A Cold Creek Homecoming

“You’re the hospice nurse?” His voice rose with incredulity.

She fingered the silver stethoscope around her neck with her free hand. “That’s what they tell me. Hey, Quinn. How have you been?”

He must still be upstairs in his bed, having one of those infinitely disturbing dreams of high school, the kind where he shows up to an advanced placement class and discovers he hasn’t read a single page of the textbook, knows absolutely none of the subject matter, and is expected to sit down and ace the final.

This couldn’t be real. It was too bizarre, too surreal, that someone he hadn’t seen since graduation night—and would have been quite content never to have to see again—would suddenly be standing in the hallway of Winder Ranch looking much the same as she had fifteen years earlier.

He blinked but, damn it all, she didn’t disappear and he wished he could just wake up, already.

“Tess,” he said gruffly, unable to think of another thing to say.

“Right.”

“How long have you been coming here to take care of Jo?”

“Two weeks now,” she answered, and he wondered if her voice had always had that husky note to it or if it was a new development. “There are several of us, actually. I usually handle the nights. I stop in about every three or four hours to check vitals and help Jo manage her pain. I juggle four other patients with varying degrees of need but she’s my favorite.”

As she spoke, she moved away from Jo’s bedroom door and headed toward him. He held his breath and fought the instinct to cover his groin, just as a precaution.

Not that she had ever physically hurt him in their turbulent past, but Tess Jamison—Homecoming Queen, valedictorian, and all-around Queen Bee, probably for Bitch—had a way of emasculating a man with just a look.

She smelled not like the sulfur and brimstone he might have expected, but a pleasant combination of vanilla and peaches that made him think of hot summer evenings out on the wide porch of the ranch with a bowl of ice cream and Jo’s divine cobbler.

She headed down the hall toward the kitchen, where she flipped on a small light over the sink.

For the first time, he saw her in full light. She was as lovely as when she wore the Homecoming Queen crown, with high cheekbones, a delicate nose and the same lush, kissable mouth he remembered.

Her eyes were still her most striking feature, green and vivid, almond-shaped, with thick, dark lashes.

But fifteen years had passed and nothing stayed the same except his memories. She had lost that fresh-faced innocent look that had been so misleading. He saw tiny, faint lines fanning out at the edges of her eyes and she wore a bare minimum of makeup.

“I didn’t know you were back,” she finally said when he continued to stare. “Easton didn’t mention it before she went to bed.”

Apparently there were several things Easton was keeping close to her sneaky little vest. “I only arrived this evening.” Somehow he managed to answer her without snarling, but it was a chore. “Jo wanted to see all of us one more time.”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say last instead of more but those huge green eyes still softened.

She was a hospice nurse, he reminded himself, as tough as he found that to believe. She was probably well-trained to pretend sympathy. The real Tess Jamison didn’t care about another soul on the planet except herself.

“Are you here for the weekend?” she asked.

“Longer,” he answered, his voice curt. It was none of her business that he planned to stay at Winder Ranch as long as Jo needed him, which he hoped was much longer than the doctors seemed to believe.

She nodded once, her eyes solemn, and he knew she understood all he hadn’t said. The soft compassion in those eyes—and his inexplicable urge to soak it in—turned him conversely hostile.

“I can’t believe you’ve stuck around Pine Gulch all these years,” he drawled. “I would have thought Tess Jamison couldn’t wait to shake the dust of podunk eastern Idaho off her designer boots.”

She smiled a little. “It’s Tess Claybourne now. And plans have a way of changing, don’t they?”

“I’m starting to figure that out.”

Curiosity stirred inside him. What had she been doing the past fifteen years? Why that hint of sadness in her eyes?

This was Tess, he reminded himself. He didn’t give a damn what she’d been up to, even if she looked hauntingly lovely in the low light of the kitchen.

“So you married old Scott, huh? What’s he up to? All that quarterback muscle probably turned to flab, right? Is he ranching with his dad?”

She pressed her lips into a thin line for just a moment, then gave him another of those tiny smiles, this one little more than a taut stretch of her mouth. “None of those things, I’m afraid. He died almost two years ago.”

Quinn gave an inward wince at his own tactlessness. Apparently nothing had changed. She had always brought out the worst in him.

“How?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, instead crossing to the coffeemaker he had assumed Easton must have forgotten to turn off. Now he realized she must have left a fresh pot for the hospice worker, since Tess seemed completely comfortable reaching in the cabinet for a cup and pouring.

“Pneumonia,” she finally answered as she added two packets of sweetener. “Scott died of pneumonia.”

“Really?” That seemed odd. He thought only old people and little kids could get that sick from pneumonia.

“He was…ill for a long time before that. His immune system was compromised and he couldn’t fight it off.”

Quinn wasn’t a complete ass, even when it came to this woman he despised so much. He forced himself to offer the appropriate condolences. “That must have been rough for you. Any kids?”

“No.”

This time she didn’t even bother to offer a tight smile, only stared into the murky liquid swirling in her cup and he thought again how surreal this was, standing in the Winder Ranch kitchen in the middle of the night having a conversation with her, when he had to fight down every impulse to snarl and yell and order her out of the house.

“Jo tells me you run some big shipping company in the Pacific Northwest,” she said after a moment.

“That’s right.” The third biggest in the region, but he was hoping that with the new batch of contracts he was negotiating Southerland Shipping would soon slide into the number two spot and move up from there.

“She’s so proud of you boys and Easton. She talks about you all the time.”

“Does she?” He wasn’t at all thrilled to think about Jo sharing with Tess any details of his life.

“Oh, yes. I’m sure she’s thrilled to have you home. That must be why she was sleeping so peacefully. She didn’t even wake when I checked her vitals, which is unusual. Jo’s usually a light sleeper.”

“How are they?”

“Excuse me?”

“Her vitals. How is she?”

He hated to ask, especially of Tess, but he was a man who dealt best with challenges when he gathered as much information as possible.

She took another sip of coffee then poured the rest down the sink and turned on the water to wash it down.

“Her blood pressure is still lower than we’d like to see and she’s needing oxygen more and more often. She tries to hide it but she’s in pain most of the time. I’m sorry. I wish I had something better to offer you.”