Back to Eden

Cole’s clothes were filthy. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to say something, then glanced at the picture in his hand.

The nurse returned with a man wearing green scrubs, a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck. He came to stand on her right side with a friendly smile.

“Miss Quinlan, how are you feeling? I thought it might help to wake up with a familiar face after that crash, but I hear that bump on your head has you a bit disoriented. Concussions can sometimes do that. How long do you think she was out?” He directed the question to Cole.

Crash.

The sharp, staccato images of green branches whipping past returned. Cockpit. She’d been in a cockpit, but the wind had been brutal, and something pressed against her ribs, making it hard to breathe, hard to move, impossible to handle anything other than the stick.

“Keep the nose up!” Danny yelled as they went down.

He hadn’t sounded afraid, even at the end when they’d plowed through the treetops, while Rachel had been certain they were going to die.

She wasn’t fifteen. She hadn’t been in a car accident. She was twenty-six and had been flying over a fire with Danny. People were trapped, and she’d made that pass through the smoke to save them.

“Danny?” she whispered in a half croak.

“He didn’t make it,” Cole said quietly. “He was gone when we got there.”

Rachel didn’t remember. But she knew that Danny would have wanted it that way. Quick. In the air. While saving others.

That didn’t stop Rachel’s eyes from tearing up, or her nose from stinging as she tried not to cry. Danny wouldn’t want her to cry. He’d want her to remember his hair-raising tales about one of the wars he’d served in, or the way he could skim the Privateer mere feet above a lake without popping a drop of sweat. He probably wouldn’t want her to remember how he loved to visit local parks to feed the ducks, or the way he could read Matt a bedtime story with an arsenal of funny voices. But Rachel would remember it all.

Rachel wiped a tear away with her right hand.

“We’re back in the present. Good.” The doctor pulled up a chair. “You’ve been here at St. Patrick’s in Missoula for several hours. I don’t know how much you know about concussions, but it’s an injury that attacks your equilibrium and takes a long time to heal. When those bruised ribs of yours are better, you’ll still have some residual effects from the head wound.”

“So I’ll live to fly again.” Fear, not her aching ribs, kept her lungs from filling with air.

Rachel turned her face away from Cole as more images of the crash threatened to shatter what little calm she had left. She’d faced death. How would she ever enjoy the freedom and beauty of an airplane again?

She had to fly. That’s how she made her living. Yet, for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to take to the air.

Not fly? As quickly as it surfaced, Rachel buried the thought. She was simply having a reaction to being in a cold, sterile hospital. She’d go back home to Eden, to Jenna and Matt, and try to salvage Fire Angels.

Rachel blinked heavily, suddenly worn-out.

“Are you drowsy?” the doctor asked.

“Yes.” She was incredibly sleepy. Now that she knew more about what had happened, it was hard to keep her eyes open.

The doctor patted her hand. “We’ll be taking you to X-ray soon. And you’ll have to bear with us if we wake you up a lot. We don’t want to lose you after such a daring rescue. You have this gentleman to thank for that.” He gestured to Cole.

Cole had rescued her?

Her knight in shining armor.

Rachel sucked in a shuddering breath. She’d thought that’s who Cole was once. She’d since learned that knights in shining armor didn’t exist.

“I need to call home,” she said, blinking back the tears again. She didn’t like hearing how badly she was hurt or how close she’d come to not making it. At least if she talked to Jenna and Matt, she’d be able to pretend everything was okay.

“I called the ranch and talked to your dad,” Cole said, his voice unaccountably cool. “And base camp would have notified the next of kin for your copilot by now.”

Rachel mumbled her thanks, though she knew Danny had no next of kin.

She wanted to call home, wanted to talk to Pop and Matt, wanted to reassure Jenna. Rachel didn’t like the idea of her niece worrying, but she couldn’t press for the call now, not in front of Cole.

She gave in to the exhaustion and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, Cole was gone.

CHAPTER THREE

“THE DOCTOR SAYS you can go home tomorrow.” Cole stood in the doorway of Rachel’s hospital room looking tired. But at least he’d showered, shaved and changed into clean, comfortable clothes, while Rachel had been wrapped for days in the same paper-thin hospital gown, confined to a bed.

Rachel hadn’t seen Cole since she’d woken up in the hospital three days ago. During those days, she’d had to deal with bandages and bedpans, bossy nurses, X-rays and MRIs. She’d even had to listen to the doctor tell her they might have to drill a hole in her skull to relieve the pressure from the swelling around her wound.

It hadn’t come to that, thank God.

She was ready to go home, and a bit irritated that Cole had found out about her release before she had.

“I thought I’d make sure you got home all right,” Cole announced.

No! He’d see right off that Jenna was his. He’d try to take her niece away from her. The pain and discomfort Rachel had been through in the past few days was nothing in comparison to the threat of Cole taking Jenna away.

“That’s very kind of you, but I’ve made other plans.” Like pestering the nurse until she called the bus station for the time of the next bus to Wyoming.

Cole lifted one eyebrow before coming into the room and settling his large frame in the small plastic chair next to her bed. “I went home to Silver Bend with my crew in the van and came back in my own truck just to get you.” He’d always barged right into her life without asking or apologizing.

Frowning created a stab of pain in her head. “You didn’t have to do that.” He’d driven from Montana to Idaho and back just for her? The gesture pleased Rachel, and yet she didn’t want him to do that. How could she turn him down, now?

Easy. Because she had to.

“Cole, I—”

“I insist. I haven’t been back to Eden in years.” He was looking at his hands as if he were uncomfortable with the memory of his last visit to Eden. And why wouldn’t he be? That’s when he’d broken Missy’s heart.

And most likely his own, as well, Rachel realized, feeling an unwanted sympathy for him. On the day she’d died, Missy had left a note saying she was returning to Cole, and that she was leaving the kids in Rachel’s care. Then, on her way to reunite with her lost love, Missy’s truck had plunged into an icy river. And Cole had never even bothered to call. Many of Rachel’s illusions had been shattered that night.

“It hasn’t changed much,” Rachel admitted. “Though most of your old friends have moved away.” Thank God for that. If they’d stayed around, it wouldn’t only have been Missy’s husband, Lyle, who’d realized that Jenna wasn’t his child.

“Sounds like you’re trying to change my mind about going.” Cole gave her a probing glance. How quickly he’d turned from remorseful to suspicious.

Apprehension scurried around her belly. What did Cole have to be suspicious of except the secret Rachel had so ardently guarded all these years?

“Is there some reason you don’t want me to come back to Eden, Rach?”

“No. Not at all.” God, she sounded desperate. With effort she held his gaze. “I appreciate the offer. It’s just that you probably have a million things to do at home, what with fire season over and all.” She raised a hand weakly. “You go on. I’ll be fine on my own.”