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“What, my word’s no good?” she demanded, nausea forming a greasy film that coated her stomach lining.
“You are coming back, right?”
“That’s always been the plan.”
“Then give them something, Taylor.” Greg’s voice had been solid but somber. “Tell them you’ll get your re-cert by whatever day and you’ll be back a week after that.” He’d paused. “Whatever date you pick, keep in mind that sooner would be better.”
The unspoken truth had been there, suspended on the airwaves between her cell and his. She would either get herself together and get back to work or management would cut her loose.
So she’d make that first, and only, attempt to face the mountain and complete her recertification climb...or she wouldn’t. If she couldn’t do it, if she couldn’t conquer this fear of heights or, more specifically, of falling from significant heights, she’d be done. Out of work.
And probably over the edge.
* * *
DUST OBSCURED EVERYTHING in the rearview mirror as Quinn Monroe pulled onto the highway. The shoulder medium—fancy way to say dirt—was so dry his tires fought for purchase. The county needed rain. Bad. The harsh conditions were what had prompted him to stop and offer to help the owner of the out-of-state tag that had pulled onto the shoulder, the driver resting his head on the steering wheel. This was no place for vacationers to get lost, run out of gas or need a bottle of chilled spring water. Big-city conveniences didn’t exist out here. Hell, nothing existed out here but grassland, cows, mountains and the handful of human souls who called Crooked Water, New Mexico, home.
Home.
If someone had suggested to Quinn even five years ago that he’d be back in the remote little village for more than just a visit, that he’d come back to this godforsaken place for good, he would have called the guy a liar. Sure, he may have grown up here, but he’d never been at home, never felt like part of the community or part of something bigger than himself. That’s what he’d been looking for when he left more than a decade ago. And damn if he hadn’t found it—only to lose it and wind up back here, after all.
His focus shifted, drifting away from the road, across the grassland and up the foothills before settling on the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. That was where he belonged—in the mountains, on the mountain face, granite under his fingertips. Not here.
I was never meant for this life.
Sunshine glinted on metal in the field south of the highway and Quinn glanced that way instinctively. Muscles in his stomach tightened at the sight of the windmill, the tail wagging back and forth to keep the lazily spinning fan faced into the wind.
Forcing himself to refocus on the two-lane highway, he tried to keep his mind on the faded yellow and white lines in front of him.
No dice.
It had been almost eighteen months since the middle-of-the-night phone call that had changed everything. Eighteen months back here, home, in New Mexico. His heart ached with loss and longing.
Rolling onto one hip without slowing, he pulled his smartphone out of the back pocket of his Wranglers. A single press of the home key showed no missed calls. He’d become paranoid about being inaccessible, and cell service out here was sporadic at best, nonexistent at worst.
Five bars of service.
No missed calls.
The ringer was on.
Volume was up.
A small part of him relaxed. The rest of him remained as knotted up as ever.
Memories crowded in on him, despite his objections, and for a split second Quinn wasn’t in his truck headed to town. He was in bed in his little Idaho home, the alarm set unreasonably early so he’d be on time for a scheduled climb up Baron Spire. The ringer on his smartphone had been shut off, the vibrate function left on in case his parents needed him. And they had.
Mom.
She’d called four times in a row, the phone eventually shimmying its way across the nightstand and over the edge, hitting the floor with a thunk that pulled him out of deep, dreamless sleep. He’d rolled over, blindly fishing around on the floor for the phone, accidentally hitting Answer before he had the phone to his ear.
Soft sobs came from the caller.
Adrenaline had careened through his system and driven his heart wild, setting his nerves on edge and sharpening his voice. “Mom?”
No answer.
“Mom?” he’d asked again, undiluted fear souring his stomach. He had fallen out of bed then, his knees striking the hardwood floor with a loud crack. He’d buried his face in his hands and the phone had slipped, forcing him to re-pin it between his ear and shoulder to hear her.
Odd thing to remember.
“You need to come home, Quinn.”
“Where’s Dad?” he’d demanded. “Put Dad on the phone, Mom.” Pleaded. “Where is he?” Beseeched.
“This afternoon...” She’d hiccuped, a sharp sound. “Oh, Quinn...” Deep breaths had raked across the phone’s receiver, scraping at him through the earpiece.
“Tell me.”
Then she’d done as he’d asked. He’d stopped breathing the moment she complied, uttering damning words he wanted to childishly demand she take back. “Your dad was working on the windmill in the south pasture. No one is sure what happened. Not exactly. All we know is that he fell. The doctor said his injuries were massive. Quinn, he didn’t...”
The words make it weren’t spoken, but they were there just the same as if they had been shouted, hovering a moment before they crashed into him. The impact tattooed the truth on his heart. And then? The world simply stopped.
His dad. The man Quinn had spent years following, listening to, emulating. The man who had convinced Quinn it was okay to want more than the rural lifestyle he’d grown up with. The man who’d handed him the title to his pickup and $15,000 in cash, telling Quinn to figure out what made him happy and where he’d be happiest doing it. The man who’d been unashamedly in love with his wife and left a light on for his only child every night.
His heart had seized, a tight band of pain around his chest. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Dad.
A jackrabbit darted across the road and he jerked the wheel. “Pay attention,” he muttered to himself.
More than eighteen months since he’d lost the man and Quinn still felt off-center, like the world had tilted hard to the left and he couldn’t get it back on its axis.
When he crested the small hill, the town appeared as if conjured by dark memories that defied the impossibly blue sky. It looked exactly as it had when he’d left twelve years ago. He chuffed out a harsh laugh as he realized that there was as little for a man of thirty-one to do here as there was a nineteen-year-old boy on the edge. Nothing had changed. Not a single. Damn. Thing.
“Except that one half of the best part of this place is gone.” His words were swallowed by the noise his all-terrain tires made on the rough asphalt road.
Stomach rumbling, he shot a look at the clock. It was late for lunch. He could skip it altogether, head to the ranch and snag something from his mom’s fridge or—he turned onto Main Street—he could grab a bite in town. The cook at Muddy Waters, the local bar and grill, was an old high school buddy. He’d throw a burger on the grill without complaint and Quinn would be sure to tip the waitress well. His stomach growled in response. A burger it was.
He parked curbside, hopped down from his truck and traversed the fractured concrete walk that never failed to trip up drunks and tourists alike.
Inside, the atmosphere was comfortable in its familiarity. Square laminate tables, each surrounded by four vinyl-covered chairs, were scattered around the floor.
He nodded to a handful of familiar faces as he settled at a table in the corner and dropped his hat on the neighboring chair.
The waitress sauntered up, order pad and pen in hand. “What’ll it be, handsome?”
He didn’t even bother with the menu. “Cheeseburger, medium, all the trimmings, large basket of onion rings and a lemonade. How’s your mom, Amy?”
The waitress was another high school friend, and her family had owned the restaurant for three generations. She rolled her eyes. “Same as always. Swears I’m running this place into the ground and am going to end up being forced to sell to an—” she feigned a gasp “—outsider. She’s threatening to come out of retirement.”
Quinn chuckled. “If she comes back, tell her she’ll have to make her chocolate cream pies by the dozen. I miss those.”
“Secret family recipe I just happen to possess.” She considered him for a moment before tacking on, “You should come to dinner one night. I’ll make you a pie.”
He appreciated her predicament, being single in Crooked Water. The dating pool was more mud puddle than pond. But as much as Quinn liked her, he wasn’t the solution to her problem.
He’d once thought he wanted a love like his parents had shared, had spent years looking for it, dating, hoping every new face was The One. It hadn’t taken him long to realize exactly how rare that kind of love was. And now, given what he’d seen his dad’s death do to his mom? He intended to avoid relationships at all costs. No amount of love could make that amount of grief worth it.
Looking up at Amy, he smiled. “I appreciate the offer, but I have to pass. With Dad gone, Mom needs all the help she can get. Keeps my priorities at home, making sure she’s taken care of.”
The waitress smiled. “Can’t blame a girl for asking.”
“I’m flattered you did.”
She tucked her pen into her topknot of hair and ripped his order off the pad. “I’ll turn this in. Hank should have it out in just a few.”
He settled back to wait, sliding down in his chair to stretch his legs out in front of him.
“I hear you’re taking someone up the mountain,” Art Jameson, a town local and family friend, called out across the vacant dance floor. “That mean you’re back to climbing again, Q?”
Every eye in the place landed on Quinn.
He had no idea how the news had reached the gossip mill, but it clearly had. And he wasn’t ready to answer. Mostly because he didn’t have a damn clue what to say.
There’d been speculation that he’d be out of Crooked Water and back on the ropes before the seasons changed. But he hadn’t. Not this season, anyway. He was still grieving his dad’s passing, for Pete’s sake. More than that, his mom needed him. None of that mattered. People around here were fascinated that he’d left home and made something of himself. And since Jeff, the guy who’d bought Quinn’s former business, had referred this climber to Quinn—the first client of his new climbing business—he had expected folks would discover he was going up the mountain again. Next, word would get out he was opening up shop as a full-time guide. Managing that news would be...difficult, at best, seeing as he hadn’t discussed it with his new ranching partner.
His mom.
Fighting the urge to pull his shoulders up around his ears and growl, he instead met Art’s curious gaze with his level one. “I never really quit.”
Sam Tolbert, the region’s large animal veterinarian, picked up his tea glass and tipped it in Quinn’s direction. “Heard you agreed to take some climber up Trono del Cielo next week.”
Trono del Cielo. The Throne of Heaven.
Quinn arched a brow as he slid lower in the hardbacked diner chair. “Gone a handful of years and the only thing to have changed around here is the gossip mill’s efficiency.”
This, this, was what he hated about small towns. You couldn’t switch toilet paper brands without someone noticing and “mentioning” it to someone else.
“Rumors come and go, Doc. Hang around long enough and time will let you know what’s true.” Grabbing his hat, he stood, slapped it on his head and searched Amy out in the small crowd. “Make that a to-go order, would you?” He needed to get out of here. The levee of polite restraint had been publicly breached. People would ask what they wanted to know, pose question after question that he didn’t want to answer. He wasn’t prepared for that and was pretty sure he wouldn’t live to see the day he was.
“Hank was just plating it. I’ll wrap it, instead.”
“Thanks.” Quinn tipped his chin, first toward Art and then Doc as he passed their table. “You boys mind yourselves. And don’t you go flirting too much with Miss Amy here without your wife’s express consent, Art.”
The older men chuckled, and Art nodded at the young woman. “Too much respect for Miss Amy to put her through the missus’s jealous rage.”
Amy snorted. “Betty would probably send me spousal support if I’d take your sorry ass off her hands.”
Everyone in the bar laughed, louder this time, and Quinn relaxed as he felt the interest in him shift away. “What do I owe you?”
“Nine and a quarter,” Amy said, smile wide. “Plus the tip you would’ve left, of course.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Quinn handed her several bills and took the sack of food she offered him. “Thanks for this.”
“Sure. You want your drink to go?”
“Nah. I’ll pop over to the mercantile and grab something. I have a list of things to pick up before I head home, anyway. Thanks, though.”
He turned for the door, and a question he hadn’t been prepared for hit him in the back.
“You coming to the barn dance at the Hendersons’ place Friday night?” Doc Tolbert asked. “Bring Elaine if you do. She’d probably enjoy a night out.”
Everyone paused and waited for him to answer.
Quinn shot the vet a quick, steady look. “You want Mom to go, you ask her directly. Not me.”
Several people chuckled, but the humor was strained.
“I’m asking you as a matter of courtesy,” the vet responded, level and calm.
“She’s a grown woman who knows her own mind.” The words sounded tinny in his head, sort of far away. Denial at its best. No way was Sam asking after Elaine as anything but friends. Sure, his mom was a widow, but that didn’t make her single. As in datable. Not now, and maybe not ever.
Definitely not in Quinn’s eyes.
2 (#u23f18607-63ac-5ef6-aa70-fe808a38ad3f)
TAYLOR SANG ALONG with the radio and Toby Keith as he professed why he should’ve been a cowboy. Pulling into town, Taylor reached up and turned the radio off. Nothing in the online ad for the little cabin she’d booked had prepared her for the reality of arriving in Crooked Water, New Mexico.
Not even close.
Slowing to the posted speed limit of thirty-five miles per hour, she had plenty of time to assess the town. All of it. The sign outside the tiny village advertised a population number someone had taped over with duct tape and, using stencils and spray paint, modified to 207. There was a post office housed in a glass-faced stucco building that couldn’t be more than twenty-five feet square.
Beside it sat a brick-bodied bar and grill with a neon sign over the front door that buzzed loud enough she could hear it.
Directly across the street was a mercantile-cum-grocer with touristy knickknacks set in the plate glass window. Sale ads were hand drawn with permanent marker on fluorescent paper and peppered the remaining window space.
And a block farther down, set apart from what seemed to be the heart of the town, a small white chapel faced off with a windowless drive-thru liquor store.
Parking in front of the Muddy Waters Bar and Grill, she hopped down from her truck and strolled across the street. Somewhere nearby, Quinn Monroe waited. She wasn’t slated to meet him until the day after tomorrow, but she’d wanted some time to settle into her little cabin at the ranch.
That’s a load of crap and you know it, her subconscious snarked. You wanted to scope the climb and afford yourself plenty of time to skulk out of town if it looked too tough. At least have the good grace to wait for the bartender to hand you that first double shot of whiskey before you start lying to yourself.
Man, if her inner voice grew any more compassionate, she’d have to think about finding a way to suffocate the witch.
She pushed through one of the large doors to the mercantile and stopped, door still half open. Generic canned chili—a lot of generic canned chili—had been built into a pyramid display right inside the entry. A large sign proclaimed “BOGO! Get it before it’s gone!”
“How much chili can a community of barely two hundred people eat?” she asked quietly, still frozen halfway through the doorway.
