Back to Eden

“I do have a lot of loose ends to tie up.” His gaze was almost intolerable with its directness. Rachel resisted the urge to squirm. “Starting in Eden.”

Something chilled Rachel’s blood. She couldn’t speak. Her heart began to pound in her chest.

Cole pulled out a bent photograph from his pocket and stared down at it for several seconds of strained silence while Rachel agonized, feeling as if someone had strapped her down so that she couldn’t escape the truth.

“I was wondering…” He turned the photo around so that it was facing her. Matt’s cherubic cheeks and Jenna’s bright smile couldn’t keep Rachel’s skin from feeling clammy or slow the beat of her heart. “…Whose daughter is this?”

Cole’s hard gaze demanded she stop the lie. With silent intensity, he dared her to deny Jenna was his.

Her sister’s words came back to Rachel in a rush: “Don’t tell Cole about Jenna. It’s not as if he wants her. You know how he’s always searching for the next big thrill. Settling down is the last thing on his mind. It would just create one more disappointment for Jenna.”

Don’t tell Cole.

Easy enough to say when Cole wasn’t staring at you as if he already knew the truth. But Missy had been right in one respect. Jenna certainly didn’t need another disappointment. Cole was still a Hot Shot, involved in a profession requiring a nomadic life—the kind of life that tore families apart. His track record with Missy confirmed that.

Cornered, Rachel announced in a weak voice, “She’s my daughter.”

Cole’s jaw dropped. But before he could say anything, the nurse came in to check the tubes and machines connected to Rachel and take her pulse. “You’re upsetting her.” She glared at Cole.

He glared right back. “She’s upsetting me.”

“If this continues, I’ll have to ask you to leave.” She made a note on a chart and then walked away on her squeaky shoes.

“I don’t remember you being such a liar.” Cole glared at Rachel. “The truth,” he demanded. He’d never talked to her with such disdain.

Of course, she’d never lied to him before. When they were kids, she’d worshipped the ground Cole walked on because he was brave and daring and handsome. Only later had she figured out he wasn’t all he seemed.

Rachel swallowed thickly, feeling vulnerable and alone. She’d always had her father and Missy to catch her when she stumbled. Her sockless feet stung with cold under the thin covers as she looked everywhere but at Cole. There was no one to ask for advice or to deflect Cole’s demand.

Don’t tell Cole.

The lie slithered through her thoughts, demanding more lies to keep it alive, souring her stomach until Rachel couldn’t turn away from the facts.

“Let me tell you a bit about the little girl in that picture,” she began, tugging at a snag in the blanket. “She’s been through a lot in her short life. First, she had a father who didn’t want her, or Missy for that matter. Then after Missy died, she only had Pop and me to rely on.” Rachel raised her eyes to his.

“What’s her name?” Cole’s question hung harshly between them.

“Jenna,” Rachel sighed. “What I’m trying to say is that Jenna needs stability. She doesn’t need someone like you coming into her life only to fall out of it because you’ve taken one risk too many or you want to be somewhere else.” Rachel fervently believed this was true. She’d given up her dream of leaving Eden when she’d become guardian of Matt and Jenna. She’d settled into a role she hadn’t asked for with no complaints.

Cole stared at her without speaking. Then he leaned forward and asked, “And you? Why are you so good for her when you’ve done exactly the same thing? Risking your life on some stunt.”

“That stunt saved the lives of a Hot Shot crew.” A crew she’d been certain had been Cole’s. That just went to show what a softhearted dolt Rachel was.

“You know as well as I do how lucky you are to be alive.” Cole leaned even closer. “Don’t talk to me about stability, either. I can’t imagine you make it home to cook dinner every night.”

“You don’t know a thing about me or what my life is like.” But part of her acknowledged the truth in his words. She wasn’t home eight months of the year.

“Let’s call a spade a spade, Rachel. You and I are a lot alike, only I don’t have a family waiting at home for me, wondering if I’m coming home safe.” Something had darkened his eyes, sending a tremor of fear into Rachel’s heart.

She had too much responsibility to shoulder fear, as well. Rachel shook her head slowly, making the room waver.

“You could just as easily have crashed on top of the crew after that crazy dive-bombing run you made,” Cole accused relentlessly.

“But I didn’t. I would have been fine if not for the smoke and that one huge, aberration of a tree.” Rachel reached blindly for the bed controls with one hand, having had enough of lying at a forty-five-degree angle while he towered over her. She needed to be fully upright for this fight.

“The incident commander is considering writing you up for a safety violation.”

Damn it. A violation like that and she’d have one hell of a time getting back into the air-tanker business.

The bed beneath Rachel’s head and back rose at an excruciatingly slow pace, but the dizziness was immediate. She clapped her right hand over her eyes and willed her stomach to settle. “That’s bullshit and you know it. I did what I had to do to save that crew. If anyone’s lost anything from the crash, it’s me…and Danny.” Rachel blinked back the tears. Stubborn old coot. She hadn’t even been able to say goodbye.

“The incident commander mentioned agencies investigating the accident, like the TSB, FAA and NIFC.” He pronounced the acronym for the National Interagency Fire Center as NIF-see. “But that’s not the point. The point is that this little girl is mine and no one saw any need to tell me.”

“Did you want her?” Ignoring her head, along with the stabs of pain in her ribs and her heart, Rachel snapped at him, hating that it had come to this—she and Cole pitted against each other. “You didn’t even love Missy enough to stay in Eden. What would you have done with a child? What would you do with one now?”

Before Cole could answer, the nurse came squeaking into the room. “That’s enough. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Fine,” he growled. “I’ll be back tomorrow to pick her up when she’s released.”

Rachel’s head throbbed and her body was covered in a cold sweat. Ignoring Cole’s continued insistence that he was taking her back to Eden, Rachel drove her point home. “It’s fine to be offended because you didn’t know about Jenna, but remember this—Missy sacrificed everything because she loved you enough to make sure you lived the life you wanted, which didn’t include her or the baby. Are you willing to make as big a sacrifice for a little girl who doesn’t even know you exist?”

“JACKSON?” Having punched a number in his cell phone without much thought, Cole struggled to hold it together, hoping that the roar of his truck’s air conditioner would cover the sound of his ragged breathing. On shaky legs, he’d somehow made it to the hospital parking lot after Rachel had confirmed that Cole was indeed a father.

“Chainsaw?” Jackson paused to tell his wife, “It’s Cole. I’ll be a minute.” A door opened and closed. “What’s up? Did you make it back to Missoula okay?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“How is she?”

“She looks like hell.” Her head was swollen. Her complexion was pale despite her tan, and the smooth skin over her face was marred with tiny cuts.

And she’d lied to him.

Jackson replied with something totally appropriate that Cole instantly forgot.

Instead, he blurted, “The kid is mine. The girl in the picture. She’s my daughter. Mine and Missy’s.” Their child existed, yet Missy was no more. Cole put his head on the steering wheel. “What in the hell do I do now?”

A few days ago he’d been envious of what Jackson, Logan and Spider had—loving wives. But kids…kids needed attention, closets full of stuff…and millions of other things of which Cole was blissfully ignorant. He’d wanted a wife, someone to spoil him with long, slow, passionate kisses and home-cooked meals. What did he get? A kid.

And what was he going to do about his mom? By some cruel twist of fate, Jenna looked incredibly like his sister, Sally, and Cole knew meeting her would send his mother over the edge, because she’d never really recovered from Sally’s death at age ten. Maybe it would have been easier on his mother if Jenna had been a boy. But she wasn’t. All in all, Cole was starting to think he was better off not knowing he had a kid. Could he just not tell his parents?

He swore. Wasn’t that just what Rachel had said?

“You’ll be a good dad. Don’t worry about it.”

A dad? Is that what he wanted? The title implied involvement—nearly impossible from another state—and demanded he come clean with his parents. And that was something he wasn’t sure he could do.

“Who has custody?”