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

by RaeAnne Thayne

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “SEE? THAT WASN’T SO MISERABLE, was it?” Sage said from the backseat when they were finally back in Jack’s Lexus. “Nobody poisoned anyone, at least.”

  “As far as you know,” Jack answered. “Do you have any idea how many poisons don’t show any symptoms until hours after ingestion?”

  Maura laughed, as he had intended. “Always the optimist, aren’t you?”

  “So if I wake up dead, you can say I told you so,” Sage teased.

  The finely wrought tension in his shoulders from the ordeal of the evening seemed to ease with their lighthearted banter. He very much enjoyed their company. Both of them.

  “You’re right. It wasn’t completely miserable. The food was good.” What he’d been able to taste, anyway.

  “Particularly that mousse. I’m definitely trying that sometime. Don’t you think it was nice of Harry to track down the recipe from his housekeeper?”

  Oh, yes. Jack was sure it had been quite a sacrifice for him to call her in from the kitchen and order her to print out a copy for Sage.

  “I think Harry is mellowing in his old age,” Maura said. “I still can’t believe he’s the Angel of Hope. Of all the people in town I might have guessed, Harry Lange would have been dead last on the list.”

  “He denied it, remember?” Jack said. “Quite vehemently, in fact.”

  “You lived with the man for eighteen years. Couldn’t you tell he was lying?”

  The trouble there was half the things Harry had ever said to him were lies, and he had never been very good at sorting through what was truth. In this, he had to agree with Maura, however. Harry had obviously been lying about his secret identity as the town’s mysterious benefactor. He had evidence from his own eyes—that brief moment he had seen the Angel near Maura’s house after Christmas and had wondered.

  “I don’t think the three of us should tell anyone that it’s Harry,” Sage said. “Can it be our secret?”

  “I think you’re right.” Maura surprised him by agreeing. “He’s worked really hard to keep his identity under wraps all these months. We should keep it a secret among us.”

  “Why?” Jack asked.

  “Just the idea of the Angel, some secretive being who goes around doing kindnesses, has been good for this town. Knowing it’s just a grumpy old man trying to atone for the sins of his lifetime kind of ruins the fun and beautiful mystery of it, don’t you think?”

  Was that what Harry was trying to do by sneaking around helping people with their troubles? Trying to atone somehow?

  “Are you going to tell anybody Harry’s the Angel?” Sage asked him.

  “I can keep a secret if that’s what you think best. Who would I tell, anyway?”

  “Thanks.” His daughter beamed at him. “I’ll let Harry know we’ve all agreed to a conspiracy of silence.”

  Jack wasn’t sure how he felt about that—sharing a secret about his father.

  “He’s done a lot of good around Hope’s Crossing,” Maura said. “I still can’t really believe it’s him.”

  “Maybe he just wants you to think it’s him in order to deflect attention from the real Angel,” Jack said, though he didn’t really believe that himself.

  “I would find that a little more palatable, to tell you the truth, than the idea of Harry Lange sneaking around town giving out packets of money and paying people’s utility bills. It’s a little disconcerting. Sort of like trying to picture Katherine Thorne and my mom suddenly having a hair-pulling catfight in the middle of the café.”

  He had to smile at the incongruous image of the very ladylike city council member and his former high school English teacher, both in their sixties, battling it out, mano a mano.

  Sage laughed out loud. “I would pay good money to see that. I bet lots of people in town would. Hey, maybe if we asked them nicely, the two of them would stage a mixed martial arts fight, with all proceeds to go to Layla’s scholarship fund.”

  “Don’t you dare even put that idea in your grandmother’s head,” Maura said with a soft chuckle. “I could just see one of them breaking a hip and blaming me.”

  Jack laughed along with both of them. As he pulled up into the driveway of Maura’s house, he felt a funny little bubble of something expand in his chest. It took a moment for him to realize he was happy.

  Now, there was an unexpected emotion. He had just spent two hours with his father, he was back in Hope’s Crossing, a place he’d never wanted to find himself. But he was with two women who made him laugh and think and worry.

  Two women he had come to care for deeply.

  He turned off the engine and moved around to help them both out of the vehicle. Inside, they could hear a few random, excited barks from Puck.

  Maura unlocked the door, and the dog rushed out with yips of glee. She picked up his little wriggly body and scratched under his chin. “There’s my good boy,” she murmured, and Jack had to smile. Sage had told him of Maura’s initial resistance to keeping the dog. Apparently the little fuzzball had won her over.

  If only he could do the same.

  The thought left him shocked and more than a little unsettled. Did he want to “win her over”? He still had every reason to be furious with her for his lost years with Sage. Could he move past that to the soft, caring, courageous woman she had become?

  “Thanks again for coming,” Sage said. “I know it wasn’t easy for you, and it means a lot to me that you did it anyway, Dad.”

  Dad. She had never called him that before. He stared at her, his chest filling again with that effervescent joy.

  “You’re welcome,” he said gruffly. Sage reached out and hugged him in that open, generous way of hers and, after an awkward moment, he hugged her back.

  Over Sage’s shoulder, he met Maura’s gaze and saw a thicket of emotions there he couldn’t begin to untangle.

  “You don’t need to rush away, Jack,” she said after a moment. “You’re welcome to stay and hang out with Sage. I’ll even get out of your hair. I’m going to take Puck for a walk, since he’s been cooped up all evening by himself.”

  Sage pulled away and winced. “My friend Jennie texted before we left and asked if I wanted to come over and watch a movie when we finished dinner. I already told her yes. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her in ages, but I can call her and cancel.”

  “No. Don’t worry about it. I don’t want you to change your plans on my account.”

  He studied Maura and the leash, and thought of the empty town house waiting for him. He didn’t want to go home yet, especially when they hadn’t had a chance to talk about the kiss earlier in the kitchen that had sizzled between them all night. “I was actually thinking a walk would be just the thing after that chocolate mousse. Maura, do you mind company?”

  Her mouth tightened slightly, but she quickly straightened it. “Not at all,” she answered. “Puck would love to have you along.”

  But you wouldn’t? he wanted to ask, but didn’t want to risk the bluntness of her answer in front of Sage.

  “I probably won’t be that late, since I fall over by midnight these days, but if you get back before I do, don’t wait up for me,” Sage said.

  Maura smiled and kissed her daughter on the cheek. “Good night, honey. If I don’t see you when you come home, I’ll talk to you in the morning before you go into the office.”

  “Thanks, Mom. See you guys. Have fun.”

  Maura looked as if fun was the last thing on her mind, but she said nothing as she hooked the leash onto Puck, who just about wriggled out of his fur in anticipation. Jack held the door open for her, and
together they walked out into the cool March night.

  * * *

  THIS WAS A PHENOMENALLY bad idea.

  Maura gripped Puck’s leash as if the little eight-pound dog might suddenly start dragging her down the street. Her shoulders already ached from the effort she was making to ensure she kept a nice, safe bubble around herself and didn’t accidentally bump into Jack.

  Walking through the quiet streets of Hope’s Crossing with Jackson Lange wasn’t exactly the soothing, Zen-like experience she had been seeking when she’d come up with the idea to take Puck out on the leash. She was almost painfully aware of Jack. All she could seem to think about was that kiss in her kitchen earlier and how she hadn’t wanted to stop.

  “Nice night,” he said into the silence, after they passed a few houses on her street.

  Oh? She hadn’t noticed. She drew in a breath and tried to focus on the spill of stars and the huge full moon hovering above Woodrose Mountain, instead of this fierce attraction that seemed to grow with every step.

  “Spring is on its way, I guess. We’ve still got a few stray snowstorms left in the year, but I think the worst of winter is behind us.”

  She wasn’t sure she was ready for the change. Spring meant hope and life and new growth, things that represented the inexorable march of time. Like it or not, it was inevitable. Soon the sunny days would outnumber the snowy ones, the tourist season would ease and the mountains would turn emerald and new.

  Were they really talking about the weather, with all these currents that sparked and hissed between them? She racked her brain to come up with something else to say and blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

  “What was in the little box you carried out of your father’s place?”

  He was quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed on their route, and she wasn’t sure he was going to answer. Was that a rude question? No. Nosy, maybe, but not rude.

  “A few mementos of my mother’s, apparently. Journals and keepsakes. That’s what Harry said it was, anyway. I only had a brief glance at the contents before you and Sage came back. For all I know, maybe underneath the few things of my mother rest the still-beating hearts of all Harry’s business rivals.”

  Despite her scattered emotions, she had to laugh. “Look at that. You made a joke.”

  His mouth turned up at the edges. “I’ve still got a few jokes left in me.”

  “You always used to know how to make me laugh,” she said softly. “I’d forgotten that.”

  “Lately I seem to be remembering a whole slew of things that have slipped away over the years.”

  His words were pitched low, intense, and a subtle sense of intimacy seemed to wrap around them like tendrils of smoke.

  She knew she was being cowardly when she deliberately changed the subject. “When do you start work on the recreation center?”

  “Right away,” he answered. “The city council wants tentative plans within the next six weeks or so. I’m heading to Singapore this week and will work long-distance from there, then hit it hard when I return.”

  “This will be a really valuable addition to Hope’s Crossing.”

  “You think?”

  “Claire and the others at String Fever have tried to bring the town together through the Giving Hope Day and other fundraisers, but I’m not sure it’s been enough. When the tourists overwhelm the year-round residents by ten-to-one some winter weekends, it’s tough to form a community. A recreation center might be just the thing to help people connect with their neighbors.”

  “That’s a pretty heavy expectation to put into one building.”

  “I’m sure you’re up to the challenge,” she said.

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence,” he said with a half laugh, just as he realized with some surprise that they had already reached Sweet Laurel Falls.

  * * *

  THEY COULD HAVE WALKED in any direction. Was this a conscious choice on her part? She wasn’t sure, she only knew that the night she and Jack had walked here after Christmas seemed like the beginning of this sea change in their relationship.

  The warmer temperatures of the past week or so had begun to melt the ice. Already the water was beginning to make channels and rivulets over the face of it, and in some spots the ice had completely cracked away, shattered by warmth and the force of the current.

  She wasn’t quite ready to face how very much like that spill of water she felt, half-frozen but beginning the painful process of thawing. Layla was gone. She couldn’t change that, nor could she give such little honor to the memory of the vibrant girl her daughter had been by curling up and wishing to die along with her.

  She took a seat on the small bench near the bridge that spanned the creek and gave Puck the deceptive freedom to wander at the limits of his retractable leash, sniffing at every rock and tuft of grass peeking through the remaining patches of snow.

  She loved it here. The stars, the city, the sound of the trickling water. She inhaled the cool night air and tried to relax—an impossible effort, especially when Jack sat down beside her and stretched his long legs out. Loath to reveal just how much he unnerved her, she drew in a deep breath and worked hard to relax taut muscles.

  “So,” he said after an awkward moment. “How long do you think we should keep ignoring what happened before dinner?”

  “Oh, I was thinking ten or fifteen years ought to do it.”

  He gave a rough, surprised laugh, shifting to face her. “It seems only fair to tell you I’m more attracted to you than I ever was when I was a stupid teenage kid.”

  Her stomach muscles contracted as she remembered the heat of that moment in the kitchen and, worse, that stunning, irresistible tenderness.

  “Fair? What’s fair about telling me that?” she muttered. “What am I supposed to say?”

  In the full moonlight, his features looked vaguely saturnine. “You could tell me to go to hell. You could tell me not to waste my time or energy. You could tell me you were completely unmoved by what happened and it was like kissing that really ugly statue of Silas Van Duran in Miner’s Park.”

  Now, there was an idea. Though it would be a blatant lie, maybe that’s what it would take to discourage him, to keep him just beyond that nice, safe perimeter she had maintained since divorcing Chris Parker. The words wouldn’t come.

  “I can’t,” she whispered instead.

  “You can’t what? Tell me you didn’t enjoy that kiss? Or let me kiss you again?”

  Her heartbeat pounded a heady rhythm and she didn’t answer, only gazed at him in the light of the moon. It seemed the most natural thing in the world when he reached out and pulled her against him. He was warm in the cool of the night, and she wanted to burrow into him and never move. Jack was the most solid thing in her world right now. How had that possibly happened?

  “What are we going to do about this?” he murmured.

  “Why do we have to analyze it? Can’t you just kiss me?”

  He gave that rough laugh again that seemed to sizzle through her. “Why, yes. What an excellent idea.”

  His mouth descended and he tasted sweetly of chocolate and orange with the sultry undertone of wine, and she felt like that waterfall, with currents swirling warm and strong through her, breaking away the ice of the past year in great chunks.

  “I’ve been fighting this since I came back to town,” he murmured, his breath stirring her skin. “Damned if I can understand the pull you have over me.”

  Should she be flattered or insulted by that? “What can I say?” she shot back, her voice husky. “I’m a femme fatale and spend hours a day trying to come up with
new ways to lure men into my clutches.”

  “Whatever you’re doing works, at least with this man. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head for weeks.”

  “I’ve been the same since you came back,” she admitted.

  He gazed at her for a moment, heat sizzling between them, then with a low sound he pulled her back into his arms.

  They kissed for a long time, there in the moonlight beside the waterfall, and Maura felt something else that had been missing for far too long.

  Peace.

  The yip of a dog finally brought her back to a sense of time and place, and she realized she was practically on Jack’s lap. Puck, on the other hand, sat some twenty feet away, the retractable-leash handle dangling in the dirt beside him.

  Had she really been so distracted by the kiss that she had completely let go of the leash, heedless of her responsibility to her pet? Sweet Laurel Creek wasn’t very deep or wide here, but if a tiny shih tzu like Puck were to fall in, it might as well be the mighty Missouri. Beyond that, the dog could have wandered off into the night and encountered all kinds of dangers, and she would have been too busy making out with Jack to pay attention.

  Though she really, really didn’t want to, she managed to slide her mouth away from his.

  “Puck, come back here,” she ordered. “Right now.”

  The dog gave a quizzical look, as if he considered this a fun new game, and was gearing up to bolt, until Jack simply said, “Puck. Come.”

  The dog immediately scampered over to them, so close that Jack could scoop down and pick him up. He handed the dog to Maura, and she cuddled his cold little paws on her lap, suddenly grateful for the distance the dog provided.

  He sat back on the bench, though his fingers remained entwined with hers.

  “Logically, some part of me keeps telling me I should still be furious with you for keeping Sage from me all these years. When I think about everything I missed with her, I still sometimes want to pound my fist through a wall. But then the other part of me sees her now, pregnant and alone and facing all this uncertainty and all these painful choices, and I have to wonder how the hell you can even stand to look at me, knowing I left you to deal with everything by yourself.”