7. Travis
7
TRAVIS
T ravis parked his truck in front of his house and turned off the engine. The silence was a stark contrast to the diesel roar that had kept him company all the way home.
Now, there wasn’t any noise to keep his thoughts at bay. He’d worked like a machine all day, but even the work hadn’t kept his mind off Bella.
He pushed the door open and trudged toward the house. Nope. Not gonna think about her.
A lot of good the deflecting was doing. He spent more time telling himself he wasn’t going to think about her than he did actually not thinking about her.
He couldn’t get past the fact that she was alone. If she had someone with her–someone who cared about her–he could forget about her.
Maybe he wouldn’t completely forget, but at least he wouldn’t be worrying about her all the time.
He trudged inside and pulled his boots off at the door. Gage stood in the kitchen eating a sandwich. His wet hair meant Travis would have to wait to get his own shower if he wanted hot water.
“Hey, man,” Gage said with a lift of his sandwich. “You look rough.”
Travis scoffed. “Don’t sugar coat it.”
“Just saying. Everything okay?”
Travis flopped down onto the couch on his back and rested his forearm over his eyes. “Long week.”
“It’s Tuesday,” Gage pointed out.
“Nobody asked you.”
The wooden floor creaked beneath Gage’s feet as he moved closer to Travis. “Come on. Spill it.”
Travis couldn’t tell Gage about Bella without sounding like a creeper. Maybe he was a creeper. He’d formed an irrational connection with a stranger.
Maybe he was lonely.
No. He had friends–plenty of them.
But Gage and Hadley were engaged, and he’d be moving out soon. That left Travis on his own again. It had never bothered him before. In fact, he used to seek solitude.
Now, it held absolutely zero appeal.
“Since when are you afraid to say what’s on your mind?” Gage asked.
“Since it doesn’t make sense,” Travis said. He sat up and exhaled a deep breath, not daring to look at his friend. “There’s this woman.”
“Oh, I guess I should have expected that. If she’s messing with your head, dump her.”
Travis rested his head in his hands. “It’s not that simple.”
It really was that simple. He wasn’t even dating this woman. He could walk away and never look back.
“She’s injured. I responded to a call last week. She was hit by a car.”
“Ouch. Like, she was walking on the road?”
“Yep. She was unconscious for a while, and when she woke up, she didn’t remember a lot.”
“About what happened?” Gage asked.
“About anything. She has no ID and no phone. She doesn’t know why she was here or anyone she knows except her parents.”
“That’s wild. What are her parents saying about all this?”
“She doesn’t want to contact them. She doesn’t like her dad. They’re not even from here.”
Gage sat in the recliner beside the couch. “Wow. That’s a lot.”
“Tell me about it. So I went to visit her after my shift ended the other day, and she woke up while I was there. She was scared and shaken up. She still hasn’t had any visitors, and the police haven’t been able to figure out who she is or why she’s here either.”
Gage nodded. “So you feel like you need to help her.” There wasn’t a question in his voice, only an observation.
“Basically.” But there was more than that. He didn’t feel obligated as much as drawn to her. “We talked a lot on Thursday just trying to piece together some of her memories. She’s nice. I hate that this happened to her. She’s hurt and all alone. No wonder she’s scared.”
Gage leaned forward with wide eyes. “You like her.”
Again, a good observation by Gage.
“I shouldn’t like her,” Travis noted.
“That’s what I said about Hadley too, but look where that got me.”
Man, Gage wasn’t helping.
Gage reached over and slapped a hand on Travis’s shoulder. “Good luck with those pesky feelings.”
Travis shook his head. “I’ve been burned by a pretty woman before. I don’t want to make that mistake again.”
“Not every woman is like Vanessa. In fact, few people on earth are that evil. Forget about her.”
Travis had definitely moved on, but it was hard to forget the sting of a betrayal like that. He never saw it coming, and he couldn’t afford to be that blind again.
“There’s nothing wrong with liking a woman. I know you’ve got it in your head that it’ll always end badly like it did with that snake, but at the very least you have a chance to help this woman when she obviously needs it.”
Travis rubbed the scruff on his cheek. “Stop being rational. Speaking of rational, there’s absolutely no reason why I should like this woman. Most of her face is a bruise. I don’t even know what she looks like. I’ve barely had two conversations with her. All I know about her is her name.”
“So you definitely don’t know her? You haven’t seen her around town?”
“Nope. She looks a little younger than me. She could be a tourist. She said she grew up in Omaha.”
Gage hung his head for a moment before raising it. “You want me to see if Hadley can stop by and visit her?”
Bella needed people by her side, and Hadley was always eager to make a new friend. It was stupid to keep Bella all to himself when he had friends who could help her too.
“Yeah. I think she’d appreciate that. Plus, I have to be at Silver Falls Ranch early in the morning. You think she could visit Bella tomorrow?”
Gage pulled out his phone and sent Hadley a text. “Asking now.”
“Thanks. Maybe I can get her out of my head now that I know she has someone else who can be there for her.”
Gage stood and slapped Travis on the back as he walked by. “Keep telling yourself that.”
Travis rested back against the couch and groaned. Gage was right. As soon as Bella found out where she belonged, she’d go back home.
Travis would be left here, alone, again.