He nodded. “I have some things I’ve gotta go do, but how about we have that dinner later?”

She was about to reply that she liked that idea a whole lot, when Travis looked past her and his expression turned dark. He dropped his hands to his sides as if her skin were suddenly boiling and then all but pushed past her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he roared as Lorna came back into the gallery.

—

This was not happening. No fucking way. A ghost had just walked into Billie’s gallery, because the woman carrying an armload of canvases was as good as dead to him. She had been for almost fifteen years, and he’d hoped never to lay eyes on her again.

Forgetting Billie, he stormed toward his mother, his fists clenched tightly at his side. “Get the fuck out of my building!” He pointed toward the gate, fighting the urge to physically throw her out. Although he normally wouldn’t hurt a woman, he didn’t rate this one any higher than the algae that lived in the swamps and if she didn’t get the message, he’d not be responsible for his actions.

“Travis.” He heard Billie rushing at him from behind. “What the hell are you doing? Leave Lorna alone.”

Lorna? So Billie knew her. It wasn’t simply a fucked-up coincidence that she’d chosen today to stroll into the gallery.

“Stay out of this!” he ordered, holding his hand up to keep Billie back, all the while his eyes never leaving the woman who’d given him life—hah, what a joke! “I said get the fuck out. You’re not welcome here and if you don’t fuck off, I swear I’ll make you.”

His mom—not that she had any right to that title—simply stood on the spot, her mouth wide open, as if she were frozen. It looked like she was just as surprised to see him as he was to see her, which figured. For one split second he’d wondered if she’d come looking for him, but of course that idea was ludicrous. She’d never bothered about him before, so why the hell would he imagine she might now?

“Travis. You’re alive.” She almost breathed the words as she hugged the paintings to her chest.

“Do I have to count to fucking three?”

“Travis, please,” Billie pleaded from behind, her voice shaky. “What’s gotten into you?”

He didn’t respond. This had nothing to do with her.

Lorna slowly raised her chin. “I’m not here to cause trouble; I simply came to give Billie my paintings.” She took a step toward him as if he were a wild beast and she was treading carefully, then she laid the bundle in her arms on the cobbled courtyard floor and took a step back. “I’ll come collect my money later, Billie. Thanks.”

But as Lorna started toward the door, Travis glanced down at the top painting. She was the mermaid artist? Fuck! That’s why the painting had seemed familiar when he’d looked at it the other day, why something inside him had squeezed at the memory. It suddenly sprang to life, every little bit coming back in full. When he was little, before he realized what his mom was, before she’d gotten bored with being a mom, she’d drawn him mermaids every day. Sometimes with paper, sometimes with pen on his skin—his first tattoos. He’d loved them.

Something inside him snapped. He didn’t want this memory. Didn’t want Lorna or anything to do with her to be anywhere near him ever again. He bent over and grabbed the canvases off the ground and then hurled them after her, not caring as they collided with one of Rolley’s sculptures and scattered on the floor.

“You could have hit her.” Billie glared at him as she shot past him and over to Lorna at the entrance. “Are you okay?” she asked, placing a caring arm around his mother.

“I’m fine,” he heard Lorna reply, her voice sounding as feeble as she looked. Granted she hadn’t seemed high, but looks could be deceiving, and what the fuck did he care anyway? Even if she had cleaned up her act, it was too damn late. Some things were un-fucking-forgivable. Some people should never be parents. Some women should have their tubes tied at birth.

She looked back at him again and although there was a good distance between them, he saw her blink as if fighting tears. “I’m sorry, Travis. I know nothing I could ever say will make up for the past, but please know that there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think of you and wish things had been different. Wish I’d been different. I hope—”

Travis held up a hand. He’d heard enough. “I don’t fucking care what you hope. All I want is to never see you again. Now get the fuck out before I throw you out.”

“Travis!” Billie glared at him again. “Lorna is one of my exhibitors and therefore she’s always welcome here. You have no right to come in here and—”

He’d had enough. His fists still clenched, he stormed toward the women. “I have every fucking right!” he shouted, getting up in Billie’s face. Just because they’d fucked didn’t give her the right to butt into his business. “I own this building, remember. And you don’t know shit about this situation, about me or about what this woman really is. So back the fuck off and let me deal with her.”

Billie stepped in front of Lorna and crossed her arms over her pretty chest. “No. I’m not going to stand by while you abuse one of my artists. You might own this building, but I’m legally still renting it and I won’t have you acting like this and making a scene. You’ll scare off my customers.”

“It’s okay,” Lorna said softly from behind them. “Billie, Travis is right. This situation is more complicated than you can imagine. But it’s okay, I’m going. And Travis…” She looked up and met his gaze and despite himself, he couldn’t look away. She did look different, more put together, less feral. She even sounded different—as if someone half-decent now inhabited his mother’s body. “I won’t come back. But if you ever want to find me, my door is open.”

Lorna turned and started out of the gallery, turning right down Bourbon Street, and when she was no longer in his line of sight, he finally loosened his fists.

“What the hell was that about?” Billie asked, her eyes sparking with fury. “Lorna is—”

“Lorna was my mother,” he told her, glaring right back. “But most of the time she barely even knew she had a son, too caught up in being a whore and a drug addict.”

“Your mother? Oh, I see.” Billie was quiet a moment, her hard, angry expression softening slightly. “She’s told me all about that, but she’s changed, I promise you. Being a single mother is hard, but I’m sure she loved you deep down.”

What did she know about being a single mother? Travis shook his head. “No! Lorna is incapable of loving anyone but herself. It’d be one thing if she’d sold her body to sleazy pricks to provide for her child, for me, but that was never the case. She was a whore to feed her drug and alcohol habit. She never gave a damn about anyone else, especially not her son.”

Billie frowned. “I’m sure that’s not true. All mothers love their kids. Her addiction obviously prevented her from showing that; she was sick.”

He laughed bitterly. She was so naïve, so desperate to see the good, but life had taught him that most people had more bad than good in them. His mother was a classic example. “Because of her I saw and heard shit no little kid is supposed to know about. Because of her, I ended up in jail. If I hadn’t found the Deacons, if Priest hadn’t taken me under his wing, who knows what would have become of me. She’s dead to me and always will be.”

And with that he stormed past Billie and out onto the street. He couldn’t be around her right now. Not in this mood. He was too close to losing it. The shock of seeing Lorna again had reignited the rage that he’d only just contained for years. And he needed to do something to deal with it. Sex might work, but he didn’t want to fuck all his anger out inside of Billie and he doubted she’d consent to that anyway. Not after what had just happened in the gallery.