A Cold Creek Baby

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He hadn’t ridden for a while. Opportunities to find himself on horseback were few and far between in the dark world where he usually hung out. Probably the last time he’d ridden had been after Jo died and he took one of the horses deep into the backcountry for a couple of days of solitude, not trusting himself around Easton. He hadn’t been at all sure he was strong enough to avoid a replay of what happened when Guff died, so he’d gone far enough into the wilderness where he figured no one could find him.

  He picked Russ, his favorite, an easygoing but powerful bay gelding, and a short time later, the two of them were following the trail Easton had taken.

  Cisco quickly fell back into the rhythm of the saddle. He had missed this. He would probably enjoy it much more if he wasn’t so worried about her, but even so, few pleasures in his life compared to riding up a sun-drenched trail with only the sounds of twittering birds, the jangle of tack, the rustle of the wind in the pines.

  He followed the fork in the trail toward the upper pasture. Sandbags had been piled in a neat pyramid along the banks of the fast-moving creek and they seemed to be holding in the swift-flowing waters, from what he could tell.

  No sign of Easton, though. He quickly scanned the area and saw no sign of life except for a couple of ground squirrels that bravely scampered along the new ridge created by all those sandbags.

  He supposed he hadn’t really expected to find her here. With a strong sense of inevitability, he wheeled Russ around and returned to the spot where the trail forked. Sure enough, now that he was looking for it, he saw clear evidence of horse’s hooves in the mud leading in the other direction, farther up the narrow canyon.

  He knew where she was going. It seemed unavoidable, inescapable.

  Where else would it be? The trail led straight to Windy Lake and on the far bank of the lake was a small shelter he and his foster brothers built years ago for their frequent late-night fishing trips on the edge of Winder Ranch property.

  When he was troubled or upset, he always escaped to the same place. When Guff died, this was where he had run.

  And where she had found him.

  The lake was only a mile or so from the house. When it came into view, long and silvery in the sunlight, the wild and restless beast that always seemed to prowl inside him sighed and settled.

  He saw more evidence her horse had been this way, but he couldn’t immediately see Easton or Lucky. He shaded his eyes with his hand and scanned the area for signs of life. He finally spotted the gray standing, reins dangling, in the tall grasses and spring wildflowers of the meadow near a thick stand of aspens.

  His heart jumped. Her horse was there but where was Easton? Had she fallen? Was she hurt? In panic mode, he spurred Russ to a fast trot toward the other horse. He wouldn’t survive if something happened to her. She had to be okay.

  Jack raced toward them with two sharp barks, as if warning him to stay away, which only made him more concerned. Only when he and his mount reached the other horse’s side did he finally see Easton.

  Relief flooded through him like that spring runoff soaking the land.

  She didn’t appear to be hurt. She was perched in a snow crook of one of the quaking aspens, a natural bench formed decades ago when the tree was young, when it must have been bent horizontal by heavy snows yet didn’t break under the burden. He had always found it fascinating how those damaged trees maintained their crooked shape before zigzagging up to grow vertically once more.

  She had been weeping. He could see the traces of it on her cheeks, in the redness of her eyes.

  “Why did you follow me?” she said, her voice resigned. “I would think you, of all people, would be able to recognize when someone wants to be alone.”

  He scratched his cheek, acknowledging the truth of that. He had always been fiercely protective of those moments when he needed to escape the world. “Sorry, but I was worried about you. I didn’t want you to be alone when you were so upset.”

  “I wasn’t alone. I had Jack and Lucky.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She picked at the bark of the aspen and didn’t meet his gaze. “I spend most of my life alone, Cisco, now that Jo’s gone. I’m pretty used to my own company.”

  He frowned. She should be married by now and filling the house with children of her own. She deserved a happily-ever-after, even if the thought of it seemed to shred his insides with jagged claws.

  He was a selfish bastard. He wanted her to be happy, but he couldn’t bear the thought of her being happy with someone else. This time he was the one who looked away and his gaze fell on a small bouquet of wildflowers she must have gathered—buttercups, trillium, camas, wild ginger. They rested at the base of another tree near the snow crook where she sat.

  Higher up the pale aspen trunk, he had a vague impression of some sort of writing on the tree but he couldn’t quite make out the words.

  “What is this?” he asked, moving a little closer.

  Something that looked suspiciously like panic flickered in her eyes and she slid down and moved in front of the trunk.

  “Nothing. Just a tree,” she said quickly. “There are still fly rods in the shelter if you want to use them.”

  As a diversionary tactic, it might have been a good one if not for his aching wound, which was currently making him question the wisdom of taking a horse on a winding mountain trail while he was still very much in recovery mode.

  “Did you carve in the tree?” He tried to look around her. “Guff would have had your hide. You know how he used to lecture us about respecting the forest, about how carving initials in a trunk might last for generations but it can also introduce bacteria and can kill an otherwise healthy tree.”

  She said nothing, only continued to gaze at him with a look almost of defiance in her eyes.

  “What is it?” he pressed her. “It looks like a memorial or something. Is it for Jo and Guff.”

  “Go away, Cisco. I don’t want you here.”

  Her words hurt far worse than any thug’s knife, though he knew they shouldn’t. He wasn’t part of her life. He had made sure of that. Could he blame her now if she preferred to push him away?

  He almost acquiesced, almost climbed back on Russ and wheeled around back down the mountainside. But something pushed him to uncover her secrets. Somehow he sensed this tree was part of the mystery surrounding Easton, the sadness she couldn’t always hide.

  “Let me see.”

  “No.”

  “Come on, move.”

  For a long moment, she gazed at him, her eyes hollow and her features strangely motionless. Jack whined as if sensing the sudden tension. Then, just when Cisco was wondering if he wanted to push the matter enough to physically lift her out of the way, she finally stepped aside.

  He took another step toward the tree and saw that she hadn’t carved the words on a tree but on a small brass plaque mounted to the trunk.

  Chance del Norte.

  March 1, 2005.

  My heart.

  Everything inside him went still, a vast frozen wasteland.

  “What is this?”

  She said nothing, only reached down to scratch her dog’s ears, not looking at him.

  “Easton. Talk to me, damn it. Who is Chance del Norte?”

  She looked extraordinarily beautiful, fragile and soft like a beam of sunlight, but when she lifted her gaze, her eyes were drenched with pain.

  “Our son,” she finally whispered.

  His knees literally went weak, something he thought only happened in books and movies. He could feel the strength leave every muscle in his legs and he had to grip the rough, curling trunk of the aspen for support.

  “Our…son?”

  She nodded. “He had dark hair, lots of it, and a little dimple in his chin. I think he would have looked just like you.”

  “Our son.”

  How could it be possible? He thought of the one night they had spent together in the shelter beside Windy Lake, just a hundred yards away from h
ere, when they had turned to each other in their shared grief over Guff’s death.

  He had used a condom. He remembered that much.

  At least the first time…

  He closed his eyes as he suddenly recalled turning to her in the night and the heat and passion that had flared between them again.

  She had immediately fallen asleep in his arms, her muscles lax and each breath a tiny stir against his skin. But he hadn’t been able to close his eyes against the slick guilt writhing through him. He knew he had taken advantage of her. She had been sweetly innocent and he had used her, just like he used everyone else.

  He drew in a ragged breath. “East. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Her mouth wobbled a little, then tightened. “How was I supposed to do that?” She spoke in a low voice that damned him with every word. “You left in the morning before I was even awake. It was obvious you couldn’t stand to be near me anymore.”

  No. Oh no. How could she even think that? He had held her as the sky began to turn pink with dawn and had known he couldn’t stay. They had no future together. She was sweet and innocent, generous and giving. After five years embroiled in his world of lies and betrayals after he was recruited, he couldn’t even endure his own company, forget about asking her to do the same.

  “Not true,” he growled. “It wasn’t you.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “I wanted to tell you. I would have, if I’d known how to reach you. For months after, even Jo didn’t know where you were.”

  He had been deep undercover at the time and had barely managed to squeeze away for Guff’s funeral. Afterward, he had buried himself in work again to forget his grief for his foster father and then his guilt over Easton and what he had done.

  None of this seemed real and he couldn’t seem to work his brain around it. They had a child together. A son.

  “Why didn’t Jo tell me? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “Nobody else knew.”

  She sighed and sat on the snow crook again, gazing at the lake that bubbled and danced in the breeze.

  “Remember when I took that job with the cattlemen’s association in Denver? I knew I couldn’t stay here. Jo would have loved me and the baby and she would have…understood. But I wasn’t sure about Brant and Quinn.”

  His foster brothers would have killed him for hurting Easton. No, they would have carved him into a thousand tiny pieces and then they would have killed him.

  “So you thought you were protecting me?”

  “No. I thought I was doing what was best for my…for my baby.”

  Questions swirled around inside his head. He couldn’t seem to focus on any of them. He slid to the ground and leaned back against the aspen trunk.

  “I don’t understand any of this, East. What happened? Was he…did someone adopt him?”

  Her expression wobbled again and a tiny tear trickled down the side of her slim nose and suddenly he didn’t want to hear the rest. He wanted to bury his face in his hands and pretend none of this was happening. Had happened.

  She didn’t answer for a long time. When she did, her voice was low, subdued. “I looked into adoption. But in the end, I couldn’t do it. He was part of… I just couldn’t. I loved him already.”

  She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “He was…When I was eight months along, he stopped moving. It was a few hours before I realized it and…by the time I made it to the hospital, he was already gone. They induced labor but…it was too late.”

  His gut twisted and he raked a hand through his hair, devastated to think of Easton having to go through all this by herself.

  “I named him Chance, even though he never really had one.” Her voice was a little stronger now, but he still heard the grief threading through her words. “He’s buried in Denver. I would have liked to bring him home to Pine Gulch, but I didn’t know how without telling Jo and the others everything.”

  “And this?” he gestured to the plaque.

  “After I came home, I needed somewhere I could come to remember him and those months when I carried him and…and loved him.” She gave a ghost of a smile. “I think Guff would have forgiven me for borrowing a tree.”

  He wanted to go to her, to pull her into his arms and hold her close while he tried to absorb the shock and the pain and hurt raging through him.

  He didn’t know what to do with all these emotions, so he focused on the anger. “You’ve seen me since then. Maybe not often but sometimes. You should have told me. I had a right to know. How could you keep this from me, all these years?”

  She inhaled sharply and rose to stand over him, her eyes glittering. “When you’ve carried a child by yourself for eight months, then labored for six hours to deliver a baby you already know is dead, you can lecture me about what I should and shouldn’t have done.”

  “Easton…”

  She stalked away from him toward her horse. He climbed to his feet and stood frozen for just a moment before he went after her, grabbing her hand before she could swing herself into the saddle.

  “I’m sorry. This is… I never in a million years could have imagined this. You never said a single word, all this time. Can you blame me for being shocked? You’ve had five years. I’ve had five minutes to adjust to the fact that I’ve lost a son I never even knew I had.”

  She released a shuddering little breath and then turned back to him. Her body was tight and angry, but he thought he saw a slight softening in her eyes.

  “Do you want to know why I didn’t tell you?”

  He nodded.

  “Everything was already different between us after that night. Whenever you did come back, you couldn’t even stand to look at me. I was afraid to tell you about Chance. If I did, I thought you might never come back, and Jo…Jo needed you here as much as possible while she was sick.”

  “East. It wasn’t you,” he repeated. “I couldn’t risk being near you because I didn’t trust myself. I’ve known something was wrong all these years. I was just afraid to push because I assumed you were angry with me.”

  Could he feel any more selfish? She had been hurting, carrying this immense burden by herself, and he had focused only on himself and his own guilt. “I’m so sorry, Easton.”

  He couldn’t bear this space between them another moment. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, half fearing she would push him away and he would have to let her.

  She stood frozen for a moment in his arms and then she let out a gasping sob and then another and he felt her slender frame shake and her arms wrap tightly around his waist.

  He pressed his face to the soft, sweet curve of her neck and absorbed her sobs inside him. They stood wrapped together for a long time while the horses nickered softly in the distance and the breeze whispered through the aspens.

  When he finally lifted his face, he knew something fundamental had changed between them.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t know,” he said hoarsely. “I’m so sorry you went through that by yourself. I wish you had told me.”

  She shifted so she could meet his gaze. “What would you have done? If I had been able to contact you when I first found out I was pregnant, would you have come back?”

  The question hung between them, stark and unadorned. He didn’t know how to answer. He thought of the dark and ugly place he had been in his life back then, the difficult choices he had been forced to make.

  “Would you have wanted me to?” he asked, instead of giving her a direct answer.

  Her mouth trembled. “Yes. I wanted you here every single moment of every day. I still do.”

  He stared at her, stunned by her vehemence. He didn’t know what to say and so he did the only thing he could think of. He slid his arms around her and pulled her close.

  Chapter Ten

  She seemed too slight and fragile in his arms, as if the tiniest breath might shatter her into tiny shards.

  He knew it was an illusion. She wasn’t fragile. She was the toughest woman he knew. She ran the ent
ire ranch by herself, gave orders to the men, could drive a massive John Deere with her eyes closed.

  And she had endured more pain than he could imagine. His throat felt tight and achy when he thought of her going through a pregnancy alone, away from everyone she loved and everything she knew.

  He could picture her swelling with his child, talking to him, singing to him.

  Loving him.

  She must have been lonely as hell—not to mention scared to death—living in Denver by herself. He couldn’t believe she had kept her pregnancy a complete secret to everyone and hadn’t even told Jo.

  He could have spared her that. If he hadn’t run off like an idiot, so full of himself and what he was doing, he might have spared a minute or two to think about the consequences of their night together.

  And then she had to endure the ultimate pain of losing their child by herself, while he was off wading through muck and misery, trying to save the world.

  Would he ever be able to live with the guilt of that? Probably not. The only thing he could do now was offer what comfort he could provide, which seemed pitifully meager. He pressed his forehead to hers, his heart aching with the weight of a torrent of emotions: sadness, tenderness, the overwhelming rightness of being here with her.

  Maybe he would have been content with that, with holding her close in shared sorrow for their child. But she brushed her lips against his, once, twice, then again.

  It seemed unbearably sweet to stand here kissing her with the mountain air shivering between them.

  They stood that way for a long time wrapped together, the kiss slow and easy. Her arms twisted around his neck and she leaned closer to him. He could feel her lithe curves against him. His body stirred and he was suddenly painfully reminded of the heat that always simmered inside him when she was near.

  He couldn’t help it, he deepened the kiss, dancing his tongue along the seam of her mouth. She froze for just a heartbeat before she opened for him and leaned into his kiss.