Brantley grinned. “Not in the house.”
“I’m lookin’ to change that,” Reese said.
Now that Reese had officially moved in, they were still trying to decide what to do with all the extra square footage in the house. Including the dining room and living room, which Brantley had never bothered to furnish. In his defense, he hadn’t needed furniture when it was just him. And for some reason, it offended Travis’s sensibilities that Brantley didn’t have somewhere to plant his ass in the living room.
“Well, I know a guy,” Travis said.
“You know all the guys,” Reese countered.
Travis chuckled. “Not all, but many.”
“We were just tryin’ to come up with a name for the task force,” JJ said when she returned, two foil-wrapped breakfast tacos in her hand. She passed one to Baz, then addressed Travis with, “Got any ideas?”
“What’re my choices?”
“We got nothin’,” Baz informed him.
“OTB,” Travis said easily.
“You down with OTB, yeah, you know me,” Baz sang, loud and off-key.
Brantley stared, confused.
“Christ. This guy doesn’t listen to music, either?”
“Not unless it’s country,” JJ stated. “Definitely not Naughty by Nature.”
Brantley shrugged off the peanut gallery, glanced back at Travis. “I’ll bite. What does it mean?”
“Off the books,” Travis explained as though it was obvious. “OTB keeps it simple.”
“And it sounds official-like,” JJ noted. “O. T. B. Hmm. Doesn’t suck.”
Seriously? They’d spent a couple of months introducing themselves as the governor’s task force and Travis Walker waltzes in here and gives them a name within thirty seconds of arriving?
Was there anything this guy couldn’t do?
“And it’ll be easy to add to the badge. Texas OTB,” Travis stated.
“And when someone wants us to explain it?” Baz asked.
Travis’s grin was slow. “You tell ’em it’s none of their damn business.”
Baz laughed. “I like this guy.”
“Everyone does,” Reese said under his breath.
“Now that you’ve scoped out the place, seen the new guy, and named the task force, what else you got for us?” Brantley asked Travis, putting him on the spot.
“I didn’t come by for any of those things. I actually came to tell you I got you some wings.”
Again, Brantley was stupefied. “What?”
“For lunch?” JJ asked, eyebrows lifted, hope radiating on her face.
“Is that all you ever think about?” Baz asked her.
JJ shrugged.
“Not food,” Travis clarified.
“You bought a plane?” Reese asked, clearly the smarter one.
“I did. Private jet. And a helicopter.”
“You’re shittin’ me.” Brantley stared, slack-jawed.
“I am not.” Travis held up his hands to calm Brantley before he argued. “Don’t worry, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. I’ve been thinkin’ about it for a while. They’re not just for you, but they are there if you need ’em. When you need ’em.”
Well, shit.
This was a hell of a way to start a Monday.
Travis hung around to chat with the team for a few minutes, then announced he was leaving.
“I’ll walk you out,” he offered, knowing Travis hadn’t simply stopped by to deliver breakfast tacos and the news about a private plane at their disposal.
Outside, the cool November morning breeze sent the leaves dancing down from the trees that surrounded the barn. The grass was brittle from the cooler weather, beginning to wither as it usually did this time of year.
“You consider puttin’ in a walkway?” Travis asked as they trudged through the soggy ground toward the house.
“On my list of enhancements,” he said snidely. “You know, bottom of the page, right after find all the missin’ people.”
“Smart-ass.”
Brantley smirked. “Family trait. I come by it naturally.”
“That you do.”
“So where’s your sidekick?” he asked, keeping the conversation casual.
“You mean my husband?”
Brantley grinned, tucked his hands in his pockets. “Live together, work together, play together. Figured y’all were closer than that, but yeah. Where’s Gage?”
Travis shrugged. “At the office, probably.”
Where Travis should’ve been, Brantley figured. And would’ve been if it weren’t for this detour.
They reached the back of the house, continued around to the side.
“Spill it, Travis,” he said curtly. “I know you’ve got another reason for bein’ here.”
As he expected, Travis didn’t argue. He wasn’t a man to make excuses for what he did or his reasons for doing them.
“Looks like you’ve settled in nicely.”
However, he wasn’t above beating around the bush, apparently.
“We have,” Brantley confirmed, pretending the small talk was necessary. “Not completely up to speed, but we’re gettin’ there.”
They stopped at the driveway, directly in front of the fancy blacked-out Cadillac Escalade that sat alongside the other vehicles parked there. It was Travis’s most recent acquisition. The man usually rolled around in his Chevy Silverado, like a third of the population of Coyote Ridge.
“I need your help.”
“You got it,” he said without a second thought. “What can I do?”
“Find Juliet Prince.”
The adamance in Travis’s tone wasn’t abnormal. Travis Walker was one of those men who took control of the situation, manned the team from the front. He was used to being large and in charge.
Unfortunately for Travis, Brantley had spent too many years leading his SEAL team to take orders from anyone other than the top brass. And while many saw Travis as exactly that, Brantley did not.
