“No. That is . . .” Russell was still staring at Travis as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“It’s the best I can do for Penny’s son after all she’s put up with from me.”
“All right,” Russell said slowly.
Travis began getting things out of the fridge. “Tell me everything from the beginning.”
“Do you mean Carla’s complete sex history that she delighted in telling me in detail, or what I could dredge out of her about Miss Aldredge?”
Travis laughed. “No Carla, but lots of Kim.”
“It seems that small town men can’t handle a woman who earns more than they do.”
Travis would have liked to think that he could deal with that, but he’d always had the opposite problem. “So they dumped her?”
“Yes,” Russell said as he watched Travis pour him a cup of freshly brewed coffee and set it on the counter along with containers of milk and sugar. He wasn’t surprised that the coffee was excellent. “St. Helena?”
“It is,” Travis said. “I get it here in Edilean at the local grocery. Can you believe that?” He was pleasantly surprised that Russell had recognized the taste of the rare and expensive coffee. “I take it that this Dave is different from the others.”
“Carla and Borman’s ex-girlfriend are friends, and Carla told the girl all about Kim, even about the men who’d walked away from her. Carla has no understanding of the word discretion.”
“Or loyalty,” Travis said. “Onions, peppers, and tomatoes all right with you?”
“Yes,” Russell said. “As far as I can piece together, the girlfriend told Borman and he made a plan.”
“Let me guess. He dropped the girlfriend and went after Kim.”
Russell reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out several pieces of paper folded together into a thick stack. “These are the financials of Borman’s company for the last two years.”
Travis let the vegetables sizzle while he went through the first pages, but then he had to stop to add the eggs to the skillet and put bread in the toaster. “Would you . . . ?” he asked Russell.
He took the papers and started to go through them, but then paused to remove his suit jacket and drape it over a dining chair. He loosened his tie. “The bottom line is that David Borman isn’t a good cook, he spends too much, and he’s lazy.”
Travis slid the omelet onto a plate, put it before Russell, and got a knife and fork out of a drawer. “So he dropped his girlfriend and went after Kim—or rather, her business.”
“It gets worse,” Russell said as he took a bite. “Not bad.”
“Worse isn’t bad?”
“No. Borman gets worse; the omelet isn’t bad.”
“Oh,” Travis said as he watched Russell eat. He could see things about him that reminded him of Penny. He’d spent a lot of late nights with her and they’d shared many meals. Now he wondered why he’d never asked her about her personal life. But then, he would have thought that if he had, Penny probably wouldn’t have answered.
Russell looked up at him as though expecting something from Travis.
“The ring,” Travis said. “What about the ring?”
“Borman took Carla out to dinner, told her a sob story about how he was in love with Kim. He got Carla to ‘lend’ him a ring to give to her when he proposed this weekend.”
“Then Carla told the whole town that’s what Borman was going to do.” Travis handed Russell the toast and got out the butter. “That’s why Borman invited himself to go with her to Maryland.”
“Carla didn’t seem to see anything wrong in the fact that you and Miss Aldredge are living together just before she’s to get a marriage proposal from Borman. Carla’s exact words were, ‘I think you should take things when they’re offered.’”
“I’m staying in the guesthouse,” Travis said absently as he thought about what he’d just heard.
“The whole town thinks you and Kim are . . .”
“It’s just gossip,” Travis said, then looked back to see Russell staring at him, his eyes disbelieving. Travis felt anger rising in him. “It