."

She swallowed and broke away from him. 'There is no
losing
me, Travis. I wasn't yours to begin with."

"Why not?" The lunchtime traffic began to multiply and speed down the road, looking a lot like animals going two-by-two into an all-you-can-eat buffet on Noah's ark. "Why not, Meredith?"

"Because I don't want any of that."

"Why? Because you're too busy running away?"

"I'm not running away. I'm just looking for something different for a while."

"Oh yeah? Then why are you so scared of me?"

"I'm not scared of you." She took a step closer to him and brought her chest within a few inches of his. "If anything, I'd say
you're
the one scared of
me
."

"Bull."

"You've put me on this pedestal like I'm some kind of china doll that you can't break. I know you're not a virgin; I know you've slept with other women... but you won't sleep with me. And don't tell me it's because you're afraid of taking my virtue or any of that nineteenth-century crap."

"That isn't crap, it's being a gentleman."

"No. It's being
afraid
.'" Her hair blew around her face again, but this time she was the one to brush it impatiently out of the way. "I'm the one woman that you can't have unless it's true love and doves in the air and rings on our fingers." She let out a gust and shook her head, as if the entire idea were absurd. "Do you know what you're afraid of, Travis?"

"What?"

"Breaking my heart."

He stepped back, stunned, and she knew she'd hit the nail on the head. For a long time, he didn't say anything. He stared at the traffic going by them, as if the procession of semis and SUVs was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

"My father did that, you know," he said after a long time. His voice was so low, she could barely hear it above the engines of the cars.

She came up beside him. "Did what?"

"Broke women's hearts. All the time. It was like a hobby for him, Get them to love him, then leave them and move on to another prize. He was a hunter, looking for bigger game every time. And me and Brad, we'd be left with some woman weeping in our living room, asking us why. Hell, we didn't know. We were six and seven or ten and eleven, twelve and thirteen. Didn't matter. It happened about every year, like he got an itch in January."

The pieces clicked into place in Meredith's mind. "And you don't want to be him."

Travis shook his head. "No. Not one bit."

"You don't have to worry. You're not going to break my heart, Travis," she said softly, taking his hand in hers. "Because I have no intentions of falling in love with you. Or anyone."

Yet even as she said the words, the first little crack shimmied through her heart and she wondered who was lying now.

Kenny's All-Hell-Is-Breaking-Loose Beer-Poached Salmon

1 pound salmon fillet

2 teaspoons garlic salt

3 tablespoons brown sugar

3 tablespoons butter

1 12-ounce beer

When you see the boss's hair standing on end, and he swivels his head a full 360 degrees, you know it's not gonna be a good day at work. Time for a beer. And a beer-based meal.

Preheat your grill to medium-high. Then get crafty (in your kitchen, not with the boss. You do need that job, you know). Make a foil boat for your salmon, leaving the top open. Put the fish inside it, season it with the garlic salt, then sprinkle on the brown sugar and dot with butter.

Place your boat on a grill. Make sure you don't have any leaks, because the last thing you want to do is waste the brewski. Pour the beer into the boat, cover it with more aluminum foil, then bring down the grill lid and cook on medium-high for about ten minutes.

There. The salmon's happy, you're happy. The boss isn't, but after a beer or two, it doesn't bother you as much.

When Travis's cell phone started ringing like the hunchback at Notre Dame had ingested a little too much wine before hitting the bells, he knew the shit had hit the billboard at work. He heard the faint sound of the ringer through the windows of his car and reached inside for his Motorola.

Three missed calls from Larry. Four from Kenny. As he was flipping it open to call Kenny back, the phone rang again.

"You have to get back here, Travis," Kenny said. "All hell is breaking loose and the demon is coming out of his cave to chop off heads."

"Jerome?"

"Yeah. Oh, gotta go. I see the axe coming at me." Kenny clicked off, leaving Travis with dead air and the certain knowledge that he had, indeed, gotten everyone fired.

"I hate to do this," he said to Meredith, "but I have to take you home, or back to the shop. I have to get back to work."

She nodded, as if she were glad for the interruption. Truth was, he was too. She'd hit pretty close to home with what she'd said and he wanted a little time to breathe. Maybe think about it.

After
he'd gotten to work and dealt with the wrath of the Herman family.

"The shop is fine," Meredith told him. "It's closer to Belly-Licious and I can get a ride back to Rebecca's on the T or with Maria."

"Or I can come by after work and pick you up." It was a question, one that hinted at a future between them.

She didn't answer. Travis opened her car door, then came around to his own side. In a second, they were back on the expressway, heading in the opposite direction, through the new tunnel and then over to Atlantic Avenue. Again, she said almost nothing on the ride over there, as if she'd said everything already.

Well, he'd be damned if he was done.

Though it didn't take long to get from the Storrow Drive exit to the little shop off of Atlantic Avenue, it was long enough for Travis to realize Meredith had been right. He
was
afraid of breaking her heart.

He'd never felt that way about a woman before. Always, he'd met the kind of woman who knew he wasn't there for much more than a good time and a kiss good-bye at the end.