“Praise the heavens,” the man muttered, and he moved to the back door and opened it. “This man says he’s Travis Walker,” he said.
Still, Lila Mae did not get out of the vehicle, and Trap took a couple of hesitant steps toward it. The man, who wore a pale yellow polo and a pair of black slacks along with his own shiny pair of sunglasses, leaned in further. He sighed and turned toward Trap.
“She wants you to produce some identification.”
“Ihave to produce identification?” Trap’s eyebrows went up. “Why doesn’tsheproduce some identification?”
The man rolled his eyes. “Your guess is as good as mine.” He held the door open and stepped back, and Trap stood there and gaped for several long moments before he sighed as loudly as well and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. He flipped it open and walked over to him. “See? Travis Walker.”
“Dude, I don’t even care,” he said. Then he looked into the vehicle. “It says Travis Walker.”
He hadn’t even looked at Trap’s ID. That made Trap smile, and he backed up and stuffed his wallet away as—finally—Lila Mae emerged from the vehicle.
The driver got out and opened the other door, removing a classy black bag and placing it near the front corner of the SUV. A very unhappy yowl came from a cat carrier, which the driver had just set on the ground beside Lila Mae’s bag.
“One can never be too sure,” Lila Mae said. “Thank you for checking.” Her voice rolled in a smooth Eastern accent, and Trap could only stare at her.
She wore emerald green from head to toe, including a hat that was tilted and pinned just-so on her head.
“Thank you, Franklin,” she said, and she nodded to the man, who seemed relieved to get rid of her as he closed her door.
She pinned her smile on him as the SUV backed away and left, and Trap wasn’t sure if this was a joke or not. “It’s wonderful to meet you in person, Travis.”
“You can call me Trap,” he said. “Only my momma calls me Travis, and only when I’m in trouble.” He threw a smile at her that Lila Mae didn’t seem to know what to do with.
Another protest came from the carrier, but Lila Mae ignored it as she extended her hand toward Trap, but not the way someone would to shake his hand. Oh, no. She extended her hand like royalty, like she expected him to take it and kiss the back of it.
Trap did exactly that, because he knew when he willingly played with fire, he would get burned. Part of him wanted to see what Lila Mae would do if he scoffed at her and simply turned toward the land where she’d insisted he meet her. His lips buzzed against her skin for the tiniest of moments, and then he fell back a step.
“All right, Miss Dixon,” he said. “You got me here on short notice. Now, what do you need that was so urgent that you had to call me out of my church meetings?”
His question seemed to stun her, for Lila Mae simply stood there and blinked at him, her long lashes painted dark though she had straw-colored hair and oceanic eyes. Trap could get lost in a woman’s eyes like that, and he cleared his throat and looked away.
“I—” She seemed at a loss for words, and that definitely pushed the tension riding the air between them up to a new level.
Had she forgotten why she’d flown here?
Could she not hear him?
Trap did have Deaf friends now, and the longer the silence went on, the less sure he became.
26
Lila Mae Dixon blinked again and reminded herself of who she was, and why she wanted to be there.
She’d handled board meetings far surlier than this cowboy, and she moved over to the cat carrier, as Cleopatra once again voiced her displeasure at being left inside. “Oh, you’re fine,” she scolded the feline, and she crouched down right there in an almost muddy spot where she’d been dropped off. Her nerves beat through her now, though coming to Three Rivers and opening this cat sanctuary was everything she wanted. More importantly, it was everything her brotherdidn’twant, and Lila Mae was determined to prove him wrong.
“There you go,” she said in a soothing tone as she pulled the Bengal out of the carrier. She quickly grabbed the leash that rode with Cleo and snapped it to the cat’s collar before she could bolt. “Now sit down and introduce yourself properly to Travis.” She glanced over to him. “I mean Trap.”
She’d never heard of the nickname Trap for a man named Travis, but this was only Lila’s second time in Texas at all, and she onceagain threw a question heavenward as to why God had wanted her to come here. She didn’t know why, only that she’d gotten the impression multiple times in the past couple of years about opening a cat sanctuary, and leaving the boardroom and company politics to someone more suited to it. That certainly wasn’t her, though she had spent some time in slacks and heels, trying to get men to listen to her.
“You have a cat on a leash,” Trap said.
“Yes,” Lila said crisply. “This is Cleopatra. You may call her Cleo.”
Now that was a nickname that actually made sense. Trap blinked at her, his eyes getting even wider. “I may, huh?” He moved closer and crouched down.
“Sit down, Cleo,” Lila Mae commanded, making her voice as crisp as possible. The Bengal hardly listened to anyone, and she wanted to make a good impression on Trap for some reason that had nothing to do with how handsome he was, with that full, dark beard and dressed in slacks and a white shirt and tie for church.
