Melinda Curtis - Back to Eden

Rachel continued. “She doesn’t need someone like you coming into her life only to fall out of it because you’ve taken one risk too many or you want to be somewhere else.”

Cole stared at Rachel for a moment without speaking. Then he leaned forward and asked, “Why are you so good for her when you’ve done the same thing—risking your life on some stunt?”

“That stunt saved the lives of a fire crew.” A crew she’d been certain was Cole’s.

“You know as well as I do how lucky you are to be alive.” Cole leaned even closer. “Don’t talk to me about stability, either. I can’t imagine you make it home to cook dinner every night.”

Dear Reader,

Have you ever had an unrequited high school crush? If so, you’ll relate to Rachel Quinlan, who adored Cole Hudson in high school, even though he always treated her like a younger sister. Now that Cole is back in Eden, she has to learn to see him through the eyes of the woman she is today, not the starry-eyed gaze of a teenage girl.

Cole has a lot to learn himself. He’s always been protective of others, and now he wants to enclose Rachel and her family in a bubble, despite the fact that doing so will keep all of them from achieving their dreams.

I love to hear from readers, either through my Web site—www.melindacurtis.com—or regular mail at P.O. Box 150, Denair, CA, 95316. To the many who’ve written about Victoria, yes, her story is coming!

Warm regards,

Melinda Curtis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

As always, with much love to my family, who continue to

think of pepperoni pizza as fulfilling all major food groups

Special thanks to Susan Floyd and Anna Stewart

for providing inspiration and reality checks

when I needed them most

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

COLE HUDSON WAS NEVER going to love her.

Rachel Quinlan stared at Cole’s parked truck. The engine wasn’t even pinging or popping because it had long since cooled, and the sick sensation caused by unyielding truth settled in her gut.

Oh, Cole liked her well enough and had even taken her out to dinner and to the movies a time or two. If pressed, he might even say he loved her. But it would be clear that he didn’t “love her” love her, not in the happily-ever-after kind of way.

With tear-filled eyes, Rachel stared up at the blue sky blossoming above Eden, Wyoming—a sky that cruelly promised a beautiful October day fit for a wedding—someone else’s wedding.

It wasn’t just that Cole was four years older than Rachel and treated her as if she still hadn’t reached puberty. Heck, she’d filled out a bra three years ago, and Cole hadn’t seemed to notice.

And it wasn’t for lack of bodily contact. He gave Rachel a hug every time he saw her, sweeping her up and twirling her around, his deep laughter rumbling through to her soul.

Rachel sighed. Nope. The problem was Cole Hudson didn’t love her like a man loved a woman. He could never love her that way.

Because he’d lost his heart to Rachel’s older sister, Missy.

Not that this was a news flash. But in that moment, staring at Cole’s truck on Missy’s wedding day, the reality of it all smacked into Rachel harder than it ever had before. She was a silly, daydreaming girl, just like Missy always told her, wasting time staring at the sky and weaving fantasies that would never come true.

Missy didn’t understand Rachel’s dreams, which tended to involve leaving home. Missy was a big homebody. Heck, Missy protested if she had to leave Sweetwater County. She’d refused to fly anywhere since their mother had gone away, claiming to want only to provide a good home for Rachel and their father. And Missy had. Because of her, Rachel could dream. She’d earned her pilot’s license, reveling in the joy of soaring through the sky. Rachel had even helped her father rebuild the engine on his C119 warplane.

It did seem disloyal to have such strong feelings for someone Missy had once so dearly loved, but Missy had let Cole go, which left the door open for Rachel, didn’t it?

Rachel fidgeted. Only if Missy and Cole didn’t still love each other, which didn’t seem to be the case. The impossibility of having Cole love her threatened to overwhelm Rachel as she stared at his truck parked in front of room twenty-two of the Shady Lady Motel on the outskirts of Eden.

The question was: Who was in the motel room with Cole?

Rachel shivered, crossing her arms against her suspicions and the early-morning chill.

In less than four hours, Missy was supposed to be marrying Lyle Whitehall in front of God and everyone at the Chapel in the Valley on Main Street. Lyle was the son of Eden’s shyster mayor, who was also the bank president and holder of the note on the small Quinlan ranch and airstrip. Brian Quinlan ran an air freight business, but he wasn’t very good at making money, and Lyle and his daddy knew it.

Not that Missy didn’t seem to care for Lyle, but Lyle’s affection for Missy was…not what Rachel would call love. Rachel shivered again. This time for a different reason.

If Missy…when Missy married Lyle later today, their worries were supposed to be over. Rachel had no clue as to what would happen to them if Missy didn’t marry Lyle at eleven o’clock, but she’d bet it wouldn’t be very good.

Rachel had known there’d be trouble when Missy had slipped out of her bachelorette party last night, running down the sidewalk to Cole’s waiting truck, blond hair flying behind her. Rachel had been the only one to see her leave. She’d lied to cover Missy’s absence—by that time most of the women were too tipsy to notice the bride had flown the coop anyway—and driven home in Missy’s truck, hoping old Sheriff Tucker wouldn’t catch her driving without a license. After spending a sleepless night waiting for Missy to come home, Rachel had climbed into Missy’s truck again, her heart heavy, and driven back into town at daybreak only to discover what she’d dreaded to find— Cole’s truck parked at the motel. Now she wondered—was there going to be a wedding?

What in the world was Cole doing messing things up like this? Rachel’s dreams, her home, all would be lost. Suddenly filled with an anger demanding an outlet, Rachel ran up to the door and pounded on it.

Before her knuckles hit the warped wood a second time, Cole opened the motel room door and stalked past Rachel without so much as a glance. Missy huddled in the mussed bed, a sheet pulled up to her shoulders and tears streaming down her pale face.

Missy, who had always been Rachel’s rock as well as sister, mother, friend and confidante, and who always looked model perfect, looked as if she was thirty-nine, not nineteen.

Rachel forgot all about her own shattered dreams as she ran across the worn, stained carpet to comfort her sister.

COLE HUDSON FINISHED sweeping the razor across his chin, rinsed the last of the shaving cream from his face and paused to stare into the sliver of a mirror someone had hung above the outdoor sinks at the Flathead, Montana, base camp.

“We made it through a day without the fire getting the better of us,” Jackson, the supervisor of the wildland firefighters known as the Silver Bend Hot Shots, announced beside him. “I think that calls for a beer, don’t you?”