A Cold Creek Reunion

Laura had dumped him. That was the cold, hard truth. A week before their wedding, after all the plans and deposits and dress fittings, she had given him back his ring and told him she couldn’t marry him.

“Why are we talking about ancient history?” he asked.

“Not so ancient anymore,” Trace said. “Not if Laura’s back in town.”

He was very much afraid his brother was right. Whether he liked it or not, with her once more residing in Pine Gulch, their past together would be dredged up again—and not by just his family.

Questions would swirl around them. Everybody had to remember that they had been just a few days away from walking down the aisle of the little church in town when things ended and Laura and her mother sent out those regrets and made phone calls announcing the big celebration wasn’t happening—while he had gone down to the Bandito and gotten drunk and stayed that way until about a month or two after the wedding day that didn’t happen.

She was back now, which meant that, like it or not, he would have to deal with everything he had shoved down ten years ago, all the emotions he had pretended weren’t important in order to get through the deep, aching loss of her.

He couldn’t blame his family for their curiosity—not even Trace, his twin and best friend, knew the full story about everything that had happened between him and Laura. He had always considered it his private business.

His family had loved her. Who didn’t? Laura had a knack for drawing people toward her, finding commonalities. She and his mother used to love discussing the art world and painting techniques. His mother had been an artist, only becoming renowned around the time of her murder. While Laura hadn’t any particular skill in that direction, she had shared a genuine appreciation for his parents’ extensive art collection.

His father had adored her, too, and had often told Taft that Laura was the best thing that would ever happen to him.

He looked up from the memory to find Becca’s eyes filled with a compassion that made him squirm and lose whatever appetite he might have had left.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured in that kind way she had. “Mutual decision or not, it still must have been painful. Is it hard for you to see her again?”

He faked a nonchalant look. “Hard? Why would it be hard? It was all a decade ago. She’s moved on. I’ve moved on. No big deal.”

Ridge gave what sounded like a fake cough and Trace had the same skeptical expression on his face he always wore when Taft was trying to talk him into living a little, doing something wild and adventurous for a change.

How was it possible to love his siblings and at the same time want to throw a few punches around the table, just on general principles?

Becca eyed him and then his brothers warily as if sensing his discomfort, then she quickly changed the subject. “How’s the house coming?” she asked.

His brother wasn’t nearly good enough for her, he decided, seizing the diversion. “Good. I’ve got only a couple more rooms to drywall. Should be done soon. After six months, the place is starting to look like a real house inside now.”

“I stopped by the other day and peeked in the windows,” Caidy confessed. “It’s looking great.”

“Give me a call next time and I can swing by and give you the tour, even if I’m at the fire station. You haven’t been by in a month or so. You’ll be surprised at how far along it is these days.”

After years of renting a convenient but small apartment near the fire station, he had finally decided it was time to build a real house. The two-story log house was set on five acres near the mouth of Cold Creek Canyon.

“How about the barn and the pasture?” Ridge asked, rather predictably. Over the years, Taft had bred a couple mares to a stallion with excellent lines he had picked up for a steal from a rancher down on his luck up near Wood River. He had traded and sold the colts until he now had about six horses he’d been keeping at his family’s ranch.

“The fence is in. I’d like to get the barn up before I move the horses over, if you don’t mind keeping them a little longer.”

“That’s not what I meant. You know we’ve got plenty of room here. You can keep them here forever if you want.”

Maybe if he had his horses closer he might actually ride them once in a while instead of only stopping by to visit when he came for these Sunday dinners.

“When do you think all the work will be done?” Becca asked.

“I’m hoping by mid-May. Depends on how much free time I can find to finish things up inside.”

“If you need a hand, let me know,” Ridge offered quietly.

“Same goes,” Trace added.

Both of them had crazy-busy lives: Ridge running the ranch and raising Destry on his own and Trace as the overworked chief of police for an understaffed small-town force—in addition to planning his future together with Becca and Gabi. Their sincere offers to help touched him.

“I should be okay,” he answered. “The hard work is done now and I only have the fun stuff to finish.”

“I always thought there was something just a little crazy about you.” Caidy shook her head. “I must be right, especially if you think finish work and painting are fun.”

“I like to paint stuff,” Destry said. “I can help you, Uncle Taft.”

“Me, too!” Gabrielle exclaimed. “Oh, can we?”

Trouble followed the two of these girls around like one of Caidy’s rescue dogs. He had visions of paint spread all over the woodwork he had been slaving over the past month. “Thanks, girls. That’s really sweet of you. I’m sure Ridge can find something for you to touch up around here. That fence down by the creek was looking like it needed a new coat.”

“There’s always something that needs painting around here,” Ridge answered. “As soon as the weather warms up a little at night, I can put you both to work.”

“Will you pay us?” Gabrielle asked, always the opportunist.

Ridge chuckled. “We can negotiate terms with your attorney.”

Caidy asked Becca—said attorney—a question about their upcoming June wedding and attention shifted away from Taft, much to his relief. He listened to the conversation of his family, aware of this low simmer of restlessness that had become a familiar companion.

Ever since Trace and Becca found each other and fell in love, he had been filled with this vague unease, as if something about his world had shifted a little. He loved his brother. More than that, he respected him. Trace was his best friend and Taft could never begrudge him the happiness he had found with Becca and Gabi, but ever since they announced their engagement, he felt weird and more than a little off-balance.

Seeing Laura and her kids the other day had only intensified that odd feeling.

He had never been a saint—he would be the first to admit that and his family would probably stand in line right behind him—but he tried to live a decent life. His general philosophy about the world ran parallel to the premier motto of every emergency medical worker as well as others in the medical field: Primum Non Nocere. First, Do No Harm.

He did his best. He was a firefighter and paramedic and he enjoyed helping people of his community and protecting property. If he didn’t find great satisfaction in it, he would find something else to do. Maybe pounding nails for a living because he enjoyed that, too.

Despite his best efforts in the whole do no harm arena, he remembered each and every failure.

He had two big regrets in his life, and Laura Pendleton was involved in both of them.

He had hurt her. Those months leading up to her ultimate decision to break things off had been filled with one wound after another. He knew it. Hell, he had known it at the time, but that dark, angry man he had become after his parents’ murder seemed like another creature who had emerged out of his skin to destroy everything good and right in his life.

He couldn’t blame Laura for calling off their wedding. Not really. Even though it had hurt like the devil.

She had warned him she couldn’t marry him unless he made serious changes, and he had stubbornly refused, giving her no choice but to stay true to her word. She had moved on, taken some exotic job in hotel management in Spain somewhere and a few years later married a man she met there.

The reminder of her marriage left him feeling petty and small. Yeah, he had hurt her, but his betrayal probably didn’t hold a candle to everything else she had lost—her husband and the father of her children, whom he’d heard had drowned about six months earlier.

“Are you planning on eating any of that or just pushing it around your plate?”

He glanced up and, much to his shock, discovered Ridge was the only one left at the table. Everybody else had cleared off while he had been lost in thought, and he hadn’t even noticed.

“Sorry. Been a long couple of days.” He hoped his brother didn’t notice the heat he could feel crawling over his features.