Chapter Twenty-Six
All evening long the next day, and then after his Monday clinic shift, seeing follow-up patients, as Travis microwaved his dinner and tried to listen to his research podcast, tried to pump out his mixed-up feelings on his weight machine, he couldn’t relax, couldn’t shed the grief, the loss—which Skylar had endured alone. Returning to his empty shell of a house that would never be home without the woman he loved wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
He hadn’t wanted to leave after dinner with her and Brandon. Had eaten up every minute with them, seeing Skylar entirely differently. The slight stomach touches, the way that when their steadfast chemistry had urged them toward a home run, time and again, she’d pulled back the reins… It all made sense. The emotions wrapped up in that moment of loss, compounded by his death announcement and revived by his arrival in the ED bed bay, weren’t emotions he could have grasped when he’d argued that whatever her hardships were putting herself through college they weren’t the same as him stepping on a landmine. It humbled him, that she’d gone through something so harrowing, pulled up those proverbial bootstraps and gotten shit done and come out stronger in spite of it. It was up to him now to listen, to support…to grieve with her.
After what had happened in the canyon, leaving her didn’t feel right. To grieve with her, he needed to be with her. He felt like the family he wanted was right there for the taking, as he and Brandon had played fantasy baseball and he’d promised to bring his old mitts over after PT gave him the go-ahead to play ball again, like a dad and his kid, as the dogs sprawled on the floor by the couch, as the country music played softly. It had felt more like home than anything had in a long time, rubbing shoulders with Sky at the farmhouse sink, scrubbing the dinner dishes together.
Family.
He missed the bond he’d once had with his brothers. His momma had been right.
“I know when the moment comes that you realize you need to make a change, you’ll dig those heels in and go for it…my baby boy, because this darkness is killing me…”
Redness misted his eyes as he sat on his weight bench, sweating, heart rate pumping, in basketball shorts and a tight army T, worn thin over the years. He glanced out the window at the evening sun, the orange glow that fired across the alfalfa fields. As he propped his elbows on his knees, his workout sweat dripping off his nose, he came to a decision. His parents hadn’t lived to see this transformation, but he could still do them proud. He could be the big brother to Toby he always should have been and start the process of making amends. He could reconnect with Tyler, be the uncle Ty’s kids deserved him to be. And he could be Sky’s rock again. He could be a mentor and a father figure for Brandon. Whatever it was about that kid, Brandon had made him confront his tattoo of Boss. It had to mean something.
And now, after what had gone so dreadfully wrong with Sky and yet had finally ripped the Band-Aid off and brought them closer than they had ever been, being here felt like being torn away from where he was meant to stay.
There was no doubt his family would have taken Sky in. But he could understand why she’d run. She’d been young, just like he had been when tragedy had struck. She hadn’t known how to cope, like he hadn’t. And yet both of them had found solace and purpose in healing others. Both of them had sought from other partners what they were doomed to never find except with each other: a deep abiding love; a connection; a sense of history with one another; and a strong, sustainable bond that could withstand Rhett, could withstand war, could withstand any hardship or hellfire to come if they did it together.
They’d withstand this—and more, too.
He dug out his phone, opened his texts, began tapping a message.
Travis:Hey, Toby. I got a lot on my mind. Can you talk?
His thumb hovering over the Send arrow, he finally tapped it. The message delivered. A moment later, it showed Read. And an ellipsis began to waver.
Toby:Sure, bro, what’s up? Rose just kicked my ass at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, so perfect timing, ’cause I’m off sulking.
Travis huffed a laugh, shook his head. Toby’d always been there for him. Always begged him to come home and visit, to reconnect. When Toby’d shouted those accusations so long ago, Travis finally saw them for what they were: They weren’t Toby’s resentment manifested, they were Toby showing him that he loved him and wanted his brother back.
He ran the water in the shower, dropped his shorts and dragged off his T, making quick work of dealing with his prosthetic and washing up, then pulled on a pair of jeans and stretched on a clean shirt. He pulled up Toby’s number as he snatched up his keys and wallet, whistled to his moping dog who, just like Skylar had joked, had grown used to her ranch and didn’t want to leave, and eyed his mesh-back cap. He swiped up his Stetson instead. He fired up Red Lightning, knowing exactly where he wanted to go, plugged his phone in. Swallowed. Hit Call. And turned on the speakerphone as he backed out of his driveway.
“Hey, Trav, what’s going on, bro? Shit, hell freezing over?” Toby said, answering on the first ring.
Travis cleared his throat. He hadn’t actually heard his brother’s voice since their momma’s funeral a year ago.
“Hey, Tobes, I should have called a long time ago.” He chewed his lip. “I got a lot I need to say. You got time?”
“Everything okay?” He could hear Toby bracing himself as a door clicked shut and the background noise through the phone went silent. He could feel Toby tensing, steeling himself for the worst. A relapse? Another OD? Travis had let their outdated fears drag on long enough.
“Yeah, man, everything’s great. Finished my PT boards, got a codirectorship on the horizon…but I, uh, wanna come home to visit, if that’s okay, talk to you about that front forty, and other things.”
“You serious?” The disbelief, the happy excitement that lifted Toby’s voice, ominous seconds ago, sent a wash of relief over Travis’s skin.
Toby continued, this time, a touch guarded. “Come on, don’t tell me that if you ain’t actually coming home this time.”
Travis smiled, cleared his throat again. “I’m bringing Skylar with me.”
“I fucking knew it, man! Where’d she go all those years ago? What happened to her—Yeah, babe, it’s my brother…that’s why I closed the door… Yup, thanks for the reminder, Sage.” Toby, distracted, exhaled and chuckled as he returned his attention to Travis. “Sorry, that was Sage telling me I got a potty mouth and Rose telling me to put a quarter in the swear jar. I swear these two tryin’ to swindle me.”
“Bet they’re getting rich,” Travis laughed. “I wanna meet Rose and your little boy”—Rose’s son, Sage, who Toby was drawing up paperwork to adopt as soon as the two of them tied the knot—“I wanna come put some roses on Momma’s urn”—her favorite flowers—“and I think I got a few things to say to Pops, too.”
Toby snorted. “I like to sit with Pops’s urn and tell him how I’m phasing out cattle and there ain’t a damn thing he can do about it now but sit and listen, you know, like he always fussed at us to do? And if you want to talk about those forty acres, does that mean we get to tell Pops that horses are, indeed, gonna graze cattle land?” Travis outright laughed at the joke as Toby chuckled through the phone, spoken with a twist of affection that didn’t usually accompany Toby’s remarks about Harold Dixon, who he’d had a contentious relationship with most of his teenage and young adult years.
“Must rile his feathers good and hard to not be able to tell you to ‘Quit running your mouth’ or ‘Dammit, you’re gonna run this cattle business into the ground,’” Travis added.
“Damn straight, and I’m here for it—Yup! Another quarter in the swear jar!” he called out, muted, as if a hand was over the cell phone speaker.