Sweet Laurel Falls

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “I suppose that’s true,” he said, embarrassed to realize he hadn’t even thought of asking her and Sage for directions. “I guess I’m just used to using the GPS.”

  Counting on himself and circumstances he could control. Figuring out his way. That’s what he preferred, his modus operandi since he’d left Hope’s Crossing. He had learned early he couldn’t count on anyone else. Bethany had been in her own world half the time, and Harry… Well, Harry hadn’t given a damn about his son.

  For a brief time, he had leaned on Maura. Maybe one of the reasons he had made such an abrupt break between them was that he had started to realize he was beginning to rely too heavily on her.

  “Sweetheart, I need to tell you something before you hear it from someone else,” Maura said to Sage when the GPS indicated about a mile to go to Harry’s house. “For all I know, Harry might mention something and I…want you to be prepared.”

  “What’s wrong?” Sage sounded scared. “Is it Grandma?”

  “No. Grandma’s fine. Everyone’s fine. It’s just…” She drew in a breath and spoke in a rush. “Genevieve called off the wedding.”

  Sage didn’t answer for several beats. When he checked the rearview mirror, he saw she was huddled against the seat, her arms folded across her small baby bulge. “She…did?” Her voice was small, disheartened.

  Maura nodded. “I’m sorry, honey.”

  “So he must have told her, then. After the other night, I thought for sure he would wait to tell her until the baby was born and he could get a DNA test.”

  “That’s the way many guys would have handled the situation,” Jack said. “Why totally disrupt your life if the baby’s not even yours?”

  “I guess. I know it’s his. I’ve never been with anyone else, either before or since. I’m not sure I ever want to be again, since I’m apparently Fertile Myrtle. Who would ever want to be with me now that I’ve ruined another guy’s life? And I’ll probably have stretch marks and everything.”

  He didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Fortunately, Maura stepped in. “Why don’t we not stress about everything at once tonight? How about we deal with tonight’s dinner first, the remaining months of your pregnancy after that, and we can worry about stretch marks and future relationships way down the line?”

  Sage sighed. “Yeah. I know. You’re right.”

  How did she do that? Take a potentially explosive situation and defuse it so effortlessly? He wondered if that was a skill one picked up automatically as the parent of teenage girls.

  The voice on the GPS announced they had reached their destination, and Jack pulled up in front of a set of forbidding black gates. Someone must have been watching, because they slid open instantly. With no small degree of trepidation, he drove through the gates and up a long drive surrounded by trees and what in a month or so would be exquisite landscaping, when it wasn’t covered in snow. The well-lit driveway circled around in front of the house, which looked to be about three stories and probably twenty-five thousand square feet.

  It was more modern than the lodge, a style he would have called Western contemporary. The most distinctive feature was a curving, multistory wall of glass windows that offered views in every direction.

  The house was sprawling and grand—all in all, a far cry from the modest home of Jack’s childhood.

  “Here we are, then,” he said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather turn around now? The gates have closed behind us, but I’m pretty sure I could ram them.”

  “I’m in. Let’s do it and hope your air bags work,” Maura said quickly.

  Sage just rolled her eyes at both of them, but he was glad to see some of the sadness had left her expression. “We’re here. We might as well eat, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose. Plus the car’s pretty new. I wouldn’t want to raise the rate on my insurance policy. Front-end damage might be a little hard to explain to my agent.”

  Given his mixed emotions about this upcoming dinner with his father, a rate hike might be worth it, he thought as he climbed out and opened the doors for both of them. Maura climbed out quickly before he could help her, stubborn thing, but he reached inside and grabbed Sage’s arm to help her slide from the backseat.

  “Be careful. There might be ice.”

  “Do you really think Harry would allow that?” Maura asked. “The driveway is probably heated.”

  Yes, that could make sense. Still, he took Sage’s arm and held his other out to Maura. After a long moment of hesitation, she slipped her arm through and he escorted them to the door.

  The wide, carved-oak double doors leading to the house opened before they could reach it, and Harry stood framed in the light. He looked far different from the cardiac patient Jack had seen only weeks ago. Instead, he appeared bull chested and strong in slacks and a sweater that probably cost more than the monthly payment on Jack’s new SUV.

  “You’re late.”

  “My fault, Grandpa,” Sage said with a cheeky smile, though he could still see shadows in her eyes. She must get that skill from Maura, the ability to put on a show and pretend everything was normal.

  Much to Jack’s shock, she slid her hand away from his arm and leaned in to kiss Harry on the cheek. “I lay down for a nap this afternoon and slept through the alarm on my phone. I’m really, really sorry.”

  Harry was obviously no match for Sage when she put on the charm. “Don’t worry for a minute. You’re not that late. Come in. Come in.”

  Sage smiled warmly at him and moved inside the massive living room, followed by Maura.

  “Hello again, Mr. Lange,” she said with a tepid smile.

  “Call me Harry.”

  “We’ll see. I think after all these years of calling you Mr. Lange, that’s what I’m more comfortable using.”

  “I’m sure that’s not the only thing you’ve called me over the years.”

  “But I’m trying to be a better person and teach my daughter not to emulate my bad language.”

  Harry laughed out loud and didn’t seem offended. “Fine. Call me whatever you’d like.”

  “That’s what I’d planned.”

  Still chuckling, Harry led the way into the house. “Would any of you like a drink before dinner?”

  “Mineral water, please,” Maura said.

  “That sounds good.” Sage smiled.

  “Nothing for me,” Jack said.

  Harry looked as if he wanted to say something but seemed to change his mind. He moved to a side table and opened a cabinet to reveal a clever minirefrigerator, from which he pulled a small bottle of Evian for Maura and handed it to her.

  They made small talk for a few moments—well, Maura and Sage and Harry made small talk, actually. He was still trying to adjust to how surreal it felt to be in his father’s house after all this time.

  “Dinner is probably close to finished. Shall I let my chef know we’re ready?”

  “That would be great. I’m starving,” Sage said.

  Harry left for a moment, presumably to give orders to his chef. In his absence, Jack walked around the great room, admiring the art on the walls.

  “That’s one of Sarah Colville’s works. Exquisite, isn’t it?”

  He studied the oil on canvas, a rich and detailed plein air of a valley he recognized from Snowflake Canyon, one of the offshoots of Silver Strike.

  “It’s lovely,” he said.

  “She’s brilliant. I wonder where your father keeps the rest of his collection.”

  “Scattered around the house,” Harry answered for himself from behind them. “I’ve got one in my office, one in the den. There’s even one in my bedroom, though if you tell the old biddy that, I’ll cut out your tongue and serve it to one of my dogs.”

  “She’s not an old biddy. She’s a lovely woman.”

  “You would think so, I suppose? She and your mother are peas in a pod.”

  He waited for Maura to snap at Harry in defense of her mother, but she merely gave him a cool smile. “I’m surp
rised you’re willing to have Sarah’s artwork in your home if you dislike her so much as a person.”

  “I can separate the art from the individual. Her paintings are brilliant. I would buy more, but she refuses to sell me any more directly, out of sheer spite. I’m forced to find them where I can.”

  Jack thought he might just have to look into purchasing one of the woman’s paintings if she was so discriminating in her patrons.

  “The dining room is this way.” Harry looped an arm through Sage’s, which left Jack to walk in with Maura. Her shoulder brushed his as they walked, but she didn’t meet his gaze. Still, he could feel the connection simmering between them.

  The room Harry led them to was huge, with richly molded ceilings and a long table that looked as if it would seat twenty people easily. Did Harry entertain often? Somehow Jack didn’t think so. Everything he had heard about his father since he’d been back in town indicated Harry was a bit of a recluse who kept himself distant, unapproachable to the people of Hope’s Crossing.

  Four place settings had been set at one end of the table. He might have expected Harry to sit at the head, where he could lord his position as boss of the world over all of them, but his father helped Sage into a chair and then sat beside her, leaving two places across the big table for him and for Maura.

  As soon as they were seated, a small older woman with scraped-back dark hair entered carrying a large tray with their plated salad course, which she set down in front of them.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Kingsley.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Lange,” the woman said softly, then disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Wow. This looks fantastic,” Sage exclaimed.

  “I hope you like Italian food. I was in the mood. This is one of my favorite salads, panzanella with a champagne vinaigrette. Our primo course will be braised short ribs with pasta and the secondo will be lemon sole. I had the same thing during one of the best meals of my life at a great place outside Milan. Dante’s.”

  Jack frowned. He didn’t know what to say to that. He actually knew that restaurant. It was near the hotel and convention center he had worked on a few years earlier, and he had eaten there several times when he had been overseeing the project. What were the odds that Harry has just stumbled on the same restaurant?

  The next few moments were spent enjoying the very delicious bread salad, which he had definitely developed a taste for during his time in Italy. The conversation was casual and polite, until just after the quiet woman in the dark clothing removed their salad plates and brought out the pasta and rib course, when Sage suddenly spoke.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Thank you for the flowers.”

  “You’re wel—” Harry stopped with an almost comical look of horror on his face.

  “I knew it!” Sage exclaimed, a look of triumph on her face that just now appeared very much like he remembered his mother. “The minute they were delivered, I knew they had to have come from you. You’re the Angel of Hope, aren’t you?”

  Harry looked as if he were choking on his ribs. He chewed and swallowed, then took a quick sip from his wineglass, his face turning florid.

  Maura, in the process of setting down her own wineglass, just about knocked it over, but she quickly righted it. “Harry? The Angel of Hope? That’s impossible.”

  “And yet it’s true,” Sage said smugly, just as if she had suspected it all along. “You may as well admit it, Grandpa. You might have the reputation as the biggest crank in Hope’s Crossing, but it’s all a big act, isn’t it? You’re the one who’s been going around all this time doing nice things for people. I think you’re just a big old softy.”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous,” Harry said gruffly.

  Jack would have joined in Maura’s disbelief, if not for that stray memory of the night right after Christmas when he had been walking back to the B and B and had spied someone dropping something at a run-down house in the neighborhood. He remembered that brief moment of suspicion when he had seen the man rub at his chest, the reminder that just a few days earlier Harry had been in the hospital with heart problems.

  “It has to be you,” Sage said. “You sent me the flowers when nobody else but my mom and dad knew what was going on with Sawyer.”

  “Okay, this doesn’t make sense.” Maura actually looked horrified by this prospect. He remembered the way she and Sage had talked about the Angel of Hope, with almost a reverence. They had talked about how the Angel had helped to lift the mood of the town after the devastating accident.

  He could imagine how much of a shock she must find it to even consider that Harry might be behind the secret acts of kindness.

  “It makes total sense, Mom. Think about it. Who else has the time and the money and…cojones to pull off some of things the Angel has done. The Angel gave Caroline Bybee a new car! Who else would do such a thing but Mr. Lange?”

  “You’re all crazy. Every damn one of you,” Harry blustered, and in that moment Jack knew that, as unbelievable as it might seem, Sage was right. The old bastard was the Angel of Hope. And he had thought the evening was surreal before.

  “So I hear you got the bid for the recreation center project.”

  It was an obvious ploy by Harry to change the subject, and it worked surprisingly well. Beside him, Maura stiffened and sent him a shock looked under her lashes, while Sage gasped, her eyes widening.

  “What?” she exclaimed. “You didn’t say a word about it!”

  “I received the notification Friday afternoon after you had left for the day. Later, we all had other things on our minds and I decided to wait for a better time.”

  “What about on the drive here? You could have mentioned it then!”

  He had planned to, but he’d walked into Maura’s kitchen and ended up kissing her until he couldn’t remember his name, forget about the recreation center project. “Again, we had other things on our mind.”

  “This is wonderful!” Sage exclaimed. “That means you’ll have to stick around town longer, doesn’t it?”

  Theoretically, he didn’t really have to, but this provided as good an excuse as any to stay close to Sage. He figured he would try to stay at least until she had the baby. Depending on what she decided, he had planned to convince her to come to San Francisco for a while to make a new start. After talking to Maura earlier, though, now he didn’t know what the hell to do. He couldn’t do that to her right now.

  “The idiot city leaders finally did something smart for a change,” Harry said. “They picked the right man. You’ll do a great job.”

  “I intend to,” he said. He hadn’t realized how curt his voice was until he saw pain flicker in Harry’s gaze before he concealed it.

  Yet another thing he didn’t know what to do about. Judging by this dinner and a few other overtures Harry had tried since Jack’s return, his father obviously wanted to extend an olive branch. He had no idea whether it was genuine or another of Harry’s tricks. Either way, he wasn’t at all sure he was ready to reach out and take it.

  Why should he? Even if Harry was the Angel of Hope, that didn’t mean he had suddenly become some kindly, misunderstood old man. He was ruthless and arrogant, and Jack couldn’t see any evidence that that had changed over the years.

  * * *

  WELL, THIS NIGHT HAD TURNED into a total screwup.

  By the time dessert was served—a fine chocolate mousse with candied orange peels—Harry was ready to shove his guests out the door and retreat to his library with a cigar and the bottle of Bushmills 1608 he kept hidden from his housekeeper.

  His son was one stubborn son of a bitch. He had sat in stoic silence most of the evening, answering questions that were asked of him but otherwise not doing one damn thing to contribute to the conversation.

  As the minutes had ticked past, he could feel his temper edge higher and higher. Would it kill Jackson to try making a little small talk, for hell’s sake?

  And then the whole Angel thing. He was a first-class idiot. How had he let s
ome smart-assed little girl trick him into slipping up and just blurting out what he had fought hard to keep a secret all these months?

  Despite his protests, he could tell none of them had believed him, which meant the stupid jig was up. Next thing he knew, the whole town would be in on it, and he wouldn’t be able to walk into a single store or restaurant in town without everybody pointing and whispering about him.

  It was his own fault. If he hadn’t started the whole Angel thing in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. The whole thing had blown up far beyond his intentions, until it had just about taken over his life.

  After his first heart attack, he had been lying in that hospital bed with tubes connected everywhere and had never felt so damn alone. Jack was gone, had been for years, and the only other people in his life were business associates who didn’t give a flying shit whether he lived or died.

  He had all the money in the world, but it wasn’t going to help him one bit if he kicked over in that minute, alone and, yes, frightened. He remembered lying in that hospital bed with the machines whirring and buzzing, the nurses bustling around him, and had come to what religious folks would probably call an epiphany. If he died, he had realized, no one would care, because somewhere along the way he had lost himself.

  No. Not somewhere along the way. He knew when it was. During those terrible last years of his Bethany’s life. To his vast shame, as the signs of her mental illness worsened and the medications became less effective, he had wanted nothing but to pretend none of it was happening. He had turned his focus away from his wife and his son and poured every bit of his energy and his time and his life into his development deals to make sure he didn’t have to face his own failures at home.

  He hadn’t been able to “fix” her, so he had turned to what he did have power over, making money, and lots of it.

  Once he had been a decent person, or at least he liked to think so, but in that hospital bed more than a year ago, he’d realized he had killed the last vestige of that decency when he had successfully managed to break the trust Bethany had left for Jackson, and subsequently created the Silver Strike Ski Resort and changed Hope’s Crossing forever.