He nodded. “I know. I will. But you, too, okay?”
He watched her go, her shoulders sunk and her usual light step heavy. He hadn’t wanted to be right. He only wanted her to be happy. When this was all over, he owed her. A trip, a new car, whatever she wanted.
For now, though, he pulled out his equipment and started a trace on Meredith’s cell. It took a few minutes until he found her. Putting the car in drive, he peeled out.
…
Meredith had only been home for ten minutes, sitting at the table staring at the maps left behind, when the front door slammed shut.
“Where the hell have you been?” Travis barked as he marched into the kitchen. His gaze settled on the shopping bags on the floor and hanging from the back of her chair. “Have you been…shopping?” he almost choked out.
“Really? That’s what you’re going to start with? After taking off and leaving me here humiliated like that, everyone knowing you ducked out? You have the nerve to attack me?”
He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. She snorted. Please. She wasn’t the only one testing people’s patience around here.
More calmly, he continued. “I have the nerve to demand where you’ve been because I can’t have you taking foolhardy risks, especially if you’re not telling anyone where you are going. These people aren’t messing around. They already killed Lance.”
She fought the urge to pick up her apple and fling it at him. So high-handed.
Instead, she hoped sarcasm was more effective. “First of all, your sister and her friend are not my babysitters, and I am not under any obligation to tell them where I may or may not be going. Last I checked I was still a competent adult quite capable of making my own decisions. Second, retrieving Darcy’s car from the impound lot and picking up some things at the store for tonight hardly seemed dangerous enough to require I check in with the girl brigade. And last—I wouldn’t have had to go out on my own, taking these so-called risks, if you hadn’t left me behind.”
He raised his brows, not looking the least chastised. Instead, he rested his hands on the back of a kitchen chair and leaned over it. “I left without you because I didn’t know what I was going to find when I arrived at Lance’s, and I wasn’t going to put you further at risk until I knew. I’m not going to apologize for it.”
Jeez, the man was stubborn. Well, so was she. “And that’s the only reason you took off like that. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact you and I slept together?”#p#分页标题#e#
He flexed his jaw as if he was debating something. Finally, he pulled the chair out and sat across the table from her. “Look, Mer. About that.” His tone was apologetic. “You’re going through a lot right now. You’re feeling vulnerable.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. She wasn’t some whimpering little flower that would fall apart, as he should already know, which from the light in his eyes he was probably realizing. But he continued, “And if I’d been in my right mind, I would have left you alone. But around you, I’m anything but in my right mind.”
Okay, so she was slightly appeased. “It must be my wit.”
He took a moment before he chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, there is that.” He raised those green eyes, now warm and sparkling with humor, but there was also another glint in their depths that sent her heart thumping a little too hard in her chest.
She sobered, though, needing to get something straight before she got too sidetracked. “Travis, if you haven’t figured it out, I’m not a fragile helpless woman or a head case that’s going to fall apart because you don’t wake up whispering how much you love me or that we’re meant to be forever blah, blah, blah…you get the picture. I’m…realistic. Pragmatic. So you running out like that before I was even awake—”
“Whoa. Wait. I didn’t run out, Mer. And that’s getting me back to why this isn’t the best timing. I have a job to do. And last night, I was so…distracted that I missed three important phone calls. I was leaving you some time to sleep while I returned those calls downstairs, but then one thing led to another and the next thing I knew my sister and Allie showed up, followed by Meems. The morning just ran away from me. I wasn’t avoiding you.”
She studied him, already feeling infinitely better than she had all day as she’d wrestled with worry over her daughter along with self-doubt she’d scared someone else away. Now that he mentioned them, though… “Three calls? What were they?”