Chapter Six
“More coffee?” the woman who ran the café said, bringing the pot back to Travis’s table.
He nodded and pushed his mug across the surface, checked his cell. Eight thirty. At what point was it not desperate but normal to go back to a veterinary clinic on a weekend to see if the doctor was in? This was all wishful thinking. It was after eight, and she hadn’t called him back yet. She has enough to do with Brandon’s shoulder and an animal sanctuary to run. He should have found a different vet, so as not to bother her when she was already dealing with a full plate, but no, he was selfish. He wanted to see her again—
“Oh, you’re in luck! There she is now. Speak of the devil…” the woman said cheerfully.
So Skylar did have clinic today? His pulse leapt hopefully and his head whipped up. His gaze darted around like a dog sensing a squirrel to hone in on the Skylar sighting.
What time did her clinic start? He’d already been by it once, like an idiot, since he’d basically slept with a hard-on all night long thinking about her and waking up with an insatiable need to see her, thinking about what it meant to run into her after all these years, thinking about what he’d say, although seven forty-five on a Saturday was probably a little too wishful of thinking. The place had been closed up tighter than a drum.
A pearlescent, midnight-blue dually had just pulled to a park. A beautiful diesel; chromy bumper; truck box and tarp tied down in the bed; the logo, which he’d never unsee after seeing it on her clinic sign when he’d walked away from her door empty handed this morning, was emblazoned on the door in a white decal.
He’d read every inch of “Doolittle’s” website last night, called her messages again, just to hear her voice after so long. She’d sounded sweet, still. How could she not? He’d seen that glimmer of innocence for a fleeting second when she’d lain on the ED bed, looking up at him with such wide-eyed confusion, cupping his cheek before she’d touched that shrapnel wound on his cheek he’d never wanted her to see.
Goose bumps shot up his arms, prickled his nape. Premonition settled so heavily in his gut, he felt like he lugged bricks.
“Wonder what she wants?” the café lady continued, looking back at Skylar, so distracted, Travis shoved his cup underneath her tipping coffee pot to catch the flow of liquid gold before it splashed the table, when the truck door cranked open. “She never stops in before clinic. Usually she’s racing the clock.”
Never?Then had she seen him just now and decided to stop? The idea sent a thrill through his veins.
A long, denim-clad leg extended out the door ending in a dusty roper that could put the finest high heel to shame and fuel a cowboy’s hardest fantasies. Speak of the Devil, indeed. A Stetson came off that blond head; long, shiny tresses in an unassuming braid at her nape still so long he could probably strum them like guitar strings like he’d done as an infatuated teen; suntanned arms and shoulders bare, sculpted lean muscle. But instead of that green tank top she’d sported in her website photos hugging her curves like a wet T-shirt, she wore a soft blue one, equally tight and worn from no doubt lots of use.
His dick stirred. Dammit, he couldn’t help it. Her body had always done that to him. He could practically smell that peachy hair and bodywash he’d smelled at the hospital when he’d held her close to his chest.
“That’s her coming this way,” Lydia remarked.
Travis swallowed. Yeah. Was he staring? Hell if he was. He made no effort to look away from the sensuous flare of her hips and curve of her pert little breasts, slightly more filled out than she’d been at the age of eighteen but every bit as pretty. And above all, the confidence with which she moved, the subtle way she twisted as she pivoted around on the runner board and leaned inside to grab something so he saw nothing but her heart-shaped rear and the distressed wear of her jeans…
He cleared his throat. Closed his iPad. There’d be no concentrating on physical therapy this morning. He had boards to sit soon, but Skylar Rivers was fire, and he was a fool about to burn himself. She’d always been one of those girls who turned every guy’s head yet didn’t understand why they were drooling. To live in such ignorance must surely have been bliss because if she had known her natural allure and the power it wielded over a guy when they’d been younger, she’d probably have left him long ago for prettier male prospects.
Lydia chuckled. “Don’t pretend you didn’t notice.”
Jeezus, he needed a mop to sop up his own drool before he slipped in it and fell on his ass. Was his mouth gaping open as he watched her hop onto the street? He was so guilty, but his eyes remained glued upon her anyway. He pushed to standing, took off his cap like some reverent boy scout who’d just entered church.
Skylar slung a small backpack over her shoulder that looked like when she didn’t cart it around as a purse she used it in the back country, which infused him with another weird twist of jealousy. Jealousy? Why on earth? He’d chased a new horizon, realized a new ambition that had changed both his life and the lives of those he treated. He’d left everything about ranching and veterinary practices and horse facilities in the dust of the past on purpose. Because I taught her how to ride. And then she rode right on ahead of me, leaving me in her dust. Jealousy that she was living the dream he’d once wanted, too. That, deep down, he wished to hell he could still have—which was why Lopez’s offer to codirect the stable had been so appealing—if it weren’t for his worthless leg and that explosion and realizing his life hadn’t even gotten started yet when it had all gone to shit.
The sight of her, a doctor in her own right, a goddess by the grace of God, was beautiful. Perfection. She’d had nothing but scholarships and whatever she could earn for money to pay her way through school. She must have gotten by on the skin of her knuckles and now drove shiny-ass one-hundred-thousand dollar trucks with a charity fund hundreds of thousands strong. Grit was sexy as hell on her.
She looked up and down the road, jaywalking instead of using the faded crosswalk, as if she owned the asphalt. Old Sky would have used the crosswalk and pushed the button for the little green man. She hopped up onto the café’s patio, hips swaying, breasts shifting as she moved, slender muscles flexing, passing Red Lightning with her chin in the air and that frost brimming in her eyes.
He smirked now, watching her antics. He didn’t buy that indifference for a minute. She would know his truck. How could she not? The middle of the bench seat was branded with her name where she’d always sat tucked against him. She grabbed the café’s door handle, just a few arms’ lengths away now, as if she was going to walk inside and feign not seeing him.
“Hey, girl!” Lydia called, coffee pot still in her hand.
“Hi, Lyddie!” Skylar replied brightly, the same sweet way she would have greeted a friend at the lockers at school, looking at Lydia but making a champion’s effort not to look at him. She knew he was there, but she was willing to pretend she didn’t recognize him. It chafed. “Can I grab a coffee to go?”
“Yeah, but you never grab coffee to go, the paper cups being wasteful and all that.” And the way Lydia said it, it was like she was imitating something she’d heard a thousand times as she gestured none too subtly toward Travis with a head tilt. “Even though I only use biodegradable products made from ninety-percent recycled materials,” she clarified for him.
“I’m desperate today. Late night spent trying to solve a mystery.” And at this, her eyes sliced fleetingly sidelong at him though didn’t connect with his, as if he were the mystery.
So she’d been up late thinking about him? Good. It wasn’t fair for only him to have lost sleep last night.
“I’ll shove a few bucks in your tip jar,” she added. “My cat’s coming in at eight forty-five, and there wasn’t time to brew any between Brandon’s riding lesson, exercising Patches, and getting out the door.”
She was teaching Brandon to ride? He smiled wistfully now. Remembered what it was like to be a fourteen-year-old boy with the freedom of his boots in the stirrups.
Skylar began to pull the door open again.