The Pines Of Winder Ranch: A Cold Creek Homecoming / A Cold Creek Reunion

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.

Oddly, the same woman appeared in both scenes. Tess stepped out of the bathroom, looking brisk and professional in her flowered surgical scrubs.

He feigned sleep and watched her through his lashes as she donned a pair of latex-free gloves.

He could pinpoint the instant she saw him sprawled in the recliner, purportedly asleep. Her steps faltered and she froze.

Probably the decent thing would be to open his eyes and go through the motions of pretending to awaken. But he wasn’t always crazy about doing the decent thing. Instead, he gave a heavy-sounding breath and continued to spy on her under his lashes.

She gazed at him for several seconds as if trying to ascertain his level of sleep, then she finally turned away from him and back to her patient with a small, barely perceptible sigh he wondered about.

For the next few minutes, he watched her draw medicine out into syringes, then she quietly began checking Jo’s blood pressure and temperature.

Though her movements were slow and careful, Jo still opened her eyes when Tess put the blood pressure cuff on her leg.

“I’m so sorry to wake you. I wish I didn’t have to,” Tess murmured.

“Oh, poof,” Jo whispered back. “Don’t you worry for a single moment about doing your job.”

“How is your pain level?”

Jo was silent. “I’m not going to tell you,” she finally said. “You’ll just write it down in your little chart and the next thing I know, Jake Dalton will be increasing my meds and I’ll be so drugged out I won’t be able to think straight. My Brant is coming home. Should be any day now.”

As Jo whispered to her, Tess continued to slant careful looks in his direction.

“Easton told me earlier that he was on his way,” she said in an undertone.

“They’ll be good for Easton. The four of them, why, they were thicker than thieves. I can’t tell you how glad I am they’ll still have each other.”

Quinn swallowed hard, hating this whole situation all over again.

Tess smiled, relentlessly cheerful. “It’s a blessing, all right. For all of them and especially for your peace of mind.”

He listened to their quiet conversation as Tess continued to take care of Jo’s medical needs. He was still trying to figure out how much of her demeanor he was buying. She seemed to be everything that was patient and calm, a serene island in the middle of a stormy emotional mess. Was it truly possible that this dramatic change in her could be genuine?

He supposed he was a cynical bastard but he couldn’t quite believe it. This could all be one big show she was putting on. He had only been here a few days. If he stuck around long enough, she was likely to revert to her true colors.

On the other hand, people could change. He was living testimony to that. He was worlds away from the bitter, hot-tempered punk he’d been when he arrived at the Winders’ doorstep after a year in foster care and the misery that came before.

He pushed away the past, preferring instead to focus on today.

Tess finished with Jo a few moments later. After fluffing her pillow and tucking the blankets up around her, she dimmed the light in the bathroom again and moved quietly toward the door out into the hallway.

He rose and followed her, careful not to disturb Jo, who seemed to have easily slipped into sleep again.

“I’ll walk you out,” he said, his voice low, just as she reached the door.

She whirled and splayed a hand across her chest. She glared at him as she moved out of the room to the hallway. He followed her and closed the door behind him.

“Don’t do that! That’s the second time you’ve nearly scared the life out of me. How long have you been awake?”

“Not long. Here, let me help you with your coat.”

He took it off the chair in the hallway where she had tossed it and stood behind her. Her scent teased him, that delectable peach and vanilla, that somehow seemed sweet and sultry at the same time, like a hot Southern night.

She paused for a moment, then extended her arm through the sleeve. “Thank you,” she said and he wondered if he was imagining the slightly husky note to her voice.

“You’re welcome.”

“You really don’t need to walk me out, though. I’m sure I can find the way to my car by myself.”

“I could use the fresh air, to be honest with you.”

She looked as if she wanted to argue but she only shrugged and turned toward the door. He held it open for her and again smelled that seductive scent as she moved past him on her way out.

The scent seemed to curl through him, twisting and tugging an unwelcome response out of him, which he did his best to ignore as they walked out into the night.

The moon hung huge over the western mountains now, the stars a bright glitter out here unlike anything to be found in the city.

The October night wasn’t just cool now in the early morning hours, it was downright cold. This time of year, temperatures in these high mountain valleys could show a wide range in the course of a single day. Nights were invariably cool, even in summer. In spring and fall, the temperature dropped quickly once the sun went down.

His morning spent in the garden soaking up sunshine with Jo seemed only another distant memory.

“Gorgeous night, isn’t it?” Tess said. “I don’t ever get tired of the view out here.”

He nodded. “I’ve lived without it since I left Cold Creek Canyon, but something about it stays inside me even when I’m back in Seattle.”

She smiled a little. “I know I’m going to miss these mountains when I move to Portland in a few weeks.”

“What’s in Portland?” he asked, curious as to why she would pick up and leave after her lifetime spent here.

“A pretty good basketball team,” she answered. “Lots of trees and flowers. Nice people, from what I hear.”

“You know what I mean. Why are you leaving?”

She was silent for a moment, the only sound the wind whispering through the trees. “A whole truckload of reasons. Mostly, I guess, because I’m ready for a new start.”

He could understand that. He had sought the same thing in the Air Force after leaving Pine Gulch, hadn’t he? A place where no one knew his history in the foster-care system or as the rough-edged punk who had found a home here with Jo and Guff.

“Will you be doing the same thing? Providing end-of-life care?”

She smiled and in the moonlight, she looked fresh and lovely and very much like the teenage cheerleader who had tangled the hormones of every boy who walked the halls of Pine Gulch High School.

“Just the opposite, actually. I took a job in labor and delivery at one of the Portland hospitals.”

“Bringing life into the world instead of comforting those who are leaving it. There’s a certain symmetry to that.”

“I think so, too. It’s all part of my brand-new start.”

“I suppose everybody could use that once in a while.”

“True enough,” she murmured, with an unreadable look in her eyes.

“Will you miss this?”

“Pine Gulch?”

“I was thinking more of the work you do. You seem...very good at it. Do you give this same level to all your patients as you have to Jo?”

She looked startled at the question, though he wasn’t sure if was because she had never thought about it before or that she was surprised he had noticed.

“I try. Everyone deserves to spend his or her last days with dignity and respect. But Jo is special. I can’t deny that. She used to give me piano lessons when I was young and I’ve always adored her.”

Now it was his turn to be surprised. Jo taught piano lessons for many years to most of the young people in Pine Gulch but he had never realized Tess had once had the privilege of being one of her students.

“Do you still play?”

She laughed. “I hardly played then. I was awful. Probably the worst student Jo ever had, though she tried her best, believe me. But yes, I still play a little. I enjoy it much more as an adult than I did when I was ten.”

She paused for a moment, then gave a rueful smile. “When he was...upset or having a bad day, Scott used to enjoy when I would play for him. It calmed him. I’ve had more practice than I ever expected over the years.”

“You should play for Jo sometime when you come out to the house. She gets a real kick out of hearing her old students play. Especially the hard ones.”

“Maybe. I’m worried her hearing is a little too fragile for my fumbling attempts.” She smiled. “What about you? Did Jo give you lessons after you moved here?”

He gave a short laugh at the memory. “She tried. I’m sure I could have taught you a thing or two about being difficult.”

“I don’t doubt that for a moment,” she murmured.

She gazed at him for a moment, then she shifted her gaze up and he could swear he saw a million constellations reflected in her eyes.

“Look!” she exclaimed. “A shooting star, right over the top of Windy Peak. Quick, make a wish.”

He tilted his neck to look in the direction she pointed. “Probably just a satellite.”

She glared at him. “Don’t ruin it. I’m making a wish anyway.”

With her eyes screwed closed, she pursed her mouth in concentration. “There,” she said after a moment. “That should do it.”

She opened her eyes and smiled softly at him and he forgot all about the cold night air. All he could focus on was that smile, that mouth, and the sudden wild hunger inside him to taste it.

“What did you wish?” he asked, a gruff note to his voice.

She made a face. “If I tell you, it won’t come true. Don’t you know anything about wishes?”

Right now, he could tell her a thing or two about wanting something he shouldn’t. That sensuous heat wrapped tighter around his insides. “I know enough. I know sometimes wishes can be completely ridiculous and make no sense. For instance, right now, I wish I could kiss you. Don’t ask me why. I don’t even like you.”

Her eyes looked huge and green in her delicate face as she stared at him. “Okay,” she said, her voice breathy.

“Okay, I can kiss you? Or, okay, you won’t ask why I want to?”

She let out a ragged-sounding breath. “Either. Both.”

He didn’t need much more of an invitation than that. Without allowing himself to stop and think through the insanity of kissing a woman he had detested twenty-four hours earlier, Quinn stepped forward and covered her mouth with his.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHE GAVE A little gasp of shock but her mouth was warm and inviting in the cold air and he was vaguely aware through the haze of his own desire that she didn’t pull away, as he might have expected.

Instead, she wrapped her arm around his waist and leaned into his kiss for more.

A low clamor in his brain warned him this was a crazy idea, that he would have a much harder time keeping a safe distance between them after he had known the silky softness of her mouth, but he ignored it.

How could he possibly step away now, when she tasted like coffee and peaches and Tess, a delectable combination that sizzled through him like heat lightning?

Her lips parted slightly, all the invitation he needed to deepen the kiss. She moaned a little against his mouth and he could feel the tremble of her body against him, the confused desire in the slide of her tongue against his.

The night disappeared until it was only the two of them, until he was lost in the unexpected hunger for this woman in his arms. Her kiss offered solace and surrender, a chance to put away for a moment his sadness and embrace the wonder of life in all its tragedy and glory.

He lost track of time there in the moonlight. He forgot about Jo and about his efforts to find his recalcitrant foster brother and his worries for Easton. He especially refused to let himself remember all the reasons he shouldn’t be kissing her—how, as he’d told her, he wasn’t even sure he liked her, how he still didn’t trust that she wasn’t hiding a knife behind her back, ready to gut him with it at the first chance.

The only thing that mattered for this instant was Tess and how very perfect she felt in his arms, with her mouth eager and warm against his.

A coyote howled from far off in the distance, long and mournful. He heard it on the edge of his consciousness but he knew the instant the spell between them shattered and Tess returned to reality. In the space between one ragged breath and the next, she went from kissing him with heat and passion to freezing in his arms like Windy Lake in a January blizzard.

Her arms fluttered away from around his neck and he sensed she would have backed farther away from him if she hadn’t been pressed up against her car door.

Though he wanted nothing more than to crush her to him again and slide into that stunning heat once more, he forced himself to step back to give them both a little necessary space.

Her breathing was as rough and quick as his own and he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

Despite the chill in the air, the night seemed to wrap around them in a sultry embrace. From the trees whispering in the wind to the carpet of stars overhead, they seemed alone here in the darkness.

Part of him wanted to step toward her and sweep her into his arms again, but shock and dismay began to seep through his desire. What kind of magic did she wield against him that he could so easily succumb to his attraction and kiss her, despite all his best instincts?

He shouldn’t have done it. In the first place, their relationship was a tangled mess and had been for years. Sure, she had been great with Jo tonight and he had been grateful for her help on the horseback ride into the mountains. But one night couldn’t completely transform so much animosity into fuzzy warmth.

In the second place, he had enough on his plate right now. His emotions were scraped raw by Jo’s condition. He had nothing left inside to give anything else right now, especially not an unwanted attraction to Tess.

Maybe that’s why he had kissed her. He needed the distraction, a few moments of oblivion. Either way, it had been a monumentally stupid impulse, one he was quite certain he would come to regret the moment she climbed into her little sedan and drove down Cold Creek Canyon.

She continued to gaze at him out of those huge green eyes, as if she expected him to say something. He would be damned if he would apologize for kissing her. Not when she had responded with such fierce enthusiasm.