“Let’s say six-thirty. I’ll pick you up at your house.”
“Great. I’ll see you then.”
He picked up his jacket, shook it off from being on the ground, then shrugged into it. With a stiff nod to Maura, he headed out into the snow-crusted streets of Hope’s Crossing.
The encounter with Harry served as a stark reminder of everything he’d been thinking. What the hell did he know about being a father? When he was a kid, his own example had been distant, preoccupied with work, then increasingly sharp—bordering on cruel—as Jack had reached adolescence.
By the time his mother eventually took her own life out of despair and loneliness and mental illness, Harry had given up any effort at establishing a relationship and had shown nothing but disdain for him.
Maybe Jack ought to just cut Sage a break now and slip back out of her life as quickly as he had come. She hadn’t had a chance yet to establish any real feelings for him. She had her mother, her grandmother, a strong support network here in Hope’s Crossing. Why on earth did she need him?
He stopped himself before he could go further down that road. The idea of leaving now, after he had only just found her, was unbearable. He wanted to be a father to her, in whatever limited capacity he could manage.
If that meant achieving some sort of peaceful accord with Maura, he was willing to do that too. He had to think that somewhere inside the prickly, sad-eyed woman she had become were some traces of the smart, funny, tender girl she had once been.
He was willing to do whatever might be necessary to find her again.
* * *
COMPARED TO THE EXCITEMENT of an ambulance and paramedics and a wobbly Harry Lange, the rest of Maura’s day seemed depressingly uneventful.
Even with the hectic holiday season and the various challenges it presented to a business owner—the crowds and the chaos and even a couple of teenage shoplifters she had to turn over to Riley—she found that every day seemed very much like the one before. Tomorrow would probably be more of the same.
Every once in a while she had a wild urge to do something crazy. To leave the store and take off cross-country skiing for the day, or drive into Denver for some retail therapy, or just walk away from everything and catch a flight to some secluded beach in Mexico.
She was grateful for her job and her business, for the comfort of routine. But she still sometimes wanted to chuck everything and escape, even in the middle of the holidays.
She looked around the store. It was nearly six-thirty, and the crowd had thinned a great deal as people headed home or to one of the many restaurants for dinner in Hope’s Crossing. They would probably see a bit of a spike again in about an hour, but nothing to compare to the afternoon crowds.
“Sierra, do you think you and Joe can handle the registers by yourselves?”
“Absolutely, Maur,” her employee assured her, flipping stick-straight blond hair out of her eyes. “We’re totally dead now. Go home and grab some dinner and put your feet up and watch something brainless on TV!”
That idea sounded really lovely, if only she didn’t have about four hours of paperwork to do. But one of her favorite things about being a small-business owner was that she could do said paperwork at home with her feet up on the coffee table if she wanted—or even if she didn’t want to.
“I think that’s just what I’ll do. Thanks for everything today.”
“No prob. See you tomorrow.”
Maura headed back to her office to pick up her laptop. On impulse, she sat down and grabbed the phone and quickly dialed the number to the Hope’s Crossing hospital, a small forty-bed unit that served the town and the smaller surrounding communities.
“Yes, I’m checking on a patient. Harry Lange,” she told the operator.
“Are you a family member of Mr. Lange’s?”
Does being the recently discovered baby mama of his estranged son count? She sincerely doubted it. “No,” she had to confess.
“In that case, I’m afraid I can’t release any information on Mr. Lange’s condition. I’m sorry.”
“I understand. Can you transfer me to his room?” That would at least let her know if he had been admitted.
“Yes. Hold on a moment, please.”
So he was still there. She wasn’t sure why she cared about the man’s condition, as demanding and arrogant and downright unpleasant as she found him. Much to her chagrin, some stupid part of Maura actually felt a little sorry for Harry Lange. Despite having everything most people thought necessary for a life to be deemed a success, Harry’s unhappiness was palpable. His own choices had left him sour and bombastic and bitterly alone.
Apparently one of those choices was to ignore the phone in his hospital room. The phone rang eight times in the room before she was bounced back to the chirpy operator. “I’m afraid there’s no answer in that room.”
“I’ll call back. Thank you.”
She hung up the phone. Maybe she ought to swing by to check on him. She frowned at the thought. Why would she even consider it, except for the fact that he had been standing in her store when he’d had his little incident?
Harry Lange was none of her business. She should despise everything about the man—because of him, Jack had turned his back on all they might have had together.
“Trouble with a vendor?”
She turned at her mother’s voice and found Mary Ella in the doorway. She looked bright and pretty in a turtleneck with her little reading glasses hanging by a new beaded chain Maura hadn’t seen before. If she could look half as smart and put-together as her mother when she had six decades under her belt she would consider herself blessed.
“Not a vendor. I was just calling the hospital to check on Harry Lange.”
Mary Ella’s finely arched eyebrows shot way up. “Okay, that statement is just wrong on so many levels. What happened to that old son of a—er, monkey? And why on earth would you be calling to find out about it?”
“You hadn’t heard? I figured the gossip would have spread all over town by now.”
“I’ve been at home working on that quilt I’m making for Rose’s oldest and cleaning the house before they get here next week. I haven’t talked to a soul. What happened?”
“How’s the quilt coming?”
“Fine. Now, what happened to Harry?”
Her mother’s urgency made her blink. Mary Ella despised Harry. They had a long-standing feud and could barely tolerate being in the same room with each other on the few community occasions where that might be necessary.
“This morning he stopped into the bookstore to pick up a special order. Wouldn’t you know it, he walked in just as Jack was about to leave. Seeing his long-lost son must have been too much for him. I don’t know if it was shock or disgust or something else, but he stumbled a little, hitting his head on one of the display tables. Considering he passed out for a moment, I insisted on calling the paramedics.”
Mary Ella sank into one of her visitor chairs. “Is he all right?”
“Privacy laws, remember? They can’t tell me anything. He seemed fine when the paramedics came. He was sitting up and snapping at everyone before the paramedics made him go to the hospital.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Because Harry is a bastard. You’re the first one standing in line to call him that.”
“I am, aren’t I?” Mary Ella murmured.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’ll be stomping around town bossing people around before we know it.” Maura decided to change the subject. She had spent enough time worrying about Harry Lange—and his progeny—today. “So what brings you here? Isn’t it the Bea
dapalooza over at String Fever?”
Claire’s annual event attracted beaders from around the county, drawn to slashed prices and the great offers on bead kits. It was usually the perfect way to de-stress from the holidays, with the bonus of allowing people the opportunity to make a few last-minute gifts.
“Exactly. That’s why I’m here. Claire sent me over to see if you are coming.”
She refused to feel guilty for skipping this year. The book club the night before had been more than enough socializing for her. She thought about trying to come up with an excuse to appease her mother, but finally opted for the truth.
“Mom, this whole thing with Jack… I’m just not ready to face everyone again. It’s been bad enough this year since Layla… Well, it’s been bad enough. And now this. I can’t bear to have everybody talking about me and Jack and our history together now. I’m going to pass. Please give my love to Claire. Next year will be better.” She hoped.
“Oh, honey.” Mary Ella’s mouth trembled and Maura really hoped her mother wouldn’t start crying, because then she would start crying.
They were both saved by a bustling outside the door, then a strange, squeaky sound. A moment later, Sage appeared in the doorway. “Oh, good. You are still here. Are you leaving soon? I was hoping I could catch a ride home with you.”
She frowned. Sage had on her red peacoat, but it looked bulky and unnatural. Maybe she was hiding a Christmas present under there. Maura ordered herself not to ask, though she really hated secrets. “I thought you were having dinner with your, er, with Jack tonight.”
“We changed our plans. He called just after I left the store this afternoon and said his assistant scheduled a couple of conference calls and he couldn’t get out of them. I think he felt really bad, but I’m cool with it. He’s picking me up for breakfast tomorrow. Right after I hung up with him, Josie texted me. She’s back from UCLA for the holidays, so we’ve been hanging out at her house.”
“Oh, how is Josie? Is she liking Stanford?”
“She’s good. I guess she likes it okay, but all she wanted to talk about was her new boyfriend. James. Not Jamie or Jim or Jimmy. James. He’s a senior in pre-med and sounds boring as hell.”
Maura saw her mother bite her lip to fight back a smile. She wanted to chide Sage for swearing, especially in front of her grandmother, but since she did the same all too often, she didn’t feel that she had much standing.
“Don’t you have any boring boyfriends to talk about?” Mary Ella asked.
Sage’s expression suddenly grew closed, as it did whenever Maura asked the same thing. “Oh, you know how it is. I don’t have time for much of a social life. I’ve got to ace my generals, or I won’t be able to get into the undergraduate environmental planning program.”
That mysterious squeak sounded again. It was definitely coming from Sage’s direction. Was it a burp? Maura looked closer, but her daughter adjusted her arms a little and gave the two of them a casual smile. “Can you believe Josie is thinking about changing her major again? This will be like her fourth time.”
“You should be fortunate you’ve always known you wanted to be an architect,” Mary Ella said.
Sage’s torso suddenly wiggled oddly, and she moved as if someone had just tickled her ribs.
“All right. What’s going on, Sage?”
Her daughter put on the same innocent face she used to wear when Maura would walk into her room and find crayon marks on the wall. “What makes you think something is going on?”
“I don’t know. Either you’ve got an alien inside your coat or a serious case of indigestion.”
Sage sighed and unzipped her peacoat. A furry little tan face peeked out cheerfully. “Josie brought a shih tzu puppy home from college. I guess she got in trouble at school for having it in the dorm and thought she could convince her parents to keep it here, but they already have three dogs and don’t want another one.”
“No,” Maura said without hesitation. “Absolutely not.”
“Come on, Mom. Look how adorable this face is. How can you say no?” Sage lifted the tiny puppy about four inches away from Maura. The animal looked like an Ewok, cuddly and cute. As she looked into those little black eyes, the puppy titled its head and stretched its mouth out in what looked suspiciously like a grin.
Something cold and hard seemed to dislodge inside her. It scared the hell out of her.
“His name is Puck. Isn’t he precious?”
“Sage. I can’t take on a puppy right now. I don’t have time! I’m working twelve hours a day here at the store.”
“I’ll do everything while I’m here. There’s really not much, anyway. He’s almost potty trained.”
She and Mary Ella groaned simultaneously. Almost potty trained was often worse than not trained at all.
“I thought maybe he could come to the store with you. I mean, it’s called Dog-Eared Books & Brew, isn’t it? Don’t you think you should have some kind of canine around the place to live up to the name?”
“No. Not really.”
“Why not? Claire takes Chester to the bead store with her, and Evie even uses Jacques for therapy.”
Neither of those dogs was a puppy—or a yippy, hyper little breed. “No, Sage. This is not a good time to get a dog. You’re going back to school in a few weeks, and I’m just not ready to take on a pet.”
Her daughter pouted a little, her cheek pressed against the dog’s. But she had never been one to dwell long on disappointments. “Well, can we at least keep him until the holidays are over? Josie said she has a friend back in California who might be able to take him. She thought she could take him back with her, but I guess her family’s having tons of company over for the holidays—her dad’s whole family is coming to ski—and her mom said she can’t handle a puppy in the midst of everything else.”
Maura didn’t know what to say. She hated to disappoint Sage, but didn’t they have enough strain in their lives right now, with Jack suddenly bursting back into the picture after all these years?
“I thought, you know, having a cute little dog to keep us company might be a good distraction for both of us, Mom. Help us not to miss Layla so much over Christmas.”
She gave a mental groan. Trust Sage to come up with the one thing Maura couldn’t refuse. It broke her heart to think of Sage trying to devise a way to ease her mother’s pain and her own at the loss of her sister.
“Finding your father isn’t enough of a diversion?”
“For me. Not so much for you.”
Oh, having Jackson Lange back in Hope’s Crossing definitely qualified as a distraction. She had been so scatterbrained today, she had barely been able to function.
She scrutinized the little dog. Okay, he was cute. What would be the harm in babysitting him for a few weeks? They hadn’t had a dog around the house since their much-beloved ancient golden retriever had gone to the big fire hydrant in the sky the summer before Sage started high school.
“Only until Josie goes back to school. And you have to promise to do all the work, even if you’re putting in hours here at the store. Feed him, water him, clean up any messes. Everything. I mean it.”
“I will, I swear. Thanks, Mom.” Sage stepped forward and kissed her cheek. The little sneak of a dog reached in and gave her cheek a lick too.
Two days ago her life had seemed so simple. Raw and empty and filled with pain, but not all these complications. Now she had Jack to deal with, and Sage and her grief and her secrets, and now a fuzz-faced dog.
“Keep in mind the most important thing. You’re cleaning up all the messes,” she repeated, just to be clear.
/> “I know. I know. I won’t forget. I’m going to go out and show Sierra and Joe. Just come grab me when you’re ready to go home.”
She gave her grandmother a kiss—and held the dog up to do the same—before she blew out of the room as quickly as she’d entered.
“You’re a sucker, my dear,” Mary Ella drawled.
“You don’t have to tell me that. I always have been. I learned it from you, the woman whose children talked her into three dogs, four cats, a couple of gerbils, a tank full of fish and a fainting goat.”
“I miss that goat. My yard has never been as well groomed as when we had him around to eat the grass. Maybe I should get another one.”
“I know a little shih tzu who could use a new house. Can’t promise he’ll eat the grass, though.”
Mary Ella smiled and rose. “I’d better run, though after quilting all day, I’m not sure these old fingers will be able to do much beading.”
“Does that matter? You go to String Fever for the fun and gossip as much as anything.”
“True enough.” Mary Ella paused and placed a hand on Maura’s cheek. “I pray for the day when you will want the same thing again.”
“I will. Someday.” Absurdly, she wanted to lean into her mother’s soft fingers and weep, but she forced herself to straighten her shoulders. “If you find anything out about Harry, let me know. I should probably be ready in case he decides to sue me for every penny, since my store is about the only thing in town he doesn’t own.”
Mary Ella smiled again, but Maura was almost certain she saw anxiousness in her green eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
A GRANDDAUGHTER.
All this time he had a granddaughter, living right under his nose.
Harry Lange fidgeted in the damn hospital bed, trying to find a more comfortable position. He abhorred the Hope’s Crossing hospital, even if he had given the place enough cash over the years they should have named a wing after him. The fawning doctors, the busybody nurses, the obsequious administrators who had already been in to check that he was receiving top-quality care.
RaeAnne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry SummerWoodrose MountainSweet Laurel Falls Page 64