“Right,” said Nicole. “And a pack of Big Red.”
“Got it.” Travis clicked shut the door of the truck and strode into the convenience store. He hadn’t decided what to get for himself, except that it would need to be large, wet and cold.
Damned cold.
“Did you really go to school with my dad? Wow, it must have been a long time ago!”
Thanks a lot, kid! Eden squirmed under Nicole’s open scrutiny, feeling like a frog on a dissecting table. Travis had been gone about twenty seconds, and she was already getting the third degree.
“Longer than your whole lifetime,” she answered pleasantly. “Your father graduated two years before I did.”
“And did you think my dad was hot?”
“Nicole…” Eden’s cheeks blazed like neon.
“A lot of girls do, you know. Even now that he’s so old. And the women in town—God, you should see them!”
“Don’t swear, Nicole. Your father wouldn’t like it.”
“But you wouldn’t believe them! Calling him on the phone! Bringing him pies and brownies and chicken casseroles! Inviting him over for supper, and who knows what else! He could marry any one of them in a minute. But he won’t. Want to know why?”
“That really isn’t any of my business,” Eden forced herself to say.
Nicole ran a hand through her gamine thatch of dark brown curls. “Want to know?”
“Nicole—” Eden’s protest ended in another hiccup. “All right. Why?”
“Because he’s still in love with my mom, that’s why. After all these years, he’s never gotten over her. That’s why he hasn’t found anybody else.” Nicole studied her pert reflection in the side mirror. “So, you didn’t answer my question. When you were in high school, did you think my dad was hot?”
Eden exhaled in defeat. “All the girls thought so. I guess I did, too.”
Nicole leaned closer to the mirror, squinting at an imaginary blemish. “Know what a girl in his high school did? She wrote this mash letter to my dad in her notebook. Real X-rated stuff, from what I heard. Some boy found the letter and passed out copies with the school paper. Poor Daddy was embarrassed to death, and I guess it just about ruined his reputation for good.”
Eden had gone cold in the stifling heat of the cab. “Where,” she managed to ask, “did you ever hear such a story?”
“From Kim Driscoll. Last summer. Kim said the girl’s name was Agnes or something, and that she was a real nerd. She left town after graduation and never came back. Did you know her, Eden?”
Eden shook her head in feeble denial, casting urgent glances past the gas pumps to the entrance of the Circle K, where Travis had just stepped outside.
“Run and help your father, Nicole,” she said. “He looks as if he might be about to drop those big drinks.”
“Right!” Travis’s daughter flashed out of the truck to bound across the asphalt in the swimming heat. Eden sagged limply against the upholstery, her silk blouse clinging to her skin. Her stomach clenched as she faced the reality of going home to the place where people still talked about Edna Rae Harper.
How could she do it? After what her ridiculous teenage fantasizing had done to Travis, how could she show her face in town again?
Worse, how could she avoid it?
On her other rare visits to Monroe, she had simply stayed out of sight. This time, Eden realized, hiding would not be an option. There would be shopping to do, errands to run, callers to greet. For the period of her mother’s recovery, she would have no choice except to deal with people who hadn’t seen her in years, but who still remembered the scandal and, evidently, still talked about it.
She would rise to the challenge, Eden resolved grimly. She would smile and hold her head high, as if the disgrace had never happened. Her conduct would be above reproach; and that would include keeping a wide country mile between herself and Travis Conroy.
That part, Eden assured herself, would be easy. After this miserable trip, Travis would never want to see her again, and the sentiment was mutual. The cookie-and-casserole crowd could have him—that is, if any of them could lure him away from the memory of his ex-wife.
“Your tea, milady.”
Eden’s eyes fluttered open as something cold and wet slid along her cheek. She had dozed off, she suddenly realized. And Travis was beside her, touching her hot face with the chilled, glistening bottle of iced tea.
“Feel good?” He met her startled gaze with a grin as the glassy coolness slipped dreamily down the curve of her throat, to pause at the neckline of her damp silk blouse. Eden’s eyelids floated shut, then jerked open again.
“Give me that!” Flustered and confused, she snatched the bottle out of his hand. “Wh-where’s Nicole?”
“Inside, buying the toothbrush she forgot to pack.” He swung into the seat beside her, balancing a bucket-size colddrink cup in his left hand. “Sorry it’s so hot in here. My next truck will have air-conditioning, I promise.”
“If my memory doesn’t fail me, there’s a Ford dealership off the next exit.”
“Very funny.” He tossed Nicole’s snacks onto her seat, then leaned back and took a long pull on his straw. “You’re all right, Eden Harper. You’ve got class.”
Eden forced her hazy mind to generate a response. “More class than Edna Rae?”
A shadow flickered across his face, then swiftly vanished. “Edna Rae had class, too,” he said. “She just didn’t know it.” Without asking, he reclaimed her iced-tea bottle and twisted off the lid. “Here, drink up. It’ll help cool you off.”
Accepting the tea, Eden tilted back her head and let its lovely brisk coldness trickle down her throat. She’d gotten up at 4:30 a.m. to catch a cab to La Guardia for the flight west. She was sweaty and exhausted. Her clothes were glued to her body, her hair was a windblown mess, and the aspirin she’d taken earlier hadn’t even made a dent in her headache.
But at least, she realized, her hiccups had stopped.
She cradled the icy bottle between her palms, painfully conscious of Travis’s presence beside her. Striving for an air of cool detachment, she raised the bottle to her lips and took a deep swallow. The tea went down her windpipe. She coughed and sputtered, wishing passionately that she could just melt into the floorboard and disappear.
“Hey, are you okay?” The edge in Travis’s voice could have been either concern or amusement.
She nodded, struggling against the cough reflex. “I’m…fine. It’s just…Edna Rae, coming back to…haunt me.”
Again, that odd dark shadow flickered across his face. “Eden, you don’t have to—”
He broke off as Nicole came bounding into sight, waving the toothbrush she’d bought. Eden felt a prickle of relief. Forget the past, she told herself. Forget it all. That was the only sensible thing to do.
Nicole popped into the cab and slammed the door hard. Her free hand darted to the radio, flipped on the power switch and punched the select buttons till the heavy-metal beat of a local rock station blared out of the speakers.
“Okay, Daddy?” she shouted over the volume.
“Eden?” Travis shot her a questioning glance.
“Fine.” Eden slumped into the seat cushions, her head