Page 38 of Good Girls Don't Date Rock Stars (Rock Canyon, Idaho 2)

“Hell yeah. You’ve been all repressed since you had Charlie, and it’s good to see you take a step out of your little protective bubble once in a while,” Gracie said, then frowned briefly. “Still pissed you were going to take this to the grave, though.”

“I’d say this was more of a flying leap than a step,” Gemma grumbled. Meanwhile, her salad was looking less and less appealing by the minute.

“True. You kind of double backflipped your way out of the bubble, but Gemma, he’s here. He followed you, even after you gave him the brush-off.”

“It wasn’t a brush-off. It was a nice letter setting him free,” Gemma said defensively, adding, “and it’s not like he hasn’t had ten years to get off his ass and come find me or pick up a damn phone. Why now? A piece of paper doesn’t mean crap if you can barely remember the actual marriage ceremony, right?”

“Okay, I get your pissiness, and believe me, I wanted to kick his royal behind for not going all ‘you’re mine, woman’ and coming after you,” Gracie said with a major but face. “But I do have to say, if some guy had dumped me all eighties movie style, crying in the rain, I’d have a hard time swallowing my pride and going after him.”

“There was no rain.”

“Still, I can just picture the drama and the sad ballad in his head as you walked away and one tear fell down his cheek—”

Gemma threw a forkful of salad at Gracie. “You are such a dork.”

“Adorkable, you mean,” Gracie said, flicking a carrot at her.

“He wants to date me,” Gemma said. When Travis had suggested they date, she’d laughed at first, but now she thought it could be helpful. It would give her a chance to get him alone and feel out his ideas on fatherhood. The idea that he’d bolt was still there, but at least if she took the time before Charlie got back to really get to know him, she could decide for sure whether he would be good for Charlie.

“Isn’t that like putting the cart before the horse?” Gracie asked.

“Yeah, but he wasn’t going to go away until I agreed, and I figured it would give me a chance to get to know him with his clothes on and work up my nerve.”

“Nerve for what?” Gracie asked.

“Nerve to tell him about Charlie.”

Gracie paused with a forkful of salad halfway to her mouth.

“I just . . . I was—”

“You were just looking to tie one off before you returned to your self-made nunnery.”

“Rude, but yeah. I figured if I wasn’t going to see him again, it could just be my little secret, and then everything got crazy and he followed me home. Not to mention there are pictures of me out there with Travis, including one of us heading into the chapel,” Gemma said, sucking back the dread as best she could. “What happens if someone puts the pieces together and the media show up here in Rock Canyon? If they start following Charlie to school? Call me Travis’s baby mama or worse?”

“I call you his baby mama.” Gracie said, trying to be funny, but when Gemma didn’t laugh, she added, “Gemma, why do you care what a bunch of reporters say? Sticks and stones.”

Except sticks and stones can still leave invisible bruises that last a lifetime.

“You don’t understand. What’s it going to do to Charlie to have cameras shoved in his face, or reporters asking him if he thought his mom got pregnant on purpose?”

Gracie gasped. “Shut up! No one would ask Charlie that! First of all, how would he have any idea, and second, I’d kill their ass and drop them in the Snake River!”

Gemma almost smiled at that. “I can only imagine what they will ask. They get paid to take the juiciest pictures and get the best dirt on people. You really think they’ll hold back and be discreet just because he’s a kid?”

Gracie didn’t respond right away, which was answer enough. “I don’t know, but I do know that Travis needs to be told.”

“I know that. I’m going to do it, I swear. I just need to find the right time.”

Gracie released a weak laugh. “Is there ever a good time for something like this?”

“No, and if I don’t do it, someone else will.”

TRAVIS WAS TIRED, but then, it had been an eventful few days.

After he’d left the hotel in Vegas, he’d taken a cab to the nearest car dealership. Maybe it was a sign of his inability to settle down, but he was at his apartment in Nashville so rarely, he didn’t feel the need to own a car or truck. But, in this instance, he’d wanted his own vehicle. He’d walked right over to a black, lifted 4x4 and told the salesperson he wanted it. He’d made it to Rock Canyon at around one a.m. and tossed and turned most of the night.

In fact, he was about to cut his trip down memory lane short and head back to the hotel for a nap. He’d driven around Rock Canyon after leaving Gemma’s shop, checking out his old foster home and the other places he’d haunted in his youth. As he drove back into town, he tried to imagine what his life would have been like if Thomas and Vanessa Warren hadn’t taken him in at seventeen, but nothing good came to mind. The Warrens had saved him, and for that he would always be grateful. They were good people with big hearts, now living in Florida and enjoying the warmer climate. He talked to them every once in a while and sent them a Christmas card every year, but besides them, there was no one else he considered family.

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