Never Say Never (Resetter Series Book 2) Page 7

  As if on cue, the door was flung opened and Monica walked out. She was an attractive woman in her late thirties. Her son was attached to her hip, his head on her shoulders.

  Sky got out of the car and dredged up a smile. She didn't dislike Monica, she just didn't like the fact that she was no longer the center of her father's world and had to share him with Monica and Michael.

  "Look, it's your sister Skyler," Monica was saying to the cute chubby toddler.

  Sky went closer to the veranda. "I am just passing through, thought I'd say hi."

  "Just passing through?" Monica frowned, "Oh Skyler, we would love your company, you know. I thought you'd spend half term with us."

  And then Monica looked beyond Sky and into the car and she stopped her protests. "You have a friend along. Why don't you join us inside? Your father is in the shower. I could rustle up some brunch."

  "No thanks, I am full." Sky looked around at Travis hoping he'd say he was full too and they could just get on their way.

  "I wouldn't mind coming in." Travis smiled at Monica, "Sky could you help me out? My wheelchair?"

  Traitorous Travis. Sky glanced at his smiling face with a scowl.

  "Sure," Sky said out loud because Monica was watching.

  "This is a brief visit," Sky whispered fiercely after retrieving the wheelchair from the back. "Brief!"

  "Fine," Travis whispered back.

  Sky helped him into the chair and straightened up and walked beside him toward the veranda, making the introductions and watching as Monica tried to cover up her shock at seeing that Travis was in a wheelchair. She was quite good at it too—pulling chairs out of the way and making way for him on the veranda with a pleasant expression on her face.

  Michael wanted to get out of her hand and inspect the wheeling chair closer, but she was hanging on to him for dear life.

  Sky decided to intervene. She hadn't seen the little tyke for weeks now and she had to admit that a secret part of her did like him.

  She held out her hands for him and he hugged her around the neck.

  "Sky! Sky!" He squealed it quite close to her ears; she winced and had to hold on to him tightly as he reached down for Travis. "Dada"

  "Not Dada," Sky chuckled. "Travis."

  Walking to the far end of the veranda with him. He started to cry so she handed him to Monica who put him down on the ground and he walked straight over to Travis and held his hands up.

  "Good Lord," Sky laughed. "I am not interesting around here anymore."

  Travis picked him up and moved the chair around with him and Michael chortled with glee.

  Sky sat down and shook her head. "Traitor."

  Monica laughed. "So how are you, Sky?"

  "Good," Sky said tiredly. "I am passing all of my subjects this semester. "

  "I am looking forward to spending some time with you in the summer," Monica said gently.

  "Not going to happen. I am hoping to pick up a job for the first summer session. I have to pay for my second summer session out of pocket. That was the agreement with dad."

  Travis looked over at her when she said that and then continued rocking along with a giggling Michael.

  Monica looked disappointed. "Stan and I were thinking that we could have a family vacation in the summer, maybe spend two weeks at Disney World."

  "Disney World! Sounds like fun but I am almost sure that my summer will be too busy."

  "Such a shame." Monica looked really disappointed; Sky could tell that she was working hard to include her in their family unit. Maybe she should stop considering herself an outsider and at least meet Monica half way.

  "I might come home the week after exams and stay here instead, if I don't get a job immediately."

  "That would be great!" Monica smiled widely. "Very good."

  "What's very good?" Stan came to the door, smelling minty from his aftershave.

  Sky jumped up and ran to greet him. "Daddy!"

  "Sky love." Stan was grinning from ear to ear as he hugged his daughter. Picking her up in the air and swinging her around. Both of them uncaring that they had an audience; they made it pretty plain that they were happy to see each other.

  Monica and Travis looked at their long greeting and smiled.

  "So who is this?" Stan finally asked as he put Sky back down on the ground.

  "My friend and neighbor Travis," Sky said quickly. "Somehow she didn't think introducing him as her lecturer would be cool with her father. It would create too many questions. Like his age, and his intentions, and all of those awkward things that she did not want to address right now.

  "Travis this is my dad, Stanley Porter."

  "Or just Stan." Her father held out his hand to be shaken and Travis took it.

  Monica gasped.

  Travis looked at Monica. "Is something wrong?"

  "No," Monica shook her head, "not at all, it's just that you have two lines in your palms. It's pretty rare."

  "I told him about it already, Monica," Sky sighed, "but he doesn't believe me."

  "So this resetter myth is believed by your whole family?"

  Sky chuckled and shook her head.

  Stan shrugged. "It's true. My niece Addi was a resetter. She gave me some really nice bets a couple years ago when she came back from the future. Monica's granny was a resetter who never acted on it. So hey why not believe?"

  Travis nodded doubtfully. He was probably thinking that they had all lost their minds.

  ****

  "That's the blue rock." Sky drove as close to the stone as she could manage after the long visit with Monica and her dad. She had found the book in the first drawer of Addi's desk and had given it to Travis. He was looking at the book and then the stone, an incredulous expression on his face.

  "Why is the rock blue?"

  "I don't know," Sky shrugged. "Some geologist came by to look at it a couple years ago and said it had azurite and quartz and something else in it. He said it was nothing that we could sell for loads of cash so we left it alone."

  Travis nodded and then grinned. "So how would this work? I place my special palms on the rock and then voila I am thrown back in time."

  "No." Sky rolled her eyes at him. She got out of the car and placed her palms in the groove shaped like a palm and demonstrated, you place your palm here.

  You think about the year you want to go back to and if you are taking back anything with you. You have to make sure that it was available in the time that you were going back to and you have to clutch it in your other palm and place it on the rock too."

  "Sounds quite simple." Travis grinned. The rain started to drizzle and Travis gestured for her to get back in the car.

  Sky returned to the car with a huff. "I wish Monica had impressed upon you how serious this is."

  Travis held up his palms and looked at them. "It's weird. You know I have never had anybody point out that my palms were unusual before I met you and your kooky family."

  Sky chuckled. "Max Ehrman's Desiderata has a part of a line that says, listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story."

  "Ah, okay, I guess I can't disobey the desiderata." Travis curled his hand into a fist. He fell silent.

  Sky glanced at him. "Maybe you should first read the book. It's Monica's grandmother's diary and then I'll tell you about my cousin, Addi and what she did."

  "Fine. I'll read it," Travis said then added. "Someday."

  Sky shook her head in despair. "I don't understand you. If I heard that I had the chance to reset my life I would jump at it."

  "Why? You are just nineteen, you haven't yet done anything to feel regretful about."

  "You have a point." Sky watched the rain rivulets on the windscreen. "My cousin has already changed things for me."

  "What do you mean?" Travis asked.

  "I don't want to talk about it now." Sky sighed. "I still feel stupid when I think about what I would have done if she hadn't changed the course of my life."

  Travis whist
led. "Fascinating. My guess is it involved a guy."

  "Yes." Sky glanced at him. "Good guess."

  "When I was your age, it was a girl, Melanie. The reason I am in this wheelchair. Well that and stupidity. I was mad with a friend who was also seeing her."

  Sky felt a shaft of jealousy that was quite apparent in her voice when she finally asked, "You still like her?"

  "No, not like I did when we were younger," Travis said. "She heard that I would be in a wheelchair and she bolted. I don't blame her. What nineteen-year-old girl in her right mind would enjoy hanging with a handicapped man? Women want vitality and a show of strength. They love alpha males, guys who can defend them from things that go bump in the night."

  Sky laughed uncomfortably. She was feeling the opposite of those things toward him. "Not all women are like that."

  She was definitely not like that. She was fighting a humongous crush that was on the verge of stifling her.

  "Most of them are," Travis shrugged. "It is nothing to be afraid of. It's human nature. An instinct to keep the planet populated with the best of the species. The survival of the fittest. Defective males are not as valued because well... they are defective."

  Sky turned to him fully. "I am not like that."

  Travis turned his head and looked at her languidly. "Why not? Why do you like a thirty-one year old cripple?"

  "I..." Sky swallowed.

  Travis put a finger on her lips. "I have nothing to offer you. I am not going to miraculously get better. I will not walk again. I am only good for a two minute crush, you'll soon wise up and move on."

  "How can you say that?" Sky groaned as he took the pad of his fingers and moved it against her lips almost absently.

  He removed his hand and she could breathe normally again.

  He was still looking at her and she didn't want him to see that just his finger on her lips had her inside shaking like a earthquake.

  She bit her lip.

  "Come here," Travis whispered hoarsely. She leaned toward him close, too close, their nose touched.

  She could feel his breath.

  He fished one hand in her hair, and held her steadily while he stared into her eyes. "We shouldn't be doing this. This is highly inappropriate."

  Sky could hear her heart thudding in her ears. She had never anticipated anything as much as she was anticipating this kiss.

  Somebody moaned.

  Maybe it was him or maybe her. He pulled her closer until they were lip to lip. She was breathing him in. His lips parted hers and then her arms were around his neck and she was kissing him back as hungrily as he was kissing her.

  Travis was the first to pull away. He looked into her eyes deeply and seriously, "Sky, this should never have happened. I am still your lecturer. This is highly inappropriate."

  Sky nodded, feeling a little light headed. Now, that was what a kiss was supposed to be.

  "Are you listening to me, Sky?" Travis' voice was husky.

  Sky nodded as soon as the roar in her ears died down. "Sure. I am...listening."

  She straightened her top that had ridden up on her belly and started the car.

  Travis touched her arm. "You okay?"

  "Fine." Sky nodded jerkily. "Just fine."

  Chapter Ten

  Travis was sitting in his office alone near the end of April when Amelia walked in.

  "What's going on?" She flung down the daily newspaper on his desk and folded her arms crossly.

  "What?" Travis looked up from the computer where he was fine-tuning exam questions which were required by the department chair by the end of the day. He was behind schedule.

  "Your father's super exclusive birthday bash." Amelia closed the office door and sat down. "I thought you would have invited me as your plus one."

  "I didn't remember about it."

  Travis glanced at the headline: Miguel Jefferson celebrates '70 in June. Will be announcing his replacement as head of Jefferson Pharmaceuticals.

  "But that's crazy!" Amelia squinted at him and then said, accusation heavy in her voice, "That means the rumors are true!"

  Travis had his hands poised to type a full stop. Instead, he looked up at her and frowned. "What rumors?"

  "The one about you dating your student." Amelia frowned. "I was inclined to believe it at first because you have been very aloof this past month."

  Six weeks. Travis corrected her in his head. Six weeks, where he spent an obscene amount of time with Skyler Porter. After that scorching kiss at her childhood home they had tried to pretend that it didn't happen, that had lasted for a week.

  After that, Sky came over to his place regularly. They cooked together. Well, she cooked he watched.

  They watched movies together. He read while she studied. She swam with him in the mornings. She nagged him to read the diary and he kept putting it off. They talked a lot about everything.

  Sky found him fascinating. She craved being with him. And he was not unaffected. He was addicted to her. That was the only way he knew to describe the unfamiliar emotions assailing him.

  It was new and frightening and he knew it wouldn't last. It couldn't. He should have put a stop to it from that kiss.

  Amelia glared at him as he sank deeper in silence.

  "It can't be true!" Amelia hissed. "You know that dating students is against the rules!"

  Travis sighed. "She won't be my student for much longer. Exams are twelve days away."

  Amelia gasped, her mouth hanging open inelegantly. "Travis, you know better than this."

  "I do." Travis nodded, "now please can we talk about something else?"

  "No!" Amelia huffed, "we had a thing."

  "Had." Travis curved his fingers under his chin and stared at Amelia frankly. "I now have someone in my life who actually likes me for me. Not because I am related to the Jefferson's. It is a heady feeling."

  "This is ridiculous, Travis. I like you, I always have."

  Travis snorted. "You started speaking to me after you found out that I was one of the Jefferson's from Jefferson Pharmaceutical."

  "That's not true." Amelia protested weakly and then changed tactics. "Who is to say that this girl, what's her name, isn't with you for the grade?"

  Travis laughed. "She is not."

  "I am morally obligated to report this to the university president." Amelia stood up stiffly.

  "What exactly are you going to say?" Travis asked unconcerned, and then raised an eyebrow. "You know what? Don't tell me, I am looking forward to the phone call from Edwards."

  Amelia paused at the door. "You can be intimate with a woman, can't you?"

  Travis looked at her incredulously. "You ask me that now? When you took great pains to skirt that issue when you were feigning an interest in me."

  Amelia looked contrite. "I had doubts about being with you. It is a huge responsibility being with a crippled man and that's why I am almost sure that this girl is playing with you. Crippled men are not a girl's first choice. Believe it or not, in all of this, I am most concerned about you."

  Travis winced through her little self-righteous speech. He had more or less said the same thing to Sky.

  He waved off Amelia so called concern and turned back to his computer. He hoped that she got the message.

  She did.

  She left his office soon after.

  He sat back in his chair and looked up into the ceiling. He hadn't been this happy since he was...He couldn't remember being this happy.

  It was strange. He had reached the ripe old age of thirty one and couldn't pinpoint a time when he rushed out of bed, eager to face the day, when he could see her face or hear her laughter or just watch as she spoke.

  It had all happened so fast, at least for him. It had taken him a year to warm to Amelia, with Sky a few weeks. To be honest when he had first seen Sky he had been more than mildly interested.

  The internal phone rang jerking him out of his self-assessment.

  "Hello dear," his mother said when he answered. "How are y
ou?"

  "I am good mom." Travis smiled. His mother's voice was always welcomed. This was the voice that had brought him back from the brink of despair when he woke up in the hospital ten years ago.

  "How are you?" He asked.

  "The family is in a bit of an uproar at the moment." She paused. "I shouldn't bother you with this."

  "Bother me," Travis insisted. "My legs are not working but I can assure you my ears are."

  She chuckled at that. But it was a forlorn sound. Almost forced.

  "Can you come home for the summer or are you doing classes?"

  Travis considered her loaded question. His mother never pressed him to come home, she had supported him moving from Kingston and taking up academia. This was the first time since the accident that she was actually asking him to return home.

  Her voice sounded a little desperate.

  "What's going on, Mom? What is the family uproar?"

  His mother sighed. "Didn't Carly or Beth call you?"

  His sisters. He was not that close to them. They spoke at family gatherings. Carly was a banker; her husband sat on the board at Jefferson Pharmaceuticals, his sister Elizabeth, co-owned a funeral home. Her three sons worked at the company in various managerial positions.

  His youngest sister, Milly, the sister closest to his age, was a drug addict who had more or less lived in and out of rehab for the last ten years and he had arranged for her to stay at his apartment for the past three months.

  "No." Travis frowned. "What's going on?"

  "Your father has gone crazy." His mother's voice became husky with despair. "He is going to make Duke Gillings the head of the company! That is not going to happen not over my dead body. Never!"

  Travis sighed. He had tried to forget that revelation by Kenton, that Duke was his brother. Maybe if he was close to his dad he could have asked him about it.

  "Mom," Travis felt a sharp pain in his heart, "Duke is his son."

  "I don't care." Pasha gritted out plainly. This business is around today because my father bailed Miguel out of the financial mess he was in. I have the same amount of shares that Miguel does." Pasha was breathing hard. "I am not going to stand by and watch as this business is taken over by Arlene Gillings' son!