“Thank you. I’m sure it means the world to Sage.” And to me.
“Wouldn’t you know, for all my logistical maneuvering, I still missed most of the memorial. My flight into Denver was delayed.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re here. That’s the important thing.”
He gazed down at her, blue eyes murky with emotion, and she was nervous suddenly—until he reached out and pulled her into his embrace, and then a soft, sweet warmth eased through her. Peace, she realized. Jack quieted the storm inside her in a way no one else ever had.
“I’m so glad you made it,” she murmured, wishing they could just stand like this, arms wrapped around each other, for the rest of the day.
“I can’t stay long. I’m afraid I’m only in town for about thirty-six hours before I have to fly back to Singapore.”
“Thirty-six hours?” She slid out of his arms to stare up at him. “You flew all the way from Singapore for thirty-six hours?”
He didn’t answer, but she saw the truth in his eyes. He didn’t even know Layla, yet he had come back—not just for Sage, but for her. He cared about both of them enough to sacrifice his time and his energy—and probably more money than she wanted to think about in last-minute airline fares—in order to be here for them.
She smiled tremulously, wanting to take that knowledge and hold it close to her heart. When he reached for her hand and slipped his fingers through hers, she felt as light as those butterflies, despite the sadness that lingered.
“Did Sage tell you we’re having dinner later at, um, Harry’s place?”
He made a face. “She told me. You couldn’t find a better venue?”
“Too bad for us, Buckingham Palace wasn’t available, so we had to take the next best thing.”
He nudged her shoulder with his. “Smarty.”
She smiled. She couldn’t help herself. “Seriously, I had no control over any of this. Everything was quite firmly taken out of my hands—Sage and Harry cooked it up together. The two of them are becoming quite close.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as a little…ominous?”
She saw Sage now talking with her grandfather and Harry was…gasp…smiling. “You’re not going to like hearing this, but Harry has actually been very good to Sage. He’s great at distracting her when she starts to become stressed about the baby and Sawyer and everything.” She cast a quick look around to make sure no listening ears were nearby before she continued. “I think the two of them are now in cahoots about the whole Angel of Hope thing.”
“Why do you say that?”
“A few times, Sage has casually mentioned she has to go run some errands with Harry, and then the next thing I know, I hear rumors about another secret Angel mission, mysteriously coinciding with her errands. I don’t know. I can’t quite see her doing the sneak-and-run thing while she’s almost seven months pregnant, but I was thinking maybe she’s the wheelman, driving the getaway car.”
He chuckled. “I’m not sure I want to try picturing any of that. I thought he would have stopped after we figured out his game.”
“Apparently not. The Angel is still making visits.”
She had spent years being angry at Harry, hating him for causing Jack to leave, but she couldn’t deny that Harry had helped Sage through this difficult time. If nothing else, he had provided a much-needed buffer against the kinds of whispers or stares that Maura had endured as an unwed mother.
Just like Laura Beaumont, most people in town didn’t dare say anything offensive to Harry. Now that Harry’s relationship to Sage was beginning to emerge, Maura’s daughter had benefited from the trickle-down effect of her grandfather’s power and influence.
“I’m sure you’re not eager to spend more time at Harry’s but…will you come?”
He squeezed her fingers. “Of course. I just endured a twenty-two-hour flight with three connections. I can probably survive a few hours of good food and pleasant company, even if they’re in less-than-desirable surroundings.”
* * *
HE COULD THROW a pretty damn good party when he set his mind to it.
Harry watched the fifty or so people who had come to celebrate Layla’s life interspersed among the spring flowers and purple helium balloons Sage had insisted on for decorations. Everybody looked as though they were having a good time.
And why shouldn’t they be? The music was nice, the food was delicious and he was serving free booze.
In the spirit of the Angel of Hope, Sage had even come up with the idea of combining the meal with an activity to help somebody else. That’s just the kind of girl she was, and he was damn proud of her.
Along one length of the wall, two quilts had been set on frames for people to tie, and a group of women—and a few men—worked on all four sides of each. Sage wanted to donate them to the VA hospital in Denver, which he figured was a fine idea.
He hadn’t entertained much since he’d built this house. Truth was, he’d always figured there weren’t that many people in town he wanted to spend much time with. Maybe he had been wrong about that, as he had been wrong about so many other things. All his preconceptions seemed arrogant as he listened with an odd sense of satisfaction to the various conversations flow around him.
“Hey, Gramps,” Sage said suddenly at his elbow.
“You know I hate it when you call me that,” he lied.
She only winked in answer, seeing right through him. God in heaven, he loved this girl. She looked a great deal like his Bethany when she had been young and lovely and free of the demons that would plague her so cruelly later in life.
Fate was a strange and mysterious thing. Who ever would have guessed a year ago—when he had witnessed the accident that had changed so many lives—that one day he would find himself here, hosting a gathering in remembrance of a girl he didn’t know, for this unexpected granddaughter he already loved fiercely?
“We need to put up another quilt. One of them is already almost done. Can you believe it? So do you remember where we put that green yarn after we went to the store?”
He frowned. “How should I know? That was a week ago. You’ll have to ask Mrs. Kingsley where she put it.”
“She said to ask you. According to her, she remembered seeing a bag of yarn in your office and had planned to ask you where you wanted her to keep it, but when she went back later, she couldn’t find it anywhere.”
He thought for a moment, hating the random absentmindedness that seemed to have come once he’d hit his late sixties. “Oh. Right,” he suddenly said. “I put it in one of the desk drawers. I forgot all about it. I’ll go find it for you.”
“Thanks.” Sage kissed him on the cheek before she returned back to acting as the de facto hostess of this gathering.
Harry headed for his office in the opposite end of the house. Now that he thought about it, he wouldn’t mind sneaking a cigar while he was gone. All this socializing was exhausting for a guy who still preferred his dogs to large crowds.
His office was quiet and warm, faced to catch the afternoon sunlight. He unlocked a drawer and pulled out his humidor. Quite a thing when a man had to lock up his own smokes so his housekeeper didn’t throw them out. After picking a cigar and a clip and cedar matches, he opened the sliding door that led to a private terrace, where he enjoyed sitting and smoking and looking out over his ski resort.
Damn the doctors anyway, he thought as he puffed, leaving the door open. And damn Mrs. Kingsley too. Her nagging caused him to hide out here on the terrace to enjoy this rare pleasure, even on snowy days in January, so the fresh air would hide the revealing scent and smoke.
He took another puff—five or six were all he would allow himself per cigar, a criminal waste, really—and savored the taste just as he caught a flicker of movement inside his office. Maybe Sage had come looking for him and her yarn.
Before he went to the trouble of stubbing out the cigar in the ashtray he kept hidden under a bush, he peered around the curtains to check and realized with considerable shock that his visitor wasn’t Sage. Instead, her grandmother stood inside the room, her attention fixed on the Colville hanging in his office. The painting was one of his favorites, of a storm rolling over a meadow in the mountains. The colors were rich and vivid, and he could almost smell the ozone in the air when he looked at the clouds.
Mary Ella McKnight must be enjoying it as well. She didn’t appear to notice him—she was too busy gazing at the painting, with her hands folded together at her chest as if she were a nun at prayer.
It seemed too private a moment for him to witness, almost as if he had peeped in a window at her dressing.
This was his house, he reminded himself. Hell, not just his house, his private office.
A shaft of sunlight arrowed in from the window and seemed to encircle her, giving her an ethereal glow. He had often thought her the most beautiful woman in town, even now that she had a few wrinkles around her eyes and bracketing her mouth. The green eyes she had passed to all her children seemed to blaze in her features and her mouth was rounded, as if on an exclamation.
He hardly dared breathe as he watched her, but despite his best efforts to remain still, he must have made some sound. She frowned first, as if sensing someone on the periphery of her awareness. Then she turned fully toward where he sat on the terrace, and a curious mix of guilt and horror crossed her features.
“Oh! I’m sorry. I had no idea anyone was here. What are you doing out there?”
Watching you. Yearning. He held up the cigar. “Hiding from my housekeeper. Want a puff?”
He made the offer as a joke, but Mary Ella was always good at surprising him. After a pause, she strode to the terrace and, with a defiant look, she plucked the cigar from his fingers and held it to her lips like a seasoned aficionado. His insides did a long, slow curl to think of her lips touching the place where his mouth had just been.
She puffed only slightly and held the smoke in her mouth correctly before she blew it out and handed the cigar back to him. “My ex-husband used to enjoy a cigar once in a while. Certainly nothing as fine as that one.”
Her husband had been a narcissistic asshole. He had always thought so, and that had only been reinforced when the idiot had walked away from Mary Ella and their six children.
“Go ahead and finish it if you want. I’ve had my quota for the day.”
“I never quite developed a taste for it.” She looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry to intrude. I was admiring the Colville in the living room, and Maura told me you had another one in here. I only wanted to see it. I love her work. Even if she wasn’t a dear friend, I would love it. I actually own a small landscape she gave me for my birthday a few years ago. It’s my most treasured possession.”
He couldn’t pass up an opportunity to talk to Mary Ella when she wasn’t sniping at him. “Would you like a tour of all twelve of mine?”
She gaped at him. “Good heavens. You really have that many?”
“When I find something I like, I don’t see any reason to deny myself.”
“You could save a few for the rest of the world, couldn’t you?”
Her sharpness almost made him smile. If he kissed her, would her mouth taste tart like pie cherries or sweet and lush like bings? He was unbelievably tempted to find out.
“Come on. I’ll show you my collection. If you’re such close friends with Sarah Colville, maybe you can convince her I’m not such a bad guy and she should consider selling me more.”
“Hmmph.”
Despite the derogatory sound, she followed him as he walked out of his office and down the hall toward the den.
She had the same reaction to each one as she’d had in his office, rich and wholehearted admiration. He saved his favorite for last, a huge landscape in his bedroom, ten feet wide, a spill of sensual poppies on a field of vibrant green.
“Oh, stunning!” she exclaimed, her face as radiant as the painting.
Seeing her sheer joy at something he also loved seemed to weave a spell of intimacy around them. He wanted to march out and buy a dozen more paintings just for the sheer thrill of showing them to her.
“Thank you for the tour,” she said, her voice and her eyes soft, and he wondered if she too sensed the subtle tug between them.
“You’re welcome,” he said, his voice gruff. He should be the one thanking her. He had never appreciated his own treasures as much as he did seeing them through her eyes.
“And while I’m choking on my gratitude here,” she said, “I would be remiss if I didn’t thank you for hosting this gathering. Sage told me you insisted, which meant a great deal to her. To all of us, really. It was…oddly kind of you.”
“Believe it or not, I do have the occasional moment of odd kindness.”
She gave him a half smile. “A few months ago I wouldn’t have believed you possessed a shred of goodness, no matter what evidence I heard to the contrary.”
They were standing very close together, he realized. What would she do if he reached a hand out and brushed that loose strand of hair away from her face and kissed her, as he had been aching to do since he had seen her gazing up at the painting in his office like a novitiate in front of the Blessed Virgin?
Knowing Mary Ella McKnight, she probably knew karate and would take him down to the floor.
“I just have one question for you,” she said, her voice a soft breath on the air.
“What’s that?” he asked, just as softly.
“Are you the Angel of Hope?”
He froze, his mind racing with a hundred different ways to answer that—and the hundred different questions he wished she might have asked. Will you kiss me? headed that particular list.
“Sage told you. That little snitch. She swore she wouldn’t tell a soul. The mystery was all part of the fun, she said. And what does she do? First chance she has, she blabs to her nosy grandmother.”
“Sage didn’t tell me a thing,” she assured him calmly. “It was only a wild guess, but thank you very much for confirming the suspicion I’ve had for a while now.”
He swore, loud and long. That was twice now he had been fooled by McKnight women. How in the hell had he managed to amass such a fortune when he could be such an idiot sometimes?
“How did you guess?”
She shrugged. “Process of elimination, really. It had to be somebody with plenty of financial resources and time on his or her hands. And, to be fair, I happened to be walking past Mike’s Bikes one day a few months ago and saw a quite unusual sight through the window that presented a huge clue.”
“Oh?” he asked warily, guessing already what she would say.
“I had to ask myself why Harry Lange would be looking at child-size bicycles. And lo and behold, a few days later I heard the Angel had dropped a brand-new bicycle off on the porch of poor little Polly Ellis the very day she learned she had to start a second round of chemotherapy.”
“Completely circumstantial.”
Her smile spilled over with triumph. “Absolutely. But you just confirmed it.”
Early on, he had decided to do most of his Angel shopping online or in Denver, where he had a better chance at anonymity. The Polly Ellis situation had come up quickly and he hadn’t wanted to wait until he had a chance
to make the arrangements, so he had gone against his better instincts and shopped locally.
And look where it got him. Ratted out by his own stupidity.
On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that she knew. Instead of prickling with animosity—which he knew damn well he fully deserved—Mary Ella gazed at him with a soft light in her eyes.
He caught his breath suddenly when she reached a hand out and rested it gently on his arm. “You’ve done a good thing for Hope’s Crossing, Harry. This town needed something to bring us together. All of us knew deep inside that something good and right was missing in our town, but no one knew how to fix it and bring us together again. As usual, you took the lead.”
Goose bumps erupted on his skin where she touched him. He didn’t know what to say, so he did the only thing he could think of. He covered her hand resting on his arm with his opposite hand. Her fingers were small, slim. Delicate. A low ache began somewhere inside him, wistful and subdued. He missed the softness of a woman’s hand in his. He hadn’t realized how very much until right this moment.
He was vaguely aware through his own yearning that her fingers had stiffened when he touched her, but she didn’t pull away. If he was going to be an idiot for Mary Ella McKnight, he might as well go all the way. Take a chance. Jump off the cliff. Float the rapids.
Live.
With his heart in his throat, waiting any moment for her to slap him or shove him away or yell, he reached a hand out and acted on his earlier impulse, pushing her hair aside. The strands were silky and he wanted to rub it between his fingers, maybe bury his face in it. Instead he slid a hand over her cheek, still soft despite the few fine wrinkles there, and leaned in to steal the kiss he had been thinking about for longer than he cared to remember.
“Don’t you dare,” she ordered in that bossy English-teacher tone he had always secretly been crazy about, though he wanted to think her voice sounded husky and strained.
“Go ahead and stop me,” he growled.
RaeAnne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry SummerWoodrose MountainSweet Laurel Falls Page 83