23. Travis
23
TRAVIS
W orking beside Bella every day was pure torture. The manual labor the Bensons needed had always been a welcome distraction. Now, he couldn’t focus long enough to remember the measurement he’d taken ten seconds ago.
It was worse when Bella sang. When she asked him if the singing bothered him, he should have found a polite way to say yes. Instead, he’d told her she could do whatever she wanted.
Her voice hit some deep buried place inside him every time she sang. She was a ruthless siren, and he was a sailor with little reason to resist her call.
Travis had heard that pregnant women had a glow about them, but he’d never experienced it until now. She’d come to terms with her pregnancy and could barely talk about anything else. Bella radiated joy, and it was both beautiful and soul-crushing.
Travis placed the jig between two boards with one hand and grabbed a screw with the other. When the screw was in place, he held it with the hand securing the jig and reached for the drill.
Installing the subfloor would be quicker and easier with another set of hands, but asking Bella to help was out of the question. He couldn’t be that close to her. He already wanted things he couldn’t have. Dangling the carrot in front of the horse would only drive him off the edge of a cliff.
Bella’s song stopped, and soft footfalls came closer from the bedroom where she’d been working. She stopped at the edge of the part of the floor that hadn’t been torn out and propped her hands on her hips. Most of the main room was a gaping hole with framing boards running in perpendicular lines.
“You need something?” Travis asked.
She pointed toward the snack bag Tammy continued to send every day. “Can you pass me a Payday?”
Travis rested the jig on the foundation and maneuvered to the other side of the cabin to retrieve the snack she wanted. He was too tall to fit beneath the joists, so it took some time to climb over them and cross the room.
Finally, he handed her the candy bar. “Do you have a drink?”
Bella rolled her eyes, but a grin stretched her lips. “You made me bring a case of water in here this morning,” she reminded him. “I should have remembered the snacks too.”
She sat on the edge of the exposed flooring and let her legs dangle through the structure he was rebuilding. “Everything okay in here?”
“Yep. I should be able to finish tomorrow.”
Bella took the first bite of the Payday and studied his work. “I bet you could build a whole house.”
Travis scratched at his bearded jaw. “I could definitely do most of it myself. The only thing I don’t trust myself to do is electrical work.”
“That’s amazing. How do you know how to do so many things?” she asked.
“Necessity, I guess. My grandma always called me when she needed something fixed around the house, and she couldn’t afford to hire anyone. Same deal when I got a car. We didn’t have the money for a mechanic, so whenever something went wrong, I just had to figure it out and fix it myself.”
He made the mistake of looking at Bella, and her smile sent a jolt of awareness tingling up his spine.
“I love that about you,” she said softly.
Travis’s hand gripped the two-by-four beside him. She couldn’t say things like that and expect him not to react. “What do you mean?”
“I love that you can figure anything out. You don’t give up or start over when things get tough. You’re dedicated and determined. I want to be like that.”
“You are. Look at everything you’ve done in the last two months.”
The investigator hadn’t found much on Bella in his search. The man said it was as if she fell off the grid for five years. Without more of her memories, they might all be at a standstill.
“I’ve barely kept my head on straight, but I’m starting to feel better about… everything.”
The phone in Travis’s pocket rang, and he pulled it out. His blood ran cold when he saw the name on the screen. It was a call that always seemed to pull up the old frustrations.
“Travis, are you going to answer it?” Bella asked.
Travis pressed the button and lifted the phone to his ear. “Hello.”
“Hey. It’s Mom.”
It was her usual greeting. Her calls were so few and far between that she assumed he’d lost her number since the last time they talked.
“I know. How are you?”
He glanced at Bella. The last thing he wanted was to have this conversation in front of her, but he’d have to climb over half a dozen joists to put distance between them.
Bella stood and disappeared back into the bedroom, taking all traces of happiness with her.
“Not so good. Your dad is having knee replacement surgery tomorrow. Greg and Vanessa were supposed to fly in today to help me take care of your dad, but they’ve decided to extend their vacation in Jamaica a few days.”
A ball of white-hot anger burned deep in Travis’s chest. Greg and Vanessa had a history of making selfish decisions. This latest stunt shouldn’t be a surprise. “And you need my help now,” Travis finished.
“Could you be here tomorrow by midday? He should be released around that time, and I’ll need help getting him home.”
Travis pinched the bridge of his nose and counted backward from ten to one before responding. He hadn’t heard from his mother in almost a year, and she hadn’t even asked how he was doing before asking him to fly halfway across the country on short notice.
“I’ll have to see if I can get a flight, but I have to be back by Thursday for my shift at the fire station.”
“Can’t you get someone to cover for you?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, there aren’t a bunch of paramedics in this small town. I’ll come help you for a few days, but you’d better see if Greg can tear himself away from the Caribbean before then.”
A huff bristled through the line, and he waited through the seconds of silence. She could take or leave his offer, but Travis wouldn’t jeopardize his job. Not for her or his dad.
“Fine. I’ll see what he can do.”
They ended the call with no more words than were necessary, and Travis shoved his phone back into his pocket. No, “Hi, how are you?” No, “Sorry I didn’t tell you about your dad’s upcoming surgery.” No, “Please,” or “Thank you.” Not even an offer to pick him up at the airport.
Travis moved back to the place where he’d been working and picked up the jig. For once, he wished he was using a hammer instead of an electric drill. Smashing out some of his frustrations sounded like a good idea.
“Everything okay?” Bella asked.
He hadn’t even heard her step out of the bedroom. “Fine.”
He shouldn’t look up at her. She’d see the scowl he couldn’t hide.
When the seconds stretched out in silence and she didn’t leave, he stopped with his hand gripping the drill. “I have to go to Seattle for a few days.”
“Oh.” The sound was almost a whisper in the quiet cabin.
“My dad is having knee replacement surgery, and Mom needs help.”
Travis finally looked up at her, and there it was–the understanding in her eyes. She bit her lips between her teeth as her brow pinched together.
“I won’t be gone long,” Travis promised.
Bella sat on the edge of the finished floor and hopped down onto the ground below the cabin. She ducked under the floor joists and crawled beneath them. When she reached him, she stood in the small space with him, blocked in on all sides.
The thick air filled his chest as he breathed her in. She was so bold and beautiful looking up at him that he gripped the joists on either side to keep from reaching for her.
Slowly, she slid her arms around his waist and pressed her small body to him, wrapping him in her soft embrace.
His arms wound around her before he could think better of it–before he could stop the impending heartbreak. Every plane of his body that touched hers kindled a fire, but he’d burn to the ground before pulling away from her.
She was so much smaller than him. Tilting his head down, he rested his chin on her head and breathed in the warmth that eased the old, wounded parts inside of him.
“You’re too good, Travis. They don’t deserve you,” Bella said against his chest.
Good. What did that even mean? He’d never been good enough for his parents. No amount of virtue had ever changed the way they looked at him. Nothing he’d ever done in his life made them want him.
“I don’t deserve you either,” Bella whispered.
Travis released her and cradled her head in his hands to gently tilt her gaze up to him. The unshed tears in her eyes broke what was left of his willpower. When she was this close, he couldn’t remember why he needed to stay away from her.
“Don’t say things like that. You don’t deserve what happened to you. You don’t deserve to do this all on your own.”
Closing his eyes, Travis fought against the urge to kiss her. When he trusted he could withstand her pull, he cleared his throat and opened his eyes. “You’re an amazing woman. You’re sweet, gorgeous, smart, and selfless.”
He took two fortifying breaths before he could say the rest—the truth hanging between them. “There’s probably a man out there looking for you, and as much as I would love to know what could be between us, I can’t go after what I want until you know what you want.”
“But— but I don’t remember anyone. It’s just you,” she said, gripping the back of his shirt where her arms still wound around him.
His breaths came in shallow dips, and grinding his teeth together would only keep his mouth shut so long. She was saying everything he wanted her to say, but their feelings weren’t the only ones on the line. If she’d given her heart to someone else, he had to respect that, even if she didn’t remember yet.
Yet. Her doctor was fairly confident she would remember everything in time, but the waiting was crushing both of them.
The sound of an engine grew louder as a truck neared the cabin.
Bella’s arms slid from around him, and his hands fell from her face. She couldn’t step away with the floor joist right behind her, but she’d retreated from him. Her chest heaved in deep swells as her gaze remained locked on him.
He couldn’t say it—couldn’t give in until they knew if the father of her child was out there somewhere waiting for her to come home. He wanted more than he should, and no matter how far he reached, Bella would always be untouchable.
The truck outside quieted. Bella turned and ducked beneath the floor joist and made her way back toward the room where she’d been working but not before he saw the first tear fall down her cheek.