argue with you there,” Dad said. Although despite that whole it-doesn’t-matter spiel, Dad was no one’s fool. Especially when it came to his sons, all of whom had pulled their fair share of crap growing up. And now it was obvious from the slight tilt of his father’s heavy gray brows that he knew damn well there was more to Colin’s return than a simple “it was time.”
“So, where are you staying?” Mom asked. Colin faced her, now noticing she had her equipment bag with her, meaning she was headed out either to a birth or at least an appointment.
“In your old digs,” he said with a slight smile.
“So you’ve seen Josh and them?”
He nodded. “But they didn’t know I was coming, either. Neither did anyone else. Zach or Levi, I mean. I’m...easing back into things.”
His mother got a better grip on the bag, then dug her car keys out of her vest’s pocket. “And unfortunately it’s my day at the clinic, so I can’t hang around. But dinner later, yes?”
Colin smiled. “You bet.”
Mom squeezed his arm, then said, “Oh, to hell with it,” before pulling him in for another hug. This time, when she let go, he saw tears. “You have just made my day, honey. Shoot, year. I can’t wait until tonight.”
“Me, too,” Colin said, then watched as she strode out to her truck with the same purposeful gait as always. Nothing scared that woman, he thought. Nothing that he was aware of, anyway.
“She’s busier than ever,” Dad said behind him, making him turn. “Happier, too.”
His twin brothers had been in middle school when Mom announced it was time she lived her own life, that she’d decided to become a midwife. And if for a while they’d all been like a pile of puppies whose mama had decided they needed weaning, right then and there, they’d all gotten over it, hadn’t they?
“Um...want something to drink?” Dad said, scrubbing his palm over the backside of his baggy jeans—an uncharacteristically nervous gesture, Colin thought. Mom’d said his father had lost weight after that scare with his heart, even if only because the doctors had put the fear of God in him. Apparently, however, it hadn’t yet occurred to him to buy clothes to fit his new body. “It’s probably too early for a beer, and I only have that ‘lite’ crap, anyway...”
Colin chuckled, even as he realized his own heart was stuttering a bit, too. True, he’d never butted heads with his father like his brother Levi had, but neither was there any denying that the day he’d left Whispering Pines for college he’d felt like a caged bird finally being set free. Nor had he ever expected any desire to come home to roost.
“That’s okay, I’m good.”
Nodding, his dad tugged open the door, standing aside so Colin could enter. The place was tiny, but as colorful and warm as the old cabin had been. Plants crowded windowsills with wild exuberance, while hand-quilted pillows and throws in a riot of colors fought for space on otherwise drab, utilitarian furniture. Interior design had never been part of Mom’s skill set—and certainly not Dad’s, whose only criteria for furnishings had been a chair big enough to hold him and a table to eat at—but there was love in every item in the room, from the lushness of her plants to how deliberately she displayed every item ever gifted to her from grateful clients.
Love that now embraced him, welcoming him home...even as it chastised him for staying away so long. But...
Colin frowned. “I would’ve thought if Granville was going to leave the ranch to a Talbot, it would’ve been to you.”
His father snorted. “First off, I wouldn’t’ve wanted it. Not at this point in my life. Which Gran knew. Second...” Dad’s mouth twitched. “He also knew exactly what he was doing, leaving it to your brother and his daughter equally.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly. Because sometimes fate needs a little kick in the butt.” Dad squinted. “So. What’s going on, son?”
Underneath his father’s obvious—and understandable—concern, Colin could still hear hints of the my-way-or-the-highway gruffness that’d raised his hackles a million times ever since he was old enough to realize there was a whole world outside of this tiny speck of it wedged beside a northern New Mexican mountain range. A world that needed him maybe, even if it’d be years before Colin figured out how, exactly. That hadn’t changed, even if...
And the problem with voluntarily reinserting yourself into the circle of the people who—for good or ill—loved you most was that there would be questions.
How truthfully Colin could answer those questions was something else again.
Sucking in a slow, steady breath, Colin managed a smile. “Why am I back, you mean?”
Dad crossed his arms over what was left of his belly. But the fire in those fierce gray eyes hadn’t diminished one bit. “Seems as good a place as any to start. Especially since your mother and me, we’d pretty much given up on that ever happening, to be truthful.”
“I stayed in touch,” Colin said, realizing how pitiful that sounded even before the words were out of his mouth.
“When it suited you, sure.”
Even after all this time he still couldn’t put into words what exactly had driven him away. Which was nuts. But all he’d known was that if he’d stayed he would’ve gone mad.
“I had things to do I couldn’t do here,” he said simply.
After a moment, his father started toward the nondescript but reasonably updated kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee from the old-school Mr. Coffee on the counter. “Decaf,” Dad groused, holding up the cup before taking a swallow and making a face. Then, leaning one roughened hand against the counter, he sighed. “Not gonna lie, for a long time it hurt like hell, after you left. That, on top of the crap Levi pulled...”
This said with an indulgent smile. Most likely because from everything Josh had said last night, his twin, Levi—who after a stint in the army was now back and married to the local girl he’d been secretly sweet on in school—and Dad had worked out their differences.
His father’s gaze met his again. “Although I honestly don’t know why I ever thought the four of you would stick around. That you’d naturally be as tied to the place as I was, and my daddy and granddaddy before me. No, let me finish, I’ve been waiting a long time to say this.” Frowning, he glanced toward the window over the sink, then back at Colin. “Then this happened—” he gestured with the cup toward his chest “—and I guess when they put that stent in my artery more blood went to my brain and opened that up, too. And I realized if you expect your kids to be clones of you, you’re not raising ’em right. You all have to follow your own paths, not mine. And I’m good with that.” One side of his mouth lifted. “Mostly, anyway. But you can’t blame me for being curious about what’s prompted the surprise visit.”
With that, it occurred to Colin his father hadn’t seemed all that surprised, really. So much for swearing to God. “Josh told you I was here.”
“He
