There they were, the three Baron brothers, he and Slade still reeling over Gage's admission that he and Natalie had split up, and along had come Grant Landon to admit_ he was facing the same trouble with his wife.
The only certainty in relationships between the sexes, Travis thought as he looked in the mirror and adjusted his bow tie, was that there were no certainties in relationships between the sexes. That had been the general consensus that had come out of the impromptu Los Lobos meeting.
Travis sighed and put the studs through his cuffs.
When they were growing up, a Los Lobos meeting meant talk about baseball, or football, or maybe secret plans to sneak out of their rooms at midnight to look for whatever trouble a trio of kids could get into on a ranch the size of a small country.
This time, it had been all about women. Gage's bewilderment at his wife's decision to leave him. Grant Landon's dismay at his wife telling him she was unhappy. Slade hadn't said much but he'd had a funny look about him, as if he could have contributed a lot to the discussion, if he'd wanted to.
Landon had dubbed it a meeting of The I Don't Understand The Female Of The Species Club which, come to think of it, had been pretty close. Travis had just kept silent. What could he have said about feeling anger for a woman he hardly knew that would have made sense?
Anger, and lust.
His eyebrows drew together over his slightly bent nose.
How could you be so angry at a woman and still want her so badly it made you ache? Because he did still want her. If he went down the stairs tonight and, by some stroke of fate, found Alex in the crowd milling through the house.. .if that happened, he'd go straight to where she stood, take her in his arms, shake her until her teeth rattled and then-and then...
"You're an idiot, Baron," Travis said to his glowering reflection.
Why would he want a woman like her? He didn't like teases. And he sure didn't like being used. Equality of the sexes was fine but what Alex had done to him was role reversal in spades. Wham, bam, thank you-sir.
Even he had never been guilty of that. He'd never taken a woman to bed and then just unceremoniously dumped her. He dated her for a while, took her to dinner, whatever. And, when the affair ran its course, he sent flowers, an expensive little gift...
Travis laughed.
"Hell, pal," he said to his image, "is that what this is all about? Would you feel better if the lady had sent you a couple of dozen roses and a Tiffany tie clasp?"
The tension eased from his shoulders.
He'd been acting like a jerk, and now he knew the reason. Alex Thorpe had dented his ego.
"That is pathetic," he said to the guy in the mirror, and grinned.
He slipped into the jacket to his tux, then ran his hands through his hair. He could hear music and laughter drifting from the garden. The party had started. Two hundred guests, Catie had told him, and then she'd smiled in that cute way of hers and said that she'd fielded a dozen phone calls from girls he'd grown up with, wanting to know if he'd be in attendance.
"I swear, Trav," she'd said, waggling her eyebrows, "I don't know how you're going to handle 'em all."
Travis gave himself one last look in the mirror. "Yeah," he said solemnly, "it's gonna be tough. But somebody's got to do it."
He grinned. Then, whistling cheerfully through his teeth, he left his room and went down the stairs to join the party.
A couple of hours later, he stood in the living room, a flute of Dom Perignon in one hand and a lobster canape in the other.
The wine was great and so were the hors d'oeuvres. The band was terrific, whether it was playing rock, Texas two-steps or stuff that was soft and dreamy. And, as Catie had promised, lots of his old conquests were there, all of them still gorgeous and most of them making it clear they were still interested, even some of the ones who had a husband or boyfriend in tow. In fact, there were lots of stunning women on hand, including a model whose face had adorned enough covers so even he recognized her, and the daughter of a senator who was even more beautiful in person than she was in her father's campaign ads.
He'd danced with them all, flirted with the unattached ones, and the cover girl's phone number, along with that of the senator's daughter, were safely tucked into his breast pocket.
"Having fun?" Catie called, as she danced by in the arms of Travis's cousin, Leighton.
"Oh; sure," he said heartily.
Too heartily. He knew it as soon as he spoke, but Leighton was bending Catie's ear, probably going on and on about himself the way he always did, so Travis got away with the lie. Jonas and Marta, however, weren't so easy to fool, when he went over to pay his respects a few minutes later.
Marta, elegant as always, leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
"You're the most handsome man in the room," she said. "Are you having a good time?"
"Yes, of course." Travis smiled at his stepmother. "It's a wonderful party."
"Will ya listen to this?" Jonas said. "The two of you are so busy lyin' to each other, it's enough to make my stomach turn."
Marta raised her eyebrows. "Excuse me?"
"Here's my wife, sayin' my son's the best-lookin' man around, when everybody knows the sleekest stallion at this here party is me."
Marta laughed. Travis managed to smile.
"And here's my son, sayin' what a dandy party this is when all it takes is one look at him to know he's just countin' the minutes till he can get his so-phis-to-cated tail away from here and hurry back to the bright lights of Hollywood. Ain't that right, boy?"
Marta put her hand on her husband's arm. "Now, Jonas..."
"You're right, as usual, Father," Travis said pleasantly, "except for one thing. I stopped being a boy years ago."
"So you keep tellin' me. But I sure ain't seen no proof of it yet."
Travis put his empty wineglass on the tray held by a passing waiter.
"As always, Father, talking with you has been a pleasure." He took Marta's hand and kissed it. "Marta."
"Oh," she said gently, "Travis, please don't leave."
"He ain't leavin'. I need to have a little talk with him first."
"We've had our talk. Now, if you'll excuse me-"
"Got a job I need you to do for me, boy." The old man's hard mouth curled. "Tra-vis, I mean," he said, exaggerating the name.
"What job? Break a mustang that's already sent one of the hands to the hospital? Spend the night camped in a meadow where a mountain lion's been sighted, track it down and kill it by myself, just to prove I'm a man?" Travis smiled with his teeth. "Sorry, Father, I went that route twenty years ago."
"You're the eldest son I got, Travis. Those was things you needed to do."
"Yeah, well, I did them. And I'm not interested in doing anything more for-"
"'Course, you'd have to spend a little time out of that there Hollywood to do it."
"Sounds fascinating," Travis said politely. "But I'm not interested."
"This is a fancy-pants job. One that re-quires that law degree of yours and that la-di-da attitude you got about that stuff you're drinkin'."
Jonas? Wanting to use his knowledge of law as well as wine, without making it sound as if neither was masculine? It was almost enough to make Travis change his mind...
"Unless, of course, you ain't a good enough lawyer to take on somethin' for me."
Travis smiled. "Happy Birthday, Father," he said, and strolled away.
He danced some more. Flirted some more. Drank some more of the memorable champagne and discovered that the senator's daughter kissed with her mouth open. And, as he moved slowly around the dance floor with the model's lush body pressed to his, Travis came to two conclusions.
The first was that the model's incredible breasts were almost definitely her own, the second that he'd been a fool to have wasted so much time, thinking about Alex. How wrong he'd been, earlier tonight, thinking he'd have gone straight to her if, by some quirk of fate, she were in this crowd...
Until he looked across the room and saw a slender blonde with silky hair and endless legs standing with a man's arm encircling her waist. Her back was to him but he could tell she was laughing by the tilt of her head and by the look on the man's face.
"Excuse me," he said to the model, and left her in the middle of the dance floor. He strode across the room, grasped the blonde's arm and turned her toward him.
"Alex," he said ... except, it wasn't Alex. It was a pretty woman with blue eyes and blond hair but it wasn't the woman he'd spent the past two weeks wanting.
Travis apologized. He smiled charmingly. And he set off to find his father.
Jonas was in the library, holding court, surrounded by a half a dozen or so men. It was, Travis thought dryly, a Who's Who in the world of power and leadership. The room smelled of pricey bourbon, Cuban cigars and expensive cologne.