He played off her confidence with a grin. But he’d see soon enough how expert of a rider he still was. Maybe it was like riding a bike.
“I can’t believe it,” she muttered, shaking her head in awe. “It’s like everything we ever wanted. I would have eaten something like that up when I was a kid. Brandon could benefit from something like that, too.”
“It won’t be limited to just military. The center is named after Lopez’s daughter, who he almost lost to suicide. And just like your animal rescue charity, in time I hope to build up an endowment for patients who don’t have insurance to cover it. So often these demons go untreated because a patient has no way to pay.”
“Where’s it gonna be? I assume in El Paso County, near the hospital?”
Ah, there was the rub. “Well, we got a couple options. There’s a spread in Dallas that Lopez wants to move on—”
“Dallas?” Her smile fell an inch. Shit, he’d wondered if Dallas would be a dealbreaker. “That’s so far away. I, uh…” Her face shuttered now, and she maneuvered around Patches to straighten the saddle blanket before she cinched the girth, effectively putting the horse between them, f-ing pulling back again. But this time, that withdrawal hurt a little. “I suppose I’d have to, uh, see the particulars in the contract and think about it. Regular travel would put me gone overnight, maybe for up to a week at a time, and with Brandon here and Anita making my life difficult…” She shook her head, bit her lip. “I don’t know…”
No, no-no, he didn’t want to lose this chance to build that life with her, and the disappointment on her face twisted a knife in his gut. “There’s another option, though. I, uh, noticed that horse trailer from Fort Stockton earlier…” He was just talking out of his ass now. “You have a lot of patients roll in from there?”
She nodded and pulled the girth strap tight, her body jerking with each tug, and he couldn’t help noticing how she’d busied herself when the conversation took a contentious turn. An avoidance tactic. He knew his favorite tactic when he saw it.
“If I open another clinic, I’ve considered Fort Stockton, actually. It’s close enough to get to and from in a day; I have several agricultural patients in that area. The problem is finding suitable land or real estate. There’s just nothing for sale in the area that would work…” She glanced at him furtively. “Why?”
“What about Alpine?” he blurted out.
“Alpine?” She paused now. “For your therapy clinic?”
He nodded and took to stroking Patches’s face. The likeness to Cimarron was uncanny and made longing to see his old horse burn stronger. Lopez was going to freak. Alpine wasn’t on the table of options.
“You remember that front forty on the Legacy? Where we said we were gonna build a horse sanctuary in our career day project?” He laughed uneasily now, having cited a sixteen-year-old high school project between two teenagers as his rationale for selecting where to build a multimillion dollar therapeutic suite.
“Yes?” Her mouth contorted up in similar amusement, and her eyes were no longer shuttered. They danced, as if anticipating what he might say.
“Tobes has always sworn that land is mine if I want it. Was thinking about giving him a call…” He eyed her surprised expression, noted the wonderous upturn of her lips again. “Look, Lopez and I haven’t talked about it yet, but I can float the idea by him. I know you got a lotta hard feelings about Alpine, and I’d never ask you to go there if you didn’t want to, but it’s just down the road from Fort Stockton, and it’s only a couple hours from here. Far cry better than Dallas.”
“True.”
“Would you go back to Alpine?” he pressed. No sense in beating around the point. Fingers crossed he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt, but it was like every other moment with her; she was pulling away when all he wanted was to reel her in. Why?
Her eyes bounced back and forth between his. She was warring with something she wasn’t saying. And she wanted him to talk, he thought with ironic amusement.
Her lips turned up into a tentative smile. She took his hand. “For us…I would.”
His heart swelled, and he playfully pulled on her hand, tugging her back beneath the crossties to him, depositing her hands around his neck, and settling his arms around her waist, needing to seal that remark with an unspoken agreement, as if such was actually binding.
She nodded, as if she could see this working out, too. “Three days ago, I had no clue you were alive, and today”—Skylar shook her head again, still in awe—“it’s like that dream I thought was dead is right here for the taking. It’s like you came back into my life, right now, for a reason. I—” Her eyes flashed to his. Still guarded. “I wonder if maybe this is why.”
His heart pinched a degree as he tightened his grip. He’d thought the same thing. She’d resurfaced for a reason. Was this the reason? That inkling about Brandon’s familiarity made him wonder if it was or if there was something more to be had here: a family?
“Look around, baby. That dream never died. You’ve already lived it, for both of us.” He swallowed hard. This was where he agreed to get his ass in the saddle, even though his gut balked. “I wasn’t here to do my part. But I’m here now. I said I’d hit the ground running so you would know you can count on me, and I meant it. We can take it as slow as you need, okay?” He rubbed her arms, and his remark seemed to lift an invisible weight off of her. Yeah, she needed time. “I just don’t want to lose you again. There’s no question that I want a future with you or that I want to call you my girlfriend again. And eventually, maybe”—he chewed his cheek—“have that family with you.”
She bit her lip. That sharp withdrawal, like when she’d feared he’d brought a cooler of beer last night, flashed in her eyes. She had something she wanted to add or say or ask. Whatever it was, was this what she was holding back?
“Only if the time is right,” he hastened to add, hoping it would soften her reaction.
Instead, she slipped the brochure into her cell phone pocket on her thigh, smiled cheerily up at him, quelling whatever had been at risk of spilling out her lips. He was onto her now. If she focused on him, then he didn’t have to focus on her. But there was something there, something hard for her to put into words, but something he feared was going to knock him over when it finally poured out.
“Let’s saddle up,” she said. “I can’t tell you how excited I’ve been to go riding with you. Like old times.”
Shit. His moment of reckoning.