Chapter 11: Fight or Flight

Two Years Ago

Everest, Montana

Travis had been dating Janice Northcott for three months, the longest span of time he had been with a woman since the end of his marriage. In his time working for the U.S. government and the Balustre Group, he had always needed to stay a few steps away from intimacy. When a woman asked what he did for a living, what could he say to her? ‘Just the usual, honey. I poisoned a traitor this morning with a concentrated solution made from death cap mushrooms. He probably won’t die for another couple of days, though. I made sure to leave a few mushrooms laying around, so that it looks like he ate the wrong mushrooms.’ No, that was a nonstarter, that was sure.

Janice didn’t push, but Jake got the feeling she wanted to grow closer. For the first time in over ten years, Travis felt secure enough to move closer to a woman. He called her and asked, “Care to spend the weekend with me out of town?”

“Sure? What do you have in mind?”

“Something decadent. An entire weekend of debauchery and depravity, starting this Friday evening.”

“That seems pretty unlikely, Travis. We’re not teenagers any longer,” she laughed.

“I stocked up on Viagra and AstroGlide.”

“Good Lord! Well, I’ll see if Shanna can cover on Saturday. You take your vitamins.”

The next afternoon, Janice called him back to say she could take the weekend off. She normally was closed on Sunday, so she could leave the store in the hands of her clerk on Saturday. When she pressed him on his plans, he refused to get into details. “Just put on something slinky and minimal. I’ll handle transportation and the lodging.”

“There’s a reason women don’t trust men, and you are just one example!”

“Janice, that’s so hurtful! Trust me! I’ll come by at half past five on Friday, dressed for a fancy dinner. You be ready and I’ll take care of everything.”

“We’ll see.”

True to his word, Travis Scott was at Janice’s door Friday at five-thirty, dressed in a good suit and shined shoes. Janice came down the back stairs when she heard him come in and went down to see him. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She looked at him and her eyes popped out. “Shit! You were serious!”

“I told you I was serious. You didn’t believe me?”

“Shit!” she repeated. “You wait here! I’ll be back down in ten minutes!” Janice ran back up the stairs as Travis laughed at her. “Shit!”

He was still grinning when she came back down the stairs. She had changed out of her jeans and t-shirt into a halter-topped sundress, stockings, and high-heeled sandals. She was also dragging a suitcase behind her. “Let me take that,” he said.

“I didn’t actually believe you,” she said lamely.

He laughed again. “That hurts, that truly hurts!”

Janice rolled her eyes. “Whatever! Where are we going?”

“I ought to blindfold you. Never mind, let’s go!” Travis took the suitcase and carried it to his pickup truck, where he tossed it in the back. He opened the door for Janice and winked when she showed a bit more leg than she thought she was showing as she climbed in. She blushed and rolled her eyes.

Travis got behind the wheel and started the pickup up. “Next stop, a greasy spoon diner.”

“I sure hope not. I could have stayed in my jeans for that! And you wouldn’t be in a suit for a greasy spoon.” Travis just laughed and drove into Everest. Janice got curious, though, when he drove all the way through Everest and kept going, heading out of town. “Just where are we going?”

“It’s a little place, very private and secluded, called Ma Maison.”

“Ma maison? That means...”

“My house in French. You wanted to see how the other half lives. This is your chance,” he finished.

“Travis, I just wanted to know a little more about you. It wasn’t an ultimatum or anything,” she protested. “And what’s with the suit, and my dress?”

“We’re just playing dress-up. You were saying the other day that Everest didn’t have any nice places to go. So, when I said we were going out of town, I just didn’t say how far out we were going. And we’re almost there.” Travis pulled off the main road and headed up the small side road his place was on. He pulled into his driveway and parked. “Voila! Ma maison!”

Janice gazed out the windshield at a pleasant-looking Victorian two-story. There was a full-length porch along the front of the home, and even a Victorian turret on the left of the house. On the other side of the driveway was an ordinary looking barn, but it was the house that kept her view. She barely noticed when Travis got out of the truck and went around to open her door. “You coming?” he asked.

Janice hopped down and took his hand. “This is not what I figured you for, Travis.” He tugged her hand towards the house, and she asked, “What about my bag?”

“I’ll bring it in later. I need to check the menu first.” He took her up the broad stairs to the house and ushered her through the front screen door.

“Your menu? Something smells delicious!” she added, sniffing theatrically.

“It’s burgundy beef. I put it in a slow cooker earlier. All I need to do is cut up some French bread and steam the asparagus.” He led her through the living room to the large kitchen at the rear of the house.

She looked around as she went through the home. “This is really quite lovely. I would have never expected you to have a Victorian house.”

“Me neither. It simply came on the market when I came to town a few years ago. The previous owner had spent a lifetime fixing it up but when he died his daughter didn’t have any interest in moving home to Everest. She had escaped by then, or so the real estate agent said. I simply needed to do some cleaning and minor fix-ups.” Travis took off his suit coat and went to the slow cooker, lifting the lid and stirring the contents slowly. A wonderful aroma arose and suffused the room.

“Smells yummy! How can I help?”

Travis laughed and pointed towards a kitchen stool. “You can just have a seat and inspire me to greatness.”

Janice laughed and climbed demurely onto the stool. “Okay, be great.”

Travis smiled and started the steamer; the asparagus had already been placed inside before he went to meet Janice. Not much remained to do. The dining room table was already set, so he opened a bottle of burgundy and poured them both a glass. By that point Janice had crossed her legs; Travis winked and tugged the slit in the skirt so a bit leg more showed. “There, that’s much more inspirational!”

“Fine, but any more inspiration will have to wait until after dinner.”

Travis winked and nodded. He pulled out a cutting board and began slicing a loaf of French bread. That went into a basket and out to the dining room. The steamer went DING and he put the asparagus into a serving dish. The last item he prepared was the Hollandaise sauce. “Sorry, but I am not about to make fresh. It’s a heck of a lot easier to make it from a mix.” He waved a little packet at her and put a saucepan on the stove. Five minutes later he had the sauce blended and thickening. “You take the wine in and I’ll ladle out some beef.”

Janice hopped off the stool and helped take the rest of the meal to the dining room; Travis followed with the plates of the burgundy beef. Once seated, Janice sampled the beef. “This is pretty good, Travis. I thought you said you were a contractor back east. Are you sure you weren’t a chef?”

“Neither,” he replied. “I wasn’t a contractor. I was in the contract servicing business.”

“Whatever.” She took a slice of the bread and buttered it heavily. It tasted heavenly after dipping into the broth. “It’s a good thing I cook most of my meals. I’d be bigger than a barge if I let you cook for me!”

Travis laughed and sampled his own meal. “It is pretty good,” he agreed, “but trust me, I don’t eat like this most of the time. It’s difficult to make nice meals for one.”

Janice nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s a lot easier when I am visiting my family. I can always cook something big and put the little ones to work as slave labor.” Travis laughed at that.

They didn’t talk much more while dining, since it was so hard to talk while eating. Eventually, though, they were done. Travis said, “Let’s just put this stuff in the kitchen. I can clean up later. Care for another bottle of wine on the back deck?”

“That sounds lovely.” She helped him take the remnants of dinner to the kitchen and then followed him to the screened back porch. They got there just in time to watch the sun begin to drop over the western horizon. “This is amazing, Travis.”

“I sit out here most nights, even after it starts to get cool. It’s very calming.” He sat down on a large, padded armchair and patted his lap; Janice sat sideways on him and put an arm around his neck. Travis poured the wine and handed her a glass.

Janice sensed that she was the first woman he had ever brought to the house. “Travis, have you ever been married?” she asked. It was something they hadn’t talked about before. It seemed that evening was the beginning of something more serious.

Travis looked out at the sunset before answering. “Once, a long time ago.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “It just didn’t work out. I came home from a trip and found her... involved. We divorced shortly thereafter.

“Oh.” After another second, she asked, “Involved?”

“I walked in on her and a few... friends.”

“Christ!”

Travis shrugged and looked out at the sunset. “Yeah, well, it soured me on matrimony. It was about a dozen years ago.”

“And since then?”

He shrugged again but didn’t answer. “What about you? You’ve been married twice. I mean, once you can mark up to naivete, but twice? You must be a sucker for punishment!” he said with a laugh.

“Something like that, anyway. The first time, we were right out of college. I thought he was the one, but we were both too young and naïve. We got divorced a couple of years later. The second guy, that was different. I thought he loved me.”

“And he didn’t?” Travis asked.

“He loved me as the future mother of his children, and it turned out we couldn’t have any children. We tried for a few years and when nothing happened, we went to the doctors. He was fine, the problem was me. It turns out I’m barren,” she said.

“Barren? That sounds like something out of the Middle Ages.”

It was her turn to shrug and nod. “What do you know about a woman’s internal organs? You know how the ovaries are connected to the uterus by the Fallopian tubes, right? It’s got a long Latin name, but I don’t have any Fallopian tubes. I can’t get pregnant without surgery or in vitro fertilization. I was no longer the bride he wanted, the perfect mother of his heir and spare. He dumped me.” She looked out into the darkness. “It soured me on matrimony, too.”

“We’re perfect for each other,” he commented. “And since then?”

“It’s not that hard to get your itch scratched, as long as you don’t expect anything else. Anyway, after that disaster, I moved as far away as I could, and that’s how I ended up in Everest, Montana. What’s your excuse?”

“About the same. I was sick and tired of servicing contracts, and when I had an opportunity, I decided to move as far away as possible,” Travis replied.

“What is contract servicing, anyway. It’s not being a contractor?”

Travis grinned in the dark. He wanted to answer but needed to be very careful. “No, it’s not being a contractor. I worked in Washington, for a branch of the government I am not allowed to talk about. That’s kind of the problem, too, since I could never talk about my job.”

“Okay, but what is contract servicing.”

“Well, say that a branch of the government has a contract, something secret, but they need to have somebody double-check it. It usually ended up on my desk, to investigate and sign off on it. I had to do a lot of research and some travel as part of it, and the timing could be a problem,” he admitted.