Sweet Laurel Falls

by RaeAnne Thayne

  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.

  This was the third time in a year he’d had the misfortune to require treatment at this blasted place. Every visit left him more determined than ever not to return unless it was to the basement morgue.

  Most people in town considered him a bastard who plowed his way through life, taking what he wanted without fear or second doubts. That wasn’t precisely true. If he dared, he would grab these IVs and yank them out of his arm, unpeel the cardiac leads and head for the door.

  He might be strong-minded but he wasn’t stupid. He had a bad heart. That was the cold, stark truth. Oh, the doctors gave it all kinds of five-dollar words, but it boiled down to a bum ticker, so he was forced to lie here helpless and let the idiots fuss over him while his son was here in Hope’s Crossing for the first time in twenty years.

  Jackson.

  That moment when he had walked into the bookstore, turned his head and seen his son standing there, strong and handsome and hearty, was one he would remember for a long time. Oh, Harry had seen Jack over the years—not that his son had any idea of those surreptitious trips, which Harry had made in disguise when his sources let him know of some building dedication or architectural award.

  Jack never would have seen him at any of those places. Harry had made sure of that. Those few glimpses of his son had been both incredibly rewarding and bitterly painful, and had left him aching for more.

  He reached for the water bottle beside his bed, cursing the stupid lines tethering him to the equipment. Wouldn’t you know? The simpleton nurse had left it just out of his reach. He was straining with one arm to reach it without falling out of the bed, when he heard the door open.

  “Help me here, will you, you idiot?” he barked, without taking his gaze off the unattainable water bottle.

  A long silence greeted him, and finally a voice answered, “Still as charming as ever, I see.”

  Off balance and extending his arm beyond a safe reach, Harry would have fallen sideways out of bed if he hadn’t caught himself at the last minute.

  His heart fluttered, and he thought with horror that maybe he was having another attack of angina from the damned atrial fibrillation he’d been dealing with for a year, but then he realized it was just completely understandable shock at the sight of his son in the doorway.

  “Son.”

  Jack’s mouth tightened at the word, but he moved closer to the bed and picked up the water bottle Harry had been scrambling after like a pig snuffling for apples.

  “This what you were trying for?” Jack asked.

  He grabbed at it, feeling ridiculous. “Yeah. Stupid
nurses always leave it just out of reach. What’s the point of making sure my water bottle is full when I can’t grab it?”

  Jack didn’t make a comment, only raised an eyebrow. Harry had wondered himself if the nurses didn’t do it out of some kind of passive-aggressive spite. He sipped at his water, wishing they could be meeting under different circumstances, not when he was lying here in a damned hospital gown.

  “I didn’t expect you to show up.”

  Jack shrugged. “Call it a crazy impulse. Maybe I just wanted to see how close you were to kicking the bucket.”

  He refused to show any reaction to that. He had reaped what he’d sown with his son, hadn’t he? “I’ve still got a few miles left in me. The idiot doctors say I’ve got atrial fibrillation. A-fib. I’ve been on medicine for it, but I guess it’s not working as well as we thought.”

  Jack seemed to digest that information. “Are they keeping you long?”

  “Just overnight while they run some more tests.” If they couldn’t figure out the right medication, he was going to have to go to Denver for a procedure to reshock his heart, but he decided not to tell Jack that. He quickly changed the subject.

  “What’s this about you having a daughter? You were a smart kid. Didn’t you have the brains to use protection?”

  Jack sighed. “It was a shock to me too. I haven’t spoken with Maura in twenty years now. She never said a word to me about a pregnancy. I’d like to think I would have taken responsibility if I had known. Every child deserves a father willing to stand up and be a man and take part in raising him.”

  The implication being that Harry had done nothing of the sort. Which was true enough, but not the whole story, something Jack wouldn’t have been able to see twenty years ago.

  “She’s a smart girl, that one. I understand she was valedictorian and earned an architectural scholarship at UC–Boulder. I guess she’s a chip off the old block, right?”

  Jack frowned. “How do you know anything about Sage? A few hours ago, you had no idea who she even was.”

  Harry had his sources, who had been busy all afternoon and evening finding out everything they could about this new relation of his. Right now, he figured he probably knew more about Sage McKnight than her own mother, and he was pleased beyond measure that his granddaughter showed such promise, despite her upbringing with that flighty woman.

  “The mother, Maura. She’s a piece of work. Hooked up with a musician a few years after you left. From what I hear, their marriage only lasted about five years—long enough to make another kid. The girl who died.”

  Annoyance tightened his son’s mouth, so much like his mother’s. The girl shared the same mouth. Harry had ordered his people to send any pictures they could find of her, and he was amazed now that he’d never picked up on the resemblance when he had seen her around town over the years. Amazing what a person could miss when he wasn’t expecting to see it.

  “A real tragedy, that accident,” he went on. “All of Hope’s Crossing has been in a tizzy since April, pointing fingers, trying to figure out what went wrong. I’ll tell you what went wrong. Nothing new here. A bunch of headstrong kids take a couple of drinks, smoke some weed, and think it all gives them immortality and nothing can touch them.”

  This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about with Jack. Harry had waited twenty years for his son to return, and this wasn’t at all the way he’d pictured their reunion.

  He fidgeted and smoothed the blankets. “You didn’t come here to talk about something that happened eight months ago to strangers in a town you hate.”

  Jack met his gaze head-on. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure why I came here. It was a mistake. I should go. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  No. Not yet!

  Jackson turned as if to go, and Harry racked his brain for some way to keep him here. He finally blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

  “I thought maybe you were angling to be hired to design the town’s new recreation center.”

  His son gave a short laugh that didn’t sound amused in the slightest. “Despite what you may think, I don’t need to come to Hope’s Crossing trolling for business. My firm does fine.”

  Better than fine, Harry thought with pride. They were one of the most respected design companies on the West Coast, and his son had built the whole thing out of nothing. Of course, he couldn’t mention he knew that very well, that he had followed his son’s career intensely from the moment he’d finished his graduate work at UC–Berkeley.

  “Given your connection to me, I figured you might think you have some kind of in. Well, you don’t.”

  Jack looked if he didn’t know whether to be amused or offended. “I would never assume such a thing, even if I knew what the hell you were talking about.”

  “It’s still in the initial planning stages, but I can tell you it’s going to be a huge project and one of the most innovative facilities in the nation, with indoor and outdoor recreation opportunities. You can get a project prospectus like everybody else, so don’t think you can worm the information out of me when I’m on my deathbed.”

  “Now you’re on your deathbed.”

  Harry shrugged. With his heart problems of the past year, he felt closer than he ever had in his life. Regret was a miserable companion to a man in the twilight of his life, especially since he had always considered himself invincible.

  And the man standing reluctantly by his bedside was his biggest regret. The Grand Poobah of his failures.

  “You can call my assistant if you want more information about the recreation center. I’m sure it’s a project of larger magnitude than you’re used to. Probably out of your league.”

  “No doubt,” Jack murmured.

  Before Harry could come up with something else to say, the door opened without warning and his nurse backed in carrying a dinner tray.

  “Time for your dinner and evening meds.” She turned around and blinked a little when she saw Jack. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”

  She gave his son a quick look and then a longer, more assessing one. Yeah, Jack had always been a good-looking cuss. Much like Harry when he’d been younger.

  “This is my son, come to visit me on my deathbed,” Harry said.

  “Your…son? Oh.”

  The nurse looked as surprised as she would if Harry had just introduced him as his pet monkey. She was so young she probably didn’t even know he had a son. She would have been just a kid when Jack left.

  Harry had been alone for two decades in that big house in the canyon. Twenty years. Too damn long.

  For a time, he’d thought he wanted things that way. He had been convinced Jack was a stubborn, self-righteous little prick who didn’t understand the way the world worked. Jack didn’t want him in his life, and Harry had been perfectly content to give him his way. Amazing how a little heart attack could change a man’s perspective.

  “How lovely to have your family with you.” She smiled. “Sorry I’m so late with your dinner, but your food was held up in the kitchen. Better late than never, isn’t it?”

  “Is it? It’s lousy either way. I still don’t understand why the fool doctors won’t let me have my chef bring me something decent.”

  “We had this argument the last time you stayed with us. You know your nutritional content has to be screened carefully for sodium, potassium and magnesium. What would happen if we just let you have any old thing?”

  “I might actually eat it,” Harry muttered.

  “Oh, you.” She fussed around his IV tree for a moment, then started switching out bags.

  “I’ll go and let you have your dinner,” Jack said.

  Harry wanted to call him back, assure him he wanted him to stay, but he didn’t want to sound weak in front of either his son or the nurse.

  “Call my office if you want to see the prospectus,” he said gruffly.

  Jack gave him an “are you kidding” sort of look before he left.

  Harry watched
him go, furious with himself. What the hell was wrong with him? Twenty years of silence, and when he finally saw his son again, he could only come up with inane conversation about nothing.

  Would he ever see him again? Or was this the only moment he would have to remember until he died?

  He lay in the hospital bed under the watchful eye of the nurse, wishing he could rub away the sudden ache in his chest that had nothing whatsoever to do with his heart problems.

  * * *

  “DOES EVERYTHING look okay?”

  Maura pasted on a smile for her daughter. “Relax, honey. The pork loin looks beautiful and smells even better. It will be delicious.”

  “I shouldn’t be so nervous. It’s only dinner. It’s just… It’s my dad, you know?”

  Yes, she did remember that little fact. Maura forced a smile. “I know. Everything will be perfect.”

  Three days after Christmas, her dining room still looked festive. A garland was draped around the chandelier, and the mantelpiece of the old fireplace was covered in more garlands, gleaming ribbons and chunky candles.

  The table was set with her best china, white plates with delicate blue borders. It was old and delicate, exquisite, really, a wedding present from Chris’s parents. The set had once belonged to Chris’s maternal great-grandmother, who had been one of the original silver queens in Colorado.

  After the divorce, she had tried to give it back to Jennie Parker, but her ex-mother-in-law had insisted she keep it in order to hand it down someday to Layla....

  Her heart gave a sharp kick at the memory, and she bit her lip, refusing to give in to the sudden burn of emotions. She knew this emptiness would never fully go away, but the past week, the pain had seemed fresh and new. Layla had loved the holidays. She was always the one who’d insisted on decorating the tree the day after Thanksgiving, who would drag them out to go caroling with the church choir through the neighborhood, who would wake up before the sunrise on Christmas morning so she could rush in to see the pile of presents.

  Without her, the season seemed not a time of hope and renewal but of bitter loss.