Evergreen Springs

HE TRULY DETESTED HOSPITALS.

Cole shifted in the uncomfortable chair, his gaze on the little Christmas tree in the corner with its colorful lights and garland made out of rolled bandages.

Given the setting and the time of year, it was hard not to flash back to that miserable Christmas he was eleven, when his mother lay dying. That last week of her life, Stan had taken him and Tricia to the hospital just about every evening. They would sit in the waiting room near a pitiful little Christmas tree like this one and do homework or read or just gaze out the window at the falling snow in the moonlight, scared and sad and a little numb after months of their mother’s chemotherapy and radiation.

He pushed away the memory, especially of all that came after, choosing instead to focus on the two good things that had come from hospitals: his kids, though he had only been there for Jazmyn’s birth.

He could still remember walking through the halls and wanting to stop everybody there and share a drink with them and tell them about his beautiful new baby girl.

Emphasis on the part about sharing a drink. He sighed. By the time Sharla went into labor with Ty, things had been so terrible between them that she hadn’t even told him the kid was on the way.

“I’m bored,” the kid in question announced. “There’s nothing to do.”

Cole pointed to the small flat-screen TV hanging on the wall, showing some kind of talking heads on a muted news program. “Want to watch something? I’m sure we could find the remote somewhere. I can ask at the desk.”

“I bet there’s nothing on.” Jazmyn slumped in her seat.

“Let’s take a look. Maybe we could find a Christmas special or something.”

Neither kid looked particularly enthusiastic but he headed over to the reception desk in search of a remote.

The woman behind the desk was a cute, curvy blonde with a friendly smile. Her name badge read Brittney and she had been watching him from under her fake eyelashes since he had filled out his sister’s paperwork.

“Hi. Can I help you?” she asked.

“Hi, Brittney. I wonder if we can use the TV remote. My kids are getting a little restless.”

“Oh. Sure. No prob.” Her smile widened with a flirtatious look in her eyes. He’d like to think he was imagining it but he’d seen that look too many times from buckle bunnies on the rodeo circuit to mistake it for anything else.

He shifted, feeling self-conscious. A handful of years ago, he would have taken her up on the unspoken invitation in those big blue eyes. He would have done his best to tease out her phone number or would have made arrangements with her to meet up for a drink when her shift was over.

He might even have found a way to slip away with her on her next break to make out in a stairwell somewhere.

Though he had been a long, long time without a woman, he did his best to ignore the look. He hated the man he used to be and anything that reminded him of it.

“Thanks,” he said stiffly when she handed over the remote. He took it from her and headed back to the kids.

“Here we go. Let’s see what we can find.”

He didn’t have high hopes of finding a kids’ show on at 7:00 p.m. on a Friday night but he was pleasantly surprised when the next click of the remote landed them on what looked like a stop-action animated holiday show featuring an elf, a snowman and a reindeer wearing a cowboy hat.

“How’s this?” he asked.

“Okay,” Ty said, agreeable as always.

“Looks like a little kids’ show,” Jazmyn said with a sniff but he noticed that after about two seconds, she was as interested in the action as her younger brother.

Jaz was quite a character, bossy and opinionated and domineering to her little brother and everyone else. How could he blame her for those sometimes annoying traits, which she had likely developed from being forced into little-mother mode for her brother most of the time and even for their mother if Sharla was going through a rough patch?

He leaned back in the chair and wished he had a cowboy hat like the reindeer so he could yank it down over his face, stretch out his boots and take a rest for five freaking minutes.

Between the ranch and the kids and now Tricia, he felt stretched to the breaking point.

Tricia. What was he supposed to do with her? A few weeks ago, he thought she was only coming for Thanksgiving. The kids, still lost and grieving and trying to settle into their new routine with him, showed unusual excitement at the idea of seeing their aunt from California, the one who showered them with presents and cards.

She had assured him her doctor said she was fine to travel. Over their Skype conversation, she had given him a bright smile and told him she wanted to come out while she still could. Her husband was on a business trip, she told him, and she didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving on her own.

How the hell was he supposed to have figured out she was running away?

He sighed. His life had seemed so much less complicated two months ago.

He couldn’t say it had ever been uncomplicated, but he had found a groove the past few years. His world consisted of the ranch, his child support payments, regular check-ins with his parole officer and the biweekly phone calls and occasional visits to wherever Sharla in her wanderlust called home that week so he could stay in touch with his kids.

He had tried to keep his head down and throw everything he had into making Evergreen Springs and his horse training operation a success, to create as much order as he could out of the chaos his selfish and stupid mistakes had caused.

Two months ago, everything had changed. First had come a call from his ex-wife. She and her current boyfriend were heading to Reno for a week to get married—her second since their stormy marriage ended just months after Ty’s birth—and Sharla wanted him to meet her in Boise so he could pick up the kids.

Forget that both kids had school or that Cole was supposed to be at a horse show in Denver that weekend.

He had dropped everything, relishing the rare chance to be with his kids without more of Sharla’s drama. He had wished his ex-wife well, shook hands with the new guy—who actually had seemed like a decent sort, for a change—and sent them on their way.

Only a few days later, he received a second phone call, one that would alter his life forever.

He almost hadn’t been able to understand Sharla’s mother, Trixie, when she called. In between all the sobbing and wailing and carrying on, he figured out the tragic and stunning news that the newlyweds had been killed after their car slid out of control during an early snowstorm while crossing the Sierra Nevada.

In a moment, everything changed. For years, Cole had been fighting for primary custody, trying to convince judge after judge that their mother’s flighty, unstable lifestyle and periodic substance abuse provided a terrible environment for the children.

The only trouble was, Cole had plenty of baggage of his own. An ex-con former alcoholic didn’t exactly have the sturdiest leg to stand on when it came to being granted custody of two young children, no matter how much he had tried to rebuild his life and keep his nose out of trouble in recent years.

Sharla’s tragic death changed everything and Cole now had full custody of his children as the surviving parent.

It hadn’t been an easy transition for any of them, complicated by the fact that he’d gone through two housekeepers in as many months.

Now he had his sister to take care of. Whether her ankle was broken or sprained, the result would be more domestic chaos.

He would figure it out. He always did, right? What other choice did he have?

He picked up a National Geographic and tried to find something to read to keep himself awake. He was deep in his third article and the kids on to their second Christmas special before the lovely doctor returned.

She was every bit as young as he had thought at first, pretty and petite with midlength auburn hair, green eyes that were slightly almond shaped and porcelain skin. She even had a little smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Surely she was too young to be in such a responsible position.

He rose, worry for his sister crowding out everything else.

“How is she? Is her ankle broken? How are the babies?”

“You were right to bring her in. I’m sorry things have been taking so long. It must be almost the children’s bedtime.”

“They’re doing okay for now. How is Tricia?”