The Pines Of Winder Ranch. RaeAnne Thayne

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      Still, she approached Winder Ranch for her midnight check on Jo with a certain amount of trepidation. To her relief, when she unlocked the door with the key Easton had given her and walked inside, the house was dark. Quinn was nowhere in sight, but she could still sense his presence in the house.

      Jo didn’t stir when Tess entered her room, which worried her for a moment until she saw the steady rise and fall of the blankets by the glow of the small light in the attached bathroom that Jo and Easton left on for the hospice nurses.

      The ride up to the lake must have completely exhausted her. She didn’t even wake when Tess checked her vitals and gave her medicine through the central IV line that had been placed after her last hospitalization.

      When she was done with the visit, she closed the door quietly behind her and turned to go, then became aware that someone else was in the darkened hallway. Her heart gave a quick, hard kick, then she realized it was Easton.

      She wasn’t sure if that sensation coursing through her was more disappointment or relief.

      “I hope I didn’t wake you,” Tess said.

      The other woman’s sleek blond ponytail moved as she shook her head. “I’ve still got some pesky accounts to finish. I was in the office working on the computer and heard the door open.”

      “I tried to be quiet. Sorry about that.” She smiled at her friend. “But then, Jo didn’t even wake up so I couldn’t have been too loud.”

      “You weren’t. I’m just restless tonight.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      Easton shrugged. “It sometimes knocks me on my butt if I think about what things will be like in a month or so. I’m trying to get as much done now on ranch paperwork so I have time to...to grieve.”

      Tess placed a comforting hand on her arm and Easton smiled, making a visible effort to push away her sadness. “Quinn told me about your adventure tonight,” she said.

      Tess made a rueful face. “I’m nowhere near the horsewoman you are. I felt like an idiot up there, but at least I didn’t fall off.”

      “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.

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