The Coltons: Fisher, Ryder & Quinn

Her sticky bun order came up to the counter. She paid quickly, eager to make her exit, but as she headed out, she noticed Fisher’s attention was on her once again and something inside of her snapped.

In one smooth move, she slipped into the booth across from him, surprising him with her action. Calmly she said, “You don’t know me or my son, so don’t presume to judge us so quickly.”

Fisher slowly put down his mug of coffee. Lacing his fingers together, he leaned forward and in soft tones said, “And I don’t intend to get to know you…again. Once Jericho returns and I’m sure all is right with him, I’ll be off and out of your way.”

Out of her way, but also in harm’s way, it occurred to her guiltily. “There’s no need to rush back to the Army on my account.”

He tossed up his hands in emphasis. “The Army is all I know and need. Discipline. Order. Respect.”

The condemnation lashed at her once again. Discipline, order and respect clearly being things that he seemed to find lacking with her and her son. Sadly, she acknowledged that she, too, wished she had more of those traits in her life. Because of that, she tempered her response.

“I’m glad the military makes you happy. I hope you stay safe when you go back.”

She didn’t wait for a reply. She swept her box of sticky buns from the booth’s table and hurried out the door.

In her Cherokee, she handed the box to T.J., who placed it in his lap and said, “What was that?”

“Excuse me?” she said as she pulled away from the curb.

“You and Captain Yates. It looked…intense,” her son said and she realized that T.J. had seen everything through the plate glass window of Miss Sue’s.

Striving for a neutral tone, she said, “Nothing important. I just asked him if he’d heard from Jericho. I expect he and Olivia will be back soon from their honeymoon.”

T.J. snorted loudly and shook his head. “You’re not a very good liar, Mom.”

Her hands tightened on the wheel, but she said nothing else which prompted T.J. to add, “Maybe you should practice what you preach. Maybe you should talk about what’s up with you and Captain Yates.”

What was up with her and Fisher was more than she suspected T.J. could handle at the moment. He’d been walking a very fine line lately and she was concerned that telling him the truth about Fisher would push him over the edge. If he crossed that line, she worried that the next trip to the sheriff’s station would result in more than community service or a speeding ticket.

Because of that, she kept her silence as they drove toward the ranch.

T.J. also kept silent, guarding his own secrets she suspected since she still believed he was not telling her the whole truth about what had happened the night before.

At the ranch, it was Jewel who opened the door when they pulled up in the driveway. There was no mistaking the look on her boss’s face that said she intended to get to the bottom of things.

Taking a deep breath, Macy braced herself as she approached the door to the ranch.

Chapter 7

The sticky buns became an after lunch treat as she joined Jewel and Ana in the shade at a patio table near the pool.

Jewel had opted to say little to the boys other than to assign them a mess of chores that would keep them busy until she intended to speak to them. That kept Sara with the other children rather than with her two new best friends. During their absence, the young girl retreated more deeply into her shell.

Ana’s face was flushed by the midday heat as she slowly lowered herself into a chair at the table.

Macy placed a tall glass of milk before her, but two iced coffees before her spot and Jewel’s. Then she set a sticky bun at each place before sitting beside Ana. Jewel came by a few minutes later after reminding the children in the pool about the rules.

Jewel’s face was also flushed from the heat and wisps of her short wavy brown hair curled around her face. Dark circles marred the fragile skin beneath her cocoa brown eyes.

“I’m sorry about last night. I know you couldn’t have slept well afterward,” she said.

Jewel nodded, her lips in a grim smile. “I didn’t. The call about the accident brought back painful memories.”

“You were in an accident?” Ana asked, leaning forward and examining Jewel’s features.

Jewel looked away and gripped the glass of iced coffee. With her thumb, she wiped away the condensation on its surface and said, “My fiancé and I were in an accident on the night he proposed to me. He was killed. Although I survived, I lost the baby I was carrying.”

“Perdoname. I didn’t mean to pry,” Ana replied and dipped her gaze downward to her own pregnant belly. Almost protectively, she ran her hand across the rounded mound.

“It’s all right, Ana. You couldn’t have known,” Jewel reassured her. “I was lucky to have Joe and Meredith Colton by my side, otherwise I think I might have lost my mind.”

“The Coltons seem like wonderful people,” Macy chimed in.

Jewel nodded emphatically. “They are which is why I’m so happy that with Daniels being exposed and jailed, Joe’s presidential campaign has taken off. His nomination seems like a sure thing now.”

“Definitely. I can’t imagine how Olivia must have felt when she regained her memory and realized it was Daniels who was trying to kill her,” she said and a sudden screech from the pool snagged her attention, but it was only two of the kids engaged in a splashing match.

Jewel had also whipped around at the noise, obviously on the edge. But when she realized it was nothing serious, she returned her attention to her friends. “Olivia’s lucky to have found Jericho only…How are you dealing with canceling the wedding? Are you—”

“Convinced it was the right thing to do. It wouldn’t have been right for me and Jericho to be together. Even though we love each other as friends, he deserves more from a marriage and Olivia will give him that,” she admitted. She grabbed her glass of iced coffee, light with milk and sweet with sugar and took a big gulp. The cool helped chase away some of the heat of midday.

“Do you think what happened with T.J. has to do with you and Jericho? That he’s angry about it?” Jewel pressed and then quickly tacked on, “Or is it about Fisher Yates?”

The heat that pressed down on her now came from Jewel’s inquiry and her own guilt about both the Yates men. “T.J. was upset with my decision to marry Jericho. He said he already had a dad.”

“And Fisher?” her friend repeated.

She recalled T.J.’s words about how maybe she should talk about it, but she still wasn’t ready to reveal the secret she had kept for so long. “That’s a complicated story. Plus, I don’t think that it has anything to do with the boys and last night.”

Taking another bracing sip of her drink, she met Jewel’s too perceptive gaze and realized her friend knew it was time to back off about Fisher. That she would talk only when she was good and ready. “I’m sorry about last night, Jewel. I’ve talked to T.J., but I feel as if he’s only telling me part of what really happened.”

“I’ve spoken with Joe as well, only…” Jewel hesitated and then picked up the sticky bun, tore off a piece. “There’s something not right about their story,” she finally said.

She nodded. “I agree, although I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong.”

“They say they dropped Sara off, but I don’t remember if she was home when I got the call. Do you, Ana?” Jewel asked.

Ana rolled her eyes upward as she tried to remember, but then shook her head. “I do not know. She was home later. When you and Joe came home.”

“So maybe Sara was with them when the accident happened?” Macy said and glanced over at the young teen, who deprived of her two friends thanks to their chores, was sitting alone on the edge of the pool.

“If she was with the boys, why didn’t the police see her?”

“And if she was with them, why would they lie about that?” Jewel wondered aloud.

“She has many secrets, I think,” Ana added and absent-mindedly rubbed her hand over her belly once again.

“If she doesn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t want to be involved with the police,” she said, considering the police were bound to discover who she was.

Jewel took another piece of sticky bun and motioned with it as she said, “But that doesn’t explain why they were speeding, does it?”

“T.J. said there was another car out on the road. One that was challenging them to prove their car was better.”

“A drag race? Joe says they didn’t realize they were speeding. That they didn’t see the other car until it was too late to stop,” Jewel said, but then she turned in her seat to glance at the pool and Sara in particular. “I don’t know what to believe, but my gut says it involves Sara.”

“Boys, cars and girls. A familiar mix, don’t you think?” she suggested, remembering her own teen years and the many times that mix had caused problems in town.

“I hope that’s all it is,” Jewel said, finishing off the last of her sticky bun and pointing at Macy’s, which remained untouched before her. “If you’re a true friend, you’ll eat that,” she said.

“Why is that?” she asked.

“Because otherwise I’m going to devour it and you don’t want me to get fat.” A hesitant smile spread across Jewel’s face and Macy realized she was trying to lighten the moment.

As another playful shout came from the pool, Macy grabbed her sticky bun and with a playful snort said, “Fat. Right. That’s why Deputy Rawlings is always making goo goo eyes at you.”

“Goo goo eyes?” Ana asked, slightly confused by the expression.

“That means he’s interested in Jewel,” she explained and Ana smiled broadly, nodded with some spirit. “Definitely. I’ve seen how he looks at you whenever he visits.”

The blush that now blossomed across Jewel’s face wasn’t from the warmth of the day. “I’ve tried my best to discourage him. I’m just not ready for another relationship.”

Neither was she, although she had been hard-pressed to forget about Fisher during the day thanks to their encounter that morning. “Me, either,” she chimed in and finished off the last of her sticky bun.

Ana was done as well with her treat and as Macy glanced at her watch, she realized their lunch hour was almost over.

“Do you want me to work with the older children on their study skills while Ana and the younger kids do some craft work?”

Jewel nodded. “I know school is still some time away, but it would be good for them to be ready. It’ll also give me some time to talk to the boys.”

The three women split up to finish their work for the day. As she aided Sara and the two other older children with their study exercises, her mind was half on what was happening with Jewel, T.J. and Joe in the library where Jewel often met with the children privately.

It came as no surprise to her later that Jewel had not been able to get any other information from them.

It also didn’t surprise her to see T.J., Joe and Sara huddled together by the corral later that afternoon, clearly engaged in some kind of animated conversation. As soon as the rest of the group neared in order to take some rides on Papa’s Poppy, the conversation stopped.

Their actions worried her, but with T.J. grounded for a month due to the speeding and accident, the trio was unlikely to get into trouble anytime soon.

Anytime soon hopefully being long after Jericho had returned from his honeymoon and Fisher had left town.

She knew which Yates brother she could count on to help her and it sure wasn’t Fisher, she thought.

Relative quiet ruled over dinner that night.

T.J. didn’t have much to say about either his discussion with Jewel or what he, Joe and Sara were talking about at the corral.

In truth, she didn’t push too hard for the information. If she did, T.J. would become even more tight-lipped and remind her that she had something she needed to get off her chest as well.

Namely Fisher.

She hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind all day and as she slipped into bed that night, he once again invaded her dreams as if to remind her that she had been about to marry the wrong Yates brother.

A small crowd gathered around the steps of the church. Jewel and Ana. An assortment of Coltons. Jericho and a pregnant Olivia, her rounded belly larger than it had been just a few weeks before. Buck Yates stood beside them, a broad smile on his face.

As she neared the group, she stumbled on something and looked down.

She had stepped on the hem of her dress—her wedding dress.

Confused, she paused and stared back up at the gathering of friends and family, only everyone had disappeared, leaving only two people on the steps—Fisher and T.J.

T.J. looked solemn and too grown-up in his dark blue suit—the suit she had bought for him to wear for her wedding to Fisher.

No, not Fisher.

Jericho, she reminded herself, but as she stared at her son and the man standing next to him, she realized just how much T.J. looked like Fisher, his father.

It was there in the squareness of their jaws and the lean build of their bodies. T.J.’s hair was darker than hers, closer to Fisher’s nearly black hair much like T.J.’s eyes were a mix of Fisher’s green and her brown.

The physical similarities between the two men was undeniable.

She wondered why she hadn’t seen it before. Why others hadn’t seen it over the years. Suddenly, she realized everyone had gone.

Everyone except Fisher who stood there, lethally handsome in his Army uniform. The dark blue of the fabric intensified the green of his eyes while the fit of the jacket lovingly caressed the broad width of his shoulders and leanness of his waist.

She remembered those shoulders, she thought as she took a step toward him and the distance between them vanished.

Suddenly in his arms, she braced her hands against those strong shoulders only they were bare now beneath the palms of her hands much as she was now bare, the wedding dress having evaporated into the ether of her dreams.

His skin was warm against hers as he pressed her to his lean muscled body. A man’s hard body, she thought, recalling the strength of him on the one night they had shared so long ago. Remembering the emotions he had roused that had shaken her to the core of her being.

She met his gaze, her own likely confused as she said, “I’ve never forgotten our one night.”

“Neither have I,” he said and lowered his forehead to rest against hers. His tones soft, he said, “Why did you marry Tim?”

She had loved Tim with all her heart. Loved him in a way that was different from how she felt for Fisher and yet…

She had loved Fisher as well after that night. And because of that emotion, she hadn’t been able to ruin his life when she had heard of his enlistment and excitement to be leaving Esperanza.

At her hesitation, he smiled sadly and said, “Still not talking? You didn’t want to talk after that night either.”

No, she hadn’t wanted to talk. She had wanted to show him how she cared in other ways and so she did that now, rising up the inch or so to press her lips to his.

Fisher groaned like a man in pain at that first touch, but then he answered her kiss, meeting her lips again and again. Tenderly breaching the seam of her mouth with his tongue to taste her. To unite them until every move and breath became as one between them and just kissing wasn’t enough.

He gently lowered her to the ground and the softness of well-worn fabric, smelling like her mama’s detergent, dragged her eyes open.

It was night out and they were lying on a blanket on the overlook, much as they had done eighteen years before.

The sky above them was a deep endless black dotted with hundreds of stars and a bright summer moon that silvered all below as it had so many years earlier.

As she met his gaze, he cupped her cheek and ran his thumb across the moistness his kisses had left behind on her lips.

“I never forgot that night,” he said once again.

“Neither did I,” she admitted and gave herself over to his loving.

Chapter 8

Macy bolted upright in bed, breathing heavily. Her body thrummed with unfulfilled desire.

She yanked a shaky hand through her hair, troubled about the dream. Troubled because it had hit too close to home regarding her feelings for Fisher.

No matter how hard she had tried to forget him during the last eighteen years, he had always been with her. In her brain and in her heart.

Tim had known and understood. Had realized that her love for him was strong and true, but that Fisher had touched a part of her that could not be his.

She had admired Tim for that and for claiming T.J. as his. It had allowed both her and Fisher to get on with their lives in the ways that both of them had wanted.

And what about T.J.? the niggling voice of guilt reminded. What about Fisher not knowing he has a child? it lashed out.

Shaking her head as if to clear out that nagging voice, she slipped from bed and walked down the hall to T.J.’s room.

The door was open and as she peered at her sleeping son, the guilt flailed at her repeatedly. T.J.’s features were stamped with Fisher’s, she thought again. If Fisher had stayed in town, or visited more often than during his occasional breaks between tours of duty, she would not have been able to keep her secret for so long.

It made her wonder why the other Yates men hadn’t seen the resemblance, or if they had, why they hadn’t said anything?

With such thoughts dragging at her, she returned to bed only to find sleep was impossible.

Grabbing her romance novel from her nightstand, she read, knowing it would give her the happily-ever-after that she seemed unable to find in her own life.

Fisher sat before the fireplace in his father’s home, staring at the pile of logs ready to be lit when fall came and brought with it the cooler weather.

He had been tempted to light the fire tonight to chase away the chill from the jog he had decided to take earlier that evening. That chill had registered in his thirty-seven-year-old bones, he told himself, but the annoying voice in his head chastised him. Warned him that what he was feeling was something else.

Guilt, maybe?

The hurt look on Macy’s face that morning had chased him throughout the day, especially when despite that hurt, she had wished him to stay safe.

Safe. A funny word.

For the eighteen years he had been in the military, he had regularly kept himself and his men safe. Not that there hadn’t been injuries or times when he had thought he’d never see home again. But through it all he’d kept his head and made sure each and every man had come home alive.

Coming home being so important except…

He didn’t feel safe here.

Being near Macy reminded him of all that his home lacked. Hell, it wasn’t even his home, but his dad’s, he thought, glancing around at the place where he had grown up and to where he returned after each tour of duty was over.

He rose from the couch and to the breakfast bar that separated the living room from the kitchen. A single bottle of bourbon sat on the bar and he poured himself a finger’s worth of the alcohol and returned to sit before the fireplace.

After a bracing sip of the bourbon, he winced and considered what it would be like to have his own home. Wondered what it would be like to have someone like Macy to come home to. Not that Macy would be interested because she hadn’t been interested eighteen years earlier.

Not to mention there was T.J. to consider.

As he had seen Macy and her son leave the police station the night before, he had thought, much as his brother and father had said, that what the boy needed was a strong man in his life to help set things straight.

He chuckled as amusement set in because he had no doubt that the headstrong and independent Macy would tan his hide for such a chauvinistic thought. Not to mention that it was ridiculous to consider that he might be that man. He wasn’t the kind to settle down into the whole home and hearth thing.

Of course, his brother Jericho hadn’t seemed like that kind of man either. He took another sip of the liquor, leaned his head back onto the couch cushions and considered his surprise at how happy his brother had looked marrying Olivia.

That look had confirmed to him that maybe his brother was the marrying type, but also that his brother’s plan to wed Macy had been totally wrong from the outset. For starters, you didn’t marry out of obligation and you sure shouldn’t plan on having a platonic relationship with your wife.

A bit of anger built inside of him at both his brother and Macy at that thought. Macy for relying on her friendship to even consider the marriage and at his brother for agreeing to it, especially since he couldn’t imagine lying next to Macy in bed and having it stay platonic.

His gut tightened at the thought of his kid brother making love to the only woman who had ever managed to break her way into his heart.

Since his mom had left, he hadn’t had much faith in women and had sealed shut his heart…until Macy had somehow slipped through a crack.

Of course, after her abandonment, he had walled off his heart from hurt once again, but the memory of her had stayed locked behind those barriers. And now with her involvement with Jericho, it had roused all those old memories.

Slugging back the last dregs of the bourbon, he rose from the sofa, went to the kitchen and washed the glass. Slipped it into the dish drain sitting there holding an odd assortment of china and cutlery.

A single man’s mix of mismatched items, he thought.

A woman would have made sure all the cutlery and plates were the same and that something wouldn’t be sitting in the dish drain for days. It would be washed, dried and put away in anticipation of the next family meal.

Like when Macy and T.J. sat down to their next meal, he thought, but couldn’t picture himself there beside them. She and T.J. had too many issues and it would be best for him to lay low until Jericho came home.

Once his brother returned, he would be back on his way to the Army, although he hadn’t decided whether it would be to another tour of duty in the Middle East or the instructor’s position at West Point.

The former was familiar, but he understood the importance of the latter. Even acknowledged how it could be a new adventure for him. A different mission.

Teaching up and coming officers was as significant as being out in the field with his men. After all, the nation needed excellent military men to lead and his many years of experience could help those cadets become better officers and save lives.

But as Fisher walked to his bedroom—the same one in which he’d slept as a child—he wondered if he would grow bored with living in one place and having the same basic daily routine. For nearly eighteen years he’d avoided that and he couldn’t imagine changing now unless…

It would take something really special for that kind of change, he realized as he stared at his cold and lonely single bed.

Fisher drove from his mind the picture of Macy waiting for him in that bed because he feared that maybe Macy could be that something really special to change his life.

As he undressed and slipped beneath the chilly sheets, he reminded himself that Macy needed more than a man in her life. Her son needed a father figure and once again it occurred to him that he wasn’t the right man for that job.

But as he drifted off to sleep, visions of her seeped into his dreams, reminding him of just how much he was missing in life.

Chapter 9

Macy awoke tired and grumpy. Her night’s sleep—or lack of—had been dominated by thoughts of both Fisher and T.J.

None of her deliberations had been good, she thought as she and T.J. drove to the ranch. But then blushed as she remembered her dreams of making love with Fisher.