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.
For the next few minutes, he watched her draw medicine out into syringes, then she quietly began checking Jo's blood pressure and temperature.
Though her movements were slow and careful, Jo still opened her eyes when Tess put the blood pressure cuff on her leg.
"I'm so sorry to wake you. I wish I didn't have to," Tess murmured.
"Oh, poof," Jo whispered back. "Don't you worry for a single moment about doing your job."
"How is your pain level?"
Jo was silent. "I'm not going to tell you," she finally said. "You'll just write it down in your little chart and the next thing I know, Jake Dalton will be increasing my meds and I'll be so drugged out I won't be able to think straight. My Brant is coming home. Should be any day now."
As Jo whispered to her, Tess continued to slant careful looks in his direction.
"Easton told me earlier that he was on his way," she said in an undertone.
"They'll be good for Easton. The four of them, why, they were thicker than thieves. I can't tell you how glad I am they'll still have each other."
Quinn swallowed hard, hating this whole situation all over again.
Tess smiled, relentlessly cheerful. "It's a blessing, all right. For all of them and especially for your peace of mind."
He listened to their quiet conversation as Tess continued to take care of Jo's medical needs. He was still trying to figure out how much of her demeanor he was buying. She seemed to be everything that was patient and calm, a serene island in the middle of a stormy emotional mess. Was it truly possible that this dramatic change in her could be genuine?
He supposed he was a cynical bastard but he couldn't quite believe it. This could all be one big show she was putting on. He had only been here a few days. If he stuck around long enough, she was likely to revert to her true colors.
On the other hand, people could change. He was living testimony to that. He was worlds away from the bitter, hot-tempered punk he'd been when he arrived at the Winders' doorstep after a year in foster care and the misery that came before.
He pushed away the past, preferring instead to focus on today.
Tess finished with Jo a few moments later. After fluffing her pillow and tucking the blankets up around her, she dimmed the light in the bathroom again and moved quietly toward the door out into the hallway.
He rose and followed her, careful not to disturb Jo, who seemed to have easily slipped into sleep again.
"I'll walk you out," he said, his voice low, just as she reached the door.
She whirled and splayed a hand across her chest. She glared at him as she moved out of the room to the hallway. He followed her and closed the door behind him.
"Don't do that! That's the second time you've nearly scared the life out of me. How long have you been awake?"
"Not long. Here, let me help you with your coat."
He took it off the chair in the hallway where she had tossed it and stood behind her. Her scent teased him, that delectable peach and vanilla, that somehow seemed sweet and sultry at the same time, like a hot Southern night.
She paused for a moment, then extended her arm through the sleeve. "Thank you," she said and he wondered if he was imagining the slightly husky note to her voice.
"You're welcome."
"You really don't need to walk me out, though. I'm sure I can find the way to my car by myself."
"I could use the fresh air, to be honest with you."
She looked as if she wanted to argue but she only shrugged and turned toward the door. He held it open for her and again smelled that seductive scent as she moved past him on her way out.
The scent seemed to curl through him, twisting and tugging an unwelcome response out of him, which he did his best to ignore as they walked out into the night.
The moon hung huge over the western mountains now, the stars a bright glitter out here unlike anything to be found in the city.
The October night wasn't just cool now in the early morning hours, it was downright cold. This time of year, temperatures in these high mountain valleys could show a wide range in the course of a single day. Nights were invariably cool, even in summer. In spring and fall, the temperature dropped quickly once the sun went down.
His morning spent in the garden soaking up sunshine with Jo seemed only another distant memory.
"Gorgeous night, isn't it?" Tess said. "I don't ever get tired of the view out here."
He nodded. "I've lived without it since I left Cold Creek Canyon, but something about it stays inside me even when I'm back in Seattle."
She smiled a little. "I know I'm going to miss these mountains when I move to Portland in a few weeks."
"What's in Portland?" he asked, curious as to why she would pick up and leave after her lifetime spent here.
"A pretty good basketball team," she answered. "Lots of trees and flowers. Nice people, from what I hear."
"You know what I mean. Why are you leaving?"
She was silent for a moment, the only sound the wind whispering through the trees. "A whole truckload of reasons. Mostly, I guess, because I'm ready for a new start."
He could understand that. He had sought the same thing in the Air Force after leaving Pine Gulch, hadn't he? A place where no one knew his history in the foster-care system or as the rough-edged punk who had found a home here with Jo and Guff.
"Will you be doing the same thing? Providing end-of-life care?"
She smiled and in the moonlight, she looked fresh and lovely and very much like the teenage cheerleader who had tangled the hormones of every boy who walked the halls of Pine Gulch High School.
"Just the opposite, actually. I took a job in labor and delivery at one of the Portland hospitals."
"Bringing life into the world instead of comforting those who are leaving it. There's a certain symmetry to that."
"I think so, too. It's all part of my brand-new start."
"I suppose everybody could use that once in a while."
"True enough," she murmured, with an unreadable look in her eyes.
"Will you miss this?"
"Pine Gulch?"
"I was thinking more of the work you do. You seem…very good at it. Do you give this same level to all your patients as you have to Jo?"
She looked startled at the question, though he wasn't sure if was because she had never thought about it before or that she was surprised he had noticed.
"I try. Everyone deserves to spend his or her last days with dignity and respect. But Jo is special. I can't deny that. She used to give me piano lessons when I was young and I've always adored her."
Now it was his turn to be surprised. Jo taught piano lessons for many years to most of the young people in Pine Gulch but he had never realized Tess had once had the privilege of being one of her students.
"Do you still play?"
She laughed. "I hardly played then. I was awful. Probably the worst student Jo ever had, though she tried her best, believe me. But yes, I still play a little. I enjoy it much more as an adult than I did when I was ten."
She paused for a moment, then gave a rueful smile. "When he was…upset or having a bad day, Scott used to enjoy when I would play for him. It cal
med him. I've had more practice than I ever expected over the years."
"You should play for Jo sometime when you come out to the house. She gets a real kick out of hearing her old students play. Especially the hard ones."
"Maybe. I'm worried her hearing is a little too fragile for my fumbling attempts." She smiled. "What about you? Did Jo give you lessons after you moved here?"
He gave a short laugh at the memory. "She tried. I'm sure I could have taught you a thing or two about being difficult."
"I don't doubt that for a moment," she murmured.
She gazed at him for a moment, then she shifted her gaze up and he could swear he saw a million constellations reflected in her eyes.
"Look!" she exclaimed. "A shooting star, right over the top of Windy Peak. Quick, make a wish."
He tilted his neck to look in the direction she pointed. "Probably just a satellite."
She glared at him. "Don't ruin it. I'm making a wish anyway."
With her eyes screwed closed, she pursed her mouth in concentration. "There," she said after a moment. "That should do it."
She opened her eyes and smiled softly at him and he forgot all about the cold night air. All he could focus on was that smile, that mouth, and the sudden wild hunger inside him to taste it.
"What did you wish?" he asked, a gruff note to his voice.
She made a face. "If I tell you, it won't come true. Don't you know anything about wishes?"
Right now, he could tell her a thing or two about wanting something he shouldn't. That sensuous heat wrapped tighter around his insides. "I know enough. I know sometimes wishes can be completely ridiculous and make no sense. For instance, right now, I wish I could kiss you. Don't ask me why. I don't even like you."
Her eyes looked huge and green in her delicate face as she stared at him. "Okay," she said, her voice breathy.
"Okay, I can kiss you? Or, okay, you won't ask why I want to?"
She let out a ragged-sounding breath. "Either. Both."
He didn't need much more of an invitation than that. Without allowing himself to stop and think through the insanity of kissing a woman he had detested twenty-four hours earlier, Quinn stepped forward and covered her mouth with his.
Chapter Eight
She gave a little gasp of shock but her mouth was warm and inviting in the cold air and he was vaguely aware through the haze of his own desire that she didn't pull away, as he might have expected.
Instead, she wrapped her arm around his waist and leaned into his kiss for more.
A low clamor in his brain warned him this was a crazy idea, that he would have a much harder time keeping a safe distance between them after he had known the silky softness of her mouth, but he ignored it.
How could he possibly step away now, when she tasted like coffee and peaches and Tess, a delectable combination that sizzled through him like heat lightning?
Her lips parted slightly, all the invitation he needed to deepen the kiss. She moaned a little against his mouth and he could feel the tremble of her body against him, the confused desire in the slide of her tongue against his.
The night disappeared until it was only the two of them, until he was lost in the unexpected hunger for this woman in his arms. Her kiss offered solace and surrender, a chance to put away for a moment his sadness and embrace the wonder of life in all its tragedy and glory.
He lost track of time there in the moonlight. He forgot about Jo and about his efforts to find his recalcitrant foster brother and his worries for Easton. He especially refused to let himself remember all the reasons he shouldn't be kissing her—how, as he'd told her, he wasn't even sure he liked her, how he still didn't trust that she wasn't hiding a knife behind her back, ready to gut him with it at the first chance.
The only thing that mattered for this instant was Tess and how very perfect she felt in his arms, with her mouth eager and warm against his.
A coyote howled from far off in the distance, long and mournful. He heard it on the edge of his consciousness but he knew the instant the spell between them shattered and Tess returned to reality. In the space between one ragged breath and the next, she went from kissing him with heat and passion to freezing in his arms like Windy Lake in a January blizzard.
Her arms fluttered away from around his neck and he sensed she would have backed farther away from him if she hadn't been pressed up against her car door.
Though he wanted nothing more than to crush her to him again and slide into that stunning heat once more, he forced himself to step back to give them both a little necessary space.
Her breathing was as rough and quick as his own and he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
Despite the chill in the air, the night seemed to wrap around them in a sultry embrace. From the trees whispering in the wind to the carpet of stars overhead, they seemed alone here in the darkness.
Part of him wanted to step toward her and sweep her into his arms again, but shock and dismay began to seep through his desire. What kind of magic did she wield against him that he could so easily succumb to his attraction and kiss her, despite all his best instincts?
He shouldn't have done it. In the first place, their relationship was a tangled mess and had been for years. Sure, she had been great with Jo tonight and he had been grateful for her help on the horseback ride into the mountains. But one night couldn't completely transform so much animosity into fuzzy warmth.
In the second place, he had enough on his plate right now. His emotions were scraped raw by Jo's condition. He had nothing left inside to give anything else right now, especially not an unwanted attraction to Tess.
Maybe that's why he had kissed her. He needed the distraction, a few moments of oblivion. Either way, it had been a monumentally stupid impulse, one he was quite certain he would come to regret the moment she climbed into her little sedan and drove down Cold Creek Canyon.
She continued to gaze at him out of those huge green eyes, as if she expected him to say something. He would be damned if he would apologize for kissing her. Not when she had responded with such fierce enthusiasm.
He had to say something, though. He scrambled for words and said the first thing that came to his head.
"If I had known you were such an enthusiastic kisser, I wouldn't have worked so hard to fight you off in high school."
The moment he said the words, he wished he could call them back. The comment had been unnecessarily cruel and made him sound like an ass. Beyond that, he didn't like revealing he remembered anything that had happened in their long-ago past. Apparently she still tended to bring out the worst in him.
He couldn't be certain in the darkness but he thought she paled a little. She grabbed her car door and yanked it open.
"That's funny," she retorted. "If I had known you would turn out to be such a jerk, I wouldn't have spent a moment since you returned to Pine Gulch regretting the way I treated you back then."
He deserved that, he supposed. Now he wanted to apologize—for his words at least, not the kiss—but the words seemed to clog in his throat.
She slid into her driver's seat, avoiding his gaze. "It would probably be better for both our sakes if we just pretended the past few moments never happened."
He raised an eyebrow. "You think you can do that? Because I'm not at all sure I have that much imagination."
She cranked the key in her ignition with just a little more force than strictly necessary and he felt a moment's pity that she was taking out her anger against him on her hapless engine.
"Absolutely," she snapped. "It shouldn't be hard at all. Especially since I'm sorry to report the reality didn't come close to measuring up to all my ridiculous teenage fantasies about what it might be like to kiss the bad boy of Cold Creek."
Before he could come up with any kind of rejoinder—sharp or otherwise—she thrust her car into gear and shot around the circular driveway.
He stared after her, wondering why the cold night only now seemed to pierce the haze of desire
still wrapped around him.
Her words about teenage fantasies seemed to echo through his head. He supposed on some level, he must have known she had wanted to kiss him all those years ago. She had tried it, after all. He could still remember that day in the empty algebra classroom when he had been so furious with her over the false cheating allegations and then she had made everything much worse by thinking she could reel him in with a few flirtatious words.
He had always assumed her fleeting interest in him, her attempts to draw his attention, were only a spoiled fit of pique that he didn't fall at her feet like every other boy in school. Now he had to wonder if there might have been something more to it.
Trust him to make a mess out of everything, as usual. She had been kind to Jo and he had responded by taking completely inappropriate advantage. Then he had compounded his sins by making a stupid, mocking comment for no good reason.
She was furious with him, and she had every right to be, but he couldn't help thinking it was probably better this way. He didn't like having these soft, warm feelings for her.
Better to remember her as that manipulative little cheerleader looking so sweet-faced and innocent as she lied through her teeth to their history teacher and the principal than as the gentle caregiver who could suppress her own fears about horseback riding to help a dying woman find a little peace.
* * *
Tess waited until she drove under the arch at the entrance to Winder Ranch and had turned back onto the main Cold Creek road, out of view of the ranch house, before pulling her car over to the side and shifting into Park with hands that still trembled.
She was such an idiot.
Her face burned and she covered her hot cheeks with her hands.
She couldn't believe her response to him, that she had kissed him with such heat and enthusiasm. The moment his mouth touched hers, she had tossed every ounce of good sense she possessed into the air and had fallen into his kiss like some love-starved teenage girl with a fierce crush.
Oh, mercy. What must he think of her?
A Cold Creek Homecoming Page 8