The Cowboy's Summer Love (11 page)

“What makes you think he’s good for Tess?” Travis said, trying not to bark at his mother. She was, after all, the unknowing bearer of bad tidings.

“Why, the way he makes her feel about herself, of course,” Denni said. “Every woman wants to feel special, to be desired, to feel desirable, baby. Have you ever stopped to think about why Cady is so in love with your brother? It’s because he makes her feel like she is the only woman in the world in his eyes. And she is. Look at Trent and Lindsay. He goes out of his way to make sure she knows he adores her. Women want to be irresistible to the man they love.”

“What if he isn’t the right man?” Travis asked, knowing Don Juan with the medical degree was most certainly not the right guy for Tess.

“Whether he is or isn’t, Tess is having fun and feeling like she’s extra special to someone,” Denni said, giving Travis a knowing look. “Would you deny her that?”

“No,” Travis admitted. He wanted Tess to be happy. He wanted her to feel special, cherished and loved. The problem was that he wanted to be the one making her feel that way.

“Then what’s the problem?” Denni asked as Travis parked her car by the back door of the sprawling ranch house.

“No problem,” Travis said, tamping down his frustration. He was going to have to find something to do this afternoon to release his tension or he wouldn’t make it through the coming week.

As it turned out, his family had other plans for his afternoon and Travis thought he would explode before they were through.

Right after lunch, Lindsay brought out a box full of wedding magazines and she, Cady and Denni sat around the table talking and making plans.

Before he could escape, Travis was dragged outside along with Trent and Trey to talk about the wedding ceremony the happy couple wanted to take place down by the pond. The group walked down the path from the house to the pond and surveyed the setting. The thousands of white lights Trent made them all help hang the day he proposed to Lindsay were still strung through the trees and bushes and would make a nice backdrop for an evening ceremony. Lindsay wanted to put an arbor over the dock and get married beneath it with chairs set out on the grassy area leading up to the pond for their guests.

Trey and Travis used a measuring tape and dried cow chips to mark off the seating area while the women talked about aisles, runners, and flower arrangements.

Lindsay said she felt the ranch was the perfect setting for a wedding and asked Trey, Cady and Travis if they’d mind if she and Trent were married there, holding a reception in the big yard after the ceremony. They all thought it was a fine idea, but Cady and Denni kept coming up with landscaping projects that needed done, things that needed painted, and a lot of busywork the men had no interest in completing before the ceremony in August.

Hoping to sneak away, Travis started back toward the house when Cass cornered him and begged him to play with her for a while. He found himself tossing her a softball and that morphed into a baseball game between the ranch hands who were there and the family. Denni sat on the sidelines and cheered. Travis helped Cass bat and when they hit a homerun he carried her around all the bases, holding her carefully as they slid into the home plate.

“Uncle Travis! That was so fun. Do it again!” Cass begged as he stood up and set her down, brushing dirt off the seat of his jeans.

“I think Uncle Travis could use a break,” Cady said, shooing the little girl toward the picnic table where Denni set out lemonade and ice cream.

“You okay, Travis?” Cady asked as they walked back to the house. “You seem awfully quiet this afternoon.”

“I’m okay, but thanks for asking,” Travis said, giving Cady a one-armed hug as they walked.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know,” she said, patting his arm and turning to help Cass dish up a bowl of ice cream.

Sitting down on a lawn chair to eat the cold treat, Travis glanced around their place and had to admire how nice everything looked. Although the house was built by his grandparents, it had been well-maintained and was currently painted a light shade of tan with brown and white trim. The front of it boasted a sprawling wrap-around porch with inviting groups of chairs. Rooms had been added on with two additional wings flanking the main portion of the house. One wing was where Travis, Trent and Trey had bedrooms during their growing up years and where he and Trent still slept.  There were also two guest bedrooms with private baths in that wing. The second wing housed the master bedroom, now Trey and Cady’s room, along with Cass’s bedroom and an additional guest room along with the laundry room. The main portion of the house held the large great room, the spacious kitchen and dining area, the parlor that the women liked to use when there was female company visiting, and a big office.

The garage, car port, big barn, machine shed, corrals and various outbuildings were all painted and neat. Cady shared in their mother’s love of plants and flowers, adding blooming pots and baskets not only along the house, but also around some of the buildings. Everyone who lived and worked on the ranch knew to bend over and pull a weed if they saw it and because of that, the Triple T was a well-tended, well-cared for ranch.

It would be even more so before the wedding took place in two months time.

There must be something in the water out at the Triple T that put his brothers in a marrying frame of mind. First Trey, now Trent. Thinking about marriage brought images of Tess to mind. Travis’ thoughts turned back around to Tess and her new boyfriend, making his stomach tie itself in a knot.

Unknowingly, he clenched the glass of lemonade so tightly it shattered in his hand, slicing through his palm.

“You okay, baby?” Denni asked, hurrying over with a dish towel.

“I’m fine, Mama,” he said, trying to laugh. “Maybe the glass had a flaw in it.”

Swiping at the blood on his hand, Denni decided it wasn’t deep enough to need stitches.

“Come inside and let’s get you doctored up,” Denni said, shaking her head at her youngest son. Although Travis had grown up more than she’d hoped during his time in the service, there was still something unsettled about him. Something was eating away at him and she wished she knew what she could do to help him.

While Denni took Travis inside, Trey cleaned up the broken glass, wondering what had Travis’ jaw clenched and his face set in a hard line. He seemed fine before they went to church this morning. He hoped to have a chance to talk to him later, not that talking to Travis ever did any good.

By the time they finished up the evening chores, Travis felt coiled so tightly he knew he had to let off some steam. Thinking about his options, he decided to take a ride on his motorbike. Putting on his leather jacket and pants, he grabbed his gloves and helmet, told Trey he’d be back in a while, and roared off down the driveway.

He started out obeying the speed limit, but the further he rode, the faster he went and the adrenaline shot through his veins. Taking a sharp curve, he relished the challenge and zoomed through it on to the next one.

 By the time he started back toward home, he could once again take a deep breath and the knots in his neck had released. One of these days he was going to have to deal with the past so he could have some sort of a normal future, but for now he pushed all those thoughts from his mind and got lost in the ride.

Enjoying the cool of the evening as darkness settled in, Travis noticed he was riding past the Running M Ranch. Turning his gaze toward the house that sat near the road, he could see shapes on the porch and wondered if Tess was there or off with her boyfriend.

Staring at the house, movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention back to the road just as a deer darted right in front of him. Travis swerved, realizing too late the pavement was wet, and lost control of the bike. It slid on its side down the asphalt, making an eerie grinding sound in the quiet of the peaceful summer evening before coming to a stop in the middle of the road.

“Did you hear that?” Tess asked, setting down her glass of iced tea as she leaned forward on the porch swing.

“It sounds awful,” Michele said, squinting her eyes to try and see what was on the road. “Look there’s sparks. I wonder what that is.”

“I’ll go check,” Brice said, getting up from the porch step where he was lazily petting their dog and drinking a cold glass of lemonade.

“I’ll come with you,” Tess said, snagging a flashlight from her car and climbing behind him on the four-wheeler.

Brice zipped down their short driveway and stopped at the road. Tess shined a flashlight in the direction they’d seen the sparks, highlighting something to their right. Brice drove up, illuminating a wrecked bike with a man underneath.

Tess and Brice jumped off and stood over the motionless form. Shining her light on the helmet, she gasped. It was Travis.

“Get the bike off him, BB. Hurry,” Tess said, trying to help Brice move the bike without further hurting Travis.

Brice moved the bike to the side of the road then hurried back to help Tess carefully roll Travis over. His leather jacket and pants were in shreds on his left side where the bike dragged him down the asphalt. She could see blood oozing out of wounds and his helmet had a dent where it bounced off the road. Carefully removing the helmet, she had Brice support Travis’ neck.

“Travis, can you hear me? Travis?” Tess said, her tears dripping onto his face as she gently patted his cheeks. He was out cold.

“BB, run back to the house and get some towels. I’ll call an ambulance,” Tess said, pulling out her cell phone. Brice raced off but before she could dial 9-1-1 a gloved hand grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t call. I’m fine,” Travis rasped in a gravelly voice, prying open his eyes.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Tess tried to tease but her laugh came out more like a choked sob.

“Aw, Tess, I’ve been in worse messes,” Travis said, hating that he had once again made her upset. “Don’t cry, honey. I’ll be fine.”

“Let me call the ambulance. I promise I’ll go with you to the hospital,” Tess said, trying to get the phone he had taken in his hand.

“No need for that. Just give me a minute to catch my breath,” Travis said, struggling to sit up.

Tess pushed him back down.

“Just lie still until Brice gets back. You’ll at least let us take you up to the house and see what needs to be done,” Tess said, fighting to keep her emotions from overwhelming her. When she realized it was Travis lying on the road unconscious, she felt her heart fall to her feet. She would die if something happened to him and he seemed determined to make sure it did.

Travis let out a muffled groan as she held a hand to his shoulder.

“You idiot! Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Tess yelled at him, getting angry now that she knew he would live. “What’s next? Walking barefoot through a nest of rattlers? Jumping from a plane with no parachute?  What is up with you, Trav?”

“Nothing,” he said in a flat, hard tone. Tess watched him close himself off from her and the world.

“One of these days you are going to have to let someone in there,” she poked a finger at his chest. “Until you do, you are going to keep doing crazy stunts like this. What happens if one day your helmet isn’t enough to keep you safe? What then?”

By now, Tess was openly weeping. She swatted feebly at his chest, wanting to pound sense into his thick skull.

“I don’t know,” Travis said, hurting more from the look on her face than the seeping wounds on his arm and leg. Before he could say anything else, Brice pulled up in the pickup and ran around with a stack of towels.

“He won’t let me call for help so let’s take him to the house,” Tess said, putting an arm under Travis shoulder while Brice took the other side. Between the two of them, they got him up to the house.

Michele had a clean sheet spread on the guest bed for them as they dragged him in the door. Mike took over Tess’ position and helped Brice get Travis to the bed while Tess went to the kitchen retrieving hot water and a clean rag. She had her mom find a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a tube of antibiotic cream along with a roll of gauze before going back to the room.

“I hope you didn’t spend too much on your biker outfit,” Tess said to Travis as Brice and Mike helped him take off the jacket, revealing the tank top he wore underneath. “It isn’t going to be worth much now.”

Before anyone realized what she was doing, Tess took a pair of sharp scissors and sliced all the way up the leg of his pants. Dirt and gravel were embedded in his leg and arm and the wounds seeped with blood.

“I can guarantee this is going to hurt, so if you want to yell, go right ahead,” Tess said, putting old towels beneath his arm and leg for padding then wringing the rag in the hot water and starting to clean the wound on his arm.

Brice couldn’t stomach the blood and left the room. Michele didn’t do much better, so Mike stayed and helped Tess clean Travis’ wounds then disinfect them before she put on the ointment and wrapped both his arm and leg with gauze.

Travis clenched his jaw so hard he thought he might actually crack a tooth. When Tess started using a pair of tweezers to dig embedded gravel out of his leg, he held his breath so long he passed out, making it easier for her to work.

“Stupid, stubborn man. Should have let me call the ambulance,” Tess muttered under her breath as she finished wrapping the gauze around his leg. “Knowing him, he’ll get gangrene.”