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And then he made the mistake of looking directly at her again.
Cole could almost feel her getting under his skin, shaking his world down to its foundations. Just the way she always used to. Searching for some way to distract himself, he asked, “When did you get in?”
What went unsaid was that he was surprised that he hadn’t heard about her arrival. Redemption was a small town and most information became general knowledge within the space of a few hours. Usually less.
“Late last night. My father didn’t even let me know about the accident until just two days ago.” When she’d received the call from her father, she’d known, the moment she heard his voice, that something was terribly, terribly wrong. She vaguely remembered sinking onto the sofa, both hands wrapped around the receiver to keep it from dropping to the floor as she listened to her father tell her about the accident.
He told her about Wayne being in a coma. The moment she’d hung up, she’d galvanized into action. Calling the company where she worked, she cited a family emergency and put in for a leave of absence. Then, packing up everything she thought she would need, she’d strapped Christopher into his car seat and then drove straight from Seattle to Redemption, covering close to six hundred miles in just a little over nine hours.
She’d been too wired to be exhausted until after she’d put Christopher to bed and talked at length to her father who was surprised that she’d driven all the way to Montana to see them.
Ronnie shook her head as remnants of disbelief still clung to her. “A whole two weeks and he didn’t think to call me.” She and her father were closer than this. Or at least she’d thought they were. Now it felt as if she didn’t know anything.
“You know your dad,” Cole told her. “He’s a stubborn son of a gun. Doesn’t want help from anyone.” He looked at her pointedly. “Not even you.”
For a split second, some of the hurt, the anger and especially the fear she’d been harboring since she’d received the phone call—harboring and trying to deal with—surfaced and flashed in her eyes.
“I’m not anyone,” Ronnie retorted. “I’m his daughter,” she emphasized, then struggled to get her temper, her feelings under control. “I’m his family,” she said in a softer, but no less emphatic voice. “He’s supposed to call me when something like this happens. I’m not supposed to learn that he and Wayne were nearly killed because I just happened to call to ask him what he wanted for his birthday.”
He could see why she was upset, but he was having trouble dealing with his own issues, his own hurt feelings, so it was difficult for him to be sympathetic about what she’d gone through.
“Yeah, well, maybe Amos lost that page in the father’s handbook for a while.” And then he told her something he wasn’t sure she was aware of. “Your father’s been busy beating himself up because he was the one behind the wheel, driving the truck, and he feels responsible for what happened to Wayne.”
Cole saw her clench her hand into a fist at her side. He could all but see the tension dancing through her. “Wayne’s going to be all right,” she declared stubbornly. “I called Wayne’s attending surgeon as soon as I got off the phone with my father. Dr. Nichols said all my brother’s reflexes seem to be in working order and that sometimes a coma is just the body’s way of trying to focus on doing nothing but healing itself.”
Cole saw no reason to contradict her or point out that a lot of people never woke up from a coma. She was dealing with enough as it was. Besides, what she thought or felt was no longer any concern of his outside the realm of her being a citizen of Redemption—or a former citizen of Redemption, he amended.
“Have you been to see your brother yet?” he asked as they walked past his truck.
“No. Not yet. But I’m going this afternoon,” she added quickly. She’d wanted to go the second she’d arrived in Montana, but there was more than just herself to take into account. She had Christopher to take care of. No one had ever told her, all those years ago when she had so desperately longed to become an adult, that being a mother required so much patience. “I wanted to get a couple of things squared away for my dad first,” she added.
Ronnie took a deep breath, debating whether or not to continue. The easy thing would be to terminate the conversation here. But in all good conscience she couldn’t ignore the particulars that had been involved in the aftermath of the accident.
She approached the topic cautiously. “Dad said that you were the first one on the scene after the accident.”
His expression gave nothing away, neither telling her to drop the subject nor to pursue it. “I was,” he acknowledged.
He said it without any fanfare. How very typical of Cole just to leave the statement there, she couldn’t help thinking. Another man would have thumped his chest. At the very least, he would have basked in the heroism of what he’d done, risking his very life in order to save someone else.
But this was Cole. Cole, who stoically did what he did and then just went on as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. Cole, who wanted no thanks, no elaborate show of gratitude, no real attention brought to him.
But she couldn’t let it go. She had to thank him, to give him credit where credit was so richly deserved.
If not for Cole, the only family she’d have at this very moment would be a five-year-old.
“He also said that if it wasn’t for you practically lifting the cab of the truck single-handedly and dragging Wayne out of the mangled vehicle, my brother—” her throat went dry as she pushed on “—would have been burned to death when that old truck of Dad’s suddenly caught fire.”
Again, Cole shrugged. And this time, he looked away. He found it easier to talk if he wasn’t looking at her face. Wasn’t fighting off feelings that were supposed to be dead by now.
“I didn’t do anything that anyone else wouldn’t do,” he told her.
“Maybe so,” Ronnie allowed, even though she sincerely doubted that many men would have rushed in to do what he’d done when faced with the definite possibility of their own death. Good people though they were in Redemption, not everyone was that brave or that selfless. “But I still want to thank you for saving my brother’s life. And saving my dad.”
Cole shoved his hands into his back pockets and stared at leaves chasing one another in a circle along the street.
“Just part of the job,” he told her.
They’d stopped walking and were standing before what, in his estimation, was undoubtedly a very expensive and utterly impractical vehicle. It was a late-model black sedan, a Mercedes, far more suited to a metropolitan area than a town that still shared its streets with horses from the surrounding ranches on occasion.
She had changed, he thought. The old Ronnie would have been the first to point out how impractical and out of place a car like that was. Was she trying to impress him and show him how very successful she’d become in her new life?
He didn’t measure success the same way she did. Something else they didn’t have in common anymore, he thought.
“You renting that?” he asked her, curious. If so, she had to have gotten it somewhere other than in Redemption. The town’s one rental agency was run by the town car mechanic and he sincerely doubted that Hank Wilson had a car like that in his possession.
“No, it’s mine,” she told him. She suddenly felt self-conscious about owning the car and told herself she was being needlessly uncomfortable. The car was reliable and she liked it. That it was also out of place here wasn’t her concern. She wasn’t about to feel guilty because she’d made something of herself. “I had a few things to bring with me,” she went on to explain, “so I drove here.”
She saw his mouth curve ever so slightly. There was a hint of a smile on his lips that she couldn’t begin to fathom.
It was official, Ronnie decided. She was on the outside, looking in. And it was by her own design.
So why did it feel so lousy?
Chapter Three
“You drove here,” Cole said, repeating what she had just stated.
“Yes.”
Ronnie said she’d just learned about the accident two days ago. That meant she had to have left almost immediately after that. No matter what else she was, the woman still had the ability to amaze him.
“All, what? Six, seven hundred miles from Seattle to here?” he asked.
“Five hundred and ninety three,” Ronnie corrected tersely.
“Oh, five hundred and ninety three,” he echoed, as if enlightened. “Big difference. And I suppose that you drove straight through.”
The tone of his voice hadn’t changed, but she could swear he was mocking her. Ronnie raised her chin, bracing herself. Waiting for a challenge or a careless statement tossed her way, which would, to her, amount to fighting words. “Yes, I did.”
Cole’s eyes held hers, as if he was looking directly into her head. “No breaks?”
Of course there had been breaks. She wasn’t a robot. Besides, she hadn’t taken the trip alone. But then, he didn’t know that, she reminded herself.
“Well, I had to stop to eat a couple of times,” she told him, then decided she wanted to know what he was up to. “Why?”
“No reason,” he said a tad too innocently. “Just guess some things never change.” Ronnie had been stubborn as a kid and she was still just as stubborn now. Maybe even more so.
Don’t go all nostalgic on her now, Cole warned himself. So she drove like a maniac to get to her father. This doesn’t change the fact that she didn’t even try to get in contact with you to say she was sorry. Hell, she’s not even saying it now. Time to give up on this and move on with your life.
As if he could.
There was something about Cole’s mouth when it quirked that way …
Belatedly, Ronnie realized that her breath had backed up in her throat. Clearing it, she began to move away. “Um, I’d better be getting back. My dad’s going to be wondering what happened to me.”
Aiming her keychain at her car, she pressed the button. The vehicle emitted a high-pitched noise and winked its lights flirtatiously as all four of its locks stood up at attention.
Cole glanced at the dark car, unimpressed. “He’d probably think that fancy car of yours broke down somewhere.”
Ronnie narrowed her eyes. Well, he wasn’t going to make her feel guilty because she’d bought a car that she had secretly fantasized about ever since she’d hit her early teens.
With a toss of her head, she informed him, “It’s a very reliable car.”
His mouth quirked again, this time a half smile gracing his lips. It was obvious he didn’t believe her. “If you say so.”
“I say so,” she retorted as she slid in behind the car’s steering wheel. Yanking the door to her, she shut it. Hard.
She knew she had to go before she found herself suddenly caught up in an argument with Cole. It was all too easy to do, and the last time that had happened, Christopher came along nine months later.
Christopher. The little boy was the absolute light of her life.
After pulling away from the curb, she glanced in the rearview mirror. Cole was still standing there, in the street, arms crossed before him, and watching her drive away.
God, the man was just too handsome for her own good.
And when he finds out you never told him about Christopher, he’s going to be one hell of an angry man.
No way around that, Ronnie told herself, sighing as she drove back to her father’s ranch.
Think about it later, she ordered herself. Right now, she needed to touch base with both her father and her son before she drove down to Helena to see Wayne in the hospital. She had too much to do to let herself get bogged down in her thoughts of what could have been and what, in actuality, really was.
One final glance in her rearview mirror, one last glimpse of Cole, and then she focused her eyes and her attention on the road before her.
But her mind insisted on remaining stuck in first gear. With Cole. And their son.
There were a lot of reasons why, six years ago, she hadn’t told Cole she was pregnant with his baby. Right now, she was damn sure that he wouldn’t accept any of them, but that didn’t change anything. Certainly didn’t change the fact that she knew she was right in doing what she had.
She knew Cole, knew how honorable he was, and how very, very stubborn he could be. If she’d told him about the baby, he would have insisted on marrying her and at the time, marriage hadn’t been in her plans.
Neither was having a baby, but there was nothing, given her convictions, that she could do about that—other than what she’d done. She adjusted and found a way to deal with it, the same way she did with everything else. Consequently, she had her baby and also went on to get her education. All she had to do in order to accomplish that was give up sleeping. Permanently.
Cole, if he’d known, would have insisted that she stay in Redemption instead of going off to college. Would have pointed out how much better it was for the boy to grow up in a place like this town rather than in a large city.
She could see the scenario unfolding before her as if it was a movie. She would have given in and stayed in Redemption. And every day she would have felt a little more trapped than the day before. And a little more resentful that she’d been made to stay.
Leaving Redemption hadn’t been an easy decision for her, even before she’d known she was pregnant. Part of her would have wanted to take the easy way out, would have wanted to stay here because, after all, this was where her family was.
And this was where the only man she’d ever loved or would love was.
But a part of her craved to explore the unknown, desperately wanted to spread her wings and fly, to see how far she could go if she pushed herself. She didn’t want to live and die in a tiny corner of Montana because she had no choice in the matter. If she decided to live in Redemption, she wanted it to be by choice, after having experienced an entire spectrum of other things—or at least something else. She didn’t want to become one of those people who died with a box full of regrets.
Didn’t she have them anyway? Not having Cole in her life had made for a very large, very painful regret. But then, nobody had ever said that life was perfect and any choices she made of necessity came with consequences.
Besides, she was happy.
Or had thought she was, Ronnie amended. Until she saw Cole again.
“You still did the right thing,” Ronnie said out loud to herself, her voice echoing about the inside of the sedan.
If she’d told Cole that she was pregnant, there was no question that he would have married her. The question that would have come up, however, and would continue to come up for the rest of her life was would he be marrying her because he loved her—really loved her—or because it was the right thing to do? The right thing to give his name to his child and make an honest woman out of her so that there would never be any gossip about her making the rounds in Redemption?
Ronnie knew she wouldn’t have been able to live with that kind of a question weighing her down.
What she’d done was better.
Not that Cole would ever see it that way.
But that was his problem, not hers, she thought, pushing down on the accelerator.
COLE WATCHED HER CAR BECOME smaller and smaller until it disappeared entirely, then he went back to his office on the next street.
He’d barely sat down at his desk after muttering a few words to Tim—the overly eager deputy he’d hired last year after Al St. John retired—before the door opened again and his mother walked in.
Midge James was a lively woman, short in stature but large of heart. Over the years she’d gone from being exceedingly thin to somewhat on the heavyset side. But each time she tried to make a go of a diet, her husband Pete, Cole’s father, would tell her that she was perfect just the way she was and that he really appreciated having “a little something to hang on to.”
Eventually she stopped trying to get down to the size where she could fit back into her wedding dress. She figured if she was lucky enough to have a man who loved her no matter what her size, she should just enjoy it. And him. So she did.
As she walked in now, Cole saw that his mother was carrying a basket before her. A very aromatic basket that announced it was filled with baked goods—muffins most likely—before she even set the basket down and drew back the cloth she’d placed over the top.
“Something wrong, Ma?” Cole asked as he started to rise to his feet.
“Sit, sit, sit,” Midge instructed, waving her hand at her son in case he hadn’t picked up on her words. “Nothing’s wrong,” she assured him. “Why?” she asked. “Can’t a mother visit her favorite son without there being something wrong?”
Cole’s lips curved in a tolerant smile. “I’m your only son, Ma.”
“Makes the choice easier, I admit,” Midge responded, punctuating her statement with her trademark cherubic smile. Crossing to his desk, she placed the basket smack in the middle. “Just thought you might like a snack.” She pulled the cloth all the way back. Beneath it were at least two dozen miniature muffins. “They’re tiny. Makes it kind of seem like you’re eating less,” she explained, one of the many diet-cheating tricks she’d picked up along the way.
Glancing at the deputy who was eyeing the basket contents longingly from where he sat, she assured him, “There’s enough for you, too, Tim.”
She didn’t need to say any more. Tim was on his feet, his lanky legs bringing him to Cole’s desk in less than four steps. And less than another second later, he was peeling paper away from his first of several muffins. His eyes glowed as he bit into his prize.
“Good,” he managed to mumble, his mouth filled with rich cake and raisins.
Midge beamed. “Glad you approve, Tim.” She pushed the basket closer to her son. “Have one, Cole,” she coaxed him.
Cole eyed the contents and then selected a golden muffin. There were also chocolate ones and he suspected several butterscotch muffins in the batch, as well. His mother never did do things in half measures.
“Not that I don’t appreciate you trying to fatten me up, Ma,” he said, “but why are you really here?”
