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

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СКАЧАТЬ me you’re not honestly thinking she could handle this!” he exclaimed. “It’s completely insane.”

      “Not completely, Quinn. Not if she wants to do it. Jo is right. This is her last harvest moon and if she wants to enjoy it from Windy Lake, I think she ought to have that opportunity. It seems a small enough thing to give her.”

      He opened his mouth to object, then closed it again. In his eyes, she saw worry and sorrow for the woman who had taken him in, given him a home, loved him.

      “It might be good for her,” Tess said gently.

      “And it might finish her off.” He said the words tightly, as if he didn’t want to let them out.

      “That’s her choice, though, isn’t it?”

      He took several deep breaths and she could see his struggle, something she faced often providing end-of-life care. On the one hand, he loved his foster mother and wanted to do everything he could to make her happy and comfortable and fulfill all her last wishes.

      On the other, he wanted to protect her and keep her around as long as he could.

      The effort to hold back her fierce urge to touch him, console him, almost overwhelmed her. She supposed she shouldn’t find it so surprising. She was a nurturer, which was why she went into nursing in the first place, long before she ever knew that Scott’s accident would test her caregiving skills and instincts to the limit.

      “You don’t have to take her, though, especially if you don’t feel it’s the right thing for her. I’ll see if I can talk her out of it,” she offered. She took a step toward the kitchen, but his voice stopped her.

      “Wait.”

      She turned back to find him pinching the skin at the bridge of his nose.

      “You’re right,” he said after a long moment, dropping his hand. “It’s her choice. She’s a grown woman, not a child. I can’t treat her like one, even if I do want to protect her from...the inevitable. If she wants this, I’ll find a way to make it happen.”

      The determination in his voice arrowed right to her heart and she smiled. “You’re a good son, Quinn. You’re just what Jo needs right now.”

      “You’re coming with us, to make sure she’s not overdoing things.”

      “Me?”

      “The only way I can agree to this insanity is if we have a medical expert close at hand, just in case.”

      “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

      “Why not? Can’t your other patients spare you?”

      That would have been a convenient excuse, but unfortunately in this case, she faced a slow night, with only Tess and two other patients, one who only required one quick check in the night, several hours away.

      “That’s not the issue,” she admitted.

      “What is it, then? Don’t you think she would be better off to have a nurse along?”

      “Maybe. Probably. But not necessarily this particular nurse.”

      “Why not?”

      “I’m not really much of a rider,” she confessed, with the same sense of shame as if she were admitting stealing heart medicine from little old ladies. Around Pine Gulch, she supposed the two crimes were roughly parallel in magnitude.

      “Really?”

      “My family lived in town and we never had horses,” she said, despising the defensive note in her voice. “I haven’t had a lot of experience.”

      She didn’t add that she had an irrational fear of them after being bucked off at a cousin’s house when she was seven, then later that summer she had seen a cowboy badly injured in a fall at an Independence Day rodeo. Since then, she had done her best to avoid equines whenever possible.

      “This is a pretty easy trail that takes less than an hour. You should be okay, don’t you think?”

      How could she possibly tell him she was terrified, especially after she had worked to persuade him it would be all right for Jo? She couldn’t, she decided. Better to take one for the team, for Jo’s sake.

      “Fine. You saddle the horses and I’ll get Jo ready.”

      Heaven help them all.

       CHAPTER SIX

      “LET ME KNOW if you need me to slow down,” Quinn said half an hour later to the frail woman who sat in front of him astride one of the biggest horses in the pasture, a rawboned roan gelding named Russ.

      She felt angular and thin in his arms, all pointed elbows and bony shoulders. But Tess had been right, she was ecstatic about being on horseback again, about being outside in the cold October night under the pines. Jo practically quivered with excitement, more alive and joyful than he had seen her since his return to Cold Creek.

      It smelled of fall in the mountains, of sun-warmed dirt, of smoke from a distant neighbor’s fire, of layers of fallen leaves from the scrub oak and aspens that dotted the mountainside.

      The moon hung heavy and full overhead, huge and glowing in the night and Suzy and Jack, Easton’s younger cow dogs, raced ahead of them. Chester probably would have enjoyed the adventure but Quinn had worried that, just like Jo, his old bones weren’t quite up to the journey.

      “This is perfect. Oh, Quinn, thank you, my dear. You have no idea the gift you’ve given me.”

      “You’re welcome,” he said gruffly, warmed despite his lingering worry.

      In truth, he didn’t know who was receiving the greater gift. This seemed a rare and precious time with Jo and he was certain he would remember forever the scents and the sounds of the night—of tack jingling on the horses and a great northern owl hooting somewhere in the forest and the night creatures that peeped and chattered around them.

      He glanced over his shoulder to where Tess rode behind them.

      Among the three of them, she seemed to be the one least enjoying the ride. She bounced along on one of the ranch’s most placid mares. Every once in a while, he looked back and the moonlight would illuminate a look of grave discomfort on her features. If he could see her hands in the darkness, he was quite certain they would be white-knuckled on the reins.

      He should be enjoying her misery, given his general dislike for the woman. Mostly he just felt guilty for dragging her along, though he had to admit to a small measure of glee to discover something she hadn’t completely mastered.

      In school, Tess had been the consummate perfectionist. She always had to be the first one finished with tests and assignments, she hated showing up anywhere with a hair out of place and she delighted in being the kind of annoying classmate who tended to screw up the curve for everybody else.

      Knowing she wasn’t an expert at everything made her seem a little more human, a little more approachable.

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