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

“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.