A Hero of Her Own

“I think that sounds like a wonderful plan,” Quinn said.

Emmie turned to her mother and Nick. “And now I’ll go pick us out a table.”

As she left the adults behind, Georgie offered Quinn a weak smile. “I can’t believe she’s starting school. She’s so comfortable around adults. Her friends have always been rodeo cowboys. I just hope she fits in okay.” Her eyes clouded and sparkled with sudden tears of worry.

“I’m sure she’ll be just fine,” Quinn said.

“Of course she will,” Nick agreed, and placed an arm around Georgie’s shoulder. “She’s as strong as her mother and almost as pretty.”

Georgie laughed and leaned into Nick. He grinned at Quinn. “You just wait, maybe someday you’ll have to live through the trauma of the first day of school.”

As the two of them joined Emmie, who had chosen a table toward the back of the café, Quinn thought about what Nick had said.

He and Sarah had talked about having children one day, but before that dream had been realized she’d been diagnosed with the malignant aggressive brain tumor that had taken her in six short months. They’d had only nine months of marriage before her diagnosis.

Sarah had been a quiet, thoughtful woman and when she died, she did so as quietly and unassumingly as she had lived. He’d grieved deep and hard for a long time. Now when he thought of Sarah, the sharp despair was gone and he was left with a loneliness and a growing desire to get on with his life.

“Here we are,” Becky said as she delivered his meal. “Anything else I can do for you?” she asked as she poured him another cup of coffee.

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

“You’re not good,” Becky replied, her blue eyes sparkling with the liveliness that was her trademark. “You know I’m not happy unless I’m minding everyone’s business but my own. You need a woman, Quinn. You spend far too much time at this table all alone—no offense.”

He laughed. “None taken. I was just sitting here thinking the same thing.”

“We’ve got a lot of nice single women in this town who’d love to see you socially. You’re that strong, silent type. A little bit of that is quite romantic, but too much of it puts off the ladies.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Quinn replied. It was impossible to be offended by Becky’s advice because he knew how well intentioned it was.

As she left his table, his thoughts turned to the woman he’d met in the woods the night before. Jewel. From the moment he’d first met her, she’d intrigued him.

Certainly he found her amazingly attractive with her short, tousled, streaked golden-brown hair and big brown eyes. Although slender, she had curves in all the right places and legs that seemed to go on forever.

Last night wasn’t the first time he’d seen her wandering the woods around the Hopechest Ranch, although it was the first time he’d let her know he was there.

Quinn had a feeling he and Jewel suffered from the same afflictions—insomnia and loneliness. Quinn often spent the nighttime hours at Clay’s place where he boarded his horse, Noches.

What he didn’t understand was what had made Jewel scream in the woods the night before and why she’d looked positively haunted when he’d encountered her.

Chapter 3 (#ulink_c9a1327b-6b0f-5b32-b7d1-a8f048743f10)

As the purple shadows of twilight began to deepen, a responding tension filled Jewel. It wasn’t natural for the coming of night to bring something that tasted very much like suppressed terror into the back of her throat.

Jeff and Cheryl were in the process of getting the kids ready for bed and Jewel sat at the kitchen table making a list of school supplies she needed to purchase before school began next week.

When she finished her list, she would tuck each of the children in for the night. Those minutes just before bedtime, when she connected with each of the children with a good-night kiss and a wish for sweet dreams, was an important part of the routine of love that abounded at the ranch.

A knock sounded on the front door and she looked at the clock. Although it felt much later, it was only just after seven.

She hurried to the front door and opened it to see Deputy Adam Rawlings. As usual not a strand of his dark brown hair was out of place and he was impeccably dressed in his khaki uniform. “Hi, Adam.”

“I was just out making rounds and thought I’d stop by and say hello,” he said.

Jewel flipped on the outside light and stepped out on the porch to join him. “Quiet night?” she asked.

“Most of them are quiet,” he replied. “Not that I’m complaining. I heard you’ve got a new boarder. How’s that working out?”

She nodded. “A thirteen-year-old girl named Kelsey from Chicago. If you’d asked me yesterday how things were going I would have said not well. She was quiet and withdrawn. But today she appears more open. She loved the riding lessons at Clay’s yesterday and wanted to know when we’d be going again.” She broke off as she realized she was beginning to ramble.

“How’s everything else going?” he asked. His gaze narrowed slightly. “You look tired.”

“I am,” she admitted. “I was just sitting at the table, thinking about everything I need to buy for the kids to start school next week.” She smiled. “Trying to figure out school supplies for seven kids in seven different classes is enough to make anyone tired.”

“I’ll let you get back to it. I just thought I’d check in and see how you were doing.” He shifted his muscular body from one foot to the other. “If you get a minute to yourself and want to get dinner out or maybe see a movie, you know all you have to do is just call me.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Adam. I’ll keep that in mind.”

They said goodbye and then she watched as he left the porch and walked back to his patrol car. He seemed like such a nice man, good-looking and obviously interested in her. Unfortunately, she just didn’t feel anything for him except a mild friendship.

As his car pulled away, she went back inside to the kitchen table. She finished making her list and by then it was time to kiss the kids good-night.

She went into the boys’ bedroom first. The room held two bunk beds and at the moment all four sleeping places were occupied. Barry and Sam, the two older boys, had the top bunks and eight-year-old Jimmy Nigel and seven-year-old Caleb Torrel had the lower bunks.

“All tucked in?” she asked Barry as she approached him first.

He nodded. “Will you keep the nightlight on?” he asked anxiously. “I’m not scared or anything, but I just don’t like the dark.”

Jewel smiled at the dark-eyed boy. They had this same conversation every night. “The nightlight will be on until morning. Sleep tight, Barry.”

As she moved from Barry to Sam and then to the two younger boys, she couldn’t help but think of the baby she’d lost. She’d desperately wanted to be a mother, had been thrilled to discover she was pregnant. The minute the doctor had confirmed what she’d suspected, her heart had filled with a happiness she’d never known before and hadn’t known since.

As she moved from the boys’ room to the girls’, she shoved away thoughts of the baby she’d lost and dreams of what might have been.

There were three girls in residence at the moment. Kelsey slept on the top bunk of one of the beds and on the lower bunks were Lindy Walker and Carrie Lyndon, both ten years old.

Jewel went to Kelsey first. She didn’t touch the girl in any way, wouldn’t invade Kelsey’s personal space unless she was invited to do so. “Ready to call it a night?”

Kelsey nodded, her green eyes less guarded than they’d been the day before. “I’m not used to going to bed so early.”

Jewel smiled. “We believe in the routine of early to bed, early to rise around here. Besides, with school starting next week, it’s important that all of you get plenty of sleep.”

Jewel moved to the other beds, where the girls demanded good-night kisses and hugs, then she left the room and turned out the light. As in the boys’ room, a small nightlight burned in a wall socket.

She met Cheryl in the hallway and smiled tiredly. “Another day done,” she said.

Cheryl returned her smile and swept a strand of her long, dark hair behind an ear. “I wanted to run an idea by you. Jeff and I would like to plan a day trip for the kids in the next couple of weeks. There’s a Native American museum two hours from here and we thought it would be fun to visit the museum and have a picnic lunch at a nearby park.”

“Sounds like something they would enjoy,” Jewel replied.