Chapter Seventeen
Travis turned off the back highway, idled, and leaned out his window to tap in the security code. A massive lintel sat atop expensive timbers over the gate. Parson’s Draw. Tyson Beef. Ranchland. He craned beneath his windshield to get a good look now that it was daylight, tipped the old Stetson he’d dug out of his closet for this afternoon—a hat he’d once worn to help his pops with ranch work and at every barrel racing event—out of his eyes to see it better. Call it a bout of nostalgia or whatever, but he’d felt like wearing it today.
The solar-powered gate began to swing open.
“…after reviewing the control group of the arthroplasty study, we have to consider the ramifications of a patient’s historical compliance with follow-up…”
He tapped off the research podcast he was listening to and accelerated down the entrance road. Yucca was planted in spiny rows along each side, a desert boulevard. His body buzzed with energy, anxious to be back here and see Sky, warring with unease about getting on that horse. This rustic stretch was like being transported to the past, and now that he was lost in the middle of this vast desertscape, he couldn’t help but think more about Toby and that front forty of land.
Picking Sky up last night had been his first step onto ranchland since leaving home.
He’d missed this. He liked the clean orderliness of the OR, but he missed the dirt on his knees. Missed this grittiness he’d forsaken while chasing new accomplishments. He just couldn’t reconcile his kid brother Toby, only a junior in high school at the time, with the black eye that he’d given him as he’d thrashed, Toby screaming for help as Travis had convulsed on his bedroom floor, or shouting at him as he’d thrown his bags into his friend’s trunk to leave for San Antonio while blocking the car from pulling out of the driveway, “What the fuck is your problem? Can’t you see what this is doing to Momma! Can’t you see what this is doing to all of us?”
Yeah, how could he ever ask Toby for that land? How could he face him? They might’ve been all jokes on text, but there were deep-seated hurts lurking beneath the surface.
Rumbling over another cattle grate delineating pastures, Red Lightning creaked over the dips, squeezed through narrower stretches of spiny ocotillo splashed with blossoms from the fluke morning rain, until her farm house loomed in the distance, made of Texas sandstone, the upper floor with beveled siding at least a hundred years old and coated in generations of whitewash. It had probably been a proud home by the standards of the turn of the century and was riddled with character inflicted by time. Her irrigated patch of vegetables thrived in the afternoon shade beside the house. Wildlife abounded. Beautiful. Simple. Probably the original Tyson ranch house before something more opulent had been built. The hominess suited Sky. And with Skylar, he could see himself being happy on a spread like this, too, like they’d once planned.
There sat the barn, the safe haven for rescues and overnight patients, larger than life—everything was bigger in Texas: a massive, repurposed cattle shed at least a squared fifty yards in size, clapboard grayed by time and years of baking in the ferocious sunshine yet well kept. He killed the engine and pushed out of the driver’s seat. A horse trailer, painted in white with scripty lettering, Fort Stockton Equestrian, was parked, attached to a shiny dually rig.
Huh. Fort Stockton wasn’t that far from Alpine.
A gorgeous palomino stallion, with an opulent pearly blond mane and tail and a glossy mocha coat, was being coaxed backward as Brandon leaned on the porch railing, watching the spectacle, his arm still in the sling that Travis had fitted him with in the ER—Good, he’d half-expected the kid to have ripped it off by now.
And there Skylar was. Working the horse backward down the ramp in athletic leggings that hugged the lithe muscles in her thighs, muck boots, hair pulled back at her nape but hanging wind-tossed. Damn, it was pretty, contrasted with that black tank and mismatched plaid shirt, now discolored under the pits where she was sweating. She inched the skittish horse, favoring his front hoof, down the ramp. Such power in this image and so goddamn sexy. She’d once shied away when Cimarron had lipped at her clothing, and here she was, manhandling this beautiful beast.
The horse grunted, tossing his head.
“I’ve got treats waiting for you on the other end. Work with me, pretty boy,” she crooned, her firm grip on the horse’s spirited face belying her voice, so angelic-sounding.
She settled him, then continued until all four of his hooves were on solid ground, then flashed a smile over her shoulder at him, her gaze lingering on his hat, an acknowledgment that she’d seen him.
He jutted his chin up in reply, grinning when he saw her bite that lip, her hips swaying naturally as she walked the palomino into the barn. If he played this right, there was no doubt in his mind they could make this work—maybe. Her little expression reassured him after a night of stewing on his flop of a date, all the what-ifs, and a truck ride to get here as fast as he could.
Instead, he fished out a binder he’d packed to share with Brandon from across his seat, creaked shut the door, and approached the kid who gave him an equally cool chin jut and gave his hat and boots a once-over, too.
“Hey, Bran the man,” he grinned, getting an eye roll this time.
Score one for Travis. He couldn’t help laughing.
“Such a ‘dad’ remark,” Brandon muttered, as if insulting him.
Dad…The more time he spent reconnecting with Skylar, the more the idea of a family didn’t sound so bad anymore. Brandon needed a dad. If he wanted Skylar Rivers to be his official girlfriend again and perhaps more, he needed to sow seeds of trust with the kid, too. And if he managed to keep Skylar this time, he might very well be facing a foster dad situation. The idea of foster kids sounded kind of…cool.
Yoda, sprawled like a farm dog on the porch as if he owned the house, sprang to his feet, skidding on the porch to get to him like a cartoon, and bounded down the steps.
“Hey, pup!”
He smacked his belly with his palm, and Yoda jumped up on him, jumping and jumping like a circus performer. He laughed, ruffling his ears and giving him stout pats.
“I saw that pic of you two, Bran, and worried for a sec that he’d replaced me with you. You both got along good it seems.”
Brandon shrugged his good shoulder, then shoved away from the railing to go back inside.
“Hey now,” Travis said. “Why you runnin’ off?”
Brandon glanced back, then rolled his eyes again and huffed on a head shake. “You didn’t come to see me. You came to take your dog away and drool over Skylar.”
Take his dog away? Brandon made it sound like he was confiscating a privilege. Maybe he’ll get used to being here. Skylar’s text about Yoda snaked through his mind, too. And drool? Yeah, the kid must do target practice because he’d hit the bullseye. He knew he shouldn’t have talked about Sky so much during Brandon’s shoulder procedure.