Quinn Read Online Free PDF

down and decide that what their ranch needed most was a veterinarian? What was even more amazing to Cole was the fact that his youngest son had aced every test and had gotten himself into one of the toughest veterinary programs in the country.
    Thinking of Jake always had Cole thinking of Jake’smother. He had been so young when Seraphine had disappeared. Did the lad have any memory of her at all? Of her laughing eyes? Her fabulous hair, which she’d dyed every color imaginable. Black. Red. Platinum. As though she couldn’t decide who she wanted to be—earth mother or seductress. Not that it ever mattered to Cole. He’d loved her no matter what part she was playing. He’d loved everything about her. That fine porcelain complexion. Those green eyes, all fire and ice. That lithe dancer’s body. He swore under his breath. And that hardheaded attitude that Cole found both endearing and infuriating.
    Cole suddenly frowned. He remembered something else that had flashed through his mind just before the incident. He’d been worried about the fact that sometimes he couldn’t remember Seraphine as clearly as in years gone by.
    Was she slipping away from him? Was he letting her slip away?
    Drained by too many memories and lulled by the steady drip of the intravenous in his arm, Cole slept and dreamed of home.
    “That beef stew hit the spot.” Cole, seated at the head of the table, mopped up the last of the gravy with a biscuit and sat back, glancing around at the others.
    Though he appeared as rugged and rock steady as ever, with that rogue smile and handsome, Irish countenance, there was a weariness in his eyes that he couldn’t hide.
    Big Jim, an older mirror of his son, except for the white in his full head of hair, was seated at the opposite end of the table. Both father and son were lean and muscled, eyes crinkled at the corners as much by laughter as by the effects of a lifetime squinting into wind and sun.
    Big Jim drained his mug of coffee and nodded. “I bet you didn’t get food like this at the hospital.”
    Cole shared a smile with his father. “I have to say, it wasn’t half-bad. But then, all I remember having is some broth and some mashed potatoes.”
    “Saving your appetite for the homecoming, were you?”
    The two men laughed. Around the table, the others joined in.
    As they had been for years, Quinn and Josh were seated to the left of Big Jim, with Jake and Phoebe and Ela on his right.
    Phoebe wasn’t exactly seated. During the meal she’d been up and down half a dozen times, fetching a forgotten pitcher of water, then a batch of biscuits from the counter, and later the freshly baked apple pies that had been cooling in the kitchen. There had also been refills of coffee, a tray of mugs, along with cream and sugar, and, finally, extra plates for the dessert.
    All of these would have ordinarily been handled by old Ela, who, it was whispered, had been old when Big Jim hired her to cook and clean for him and his infant son more than fifty years ago. No one was sure of her age, but she was still going strong. She was barely five feet tall and nearly as round. Her constant attire was a shapeless native dress of doeskin and, over that, a crisp white apron. Her gray hair was braided and pinned up like a crown around a face so deeply lined it resembled aged parchment.
    “Where’s your mind today, woman?” Big Jim studied her as Phoebe was forced to retrieve yet another forgotten part of their meal, Cole’s favorite tall glass of foaming milk with his dessert.
    Ela pretended not to hear while Phoebe’s cheeksturned pink. “We’re both just a little distracted. But we’re so glad to see our patient home where he belongs.”
    “Amen to that.” Cole studied the stingy slice of pie she passed him. “What’s this?”
    “The dietitian’s list warned about excess sugar.”
    Cole’s lips thinned. But before he could explode, Jake intervened. “Remember, Pa, the doctor also said that you have to be your