“Yup.” She flashed her fake smile, if only to get through this moment.
His eyes clung to her smile, as if hungry, as if he wanted to kiss her. He couldn’t have it both ways.
“I’ll have the nurse bring you the papers…” His face had softened.
Stillhe stood there. Why hadn’t he walked away yet? Why was he waiting when this was a done deal?
She nearly felt bad for choosing someone else in the face of his innocent surprise. She could feel his eyes dusting over her facial injury again. Saw a tick in his jaw. Maybe she imagined it, but it seemed like the same angry way his jaw would bulge when her dad had laid his hands on her. He looked so pensive. He was chewing his cheek again, as if he wanted to say something.
He finally did. “The circumstances could be better, but it’s still good to see you again.”
“Judging by your expression, you look as thrilled about me as you would an enema.”
The corner of his mouth ticked upward. Not quite a smile. More of an overtone. He gave her another fleeting perusal, eyes dipping to parts of her where they no longer belonged and leaving burning in their wake.
“Pretty sure you don’t know what I’m thinkin’,” he drawled.
Her face suddenly burned. Was she blushing? Great. Eyes misting, passing out, now girlish blush. He must’ve thought she’d become a fool. Don’t read into it.
She turned back to Brandon. Yet as Trav spoke in the background, she couldn’t help a glance over her shoulder at the baritone tones that sent a shiver over her skin, nuances to his voice that had once sung to her all playful and goofy as he’d spun her beneath the stars that had faded from clarity as the years eroded memories.
Randy Travis could suck it with that song about forever and amen. Men were fickle. So was the idea of forever. Amen to that.
“…why didn’t you mention her…”
That was Ashley’s soft, harried voice.
She couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder, spying Travis and Ashley in conversation, more like Ashley drilling him with a scowl as he punched numbers into a hospital phone.
His eyes darted guiltily to hers as Ashley tapped Travis’s lab coat pocket, as if giving disciplinary jabs.
“…I thought you…wanted my number…”
Redness crept up his neck. He stepped back uncomfortably, shaking his head. “I’m sorry… There’s more going on here…with Skylar… This ain’t gonna work…”
“…don’t believe this… You’re an asshole…” Ashley’s whispers were barely perceptible.
Skylar turned around to collect Brandon’s things, but in the reflection of the one-way window over Brandon’s bed, Travis backed up another step, evading Ashley again and this time giving a stiff shake of his head and turning away from her as he fumbled to get his arms through his lab coat while he pinched the phone between his ear and shoulder.
Had Skylar just witnessed a breakup? Over her?
His gaze darted back to her as he spoke on the phone, traveling over her body with open, unabashed yearning.
“Yeah. Tell Dr. James I’m gonna need anesthesia for a dislocated shoulder—a little Versed and Propofol oughta do the trick, thanks. Ashley, wanna get his momma to sign off on consents?”
“DFPS already did. She’s his foster mom,” Ashley replied, this time coldly with know-it-all tones.
Travis’s gaze shot back to her now, eyes wide.
Ashley approached from the nurse’s station with the promised cup of water. To her credit, whatever had just happened between her and Travis didn’t interfere with her work. Skylar nodded thanks. She gulped it down. Forced a smile. Travis hung up and strode back to the bay, a grin bright on his face as he exchanged jokes with a passing lab tech—ah, the game face smile. Skylar was good at that one, too. He clipped Brandon’s IV to the rail and hooked his chart to the end of the bed.
“All right, Bran the man, let’s get this show on the road and get you home in time for supper.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “What’s Skylar cooking up tonight? She and my momma used to make this mean chili.”
“Yeah, she makes that sometimes, with honey cornbread,” Brandon replied, as if he enjoyed talking to Travis, who unlocked the bed’s brake pedal and wheeled him from the bay.
“Oh man. Ain’t had it in years, but still crave it. I used to know your foster momma a long time ago. Let me think up an embarrassing story or two…”
Skylar rolled her eyes, unable to suppress the chuckle—more like a huff—that puffed from her throat. There was tenderness in his joking, even though he didn’t do more than cast her one more surreptitious glance, as if hoping she’d noticed.
Try that embarrassing story where you left for war and then let me think you were dead, Trav, while I was stupid enough to grieve for you. That one’s hilarious.
The joke had definitely been on her. And yet her heart pinched at that little memory shared with Brandon—until she noticed his gait. Her smile fell. No longer smooth and confident, his strong, tall body walked with definite unevenness.
He let me go forme?
Those looks when he’d first seen her, that deer-in-the-headlights discomfort suddenly made sense. It hadn’t been displeasure at seeing her. It had been humiliation at her seeing him.