But he couldn’t quell the unrest brewing in his stomach, that he’d made the wrong choice on that Air Force C-17. She would have seen the once-strong Travis Dixon with a golden future as a broken shell of a boy—her next charity case—not a man who’d once promised her the stars and the moon. He would have frightened her when he woke up thrashing, screaming as the night terrors tore through him. He would have hurt her like he’d hurt his momma and Toby, who’d sported a shiner for nearly a month from the punch he’d leveled on him in his sleep when Toby had tried to help hold him down. After Rhett rearing Sky in a constant, unpredictable, alcohol-induced stupor, she would have grown to hate him for the pain-pill-and-alcohol binging that had nearly killed him in those first few months after returning home. There was no way he could have shared a bed with Skylar, let alone a life.
And fuck if she had to resurface today and make him think about all this heavy shit that did nothing but drag him backward ten steps.
“Funny how a melody sounds like a memory…” Eric Church serenaded him right now. His internet radio was at it again, shuffling the music genres.
But yeah, that young teen love, those songs like the one in the OR that hearkened to memories… Speaking of memories…
He braced his back against the seat and lifted his rear, withdrawing his wallet from his pocket, and propped his wrists on his steering wheel to gaze at the leather, worn along the folds, darkened along the edges where he’d opened and closed it time and again. His pops had given it to him for his sixteenth birthday, a one hundred-and-fifty-dollar wallet with a handmade silver Legacy concho studded into the corner.
He opened the fold. Was it still in here?
Fingers sifted through loose dollar bills, receipts, the condoms he’d stuck in there in case he finally got Ashley’s number and got lucky—he groaned, dropped the ice pack, and knocked the glove box so it fell open, jamming the condoms into his glove box. The latch had always been loose, and more than once, Skylar had knocked it with her knees, causing the contents to fall out. The folded sticky note with Ashley’s number he’d finally scored? He crumpled that and stuffed it into the glove box, too.
He killed the music, hesitated, then pulled aside the wallet lining to where it had torn long ago, fingering within, fishing back and forth. Had the photo fallen out and he’d never noticed?
Nope. His fingers grazed its softened edges, worn down and blunted by time. He gripped it and shimmied it carefully to free it from the leather seam where it seemed to have wedged itself, so as not to tear it.
And there she was like a punch to the face. So gorgeous, he couldn’t help the base reaction as his pulse stirred. Carefree smile so innocent and infectious no matter how much her daddy had tried to kill that spirit, making everyone around her vie to bask in her radiance. She had no camera in hand, either. This photo might’ve been one of the only instances where she’d allowed herself to be immortalized on film. She’d taken pictures of everyone at school for the yearbook. She’d taken a thousand pictures of him. But she’d rarely been the subject of a photo.
If there was anyone whose body was made for the camera, it was Skylar’s, but she was almost invisible to history.
And there he was, arm slung around her shoulder in his Class As, staring down so hard at her, utterly captivated, just after completing basic and traveling to College Station to visit her at Texas A&M, where she was studying on scholarships, before AIT had started.
It had been in his wallet for so long, creased here and there. He’d often forgotten about it. It was like seeing it anew.
He’d thought he was over her. But seeing her this evening was messing with him, that bruise on her cheek evoking furious reminders of how he’d barely held his anger in by a thread as a teenage boy. Reporting her dad would have gotten her taken away by DFPS, something she’d begged him not to do because she didn’t want to be taken away from him.
His eyes trailed over the bygone era. Long, glossy blond hair, windblown in the setting sun; tank top hugging her small breasts and slender waist; denim cutoffs with those stretches of legs like a sun-kissed Aphrodite who didn’t know her own power; and one heel of her beat-up army-surplus boots popping as he’d pulled her against him, plaid shirt tied around her waist, like a grunge goddess. His pulse stirred his dick. He couldn’t help the tried-and-true reaction then—or now—no matter how base it was.
Another text buzzed as he glanced back down at that photo, tipping it, trying to catch a little more summer light as the sun began to sink behind the horizon. The gloss was deteriorating. But man, he’d known every inch of Skylar’s genuine, gorgeous smile. Tasted every corner at one time, every secret, and that need to taste those secrets again was pulsing blood away from his brain, making him an idiot for her all over again. That smile had been for him, adoring, and he’d eaten it up. He wanted it again, despite all good sense telling him her cold shoulder today meant she didn’t.
He cranked up the window, collecting his PT binder, his satchel, hospital lanyard, and house keys from the ashtray, and crammed the phone adaptor into his glove box. He pushed out of the truck, glancing down at his messages as he walked to see what other BS Toby had just sent.
A text from his dog walker?
Meant to reach out earlier,the text said. Yoda starting limping on our walk today. I couldn’t see anything wrong with his foot, but you might want to check it out.
His brow furrowed. He picked up his pace, hefting his left leg faster. Of course his mind went to Yoda’s long bones as he mulled over the host of common orthopedic problems dogs could acquire as he rummaged for his keys and turned the lock.
He owed Yoda his life, and in return, he was giving his mutt the best retirement he could ever give him. If it weren’t for Yoda, the thought of being home, alone, with nothing to occupy his mind for a whole weekend sounded like hell on Earth. That was when the demons he normally kept at bay crept in and reminded him that no matter how much he achieved, no matter how much he kept topping his game, no matter how many times he vindicated Boss’s death in the OR, he’d still only be half a man.
Yoda was waiting with his ratty tennis ball in his mouth, one big floppy ear perked, his other, long and pointed, alert—the reason he’d been named after Travis’s favorite Star Wars character—as if he’d been sitting there all day waiting for Travis to return home.
Travis laughed in spite of the dog walker’s message. Yoda could be missing a limb and would still hobble around, begging for him to throw the ball with his tongue lolling.
“Miss me, Yodabear?” He eyed the note on the counter from the dog walker, who’d checked off a water refill, that Yoda’d done his business, and that he’d had his walk.
Yoda dropped the ball and nudged it against Travis’s beat-up shit-kickers.
“Ah, you only love me for my pitchin’ arm. I see how it is. What’s up with your foot, mutt?”
He dumped everything on the counter, his phone forgotten, toed closed the door, and squatted down as his knee popped. The shepherd mix ran in a circle around him, snatching up the ball and dropping it against his worn-out boots. Yeah, the dog limped. He favored his hind right leg. Travis felt up and down the bones, checking for abnormalities, eying his pup for any sign of distress, getting nothing until he picked up the dog’s foot and ran a thumb over a toe pad. Yoda whined and flinched, plucking his paw away.
“Naw, we ain’t playin’ that game. It hurts, I know. Lie down.”
Ever the obedient service dog, Yoda lay down, and Travis lifted his paw again, dipping his head low to get a good look, patting his hand on the counter to grab his cell phone and turning on the flashlight to get a better look. The pad was irritated from chewing, pink and raw in patches where he’d drawn blood from gnawing on his foot. Travis couldn’t see anything wrong, but each time he tried to pull the pads apart, Yoda flinched and whined. Lopez’s recommendation echoed in the back of his mind. He took his dogs to All Creatures Great and Small, and hell if Travis’s heart kicked up a stupid notch. It was Skylar’s clinic. She was probably a helluva veterinarian. Being relatively new to the area still, fresh from San Antonio clean across the state out of his residency and fellowship this past spring, Travis wasn’t yet established with a veterinary practice.
“Let’s eat, then go outside while I find you a doc.”