A Cold Creek Homecoming

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He jerked his mind away from how very much he wanted to kiss her right this moment, with the moonlight gleaming through the trees and the night creatures singing an accompaniment. "Right. Will you be okay without a flashlight?"

  "I'll manage. Just lead the way."

  He headed up the trail toward Jo, astonished that his most pressing regret right now was the end of their brief interlude in the moonlight.

  * * *

  Though Tess loved living in the Mountain West for the people and the scenery and the generally slower pace of life, she had never really considered herself a nature girl.

  As a bank manager and accountant, her father hadn't been the sort to take her camping and fishing when she was younger. Later, she'd been too busy, first in college and then taking care of Scott, to find much time to enjoy the backcountry.

  But she had to admit she found something serene and peaceful about being here with the glittery stars overhead and that huge glowing moon filtering through the trees and the night alive with sounds and smells.

  Well, it would have been serene if she weren't so intensely aware of Quinn walking just ahead of her, moving with long-limbed confidence through the darkness.

  The man exuded sensuality. She sighed, wishing she could ignore his effect on her. She disliked the way her heart picked up a beat or two, the little churn of her blood, the way she couldn't seem to keep herself from stealing secret little glances at him as they made their way toward the lake and Jo.

  She hadn't missed that moment of awareness in his eyes back there, the heat that suddenly shivered through the air like fireflies on a summer night.

  He was attracted to her, though she had a strong sense he found the idea more than appalling.

  Her gaze skidded to his powerful shoulders under his denim jacket, to the dark hair that brushed his collar under his Stetson, and her insides trembled.

  For a moment there, she had been quite certain he wanted to kiss her, though she couldn't quite fathom it. How long had it been since she knew the heady, exhilarating impact of desire in a man's eyes? Longer than she cared to remember. The men in town didn't tend to look at her as a woman with the very real and human hunger to be cherished and touched.

  In the eyes of most people in Pine Gulch, that woman had been somehow absorbed into the loving, dutiful caretaker, leaving no room for more. Even after Scott's death, people still seemed to see her as a nurturer, not the flirty, sexy, fun-loving Tess she thought might still be buried somewhere deep inside her.

  Seeing that heat kindle in his eyes, replacing his typical animosity, had been both flattering and disconcerting and for a moment, she had been mortified at her little spurt of panic, the fear that she had no idea how to respond.

  She just needed practice, she assured herself. That's why she was moving to Portland, so she could be around people who saw her as more than just Pine Gulch's version of Mother Teresa.

  They walked the short distance through the pines and aspens, their trail lit only by pale moonlight and the glow of a small flashlight he produced from the pocket of his denim jacket. When they reached the lake a few moments later, Tess saw Jo on a bench on the shore, the dogs at her feet. She sat unmoving, so still that for a moment, Tess feared the worst.

  But Quinn's boot snapped a twig at that moment and Jo turned her head. Though they were still a few yards away, Tess could see the glow on her features shining through clearly, even in the moonlight. Her friend smiled at them and for one precious instant, she looked younger, happier. Whole.

  "There you are. I was afraid the two of you were lost."

  Quinn slanted Tess a sidelong look before turning his attention back to his foster mother. "No. I thought you might like a few moments to yourself up here."

  Jo smiled at him as she reached a hand out to Tess to draw her down beside her on the bench. When she saw the blankets tucked around Jo's shoulders and across her lap, everything inside her went a little gooey that Quinn had taken such great care to ensure his foster mother's comfort.

  "Isn't it lovely, my dear?"

  "Breathtaking," Tess assured her, her hand still enclosed around Jo's thin fingers.

  They sat like that for a moment with Quinn standing beside them. The moon glowed off the rocky face of the mountains ringing the lake, reflecting in water that seethed and bubbled as if it was some sort of hot springs. After several moments of watching it, Tess realized the percolating effect was achieved by dozens of fish rising to the surface for night-flying insects.

  "It's enchanting," she said to Jo, squeezing her fingers. She didn't add that this moment, this shared beauty, was almost worth that miserable horseback ride up the mountainside.

  "This is such a gift. I cannot tell you how deeply it touches me. I have missed these mountains so much these past weeks while I've been stuck at home. Thank you both so very much."

  Jo's smile was wide and genuine but Tess didn't miss the lines of pain beneath it that radiated from her mouth.

  Quinn must have noticed them as well. "I'd love to stay here longer," he said after a moment, "but we had better get you back. Tess has other patients."

  Jo nodded, a little sadly, Tess thought. A lump rose in her throat as the other woman rose, her face tilted to the huge full moon. Jo closed her eyes, inhaled a deep breath of mountain air, then let it out slowly before turning back to Quinn.

  "I'm ready."

  Her chest felt achy and tight with unshed tears watching Jo say this private goodbye to a place she loved. It didn't help her emotions at all when Quinn carefully and tenderly scooped Jo into his arms and carried her back toward the waiting horses.

  She pushed back the tears as she awkwardly mounted her horse, knowing Jo wouldn't welcome them at all. The older woman accepted her impending passing with grace and acceptance, something Tess could only wish on all her patients.

  The ride down was slightly easier than the way up had been, though she wouldn't have expected it. In her limited experience on the back of a horse, gravity hadn't always been her friend.

  Perhaps she was a tiny bit more loose and relaxed than she had been on the way up. At least she didn't grip the reins quite so tightly and her body seemed to more readily pick up the rhythm of the horse's gait.

  She had heard somewhere that horses were sensitive creatures who picked up on those sorts of things like anxiety and apprehension. Maybe the little mare was just giving her the benefit of the doubt.

  As she had on the way up the trail, she rode in the rear of their little group, behind the two black and white dogs and Quinn and Jo, which gave her the opportunity to watch his gentle solicitude toward her.

  She found something unbearably sweet—disarming, even—at the sight of his tender care, such a vivid contrast to his reputation as a ruthless businessman who had built his vast shipping company from the ground up.

  That treacherous softness fluttered inside her. Even after she forced herself to look away—to focus instead on the rare beauty of the night settling in more deeply across the mountainside—she couldn't ignore that tangled mix of fierce attraction and dawning respect.

  As they descended the trail, Winder Ranch came into view, sprawling and solid in the night.

  "Home," Jo said in a sleepy-sounding voice that carried across the darkness.

  "We're nearly there," he assured her.

  When they arrived at the ranch house, Quinn dismounted and then reached for Jo, who winced with the movement.

  Worry spasmed across his handsome features but she watched him quickly conceal it from Jo. "Tess, do you mind holding the horses for a few moments while I carry Jo inside and settle her back in her bedroom?"

  This time, she was pleased that she could dismount on her own. "Of course not," she answered as her feet hit the dirt.

  "Thank you. I'll trade places with you in a few moments so that you can get Jo settled for bed while I take care of the horses."

  "Good plan."

  She gave him a hesitant smile and was a little astonished when h
e returned it. Something significant had changed between them as a result of one simple horseback ride into the mountains. They were working together, a team, at least for the moment. He seemed warmer, more approachable. Less antagonistic.

  They hadn't really cleared any air between them, other than those few moments she had tried to offer an oblique apology for their history. But she wanted to think perhaps he might eventually come to accept that she had become a better person.

  Chapter Seven

  After Quinn carried Jo inside, Tess stood patting the mare, savoring the night before she went inside to take care of Jo's medical needs. Quiet moments of reflection were a rare commodity in her world.

  She had gotten out of the habit when she had genuinely had no time to spare with all of Scott's medical needs. Perhaps she needed to work at meditation when she moved to Portland, she thought. Maybe yoga or tai chi.

  She was considering her options and talking softly to the horses when Quinn hurried down the porch steps a few moments later.

  "How's Jo?"

  "Ready for pain meds, I think, but she's not complaining."

  "You gave her a great gift tonight, Quinn."

  He smiled a little. "I hope so. She loves the mountains. I have to admit, I do as well. I forget that sometimes. Seattle is beautiful with the water and the volcanic mountains but it's not the same as home."

  "Is it? Home, I mean?"

  "Always."

  He spoke with no trace of hesitation and she wondered again at the circumstances that had led him to Winder Ranch. Those rumors about his violent past swirled through her memory and she quickly dismissed them as ridiculous.

  "I'm sorry. Let me take the horses." He reached for the reins of both horses and as she handed them over, their hands brushed.

  He flashed her a quick look and grabbed her fingers with his other hand. "Your fingers are freezing!"

  "I should have worn gloves."

  "I should have thought to get you some before we left." He paused. "This was a crazy idea, wasn't it? I apologize again for dragging you up there."

  "Not a crazy idea at all," she insisted. "Jo loved it."

  "She's half-asleep in there and I know she's in pain but she's also happier than I've seen her since I arrived."

  She smiled at him, intensely conscious of the hard strength of his hand still curled around her fingers. Her hands might still be cold from the night air but they were just about the only thing not heating up right about now.

  He gazed at her mouth for several long seconds, his eyes silvery-blue in the moonlight, and for one effervescent moment, she thought again that he might kiss her. He even angled his head ever so slightly and her gaze tangled with his.

  Her pulse seemed abnormally loud in her ears and her insides jumped and fluttered like a baby bird trying its first awkward flight.

  He eased forward slightly and her body instinctively rose to meet his. She caught her breath, waiting for the brush of his mouth against hers, but he suddenly jerked back, his expression thunderstruck.

  Tess blinked as if awakening from a long, lovely nap as cold reality splashed over her. Of course he wouldn't kiss her. He despised her, with very good reason.

  With ruthless determination, she shoved down the disappointment and ridiculous sense of hurt shivering through her. So what if he found the idea of kissing her so abhorrent? She didn't have time for this anyway. She was supposed to be working, not going for moonlit rides and sharing confidences in the dark and fantasizing about finally kissing her teenage crush.

  Since he now held the horses' reins, she shoved her hands in the pocket of her jacket to hide their trembling and forced her voice to sound cool and unaffected.

  "I'd better go take care of Jo's meds."

  "Right." He continued to watch her out of those seductive but veiled eyes.

  "Um, good night, if I don't see you again before I leave."

  "Good night."

  She hurried up the porch steps, feeling the heat of his gaze following her. Inside, she closed the door and leaned against it for just a moment, willing her heart to settle down once more.

  Blast the man for stirring up all these hormones she tried so hard to keep contained. She so did not want to be attracted to Quinn. What a colossal waste of energy on her part. Oh, he might have softened toward her a little in the course of their ride with Jo, but she couldn't delude herself into thinking he was willing to forgive and forget everything she had done to him years ago.

  She had work to do, she reminded herself. People who needed her. She didn't have time to be obsessing over the past or the person she used to be or a man like Quinn Southerland, who could never see her as anything else.

  * * *

  She did her best the rest of the night to focus on her patients and not on the little thrum of desire she hadn't been able to shake since that almost-kiss with Quinn.

  Still, she approached Winder Ranch for her midnight check on Jo with a certain amount of trepidation. To her relief, when she unlocked the door with the key Easton had given her and walked inside, the house was dark. Quinn was nowhere in sight, but she could still sense his presence in the house.

  Jo didn't stir when Tess entered her room, which worried her for a moment until she saw the steady rise and fall of the blankets by the glow of the small light in the attached bathroom that Jo and Easton left on for the hospice nurses.

  The ride up to the lake must have completely exhausted her. She didn't even wake when Tess checked her vitals and gave her medicine through the central IV line that had been placed after her last hospitalization.

  When she was done with the visit, she closed the door quietly behind her and turned to go, then became aware that someone else was in the darkened hallway. Her heart gave a quick, hard kick, then she realized it was Easton.

  She wasn't sure if that sensation coursing through her was more disappointment or relief.

  "I hope I didn't wake you," Tess said.

  The other woman's sleek blond ponytail moved as she shook her head. "I've still got some pesky accounts to finish. I was in the office working on the computer and heard the door open."

  "I tried to be quiet. Sorry about that." She smiled at her friend. "But then, Jo didn't even wake up so I couldn't have been too loud."

  "You weren't. I'm just restless tonight."

  "I'm sorry."

  Easton shrugged. "It sometimes knocks me on my butt if I think about what things will be like in a month or so. I'm trying to get as much done now on ranch paperwork so I have time to…to grieve."

  Tess placed a comforting hand on her arm and Easton smiled, making a visible effort to push away her sadness. "Quinn told me about your adventure tonight," she said.

  Tess made a rueful face. "I'm nowhere near the horsewoman you are. I felt like an idiot up there, but at least I didn't fall off."

  "Jo was so happy when I checked on her earlier. I haven't seen her like that in a long time."

  "Then I suppose my mortification was all for a good cause."

  Easton laughed a little but her laughter quickly faded. "It won't be much longer, will it?"

  Tess's heart ached at the question but she didn't pretend to misunderstand. "A week, maybe a little more. You know I can't say exactly."

  Her friend's blue eyes filled with a sorrow that was raw and real. "I don't want to lose her, Tess. I'm not ready. What will I do?"

  Tess set her bag on the floor and hurried forward to pull Easton into her arms. She knew that ache, that deep, gnawing fear and loss.

  "You'll go on. That's all you can do. All any of us can do."

  "First my parents, then Guff and now Jo. I can't bear it. She's all I have left."

  "I know, sweetheart."

  Easton didn't cry aloud, though Tess could feel the quiet shuddering of her shoulders. After a moment, the other woman pulled away.

  "I'm sorry. I'm just tired."

  "You need to sleep, honey. Everything will seem a little better in the morning, I promise. Midnight
is the time when our fears all grow stronger and more vicious."

  Easton drew in a heavy breath, then stepped away, swiping at her eyes. "Brant called from Germany earlier. He's hoping to get a flight any time now."

  She remembered Brant Western as a tall, serious-minded boy who had always seemed an odd fit to be best friends with both Quinn, the rebellious kid with the surly attitude, and Cisco Del Norte, the wild, slightly dangerous troublemaker.

  "Jo will be thrilled to have him home. What about Cisco?"

  Easton's mouth compressed into a tight line and she focused on a spot somewhere over Tess's shoulder. "No word yet. We think he's somewhere in El Salvador but we can't seem to find anything out for sure. He's moving around a lot. Seems like everywhere we try, we just keep missing him by a day or even a few hours. It's so aggravating. Quinn has his assistant in Seattle trying to pull some strings with the embassy down there to find him."

  "I hope it doesn't take much longer."

  Easton nodded, her features troubled. "Even if we find him, there's no guarantee he can make it back in time. Quinn has promised to send a plane down to bring him home, even if he's in the middle of the jungle, but we have to find him first."

  Her stomach gave a strange little quiver at the idea of Quinn having planes at his disposal.

  "I'll keep my fingers crossed," she said, then picked up her bag and headed for the front door. Easton followed to let her out.

  "Get some rest, honey," she said again. "I'll be back for the next round of meds around three. You'd better be asleep when I get back!"

  "Yes, Nurse Ratched."

  "I mean it."

  Easton smiled a little, even past the lingering sadness in her eyes. "Thanks, Tess. For everything."

  "Go to sleep," she ordered again, then walked out into the night, with that same curious mix of relief and disappointment that she had avoided Quinn, at least for a few more hours.

  * * *

  He awoke to the sound of a door snicking softly closed and the dimmer switch in the bathroom being turned up just enough to jar him out of dreams he had no business entertaining.

  In a rather surreal paradigm shift, he went from dreaming about a heated embrace on a warm blanket under starry skies near the lake to the stark reality of a sickroom, where his foster mother lay dying.