Back to Eden. Melinda Curtis

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СКАЧАТЬ Missy?” Cole finally asked the question she’d been dreading. “How is Missy?”

      Rachel’s throat closed as she recognized the expression in Cole’s blue eyes—hope. She’d thought she’d loved this man at one time. Later, she’d realized it had been a foolish teenager’s crush. But it was clear that he was still in love with Missy, the woman he’d slept with just hours before her marriage to another man, and then left alone to face the consequences. And then there was what he’d done five years ago.

      Rachel was such a sentimental fool.

      “She’s dead,” Rachel managed to tell him, holding her heart together by willpower alone as she waited for Cole to say he’d wondered why Missy hadn’t shown up on his doorstep five years ago, waited for him to explain why he’d never called to see what had become of her.

      Instead Cole swayed as if he might be felled by the heartbreaking news that Rachel had been living with for what seemed like an eternity.

      Rachel frowned.

      “I had no idea.” His gaze wandered around, from the latrines to the chow line to the trucks rumbling out of camp. Then his attention swung back to her. “When?”

      Rachel tried to hide her confusion. How could Cole have forgotten? He had to have known. “Five years ago.” Although the vibrant spark that had once been Missy had been extinguished on her wedding day and none of Rachel’s efforts had rekindled that flame. “Car accident. We lost her.” Rachel’s voice sounded distant, as if someone else was speaking, someone who hadn’t known Missy and somehow failed her.

      Rachel wouldn’t fail Missy now. She wouldn’t tell Cole the secrets pressing at the back of her throat, the most pressing of which was that he’d created a beautiful little girl on the eve of Missy’s wedding to Lyle.

      Rachel had made her sister a promise, and she was sticking to it.

      “IF YOU LOVED ME, you’d stay with me here in Eden. I can’t leave Rachel.” Missy’s voice had been filled with an aching sadness, as if she’d known her fate was sealed if Cole left her.

      What had Cole done?

      “Chainsaw, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” Jackson observed as he parked his booted feet near Cole’s.

      Cole squinted up into the sunset to find Jackson and Logan regarding him.

      After hearing the devastating news, Cole had staggered over to the latrines where he’d tried to decide if he was going to puke or not. Minutes later, with his friends standing in front of him, Cole still wasn’t sure.

      Missy was dead.

      He wiped a hand over his face. He’d always believed she was The One—the woman he was meant to be with. All she’d had to do was touch him and he’d combusted. She’d given him an ultimatum that last morning he’d seen her, either settle down in Eden or leave her be. There was nothing for him in Eden—no family since his had moved to Idaho, and there sure as hell weren’t any jobs in the dying town. In the heat of anger, he’d told Missy he’d wait for her through her foolish marriage. He’d told Missy he’d wait until she grew up and realized they were destined to be together.

      And he had waited, living as if he’d had a marriage vow to honor, knowing she’d come back to him someday.

      Only to find out Missy was dead.

      “I, uh…” Cole struggled to find the words to tell his friends what had blindsided him. “I just heard that…Missy is dead.”

      Without a word they sat on either side of him on the hard-packed Montana earth.

      Jackson put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. How did you hear?”

      “Her little sister told me a few minutes ago.” Rachel had looked just the same as the picture he carried in his wallet—a stubborn lift to her chin, wisps of long black hair escaping from her ponytail, slender as a reed, wearing cowboy boots, scruffy blue jeans and a T-shirt. If it wasn’t for the way she filled out her T-shirt, she’d have tomboy written all over her.

      What Rachel didn’t have written all over her was grief, because she’d had five years to come to terms with her sister’s death. All Cole’s dreams—

      “Missy’s sister?” Logan broke into Cole’s thoughts, leaning forward and looking at Jackson, then at Cole. “The little girl who rebuilt your truck engine before she had a license to drive it? The one who beat you in a bareback horse race?”

      “Logan.” Jackson held up a hand in Logan’s direction.

      “Yeah. She’s a tanker pilot. I should have known she’d end up doing something crazy, especially with Missy gone….” Cole stared down at his boots. Rachel was no longer a little girl. She was a woman who’d never outgrown the daredevil spirit that he’d been sure Missy would temper as they aged. Crap. He still couldn’t believe Missy was long dead. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “Maybe after we finish here, we can take a run over to Wyoming and pay our respects,” Jackson suggested softly.

      Cole shook his head slowly, in wonder. “You didn’t even know her.”

      “No, but we know you, buddy, and even if you’re not ready to talk about it, we’ll be there for you when you are.”

      “LAST RUN OF THE DAY,” Rachel said as Danny landed Fire Angel One. They’d done nothing more exciting than drop retardant around the fire all day long. The fire had died down, so that there were no flames raging out of control and no firefighters trapped and in need of rescue. Very ho-hum.

      “Last run of the season,” Danny corrected wistfully as he taxied the Privateer to the retardant base.

      Despite the shift in winds this afternoon, the dragon appeared to be contained, and they’d been ordered to drop one last load of slurry on the steep eastern slope near the road before refueling and heading home to Wyoming. A season of flying was over.

      Rachel sighed. At least she wouldn’t have to see Cole again.

      In their passes over the fire, she’d caught glimpses of the crews below, bolstering the last of the fire lines before this beast burned itself out. She couldn’t help but wonder if Cole was one of them, if he looked to the sky as she flew over. How was Cole handling the news about Missy? Rachel had dreaded meeting Cole again. She had so much to blame him for. Even though she’d idolized him all those years ago, Cole Hudson never looked before he leaped, and that had contributed to Missy’s downward spiral and death. After so much time, Rachel had thought he’d shrug, offer his condolences and move on, but he’d appeared shaken.

      Beside a shed on the edge of the runway, boots in puddles of red muck, the ground crew stood ready with hoses that would pump another twenty-five hundred gallons of fire-smothering slurry into the belly of the Privateer. Originally a long-range Navy patrol bomber built for World War II, Fire Angel One had been stripped clean to make room for the massive tank that had been riveted within the plane’s belly.

      Without waiting for Danny to cut the engines, the ground crew approached, each dragging a hose and looking like aliens from the red planet, because their clothing, hats, goggles, gloves and masks were covered with a sticky glaze of crimson slurry. СКАЧАТЬ