When Roses Collide

Chapter Ten

Safely seated in his office, Travis stared out the window; the log books he needed to be working on totally forgotten. Jake had a daughter, the thought baffled him. How could he have known the man for so many years and he not once mention her? If what Addie said was true, that would make Harley around twenty-seven years old. Eleven years younger than his own thirty-eight.

Was she too young for him? He knew his father was several years older than his mother and it seemed work out fine for them. Travis scrubbed his face in frustration, what was he thinking? He scoffed at his wayward thoughts. It's not like he was going to do anything about his lustful enthrallment towards the hotheaded hellion.

Was he? Travis sighed and ran a hand through his hair, pulling out the band which kept it in a pony-tail. Shaking his head, he allowed the dark mass of it to fall down his back. Leaning in his chair, he kicked his legs up on the corner of his desk and rubbed his temples. Trying to make sense of his thoughts was giving him headache.

Who was he kidding? He was more than enthralled with the girl. If he was completely honest with himself, he would suspect he was leaning towards love. Travis made a disgusted snorting sound. Jerking himself up in his chair, he pulled and opened the log books back in front of him. He refused to spend another moment contemplating such nonsense.

Yet, the thought niggled in the back of his mind like an annoying itch. In love with who, he mocked himself. He would be a fool to develop feelings for a woman he knew absolutely nothing about. The big question was why didn't he know anything about her? How many times had Jake, his dad and himself sat at the very same kitchen table discussing plans for the future?

You would think the man would at least once said, "Hey Mitch, I have a daughter. Here's a picture of her missing her two front teeth. Isn't she adorable?" Something...anything...but not a whisper passed the older man's lips.

Slamming the books shut with more force than necessary, Travis shoved them back across the desk. He definitely wasn't getting any work done tonight. Heaving himself up out of the chair, he began pacing his office. Why wouldn't the old man say anything? Why keep your daughter a secret? No matter how long he mulled those questions over in his head, he couldn't come up with an answer.

At least it explained why he would never stay longer than a few days. Having a daughter waiting at home would be a damn good obligation to get back to, but it opened a whole new can of worms of why he never came back. Addie thought Jake and Angelina running away together probably hadn't set well with Rafferty.

There very well could be something to that. Rafferty was a notorious bastard and if her mother was anything like the daughter, she must have been one beautiful woman. As soon as the thought passed through his brain, an image of the fiery sex kitten danced into his mind. A slow smile worked its way across at the contemplation of her delicious body dipping and swaying up on the roof and later snuggled up against his.

She was something else alright. Full of sass and attitude, but he could see her gentle and submissive nature too. His cock began to ache again at the thought and he tried in vain to rearrange himself. Sure he'd been with women who most men would consider far more striking than Harley, but there was just something about the sweet seductress which called to out to him.

She was a far cry from the manipulative and controlling dispositions of the women he usually associated with. Most of those women played some sort of game to get what they wanted, which had more to do with his bank account and the ranch then it did with him. He was sick to death of the deceptiveness of it all. The fake boobs, fake hair, fake nails and shallow personalities of those women didn't turn him on, but left him cold.

In the beginning, in his wilder days, those women made him feel good. Like a God. But as he got older and started longing for something more than few hours of slap and tickle, their vacant eyes and false smiles as they rubbed up against him would make his stomach roll, even as he allowed it to happen.