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Lloyd stared at Travis, his reddened face draining of blood.
Whatever he saw, it made the bigger man back up a step.
Then Travis added, “And I’m going to enjoy every fucking second. You might want to think twice about giving me a reason to ever look your way again.”
Lloyd walked away, his pace notquitea run, but a hell of a lot quicker than the man’s usual strutting gait.
His door banged shut maybe a minute later.
Travis still stood with his back to her.
She drew in a ragged breath and almost moaned because now her head was full of the scent of him.
Backing up a couple of steps, she took another breath and reminded herself to focus.
It worked, too.
But she found herself focusing on the wrong kind of thing.
“What the ... ” She sucked in a breath. “Travis, you’rebleeding.”
“I know.” The words came out gritty. “It’s fine. Just tore a couple of stitches.”
Without even looking at her, he walked away, elbow tucked in close to his side where the fabric was slowly growing wetter and redder from blood.
She shoved a hand into her hair and fisted it. Her thoughts spun in empty, dizzying circles before finally settling down into a coherent stream.
Travis was hurt.
He’d intervened and helped her kids.
And he washurt.
Fuck.
When he didn’t answer, Isabel let herself in, braced for the ear-shattering screech of the alarm system.
But it was quiet.
Please don’t let me find him collapsed on the floor somewhere.
Less than a minute passed before she found solid proof she needed to be much more specific when she prayed for things.
Travishadall but collapsed.
But he had made it to the couch in the minimalist-styled living room where she’d often sat with Miles over the six years since she’d settled in Maine.
Looking at him now, pale, sweating, mouth set in hard lines as he pressed a folded towel to his side, Isabel’s mouth went dry. A hundred questions flashed through her mind, everything fromwhat happenedtowhy are you heretowhy didn’t you have faith in me.
But the last one was the most intimate, the most personal, the one she’d never let herself ask.
Do you still love me?
As if some psychic echo of her question slipped from her mind to his, his eyes snapped open.
Despite his obvious pain, the force of his personality was evident in his blue-green eyes as he stared at her. It didn’t matter that he was slumped on the couch, hair disheveled and in need of a wash, with the scruff of what was probably a week’s worth of facial hair darkening his cheeks and chin. Travis Barnes was a man who compelled the eye just as much now as he had been as a teen, hovering on the edge of adulthood, ready to take her father on, despite the apparent disparity of power between a well-known DA out of Virginia and a young, if affluent, teenager from the West Coast.
That the force of him was so much ...morenow didn’t surprise her at all.
