“Thank you,” she said when the welcome warmth began to seep into the room. “You’re right, that’s much better.”
“Just the thing on a rainy, stormy night.”
She had to agree. She had been thinking she needed to replace the drafty old fireplace with a gas insert for convenience’s sake, but there was something uniquely comforting about a wood fire.
Riley took the easy chair adjacent to the sofa. He gave a barely audible sigh and leaned back in the chair and she wondered if he’d had time to sit down all day long.
“Perfect. Okay. Now I’m ready. Tell me about the Angel of Hope’s Crossing.” He smiled slightly, that sexy little dimple in his cheek flashing at her. Her stomach dipped and fluttered and she drew in a steadying breath and told herself to stop being ridiculous.
“Here, have some fudge.”
“It’s for you,” he protested, but when she handed him a piece, he took it and popped it into his mouth. “Mmm. Okay, you’re right. Delicious. Now about the angel.”
She nibbled the edge of her own piece, letting the sweet, rich taste melt on her tongue. “Well, it all started with Caroline Bybee’s car.”
“Widow Bybee? Wow. Is she still alive?”
“Hush. She’s not that old. And she’s got the energy of a woman half her age. Haven’t you seen her garden around the corner on Blue Sage?”
“What happened to her car?”
“Well, you know she’s on a fixed income. Her husband has been gone a long time and even though she works part-time at the library, I can guess that making ends meet can sometimes be a struggle for the poor dear, especially the way property taxes keep going up.”
That was one of the problems with living in a town that had taken off as a tourist destination. People who had lived for years in their family homes often couldn’t afford to stay, not when they could make outrageous sums of money by selling their property to be turned into condos or vacation homes.
Many longtime residents had seized their golden ticket and left already, but those who considered Hope’s Crossing home and didn’t want to uproot their lives were stuck trying to find their place in the new economic reality of high taxes and tourist prices on groceries.
Add to that the fact that most of the jobs in town were relatively low-paying service-oriented positions at the resort or the other hotels that had sprung up—and the restaurants and bars that had followed—and Claire supposed it was no wonder some of the youth in town didn’t see a future for themselves here and had turned to crime.
“Caroline had that old sky-blue Plymouth she drove for years, remember?” she said. “It finally died last fall and even though she was much too proud to admit it, I don’t think she could afford to replace it. She made do for a few weeks catching rides from friends to church and the library or just walking if she had to do errands in town, but then the cold hit early.”
He said nothing for a long moment and when she glanced over, she saw his eyes were closed. He looked loose and relaxed in her recliner, more at ease than she’d seen him since he came back to town. Was he asleep? Was her story that boring or was the La-Z-Boy just too comfortable?
He opened one eye. “Go on. I’m still listening.”
Color climbed her cheeks. “Right. Sorry. Um, well, the morning of the first snow, Caroline woke up to find a strange car in the driveway. A Honda Accord only a few years old, complete with snow tires. Of course she called the police right away. Dean Coleman showed up and discovered two sets of keys inside the vehicle, along with a gift title made over to her and a note that said ‘Drive Carefully’ and that was it.”
He opened both eyes and she was astonished all over again at the vibrant green of them, like the foothills in May, lush with new grasses.
Alex had the same color eyes, but they somehow looked more startling amid Riley’s masculine features.
She shifted the throw off her a little, too warm now.
“Somebody gave Widow Bybee a car anonymously?”
“Crazy, right?”
“And she has no idea who did it?”
“None at all. You know Caroline. She’s not one to take things at face value. She tracked the purchase to a dealership outside Denver, but that’s as far as she could go with her digging. She hit solid bedrock and nobody would tell her anything.”
He looked intrigued and she remembered Mary Ella talking about how much Riley had always loved a good mystery.
“Obviously that wasn’t the end of it, as your visitor tonight indicates.”
“Not by a long shot. The rest of the winter, rumors started trickling around town of others who had been recipients of this unexpected generosity. Money left in mailboxes, baskets of food on porches, bills paid anonymously. Nothing along the lines of Caroline’s car, but always coming just at a critical moment when people were most discouraged.”
She smiled and gazed at her own basket, touched all over again that someone had gone to so much trouble on her behalf. For the first time, she realized that much of the impact these little gestures had on the recipient came not so much from the tangible gift as from the act of giving itself, the idea that someone had invested time and energy and thought into meeting a need without expectation of even a thank-you.
“Somewhere along the way, somebody coined the mysterious benefactor the Angel of Hope and the name stuck. It’s become quite a legend in town, with everyone trying to figure out who it might be. So far no one’s been able to catch him or her in the act. I probably came closer tonight than anyone else. It’s been really good for the town. I don’t think any of us realized just how fractured we’d become as a community until these things started happening.”
“Fractured? What do you mean?”
“Hope’s Crossing isn’t the same place it was when we were kids. It hasn’t been for a while.”
“Back then, the ski resort was just getting off the ground, only one double lift and a few runs,” he said.
“Right. We all thought Harry Lange and the other developers were smoking something funny to ever think they could make a go of another destination ski resort when Colorado was already glutted with them.”
“Their gamble paid off.”
“Right. Here we are, needing those tourists to survive,” she said, a little glumly.
“Any insight into who might be doing the good deeds?”
“There are about as many theories about that zipping around town as I’ve got seed beads at the store. I was thinking maybe it’s your mom.”
He snorted. “You’re crazy. My mom raised six kids by herself on a schoolteacher’s salary and whatever pitiful child support my dad condescended to pay before he died. No way would she be able to afford to buy a car for Widow Bybee, as much as she might love the cranky old girl.”
“It was only a theory. I think you’re probably right, not necessarily because of the money but because once Mary Ella was out of town visiting Lila when somebody had a cord of firewood sent to Fletcher Jones up in Miner’s Hollow.”
“Playing devil’s advocate here—not that I buy your theory for a minute—but even if my mother was out of town with my sister, she could have arranged the firewood delivery over the phone or before she left.”
“True enough, but she’s been in the store with me a few times when we heard about something the Angel of Hope had done. She was genuinely shocked and thrilled when we heard someone had paid the entire hotel bill for Mark and Amy Denton when their preemie was in the NICU for three weeks in Denver. I don’t think Mary Ella could possibly be that good of an actress. She was crying and everything.”
“I don’t know. She put on a pretty good show that everything was just fine after my dad left.”
She sent him a searching look, surprised he would refer to what had been a traumatic time for his family. He looked as if he regretted saying anything, so she returned to their previous topic.
“After I discarded the theory of your mother being the Angel of Hope, I thought it might be Katherine.”
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br /> He nodded. “Now that I might believe. She and Brodie are loaded. Between the sporting goods store and their condo developments, not to mention that her husband was one of the original investors in the ski resort, Katherine could easily afford to run around town helping people out.”
“Except right now, Katherine has far more important things on her mind than bringing me blackberry fudge and a magazine or two. She’s in Denver. I’ve talked to her every day since I’ve been home and I know she hasn’t left Taryn’s side at the children’s hospital.”
She was instantly sorry she’d brought up the accident. Riley’s expression grew shuttered and sudden tension seemed to seethe and coil between them.
Chester seemed to sense something was wrong. He lifted his head from the hearth rug and looked back and forth between them. He yawned and clambered to his feet and waddled over to the side of Riley’s armchair, as if trying to offer his canine version of moral support.
Riley reached down and scratched the scruff of his neck, his mouth a tight line.
She decided not to tiptoe around the subject. “Have you been to see Maura today?” she asked.
That bleak look in his eyes made her long for the teasing rascal he’d been as a boy. “I try to stop by every day. I swung by on my lunch hour earlier.”
“I’ve only talked to her briefly. Most of the time when I call, I reach her voice mail.”
“You’re not the only one. She’s shutting everyone out. Even when I show up in person, she doesn’t want to talk. She pretends everything is just as it was.”
“I guess some pain is so deep you have to swim through it on your own.”
“True enough.”
“How are you?” she asked after a long moment. “How are you really?”
“Fine,” he said shortly.
When she continued to look at him, he finally sighed. “I’ve had better months.”
She had a feeling he didn’t admit that to many people and she was touched that he would share with her. Without thinking other than to offer him comfort, she reached across the space between them and rested a hand on his forearm.
He looked down at her fingers for a long moment and when his gaze rose to meet hers, she wanted to think some of the darkness had lifted from his eyes.
Something flowed between them, something as warm and sweet as the homemade caramel sauce they drizzled over the ice-cream sundaes at Sugar Rush.
“You looked tired when you came in. Have you been sleeping?”
He shrugged but didn’t answer directly. “Why are you worrying about me, Claire? You’re the one with all the broken bones.”
“My injuries will heal,” she said softly.
He slid his arm away from her fingers on the pretext of scratching the back of his neck. “Don’t worry about me, Claire. Worry about Maura and the rest of my family and about the Thornes.” He quickly changed the subject. “So who’s next on your list, if not Ma or Katherine Thorne for the Angel of Hope?”
She decided to let him think he was distracting her, although she wanted to inform him she would worry about him whether he liked it or not. “I don’t know. I’m running out of possibilities.”
“What if it’s a whole group of people? Some kind of loosely structured consortium?”
She laughed. “A what?”
“What if you’ve got more than one Angel of Hope? An alliance of do-gooders? It could be all of them. Ma and Katherine, maybe even your mother. I could see Angie and her husband joining in.”
She considered the idea. “Okay, that’s an option. Maybe whoever gave Caroline her car was only the one who started it all, then others joined it.”
“I like it. So, really, the Angel of Hope could be anyone. And everyone.”
They lapsed into an easy sort of silence while she mulled the likelihood of that. It did fit. She had always considered it a little unlikely that one person could be orchestrating everything.
How would such a group work? Would they act independently or gather for a vote on who to help? While the rain clicked against the windows and the wind howled in the eaves of the old house and the fire simmered in the grate, she imagined the scene. A group of mysterious do-gooders gathered in a room somewhere drinking coffee and discussing the troubles of the people in Hope’s Crossing like the court of Zeus on Olympus.
She smiled a little at the image and opened her mouth to share it with Riley when she noticed his eyes were closed—really closed this time.
His hand had stopped moving on Chester’s fur and his chest was rising and falling in a steady, even rhythm.
“Riley?” she whispered. Her only answer was Chester’s snuffly breathing.
Definitely sleeping this time. Poor man. He had all but admitted he was struggling to deal with his niece’s death. She wished there was some way she could ease his pain. No basket of goodies or envelope full of cash could fix this. Even the Angel of Hope—or angels, as the case may be—wouldn’t have any magic cure.
Nor should there be, she thought. Some pain was simply meant to be endured.
Riley looked a different person in the circle of light cast by the lamp at his elbow. When her children slept, they looked peaceful and sweet, but Riley somehow looked much more like the rowdy rascal he’d been as a boy than the contained adult he’d become.
What would it be like to have the freedom to kiss that hard mouth? To dip her fingers in that thick, wavy hair and brush her lips against his ear…
She pressed a hand to her trembling stomach. What on earth was the matter with her? This was Riley! She had no business entertaining those sorts of thoughts about him. Besides the age difference…her thoughts trailed off. Okay, three years didn’t seem like a big deal when she was thirty-six and he was thirty-three. But she could still remember him so vividly as a nine-year-old pest, driving her and Alex crazy.
She let out a breath. He wasn’t that pest anymore. He was a man, tough and muscled, dangerously attractive. And she was a divorced mother whose love life consisted of watching lush, sweeping movies made out of Jane Austen books with a box of tissues and a bowl of popcorn.
The pain pills in her system must be messing with her. Sure, she knew they caused drowsiness and could lead to stomach upset. She found it more than a little disturbing that the prescription label hadn’t once mentioned as a possible side effect inappropriate sexual urges—toward completely inappropriate individuals.
A smart woman would wake him up and send him home where he could stretch out on his own bed and take all that…maleness…with him.
She opened her mouth to do just that and then closed it again. He had looked so very tired when he came in. If he was comfortable and could rest, it seemed cruel to wake him and send him out into the cold rain.
Hadn’t she just been thinking that she wished she knew some way to offer solace? Maybe a few hours’ rest were just what he needed.
“Riley?” she whispered again, giving one more try.
He released a long sigh of a breath and seemed to settle deeper into the easy chair. Even though she had a strong feeling she would live to regret this, she didn’t have the heart to wake him. Instead, she picked up another soft throw from the back of the sofa and carefully arranged it over him.
She would have done the same thing for Macy and Owen, she told herself as she settled back onto the sofa and tucked her own blanket around her aching leg. She was only being kind to an old friend. The gesture had nothing to do with the crazy, foolish part of her that liked having him there while the storm raged outside and the fire sizzled softly in the grate.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE HAD SOME HALF-ASSED dream that he was back in Oakland, deep undercover, his hair shaggy and long and always in the way, the two-day stubble uncomfortable and itchy, wearing clothes that stank of vodka and God only knows what else.
He was hanging with Oscar Ayala, a major player in the Catorce gang’s drug distribution network. Loud Latino music played over the rockin’ stereo in Oscar’s crib, its steady,
incessant norteño rhythm making his head spin.
They were close, so close to dismantling the network. For six months, he’d been playing the part of a midlevel distributor. He had seen horrible things. Done horrible things. A few more weeks and the interagency task force would be ready to move in—if he could only keep his precarious position as confidant to Oscar Ayala. That position was in serious jeopardy because of one reason—Oscar’s chica, Gabriela, a hot little number from Venezuela who had set her slumberous eyes on Riley.
He’d been discouraging her furtive advances for weeks, but it was getting harder and harder to tactfully keep away from her. Her influence on Ayala was powerful and while Riley couldn’t let the man think he was screwing his girl, he also couldn’t afford to have a scorned Gabriela whispering trash about him to the dealer he was trying to bring down.
He was in the kitchen pouring drinks, the music pounding, when she cornered him and, apparently tired of playing coy, took the direct route with a determined hand to his crotch.
“Oscar passed out. Now’s our chance,” she murmured in the dream/memory and wrapped herself around him like a boa constrictor. She kissed him, her mouth hard and practiced.
Short of telling her he was gay—which she could probably tell was a lie by his stupid body’s natural response to suddenly finding a lithe, soft female body pressing against all his most sensitive parts after months when he’d been too busy playing a damn role for any kind of social life—he couldn’t come up with a single way to get out of the situation.
He was just about to try the gay card anyway when the worst happened. He heard a roar from the doorway and looked up to see Oscar, the prison tats on his face even more menacing than normal.
“He attacked me,” the bitch cried out in rapid-fire Spanish. “I just came in for another drink and the next thing I knew, he grabbed me. I was trying to get away, baby.”
Riley had stood there for just a moment too long, his brain stalled out, then Oscar lunged into the room, whipping out his Glock.
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