RaeAnne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry SummerWoodrose MountainSweet Laurel Falls

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “I know,” Claire said. “That’s what I told him. But this is his first Christmas as a stepfather, and I swear, he’s more excited than Owen or Macy. I’ve had to hide the present stash a half-dozen times, and he finds every blasted spot.”

  “What do you expect, honey?” Evie untwisted her scarf, hand-knitted in a heathery wool that dangled with beads instead of fringe. “He’s a trained detective. It’s kind of what he does.”

  The two of them had probably walked over from the bead store Claire owned, just down the street a block. Evie rented an apartment upstairs from Claire. For now, anyway. Evie was dating Brodie Thorne, her friend Katherine’s son, and Maura expected their relationship was progressing quickly.

  Claire’s soft, pretty features lit up when she saw her. “Maura, honey, the store looks fabulous. I keep meaning to tell you every day when I come in for coffee, but you’re never standing still long enough.”

  “Your mom did a lot of the work. It was her idea to hang all the snowflakes and the ornaments. Isn’t that brilliant?”

  Ruth had been working at the bookstore for months, but Claire still seemed baffled by it. Maura couldn’t blame her. No one was more surprised than Maura when Ruth’s offer to help out temporarily during those dark days and weeks in the spring had turned into a permanent arrangement that had worked out beautifully for everyone concerned.

  “Ruth is a great employee,” she assured Claire again. “Hardworking and dependable, with these wonderful, unexpected flashes of ingenuity, like the snowflakes.”

  “And here she is now,” Evie announced.

  Sure enough, a moment later Ruth walked in, along with Maura’s mother, Mary Ella, and Katherine Thorne. With them was Janie Hamilton, a fairly new addition to town and another lost lamb Katherine had taken under her wing, and right behind them was Charlotte Caine, who owned the candy store in town.

  Maura took a deep breath and put on her game face, that forced smile that had become second nature since her world had changed forever eight months earlier. “Welcome, everyone. I’m so happy you can all come.”

  She stepped forward to hug and brush cheeks with everyone as they all began to shed coats and scarves and hats like penguins molting in the spring. Everyone seemed to have on holiday party clothes: shimmery blouses, festive patterned scarves, dangling earrings and beaded necklaces.

  She felt drab in her suede jacket, tailored cream shirt and jeans, though she was wearing one of her favorite chunky wood-bead necklaces she had made at String Fever last year.

  “What about Alex?” she asked. “Isn’t she coming?”

  “Angie’s picking her up,” her mother assured her. “They texted me a few minutes ago to tell me they’re running late. As usual.”

  “Whew. That’s a relief. She’s supposed to be bringing dessert, those delicious pumpkin spice cupcakes she makes.”

  “The ones with the cinnamon buttermilk icing? Oh, yay!” Claire said. “I guess since I’m not trying to fit into a wedding dress anymore, I might be able to let myself have one.”

  Maura could probably afford to eat five or six, since all her clothes fit her loosely now. Amazing how little appetite she had these days. “Everybody grab coffee or tea or whatever you’re drinking from the counter. I’ve got us set up in the corner.”

  She ushered everyone over to the coffee counter in time to see April hang her apron on the hook. Josh Kimball had come in to replace her for the evening shift. He waved and grinned his charmer of a grin at her, and she managed to dredge up a small smile for his perpetual raccoon eyes, white in an otherwise bronzed face where his goggles blocked the sun while he was snowboarding.

  “I’m off. I’ll see you later,” April said as she grabbed her coat.

  “Thank you for everything. Good luck with the night patrol. See you tomorrow.”

  “You got it.” April swung open the door just as a couple walked in—and suddenly all the air whooshed out of Maura’s lungs.

  It was the man she had seen a half hour earlier entering the café, the same impractical leather jacket, the same wavy dark hair, the same plaid scarf.

  In the hanging track lights of her store, she could clearly see her mistake.

  This man didn’t simply bear a mild, passing resemblance to Jackson Lange.

  He most definitely was Jackson Lange.

  For one crazy second, her mind became a tangle of half-buried memories, the kind that came from being young and impulsive and passionately in love. The first time he held her hand in a darkened theater, shared confidences on a sun-warmed boulder high up the canyon, tangled bodies and mouths, the peace she found only with him—then the vast heartache and the sharp, gnawing fear after he left.

  Someone was talking to her. Evie, she thought vaguely, but the words couldn’t register past her dismayed shock.

  Jack had vowed never to step foot in Hope’s Crossing, with the fierce, unwavering determination only an eighteen-year-old young man could claim.

  Yet here he was.

  Yeah. Like she needed one more thing to make this Christmas really suck. This was definitely the cherry on top of the fruitcake—for Jackson Lange to come into her store with his undoubtedly lovely wife to have a cappuccino or maybe browse through one of the nonfiction sections. Travel, maybe, or her small but adequate architectural design shelf.

  And in the middle of her book club meeting, for crying out loud.

  She could just ignore him. If she ducked behind a bookcase, with luck, he wouldn’t see her. He probably had no idea she owned Dog-Eared Books & Brew—why would he possibly know that? She could send one of the clerks over to escort him to the farthest corner away from the book club—or better yet, have Josh come with all his delightful snowboarder muscles and throw him out in the cold. She’d never heard of a bookstore having a bouncer, but there was always a first time.

  Too late. He turned just at that moment and his blue-eyed gaze met hers. She saw definite recognition there. Oddly, he didn’t seem at all surprised to see her, almost as if he had come looking for her. That was impossible, of course. In nearly twenty years, he hadn’t made the smallest effort to find her. Not that it would have taken much work on his part. She hadn’t gone anywhere.

  The years had been unfairly kind to him, she saw, had taken a teenage boy who had been brooding and angry and undeniably gorgeous to all the other teenage girls and turned him into a sexy, potent male, with intense blue eyes, a firm mouth and the resolute jawline that just might be the only thing he shared with his father.

  “Are you all right?”

  She managed to look away and saw her mother studying her with concern. “What?”

  “You’ve gone pale, darling. And I asked you three times if you made these delicious truffles. What’s the matter?”

  “I…” She couldn’t come up with a way to answer, since every single brain cell had apparently decided to stage a temporary work stoppage.

  He was coming this way. She watched him take one step toward her and then another. Her palms went damp and she could feel the blood rush out of her head, which didn’t help the small matter of her sudden inability to form a coherent thought.

  In a panic, she turned away, as if maybe she could block out the last two minutes and pretend it was just a slice out of her nightmares.

  “Why, yes. Yes, I did make the truffles. It wasn’t hard at all. The secret is to add the cream slowly and use high-quality flavoring....”

  She launched into a whole explanation about the homemade chocolate balls, but eventually the words petered out when she realized nobody was paying attention to her. They were staring at a point
above her shoulder.

  “You’re here!” Mary Ella suddenly exclaimed. “Oh, darling. I’m so happy you made it. I thought you weren’t coming until the weekend!”

  Her mother brushed past her, arms outstretched. Okay, this had to be a nightmare. As far as she knew, Mary Ella would have no reason to even know about Jack, as they had kept their relationship a secret that summer, in the tumult that was their respective home lives.

  Wondering what alternative universe she had suddenly been thrust into, she finally forced herself to turn around. Mary Ella wasn’t hugging Jack, she was hugging someone behind him. When her mother shifted, Maura finally caught a glimpse of who it was, and her insides turned to thin, crackly ice.

  Her nineteen-year-old daughter, Sage, stood just a half step behind Jackson Lange, hidden from view by the breadth of his shoulders.

  Her numb brain finally began kicking out messages at a rapid-fire pace, and none of them were good.

  Sage. Together with Jackson Lange.

  The two of them, in the same room. Not just the same room—the same freaking three-foot radius.

  She’d never had a panic attack, despite the past eight months of purgatory, but she could feel one coming on now. Her heart raced and she could feel each pulse throbbing in her chest, her neck, her face. “S-Sage.”

  Her daughter gave her a long look, but for the first time ever Sage’s usually expressive eyes were shuttered.

  She knew.

  Maura wasn’t sure how she was so certain, especially as her daughter’s features were closed and set, but somehow she could tell Sage knew the truth. Finally. After nearly two decades.

  “Who’s your friend, sweetheart?” Mary Ella asked as she stepped away from her oldest grandchild and gave Jack the sort of quizzical look she wore when trying to place someone, as if she thought she recognized him but wasn’t quite sure.

  “This is Jackson Lange. You’ve probably heard of him. He’s a pretty famous architect.”

  Maura was aware of the little stir of excitement among her friends. It was fairly common knowledge that Hope’s Crossing had spawned the man many considered the next Frank Gehry.

  Mary Ella’s expression cooled and she took a slight step back. “Of course. Harry’s son.”

  “I haven’t heard that particular phrase in a long time.” Those were the first words he spoke, and she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that his voice seemed lower, sexier, as it thrummed down her spine.

  “Yes. Harry Lange’s son.” Sage gave her mother that cool look again. “And he’s not my friend. Not really. He’s my father.”

  Maura hissed in a breath. Okay. There it was.

  This Christmas had just climbed straight to the top of the suck-o-meter.

  CHAPTER TWO

  OKAY, THIS WAS A HUGE MISTAKE.

  Jack stood beside his daughter—his daughter. Hell. How had that happened?—and gazed around at the group of women all staring at him as if he’d just walked in and mooned them all.

  When Sage had suggested stopping in at the bookstore to talk to her mother first before he dropped her off at her house and found a hotel for himself for a few days, he’d had no idea Maura would be in the middle of a freaking Christmas party. He noted the cluster of gift bags, the personalized glass decorations on the tree. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare for this gathering, and he had just barged in and ruined it.

  “Your…father?” an older woman said faintly.

  Though twenty years had gone by, he clearly recognized Mary Ella McKnight, with those green eyes all her children had inherited, now peering at him through a pair of trendy little horn-rimmed glasses. She had taught him English in high school, and he remembered with great fondness their discussions on Milton and Wilkie Collins.

  She was still very pretty, with a soft, ageless kind of beauty.

  “You didn’t know either?” Sage raised an eyebrow at her grandmother’s obvious shock. “I guess it was a big secret to everyone. I thought I was the last to know.”

  He had met Sage only days ago, but her sudden barbed tone seemed very unlike the sweet, earnest young woman he had come to know. That she would burst in and spring him on Maura like this without any advance warning seemed either thoughtless or cruel. He should say something to ease the tension of the moment, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to come up with anything polite and innocuous that didn’t start with “How the hell could you keep this from me?”

  A woman with chestnut hair who looked vaguely familiar stepped forward and rested a hand on Maura’s arm. “Are you all right, my dear?” the woman asked.

  Maura gave a jerky shake of her head and swallowed, her features pale. According to what Sage had told him, Maura was still grieving the loss of her other daughter, he suddenly remembered, and he felt like an even bigger ass for bursting in here like this.

  “Maybe the three of you should go back to your office where you could have a little privacy for this discussion,” the other woman gently suggested.

  Maura gazed at her blankly for a moment, then seemed to gather her composure from somewhere deep inside. “I’m…I’m sorry. I wasn’t… This is a bit of a shock. Yes. We should go back to my office. Thank you, Claire. Do you mind helping your mother lead the book discussion? When Alex gets here, she should have the, uh, refreshments.”

  He really should have made sure Sage had talked to her mother about all of this before he showed up, but then, he hadn’t really been thinking clearly in the three days since the carefully arranged life he thought he had constructed for himself had imploded around him.

  Three days ago, he had been living his life, continuing to build Lange & Associates, preparing for an undergraduate lecture at the University of Colorado College of Architecture and Planning. It was the first time he had stepped back in the state since he had escaped twenty years ago, a bitter and angry young man.

  His lecture had gone well, especially as he focused on one of his passions, sustainable design. He was fairly certain he hadn’t come across as a pompous iconoclast. Among the students who had pressed toward the dais to talk to him afterward had been this young woman with dark wavy hair and green eyes.

  She told him she had studied his work, that she had always felt a bond to him because she was also from Hope’s Crossing, where she knew he had grown up, and that while she hadn’t met him, she saw his father around town often.

  He studied her features as she spoke to him about her dreams and their shared passion for architecture, and he had been aware of an odd sense of the familiar but with a twist, as if he were looking at someone he knew through a wavy, distorted mirror.

  When she told him her name—Sage McKnight—he had stared at her for a full thirty seconds before he had asked, “Who are your parents?”

  “I don’t know my father. He took off before I was born. But my mother’s name is Maura McKnight. I think she might be around your age or maybe a little younger.”

  Younger, he remembered thinking as everything inside him froze. She had been a year younger.

  “She’s thirty-seven now, if that helps you place her,” Sage had offered helpfully. “She graduated from high school nineteen years ago. I know, because it was about a month before I was born.”

  Just like that, he had pieced the dates and the times together, and he had known. He didn’t need to bother with DNA tests. He could do the damn math. Anyone with a brain could clearly see she was his child. They had the same nose, the same dark, wavy hair, the same dimple in their chins.

  His daughter. After three days, he still couldn’t believe it.

  And
neither, apparently, could all those gaping women back there. Hadn’t she told anyone who had fathered her child?

  Now he followed Maura through the bookstore, noting almost subconsciously certain architectural details of the historic building, like the walls that had been peeled back to bare brick and the windows with their almost Gothic arches. With jewel-toned hanging fixtures on track lights and plush furniture set around in conversation nooks, Maura had created a cozy, warm space that encouraged people to stop and ponder, sip a coffee, maybe grab a book off a shelf at random and discover something new.

  Under ordinary circumstances, he would have found the place appealing, clever and bright and comfortable, but he could only focus on haphazard details as he followed her through a doorway to a long, barren stockroom, and a cluttered office dominated by a wide oak desk and a small window that overlooked Main Street.

  Inside her office, Maura turned on both of them. “First of all, Sage, what are you doing here today? What about your biology final tomorrow morning?”

  Her daughter—their daughter—shrugged. “I talked Professor Johnson into letting me take it this morning. She was fine with that, especially after I explained I had extenuating circumstances.”

  Maura’s gaze darted to him, then quickly away again. “How do you think you did? Did you even have time to study after your chemistry final? You needed a solid A on the final to bring your grade above a C.”

  “Really, Mom? Is that what you want to talk about right now? My grades?”

  A hint of color soaked Maura’s cheeks, and she compressed her lips into a thin line as if to clamp back more academic interrogation. Even with the sour expression, she still looked beautiful. Looking at her now, he couldn’t fathom that she was old enough to have a daughter who was a college sophomore, but then she must have been barely eighteen when Sage was born. She was seventeen when he’d left, still six months before her eighteenth birthday.