“Yeah. Okay. No problem,” Travis had said because what right did he have to embarrass his war-hero brother more than he’d already embarrassed himself? The proof was right there, in Jake using his supposedly-unknown-to-the-rest-of-humanity pet name for his wife.
“Next week,” Jake had said. “Right?”
Right, Travis thought, oh, yeah, right.
By next week, Caleb would be enrolled in Baby Burping 101 and Jake would be staring at fabric swatches, or whatever you called squares of cotton or velvet.
Domesticity was right up there with Lamaze.
Nothing he wanted to try.
Not ever.
He liked his life just the way it was, thank you very much. There was a big world out there, and he’d seen most of it—but not all. He still had places to go, things to do …
Things that might get the taste of war and death out of his mouth.
People talked about cleansing your palette between wine tastings but nobody talked about cleansing your soul after piloting a jet into combat missions …
And, damn, what was he doing?
A flea-bitten bar in the wrong part of town absolutely was not the place for foolish indulgence in cheap philosophy.
Travis finished his beer.
Without being asked, the bartender opened a bottle, put it in front of him.
“Thanks.”
“Haven’t seen you in here before.”
Travis shrugged. “First time for everything.”
“You want somethin’ to eat before the kitchen closes?”
“Sure. A steak, medium-rare.”
“Your money, but the burgers are better.”
“Fine. A burger. Medium-rare.”
“Fries okay?”
“Fries are fine.”
“Comin’ right up.”
Travis tilted the bottle to his lips.
A couple of weeks ago, his brothers had asked him what was doing with him. Was he feeling a little off lately?
“You’re the ones who’re off,” he’d said with a quick smile. “Married. Living by the rules.”
“Sometimes, rules are what a man needs,” Jake had said.
“Yeah,” Caleb had added. “You know, it might be time to reassess your life.”
Reassess his life?
He liked his life just fine, thank you very much.
He needed precisely what he had. Life in the fast lane. Work hard. Play hard.
Nothing wrong with that.
It was how he’d always been.
His brothers, too, though war had changed them. Jake had, still was, battling through PTSD. Caleb carried a wariness inside him that would probably never go away.
Not him.
Sure, there were times he woke up, heart pounding, remembering stuff a man didn’t want to remember, but a day at his office, taking a chance on a new stock offering and clearing millions as a result, a night in bed with a new, spectacular woman who was as uninterested in settling down as he was, and he was fine again.
Maybe that was the problem.
There hadn’t been a woman lately.
And, now that he thought about it, what was with that? He wasn’t into celibacy any more than he was into domesticity and yet, it had been days, hell, weeks since he’d been with a woman …
“Burger, medium-rare, with fries,” the bartender said, sliding a huge plate across the bar.
Travis looked at the burger. It was the size of a Frisbee and burned to a crisp.
Good thing he wasn’t really hungry, he thought, and he picked up a fry and took a bite.
The place was crowding up. Almost all the stools were taken at the bar; the same for the tables. The clientele, if you could call it that, was mostly male. Big. Tough-looking. Lots of facial hair, lots of tattoos.
Some of them looked him over.
Travis didn’t hesitate to look back.
He’d been in enough places like this one, not just in Texas but in some nasty spots in eastern Europe and Asia, to know that you never flinched from eye contact.
It worked, especially because he didn’t look like a weekend cowboy out for a night among the natives.
Aside from his height and build, which had come to him courtesy of Viking, Roman, Comanche and Kiowa ancestors, it helped that he’d given up his day-at-the-office custom-made Brioni suit for a well-worn gray T-shirt, equally well-worn jeans and a pair of Roper boots he’d had for years but then, why would any guy wear a suit and everything that went with it when he could be comfortable in jeans?
The clothes, the boots, his physical build, even his coloring—ink-black hair, courtesy of his Indian forebears, deep green eyes, thanks to his pillage-rape-and-romp European ancestors—all combined to make him look like, well, like what he was, a guy who wouldn’t look for trouble but damned well wouldn’t walk away from it if it came his way.
“A gorgeous, sexy, bad boy,” one mistress had called him.
It had embarrassed the hell out of him—at least, that was what he’d claimed—but, hey, could a man fight his DNA?
The blood of generations of warriors pulsed in his veins, as it did in the veins of his brothers. Their father, the general, had raised them on tales of valor and courage and, in situations where it was necessary, the usefulness of an attitude that said don’t-screw-with-me if you’re smart.
It was a message men understood and generally respected, though there was almost always some jerk who thought it didn’t apply to him.
That was fine.
It was equally fine that women understood it, too, and reacted to it in ways that meant he rarely spent a night alone, except by choice …
“Hi, honey.”
Last time he’d checked, the barstool to his left had been empty. Not anymore. A blonde was perched on it, smiling as if she’d just found an unexpected gift under a Christmas tree.
Uh-oh.
She was surely a gift, too. For someone.
But that someone wasn’t him.
To put it kindly, she wasn’t his type.
Big hair that looked as if it had been shellacked into submission. Makeup she probably had to remove with a trowel. Tight cotton T-shirt, her boobs resting on a muffin-top of flesh forced up by too-tight jeans.
All that was bad enough.
What made it worse was that he knew the unspoken etiquette in a place like this.
A lady made a move on you, you were supposed to be flattered. Otherwise, you risked offending her—
Her, and the neighborhood aficionados who’d suddenly shifted their attention his way.
“Hello,” he said with forced politeness, and then gave all his attention to his plate.
“You’re new here.”
Travis took a bite of hamburger, chewed as if chewing were the most important thing in his life.
“I’m