“They have always been there for me,” Easton said quietly.
Tess instinctively reached out and hugged her friend. Easton returned the embrace for only a moment before she stepped away.
“Thank you again for agreeing to stay.” Her voice wobbled only a little. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will. Right back at you. Even just a shoulder to cry on. I might be here as Jo’s nurse but I’m your friend, too.”
Easton pulled open the door. “I know. That’s why I love you. You’re just the kind of person I want to be when I grow up, Tess.”
Her laugh was abrupt. “You need to set your sights a little higher than me. Now Jo, that’s another story. There’s something for both of us to shoot for.”
“I think if I tried the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be able to measure up to her. She’s an original.”
Chapter 10
The entire ranch seemed to be holding its collective breath.
Day-to-day life at the ranch went on as usual. The stock needed to be watered, the human inhabitants needed food and sleep, laundry still piled up.
But everyone was mechanically going through the motions, caught up in the larger human drama taking place in this room.
Forty-eight hours later, Tess sat by the window in Jo’s sickroom, her hands busy with the knitting needles she had learned to wield during the long years of caring for Scott. She had made countless baby blankets and afghans during those years, donating most of them to the hospital in Idaho Falls or to the regional pediatric center in Salt Lake City.
Jo coughed, raspy and dry, and Tess set the unfinished blanket aside and rose to lift the water bottle from the side of the bed and hold the straw to Jo’s mouth.
Her patient sipped a little, then turned her head away.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“What else can I get you?” Tess asked.
“Cisco. Only Cisco.”
Her heart ached for Jo. The woman was in severe pain, her organs failing, but she clung to life, determined to see her other foster son one more time. Tess wanted desperately to give her that final gift so she could at last say goodbye.
A few moments later, Jo rested back against the pillow and closed her eyes. She didn’t open them when Easton pushed open the door.
Tess pressed a finger to her mouth and moved out into the hall.
“I came to relieve you for a few moments. Why don’t you go outside and stretch your legs for a while? Go get some fresh air.”
She nodded, grateful Easton could spell her for a few moments, though she had no intention of going outside yet. “Thanks. I’ll be back in a few moments.”
“Take your time. I’m done with the morning chores and have a couple hours.”
When Easton closed Jo’s door behind her, Tess turned toward the foyer. Instead of going outside, though, she headed up the stairs toward the empty bedroom Quinn had taken over for an office while he was in Pine Gulch.
She approached the open doorway, mortified that her heart was pounding from more than just the fast climb up the stairs.
She heard Quinn’s raised voice before she reached the doorway, sounding more heated than she had heard him since that long-ago day she had accused him of cheating.
He sat with his back to the door at a long writing desk near the window. From the angle of the doorway, she could see a laptop in front of him with files strewn across the surface of the desk.
He wore a soft gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up and she could see his strong, muscled forearm flex. His dark hair looked a little tousled, as if he had run his fingers through it recently, which she had learned was his habit.
She wasn’t sure which version of the man she found more appealing. The rugged cowboy who had ridden to Windy Lake, his hands sure and confident on the reins and his black Stetson pulled low over his face. The loving, devoted son who sat beside Jo’s bedside for long hours, reading to her from the newspaper or the Bible or whatever Jo asked of him.
Or this one, driven and committed, forcing himself to put aside the crisis in his personal life to focus on business and the employees and customers who depended on him.
She gave an inaudible sigh. The truth was, she was drawn to every facet of the dratted man and was more fascinated by him with every passing hour.
Jo. She was here for Jo, she reminded herself.
“Look, whatever it takes,” he said into the phone. “I’m tired of this garbage. Find him! I don’t care what you have to do!”
After pressing a button on the phone, he threw it onto the desk with such force that she couldn’t contain a little gasp.
He turned at the sound and something flared in his eyes, something raw and intense, before he quickly banked it. “What is it? Is she...”
“No. Nothing like that. Was that phone call about Cisco?”
“Supposed to be. But as you can probably tell, I’m hitting walls everywhere I turn. That was the consulate in El Salvador. He was there a few weeks ago but nobody knows where he is now. I have tried every contact I have and I can’t manage to find one expatriate American in Latin America.”
She walked into the room, picking her words carefully. “I don’t think she’s going to be able to hang on until he gets here, though she’s trying her best.”
“I hate that I can’t give her this.”
“It’s not your fault, Quinn.” She curled her fingers to her palm in an effort to fight the impulse to touch his arm in comfort, as she would have done to Easton and even Brant, who, except for those first few moments when he arrived, had treated her with nothing but kindness and respect.
Quinn was different. Somehow she couldn’t relax in his company, not with their shared past and the more recent heat that unfurled inside her whenever he was near.
She let out a breath, wishing she could regard him the same as she did everyone else.
“Sometimes you have to accept you’ve tried your best,” she said.
“Have I?” The frustration in his voice reached something deep inside her and this time she couldn’t resist the urge to touch his arm.
“What else can you do? You can’t go after him.”
He looked down at her pale fingers against the darker skin of his arm for a long moment. When he lifted his gaze, she swallowed at the sudden intensity in his silver-blue gaze.
She pulled her hand away and tucked it into the pocket of her scrubs. “When you’ve done all you can, sometimes you have no choice but to put your problems in God’s hands.”
His expression turned hard, cynical. “A lovely sentiment. Did that help you sleep at night when you were caring for your husband?”
She drew in a sharp breath then let it out quickly, reminding herself he was responding from a place of pain she was entirely familiar with.
“As a matter of fact, it did,” she answered evenly.
“Sorry.” He raked a hand through his hair again, messing it further. “That was unnecessarily harsh.”
“You want to fix everything. That’s understandable. It’s what you do, isn’t it?”
“Not this time. I can’t fix this.”
The bleakness in his voice tore at her heart and she couldn’t help herself, she rested her fingers on his warm arm again. “I’m sorry. I know how terribly hard this is for you.”
He looked anguished and before she quite realized what he was doing, he pulled her into his arms and clung tightly to her. He didn’t kiss her, only held her. She froze in shock for just a moment then she wrapped her arms around him and let him draw whatever small comfort she could offer from the physical connection with another person. Sometimes a single quiet embrace could offer more comfort than a hundred condolences, she knew.
They stood for several moments in silence with his arms around her, his breath a whisper against her hair. Something sweet and intang
ible—and even tender—passed between them. She was afraid to move or even breathe for fear of ruining this moment, this chance to provide him a small measure of peace.
All too soon, he exhaled a long breath and dropped his arms, moving away a little, and she felt curiously bereft.
He looked astonished and more than a little embarrassed.
“I... Sorry. I don’t know what that was about. Sorry.”
She smiled gently. “You’re doing your best,” she repeated. “Jo understands that.”
He opened his mouth to answer but before he could, Brant’s voice sounded from downstairs, loud and irate.
“It’s about damn time you showed up.”
Tess blinked. In her limited experience, the officer was invariably patient with everyone, a sea of calm in the emotional tumult of Winder Ranch. She had never heard that sort of harshness from him.
In response, she heard another man’s voice, one she didn’t recognize.
“I’m not too late, am I?”
Quinn’s expression reflected her own shock as both of them realized Francisco Del Norte had at last arrived.
Quinn took the stairs two at a time. She followed with the same urgency, a little concerned the men might come to blows—at least judging by Brant’s anger and that hot expression in Quinn’s eyes as he had rushed past her.
In the foyer, she found Brant and Quinn facing off against a hard-eyed, rough-looking Latino who bore little resemblance to the laughing, mischievous boy she remembered from school.
“Where the hell have you been?” Quinn snapped.
Fatigue clouded the other man’s dark eyes. Tess wasn’t sure she had ever seen anyone look so completely exhausted.
“Long story. I could tell you, but you know the drill. Then I’d have to kill you and I’m too damn tired right now to take on both your sorry asses at the same time.”
The three men eyed each other for another moment and Tess held her breath, wondering if she ought to step in. Then, as if by some unspoken signal, they all moved together and gave that shoulder-slap thing men did instead of hugging.
“Tell me I’m not too late.” Cisco’s voice was taut with anguish.
“Not yet. But she’s barely hanging on, man. She was just waiting to say goodbye to you.”
Tears filled Cisco’s eyes as he uttered a quick prayer of gratitude in Spanish.
She was inclined to dislike the man for the worry he had put everyone through these past few days and for Jo’s heartache. But she couldn’t help feeling compassion for the undisguised sorrow in his eyes.
“They didn’t... I didn’t get the message until three days ago. I was in the middle of something big and it took me a while to squeeze my way out.”
Brant and Quinn didn’t look appeased by the explanation but they didn’t seem inclined to push him either.
“Can I see her?”
Both Brant and Quinn turned to look at Tess, still standing on the stairs, as if she was Jo’s guardian and gatekeeper.
“Easton’s in with her. I’ll go see if she’s awake.”
She turned away, but not before she caught an odd expression flicker across his features at the mention of Easton’s name.
She left the three men and walked down the hall to Jo’s bedroom. When she carefully eased open the door, emotions clogged her throat at the scene she found inside.
Easton was the one asleep now, with her head resting on the bed beside her aunt. Jo’s frail, gnarled hand rested on her niece’s hair.
Jo pressed a finger to her mouth. Though she tried to shake her head, she was so weak she barely moved against the pillow.
“It’s not time for more meds, is it?” she murmured, her voice thready.
Though Tess could barely hear the woman’s whisper, Easton still opened her eyes and jerked her head up.
“Sorry. I must have just dozed off.”
Jo smiled. “Just a few minutes ago, dear. Not long enough.”
“It’s not time for meds,” Tess answered her. “I was only checking to see if you were awake and up for a visitor.”
Though she thought she spoke calmly enough, some clue in her demeanor must have alerted them something had happened. Both women looked at her carefully.
“What is it?” Easton asked.
Before she could answer, she heard a noise in the doorway and knew without turning around that Cisco had followed her.
Easton’s features paled and she scrambled to her feet. Tess registered her reaction for only an instant, then she was completely disarmed when the hard, dangerous-looking man hurried to Jo’s bedside, his eyes still wet with emotion.
The joy in Jo’s features was breathtakingly beautiful as she reached a hand to caress his cheek. “You’re here. Oh, my dear boy, you’re here at last.”
Quinn and Brant followed Cisco into the room. Tess watched their reunion for a moment, then she quietly slipped from the room to give them the time and space they needed together.
Chapter 11
The woman Quinn loved as a mother took her last breath twelve hours after Cisco Del Norte returned to Winder Ranch.
With all four of them around her bedside and Tess standing watchfully on the edge of the room, Jo succumbed to the ravages cancer had wrought on her frail body.
Quinn had had plenty of time to prepare. He had known weeks ago her condition was terminal and he had been at the ranch for nearly ten days to spend these last days with her and watch her inexorable decline.
He had known it was coming. That didn’t make it any easier to watch her draw one ragged breath into her lungs, let it out with a sigh and then nothing more.
Beside him, Easton exhaled a soft, choked sob. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, aware that Cisco, on her other side, had made the same move but had checked it when Quinn reached her first.
“I’ll call Dr. Dalton and let him know,” Tess murmured after a few moments of leaving them to their shared sorrow.
He met her gaze, deeply grateful for her quiet calm. “Thank you.”
She held his gaze for a moment, her own filled with an echo of his grief, then she smiled. “You’re welcome.”
He had fully expected the loss, this vast chasm of pain. But he hadn’t anticipated the odd sense of peace that seemed to have settled over all of them to know Jo’s suffering was finally over.
A big part of that was due to Tess and her steady, unexpected strength, he admitted over the next hour as they worked with the doctor and the funeral home to make arrangements.
She seemed to know exactly what to say, what to do, and he was grateful to turn these final responsibilities over to her.
If he found comfort in anything right now, it was in the knowledge that Jo had spent her last days surrounded by those she loved and by the tender care Tess had provided.
He couldn’t help remembering that embrace with Tess upstairs in his office. Those few moments with her arms around him and her cheek resting against his chest had been the most peaceful he had known since he arrived at the ranch.
He had found them profoundly moving, for reasons he couldn’t explain, anymore than he could explain how the person he thought he despised most in the world ended up being the one he turned to in his greatest need.
* * *
He was lousy at doing nothing.
The evening after Jo’s funeral, Quinn sat at the kitchen table at the ranch with a heaping plate of leftovers in front of him and an aching restlessness twisting through him.
The past three days since Jo’s death had been a blur of condolence visits from neighbors, of making plans with Southerland Shipping for the corporate jet to return for him by the end of the week, of seeing to the few details Jo hadn’t covered in the very specific funeral arrangements she made before her death.
Most of those details fell on his shoulders by
default, simply because nobody else was around much.
He might have expected them to all come together in their shared grief but each of Jo’s Four Winds seemed to be dealing with her death in a unique way.
Easton took refuge out on the ranch, with her horses and her cattle and hard, punishing work. Brant had left the night Jo died for his own ranch, a mile or so up the canyon and had only been back a few times and for the funeral earlier. Cisco slept for a full thirty-six hours as if it had been months since he closed his eyes. As soon as the funeral was over earlier that day, he had taken one of the ranch horses and a bedroll and said he needed to sleep under the stars.
As for Quinn, he focused on what work he could do long-distance and on these last few details for Jo. Staying busy helped push the pain away a little.
He sipped at his beer as the old house creaked and settled around him and the furnace kicked in with a low whoosh against the late October cold. Forlorn sounds, he thought. Lonely, even.
Maybe Cisco had the right idea. Maybe he ought to just get the hell out of Dodge, grab one of the horses and ride hard and fast into the mountains.
The thought did have a certain appeal.
Or maybe he ought to just call his pilot and move up his departure. He could be home by midnight.
What would be the difference between sitting alone at his house in Seattle or sitting alone here at Winder Ranch? This aching emptiness would follow him everywhere for a while, he was afraid, until that inevitable day when the loss would begin to fade a little.
Hovering on the edge of his mind was the awareness that once he left Winder Ranch this time, he would have very few reasons to return. With Jo and Guff gone, his anchor to the place had been lifted.
Easton would always be here. He could still come back to visit her, but with Brant in the military and Cisco off doing whatever mysterious things occupied his time, nothing would ever be the same.
The Four Winds would be scattered once more.
A Place to Belong Page 11
