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

by RaeAnne Thayne

  She drew in a shuddering breath, stunned at the depth of emotion behind his words. “It’s done, Jack. We both made mistakes. For what it’s worth, I forgave you a long time ago for not…not loving me enough to stay.”

  He stared at her, and beneath her hand she could feel his heart beating strong and fast. “Not loving you enough? Is that what you thought? It killed me to leave. I punched in your number at least once a day that first month, but I always hung up before the call could go through.”

  “We would have been lousy together back then. Over the years, I’ve wondered what would have happened if you had ever returned my calls. You would have come back and insisted we do something stupid and shortsighted like get married, and we would have been miserable together. You would have dropped out of school to support us and probably gone into construction or something. You certainly never would have become an architect. Eventually you would have hated me for stealing that dream from you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Anyway, we can’t go back and change anything. I’m not sure I would, even if I had the chance.”

  He was silent for a long time, petting Puck almost absently.

  “You know,” he finally said, “one of my first jobs out of graduate school involved a lot with this really spectacular view of the ocean near Monterey, but also an ugly, dilapidated building that had been built right after the Second World War. It was poorly planned and constructed with shoddy materials. We figured out right away the structure couldn’t be saved. But we also figured out the one good thing about the whole lot, besides the view, was the foundation. It was still sturdy and as strong as when it had been laid down decades ago. Do you know what we ended up doing?”

  “No.”

  “We tore the whole structure down and rebuilt something new and beautiful on the same foundation, a boutique hotel that consistently wins design and hospitality awards.”

  “Jack—”

  “I think we have something sturdy and strong here, Maura. I’d like to see what we could build on that foundation.”

  Panic began to filter through the soft haze of desire that surrounded them. She eased away from him a little on the bench.

  “Or we could forget tonight ever happened and go back to the wary sort of peace we’ve managed to achieve since you came back to Hope’s Crossing.”

  “Why would we want to do that?”

  She sighed, feeling like an idiot. “I can’t… I don’t do this well.” She gestured back and forth between the two of them.

  He raised an eyebrow. “From my perspective, you do it very well.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I’ve had two serious relationships in my life—what we had together all those years ago and then my marriage. I ended up making a mess of both of them.”

  “I can’t speak for your marriage, but you certainly didn’t do anything to mess up our relationship. We were both young and stupid. I blame that more than anything. How long have you been divorced again?”

  She sighed. “Officially, eight years. But our relationship was rocky long before then. His touring was hard on us, but more than that, I wasn’t the sort of wife I should have been, probably because…”

  She stopped, horrified that she had almost revealed to him that her marriage hadn’t worked out in part because some measure of her heart had always belonged to Jack.

  “Because?”

  “Chris and I were never a very good match,” she said, which was true enough. Just not the whole story. “Logically, we were perfect for each other. We both loved music and poetry and talking about books. He was so great with Sage that I really thought we could make it work, but…I guess our marriage was never strong enough to deal with all the challenges of his life as a musician. We didn’t have that strong foundation you were talking about.”

  She really didn’t want to talk about Chris right now—and not with Jack. “That’s not really the point here. We were…were talking about us.”

  “I would like there to be an us, Maura. I loved you once. Since I’ve been back, I’m beginning to remember all the reasons why.”

  She closed her eyes against the soft seduction of his voice, against the fierce need to lean into his words and into him. “It’s been twenty years. We’re totally different people. We’re kidding ourselves if we think we can just pick up where we left off, as if all those years and all the mistakes and all the…all the pain never happened.”

  “I don’t want to go back. What we had was exciting and wonderful, but you’re right, we’re different people. I’m not that moody kid with the mountain-size chip on my shoulder anymore. I’m a man who has suddenly realized he spent twenty years looking for something. It’s one hell of a kick in the teeth to find out what I needed was right here where I started.”

  She trembled, seduced by his words in spite of herself. “There’s the difference between us. I’m not looking for anything. I lost my daughter less than a year ago. My other daughter is in trouble in the most old-fashioned meaning of the phrase. I’m empty inside, Jack. This last year has been a fine and terrible hell I could never have imagined.”

  With the rapid-fire emotional swings of the past year, she could feel tears scorch her throat. She waited for them to pass, even as she recognized that tears only reinforced her point. “I’m still wildly attracted to you,” she finally said, after clearing them away. “That’s probably obvious. But I’m not sure I’m healthy enough to bring my best self to a relationship right now. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

  “Okay. I can be flexible,” he said after a pause. “We don’t have to tangle ourselves in a relationship. How about just meaningless sex?”

  The words shocked a laugh out of her, and it took her a moment to realize that was what he had intended. She definitely was still an emotional train wreck if she could go from near tears to laughter and this wild heat in just a matter of seconds.

  She bumped her shoulder against his. “It wouldn’t be meaningless. I think we both know that.”

  Her words seemed to seethe and curl between them, and he said nothing for a long time, while the endless creek bubbled beyond them and the town lights glittered below and Puck snored softly in her lap.

  “I’m willing to give you time, Maura,” he finally said. “We’ve waited all these years. I can wait a little longer.”

  “Jack—”

  “Look, I told you I have to leave town next week for a job site in Singapore. I’ll be running back and forth for at least a month. Why don’t we put this discussion on hold for now and reassess when I get back?”

  She wanted to tell him there was no point. What would possibly change in a month? But then, if she had learned anything this past year, it was the inescapable fact that a person’s life could shift in an instant.

  “Yes,” she finally said. “Okay.”

  Puck’s paws had been muddy, she realized, as Jack took her hand to help her from the bench. Her clothes were covered in mud now from having him on her lap, and Jack’s probably were too.

  Spring was like that. Muddy and messy and hard. Rather like life. But once you made it through the rough patches, it could also be sweet and beautiful. Could she and Jack find their way into the sunshine? For the first time in months, she wanted to find out.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SHE REALLY DIDN’T WANT to be here.

  The third week in April, nearly a month after their dinner with Harry Lange and the night she had walked to Sweet Laurel Falls with Jack, Maura stood at a small, well-tended plot at the Hope’s Crossing cemetery. Whoever had selected this spot for a cemetery back in the town’s rough and wild minin
g days definitely had chosen wisely. On an easy, rolling foothill across from Woodrose Mountain, the cemetery was a place of quiet serenity, with a lovely view of the surrounding mountains and town.

  Around her stood family members and friends, gathered along with her to remember the one-year anniversary of Layla’s death. Nearly everyone Maura cared about was there. Her mother and sisters, April Herrera and a few of her other employees, some of Layla’s friends from school, just about all Maura’s friends from the book group.

  Katherine Thorne was there with Brodie and Evie, married just a few weeks. Taryn stood beside them using only a small cane for support, which Maura considered nothing short of a miracle, considering how badly injured Layla’s best friend had been in the accident.

  Even Harry Lange stood on the outskirts of the crowd, there but somehow separated from the press of people.

  Maura appreciated the outpouring of love and support. On some level it warmed her deeply to know so many people had cared about her daughter—and about those Layla had left behind.

  Over the past year, though, she had come to accept that the tangled path through loss and grief was mostly a solitary one. No one could help her find her way through the briars and over the rocky screes. Others might lend solace along the journey, but in the end, she—and everyone else who grieved—had to take each long, difficult step alone.

  If she’d had her way, she would have marked this anniversary in some other way. A hike into the mountains with little Puck, or gathering her friends together for some kind of service project, or even just throwing herself into work for the day and letting it pass unnoticed except in her heart.

  Sage had wanted this celebration of Layla’s life, though. She had insisted on it and had worked out every detail, from scheduling the time to sending out invitations. She had even arranged the small buffet luncheon at Harry’s place, being catered by one of Brodie Thorne’s restaurants.

  Maura thought she knew why this meant so much to Sage. While Sage no doubt wanted to honor her younger sister’s life, Maura suspected it was also a distraction, an excuse to think about something else for a while and put off worrying about her pregnancy and the impending adoption.

  With that in mind, she had decided she would let Sage have this memorial service this year—and only this year. The town already had the Giving Hope day around Layla’s birthday, a day when everyone gathered to help each other by painting fences, doing yard work for the elderly, road cleanup. Whatever needed to be done. To her mind, that was a beautiful way to honor her daughter’s memory and celebrate her life.

  In contrast to the day of the accident, when snow and ice in the canyon had left the roads slick and dangerous, today was beautiful and sunny, a lovely, mild spring day that was rare and precious in the high Rockies. Spring had come early to Hope’s Crossing this year. Most of the snow in town was gone, except for little patches under the sweeping branches of trees and on the north side of structures that didn’t see much sun.

  A light breeze stirred Sage’s hair as she began to speak to the crowd. At nearly seven months pregnant, she looked round and soft and pretty. “Thank you all for coming,” she said, smiling nervously. “It would have meant a lot to Layla.”

  She went on to talk about her sister and the people whose lives she had touched. Even after her death, Layla was helping others, Sage said. The scholarship fund in her name had already provided one year of college education to three of her schoolmates at Hope’s Crossing High School and a year at a tech trade school for another.

  “I found this great quote online while I was preparing this that really touched me. I have to see if I can get through this.” Tears swam in Sage’s eyes, but she didn’t cry. Maura wanted to hug her, but she knew if she did, Sage would lose her battle with tears.

  She was deeply proud of her daughter when she drew in a breath and sniffled a little but quickly regained control.

  “It was an epitaph in an Irish cemetery and it just seems to fit perfectly. It says, ‘Death leaves a heartache difficult to heal. Love leaves sweet memories impossible to steal.’ I would like you to remember your sweet memories of Layla. You’ve all been given an envelope containing a butterfly ready to be released into the wild. I picked a butterfly release instead of balloons because it’s better for the environment and because Layla always loved them. She called them ‘flutties’ when she was a little kid. We have perfect weather for those flutties today.”

  She wiped a tear with one of Mary Ella’s embroidered handkerchiefs. Maura saw her mother wipe one too. Even Alex, her youngest sister, looked teary. “I found this other saying online. I couldn’t find who wrote it, but I thought it was perfect. ‘Butterflies are symbols of hope. They land beside us, like sunbeams, and belong to us for a moment, but then they fly away. And while we wish they might have stayed longer to share their beauty, we feel blessed for having s-seen them.’”

  Another tear trickled down Sage’s cheek, and Maura finally squeezed her hand as she fought her own tears. This was a celebration of life and today she wanted to remember Layla with joy, not sadness.

  “Now if you could all open your envelopes. According to the company where I ordered them, the butterflies might need a moment to wake up before they take flight.”

  The next few moments were filled with rustling paper as the butterfly envelopes Sage had handed out were opened by everyone.

  Maura opened her own and watched the monarch butterfly climb out to the edge of the paper and cling there for a moment, its wings reflecting sunlight as they opened and closed a few times. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a few flashes of orange-and-black as other butterflies took flight, but hers remained stubbornly on the paper. At last, when she had just about given up, it finally took off, straight into the air.

  Her heart in her throat, she followed its path and watched it dip and soar, joining the hundred others. A few even landed on the headstone before taking flight again.

  Those assembled at the memorial watched for a moment. Her sister Angie snapped some pictures of the butterflies flying off in all directions.

  “Thank you all again for coming,” Sage said after a short time. “It means a lot to me and my mom. Feel free to stay and visit if you want, but remember we’re going to Harry Lange’s house for dinner. If anybody doesn’t know where that is, just ask me.”

  Sage stepped back into the crowd to talk to her grandmother before Maura had a chance to tell her what a wonderful job she had done. She turned around to follow another butterfly’s flight, and suddenly her breath caught when she spied a tall, dark-haired figure walking through the crowd toward her.

  Jack.

  What was he doing here? He was supposed to be stuck in Singapore for another few weeks, yet here he was, looking strong and wonderful.

  How on earth had he managed it? A week ago, he had told her the office complex he had designed had run into some snags with the complicated permit process in Singapore and he would have to stay longer than expected, at least through the initial start-up process.

  She stared, shock and a soft joy bursting through her. She hadn’t seen him in forever, though they emailed several times a day and talked on the phone at least three or four times a week. Their phone calls had become a treasured part of her day. They laughed and talked, sometimes for hours. She felt like she was seventeen again, having to steal the landline receiver from one of her older sisters’ rooms.

  Anticipation curled inside her as she watched him make his way through the crowd to Sage. He said something to their daughter, pointing to her expanding abdomen. She made a face
but threw her arms around him, and he hugged her tightly.

  Right. That’s why he was there. He was Sage’s father. He was here for their daughter, probably because she had asked him.

  “It was a beautiful remembrance,” Mary Ella said beside her.

  She smiled at her mother. “Yes. Wasn’t it?”

  “The butterflies were a really lovely touch. And weren’t we lucky it was warm enough for them?”

  “The company Sage purchased them from said it had to be at least sixty-two degrees. It was sixty-four on our way here. We just made it.”

  “I’m glad,” Mary Ella said.

  “Are you coming to Harry’s?”

  Her mother made a face. “That man! I still don’t understand why we couldn’t have it at my house or even Claire’s.”

  “You have to admit, he’s got a little more room than either of you.”

  “He’s got enough room to fit the entire town if he wanted to.”

  “Which, of course, he does not.”

  “I see Jackson made it, after all,” Mary Ella said.

  She wondered if somehow some of the butterflies had made it to her insides, as they rolled and jumped. Jack had come halfway across the world. She still couldn’t quite believe it. “Yes. I just saw him. I haven’t talked to him yet.”

  “Here’s your chance now,” Mary Ella said softly. She stepped away just as Jack approached.

  “You’re here.” It was a stupid thing to say, but in that moment, after these weeks of talking and coming to know each other again long distance, she couldn’t think of anything else.

  “I pulled some strings. Rearranged my schedule a little.”