He nudged the dog away with the toe of his scuffed shoe, obvious tears welling in his furious eyes, and slammed shut the door.
Yoda whined, too. Travis clenched Skylar’s hand, holding it to his chest. Panic consumed her. She ripped free of the handhold and walked to the window.
“Text me so I know you’re all right!” she begged, knocking on the glass.
Brandon simply hugged the trash bag like a security blanket, eyes in front of him, not looking at her or anything else in particular as he gritted his teeth and a tear rolled down his cheek, and the SUV pulled away.
The air left Skylar’s lungs and she gripped her middle. “I failed him.”
“You didn’t fail him. You’re fighting for him—”
“What did I do wrong? I don’t understand!”
Travis wrapped his arms around her, drawing her to his chest, as the taillights receded down the road and Courage and Yoda trotted to the nearest cattle grate behind it, ears perked, confused.
“Let’s go inside and make a game plan. Okay?” Travis said, his voice militaristically firm, protectiveness like what he’d always exuded whenever Rhett had been too rough steeling a hard frown on his face.
She couldn’t think but managed to nod, grateful for his conviction grounding her, drifting up the steps as the dogs bounded up and Travis pulled back the screen door—
Something had fallen to the old floor planks just inside the door. Brandon’s drawstring pack? She gazed down at the soiled fabric, clearly something Brandon had owned for a long time, judging by the tarnished grommets and the tangled strings. He’d guarded this bag, held on to it like a lifeline sometimes this past week after his shoulder injury. How would she get it to him? He’d notice that it was gone once his anger abated.
“What’s that?” Travis asked, stooping to pick it up as his knee popped, pushing shut the main wooden door behind them.
“It’s Brandon’s.” He must have dropped it on his way out the door, she thought. “He wouldn’t leave it on purpose.”
*
Travis pulled openthe strings and fished his fingers inside, pulling out a tiny stuffed bear the size of a finger puppet, old and smashed by time, likely from Brandon’s younger childhood. It pinched his chest. He and his brothers had had the world. Buckets of action figures, bikes, the latest sports’ equipment, extravagant vacations, hundred-dollar baseball cards, and all Brandon had to show for his childhood was this tiny stuffed animal. He wanted to give this boy the world.
Brow furrowed more deeply, he also dragged out a few photos. An old baby picture, a picture of a little boy with a shock of dark hair holding a woman’s hand—the woman looked familiar, now that he thought about it, and a shiver raised the hairs on his skin—a young soldier in a different photo with that same woman propped under his arm, looking fresh faced and younger than what he’d remembered. The shiver turned into tingling shooting down his spin—a portrait of a soldier with an M4 Carbine on his shoulder…
Boss.
The tingling erupted into lightning energy zapping him. What in the hell?
“What’s this photo doing in his bag?” he muttered.
He looked at the photo of the little boy again. It looked like Brandon, but so did the soldier, and the woman was the same women he’d taken…
“The same woman I took Boss’s personal things to.”
The zapping energy didn’t abate. He took deep breaths as his mind scrambled to put all these details in order.
“What?” Skylar whispered.
Boss’s—Brandon Fuentes, Boss’s given name—wife had had their baby by the time he’d mustered the courage to get out west to her apartment in downtown El Paso, where she’d moved to from Las Cruces. He’d hit his rock bottom by then and was taking the necessary steps to enroll in his undergrad degree. What had her name been again? M…Monica sounded right.
“What’s Brandon’s birth mom’s name?” he asked.
“Um…” Skylar snapped her fingers, racking her brain. “Monica Bridges.”
He stared at the photo. Monica Bridges. Of course. Anita had just called Brandon Brandon Bridges.
“Holy shit…” Travis whispered under his breath. “Brandon is Boss’s son…”
Numbness overcame him. The hairs on his arms spiked like a trail down a dog’s neck. A chill ran down his spine.
“Shit!” he blurted out, staring hard at the precious relics.