Читать книгу Back to Eden - Melinda Curtis - Страница 8

COLE HUDSON WAS NEVER going to love her.

Rachel Quinlan stared at Cole’s parked truck. The engine wasn’t even pinging or popping because it had long since cooled, and the sick sensation caused by unyielding truth settled in her gut.

Oh, Cole liked her well enough and had even taken her out to dinner and to the movies a time or two. If pressed, he might even say he loved her. But it would be clear that he didn’t “love her” love her, not in the happily-ever-after kind of way.

With tear-filled eyes, Rachel stared up at the blue sky blossoming above Eden, Wyoming—a sky that cruelly promised a beautiful October day fit for a wedding—someone else’s wedding.

It wasn’t just that Cole was four years older than Rachel and treated her as if she still hadn’t reached puberty. Heck, she’d filled out a bra three years ago, and Cole hadn’t seemed to notice.

And it wasn’t for lack of bodily contact. He gave Rachel a hug every time he saw her, sweeping her up and twirling her around, his deep laughter rumbling through to her soul.

Rachel sighed. Nope. The problem was Cole Hudson didn’t love her like a man loved a woman. He could never love her that way.

Because he’d lost his heart to Rachel’s older sister, Missy.

Not that this was a news flash. But in that moment, staring at Cole’s truck on Missy’s wedding day, the reality of it all smacked into Rachel harder than it ever had before. She was a silly, daydreaming girl, just like Missy always told her, wasting time staring at the sky and weaving fantasies that would never come true.

Missy didn’t understand Rachel’s dreams, which tended to involve leaving home. Missy was a big homebody. Heck, Missy protested if she had to leave Sweetwater County. She’d refused to fly anywhere since their mother had gone away, claiming to want only to provide a good home for Rachel and their father. And Missy had. Because of her, Rachel could dream. She’d earned her pilot’s license, reveling in the joy of soaring through the sky. Rachel had even helped her father rebuild the engine on his C119 warplane.

It did seem disloyal to have such strong feelings for someone Missy had once so dearly loved, but Missy had let Cole go, which left the door open for Rachel, didn’t it?

Rachel fidgeted. Only if Missy and Cole didn’t still love each other, which didn’t seem to be the case. The impossibility of having Cole love her threatened to overwhelm Rachel as she stared at his truck parked in front of room twenty-two of the Shady Lady Motel on the outskirts of Eden.

The question was: Who was in the motel room with Cole?

Rachel shivered, crossing her arms against her suspicions and the early-morning chill.

In less than four hours, Missy was supposed to be marrying Lyle Whitehall in front of God and everyone at the Chapel in the Valley on Main Street. Lyle was the son of Eden’s shyster mayor, who was also the bank president and holder of the note on the small Quinlan ranch and airstrip. Brian Quinlan ran an air freight business, but he wasn’t very good at making money, and Lyle and his daddy knew it.

Not that Missy didn’t seem to care for Lyle, but Lyle’s affection for Missy was…not what Rachel would call love. Rachel shivered again. This time for a different reason.

If Missy…when Missy married Lyle later today, their worries were supposed to be over. Rachel had no clue as to what would happen to them if Missy didn’t marry Lyle at eleven o’clock, but she’d bet it wouldn’t be very good.

Rachel had known there’d be trouble when Missy had slipped out of her bachelorette party last night, running down the sidewalk to Cole’s waiting truck, blond hair flying behind her. Rachel had been the only one to see her leave. She’d lied to cover Missy’s absence—by that time most of the women were too tipsy to notice the bride had flown the coop anyway—and driven home in Missy’s truck, hoping old Sheriff Tucker wouldn’t catch her driving without a license. After spending a sleepless night waiting for Missy to come home, Rachel had climbed into Missy’s truck again, her heart heavy, and driven back into town at daybreak only to discover what she’d dreaded to find— Cole’s truck parked at the motel. Now she wondered—was there going to be a wedding?

What in the world was Cole doing messing things up like this? Rachel’s dreams, her home, all would be lost. Suddenly filled with an anger demanding an outlet, Rachel ran up to the door and pounded on it.

Before her knuckles hit the warped wood a second time, Cole opened the motel room door and stalked past Rachel without so much as a glance. Missy huddled in the mussed bed, a sheet pulled up to her shoulders and tears streaming down her pale face.

Missy, who had always been Rachel’s rock as well as sister, mother, friend and confidante, and who always looked model perfect, looked as if she was thirty-nine, not nineteen.

Rachel forgot all about her own shattered dreams as she ran across the worn, stained carpet to comfort her sister.