A Cold Creek Homecoming. RaeAnne Thayne

floor when she looked up at the sound of the jangling bells on the door to spy him walking into her café.

      “Quinn Southerland,” she exclaimed, her smoker-husky voice delighted. “As I live and breathe.”

      “Hey, Donna.”

      One of Jo’s closest friends, Donna had always gone out of her way to be kind to him and to Brant and Cisco. They hadn’t always made it easy. The three of them had been the town’s resident bad boys back in the day. Well, maybe not Brant, he acknowledged, but he was usually guilty by association, if nothing else.

      “I didn’t know you were back in town.” Donna set the pot down in an empty booth to fold her scrawny arms around him. He hugged her back, wondering when she had gotten frail like Jo.

      “Just came in yesterday,” he said.

      “Why the hell didn’t anybody tell me?”

      He opened his mouth to answer but she cut him off.

      “Oh, no. Jo. Is she…” Her voice trailed off but he could see the anxiety suddenly brim in her eyes, as if she dreaded his response.

      He shook his head and forced a smile. “She woke up this morning feistier than ever, craving one of Lou’s sweet rolls. Nothing else will do, she told me in no uncertain terms, so she sent me down here first thing so I could pick one up and take it back for her. Since according to East, she hasn’t been hungry for much of anything else, I figured I had better hurry right in and grab her one.”

      Donna’s lined and worn features brightened like a gorgeous June morning breaking over the mountains. “You’re in luck, hon. I think he’s just pullin’ a new batch out of the oven. You wait right here and have yourself some coffee while I go back and wrap a half-dozen up for her.”

      Before he could say a word, she turned a cup over from the setting in the booth and poured him a cup. He laughed at this further evidence that not much had changed, around The Gulch at least.

      “I think one, maybe two sweet rolls, are probably enough. Like I said, she hasn’t had much of an appetite.”

      “Well, this way she can warm another up later or save one for the morning, and there will be extras for you and Easton. Now don’t you argue with me. I’m doing this, so just sit down and drink your coffee, there’s a good boy.”

      He had to smile in the face of such determination, such eagerness to do something nice for someone she cared about. There were few things he missed about living in Pine Gulch, but that sense of community, belonging to something bigger than yourself, was definitely one of them.

      He took a seat at the long bar, joining a few other solo customers who eyed him with curiosity.

      Again, he had the strange sense of stepping back into his past. He could still see the small chip in the bottom corner of the mirror where he and Cisco had been rough-housing and accidentally sent a salt shaker flying.

      That long-ago afternoon was as clear as his flight in from Japan the day before—the sick feeling in the pit of his gut as he had faced the wrath of Lou and Donna and the even worse fear when he had to fess up to Guff and Jo. He had only been with them a year, twelve tumultuous months, and had been quite sure they would toss him back into the foster-care system after one mess-up too many.

      But Guff hadn’t yelled or ordered him to pack his things. Instead, he just sat him down and told one of his rambling stories about a time he had been a young ranch hand with a little too much juice in him and had taken his .22 and shot out the back windows of what he thought was an old abandoned pickup truck, only to find out later it belonged to his boss’s brother.

      “A man steps up and takes responsibility for his actions,” Guff had told him solemnly. That was all he said, but the trust in his brown eyes had completely overwhelmed Quinn. So of course he had returned to The Gulch and offered to work off the cost of replacing the mirror for the Archeletas.

      He smiled a little, remembering Lou and Donna’s response. “Think we’ll just keep that little nick there as a reminder,” Lou had said. “But there are always dishes around here to be washed.”

      He and Cisco had spent about three months of Saturdays and a couple afternoons a week after school in the kitchen with their hands full of soapy water. More than he cared to admit, he had enjoyed those days listening to the banter of the café, all the juicy small-town gossip.

      He only had about three or four minutes to replay the memory in his head before Lou Archeleta walked out of the kitchen, his bald head just as shiny as always and his thick salt-and-pepper mustache a bold contrast. The delight on his rough features matched Donna’s, warming Quinn somewhere deep inside.

      Lou wiped his hand on his white apron before holding it out for a solemn handshake. “Been too long,” he said, in that same gruff, no-nonsense way. “Hear Seattle’s been pretty good to you.”

      Quinn shook his hand firmly, aware as he did that much of his success in business derived from watching the integrity and goodness of people like Lou and Donna and the respect with which they had always treated their customers.

      “I’ve done all right,” he answered.

      “Better than all right. Jo says you’ve got a big fancy house on the shore and your own private jet.”

      Technically it was the company’s corporate jet. But since he owned the company, he supposed he couldn’t debate semantics. “How about you? How’s Rick?”

      Their son had gone to school with him and graduated a year after him. Tess Jamison’s year, actually.

      “Good. Good. He’s up in Boise these days. He’s a plumbing contractor, has himself a real good business. He and his wife gave us our first granddaughter earlier this year.” The pride on Lou’s work-hardened features was obvious.

      “Congratulations.”

      “Yep, after four boys, they finally got a girl.”

      Quinn choked on the sip of coffee he’d just taken. “Rick has five kids?”

      His mind fairly boggled at the very idea of even one. He couldn’t contemplate having enough for a basketball team.

       Lou chuckled. “Yep. Started young and threw in a set of twins in there. He’s a fine dad, too.”

      The door chimed, heralding another customer, but Quinn was still reeling at the idea of his old friend raising a gaggle of kids and cleaning out toilets.

      Still, an odd little prickle slid down his spine, especially when he heard the old-timers in their regular booth hoot with delight and usher the newcomer over.

      “About time you got here,” one of the old-timers in the corner called out. “Mick here was sure you was goin’ to bail on us today.”

      “Are you kidding?” an alto female voice answered. “This is my favorite part of working graveyard, the chance to come in here for breakfast and have you all give me a hard time every morning. I don’t know what I’ll do without it.”

      Quinn stiffened on the stool. He didn’t need to turn to know just who was now sliding into the booth near the regulars. He had last heard that voice at 3:00 a.m. in the dark quiet of the Winder Ranch kitchen.

      “Hey, Miss Tess.” Lou turned his attention away from bragging about his grandkids to greet the newcomer, confirming what Quinn had already known deep in his bones. “You want your usual?”

      “You got it, Lou. I’ve been dreaming of your veggie omelet all night long. I’m absolutely starving.”

      “Girl, you need to get yourself something more interesting to fill your nights if all you can dream about is Lou’s veggie omelet,” called out one of the women from a nearby booth and everybody within earshot laughed.

      Everybody but Quinn. She was a regular here, just like the others, he realized. She was part of the community, and he, once more, was the outsider.

      She