A Cold Creek Homecoming

by RaeAnne Thayne

All of them were only pitiful justification for her to give in to her fears. That was the hard truth. She was afraid, pure and simple. Imagining his response kept her up at night and she was quite certain was contributing to the nausea she faced every morning.

  That she continued to cater to that fear filled her with shame. She wasn't a weak woman and she hated that she was acting like it.

  The night before, she had resolved that she couldn't put it off any longer. It was past time for her to act as the pregnancy seemed more real each day. Already, she was beginning to bump out and she was grateful her work scrubs had drawstring waists, since all her other slacks were starting to feel a little snug.

  No more excuses. The next day was Saturday and she knew she had to tell him. Though she wanted nothing more than to take the coward's way out and communicate via phone—or, even better, e-mail—she had decided a man deserved to know he was going to become a father in person.

  But figuring out how to find the man in Seattle was turning into more of a challenge than she expected.

  She sat once more on the rooftop garden of the hospital on her lunch break, her cell phone in her hand as she punched in Easton Springhill's phone number as a last resort.

  Easton's voice rose in surprise when she answered. "Tess! I was just thinking about you!"

  "Oh?"

  "I've been meaning to check in and see how life in the big city is treating you."

  She gazed out through the gray mist at the buildings and neighborhoods that had become familiar friends to her during her frequent rooftop breaks. "Good. I like it here. I suppose Pine Gulch will always be home but I'm settling in."

  "I'm so glad to hear that. You deserve some happiness."

  And she would have it, she vowed. No matter what Quinn Southerland had to say about their child.

  "How are you?" she stalled. "I mean really."

  Easton was silent for a moment. "All right, I guess. I'm trying to stay busy. It's calving time so I'm on the run all the time, which I suppose is a blessing."

  "I'm sorry I haven't called to check on you before now. I've thought of you often."

  "No problem. You've been busy starting a new life. By the way," Easton went on, "I checked in on your morning coffee klatch crowd the other day and they all miss you like crazy. I never realized old Sal Martinez had such a thing for you."

  She laughed, thinking of the dearly familiar old-timers who could always be counted on to lift her spirits. "What can I say? I'm pretty popular with eighty-year-old men who have cataracts."

  Maybe she was making a mistake in her decision to stay in Portland and raise her baby. Moving back to Pine Gulch would give her child structure, community. Instant family. She had time to make that particular decision, she told herself. First things first.

  "Listen, I'm sorry to bother you but I'm trying to reach Quinn and I can't find his personal contact information."

  "You can't?" Easton's shock filtered clearly through the phone and Tess winced. She had never told her friend that she and Quinn had parted on difficult terms. She supposed she had assumed Quinn would have told her.

  "No. I tried to call his company and ended up having to go through various gatekeepers who weren't inclined to be cooperative."

  "He can be harder to reach than the Oval Office sometimes. I've got his cell number programmed on mine so I don't have it memorized but hang on while I look it up."

  She returned in a moment and recited the number and Tess scribbled it down.

  "Can you tell me his home address?" she said, feeling awkward and uncomfortable that she had to ask.

  Easton paused for a long moment. "Is something wrong, Tess?"

  If you only knew the half of it, she thought.

  "Not at all," she lied. "I just…I wanted to mail him something," she improvised quickly.

  She could tell her friend didn't quite buy her explanation but to her vast relief, Easton recited the address.

  "You'll have to find the zip code. I don't know that off the top of my head."

  "I can look it up. Thanks."

  "Are you sure nothing's wrong? You sound distracted."

  "Just busy. Listen, I'm on a break at the hospital and really need to get back to my patients. It was great talking to you. I'll call you next week sometime when we both have more time to chat."

  "You do that."

  They said their goodbyes, though she could still hear the questions in Easton's voice. She was happy to hang up the phone. Another moment and she would be blurting it all out. Easton was too darned perceptive and Tess had always been a lousy liar.

  She certainly couldn't tell Easton about her pregnancy until she'd had a chance to share the news with Quinn first.

  She gazed at the address in her hand, her stomach tangled in knots at the encounter that loomed just over the horizon.

  Whatever happened, her baby would still have her.

  * * *

  Talk about acting on the spur of the moment.

  Quinn cruised down the winding, thickly forested street in Portland, wondering what the hell he was doing there.

  He wasn't one for spontaneity and impulsive acts of insanity, but here he was, trying to follow his GPS directions through an unfamiliar neighborhood in the dark and the rain.

  She might not even be home. For all he knew, she could be working nights or even, heaven forbid, on a date.

  At the thought, he was tempted to just turn his car around and drive back to Seattle. He was crazy to just show up at her place out of the blue like this. But then, when it came to Tess and his behavior toward her, sanity hadn't exactly been in plentiful supply.

  He felt edgy and off balance, as if he didn't even know himself anymore and the man he always thought he'd been. He was supposed to be a careful businessman, known for his forethought and savvy strategizing.

  He certainly wasn't a man who drove a hundred and fifty miles on a whim, all because of a simple phone call from Easton.

  When she called him he had just been wrapping up an important meeting. The moment she said Tess had called her looking for his address and phone number, his brain turned to mush and he hadn't been able to focus on anything else. Not the other executives still in the room with him or the contract Southerland Shipping had just signed or the route reconfiguration they were negotiating.

  All he could think about was Tess.

  His conversation with Easton played through his mind now as he followed the GPS directions.

  "Something seemed off, you know?" she had said. "I couldn't put my finger on it but she sounded upset. I just wanted to give you a heads-up that she might be trying to reach you."

  As it had then, his mind raced in a hundred different directions. What could be wrong? After three months of empty, deafening silence between them, why was she suddenly trying to make contact?

  He only had the patience to wait an hour for her call before he couldn't stand the uncertainty another moment.

  In that instant, as he made the call to excuse himself from a fundraiser he'd been obligated to attend for the evening, he had realized with stark clarity how very self-deceptive he had been for the past three months.

  He had spent twelve weeks trying to convince himself he was over Tess Claybourne, that their brief relationship had been a mistake but one that he was quite certain had left no lasting scars on his heart.

  The moment he heard her name, a wild rush of emotion had surged through him, like water gushing from a dam break, and he realized just how much effort it had taken him to shove everything back to the edges of his subconscious.

  Only in his dreams did he let himself remember those magical days he and Tess had shared, the peace and comfort he found in her arms.

  He had definitely been fooling himself. Their time together had had a profound impact on his world. Since then, he found himself looking at everything from a different perspective. All the things he used to find so fulfilling—his business pursuits, his fundraising engagements, boating on the Sound—now seemed colorle
ss and dull. Tedious, even.

  Southerland was expanding at a rapid pace and he should have been thrilled to watch this company he had created begin at last to attain some of the goals he had set for it. Instead, he found himself most evenings sitting on his deck on Mercer Island, staring out at the lights reflecting on the water and wondering why all the successes felt so empty.

  No doubt some of the funk he seemed to have slipped into was due to the grieving process he was still undergoing for Jo.

  But he had a somber suspicion that a large portion of that emptiness inside him was due to Tess and the hole she had carved out in his life.

  He sighed. Might as well be completely frank—with himself, at least. Tess hadn't done any carving. He had been the one wielding the butcher knife by pushing her away the first chance he had.

  He couldn't blame her for that last ugly scene between them. At least not completely. At the first obstacle in their growing relationship, he had jumped on the defensive and had been far too quick to shove her away.

  In his business life, he tried to focus most on the future by positioning his company to take advantage of market trends and growth areas. He didn't like looking back, except to examine his mistakes in an effort to figure out what he could fix.

  And he had made plenty of mistakes where Tess was concerned. As he examined what had happened three months earlier in Pine Gulch, he had to admit that he had been scared, pure and simple.

  He needed to see her again. He owed her an apology, a proper goodbye without the anger and unfounded accusations he had hurled at her.

  That's why he was here, trying to find her house in the pale, watery moonlight.

  His GPS announced her address a moment later and he pulled into the driveway of a small pale rose brick house, a strange mix of dread and anticipation twisting around his gut as he gazed through the rain-splattered windshield.

  Her house reminded him very much of the one in Pine Gulch on a slightly smaller scale. Both were older homes with established trees and gardens. The white shutters and gable gave it a charming seaside cottage appeal. It was surrounded by shrubs and what looked like an extensive flower garden, bare now except for a few clumps of dead growth.

  He imagined that in the springtime, it would explode with color but just now, in early February, it only looked cold and barren in the rain.

  He refused to think about how he could use that same metaphor for his life the past three months.

  Smoke curled from the chimney and lights gleamed from several windows. As he parked in the driveway, he thought he saw a shadow move past the window inside and his breathing quickened.

  For one cowardly moment, he was tempted again to put the car in Reverse and head back to Seattle. Maybe Easton had her signals crossed and Tess wasn't really looking for him. Maybe she only wanted his address to send him a kiss-off letter telling him how happy she was without him.

  Even if that was the case, he had come this far. He couldn't back out now.

  The rain had slowed to a cold mist as he walked up the curving sidewalk to her front door. He rang the doorbell, his insides a corkscrew of nerves.

  A moment later, the door opened and the weeks and distance and pain between them seemed to fall away.

  She looked fresh and bright, her loose auburn curls framing those lovely features that wore an expectant look—for perhaps half a second, anyway, until she registered who was at her doorstep.

  "Quinn!" she gasped, the color leaching from her face like old photographs left in the desert.

  "Hello, Tess."

  She said nothing, just continued to stare at him for a good thirty seconds. He couldn't tell if she was aghast to find him on her doorstep or merely surprised.

  Wishing he had never given in to this crazy impulse to drive two and a half hours, he finally spoke. "May I come in?"

  She gazed at him for another long moment. When he was certain she would slam the door in his face, she held it open farther and stepped back so he had room to get through. "I…Yes. Of course."

  He followed her inside and had a quick impression of a warm space dominated by a pale rose brick fireplace, blazing away against the rainy night. The living room looked comfortable and bright, with plump furniture and colorful pillows and her upright piano in one corner, still covered with photographs.

  "Can I get you something to drink?" she asked. "I'll confess, I don't have many options but I do have some wine I was given as a housewarming gift when I moved here."

  "I'm fine. Thanks."

  The silence stretched out between them, taut and awkward. He had a sudden vivid memory of lying in her bed with her, bodies entwined as they talked for hours.

  His chest ached suddenly with a deep hunger to taste that closeness again.

  "You're pale," he said, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his jacket and curling them into fists where she couldn't see. "Are you ill? Easton said you called her and she was worried."

  She frowned slightly, as if still trying to make sense of his sudden appearance. "You're here because Easton asked you to check on me?"

  For a moment, he thought about answering yes. That would be the easy out for both of them, but he couldn't do it.

  Though he had suspected it, he suddenly knew with relentless clarity that she was the reason for the emptiness of the past three months.

  He had never felt so very solitary as he had without Tess in his world to share his accomplishments and his worries. To laugh with, to maybe cry with. To share hopes for the future and help him heal from the past.

  He wanted all those things she had talked about, exactly what she had created for herself here.

  He wanted a home. He wanted to live in a house with carefully tended gardens that burst with color in the springtime, a place that provided a warm haven against the elements on a bitter winter night.

  And he wanted to share that with Tess.

  He wanted love.

  Like a junkie jonesing for his next fix, he craved the peace he had found only with Tess.

  "No," he finally admitted hoarsely. "I'm here because I missed you."

  Chapter Sixteen

  She stared at him, her eyes wide and the same color as a storm-tossed sea. "You…what?"

  He sighed, cursing the unruly slip of his tongue. "Forget I said that. Yeah, I'm here because Easton asked me to check on you."

  "You're lying." Though the words alone might have sounded arrogant, he saw the vulnerability in her eyes and something else, something that almost looked like a tiny flicker of hope.

  He gazed at her, his blood pulsing loudly in his ears. He had come this far. He might as well take a step further, until he was completely out on the proverbial limb hanging over the bottomless crevasse.

  "All right. Yes. I missed you. Are you happy now?"

  She was quiet for a long moment, the only sound in the house the quiet murmuring of the fire.

  "No," she finally whispered. "Not at all. I've been so miserable, Quinn."

  Her voice sounded small and watery and completely genuine. He gave a low groan and couldn't take this distance between them another second. He yanked his hands out of his pockets and reached for her and she wrapped her arms fiercely around his neck, holding on for dear life.

  Emotions choked in his throat and he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder.

  Here. This was what he had missed. Having her in his arms again was like coming home, like heaven, like everything good he had ever been afraid to wish for.

  How had he ever been stupid enough to push away the best thing that had ever happened to him?

  He kissed her and a wild flood of emotions welled up in his throat at the intense sweetness of having her in his arms once more.

  "I'm sorry," he murmured against her mouth. "So damn sorry. I've been a pathetic wreck for three lousy months."

  "I have, too," she said. "You ruined everything."

  He gave a short, rough laugh. "Did I?"

  "I had this great new job, this new lif
e I was trying to create for myself. It was supposed to be so perfect. Instead, I've been completely desolate. All I've been able to think about is you and how much I…" Her voice trailed off and he caught his breath, waiting for her to finish the sentence.

  "How much you what?" he said when she remained stubbornly silent.

  "How much I missed you," she answered and he was aware of a flicker of disappointment thrumming through him as he sensed that wasn't what she had intended to say at all.

  He kissed her again and she sighed against his mouth, her arms tight around him.

  Despite the cold February rain, he felt as if spring was finally blooming in his heart.

  "Everything you said to me that last night was exactly right, Tess. I've given the past too much power in my life."

  "Oh, Quinn. I had no right to say those things to you. I've been sorry every since."

  He shook his head. "You were right."

  "Everyone handles their pain differently. The only thing I know is that everyone has some in his or her life. It's as inevitable as…as breathing and dying."

  "Well, you taught me I didn't have to let it control everything I do. Look at you. Your dreams of a happily-ever-after came crashing down around you with Scott's accident. But you didn't become bitter or angry at the world."

  "I had my moments of despair, believe me."

  His chest ached for her all over again and he cringed at the memory of how he had lashed out at her their last night together in Pine Gulch, accusing her of being the same spoiled girl he had known in high school.

  He hadn't meant any of those ugly words. Even as he had said them, he had known she was a far different woman.

  He had been in love with her that night, had been probably since that first moment she had sat beside him on the floor of her spare room and listened to him pour out all the ugly memories he kept carefully bottled up inside.

  No. Earlier, he admitted.

  He had probably been a little in love with her in high school, when he had thought he hated her. He had just been too afraid to admit the truth to himself.

  "But despite everything you went through, you didn't let your trials destroy you or make you cynical or hard," he said gently, holding her close. "You still open your heart so easily. It's one of the things I love the most about you."