Holiday Homecoming (4 page)

“Hold her steady.” Ryan's grave gaze said everything.

Samantha was seriously injured. Without mercy, the storm raged, the snow pounding like rain. Could help even make it through the blizzard in time? There was so little Ryan could do here, with few supplies. She didn't dare say the words aloud. She'd never felt so helpless.

But Ryan looked confident. In charge. He was amazing. Hope seeped into Kristin's heart as she watched his skilled hands working to stanch the flow of blood from several gashes along the girl's hairline. Blood seemed to be everywhere, but he worked on, composed and sure. She saw on his face the dedication she expected a doctor to have. The seriousness.

And something more rare. Compassion.

When he was done, he seemed to give a sigh of relief. He checked his patient's pulse using his wristwatch, frowned and asked for his cell. Shivering and seeming to be unaware of it, he made another call to the county dispatch.

“They're almost here.” Ryan handed her the flashlight. “Or so the operator says. It's hard going for them, and with this poor visibility, they could drive right past the Jeep and miss us. Would you mind going up to flag them down?”

“Sure.”

His fingers moved into place between hers, supporting Samantha's head and neck with extreme care. She read the fear he held for the young college woman in
his shadowed eyes. She remembered when her sister Kirby had been in intensive care. She knew exactly what hung in the balance. A life. She knew all that meant, truly meant, unlike so many people who went around living lives they took for granted.

All it took was a split second for everything to change. For life to never be the same again. Would Samantha live? Would she be in a wheelchair or on crutches for the years to come?

Holding on to hope for the best outcome, Kristin scrambled up the slope, fighting the wind and snow driving at her back and the brambles grabbing at her feet. The shadows she saw in Ryan's eyes stayed with her as she fought to the top. Shadows of grief that broke her heart as she burst onto the lonely expanse of country road, where no other soul stirred on this cruel night. And so she waited, shivering and alone, for help that felt as if it would never come.

 

The rumble of the fire truck's engines, muffled by the snow, faded into the distance. Although the taillights had long faded, Kristin watched. She couldn't get the injured college student out of her mind.

Ryan marched toward her, swiping snow out of his eyes as he crossed in front of the SUV's headlights. Burnished by light, surrounded by darkness, he looked more myth than man as he yanked open the passenger door for her.

Woodenly she eased into the seat, stiff with cold, but not feeling anything but a horrible void. Tepid air
breezed out of the vents in the dash and she couldn't feel it. The clock glowed the time—not thirty minutes had passed since they'd nearly followed Samantha Fields off the road.

Snow drifted inside with Ryan as he collapsed in the seat and slammed the door. He filled the seat, slumping with his head rolling back against the headrest. His presence made the passenger compartment shrink. “I was able to get through to Tim, a friend I used to work with. He's one of the best surgeons in this area, and he's agreed to meet Samantha at the hospital. He'll take excellent care of her.”

“You took the time to do that?”

“Sure. Helping people is what I do. It's why I studied all those years. Why I'm in debt for a few hundred grand.” Although exhaustion lined his face and bruised the skin beneath his eyes, his wink was saucy.

She had watched while he worked tirelessly alongside the medics stabilizing Samantha's neck and spine so that she had the best possible outcome, in case of a spinal cord injury. All in a day's work for him, maybe, but she'd never seen anyone like him.

She pulled off her mittens, now that the heater was kicking out a decent hot breeze. “Let's trade places. I'll drive and let you sit here and warm your hands. You've got to be half frozen.”

“The cold never used to bother me. I've been away from Montana too long. It's the Phoenix weather. It's thinned my blood. Now I turn into an icicle the second it snows. It's not manly. It's embarrassing.”

“I'm embarrassed for you.” She'd never met a better example of what a man should be, but he seemed unaware that he was that and more. “Move. Go on. I can't drive from over here.”

As if too exhausted to lift his head from the seat back, Ryan swiveled his eyes to focus on her with a disbelieving look. One eyebrow crooked with obvious skepticism. “You'd really drive? You're not just saying that, right?”

“Right.”

“You're not afraid to drive in this stuff?”

“Do I look as if I'm shaking in my boots? No.”

“But you're a
girl.
Girls don't drive in lots of snow. At least not in my experience.”

“You
have
lived in Arizona too long!” Kristin took one look at the man slouching beside her, dappled with big flakes of melting snow, his face chapped from the bitter temperatures outside. “Don't let the designer clothes fool you. You can take the girl out of Montana, but not Montana out of the girl. Let me behind the wheel and I'll show you.”

“Yeah? I'd be grateful if I could just close my eyes for about ten minutes.”

“How about all the way until the next town?”

“Deal.” Ryan opened the door and shouldered out into the dark. “No, you climb over and stay inside. I'll brave the storm. I'm still frozen anyway.”

With a lopsided grin, he was gone, leaving the scent of wind, a hint of expensive cologne and man. A pleasant combination. Kristin climbed over the console and
into the seat that was pushed too far back for her feet to reach the pedals. She adjusted the seat, snapped the shoulder harness into place and checked out the controls.

Ryan cut through the headlights with that confident, jaunty walk of his. He was like a hero out of an old black-and-white movie, tough and strong and compassionate. She didn't know they made men like that anymore.

He collapsed beside her, bringing with him the frigid wind and a blast of snow. He swiped icy flakes off his eyebrows. “Believe it or not, the blizzard's winding down some.”

“Some. Not a lot.” Kristin switched off the hazard lights, staring into the impenetrable conditions. No cars had passed, except for the emergency vehicles, since they'd arrived. The road ahead lay like a pristine ribbon of white rolling out of the reach of the headlights. Dangerous driving ahead. Kristin released the hand brake and shifted into low gear.

Ryan unzipped his coat, settling in. “Just tell me if you get too white-knuckled.”

“Don't worry. I can handle it. Belt up and hold on.” Was he a skeptic or what? It had been a long time since she'd driven anything with more power than her sensible sedan, but she was used to this weather. She hadn't always flown home. She'd driven more often than not over the treacherous mountain passes and she was still in one piece. “This is nothing compared to commuting in Seattle traffic twice a day for more years than I care to count.”

“That's what I can't picture. You living in a city. I don't know why. It just doesn't go with the McKaslin image.”

“I won't say it wasn't a big adjustment when I first moved there. When I went to college, I thought Bozeman was a big city.”

“Bozeman?” he asked.

“Yeah, I know. It's a tiny city compared to someplace like Seattle. I felt lost. Every time I left my apartment I got turned around. I'd never seen so many streets and roads and freeways in my life.”

“I know how you felt—moving away from a place with one main street through town, where you know all the roads and shortcuts by heart, to a huge city where the checkers at the grocery store ask for ID because they don't know you, your family, your grandparents and all your cousins by name.”

“See, that's where we differ. I didn't mind living someplace folks didn't know me.”

Ryan leaned the seat all the way back and stretched out his legs as far as he could. Not comfortable, but an acceptable snoozing position. Except thinking about his past made him antsy. As tired as he was, his nerve endings felt as though they were twitching and his muscles felt heavy as lead. His emotions were going every which way. Regret, guilt, grief.

Nothing Kristin would understand. Some people, like her, could go home again. They would always know the warmth of their childhood awaited them, that the ghosts of memories from holidays past were happy
ones. Not haunted by what should have been, and more failures than the young boy he'd been could cope with.

Or the man he'd become.

He liked to think he wasn't a coward. He faced challenges head-on. Sucked it up and did what needed to be done. He wasn't afraid of hardship or hard work. But some things were best left unexamined. Some memories best left buried. He had a good life, he made a good living, and he loved his work and his practice. What good was having to pick apart a past that only brought pain? That exposed wounds that could never be healed?

No, Kristin didn't look as though she'd rather be running away instead of heading home. Her delicate profile was brushed by the glow of the dash lights, burnishing her creamy porcelain-fine skin, the feminine line of her nose and the dainty cut of her chin. He supposed her parents would welcome her with open arms, and tomorrow there would be only happiness in her home where her sisters and their families gathered to make new memories for the holidays to come.

He closed his eyes, wondering, just wondering. If he would have turned out the same if his dad had lived instead of withered away in a coma. If the logging truck hadn't crossed the double yellow on the road to town. If, instead of being struck and pinned to the ground beneath a load of logs, Dad had returned home with the ice cream he'd gone to fetch.

God made all things for a reason. But what about tonight? Why had Samantha Fields been hurt tonight? How would her life be changed?

Only God knew.

Still, it troubled him deeply. He closed his eyes, too troubled to fall right asleep. Listening to the swipe of the wiper blades on the windshield, he felt the blast of heat from the vents. The vehicle fishtailed now and then, and Kristin handled it skillfully, keeping them safe as they journeyed through the dark and snow. He couldn't remember feeling more lonely as the hours dragged on and sleep claimed him, blessedly deep.

S
omething was hurting his eyes. Something shiny. Bright like sunlight.

Consciousness returned in a nanosecond—the ache in his back from the seat, the binding restriction of the seat belt, the hum of the engine and low murmur of music on the radio. And Kristin, with her golden hair tangled and windblown, and fatigue bruising the fragile skin beneath her eyes. She smiled, and he swore he could see heaven.

“Good morning.” Her gentle alto was the single most beautiful sound he'd ever heard. A
good
way to start a new day. Thanksgiving Day.

Rational thought pierced through his sleep-fogged mind. Kristin had let him sleep through until daybreak. Sitting upright, he swiped a hand over his face and looked around. Sure enough there was that celebratory shine of the rising sun cresting the granite peaks to the east.

Even though he hadn't seen those particular moun
tains in more than a decade, he recognized the rugged snow-blanketed peaks thrusting into the silky wisps of clouds and sun.

The Bridger Range. Mountains he'd climbed in, biked in, hiked in and skied on. Where he would take off just to get away. Where he retreated just to play. Every morning he'd sat at the breakfast table shoveling in bowl after bowl of cereal while he stared through the old warped glass windows and there they were, those mountains jagged and snowcapped and close enough to touch.

Mountains he hadn't seen since he was a restless eighteen-year-old who couldn't wait to leave the prison of his small town. Who'd never looked over his shoulder as he drove away.

Looking at those proud summits and those breathtaking slopes made it real. He was home. For better or worse. “I only meant to catch a few z's. Not sleep through three mountain passes and two states. You should have kicked me in the shin to wake me up.”

“It was tempting, but I didn't mind driving. It was the least I could do, considering you were so valiant saving Samantha's life.”

“Valiant? Me? No way. I just tried to get her stable. That reminds me, I meant to check on her before this.” He dug around in his pockets for his cell, but he only got Tim's voice mail. He left a message, there was nothing else he could do for now. “What about you? You drove through a blizzard for hours.”

“They had just plowed, so it wasn't too bad.”

“You had to stop for gas. Why didn't you wake me up so I could take the next shift?”

“Oh, I tried. I shook you and you didn't even move. You were so out of it you slept right through the ding when I left the keys in the ignition and the banging when I filled the tank. A truck at the next fuel pump accidentally hit his horn and nothing. Not even the slightest hitch in your snoring.”

“I don't snore.”

“That you know.”

He didn't snore, but Kristin couldn't resist teasing him. He looked adorable, all rumpled and sleep-soft. He'd sprawled all over his side of the vehicle, and he drew his legs up and yawned widely.

As much as she was
so
not interested romantically, the woman in her couldn't help appreciating a fine, good-hearted man. If she wasn't careful, she'd be crazy enough to start developing a crush on him. He was a doctor, he made a difference with his life, he was handsome and kind and funny and smart.

He's probably commitment shy and has a list of typical male faults a mile long, she thought to intentionally counterbalance the admiration glowing in her chest like the rising sun.

He rubbed his eyes and his nose. Scrunching up his mouth like a little kid, he looked ten times more handsome as he did. He blinked, as if his eyes were still trying to focus on the rolling mountain valley and the dazzling peaks rimming it. “Look, the snow's stopped.”

“Yeah. About an hour ago. There's nothing like a
Montana morning.” Her eyes hurt with the beauty of it. She was home. Rose-hued sunlight shimmered on miles of quiet, pristine snow, like thousands of tiny faceted jewels flung across the land. A land so big and untamed, it still felt wild over a century after it was settled.

Wooden fence posts draped in snow marched along meadows and over undulating hills, not unlike the fences the pioneers had sunk into this land. Up ahead an elk, a light milk-chocolate tan against the dazzling snow, ambled onto the two-lane highway. He swiveled his elegant head to look at her, his polished antlers gleaming like ivory in the light.

She slowed on the recently plowed roadway. Ice had her fishtailing but she steered into it, shifted into neutral and eased to a stop. With no traffic so early in this desolate place, she waited instead of going around.

“I haven't seen that in a while.” Ryan breathed, sitting up straight. “We used to have a whole herd of them that would graze in the fields next to our house.”

“We did, too. They'd come and eat the grain set out for the horses.”

“Is he awesome or what?”

Pure, elegant power, the male elk lifted his head to scent the wind. Muscles rippled beneath his tan coat as he stretched. As if sensing danger, the great animal gathered up into a breathtaking leap. Agile and lithe, the bull galloped across the ruby-hued landscape, a streak of brown against the wonder of the dawn. A ray of sunlight haloed him and he vanished.

“Awesome,” Kristin agreed into the silence.

As the SUV crept forward on the ribbon of road, Ryan fought the memories crowding up from the deep well in his heart he'd boarded shut decades ago. Memories of the crisp winter air searing his face. His boots sinking deep in the snow as he tried to walk in his dad's tracks, though the footprints were too far apart. The crackle of the dried marsh reeds as they rustled when Dad knelt down. The black stock of his hunting rifle resting on his thigh.

“What made these tracks, son?” Dad had asked in that hushed voice he used, not as harsh as a whisper but so quiet Ryan had to scoot up closer to hear. “Look carefully.”

His eight-year-old body had been thrumming with excitement. He hitched up the woolen hat that had slung too low and into his eyes, and frowned at the tracks. They looked just like the deer tracks they saw on the north side of the marsh. But he didn't want to blurt out the wrong answer without thinking long and hard on it first. He didn't want to disappoint his dad.

“Here's a hint. First figure about how long they are.”

“I shoulda known that right off, Dad!” Ryan remembered to keep his voice down even if he wanted to shout with excitement. “It's an elk. Elks' tracks are bigger than deer. And, uh, it's a bull elk. He'd been polishin' up his antlers on that cottonwood. The bark's all gone in spots.”

“That's my smart boy. My guess is if we move along nice and quiet, we just might be lucky enough to get a good look at him.”

The rasping hum of a diesel engine tore Ryan from the past and from his father's side. He sat with the morning sun stinging his eyes in the passenger seat as Kristin merged onto the wide-open lanes of I-90. The three-trailer semi barreling along in the lane beside them pulled ahead, the driver in an obvious hurry to get home.

Home.
How was he going to make it through the next twenty-four hours when he hadn't even reached his mom's house and he was already dragging up the past? And feeling torn apart by it. He didn't know. He didn't have any answers. He flipped down the visor and winced at his reflection in the mirror. He took one look at his red-rimmed eyes, dark spikes of hair that looked like a twister tore through them and a day's growth shadowing his jaw.

Yeah, Mom's gonna take one look at me and start right in.
Ryan could hear it already. She'd want to know if he was sleeping enough, eating right, et cetera, et cetera, and there was no way he could tell her the truth. No way he could drag up the past that would only devastate them both. For her sake, he had to be tough.

Troubled, he stared out his side of the windshield and blinked. It was the marsh. Buried in snow, the surface rough and choppy due to a few of the hardier, taller reeds and cattails poking through the snow. The marsh where Dad would take him to learn what a man needed to know.

It wasn't the hunting. It wasn't the tracking. It was the self-reliance.
The world's a harsh place, son.
He
could hear Dad's mellow baritone as clear and true as the day he'd said it.
A smart man adapts and perseveres and learns to take care of himself. Look, there's the elk.

Ryan saw it perfectly in memory—the proud bull poised at the frozen shore, antlered head lifted to scent the wind on a morning lit by gold and rose, in a world layered with white.

Yeah, Dad, you sure taught me that lesson well.
Ryan swallowed past the knot in his throat, turning his head to watch as the marsh whizzed by and fell behind them. Lost from sight like the past. Yeah, his dad's death taught him way too much. He'd learned to take care of himself at an early age.

“This is our exit.” Kristin's voice sounded thick.

With excitement? Probably. She had her family waiting, her sisters coming home, her grandparents to draw near. Self-reliance wasn't something a McKaslin girl needed to know to survive. He realized what felt like envy was really longing. Longing for what could never be.

You can't change the past, man, he told himself, although he knew that lesson well, too. The past is gone, done, no sense in letting it in. He was changed. A man he hoped his dad would be proud of. Someone who was about as self-reliant as possible in this world of Internet and cell phones, of urban sprawl and shopping malls.

“Look.” Kristin gestured ahead as she circled off the icy ramp and onto the two-lane road that nosed them toward town. “A lot has changed. Oh, that restaurant is
new. There's Gramma's coffee shop. She has a new awning out front. I'll have to tell her how cute it looks.”

Ryan scanned the green-and-white-striped awning giving a decidedly
Country Living
look to the shop that advertised “Espresso” in loopy purple neon. That was the coffee place Mom was always talking about. She'd picked up extra work whenever Kristin's grandmother needed help.

That's when he realized the town, with its old-fashioned main street and neat, sturdy buildings that hadn't changed since the fifties, had grown up, too. A few quaint restaurants, more cafés than the old red Formica-countered diners, brightened up the faded brick buildings marching down the length of several blocks. Corey's Hardware had a new neon sign, fresh paint and a bench out front.

There was a new antique store prettied up with lace curtains in the wide windows. And the Sunshine Café, where, after he'd saved up change from collecting aluminum, he'd splurge on chocolate milkshakes for him and his little sister before handing over the bulk of the hard-earned dollars to his mom.

“Do your cousins still run that place?”

“Yeah. They make the best chocolate shakes anywhere.”

“I was just thinking about that. Thick and sweet and so chocolaty.” Ryan's stomach growled. “Wow, I remember you and your sisters would ride your horses into town and tie them up in the parking spots in front of the café.”

“And you would ride your bike.”

His bike. As Kristin navigated along the snowy street, where previous tracks of chained-up vehicles had broken a clear path, he saw snatches of the boy he'd been. Pedaling on his secondhand mountain bike down the wrong side of the road, a rebel without a cause and a chip on his shoulder. Holding down two jobs, bagging at the grocery on weekends and cleaning barns for Kristin's uncle. Wanting his mother's life to be easier. Hating that it wasn't. Missing his dad so much, it hurt to breathe.

I never should have come back, he thought, his eyes stinging. It was too much. Earlier, he'd vowed to keep his thoughts in the present. But what did a guy do when the past was tangled up with the present?

“The closer we get to home, the sadder you look.” Kristin sounded concerned. Caring, the way a friend was.

He lived such a busy life, he didn't have a lot of friends. And he liked it that way. He shrugged. His problems were his own. “I'm just dog tired. You doin' okay? I could take over. In fact, why don't you let me drive?”

“Because those are my dad's fields. Okay, they're my sister's now. Michelle and her husband took over the farming. I'm almost
home
.”

Kristin probably didn't realize how much warmth she placed on that word. Her emotion came through as easily as if she'd opened wide her heart. What a blessing she had, in the family she'd grown up with. In the
childhood home that rose into sight nestled on the crest of a low rolling hill. The front windows reflected mauve in the rising sun, and the clouds overhead began spitting out tiny airy flakes of snow, as delicate as spun sugar. Like a blessing on this day of homecoming.

“I get to see how my new baby nieces are growing. Now I'm getting excited! The last time I came home, it was when little Caitlin was born.”

“I take it Caitlin belongs to one of your sisters?”

“Yep. I'm a proud aunt many times over.” Okay, there were a hundred excellent reasons for coming home. Her sisters were married, and when they all gathered together for holidays, they'd become a sizable group. It was exciting to see how happy her sisters were. Happy with the lives they'd chosen. Her sisters were mothers now, and that meant a whole troop of nieces and nephews she got to spoil.

Both bitter and sweet, her visits home. Very hard on her poor heart.

“That's a pleasure I haven't enjoyed yet, being Uncle Ryan.” For the first time on the trip, he smiled, genuine and true, and it was as if his defenses lowered and she could see more deeply into him. See a glimpse of his dreams. “Mia has just finished vet school. She's worked hard to get this far, and she hasn't taken the time to fall in love.”

“She's smart, finishing her school first.” It's what she did. “A woman has to be able to make a living on her own.”