Sweet Laurel Falls

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Well, get it in the game! she wanted to yell, but she knew that wouldn’t accomplish anything other than to ramp up the tension.

  “Okay, let’s calm down here,” Jack interjected into the conversation.

  She had to fight the urge to smack him, to tell him he didn’t get the right to come in and change everything. He hadn’t been there all along the way, to sit at the kitchen table doing math homework or helping with book reports or editing scholarship applications.

  Not by any choice of his own, she reminded herself, which took most of that particular wind out of her sails.

  “Honey, I think this is a mistake,” she said, fighting for a calm, even tone. “Once you stop to take a break from school, returning will only become harder.”

  “I know that’s your big concern. Just like I know there’s no way you’ll let me turn into some kind of slacker, living in your basement and hanging out with my friends all the time. You’ll push me to go back until my eyeballs bleed.”

  “We don’t have a basement,” Maura muttered.

  “Metaphor, Mom.” Sage rose from the couch and crossed to her. When her daughter held her arms out, Maura could only hug her in return.

  “We want the same thing for me. I want to be an architect. Nothing’s changed. If anything, I want it more now than ever. I’m going to go back and finish up. It’s just…so much has happened this year. I was still reeling from Layla and now, finding Jack and everything…I just need time to absorb, you know?”

  Did she have to sound so damn reasonable? How could Maura argue?

  “I have a possible solution,” Jack said.

  Sage turned to him, her cheek still pressed to Maura’s. “Oh?”

  “What if you come to work for me while you take a brief break from school? At Lange & Associates, you could gain practical experience working in a real architectural firm, which might help you determine whether this is really what you want to do with your life before you invest more time and energy in school. And also in the plus column, this would offer me the chance to come to know my daughter a little better.”

  Beside her, Sage’s jaw sagged and she pulled away a little for a closer look at her father. “Are you serious? That would be incredible!”

  She looked as if she’d just won the lottery, the Publishers Clearing House and a round-the-world cruise in one fell swoop.

  Maura, on the other hand, felt sick. The room seemed to spin a little and a hard ball of nausea lodged in her gut. Sage, living in the Bay Area? How would she bear it? Riley had gone away to live there and had come back a completely different person, hard and angry and damaged somehow.

  Granted, he had been an undercover police officer in one of the most violent areas of the country, and that probably had more than a little something to do with the change in him. Sage would be working in an office somewhere with Jack to watch over her, nothing like Riley’s experience.

  Somehow that didn’t make Maura feel any better.

  She forced herself to sip at her cocoa and gripped the handle so hard her knuckles turned white.

  “Don’t you think that’s the perfect idea?” Sage asked her when she didn’t immediately answer.

  What was she supposed to say to that? “It’s…an idea. California seems like a long way right now.”

  She felt the weight of Jack’s gaze on her and tried to compose her features into a blank slate, giving away nothing of her inner turmoil. Somehow she didn’t think she succeeded very well.

  “I didn’t mean the San Francisco office,” he said. “We’re fully and efficiently staffed there. But if I were to open a temporary office in Colorado, I’ll definitely need help.”

  “Really? You want to open a temporary office here?”

  “I’m thinking about it,” he told Sage. “With the project in Denver I was telling you about and the possibility that I might submit a proposal for the recreation center, having a more regionally based office isn’t a bad option.”

  Some of the tension coiled inside her seemed to ease, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling she was losing her daughter. She felt as if she stood belaying for Sage at the bottom of a rocky cliff. Once Sage reached the top, she would slip free of her ropes and disappear forever.

  “Denver wouldn’t be so bad, Mom,” she said. “Just a little farther than Boulder. I could easily come home for the weekends.”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  “Actually, I was thinking I could probably find empty office space for a short-term lease in Hope’s Crossing. I wouldn’t need much.”

  What sort of strange dimension had she just entered, where Jackson Lange would seriously consider setting up an office in Hope’s Crossing, even temporarily?

  “Here? That would be fantastic!” Sage exclaimed. “Brilliant! This way I could still help you in the store on evenings and weekends.”

  Maura was suddenly aware of her deep exhaustion. From the moment she had climbed out of the hot tub and found him watching her, she had felt as if her emotions had been on some insane amusement-park ride, jostled this way and that, zinging around corkscrews and loop-the-loops, plunging here, climbing here. She couldn’t take any more and suddenly wanted nothing more than to be hiding out in her bedroom.

  Sage wouldn’t be leaving her, apparently. For a little longer, anyway, she could still stand at the bottom of the cliff and hold the rope while her daughter climbed higher. On the flip side, if Jack opened an office in Hope’s Crossing, that would mean she was stuck with him. Instead of going back to San Francisco, he would be here, just a few miles away.

  “That’s a very generous offer, Jack,” she managed.

  “Not generous at all. I’m gaining more than anyone out of the deal.”

  “This could be a wonderful opportunity,” she said to Sage. “You will still need to remember that your online classes take priority. An internship, even with the best architectural firm around, won’t benefit you if you don’t return to school and finish your degree.”

  “I know.” Sage jumped up, much more ebullient than she had been when she had broached the topic of school. “This is fantastic. I can’t believe it. This went so much better than I had hoped. I was dreading talking to you about school, but you’ve been totally cool about it. Thank you. Thank you both so much for being awesome parents.”

  Maura wasn’t cool about anything. Not the decision to leave school, not the self-motivation required for online classes and especially not Jack sweeping in to save the day. He was supposed to be leaving town today. She figured any further interaction between them would channel through Sage. Suddenly he was not only invading her family but the town she loved.

  She saw this as a huge mistake on Sage’s part—and on Jack’s. What was he thinking to imagine for a moment that he wanted to live and work in Hope’s Crossing again, even for their daughter’s sake? He wouldn’t be able to stand it for long, she suspected. Temporarily relocating to town in order to help Sage through this rough patch sounded lofty and helpful, but Jack couldn’t be seeing the bigger picture of actually having to stay here longer than a few weeks. He couldn’t just change his zip code and expect his life to go on as usual. Soon enough, he would tire of the slower pace, the sometimes intrusive neighbors.

  She had no control over any of it. Not Sage, not Jack. Good grief, she barely had control over herself, judging by that moment at the falls when she had wanted to lean into his heat and soak it through her skin.

  She could only cross her fingers and hope Sage didn’t end up with a broken heart—and that she wouldn’t either.

  * * *

  WHAT JUST HAPPENED in there?

  After saying good-night to Sage and Maura, Jack walked out into the cold Colorado night, where he was surrounded by the familiar scents of snow and pine and home.

  Something about this place must be messing with his head. What else would explain an otherwise sane man suddenly committing to a plan that would compel him to stay in Hope’s Crossing? He still couldn’t quite believe he was
even considering throwing his name into the hat for the community recreation center. Now he was about to open up a damned branch office here.

  And why? One reason. Because he hadn’t been able to bear the shadow of pain in Maura McKnight’s eyes when she thought her daughter would be leaving her to move with him to San Francisco.

  Man, he was a sucker. Why should it matter if she suffered a little at the loss of face time with her kid? Wasn’t this what they called karmic justice? She had robbed him of nearly twenty years with his child. While he might be gradually coming to accept her reasons and finding a little more compassion for a scared teenage girl, that didn’t ameliorate his own loss.

  A cold wind slid under his jacket as he retraced the steps he had taken earlier on his way back to his B and B. He supposed he could have driven the few blocks to Maura’s house in his rented SUV, but living in a city where parking was both exorbitant and elusive had given him a healthy appreciation for the convenience of walking. Old habits, and all that.

  Of course, he hadn’t expected to find himself bisecting the evening with another walk, when he and Maura had taken Puck on this very same route.

  That moment when they had been standing so close together near the falls, when she had leaned against him almost imperceptibly, caught his breath all over again. He was weak when it came to Maura McKnight. He always had been.

  He had thought about her over the years with softness, the same kind of fond recollection he had for his first car and the first building he had ever designed. Over the years, he had even thought about looking her up a time or two, but had decided he would rather cherish those memories than be confronted with a reality that might have turned out far differently than he imagined.

  She was his first love, but in his head, he had always compared what they shared to a bonfire of paper and plywood. The flames burned hot and fierce, certainly, but they also burned out quickly, leaving nothing but smoke and ash. How could it have turned out any other way, as young and heedless as they had both been?

  Like it or not, their worlds were entwined now through Sage. He wasn’t about to walk out of his daughter’s life, which meant he would by necessity be in Maura’s as well. At least for the next few months, he was bound to see her around town.

  He didn’t know exactly how he felt about that. Earlier, by the falls, something seemed to shiver between them, something soft and tender and enticing. He shook his head. Crazy. This town definitely took away all reason and good sense. Must be something in the water.

  He was just about to turn onto Blue Sage Road, just one block east of the B and B, when a deep-throated dog began to bark wildly a few houses down. Hoping it was on a leash or behind a fence, he crossed to the sidewalk on the other side of the street. He wasn’t in the mood to lose any bite-shaped chunks out of his hide right now.

  On alert, he scanned the road for any big, angry guard dog coming at him. Out of the corner of his gaze, he spotted movement several houses from him, on the same side of the street. Human. Definitely human, at least judging by the long black coat that flared as the guy sidled behind a tree.

  So the loud dog wasn’t barking at him, probably. That was a bit of a relief, he supposed. Maybe that was why the other guy was commando-sneaking behind another tree.

  Okay, weird. The black clothes, the sneaking around, darting in and out of the trees. Not a particularly good combination. Was this a thief, targeting holiday-emptied houses in town? Wouldn’t it be just his luck to witness a crime on his last night in town?

  The guy was definitely up to something as he moved one house closer to Jack’s position. So far he didn’t seem to have seen Jack, not even when he had crossed the street, probably because he was just out of range of the only streetlight on the corner.

  Somebody in San Francisco might consider this none of his business, but Jack didn’t work that way. He reached for his cell phone and began to dial nine-one-one, and had his finger just above the send button when he realized the mystery man wasn’t heading into one of the darkened houses on the street, with their lodge-chic decorations.

  Instead, he appeared to be heading up to the doorstep of the smallest house on the street, a clapboard single-story house with green shutters. Several children’s bikes were parked on the front porch, and all the lights were blazing from the windows.

  The guy probably wasn’t a thief, then, but why all the skullduggery? He watched as the figure crept up to the porch and dropped something on the mat, rang the doorbell, then raced back down the sidewalk to hide behind a huge pine tree on the edge of the property. In his dark clothing, he blended into the night, shadow and shape becoming one.

  From his vantage point, Jack could see a tired-looking woman wearing a housedress with her hair slipping from a ponytail open the door and peer out.

  “Who’s there?” the woman called, and Jack slid further behind his own camouflage, not wanting to take the blame or the credit for something to which he was merely an innocent bystander.

  “Come on, you kids. Knock it off. It’s cold. You shouldn’t be out messing around, bothering regular people. Go home.”

  From inside the house, Jack could hear a child crying and another one yelling. The woman started to close the door, and then she must have caught sight of whatever the mysterious visitor had left on the mat. She bent down and picked up something that looked from here like a business-size envelope. Jack couldn’t see it clearly, but as he watched, the woman frowned at the envelope and opened it. He saw a flash of green and the woman’s mouth dropped open. She looked at what was obviously a wad of money, then walked to the edge of her porch.

  “Hello? Who’s there?” she called.

  The only answer was the barking of the neighbor’s dog and her own children bickering from inside.

  “Thank you. Thank you. God bless you. Whoever you are, thank you!”

  The last words rang out with a near sob that sent shivers down his cynical spine.

  When was the last time he had done something purely altruistic for someone? Oh, he contributed to various charities and always tried to carry a little extra spare change for the homeless who often stayed out of the wind and damp in the doorways he passed on his way to work, but this seemed different, somehow. Much more personal and real.

  The conversation earlier with Sage and Maura about the town’s Angel of Hope rang through his memory. He must have just witnessed the guy in action. What else could it be?

  The door closed as the woman finally went inside to share her news with the rest of her family. Jack should have moved on. He was cold and damp and uncomfortable, but he wasn’t about to move until the Angel, if that’s who it was, moved first.

  The guy waited a few more moments, probably to make sure the coast was clear, then he hurried down the street, moving stealthily from tree to bush, as if he expected a light to blare down from a search helicopter at any moment.

  When he was almost at the end of the street, the Angel stopped for just a moment and lifted a hand as if to rub his chest, then he dropped his fingers and hurried down the street.

  Jack narrowed his gaze in the darkness, a completely crazy thought clanging through his head. Impossible. Even though the height and the general weight might match up, he would never believe it.

  Not knowing the son of a bitch as he did.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A HALF HOUR INTO HER BOOK GROUP, gathered with her closest friends—and a relative or two or three thrown in for good measure—Maura came to a particularly grim conclusion.

  “You are all a bunch of dirty rotten liars, aren’t you?” she finally exclaimed. “All this talk about character development and imagery is a bunch of bull. Not a single one of you has read this month’s book.”

  Mary Ella and Ruth exchanged guilty looks, and Claire’s cheeks turned pink. Her sisters Angie and Alex nudged each other and became inordinately fascinated with the cozy display of mystery novels on the shelf beside them.

  “I wanted to read it, my dear. Honestly, I di
d,” Katherine Thorne said with a rueful smile. “I had the best intentions. I loaded it onto my e-reader to take on my cruise to the Caribbean over the holidays, but I ended up reading mysteries and romance novels the whole time. And I won’t feel guilty about it either, so don’t try to make me.”

  “I read a review online,” Mary Ella confessed. “The reviewer said it was rich in symbolism and layered with existential angst. To be honest, I just didn’t have the energy for it. You know how Januaries are.”

  Maura glared at them all. “Why didn’t any of you tell me you didn’t want to read the book when I offered suggestions for the month? Jeez, I gave you like five choices. We could have picked something different.”

  “Make a note,” Alex said, lounging on the sofa. She looked pretty and bright as always, with her curly blond hair and the green eyes they shared. “Next January, pick something easy and uncomplicated for our tired little seasonally affected brains.”

  “Claire, help me out here.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant to read it, honestly I did. It’s been sitting on my bedside table for a month. But with the wedding and the holidays and how busy the store was—and then Macy and Owen both having the flu right after school started again—I just haven’t had a minute.”

  “You don’t need an excuse, Claire.” Evie Blanchard gave her a mischievous grin that would have seemed out of character a few months earlier, before she’d started dating Brodie Thorne and the shadows lurking in her eyes had begun to fade. “You’re still a newlywed. I think all of us can agree you probably have better things to do with your free time.”

  “Evie!” Claire exclaimed, her pink color turning a fiery red even as a sudden glint appeared in her eyes.

  “Ewww.” Alex made a face. “Anybody have any brain scrub?”

  “If you do, pass some my way,” Mary Ella muttered, though she smiled with customary good nature at her new daughter-in-law. Despite the teasing, her mother and sister—really, the whole McKnight family—was thrilled at Riley’s brilliant choice in Claire. She was the perfect woman for him. She was calm and patient and loving, everything Riley needed after returning hard and angry from his time as an undercover police officer.