[Kate's Boys 04] - Travis's Appeal Read online

  He coughed and switched directions.

  “She’d occasionally spend the night at the house, but that was only when she and her current boyfriend-of-the-month were on the outs. She has a key,” he explained. “She’d come in late and crash in her old room, sleep until noon and then get up and bum around the house as if she’d never left. Her mother would try to talk her into moving back in, but it never lasted long. Susan’d make up with her boyfriend or she’d find some other lowlife to take his place and she’d be gone again, no word to anyone.”

  It definitely sounded as if they were better off without her. Travis kept the thought to himself. “How old is she?”

  Shawn paused, searching his memory in the way of fathers who had always left things like age and birthdays to their spouse to remember.

  “Forty-two,” he finally said triumphantly, pleased with himself for actually remembering. “Last December seventeenth,” he added for good measure.

  “And no other children?” He needed to know that for the will. And, he had to admit, to satisfy his own curiosity about the family dynamics.

  Shawn sounded genuine remorseful as he shook his head and said, “No.”

  Travis did a quick calculation. There was seventeen years between the sisters. “Spaced them pretty far apart, didn’t you?”

  “Shana was a surprise,” Shawn said honestly. “She definitely wasn’t planned the way Susan was.” The laugh was self-deprecating as well as rueful. “Sometimes it’s the unplanned things that turn out the best.” He laughed again. The laugh transformed into a cough. The latter quickly became overwhelming. After a minute, it looked as if he wasn’t going to be able to stop.

  The waitress, Becka, hurried over to their table, a shy, apologetic expression on her face.

  “Sorry,” she announced, “but table three wanted to change their order after the meals came out.” Her brown eyes widened as she look at her employer. “Do you want me to get you a glass of water Mr. O’Reilly?”

  Shawn was coughing too hard to answer.

  Travis began to get concerned. He wondered if he should ask the waitress to bring Shana over, then decided that maybe he should give the water a try first.

  “I think that would be an excellent idea,” Travis told her.

  But Shawn waved his hand dismissively above his head as he struggled to contain his cough. Feeling impotent, Travis watched him a moment longer. And then, to his relief, Shawn’s cough began to subside.

  Shawn dragged in a huge gulp of air. “Sorry about that,” he said to Travis, exhaling rather shakily. Turning to waitress, he gave his order, then stopped to reassure her. “It’s okay, Becka. Something just went down the wrong way. Bring me the usual,” he told her.

  She bobbed her head, not bothering to write down the order. Becka turned her brown eyes toward Travis.

  “And you, sir?”

  Everything on the menu looked delicious. He raised his eyes to Shawn. “Is the ‘usual’ good?”

  Shawn nodded with feeling. Pride entered his reddened face. “Damn sure is. I’ve got only the best people working for me in the kitchen.”

  Travis closed the menu and placed it on top of the one Shawn hadn’t opened. “Make that two ‘usuals,’” he told the waitress.

  Shawn smiled in appreciation as Becka hurried to the kitchen. “That’s what I like,” he told Travis. “A man who’s willing to take a chance, sight unseen.”

  In light of the gleam that had entered Shawn’s eyes, Travis couldn’t help wondering if he’d just made a rash mistake that his taste buds would regret.

  Chapter 5

  T he “usual” turned out to be the unlikely combination platter of a three-cheese quesadilla with a side order of corned beef.

  “Never liked cabbage,” Shawn confided to him as he dug into his dinner. As he spoke, the man still watched him intently, as if to get his honest reaction to the meal. “Although I have to say that the guy I’ve got running the kitchen makes one hell of a serving of cabbage if you like that sort of thing—bits of fried onion and crumbled bacon pieces mixed in with deep-fried cabbage.” His knife and fork, in constant motion, were stilled for a moment as he offered, “I could have them bring you some if you like.”

  Where was the man putting all this? Travis couldn’t help wondering. He was eating like a man recently rescued from a deserted island. His own stomach was already pretty full.

  “No, this is quite enough,” Travis assured his host. The serving was large. “I’ll probably need a doggie bag as it is.” He leaned back, surveying what was still left. “This has to be the largest portion I’ve ever seen.”

  “We do everything large in Texas,” Shawn boasted, tickled. “Even when we’re not in Texas at the time. So?” he prodded eagerly, nodding at the plate in front of him. “What do you think?”

  Travis was reminded of the way Trevor looked while waiting to hear if a new recipe was a success. Luckily, he could be honest with the man. “This is probably the best quesadilla and the best corned beef I’ve ever had.”

  Shawn grinned like a child who’d just been awarded a long anticipated gold star. “Knew you’d like it.” And then he glanced toward the front of the restaurant before leaning in closer. “Do me a favor, though.”

  The lawyer in him tended to be cautious about making promises, especially ones whose parameters hadn’t been spelled out yet. But the child in him that Kate had raised tended to be far more open and trusting in every way. Travis found that he was at odds with himself. But he couldn’t see any harm in accommodating this man who ate with such gusto.

  “Sure,” he said gamely. “What is it?”

  Shawn lowered his voice slightly, as if he was leery of being overheard.

  “Don’t tell Shana I had this, all right?” He continued eating as he spoke, like a man who anticipated being separated from his food. “If she had her way, she’d have me eating nothing but vegetables and swallowing vitamins all day long.”

  Travis couldn’t help smiling. “She’s just looking out for you.”

  Shawn sighed, reluctantly nodding his head. “I know, but it’s the quality of life as well as the quantity, you know? If I follow her diet, I won’t really live longer, it’ll just feel that way.”

  While understanding Shana’s intent, Travis still sympathized with the man. He glanced over to the hostess desk. Shana’s back was to them.

  “If you want to keep this a secret from her, don’t you think you should be eating somewhere else?”

  “You have a point,” Shawn acknowledged as he continued savoring his meal. “Lucky for me, she’ll forgive me after the lecture.”

  “Lecture?”

  Shawn chuckled. It was obvious that he loved his daughter very much.

  “She always gives me a lecture, makes me feel guilty because indulging like this might take me away from her sooner than she’d like.” And then he grew serious. “But nobody lives forever, right?”

  “No, they don’t,” Travis agreed. He carefully took the middle ground. “But by the same token, they don’t necessarily need to play Russian roulette with things that are bad for them.”

  The serious moment over, Shawn slipped another forkful of corned beef between his lips and smiled in contentment. “How can anything this good be bad for you?” he wondered out loud. “Melts on your tongue, boy. Just melts on your tongue.”

  At that moment, Shana, leading a party of six to one of the larger tables in the dining room, passed by their table. Her eyes were instantly drawn to what was on Shawn’s plate. Travis saw Shawn bracing himself. But if his daughter disapproved, she gave no indication.

  “I guess she didn’t notice,” Travis said after Shana was out of earshot.

  “Oh, she noticed all right,” Shawn assured him. He began eating faster, anticipating what was to come. “Eyes like a hawk, that one. Takes in everything.”

  Travis smiled to himself. The description reminded him of the way they’d all felt about Kate when she’d first come to live with them. Fo
r a long time, he and his brothers were convinced that she had eyes in the back of her head as well because absolutely nothing ever got by her.

  Shawn didn’t have long to wait to be proven right. Two minutes later, after seating the people she’d been leading, Shana returned to their table. Her hands were on her hips and there was a reproving look on her face.

  “What did I tell you about eating all that fat?” she asked Shawn.

  Shawn turned almost sheepish. “Not in front of a guest, Shana.”

  Shana refused to back down. “Oh no, Old Man, that doesn’t fly.” She gestured toward Travis. “He’s not a guest, he’s our lawyer, Dad. Our family lawyer,” she emphasized. “That means that he gets to know us, warts and all.” Leaning over, she took the dinner plate away from him.

  “Aw, Shana,” he protested, but he made no effort to lay claim to the plate.

  “I’ll have Becka bring you the sautéed vegetable platter.” Looking at the plate in her hand, she relented only marginally. “I’ll tell her to have the chef sprinkle bacon-flavored bits on it.”

  “Bacon-flavored bits,” Shawn repeated dismissively. “That’s just not the same thing.” He sighed dramatically for effect.

  “It’ll have to do,” she told him, refusing to give in despite the fact that he was tugging on her heart strings. “You’ve had enough fat for one day.”

  And then, at the same moment, both Shana and Shawn turned to Travis and said the same exact thing. “See what I have to put up with?” Any potential tension was immediately erased.

  Travis laughed. “She’s trying to keep you around a little longer,” he told Shawn. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  Shana smiled warmly at him. “Nice to have an ally.” She looked over toward the waitress who had brought Shawn the dinner she’d just confiscated. “I’ve told everyone here not to give him anything fatty to eat but they’re afraid to say no to the ‘boss.’”

  “And well they should be,” Shawn replied, pleased. “If they value their jobs.”

  Shana laughed shortly. “You couldn’t fire anyone and you know it,” she told her father. Her eyes shifted toward Travis. “He’s a big pushover, no matter how much he huffs and puffs.”

  “A little respect for your elders.” Shawn tried to look stern as he issued the warning.

  He got no argument from her on that point. “Fine. When you start acting like an ‘elder,’ I’ll give you all the respect you want.” She paused to lean over and brush a quick kiss on his cheek. “Now, be a good boy, Dad, and have the vegetable platter when I send it out.”

  Shawn sniffed, rejecting her instruction. “Not hungry anymore.”

  She took another look at the plate she was holding, then sighed. Her father had done justice to it. Despite the oversize portion he’d been served, Shawn had consumed more than half of the meal in the time that it took Travis to eat less than a quarter of his.

  “Small wonder,” she observed. “All right, no vegetables. I’ll just send Becka over with tea,” she told Shawn. “Decaf,” she added before her father could say anything.

  Handing the plate to the busboy as he passed by, Shana crossed over to the waitress to give her instructions, then retreated back to the hostess table. She paused only for a moment to look over her shoulder at her father. The smile was tired around the edges, but nonetheless, it glowed with a great deal of affection.

  “You’re right,” Travis commented. When Shawn eyed him quizzically, he referred to the man’s comment in his office. “She takes good care of you.”

  “A little too much good care if you ask me,” Shawn grumbled slightly. “When she’s around, I can’t have caffeine or even Irish coffee. She won’t allow me to have spirits of any kind and, as you just saw, she’s put her foot down about really good food.” An enigmatic smile curved his mouth as he shook his head. “She doesn’t realize that she’s closing the barn door after the horses’ve been stolen.” He murmured the last sentence under his breath.

  But it was still loud enough for Travis to hear. He watched his client closely. “What do you mean?”

  The expression on Shawn’s face told him he hadn’t realized that he’d said the last part out loud. Instead of a direct answer, he said, “I’ll explain everything to you when I bring those papers you asked for.”

  Which turned a throwaway line into a mystery and left Travis wondering if there was more to Shawn O’Reilly than met the eye.

  Shortly thereafter, having shared a strong glass of tea and a very light dessert with Shawn, Travis, his doggie bag tucked under his arm, said his good-byes to his new client and host. But first, he was careful to lavish a sufficient amount of praise regarding the chef’s efforts. He made a point of it because the restaurant obviously meant a great deal to Shawn. The praise required no embellishment on his part. Both the quesadilla and the corned beef had been exceptionally tasty.

  Travis actually debated calling Trevor when he got home to suggest that his brother pay the restaurant a visit in the near future. The menu might give him some new ideas for his own establishment. Trevor was damn good at creating new dishes, but it never hurt to be open.

  Holding his doggie bag, Travis was about to go through the front door when Shana called out to him. As he turned away from the entrance, she came around the front of her desk. She didn’t want him leaving with a bad impression of her. Why that mattered so much to her, she wasn’t really sure.

  But it did.

  Reaching him, she placed her hand on his arm, as if to anchor his attention. “You probably think I’m a bully.”

  The very notion made him grin. “Trust me,” he told her. “‘Bully’ is probably the last term I would apply to you.”

  He noticed a blush rise to her cheeks. Again, it felt to him as if she was delving into his mind, reading his thoughts. Seeing the attraction he was trying to bank down for professional reasons.

  Travis recalled hearing stories about people from ancient cultures in both Ireland and Scotland who claimed to have “the gift” or “the sight.” In modern terms, it was now referred to as clairvoyance.

  Shana would have made one beautiful fortune teller, he thought.

  Despite his dismissal of her behavior, she still wanted him to understand and not think of her as a control freak or, worse, a shrew.

  “It’s just that Dad’s eaten whatever he wanted to all his life, but not without consequences. His cardiologist wants him to cut back on the fried foods and fats. He’s already had a couple of angioplasties.” Shana automatically began to explain the term. “That’s when—”

  “I know what an angioplasty is,” he told her.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that a lot of people have heard the term but don’t know what it entails. I didn’t until Dad started having chest pains and I forced him to see a specialist. After the treadmill, the doctor insisted he immediately go across the street to the hospital to have the procedure done. He actually pulled rank to commandeer an operating room on the spot. Dad had to have another angioplasty the following month when the first one collapsed. The second one, thank God, took.”

  She closed her eyes for a second, remembering how worried she’d been, sitting in that waiting room, watching the operating room door for any sign of the surgeon. It felt as if the procedure had taken forever.

  Shana flushed ruefully. “My father means a great deal to me, and I just want to keep him around as long as possible. If it takes confiscating his dinner once in a while, I’m up to it. Anything to keep him healthy—or reasonably so,” she amended.

  “I’m the last one you have to explain yourself to, Shana,” he assured her. “My family means a great deal to me, too.”

  “My father is my whole family,” she told him.

  “Your father mentioned a sister. Susan.”

  She shrugged. The peasant blouse dipped enticingly. He did his best to keep his eyes on her face. “I have no idea where she is. I haven’t seen her for at least a couple of years.”

>   “At your mother’s funeral?” he guessed.

  She nodded, then pushed the memory away. “How big is your family, Mr. Marlowe?”

  “I’ll only answer that if you call me Travis.”

  She inclined her head. “All right, Travis. How big is your family?”

  “I’ve got three brothers and a sister,” Travis told her.

  She tried to imagine what that would be like, to have siblings to talk to. To argue with and love. Had to be nice. By the time she was old enough to try to get to know Susan, her sister was out of the house, returning only when she needed money or a temporary place to stay between trysts.

  “Younger? Older?” she asked.

  Since he didn’t seem to be leaving just yet, Travis thought it prudent to move away from the entrance. Stepping to the side out of the way of incoming traffic, he answered her question. “My sister Kelsey is the baby of the family, and I’ve got one older brother, Mike.”

  She made the natural assumption. “Then the other two are younger?”

  There was a county-wide power outage the night they were born. Approximate time and order of their births were recorded. “Only by minutes, although that has been up for discussion more than once.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then looked at him in surprise as she made the only logical connection. “That makes you—”

  “—One of triplets,” Travis completed.

  He was accustomed to people being either surprised or a tad skeptical, as if they thought he was pulling their leg. A delighted smile was definitely something out of the realm of his expectations.

  “Triplets?” she echoed, her face lighting up. “Knew there was something unique about you.”

  “On the contrary,” Travis deadpanned. “I look exactly like these two other guys.”

  She liked his sense of humor. He didn’t take himself seriously like Jacob, her father’s accountant who, as far as she knew, was physically incapable of smiling. It helped having someone like Travis guiding them through the grim territory of wills and living trusts. She hated even thinking about that. She’d only gone along with her father’s insistence to see a lawyer because it seemed to mean so much to him.