He was doing “the look.” Where he willed someone to understand him by holding their eye contact. She swallowed. Nodded. She could make sense of all of this when she was finally with it again. All of her training told her her BP had bottomed out. This had only ever happened once before, and she never wanted to think about that day again, when she’d gotten that horrifying news from Travis’s family, that he’d been killed, and he—here now—was messing with her perceptions. Maybe this was Tyler, his older brother? He and Tyler looked so much alike.
No, this was Travis. His dark hair had always had that curl right to the left of his forehead. She’d toyed lazily with it so many times.
Her hand came up. She had to touch him again and feel for herself, now that she was lucid, that he was real. Maybe it was the headiness of the moment, but all she wanted to do was kiss him. Her thumb brushed his scar, toyed with his curl. His jaw tightened. For a split second, his eyes fluttered closed as if feathers had tickled his skin, then they snapped back open. Like a delayed reaction, as if remembering where he was, he let go, standing upright.
What had just happened?
“All Creatures Great and Small Animal Sanctuary, Equine Oncology, and Veterinary Medicine.” Travis read the logo on her lab coat pocket, her veterinary practice named after the famous book by James Herriot. His eyes furrowed. “You’re the vet Lopez told me about?”
What was he talking about? Although he seemed as if he’d been talking more to himself.
“Where have you been all these years?” she croaked, sensing the nurse beside her—Ashley, her badge read—as she lolled her head to look, also glancing at Travis with an odd twist of curiosity to her brow.
Betrayal shivered through her words, overriding the emergency of the moment. Where had he been? He’d certainly not been with her. He’d lived and had never bothered to find her, to tell her? He’d let her live on…thinking he was dead?
He swallowed hard—she could see his throat bob—and she pushed up onto her elbows again, needing to get out of this bed.
Ashley was glancing across the bed at Travis, her brow furrowed farther as she readied to insert the IV. There was no mistaking the look of concern marring the nurse’s face. Why?
“You guys friends?” Ashley muttered casually, sidelong at him, probably assuming that Skylar’s out-of-it mental state afforded her the luxury of not hearing.
“I knew Sky”—her head swiveled to his; Travis eyed her lab coat again, where she knew her name, Skylar J. Rivers, DVM, was also embroidered—“Dr. Rivers, a long time ago,” he said.
Ashley nodded as she took Skylar’s vitals but didn’t look as if she’d liked that explanation, and why would it matter to the nurse if she and Travis knew each other? Why would it… No… The look on Ashley’s face looked surprised, maybe even a little hurt.
Travis and the nurse were involved? Travis scoured his face, his eyes dipping uncomfortably to hers, then back to Ashley’s.
“I don’t think either one of us expected to see each other just now.”
“Old fling?” Ashley hedged.
Travis stepped over to Brandon’s bedside and retrieved a chart from the floor, leaving the question unanswered.
Old flingwasn’t potent enough of a description. Skylar thrust herself up to sitting.
“Dr. Rivers, what are you doing?” Ashley said.
“I can’t be in this ER bed,” Skylar breathed, clawing out the fresh IV. It felt like a lasso tethering a mustang.
“Dr. Rivers! Why are—”
“I’m fine,” Skylar grumbled, snatching up the gauze Ashley had laid out.
She pinched pressure where she bled. She couldn’t look at either of them—Ashley’s pretty face and brown eyes, Travis looking like some hotshot resident with his earbuds dangling on his shoulder. What parallel universe had she entered?
She willed herself to think. Old fling? She shouldn’t be angry. It’s not as if he’d agreed. But he hadn’t refuted it, either. Was he trying to manage the nurse’s conflicted emotions? Were he and the nurse involved? Her stomach roiled. She gripped it.
“Need a puke pan, Doolittle?” Dr. Glasser asked.
She swallowed, willing her stomach to stop acting gross, and shook her head. “Nope, I’m good. Just overwhelmed.”
“Then lie back down, Rivers,” Dr. Glasser said, bracing his hand upon her shoulder and squeezing it to reassure her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost—”
Travis’s gaze flitted to hers now at the familiar way she spoke to Dr. Glasser, a flash in his eyes riveted to the ED doctor’s hand. He examined it for at least a few seconds, enough for her to know the familiar touching distracted him. Primal energy she’d thought had been shut off years ago flowed through her now like an electric current, as if he’d snapped his fingers and willed her to feel that brewing heat. He’d always had that power over her, to make her melt at his charismatic smolder and funny teasing.
“You have no idea.” She cleared her throat and shook her head as Travis’s gaze darted back to the chart where it belonged, jaw hardened, a tick flexing the joint beneath his ears.
“There’s been an incident…” “I’m so sorry… I know how much Travis meant to you…” “Explosion…roadside bomb…no survivors.” Screaming.