Compromise Me (Book Two of the Kirkland Family)

Compromise Me: Chapter 11

“The same person?  The minor and the decoy?”

“Yup.”

"Interesting."  Josie leaned on her palm with her elbow on the table.  “She’s pairing me with you.”

“Oh.”

“That okay?”

“Sure.  Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Just thought I’d ask, since she didn’t.”

Arielle was up to her schemes again, he thought.  Funny...how it didn’t bother him when she did them, but Josie…?  I guess I should give her more credit, he thought secondly.  At least, with Josie, she was honest and in-your-face with her tricks.  Sometimes, Travis never saw Arielle’s coming.  And he was starting to miss Josie’s tricks.

I’m friends with Arielle...why not with Josie, too?  Except he never felt that old desire stirring whenever he was around Arielle.  Friends with Josie would be weird.  Uncomfortable.

Like now.  

He looked around her kitchen.  “Don’t suppose you have a beer lying around here, do you?”

She thumbed to the refrigerator.  “Help yourself.”

He got up and took two cans from the refrigerator door and handed one to her.  She popped hers, drank deeply and stood up to go to the living room.  “So...you never told me why you decided to go swimming with the rats tonight.”

He trailed after her, realizing she was making an effort to be friendly.  “Livie asked me to pick up Steve Cropper’s guitar--”

Josie whirled around.  “What?”  She looked back at the case by the door.  “You took a Peavey Cropper Classic out in this weather?!  Are you crazy?”

She put her beer on a side table and rushed over to the case, unzipping it swiftly and gingerly removing the single cutaway body with the rosewood frets, holding it like she would a newborn child.  She ran her fingers and eyes over it...then sighed.  “It’s okay.  It’s not wet.”

Travis leaned against the wall, sipping his beer.  “Got a thing for guitars?”

“I bought my first guitar when I was thirteen,” she said, admiring the gold hardware and fingerboard.  “Save up for it myself.  Daddy was furious.”

“He didn’t want you to have one?”

“He thought singing was stupid.”

Travis frowned over his beer can.  “But you’re so good at it.”

She laughed and set the guitar aside.  Pivoting on the balls of her feet, she smiled up at him.  “Thank you, Travis.  And Daddy thinks that now.  He thought my guinea pig was stupid, too, but after a while, he got attached to that little furball.”  Josie blinked and looked down.  “I sure do miss Lady...she was the greatest.”