The Cowboy's Texas Sky (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch 2)

You’re a professional. A surgeon. You stopped pining for her long ago.Sure he had. Bedside f-ing manner, man.

He fixed a semblance of a pleasant expression on his face and grasped the curtain. Here went nothing. Dragging it back, the metal loops rattled upon the rod while the soft cell conversation continued. More goose bumps pebbled his scarred skin at the softness of her voice vibrating in his ears like distant memories and the sight of a pile of blond hair tied up in a massive knot, her back, a lab coat of her own. Old. New. Intertwined in a heady sensation on his every nerve ending.

“Yeah…the ER nurse got the consent you signed…just came off the fax machine… Thanks for being so prompt, Anita… Yeah… I’ll keep you updated—but it wasn’t my fault. The police report’s already been filed.” A soft, almost imperceptible “OMG,” whispered from her lips. “Anita, why would you do that to him? I understand, but I feel like rehoming him would be a mistake…”

He fixed his eyes on the kid, her kid, stabilized and groggy on the bed, a sheet drawn up to his chest and his arm immobilized, his clothes in a clear plastic bag beside him in the chair indicating a Texas Rangers T-shirt.

“Hey, man. Looks like they got you on the good drugs.” He chuckled, grasping at that confidence that normally came so naturally but eluded him now because, like an idiot, he was searching the boy’s face for traces of Skylar, and mystified, he saw zero family resemblance.

The kid smirked in the ubiquitous way of a sullen teen deigning to smile. Travis would take it as a win considering the kid was probably still in pain despite his meds.

“I’m Dr. Dixon—” The woman whipped around in his periphery, her voice tapering off. He kept his eyes focused on the kid. “Let’s see if we can pop that sucker back into place and send you home. Sound good?” he drawled and eyed the shirt again. “Then in a month or so, you can start catching those hard hitters again. I used to play baseball. What position you play?”

The kid scowled and looked away, like Travis had just prodded a sore spot. Teens. Probably mad because a dislocated shoulder stymied his game for a while.

He strode to the computer to view the kid’s radiographs, saw no fractures. He glanced down at Brandon, who was eyeing him again, so attuned to the woman at his back who had fallen silent and stopped pacing. But he couldn’t turn to look. He had a job to do. He couldn’t. Guilt. He’d let her go without any explanation, and like a coward, he’d never thought he’d have to face her again. His heart knocked against his sternum like a shitty engine that turned over but wouldn’t catch. After all these years? Still, his skin tingled just being in proximity to her—

“Tr-Travis?” she whispered.

She was leaning forward, trying to catch a glance of his profile. A shiver racked his frame at the sound of her angelic voice, denied him for so long; he’d forgotten its musical nuances, the way it vibrated on his eardrums and sent tremors of heat through his limbs, the way her eyes on him seemed like a tangible sensation, like a promise, a reminder.

What a mindfuck. No longer able to resist, he glanced at her as he enlarged the radiograph, his eyes acting on their own volition, as if desperate for either a feast or punishment. And God… Mark him down for a feast. And a punishment. He nearly groaned.

Eyes, so wide and blue like the Texas sky; slender, mile-long legs in worn denim; and rolling hips lost beneath the hem of her own lab coat. He’d always been able to get himself off just imagining her legs. Stomach so flat, breasts—jeezus—so perfect. He forgot how to talk. For four years, from freshman to senior year, this girl—now woman—had been his other half…

He was staring.

To say the years had been kind was an understatement. That shitty engine turned over and caught, began idling, desire swirling with utter humiliation that she should see him now, riddled in scars. The woman who he’d made love to with carefree abandon, who’d made him the envy of every guy in high school, who he’d given his body to as his first in the truck bed of Red Lightning as they’d gazed up at the stars dotting the sky over Cerro Casas Grandes that stood sentinel over the desert, listening to the nighttime insects, building those big dreams, was gazing back at him now, a wide-eyed, long-legged goddess… He couldn’t let that tried-and-true chemistry for Skylar that always stiffened his dick and clouded his judgment take control of the reins, but holy hell…

Gangrene, necrotic flesh, stomach bile. He willed his mind to think about all things nasty to shrink the twinges of thickening that threatened to tent up the front of his scrubs. She stared at him. Why was he acting like such an idiot? He clenched the chart hard enough that his knuckles whitened, as if it offered his hands something stable to which to cling.

“Skylar.”

His voice sounded gruff in his ears, so he forced that smile he’d given Ashley onto his lips once more, but he knew it didn’t meet his eyes. The superficial flirting that worked so well on everyone else would never fool the Sky he’d once known—

His gaze narrowed on a shadow marring her cheek and nose. A bruise, and shit! That anger at her daddy surfaced like molten lava from within him, a dormant volcano, and rushed through his blood. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen her face bruised, and he hated it just as much now as he had then, even if this time it was an airbag that had hit her.

Her gaze narrowed on his tight lips, then the blood drained so swiftly from her face, it was as if she was seeing phantoms.

Get your head out of your ass, man!

Skylar had been in this truck accident, too. Had she been assessed for injury before she’d refused care? The woozy, dizzy sway to her body… He’d seen it on Boss’s face as his BP had tanked out in that hellhole. He’d felt it himself. Hold on! Dammit, you bastard! Don’t you dare die! Don’t you dare!

Skylar’s blood pressure was dropping.

“Ash!” he barked, flipping that switch. “Crash cart stat! Mom’s tanking!”

He lunged to catch Skylar as she folded like cooked spaghetti, catching her before she hit the floor as his coat slipped off his arm and the metal chart clip clattered on the tiles. Skylar crumpled into him. In his grip, where she’d always belonged, brought with it a swell of memories, rushing back and bowling him over like a tidal wave. Planets, out of orbit, fell back into alignment.