Chapter Twenty-Two
Saturday
“Sky?”
Travis’s voice echoed into the barn from the doorway. Fans rushed, pushing the air around to keep the space ventilated, and a stack of papers from her desk far in the corner had fluttered across the rubberized floor. The show palomino thrust its head over the gate.
Brandon peered a head around the washing stall down the aisle, his hands gloved and his feet booted in wet muck boots, his arm out of the sling. He’d gotten his follow-up appointment, it seemed. He wouldn’t tell Skylar that he’d had a hand in that, calling in a favor at V-Tech’s campus to fit the kid in so soon.
“Sup, Brandon. How’s your shoulder, man?” He stooped and picked up a quivering paper, then followed the trail of papers and some unopened mail to the corner, stacking them on the desk and putting a heavy chart on top to hold them down—an estate agent’s letter from…Alpine? sat on top. What was that about? It was postmarked over a week ago yet sat unopened.
Brandon shrugged as he returned down the aisle. The Brandon Shrug. The shoulder was working, apparently. Travis smiled to himself.
“I brought someone to see you.” He whistled sharply.
“Yoda,” Brandon called out with the closest thing to excitement Travis had heard from him so far, his brown eyes brightening as he said it.
Yoda trotted excitedly down the aisle, tail wagging, to greet the kid. The rump of a horse was protruding from the stall nearby to him, and Yoda, smart dog, didn’t go anywhere near it.
“I think he missed you, kid.”
“He’s cool. Skylar wants to give me Courage.”
Travis nodded and smiled. Sounded like Courage had found the right home. After a moment of petting the dog, Brandon looked up. His face once more shuttered. “You looking for Skylar?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I need to see her.”
“She’s up at the house.”
The kid pointed finger guns out the door.
“Thanks, man.”
He pivoted around, when Brandon added, “The baseball cards were cool. Uh…thanks. You can have them back now.”
Travis smiled. But there was a forlornness in the way the kid said that, he thought, coming to a conclusion. “You know, I haven’t even looked at them in ages.” He shrugged. “Why don’t you keep ’em? Maybe we can poke around online and add to the collection.”
“What?” And the way Brandon’s face lit up at the idea, proof that it excited him, quickly deflated on a frown that pinched Travis with concern. “Naw. I ain’t a charity case, man.”
He vanished back into the wash stall.
“I didn’t say you were,” Travis called after him. “Just thought you might like them.”
Had he offended the kid? He hadn’t meant to. But Brandon stuck his head back out, his mop of dark hair flopping around his eyes, his face guarded, but his tone softer.
“If my next placement is a group home, they’ll just get stolen or damaged anyway.”
Alarm spiked. He had yet to call Tyler. “Are you moving?” He tried to smooth the furrow to his brow. How come Skylar hadn’t said anything about it this week when they’d talked on the phone or texted? She hadn’t broached any hard topics, now that he thought about it.
Brandon shrugged and threw his arms wide. “Up in the air still. Welcome to being a foster kid.” And withdrew again.
Travis crunched across the gravel toward the house, intent on getting answers, when Skylar pushed out the front door, her arms loaded down with a beat-up plastic bin. All hips, denim legs, ropers, tank top, blond tresses knotted up. A cowboy’s dream.
Her entire face lit up. “Hey. I wasn’t sure when your call shift ended.”
After a week of not seeing her and thinking about her every day, he couldn’t peel his eyes away from her toned arms and suntanned skin, wishing that this was his homecoming every day. Why couldn’t he take surgeries at the hospital, then come home to a ranch in the evening? Why had he ever thought he couldn’t have it all? He had money, and concerning his leg, that was what foremen were for. He hustled toward the steps as she came down, when her phone started chiming in her pocket.