CHAPTER SIX

      “LET ME KNOW if you need me to slow down,” Quinn said half an hour later to the frail woman who sat in front of him astride one of the biggest horses in the pasture, a rawboned roan gelding named Russ.

      She felt angular and thin in his arms, all pointed elbows and bony shoulders. But Tess had been right, she was ecstatic about being on horseback again, about being outside in the cold October night under the pines. Jo practically quivered with excitement, more alive and joyful than he had seen her since his return to Cold Creek.

      It smelled of fall in the mountains, of sun-warmed dirt, of smoke from a distant neighbor’s fire, of layers of fallen leaves from the scrub oak and aspens that dotted the mountainside.

      The moon hung heavy and full overhead, huge and glowing in the night and Suzy and Jack, Easton’s younger cow dogs, raced ahead of them. Chester probably would have enjoyed the adventure but Quinn had worried that, just like Jo, his old bones weren’t quite up to the journey.

      “This is perfect. Oh, Quinn, thank you, my dear. You have no idea the gift you’ve given me.”

      “You’re welcome,” he said gruffly, warmed despite his lingering worry.

      In truth, he didn’t know who was receiving the greater gift. This seemed a rare and precious time with Jo and he was certain he would remember forever the scents and the sounds of the night—of tack jingling on the horses and a great northern owl hooting somewhere in the forest and the night creatures that peeped and chattered around them.

      He glanced over his shoulder to where Tess rode behind them.

      Among the three of them, she seemed to be the one least enjoying the ride. She bounced along on one of the ranch’s most placid mares. Every once in a while, he looked back and the moonlight would illuminate a look of grave discomfort on her features. If he could see her hands in the darkness, he was quite certain they would be white-knuckled on the reins.

      He should be enjoying her misery, given his general dislike for the woman. Mostly he just felt guilty for dragging her along, though he had to admit to a small measure of glee to discover something she hadn’t completely mastered.

      In school, Tess had been the consummate perfectionist. She always had to be the first one finished with tests and assignments, she hated showing up anywhere with a hair out of place and she delighted in being the kind of annoying classmate who tended to screw up the curve for everybody else.

      Knowing she wasn’t an expert at everything made her seem a little more human, a little more approachable.

      He glanced back again and saw her shifting in the saddle, her body tight and uncomfortable.

      “How are you doing back there?” he asked.

      In the pale glow of the full moon, he could just make out the slit of her eyes as she glared. “Fine. Swell. If I break my neck and die, I’m blaming you.”

      He laughed out loud, which earned him a frown from Jo.

      “You didn’t need to drag poor Tess up here with us,” she reprimanded in the same tone of voice she had used when he was fifteen and she caught him teasing Easton for something or other. He could still vividly remember the figurative welts on his hide as she had verbally taken a strip off him.

      “She’s a big girl,” Quinn said in a voice too low for Tess to overhear. “She didn’t have to come.”

      “You’re a hard man to say no to.”

      “If anyone could do it, Tess would find a way. Anyway, we’ll be there in a few more moments.”

      Jo looked over his shoulder at Tess, then shook her head. “Poor thing. She obviously hasn’t had as much experience riding as you and Easton and the boys. She’s a good sport to come anyway.”

      He risked another look behind him and thought he heard her mumbling something under her breath involving creative ways she intended to make him pay for this.

      Despite the lingering sadness in knowing he was fulfilling a last wish for someone he loved so dearly, Quinn couldn’t help his smile.

      He definitely wouldn’t forget this night anytime soon.

      “She’s doing all right,” he said to Jo.

      “You’re a rascal, Quinn Southerland,” she chided. “You always have been.”

      He couldn’t disagree. He couldn’t have been an easy kid to love when he had been so belligerent and angry, lashing out at everyone in his pain. He hugged Jo a little more tightly for just a moment until they reached the trailhead for Windy Lake, really just a clearing where they could leave the horses before taking the narrow twenty-yard trail to the lakeshore.

      “This might get a little bit tricky,” he said. “Let me dismount first and then I’ll help you down.”

      “I can still get down from a horse by myself,” she protested. “I’m not a complete invalid.”

      He just shook his head in exasperation and slid off the horse. He grabbed the extra rolled blankets tied to the saddle and slung them over his shoulder, then reached up to lift her from the horse.

      He didn’t set her on her feet, though. “I’ll carry you to Guff’s bench,” he said, without giving her an opportunity to argue.

      She pursed her lips but didn’t complain, which made him suspect she was probably more tired than she wanted to let on.

      “Okay, but then you’d better come back here to help Tess.”

      He glanced over and saw that Tess’s horse had stopped alongside his big gelding but Tess made no move to climb out of the saddle; she just gazed down at the ground with a nervous kind of look.

      “Hang on a minute,” he told her. “Just wait there in the saddle while I settle Jo on the bench and then I’ll come back to help you down.”

      “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding more disgruntled than apologetic.

      “No problem.”

      He carried Jo along the trail, grateful again for the pale moonlight that filtered through the fringy pines and the bare branches of the aspens.

      Windy Lake was a small stream-fed lake, probably no more than two hundred yards across. As a convenient watering hole, it attracted moose and mule deer and even the occasional elk. The water was always ice cold, as he and the others could all attest. That didn’t stop him and Brant and Cisco—and Easton, when she could manage to get away—from sneaking out to come up here on summer nights.

      Guff always used to keep a small canoe on the shore and they loved any chance to paddle out in the moonlight on July nights and fish for the native rainbow trout and arctic grayling that inhabited it.

      Some of his most treasured memories of his teen years centered around trips to this very place.

      The trail ended at the lakeshore. He carried Jo to the bench Guff built here, which had been situated in the perfect place to take in the pristine, shimmering lake and the granite mountains surrounding it.

      He set Jo on her feet for just a moment so he could brush pine needles and twigs off the bench. Contrary to what he expected, the bench didn’t have months worth of debris covering it, which made him think Easton probably