Not Before Marriage!
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Sandra Steffen
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Chapter One
Travis Delaney moved a coffee cup aside and studied the blueprint spread out on his cluttered desk. He glanced up when the door opened, and muttered under his breath when the phone rang. Braden Calhoun, his friend and business partner in Northwood Builders, sauntered into the office and hiked one work boot onto a vinyl chair.
Minutes later Travis dropped the phone into its cradle and grumbled, “This is the last time we let Claudia take a vacation, agreed?”
Braden chuckled. “I’ll let you be the one to tell her.”
Travis’s eyes shifted back to the blueprint. Chaos always erupted when their middle-aged secretary was away, and this week had been no exception. The air-conditioning was on the fritz, one of their best carpenters had fallen off a scaffolding and broken his right arm, they had yet to figure out Claudia’s filing system, and the phone hadn’t stopped ringing since eight o’clock Monday morning.
He opened his mouth to speak, only to clamp it shut again when the horrendous beeping sound of a dump truck backing up split the air from outside the open window. Braden dropped his foot to the floor and stretched lazily.
“Thank God it’s Friday, huh?” he asked. “Pete and I are going to check out that new nightclub downtown tonight. It’s supposed to be the hottest spot in Madison. Why don’t you come along? It’s probably just what you need to help you out of your mid-life crisis.”
Travis clenched his teeth and folded the blueprint into a neat square. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not going through a mid-life crisis. I’m just in a little slump, that’s all.”
“Sure you are, and bears sleep in pajamas and this slump has nothing to do with the fact that your thirty-ninth birthday is only a few weeks away.”
Travis didn’t even bother scowling; his best friend was immune. Rising to his feet, he said, “Times like these, I don’t know why I ever followed you home when we were kids, Calhoun. I sure as hell don’t know why I stayed.”
Braden chuckled out loud and said, “Sure you do.”
A series of raucous catcalls and wolf whistles rent the air. Braden ambled over to the window and let out a long, quiet whistle of his own. “Now there’s what you need to get you over your mid-life slump.”
Travis rounded the desk and glanced out the window. A young woman was doing her best to skirt a group of workers who were putting in new curbs across the street. Most of the men were looking at her, and a few were making out-and-out nuisances of themselves.
“Guys like that give all construction workers a bad name,” Travis grumbled.
“You aren’t supposed to be looking at the guys.”
Braden grinned and Travis swore under his breath. The truth of the matter was, he could hardly take his eyes off the young woman. From here, everything about her looked golden—her long, straight hair, her skirt and matching top, even the warm color of her skin.
“She looks awfully young,” he said quietly.
It was Braden’s turn to sputter under his breath. “For crying out loud, Delaney. As long as she’s over twenty-one, she isn’t too young.”
“How old do you think she is?” Travis asked.
“I don’t know. Twenty-two, twenty-three, maybe.”
When she disappeared inside the dry cleaner’s, Braden turned away from the window and said, “There will probably be a hundred women just like her at Roxy’s tonight. If you won’t come with me for yourself, do it for the guys in the crew. They’ve been tiptoeing around you for weeks and are starting to complain. What do you say?”
Travis pretended to think about it for a few seconds then shook his head. Braden left soon after, muttering about stubborn streaks and mid-life crises. Travis knew he should leave, too. But he stayed at the window, thinking.
He had to admit, thirty-nine sounded like a horrendous age to be. That’s how old Braden’s Uncle Artie had been when he’d started wearing black socks with his sandals and plaid Bermuda shorts. It was also the age his father had been when he’d finally left for good. Not that that had anything to do with anything.
His friend was convinced that Travis was going through a mid-life crisis. Although he wasn’t looking forward to his thirty-ninth birthday, Travis hadn’t told Braden the real reason he’d been barking everyone’s head off lately. It had all started a month ago when he’d run into a guy who used to know his old man. Travis supposed that in a county of over three hundred thousand people, it was bound to happen sooner or later, but he hadn’t been prepared for the old sense of anxiety and dread that had slipped inside him that day.
Bub Dooley was an overaged biker who’d come to the house a couple of times when Travis was a kid. Bub’s hair was longer than it used to be, his arms beefier, his motorcycle newer. Other than that, he was the same as Travis remembered. He thought he’d buried any hard feelings he’d had for either of his parents a long time ago, but something Bub said had hit home.
“You’re the spittin’ image of your old man. You look like him, walk like him, talk like him, you lucky dog. Last I heard, he was living in Ohio with a woman named Sue. He always was good with the ladies, and I’ll bet you are, too.”
Travis’s stomach had turned, and it had nothing to do with the fact that Bub was missing a front tooth. The idea that Travis was anything like his old man had done that.
Across the street, the door of the dry cleaner’s store opened and the golden-haired woman stepped onto the sidewalk. She looked both ways, as if trying to decide whether or not she wanted to go back through that mine field of men she’d passed on her way by.
He could see her back straighten with determination as she headed the way she had come. His own backbone straightened, too, his chest filling with a strange mixture of curiosity and admiration. She may be young, but she obviously had a lot of spunk.
Corinna Cassidy folded her dry cleaning over her arm and looked toward the men who were working a short distance away. She dreaded walking past them a second time, but she didn’t have time to walk three blocks out of her way simply because a few men chose to ogle and leer. Allison would be getting hungry soon, and Cori hadn’t even started supper. She took a deep breath and started down the street at a steady clip.
She made it past the first group without incident and was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the wolf whistles started all over again. She increased her pace, and had al- most made it to her parked car when a shirtless man with the chest hair of an ape stepped into her path.
“Hey, baby, what’s your hurry?”
She tried to skirt around him to the right, but the man took a quick step back and another to the side, effectively blocking her escape. She doubted that he posed any real danger on a busy street in downtown Madison, but nerves fluttered in her stomach just the same.
“I asked you a question,” he taunted.
“I’m in a hurry,” she answered, glancing nervously around.
Instead of taking the hint, he leaned closer and said, “In too big a hurry to tell me your name? That isn’t very friendly. It’s Friday, and I feel like partying, don’t you?”
“Look, I um,” she stammered, “don’t want to cause any trouble. But I really do have to get home to my little…”
“Come on, honey,” he cut in. “All I want to do is talk to you. I won’t bite, unless you want me to.”
The man’s fingers snaked around her upper arm. Cori gasped, her trepidation turning to shivers of real fear. She tried to back away, but he held her firmly in place. She was about to open her mouth and scream at the top of her lungs when a voice came from behind her.
“Leave her alone.”
It took a moment for the significance of those three little words to filter through her panic. She glanced behind her, catching a glimpse of another man with broad shoulders and brown eyes narrowed in warning.
“I said, leave her alone.”
“Get lost, buddy. I saw her first.”
Travis leveled his gaze at the greasy jerk and stepped ominously closer. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He wasn’t even sure how he’d ended up out here. One second he’d been staring out the window; the next he was halfway across the street.
Keeping his voice low, he said, “As far as I know, this is a public sidewalk.”
The other man scowled in warning. Adrenaline surged through Travis’s bloodstream, heating him from his chest to the tips of his fingers. It reminded him of all the fights he’d been in when he was a kid. Back then, he’d been so light on his feet the guys on the street had nicknamed him Lightning Delaney. It had been a long time since he’d used his fists to defend someone’s name and honor, but he hadn’t forgotten how.
With his shoulders squared and his elbows bent and ready, he met his opponent’s stare and held his ground. The other man’s eyes darted back and forth as if gauging Travis’s bravery and stamina against his own.
Travis stood statue-still and ready. The other man raised his hands in a gesture of retreat, his beady little eyes sliding back to the young woman. “Baby, you don’t know what kind of a chance you just passed up.”
To Travis, he said, “Can’t blame a guy for tryin’. Huh, buddy?”
Travis thought about telling the jerk that he was no buddy of his, but didn’t want to waste his breath. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fought such a strong urge to flatten somebody’s nose. Not trusting the man as far as he could throw him, he said, “Let the woman go and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
“Hey, Rex, get back to work,” someone yelled from behind.
Other voices called similar orders. Travis paid little attention. He was aware that the woman had moved aside, but he didn’t take his eyes from the man squaring off directly in front of him.
Experience and gut instinct warned Travis not to be fooled by the man’s calm stance. A fist shot out. Travis moved fast, but not quite fast enough. Bony knuckles clipped his jaw. He staggered, but he stayed on his feet.
When the next punch came, he was ready. He jumped to the side like lightning, and brought his own fist up with a sharp hook.
The man’s head jerked to the side. With a dazed expression, he keeled over backward.
Even as Cori forced her hands from her cheeks, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Two men half dragged and half carried the greasy-looking man away. The other man, the one who had stepped in on her behalf, was holding his fist.
She struggled to find her voice and finally asked, “Are you all right?”
He nodded, but she noticed that he was still rubbing his right hand.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“Nah. What about you?”
She meant to answer his question with a slow, steady smile, but her gaze caught on his mouth and the smile never made it to her lips. She’d never pretended to be a good judge of male character, but there was no denying the fact that she was innately drawn to the look deep in this man’s dark eyes.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he repeated.
She blinked, trying to clear her mind of her wayward thoughts. She glanced at the red mark on his tanned jaw and finally said, “I’m fine, but I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Forget it,” he answered.
“No, really, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stepped in,” she confessed. “I’m afraid I’ve never been very good at telling a man no.”
Travis looked down at the woman who had spoken, straight into the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. There was a faint spattering of golden freckles across her nose, and the hint of a self-mocking quirk on her lips. Taking a step closer, he said, “I’d say your message was loud and clear. It isn’t your fault he didn’t listen.”
“That may be true,” she said quietly, “but I still appreciate your intervention. I wish there was some way to repay you. I could buy you a drink.”
For a man who almost never smiled, Travis had the strangest urge to do just that. A jackhammer burst on behind him, the sound covering the traffic on the street, not to mention his own thundering heartbeat. Feeling strangely buoyant, he said, “I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, but you barely look old enough to drink.”
She pushed her hair behind her shoulders and said, “It’s these freckles of mine. They’ve been the bane of my existence since I was twelve, but believe me, I’m older than I look.”
He wondered what she meant by older. That she was closer to twenty-five than twenty-one? Suddenly, it didn’t matter. Nothing did, except the glimmer in her eyes, and the flickering awareness deep in his body.
“I know what I can do to repay you,” she said, suddenly rummaging through her small purse. The next thing he knew, she’d slipped a business card into his hand. With a butterfly touch, she curled his fingers over it, then gave him a whimsical smile that hit him right between the eyes.
“Thanks again for coming to my rescue. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, I hope you’ll stop in for breakfast. My treat.”
With that, she turned, her long hair brushing his forearm, the material of her gauzy skirt trailing against the knees of his jeans. A kiss couldn’t have left him more speechless.
“Wait!” he called. “I don’t even know your name.”
She turned at her car’s door and smiled again. “Oh, you’re right. My name’s Cori Cassidy. What’s yours?”
Travis wasn’t sure how he managed to mutter his name. All he knew was that it hadn’t been easy. Every male hormone in his body was on a rampage. His blood seemed to thicken and his heartbeat kicked into overdrive.
After she pulled away from the curb, he brought the card up for closer inspection. It was bordered with flowers in pink, rose, lavender and blue. In the center, intertwining gold letters spelled out Ivy’s Garden. The words conjured up visions of paradise, of soft green fronds and fresh garden flowers, of long blond hair and long golden limbs wrapped around him. He wasn’t sure why he brought the small card up to his nose, but as he inhaled the scent of lilacs and roses, the throbbing in his hand and jaw all but disappeared.
The sounds of jackhammers and street traffic barely registered in his mind because in his memory he could still hear the lilt in Cori Cassidy’s sultry voice as she’d invited him to breakfast. He could still see the warm look in her eyes as she handed him that little card, and could still feel the gentle flutter in her fingertips when she placed it in his palm.
If you’re ever in the neighborhood, I hope you’ll stop in for breakfast. My treat.
Normally, he knew what a woman meant when she offered to fix him breakfast, because normally, the invitation was issued from a double bed. He didn’t know what to make of such an invitation when it came without so much as a preliminary kiss.
Travis tucked the card into his pocket and turned to leave, suddenly incredibly hungry for breakfast—among other things.
The hinges on the antique mailbox creaked ever so slightly as Cori tucked her letter inside. Squinting against the bright sun, she closed her eyes. Her mind felt as wispy as the thin clouds in the Wisconsin sky, her thoughts on about a hundred different dreamy things. The aroma of the Peach Betty baking in the oven wafted to her nose.
Turning toward the smell, she opened the screen door and stepped into the inn’s big old kitchen.
“You mailed another letter this year, didn’t you?”
Cori jumped, one hand flying to her throat, the other to the screen door at her back. By the time her eyes began to adjust to the dimmer light in the kitchen, she saw the shadowy form of her friend standing on the other side of the big room, a stack of tablecloths in her hands. “Ivy, you nearly startled me out of my shoes.”
“I’m sorry about that, but Cori honey, are you sure it’s wise to send another letter?”
Emotions shimmered through Cori at the expression of worry in her dear friend’s beautiful, wrinkled face. “Allison deserves to know her grandpa and grandma. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
Ivy made a clucking sound and shook her head. “Considering you’re the daughter I never had, I can’t help but worry. I hate what this does to you every year. Why, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about going to Green Bay myself and giving those people a piece of my mind.”
Washing her hands at the deep porcelain sink, Cori said, “Until they’re ready to forgive me, it wouldn’t do any good. Now, would you like some help with those tablecloths?”
Ivy made a little sound at the back of her throat, blowing air out through her nose at the same time. “Only a fool would turn down an offer like that, and I’m no fool.” With another huff, she pushed through the swinging door, taking her tablecloths and her dignity with her.
Cori dried her hands on a kitchen towel, listening to the swishing sound the door made as it swung into place, thinking about what Ivy had just said. Ivy Pennington was the dearest friend she’d ever had, but she didn’t fully understand Cori’s need to mail that letter every year. Sometimes, Cori didn’t understand it herself. She only knew that it was something she had to do.
The older woman was already busy spreading a cloth on the farthest table when Cori entered the room. Late morning sunshine streamed through the lacy curtains, throwing intricate designs on a square of the old-fashioned carpet, spilling over onto the tables and their mismatched chairs nearby. Taking one of the pale yellow cloths from Ivy’s stack, Cori shook it out, letting it billow down to the tabletop below.
“The O’Brians checked out of the Rose Room a little while ago,” she said while she worked. “And the Donovans are packing their things in the Lilac Room right now. Everyone else has gone sight-seeing for the rest of the day, except Mrs. Abershankle, who’s lying down with a bad headache. Anyway, I should have plenty of time to get those two rooms ready for our next guests.”
Ivy nodded, and Cori smoothed another cloth on the next table as she said, “If I have time, I want to work in the garden later today.”
Ivy made that sound again, the one that was a cross between a hum and a huff. This time she followed it up with a firm shake of her head. “Corinna, Corinna, Corinna. All you ever do is work. I saw you slip the books out of the office late yesterday. It was Saturday night, and how did you spend it? Working on our ledgers.”
“I don’t mind, Ivy. Besides, it looks as if we’ll be able to afford at least some of the repairs this old house needs. If I’m not mistaken, this place is starting to show a profit.”
“Humph. Weekends aren’t for showing a profit. Weekends are for couples. According to Lisa and Jillian, you met a hunk when you were running errands Friday afternoon. You should have gotten his phone number and given him a call the first chance you got.”
Cori couldn’t help grinning at the way Ivy said hunk. When Travis Delaney’s image flashed through her mind, she was glad her back was to her friend because Ivy would have noticed the way her grin changed to a dreamy smile. For some reason she wasn’t ready to share these particular feelings with anyone. Her memories of Travis Delaney were too potent for her own peace of mind, her response to those memories too intense.
“Maybe you should go back to that street and see if you can find him,” Ivy said. “Who knows, maybe you’ll see him again….”
Cori only half listened as Ivy rattled on. She knew her friend would have been thrilled to learn that she’d invited a man to breakfast, but Cori was glad she hadn’t mentioned it. After all, Travis hadn’t come. She should know—she’d watched the door for his arrival two mornings in a row. She told herself she was lucky he hadn’t shown up, lucky that she’d never see him again. For some reason, it felt like bad luck. That fact alone concerned her, but what worried her even more was the heat that had gathered deep inside her when she’d looked into his eyes that day. It scared her, because it brought out yearnings she thought she’d put behind her a long time ago, yearnings she had no intention of giving in to again.
“…and the next time you see him, buy him a soda. Why, you could even…”
“I’m not planning to go back to that street, Ivy. It was just a fluke that I met him in the first place. I’m sure I’ll never see him again.”
Changing the subject, Cori said, “Did I tell you that every room is booked for the next two weeks?”
It took her a moment to realize that Ivy had grown quiet. Smoothing a wrinkle from the last tablecloth, she said, “What’s the matter, Ivy? Cat got your tongue?”
Ivy’s answer was a long time coming. When she did finally speak, it was in a voice Cori hardly recognized. “I’ve never seen a cat this big before.”
“What are you talking about?” Cori asked, wondering at her friend’s strange answer. “Ivy?”
When Ivy didn’t answer, Cori glanced over her shoulder, straight into Travis Delaney’s dark brown eyes.
