Sweet Laurel Falls

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He didn’t want to hear anything good about his father. As far as he was concerned, Harry was a cheat and a liar and had manipulated and schemed his way to defrauding his own son.

  The doors opened soundlessly for him, and he and Maura walked into the lobby, dominated by a massive fireplace and hanging ironwork chandeliers that probably weighed as much as his SUV. The Silver Strike Lodge—named for the original mine—apparently appealed to a well-heeled crowd, judging by the designer après-ski apparel worn by those in the lobby.

  “Speak of the devil. Your father is here, just to give you fair warning,” Maura said in a low voice.

  He jerked around in time to see Harry walk out of what looked like a steak house off the lobby, along with a couple of men who had the same well-fed look of prosperity.

  “Warning duly noted.”

  “I don’t mind waiting alone for Sage here in the lobby if you want to get out of here. You could wait out in your car.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I’m a grown man. You really think I need to run away from my father?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Oh, ouch. He winced a little as the arrow hit home. No doubt that was just how she saw things—that he had chosen to leave instead of sticking around to fight for what had rightfully been his. If only the whole situation had been that simple, but he had been an eighteen-year-old kid with no power, influence or money to hire the huge team of attorneys it would have taken to defeat Harry.

  He had tried to convince somebody to take on his case on its merits, but nobody in the entire county—or the next, or the one beyond that—had been willing to go up against Harry and his consortium, especially when the developers had started to break ground only minutes after the judge broke the trust.

  Beyond that, Jack had finally decided his mother’s memory had suffered enough through the judicial system. Harry had trotted out every single diagnosis, every manic episode, every delusion as fodder.

  By the time his attorneys were done, all of Bethany’s actions had appeared insane to everyone in that courtroom. Including him. Instead of the sweet, funny, creative soul he remembered, who used to take him up into these mountains to hunt for blackberries and pick wildflowers and identify birds, Harry had tainted Jack’s own picture of his mother.

  He hated his father for that more than for taking the land.

  “I think he saw us. He’s coming this way.”

  Despite himself, he was amused at Maura’s exaggerated stage whisper. She always used to make him laugh, he remembered, even when his life had seemed completely miserable.

  “Quick. Maybe we can duck down and hide behind the sofa,” he stage-whispered back.

  She frowned but didn’t have time for a sharp retort before Harry joined them.

  “This is a surprise. Are the two of you dining at the lodge tonight?”

  Jack’s spine stiffened and he felt the hot rush of adrenaline churning through him, as if his body was gearing up for a fight. His reaction annoyed the hell out of him, but he supposed it was no different than a person instinctively brushing away a fly. What did surprise him was the realization that Maura had come to stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder. He glanced down and found her giving Harry a look that reminded him of her little dust mop of a dog going to battle against a mountain lion.

  “We’re waiting for our daughter,” he answered. “She had a matter of…business to discuss with one of your guests.”

  Harry pursed his lips. “Rumor has it she’s pregnant.”

  Beside him, he could feel Maura tense, but he couldn’t see any good in lying to Harry. No doubt he already knew more about the situation than Jack did. “For once, the grapevine has it right.”

  “She have any plans to marry the father?”

  “Absolutely not,” he and Maura said in unison. When he met her gaze, he thought he saw a little spark of laughter in her eyes before they both turned back to Harry.

  “Of course not. Nobody gets married these days,” Harry muttered. Jack waited for him to make some kind of asinine comment in the mode of like mother, like daughter so he could deck him, but Harry wisely refrained.

  “I would like to get to know this young lady. She is my granddaughter, after all. You—” He turned to Maura. “Bring her to my house tomorrow for dinner.”

  “I’m afraid we have plans tomorrow.” She’d answered calmly enough, but Jack was suddenly completely convinced she was lying.

  “Then Sunday evening around six. You may come as well,” he told Jack peremptorily, then turned and walked away before either of them had time to come up with another lie.

  Jack stared after him, shaking his head. “You know you really don’t have to go,” he said to Maura. “Contrary to popular belief—especially his own—he’s not lord of all he surveys.”

  She shrugged. “It probably won’t be completely miserable and I’ll probably be hungry anyway around then. If it means I don’t have to cook, then, yay.”

  “I would be willing to cook for you if that’s the only way you’ll agree to go.”

  “I thought you could only fix omelets and cheese sandwiches.”

  “Maybe, but they’re delicious omelets and cheese sandwiches. Better than the swill you could probably get from Harry’s Cordon Bleu–trained chef.”

  She smiled. “Don’t ever tell him this, but I’ve been dying to see the inside of that mausoleum of his. Word has it he owns a dozen original Sarah Colville paintings, and nobody ever sees them but Harry. That’s just criminal. Sarah has a vacation home here in Hope’s Crossing and I’ve been a huge fan for years.”

  “Okay. How about this? You take Sage and enjoy your French feast and the priceless art, and then afterward you can come to my place and tell me all about it while we roast marshmallows in my fireplace?”

  “You never mentioned roasting marshmallows was another culinary skill.”

  “I like to keep a woman guessing. Save a few impressive accomplishments in reserve, just in case.”

  She laughed outright at that, and he was completely entranced by her. “An enticing offer indeed, but I’m going to have to regretfully decline. If I have to go have dinner with Harry, you have to go.”

  He sighed. Yeah, he was afraid of that. He could imagine few things more miserable than sharing a meal and being forced to make conversation with the old bastard.

  On the other hand, he and his father had been circling around each other like a couple of bull elk on either side of a meadow since he’d arrived back at Hope’s Crossing, each waiting for the other to charge first so they could tangle antlers.

  “Well, maybe Sage will decide she wants nothing to do with Harry, and we’ll both be off the hook,” he suggested.

  Maura shook her head. “Nice try. I would think you know our daughter better than that by now.”

  Our daughter. He was pretty sure that was the first time she had ever said those words together. How could a couple of simple words leave him breathless?

  “I guess we’re stuck then,” he said, his voice a little raspy.

  She flashed him a look, and he saw something warm flicker in her gaze before she looked away. “Don’t worry, Jack. I’ll hold your hand and help you through it.”

  She was flirting with him, he realized through his shock. He wasn’t even sure she was aware of it.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” he answered, beginning to think he, at least, was caught by much more than the prospect of dinner with his father.

  * * *

  HARRY WALKED THROUGH the lobby of the lodge, his heart pounding in his chest—not the scary, call-the-paramedics kind of pounding. This was something he wasn’t very accustomed to—anticipation, joy and an aching regret for the years he had lost through his own greed.

  Every time he saw Jack, the yearning to permanently have his son back in his life ate away at him like a lousy case of acid reflux. As far as he could tell, Jack still wanted nothing to do with him. Could he blame him? Harry had made stupid choices twenty
years ago, had picked power and influence over what was right, and now he was paying the price for his shortsightedness.

  He was alone and had discovered in recent years he didn’t like it one damn bit.

  He didn’t like thinking about how very afraid he had been after his heart attack, lying in that hospital room by himself and knowing that there was not one single person who cared whether he lived or died, except maybe his attorneys. Even they would probably prefer their commission managing his estate to actually having to deal with him.

  The way things stood, Jack didn’t want to allow Harry back into his life. So Harry would just have to knock all those obstacles out of his way and earn his way back in, whatever it took.

  He headed for the elevator toward his owner’s suite on the top floor of the lodge. Though he had a home not far from here, the biggest private residence for twenty square miles, tonight he couldn’t face the echoing emptiness of it. He pushed the button for his floor, grateful nobody else came in to force him into conversation right now. He might not enjoy being alone, but that didn’t mean he was gung ho to talk to a bunch of idiots, just for the sake of hearing another human voice.

  To his chagrin, the elevator stopped at the third floor. The doors swung open, and a young woman in a bulky parka walked in and quickly turned around to face the front, but not before he saw her face, blotchy and red, and identified her.

  His granddaughter.

  He knew all about Sage McKnight. Since the moment he had learned she was his granddaughter in that bookstore, he had made it his business to discover everything he could about her, from her interest in astronomy, to her first boyfriend in high school, to what she got on the SATs. He knew she was an architecture student in Boulder and that, since Christmas, she had been working as Jack’s office assistant.

  What he didn’t know was why she was so upset.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, instantly on alert. He might be an old man with a bad ticker, but he could still kick some serious ass.

  She turned slightly and he saw recognition in her eyes, which were huge and bruised-looking in her delicate face. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s my hotel. What’s wrong?” he repeated, hitting the emergency-stop button.

  She closed her eyes and sagged against the wall of the elevator. “It’s just been a really shitty day and I want to go home. Do you mind starting this thing again?”

  “Who hurt you?”

  Her laugh was hoarse and ragged around the edges. “I got myself into this mess. I can’t blame anybody else. Do you mind?” She shot a pistol finger at the control panel.

  He hit the emergency button again to start the elevator up. “I’ve got an apartment here. You look like you could use a drink.”

  She placed two hands on her abdomen, pressing her shirt down and showing off the bulge there. “I’m knocked up, Gramps. Not to mention that I’m still underage. But thanks for the gesture.”

  Gramps. She’d called him Gramps. He found the nickname particularly abhorrent but not the sentiment behind it. “Come on up anyway. I can get you a glass of water and you can wash your face, get a tissue. Whatever you need.”

  “Are you saying I’m a wreck?”

  “I didn’t say that. I only wondered if you wanted a drink of water.”

  She swiped at her cheek with a rough chuckle. “It’s a nice offer, but my parents are waiting downstairs.”

  “I know. I just spoke with them. They can wait a few more minutes for you to pull yourself together. A Lange would rather die than show weakness.”

  “Nice. You have that embroidered on a pillow somewhere?”

  “Not yet. Maybe you can stitch something up and give it to your kindly old grandfather for Christmas.”

  She snorted a little, and he was glad to see some color had returned to her cheeks. “Yeah, all right. I could use a few minutes to gather my thoughts. And I really need to pee. That’s one of the worst things about being pregnant. I can’t be more than ten feet from a bathroom.”

  Information he didn’t need, thanks, but he wasn’t going to argue. He swiped his card and the elevator door opened into his penthouse suite. She looked around, but he didn’t see any hint that the grandeur of the place impressed her in the slightest.

  “So where’s the bathroom?”

  “Down the hall. First door on the right.”

  “Thanks.”

  While she was gone, he headed into the kitchen and tried to see if he had anything in the Sub-Zero refrigerator suitable for a pregnant teenager. He settled on a bottled water, but then had second thoughts and thought she might enjoy a soothing cup of tea.

  The fool housekeeper usually kept an assortment for his rare guests, but where the hell did she store it? He rummaged through the cabinets and finally found a clever little basket by the spice rack he didn’t know he had.

  One thing he did know he had was a hot-water dispenser at the sink that produced near-boiling water in an instant. A moment later, he had a tea bag steeping in a cup.

  He met her in the living room and handed it to her. “Here you go. It’s lemon balm tea. Supposed to be soothing.”

  “Thanks.” She sat down on the edge of the sofa and held the mug between her hands. “I suppose you’re curious about why I look like I just walked into poison ivy.”

  “No. Not really,” he lied. He had a feeling keeping the mood light might set her at ease. Sure enough, she laughed roughly.

  “Yeah. It’s a girl thing. You wouldn’t want to know.”

  He waited a beat, wondering what to say yet terrified that, if he said nothing, she would find the silence too uncomfortable and would leave.

  “I just told my baby’s father about the pregnancy,” she finally blurted out. “It…wasn’t pleasant.”

  “Oh?” he kept his tone low and nonthreatening, as if she were a stray kitten he was trying to lure with a bowl of milk.

  “Needless to say, he’s not throwing a parade down Main Street. He’s got a girlfriend. A fiancée, actually. She doesn’t know anything about what happened with us, and he doesn’t want to tell her.”

  Now that she had started, she didn’t seem to want to stop. “It was…ugly. He doesn’t believe me. Said there’s no way he can be the father. We used protection, FYI. I was a virgin, not an idiot. But I guess it failed, because, you know, here we are.”

  Again, too much information, he wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t interrupt the flow of words that seemed to be gushing out of her like air from a ripped balloon. “He accused me of getting pregnant on purpose to extort money from him and his family. As if I want or need his stupid family’s money. He even had the nerve to accuse me of staging the whole thing. The concert tickets, the backstage passes, all of it was apparently designed so I could get him to be my baby daddy and ruin his wedding next month. Can you believe it?”

  “Did he threaten you?” he asked, his voice deadly calm.

  He knew just who she had to be talking about. He made it his business to know who was staying in his hotel and, as far as he could tell, only one person fit the bill. Sawyer Danforth. Hell, he’d just had dinner with the bastard’s future father-in-law.

  “He didn’t hurt me. Just yelled and threw things around like a two-year-old having a tantrum. I can’t believe I ever liked him enough to, well, you know.”

  Right now he didn’t want to think about you know in connection with the granddaughter he had just discovered. Instead, he sipped at the one drink a day he allowed himself and tried to figure out how he could kick Sawyer Danforth out of his hotel on his bony, privileged little ass.

  “I’ve ruined his life, apparently. He wants me to get an abortion, even though I’m five months along already.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Not get an abortion. That’s for sure.” She finally sipped at the tea and apparently liked it well enough to take a second sip, which gave him a completely ridiculous sense of accomplishment.

  “I don’t know what I’
m going to do yet. That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it? Am I keeping the baby or giving it up for adoption? It’s a little more weighty decision than trying to figure out whether to take Math 1060 this semester or put it off until my junior year.”

  “True.”

  She sighed. “Well, anyway, it’s done. I told him. My mom and Jack were certain it was the right thing to do, but now I’m not so sure. It might have been better if he didn’t know.”

  “If you decide to keep the baby, you don’t need his help, do you? Your mother did an okay job raising you by herself.”

  She sipped at the tea again. The longer she sat quietly on his sofa, the more tension seemed to seep from her shoulders, he was happy to see. “I’m not my mother. I love her like crazy, but I don’t think I’d be happy here in Hope’s Crossing going to playdates and PTA meetings. I want all that, sure. But not yet. Not until I’ve had a chance to do a few other things first.”

  Either way, she was going to hurt, all because of a few foolish moments with the wrong person. Life was nothing but pain. If he had learned anything the past year, simply by opening his eyes to the world around him, it was how helpless one person can feel trying to hold back that unrelenting tide of sorrow.

  “You’ll figure it out. You’re a smart girl.”

  She made a rude sound. “How would you know? You don’t know anything about me.”

  He decided not to tell her just how much he had learned about her. She might think it was creepy, not just an old man intensely curious about this unexpected progeny.

  “It’s in your genes. You’re my granddaughter, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I can’t exactly be too brilliant. I got myself into this mess, didn’t I?”

  “And you’ll come up with a plan to deal with it. That’s what you and your father both do. You plan and plot and figure out the angles. It’s why you’re going to make one hell of an architect, just like he is.”

  She cocked her head, squinting at him, and he wondered just how much he had revealed with that particular statement.