didn’t know a mother in town more proud of her offspring than Viviana Cruz was of First Lieutenant Magdalena Cruz.
As well she should be.
The whole town was proud of her, first for doing her duty as an Army nurse in Afghanistan when her reserve unit was called up, then for the act of heroism that had cost her so dearly.
He finished the job, then stowed the flat tire and the jack and lug wrench in the cargo area of the Subaru, though he had to squeeze to find room amid the boxes and suitcases crammed in the small space.
Was she home to stay, then? he wondered, but knew she likely would tell him it wasn’t any of his business if he asked. He’d find out soon enough, anyway. The grapevine in Pine Gulch would be buzzing with this juicy bit of information.
He had no doubt that by the time he returned from Idaho Falls in the morning, his office staff would know all the details and would be more than eager to share them.
“There you go.” He closed the hatch. “You don’t want to run for long on that spare. Make sure you have Mo Sullivan in town fix your flat in the morning and swap it back out.”
“I will.” She stood, and in the headlights he could see exhaustion stamped on her lovely features.
“Your help wasn’t necessary but...thank you, anyway.” She said the words like they were choking her, and he almost smiled when he saw the effort they took. He stopped himself at the last minute. Accepting his help was tough enough on her, he wouldn’t make things worse by gloating about it.
“Anytime. Welcome home, Lieutenant Cruz.”
He doubted she heard him, since by then she had already climbed back into her Subaru and started the engine. He shook his head, used to the familiar chill from her.
He watched her drive away, then wiped his greasy, muddy hands on his already grimy scrubs and hurried to his Durango, pulling out behind her.
As he passed his own driveway a moment later, he thought with longing of his warm bed and the sandwich calling his name, but he drove on, following those red taillights another five miles until she reached the entrance to the Rancho de la Luna—Moon Ranch.
When she drove her little Subaru through the gates without further mishap, he flashed his brights, then turned around to drive back toward his house. Somehow he wasn’t a bit surprised when she made no gesture of acknowledgment at his presence or his small effort to make sure she reached home safely.
Maggie had been doing her best to ignore him for a long time—just as he’d been trying equally hard to make her notice him as someone other than one of the despised Daltons.
Despite the exhaustion that had cranked up a notch now that he was alone once more, he doubted he would be able to sleep anytime soon. He drove through the dark, quiet night, his thoughts chaotic and wild.
After a dozen years Magdalena Cruz was home.
He had a sudden foreboding that his heart would never be the same.
* * *
Jake Dalton.
What kind of bad omen made him the first person she encountered on her return?
As she headed up the curving drive toward the square farmhouse her father had built with his own hands, Maggie watched in her rearview mirror as Dalton turned his shiny silver SUV around and headed back down Cold Creek Road.
Why would he be driving back to town instead of toward his family’s ranch, just past the Luna? she wondered, then caught herself. She didn’t care where the man went. What Jake Dalton did or did not do was none of her concern.
Still, she hated that he, of all people, had come to her aid. She would rather have bitten her tongue in half than ask him for help, not that he’d given her a chance. He was just like the rest of his family, arrogant, unbending and ready to bulldoze over anybody who got in their way.
She let out a breath. Of course, he had to be gorgeous.
Like the other Dalton boys, Jake had always been handsome, with dark wavy hair, intense blue eyes and the sculpted features they inherited from their mother.
The years had been extremely kind to him, she had to admit. Though it had been dark out on that wet road, his headlights had provided enough light for her to see him clearly enough.
To her chagrin, she had discovered that the boy with the dreamy good looks who used to set all the other girls in school to giggling had matured over the years into a dramatically attractive man.
Why couldn’t he have a potbelly and a receding hairline? No, he had to have compelling features, thick, lush hair and powerful muscles. She hadn’t missed how effortlessly he had changed her flat, how he had worked the car jack it had taken all her strength to muscle, as if it took no more energy than reading the newspaper.
She shouldn’t have noticed. Even if he hadn’t been Jake Dalton—the last man on the planet she would let herself be attracted to—she had no business feeling that little hitch in her stomach at the sight of a strong, good-looking man doing a little physical exertion.
Heaven knows, she didn’t want to feel that hitch. That part of her life was over now.
Had he been staring? She couldn’t be sure, it had been too dark, but she didn’t doubt it.
Step right up. Come look at the freak.
She was probably in for a lot of that in the coming weeks as she went about town. People in Pine Gulch weren’t known for their reticence or their tact. She might as well get used to being on display.
She shook away the bitter self-pity and thoughts of Jake Dalton as she pulled up in front of the two-story frame farmhouse. She had more important things to worry about right now.
The lights were off in the house and the ranch was quiet—but what had she expected when she didn’t tell her mother she was coming? It was after 2:00 and the only thing awake at this time of the night besides wandering physicians were the barn cats prowling the dark.
She should have found a hotel room for the night in Idaho Falls and waited until morning to come home. If she had, right now she would have been stretched out on some impersonal bed with what was left of her leg propped on a pillow, instead of throbbing as if she’d just rolled around in a thousand shards of glass.
She had come so close to stopping, she even started signaling to take one of the freeway exits into the city. At the last minute she had turned off her signal and veered back onto the highway, unwilling to admit defeat by giving in so close to her destination.
Maybe she hadn’t fully considered the implications of her stubbornness, though. It was thoughtless to show up in the middle of the night. She was going to scare Viviana half to death, barging in like this.
She knew her mother always kept a spare key on the porch somewhere. Maybe she could slip in quietly without waking her and just deal with everything in the morning.
She grabbed her duffel off the passenger seat and began the complicated maneuver for climbing out of the car they taught her at Walter Reed, sliding sideways in the seat so she could put the bulk of her weight on her right leg and not the prosthesis.
Bracing
