Falling For The Rebound Bride

“You could’ve still said something.”

Her cousin snorted. “And would you have listened? Or taken my ‘feelings’ as sour grapes because my own relationship had ended so badly? In fact,” she said before Emily could answer, “I wasn’t all that sure myself I could be objective. Because at that point I pretty much hated anything with a penis.”

Clapping a hand to her mouth, Emily unsuccessfully smothered her guffaw. Then she lowered it, still chuckling, only to release another breath. “I can relate, believe me.”

“Seriously.”

Emily’s eyes burned. “You know what’s really sad? At this point I don’t even know if I was really happy—before the truth came out—or just thought I was.”

“Sing it, honey,” Dee sighed. “But the good news is, at least we grow. Our hearts get shattered and then we get mad and then we get to work. Which doesn’t in the least absolve the creeps of their creepiness. But we gain so much more from the experience than we lose.”

“How...adult of you.”

“I know, right?” Grinning, Dee levered herself off the bed, tugging her robe closed in the desert chill. “You’re gonna be fine, Em. You are fine. And you know what else?”

“What?”

Her cousin’s gaze softened again. “You’re free,” she said, bending over to kiss Emily’s hair before padding out of the room.

For several seconds after, Emily sat on the bed, stroking the cat who’d returned to smash himself up beside her, his purr comforting and warm.

You’re free...

Her eyes watered as the words played over and over in her head. Because for the first time that she could remember...she was, wasn’t she? Free from anyone else’s expectations, like Dee said. Or judgment, or censure. Free to finally figure out who she was, what she wanted.

More to the point, what she didn’t.

True, she’d come for the space. Absolutely. But not to escape. Instead, for the space to claim for herself everything that was rightfully hers.

Including, she realized, the luxury of being herself.

Of being able to do exactly as she pleased without worrying, or even caring, about what anybody else thought.

The headiness almost made her dizzy.

* * *

The next morning, Colin sat outside his parents’ little house in town, trying to get his bearings before facing them. It didn’t help that, despite his exhaustion—or maybe because of it—he hadn’t slept worth spit the night before. Didn’t help that Emily kept popping into his head, although he assumed that was because she reminded him a touch of Sarah. A touch. The long hair, maybe. Her...freshness. That guileless, direct gaze that revealed more than she probably realized.

More than he could possibly handle. Especially after Sarah.

Especially now.

Releasing a breath, Colin got out of the rental and headed toward the house, shrugging into a denim jacket older than God as he sidestepped the same dinged pickup his mom had been driving for years. The impossibly blue sky framed the small brown house, squat and unassuming behind the huge lilac bushes beginning to leaf out beside the front door, the half dozen whiskey barrels choked with mounds of shivering pansies.

Despite the chill, Colin stopped for a moment, taking in the view. The house sat on the apex of a shallow cul-de-sac in a chorus line of a dozen others similar in size, if not in shape or color. There’d been no plan to Whispering Pines, it’d just sort of happened, lot by lot, house by house. But scraping the outskirts of town the way it was, this lot at least had a decent view of the mountains, which probably made Dad happy. It’d been damn good of Granville to give them the house, after the doctors strongly suggested Dad retire. There’d been other provisions, as well. His parents would never starve or be homeless. Still, three generations of Talbots had grown up in the ranch foreman’s house, and it’d felt strange sleeping there—or trying to—last night by himself.

It felt strange, period, being here. Even though—

He jolted when the front door opened, although not nearly as much as his mother when she realized who was standing in her driveway. Her hair was more silver than he remembered, the ends of her long ponytail teasing her sweatered upper arms poking out from a puffy, bright purple vest. But her unlined face still glowed, her jeans still hugged a figure as toned as ever and the joy in those deep brown eyes both warmed him and made him feel like a giant turd. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family, but—

“Holy crap,” she breathed, appropriately enough, and Colin felt a sheepish grin steal across his cheeks.

“Hey, Mom,” he said, and a moment later she’d thrown her arms around him—as much as she could, anyway, he had a good eight or nine inches on her—and was hugging and rocking him like he was three or something, the whole time keening in his ear. Then Billie Talbot held him apart and bellowed, “Sam! Get your butt out here, now!” and a minute later his father appeared, his smile even bigger than his wife’s. Then Dad practically shoved Mom aside to yank Colin into a hug that almost hurt.

“Don’t know why you’re here,” Dad mumbled, “don’t care. Just glad you are.”

Feeling his chest ease—because honestly, he’d had no idea how this was going to go down—Colin pulled away, shoving his hands in his back pockets. He’d always thought of his father as this giant of a man, towering over most everybody. Especially his sons. Now Colin realized he was actually a little taller than Sam, which somehow didn’t feel right.

“Me, too.” He paused. “It’s been too long.”

“Won’t 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.

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