Smooth Talking Stranger (Travis Family #3)(75)

"I don't get why Jack fell in love with her in the first place," I grumbled.

"Ashley is good with men. She knows all the football stats, and she hunts and fishes, and she cusses and tells filthy jokes, and on top of all that she looks like a Chanel model. Men love her." Her mouth quirked. "And I'm sure she's great in bed."

"Now I can't stand her, either," I said.

Liberty chuckled. "Ashley is no competition for you, Ella."

"I'm not competing for Jack," I told her. "He already knows that I'm not interested in getting married, ever." I saw her eyes widen. "It has nothing to do with how great he is," I continued. "I have a lot of reasons for being this way." I gave her a sheepish smile. "And I'm sorry if I sound defensive, but telling a married person you never want to get married is like waving a red flag at a bull."

Instead of looking offended or trying to debate the matter, Liberty nodded thoughtfully. "That must be frustrating. It's hard to swim against the tide."

I liked her even more than I already did, for such ready acceptance of my feelings. "It was one of the great things about my boyfriend Dane," I told her. "He never wanted to get married, either. It was a really comfortable relationship."

"Why did you break up with Dane? Was it because of the baby? "

"Not really." I pulled out of the diaper bag an infant toy, a musical inchworm, for Luke to play with. "Looking back on it, I guess there wasn't enough to hold me and Dane together. Even after all the years we'd spent with each other. And when I met Jack, there was something about him—" I stopped, conscious that for all the variety of words I knew, there was no way to describe why and how I had been so completely captivated by Jack Travis. I looked down at Luke, stroking back the little dark feathers of his hair. "Hey, why are we with Jack?" I asked him, and he gazed back at me as if similarly mystified.

Liberty laughed gently. "Believe me, I know. Even when I couldn't stand Gage, it seemed like the temperature in the room went up about a hundred degrees whenever he was there."

"Yes. That's the fun part, the attraction. But I don't see the relationship lasting forever."

"Why not?" Liberty seemed genuinely puzzled.

Because I lose everyone I care about, sooner or later. I couldn't say that aloud—although it had a potent inner logic for me, I knew it would make me sound crazy. There was no way to explain that the very thing I craved, the intensity of a relationship with Jack, was what I feared most. It wasn't a rational fear, of course . . . it was purely visceral, which made it that much harder to fight against.

I shrugged and made my lips in the shape of a smile. "I think I'm just the flavor of the month as far as Jack is concerned."

"You're the first woman he's ever brought around the family," Liberty said in a low voice. "He could get serious in a hurry, Ella."

As I cuddled Luke and struggled with my thoughts, I was relieved when Liberty's nanny emerged from the house with a robust, handsome toddler. The boy was dressed in a swimsuit and a T-shirt printed with cartoon lobsters.

"Matthew, honey . . ." Liberty hopped up and went to get him, lavishing him with kisses. "Did you have a nice nap? Do you want to play with Mommy? We have a friend visiting, and she brought her baby . . . do you want to see him?" He responded with an enchanting wide grin, conversing with his mother in a few garbled sentences, his plump arms wrapped around her neck.

After giving us a cursory inspection, Matthew decided that playing in the sand was far more interesting than the new baby. Liberty stripped down to her swimsuit and took her son to the edge of the water, where they sat and began to fill a bucket with sand. "Ella, come put your legs in the water," she called. "It feels great."

I was dressed in a printed halter top and matching Bermuda shorts, but I had packed a swimsuit. Pulling it from the diaper bag, I said, "Give me a minute to go and change."

"Sure. Oh, this is our nanny, Tia . . . let her take care of Luke while you put on your swimsuit."

"Is that okay?" I asked Tia, who came forward with a smile.

"Yes, he's no problem," she exclaimed.

"Thank you."

"There's a guest bathroom off the kitchen," Liberty told me, "or if you need a little more space, go into any of the upstairs bedrooms."

"Got it." I went into the house, relishing the coolness of the kitchen, and found a small bathroom with earthy-hued striped walls and a stone vessel sink and a black-framed mirror. I changed into my pink swimsuit, a retro-styled one-piece. Padding barefoot through the kitchen, carrying my clothes, I heard the sound of voices, one of them Jack's deep murmur. The voices were accompanied by hammering and sawing, and the occasional squeal of a power drill.

I followed the sound to a partially opened door that led to the spacious garage, where a huge shop fan circulated the warm air. The space was brilliantly lit from the secondhand sunlight that bounced in through the open garage doors. Tapping the door a little wider, I watched unobserved as Jack, Gage, and Carrington worked on the wooden skiff, which was propped up on padded sawhorses.

Both Jack and Gage had removed their shirts in the heat. I wondered wryly how many women would have paid good money to see the two Travis brothers dressed only in jeans, all sun-burnished muscles and long, lean bodies. As my gaze lingered on Jack's sweat-glittered back, I had a flash of recent memory, my hands urgently gripping those hard muscles on either side of his spine, and a pleasant riff of awareness went through me.