Safe Harbor: A Cold Creek Homecoming

by Sherryl Woods

  She had that strange look in her eyes again when he mentioned the eight months she had moved away from the ranch after Guff died. She didn’t like to talk about it much, other than to say she had needed a change for a while. He supposed, like Cisco, she had her share of secrets, too.

  “Yes. I came back,” she said.

  “Do you regret that?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You mean do I feel stuck here while the rest of you went off and conquered the world?”

  He made a face. “I haven’t completely conquered it. Still have a ways to go there but I’m working on it.”

  She smiled, though her expression was pensive. “I can’t deny that sometimes I wonder if there’s something more out there for me than a cattle ranch in Pine Gulch, Idaho. But I’m happy here, for the most part. I can’t bear the thought of selling the ranch and leaving. Where would I go?”

  “You could always come to Seattle. The company could always use somebody with your organizational skills.”

  “That world’s not for me. You know that. I’m happy here.”

  Even as she said it, he caught the wistful note in her voice and he wondered at it. It wouldn’t be easy to just pick up and make a new start somewhere. As had been the case more often than he cared to admit, he couldn’t help thinking about Tess. In a few weeks, she was off to make a new start somewhere away from Pine Gulch.

  As he worked on the clutch, his mind replayed that stunning kiss a few days earlier: the taste of her, like coffee and cinnamon, the sweet scent of her surrounding him, the imprint of her soft curves burning through layers of clothing.

  He could go for long stretches of time without thinking about it as he went about the routine of visiting with Jo, helping Easton with odd jobs and trying to run Southerland Shipping from hundreds of miles away.

  But then something would spark a memory and he would find himself once more caught up in reliving every moment of that heated embrace.

  He let out a breath, grateful he had seen Tess just a few times since, when she came out to take care of Jo—and then only briefly, in the buffering presence of Easton or Jo. He had wanted to apologize but hadn’t been alone with her to do it and hadn’t wanted to bring up the kiss in the presence of either of the other women.

  That hadn’t stopped him from obsessing more than he should have about her when she wasn’t around, wondering which was the real Tess—the selfish girl he remembered or the soft, caring woman she appeared to be now.

  The sound of an approaching vehicle drew his attention from either the mystery of Tess or the tractor’s insides.

  “Looks like company.” Through the wide doors of the ranch’s equipment shed, he watched a small white SUV approach the house. “Isn’t it too early in the afternoon for any caregivers? The nurse was just here.”

  Easton followed his gaze outside. “I don’t recognize the vehicle. Maybe it’s one of Jo’s friends.”

  They watched for a moment from their vantage point of a hundred yards away as the door opened, then a tall, brown-haired man in uniform stepped out.

  “Brant!” Easton exclaimed, her delicate features alight with joy.

  With a resounding thud that echoed through the building, she dropped the wrench to the concrete equipment shed floor and ran full-tilt toward the new arrival.

  Quinn followed at an easier pace and arrived just as Brant Western scooped East into his arms for a tight hug.

  “I’ll get grease all over your pretty uniform,” she warned.

  “I don’t care. You are a sight, Blondie.”

  “Back at you.” She kissed his cheek and Quinn watched her dash tears away with a surreptitious finger swipe. He remembered again the little tow-headed preteen who used to follow them around everywhere. He couldn’t believe her parents had let them drag her along on all their adventures but she had always been a plucky little thing and they had all adored her.

  After another tight hug, Brant set her down, then turned to Quinn with a long, considering glance.

  “Look at you. A few days back on the ranch and Easton has you doing all the grunt work.”

  He looked down at the oil and grime that covered his shirt. “I don’t mind getting my hands a little dirty.”

  “You never did.” Brant smiled, though his eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion. He looked not just fatigued but emotionally wrung-out.

  Quinn considered Brant and Cisco his best friends, his brothers in every way that mattered. And though they had never been particularly demonstrative with each other, he was compelled now to step forward and pound the other man’s back.

  “Welcome home, Major.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Now I’m the one who’s going to get grease all over your uniform.”

  “It will wash.” Brant stepped away and Quinn was happy to see he seemed a little brighter, not quite as utterly exhausted. “On the flight over, I was trying to remember how long it’s been since we’ve been together like this.”

  “Four years ago January,” Easton said promptly.

  Quinn combed through his memory bank and realized that must have been when Guff had died of a heart attack that had shocked all of them. By some miracle, they had all made it back from the various corners of the world for his funeral.

  “Too damn long, that’s for sure,” he said.

  Brant smiled for a moment but quickly sobered. “Like the last one, I wish this reunion could be under happier circumstances. How is she?”

  “Eager to see you.” Easton slipped her arm through his. “She’ll be so happy you could make it home.”

  “I can’t stay long. I was able to swing only a week. I’ll have my regular leave in January and will have a couple more weeks home then if I can make it back.”

  Jo wouldn’t be around for that and all of them knew it.

  Easton forced a smile. “A day or a week, it won’t matter to Jo. She’ll just be so happy she had a chance to see you one last time. Come on, I’ll take you inside. I want to see her face when she gets a load of you.”

  “You two go ahead,” Quinn said. “I’m almost done out here. Since I’m already dirty, think I’ll finish up out here first and come inside in a few.”

  Brant and Easton both nodded and headed for the house while Quinn returned to the tractor. A few minutes later, he was just tightening the last nut on the job when he heard the front door to the house bang shut.

  “Quinn! Come quick!”

  He jerked his gaze toward the ranch house at the urgency in Easton’s voice and his blood ran cold.

  He dropped the wrench and raced toward the house. Not yet, he prayed as he ran. Not when Brant had only just arrived at Winder Ranch and when his people hadn’t managed to find Cisco yet.

  His heart pounded frantically as he thrust open the door to Jo’s room. The IV pump was beeping and the alarm was going off on the oxygen saturation monitor.

  He frowned. Jo was lying against her pillow but wild relief pulsed through him that her eyes were open and alert, though her features were pale and drawn.

  Just now, Easton looked in worse shape than Jo. She stood by the bedside, the phone in her hand.

  “I don’t care what you say. I’m calling Dr. Dalton. You were unconscious!”

  “All this bother and fuss,” Jo muttered. “You’re making me feel like a foolish old woman.”

  Despite her effort to downplay her condition, he could see the concern in the expressions of both Brant and Easton.

  “She was out cold for five solid minutes,” Easton explained to Quinn. “She was hugging Brant one moment, then she fell back against her pillows the next and wouldn’t wake up no matter what we tried.”

  “I should have called to let you know I was on my way.” Brant’s voice was tight with self-disgust. “It wasn’t right to rush in
like that and surprise you.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you today, that’s all,” Jo insisted. “Maybe I got a little excited but I’m fine now.”

  Despite her protestations, Jo was as pale as her pillow.

  “The clinic’s line is busy. I’m calling Tess,” Easton declared and walked from the room to make the call.

  “Tess?” Brant asked.

  Just when his heart rate started to slow from the adrenaline rush, simply the mention of Tess’s name kicked it right back up again.

  “Tess Claybourne. Used to be Jamison. She’s one of the hospice nurses.”

  The best one, he had to admit. After several days here, he knew all three of the home-care nurses who took turns seeing to Jo. They were all good caregivers and compassionate women but as tough as it was for him to swallow, Tess had a knack for easing Jo’s worst moments and calming everybody else in the house.

  Brant’s blue eyes widened. “Tess Jamison. Pom-pom Tess? Homecoming queen? That Tess?”

  Okay, already. “Yeah. That Tess.”

  “You’re yanking my chain.”

  “Not this time.” He couldn’t keep the grimness out of his voice.

  “She still hotter than a two-dollar pistol?”

  “Brant Western,” Jo chided him from her bed. “She’s a lovely young woman, not some...some pin-up poster off your Internet.”

  When they were randy teenagers, Jo had frequently lectured them not to objectify women. Brant must have remembered the familiar refrain as well, Quinn thought, as the deep dimples Quinn despised flashed for just a moment with his smile.

  “Sorry, Jo. But she was always the prettiest girl at PG High. I used to get tongue-tied if she only walked past me in the hall.”

  She was still the prettiest thing Quinn had seen in a long time. And he didn’t even want to think about how delectable she tasted or the sexy little sounds she made when his mouth covered hers....

  Easton walked in, jarring him from yet another damn flashback.

  “I reached Tess on her cell phone. She’s off today but she’s going to come over anyway. And I talked to Jake Dalton and he’s stopping by on his way up to Cold Creek.”

  Pine Gulch’s doctor had been raised on a huge cattle ranch at the head of Cold Creek Canyon, Quinn knew.

  “Shouldn’t we take her to the hospital or something?” Brant asked.

  Quinn and Easton exchanged glances since they had frequently brought up the subject, but Jo spoke before he could answer.

  “No hospital.” Jo’s voice was firm, stronger than he had heard it since he arrived. “I’m done with them. I’m dying and no doctor or hospital can change that. I want to go right here, in the house I shared with Guff, surrounded by those I love.”

  Brant blinked at her bluntness and Quinn sympathized with him. It was one thing to understand intellectually that her condition was terminal. It was quite another to hear her speak in such stark, uncompromising terms about it. He at least had had a few days to get used to the hard reality.

  “But it’s not going to happen today or even tomorrow,” she went on. “I won’t let it. Not until Cisco comes home. I just need to rest for a while and then I want to have a good long talk with you about what you’ve been doing for the army.”

  Brant released a heavy breath, his tired features still looking as if he had just been run over by a Humvee.

  Quinn could completely sympathize with him. He could only hope Jo held out long enough so his people could track down the last of the Four Winds.

  Chapter Nine

  “What’s the verdict?” Jo asked. “Is my heart still beating?”

  Tess pulled the stethoscope away from Jo’s brachial artery and pulled the blood pressure cuff off with a loud ripping sound.

  She related Jo’s blood pressure aloud to Jake Dalton, who frowned at the low diastolic and systolic numbers.

  “Let’s take a listen to your ticker,” Pine Gulch’s only doctor said, pulling out his own stethoscope.

  Jo responded by glaring at Tess. “Dirty trick, bringing Jake along with you.”

  “I told you I called him,” Easton said from the doorway of the room, where she stood with Quinn and the very solemn-looking Major Western. Tess purposely avoided looking at any of them, especially Quinn.

  It was a darn good thing Jake wasn’t checking her heart rate right about now. She had a feeling it would be galloping along faster than one of the Winder Ranch horses in an open pasture on a sunny afternoon.

  Knowing Quinn was only a few feet away watching her out of those silver-blue eyes was enough to tangle her insides and make her palms itch with nerves.

  “And I told you I don’t need a doctor,” Jo replied.

  “Be careful or you’ll hurt my feelings,” Jake teased.

  “Oh, poof. Your skin is thicker than rawhide.”

  “Yet you can still manage to break my heart again and again.”

  Jo laughed and Tess smiled along with her. Jake Dalton was one of her favorite people. He had been a rock to her after she moved back to Pine Gulch with Scott. Though her husband had a vast team of specialists in Idaho Falls, Jake had always been her first line of defense whenever she needed a medical opinion about something.

  He was a good, old-fashioned small-town doctor, willing to make house calls and take worried phone calls at all hours of the day and night and treat all his patients like family.

  She had been thrilled four years earlier when he married Maggie Cruz, a nurse practitioner who often volunteered with hospice. She now considered both of them among her dearest friends.

  “This is all a lot of nonsense for nothing,” Jo insisted. “I was a little overexcited when Brant arrived, that’s all.”

  Jake said nothing, only examined her chart carefully. He asked Jo several questions about her pain level and whether she had passed out any other times she had neglected to tell them all about.

  When he was finished, he smoothed a gentle hand over her hair. “I’m going to make a few changes in your meds. Why don’t you get some rest and I’ll explain what I want to do with Tess, okay?”

  Tess knew it was an indication of Jo’s weakened condition that she didn’t argue, only nodded and closed her eyes.

  Jake led the way out into the hall where the others waited. He closed the door behind him and headed for the kitchen, which Tess had learned long ago was really Command Central of Winder Ranch.

  “What’s happening?” Easton was the first to speak.

  Jake’s mouth tightened and his eyes looked bleak. “Her organs are starting to shut down. I’m sorry.”

  Even though Tess had been expecting it for days now, she was still saddened by the stark diagnosis.

  “Which means what?” Brant asked. He looked very much the quintessential soldier with his close-cropped brown hair, strong jaw and sheer physical presence.

  “It won’t be long now,” Jake said. “A couple of days, maybe.”

  Easton let out a long breath that wasn’t quite a sob but probably would have been if she had allowed it.

  Tess reached out and gripped her hand and Easton clutched her fingers tightly.

  “I think it’s time to think about round-the-clock nursing,” Jake said. “I’m thinking more of her comfort and, to be honest, yours as well.”

  “Of course,” Quinn said. “Absolutely. Whatever she needs.”

  Tess’s chest ached at his unhesitating devotion to Jo.

  Dr. Dalton nodded his approval. “I’ll talk to hospice and see what they can provide.”

  Tess knew what the answer would be. Hospice was overburdened right now. She knew the agency didn’t have the resources for that level of care.

  “I’ll do it. If you’ll let me.”

  “You?” Brant asked, and she gave an inward
flinch at the shock in his voice. Here was yet another person who only saw her as the silly girl she had been and she wondered if she would ever be able to escape her past.

  “Right now the agency is understaffed,” she answered. “I know they don’t have the resources to have someone here all the time, as much as they would like to. They’re going to recommend hospitalization in Idaho Falls for her last few days.”

  “She so wants to be here.” Easton’s voice trembled on the words.

  “Barring that, they’re going to tell you you’ll have to hire a private nurse. I’d like to be that private nurse. I won’t let you pay me but I want to do this for Jo. I’ll make arrangements for the others to cover all my shifts and stay here, if that’s acceptable to you all.”

  Tess refused to look at Quinn as she made the offer, though she could feel the heat of his gaze on her.

  Part of her wondered at the insanity of offering to put herself in even closer proximity with him, but she knew he would be far too preoccupied to spend an instant thinking about a few regrettable moments of shared passion.

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea, if you’re sure you’re up to it,” Brant said, surprising her. “Quinn and Easton both tell me you’re the best of her nurses.”

  “Are you sure?” Easton asked with a searching look.

  “Absolutely. Let me do this for her and for you,” she said to her friend.

  “What do you think?” Easton turned to Quinn, and Tess finally risked a glance in his direction. She found him watching the scene with an unreadable expression in his silver-blue eyes.

  “It seems a good solution if Tess is willing. Better than bringing in some stranger. But we will pay you.”

  She didn’t argue with him, though she determined she would donate anything the family insisted on back to hospice, which had been one of Jo’s favorite charities even before she had need of their services.

  “I’ll need a little time to make all the arrangements but I should be back in a few hours,” she said.