Sweet Laurel Falls

by RaeAnne Thayne

  She stared at him, her eyes huge in that soft, lovely face, and he thought he saw a quick blaze of joy there before her lashes came down. “Jack…”

  “I really didn’t intend to say that. Either the cigar or my fatigue must have loosened my tongue. This isn’t the time or the place, today of all days. I just wanted you to know where my head and heart are.”

  He wrapped his hand around her fingers and brought their clasped hands to his chest. “Right here. With you.”

  She still didn’t say anything, only continued to gaze at him out of those eyes as green as the new growth around them. Had he ruined everything between them? Moved too fast? Spoken when he should have shut the hell up?

  “You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “I know you’re not ready for this. Not with everything going on in your life. We can talk again when I come back for good in a few weeks.”

  “Not for good,” she whispered. “Only until you move back to San Francisco.”

  “What if I didn’t have to go back to San Francisco?” He couldn’t quite believe the words were coming out of his mouth, but even as he spoke them, he realized he meant them completely.

  She stared at him, her eyes huge. “What?”

  “I have a partner who handles the administrative side of things at the main office very well. I don’t see why I couldn’t keep the office here in Hope’s Crossing and use that as my central base.”

  Her laugh had a disbelieving edge. “You really must be exhausted. You do realize what you’re saying, right?”

  Over the past few months, he had witnessed genuine concern and caring in Hope’s Crossing and had come to see that perhaps he had viewed the town through the sometimes skewed perception of youth. No doubt he could still find pockets of intolerance and small-mindedness in Hope’s Crossing, but the majority of the people he had come to know were warmly generous. Why wouldn’t he want to live here?

  “I would still have to travel sometimes. That’s the nature of my job. But I would always come back to you.”

  Her fingers still nestled in his and he could feel them tremble in his grasp. He lifted them to his mouth and kissed the soft skin at the back of her hand. “I love you, Maura. I want to be with you. Whether that’s here or in San Francisco or in Singapore. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  * * *

  MAURA COULDN’T SEEM to catch hold of any of her scattered thoughts. She could only stare at him, trying to gauge whether he spoke truth. She was inordinately aware of their surroundings—the fading afternoon sunlight, the soft breath of a spring breeze, the horses now cantering through the pasture behind Jack.

  Joy seemed to burst inside her, bright and lovely and right. Her love for him was a sweet ache in her chest, a quiver in her stomach, but she couldn’t find the words to tell him. Instead, she did the next best thing. She reached on tiptoes and kissed him, their still-clasped hands caught between them.

  He hitched in a breath and returned the kiss, his mouth warm with the taste of cinnamon. He kissed her with such soft tenderness she could feel the ache of tears behind her eyes. The past weeks ran through her mind, the late-night phone calls where neither of them wanted to be the first to hang up, the sharing and the teasing and her inexorable journey toward falling in love with him all over again.

  “I love you, Jack,” she murmured. “Some part of me never stopped, all these years. I had the reminder of you every day when I would look at our daughter, so curious and determined, just like her father.”

  “She’s become a beautiful, strong woman. Like her mother.”

  Could they really have a second chance together? It seemed a miracle, somehow. A rare and precious gift, after the hellish year she had endured. She smiled against his mouth, aware of a subtle shifting and settling inside her, a quiet peace she had never expected to find with Jackson Lange, of all people.

  Over his shoulder, she caught a bright flash of yellow-and-orange out of the corner of her gaze and she shifted in his arms for a better view.

  “Jack! Look!” she exclaimed.

  He followed the direction where she pointed, to where a monarch butterfly dipped and danced among the early-spring flowers of Harry’s landscaping.

  “Do you think that’s one of the butterflies from the ceremony?” she asked. “Surely it wouldn’t have made it all the way up the canyon. That’s three miles at least.”

  “Stranger things have happened. Maybe he hitchhiked in somebody’s car.”

  “It is. I’m sure it is.” She watched the butterfly alight on a huge, plump peony, its wings bright and cheery, and felt the last icy fingers around her heart crack and break away. It was almost as if Layla had sent her a sign, promising her all would be well.

  She lifted her face to the sunshine and to Jack, suddenly sure of it.

  EPILOGUE

  “SOMETHING’S NOT WORKING. I think we might have cut the angle wrong.” Maura held up a board that was supposed to fit against another one, but quite obviously didn’t.

  Jack, looking extremely sexy in jeans, a tight T-shirt and a low-slung leather carpenter belt, raised an eyebrow.

  “Excuse me. Who’s the professional, again?”

  Laughter bubbled up inside her. “You’re an architect, not a carpenter.”

  “And you run a bookstore and coffeehouse.”

  She gestured at the pile of lumber scattered around them on the path beside Sweet Laurel Falls, where they were supposed to be helping build the small, delicate gazebo Jack had designed.

  “So we’re both completely out of our league here.”

  He gave her a wry look and hooked his hammer back on the loop of his belt. “Yeah. Basically.”

  She laughed and couldn’t resist kissing away the disgruntled look on his gorgeous features, wondering how it was possible for her to love him more every moment of every day.

  As usual, he was easily distracted when she kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. “How about we forget this whole thing and go back to your place and make out for a few hours?” he murmured. “We can let Riley finish up here. He’s dying to take over.”

  She had to laugh. Her younger brother had gone back to the community center for more lumber, but for the entire morning he’d been trying to boss around all ten of the volunteers working on the gazebo for the Hope’s Crossing second annual Giving Hope Day.

  “That’s a very appealing idea,” she answered Jack. “But since you designed this, don’t you want to see the project through to the end?”

  “I have no problem letting everyone else do the work and just enjoying the finished product.”

  She didn’t believe that for a moment. The gazebo had been a labor of love for Jack, his gift to her and to the town. Even after Harry stepped in to donate all the materials, Jack had been excited about the design. When it was finished, this would be a lovely place for people who wanted a shady spot to enjoy the falls. She could even picture her and Jack—and Puck, of course—sitting here, sheltered from the elements, in the middle of a summer-evening rainstorm.

  While she was undeniably tempted by the idea of sneaking away to her house for some rare alone time, she knew they couldn’t. “Claire would kill me if she found out we bailed. You know Riley would rat us out to her in a minute.”

  He gave her a smile full of enticing promise. “Later, then.”

  “Deal,” she said, her voice slightly husky. The past six weeks had been wonderful between them, filled with more joy than she could have imagined.

  A week ago, in this very spot, he had asked her to marry her. She gazed at the falls—their spot—wishing with all her heart she had been able to give him a wholehearted yes. Oh, how she wanted to, but she had asked him to be patient a little while longer. With Sage’s baby due in less than a month, the timing didn’t feel right. For now, she felt that they needed to concentrate on their daughter and the difficult choices she faced.

  Jack had argued a wedding might be exactly the distraction Sage needed. Maura saw his p
oint, but she still couldn’t feel right planning the rest of their lives together while everything in Sage’s world was still unsettled—even her choice of an adoptive couple with which to place her baby.

  In the end, he had held her close. “I’ve waited twenty years. I can wait a few more months,” he had promised.

  As she watched him measure the board again and recalculate the angle, she loved him even more for his patience and his steady strength.

  “You’re right. The angle is wrong and now this one is going to be too short. Can you go grab me another board and I’ll recut?” he asked.

  “Of course.” She hurried to the stacked lumber and picked one of the correct size. Around her, the other volunteers were hard at work on the base of the gazebo. As she watched them, Maura remembered the previous year’s service day, just six weeks after the accident, on what would have been Layla’s birthday.

  Her emotions had been scraped raw. She had only been able to attend a few hours before she had had to escape the crush of sympathy.

  Everything was different this year. The loss would always be part of her, an empty spot that nothing else would fill, but she had made the choice to move forward, to live instead of hiding away in her grief.

  Layla would have wanted exactly that.

  She was carrying the board back to Jack’s work area when her cell phone suddenly rang with Sage’s distinctive ringtone. She set the board down on the grass with the others before she answered.

  “Hey, Mom,” Sage said. She sounded breathless.

  “Hi. How are things going down at the library?”

  Sage was under strict orders to sit quietly and help repair dilapidated books at the library. “Um, I guess fine. I have a…little problem. Well, not really a problem but…”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I think my water just broke.”

  For the first time, she recognized that what she had taken for breathlessness in Sage’s voice was actually fear.

  “Are you sure? You’re not due for three more weeks!”

  “Yeah. Pretty sure. It’s hard to mistake that when the ground at your feet is suddenly soaked. Fortunately, I was already in the bathroom, so it was easy to clean up with some paper towels.”

  Maura fought down panic. Not yet. Not today. “Okay, just sit tight. I’ll grab your father and we’ll be right there.”

  “Mom, wait. Harry’s with me. He’s already planning to drive me to the hospital. I was thinking you could meet us there. That will be quicker than you coming down here first. Can you just stop at the house and grab the bag we packed?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. Give me ten minutes.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

  “I love you. Honey, hang in there. It will be okay.” Though she tried to sound confident and breezy, she didn’t know how anything possibly would be okay.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked, instantly alert the moment he saw her face.

  “Sage. Her water broke and she’s heading to the hospital now. Harry’s taking her.”

  He swore, some of the color leaching from his face. “Okay. Looks like Riley gets to be in charge, after all.”

  They raced to her house, stopping only long enough to make sure Puck had food and water and to pick up Sage’s bag, then Jack sped to the Hope’s Crossing hospital.

  By the time they pulled into the parking lot, her hands were shaking on the bag she clutched on her lap.

  “Where do we go?” Jack asked. She quickly gave him directions to the new women’s center and its state-of-the-art birthing rooms that she had toured with Sage during their birthing class.

  At the nurses’ station, a too-chipper RN told them a room was being prepared and that in the meantime they could find Sage and Harry in a small family waiting room down the hall.

  When Maura pushed open the door the nurse had indicated, she found Sage looking tense and upset. Her daughter jumped up from the sofa and sagged into her arms. “I’m not ready, Mom,” she wailed. “I thought I had a few more weeks!”

  “I know, honey.”

  “I can’t have this baby yet. I haven’t even picked an adoptive couple. I’ve been trying and trying to pick the best one and…they’re all good. None is any better than another. What am I going to do? This is my baby. I can’t just flip a coin!”

  She started to cry, and Maura held her closely, her heart aching. Everything was in place legally for the adoption. Sawyer had readily signed away any parental rights, and Sage had been working with a wonderful adoption agency. But despite all the weeks of counseling and discussion, Sage obviously wasn’t prepared for this emotional tumult. Giving a baby up for adoption was a courageous decision but certainly not an easy one.

  She was trying to find impossible words of comfort when Harry spoke from his spot on the sofa.

  “Am I the only one with a brain in this family?” he growled.

  This was so not the time for one of his cantankerous fits. Maura needed her mother here to mellow him out. Their budding relationship had caused a shockwave of epic proportion to roll over Hope’s Crossing, but even she couldn’t deny that Mary Ella was good for Harry. And, amazingly, he had been good for her too.

  She was about to snap at him—the best she could manage under the circumstances—when Harry rose, still a commanding figure. “I can’t believe none of you have figured this out yet. For hell’s sake, the answer is obvious, isn’t it?”

  “What haven’t we figured out, Gramps?” Sage asked, her voice small and forlorn. Harry shook his head, his eyes softening as he looked at her.

  “You two—” he gestured to Jack and Maura “—should just get married already, and then you can raise the baby. You’re both still young. Hell, you’re young enough to pop another one out yourselves, aren’t you?”

  Maura gaped at him, aware of Jack’s features going taut beside her. Sage stopped sniffling and pulled out of her arms to stare at her grandfather.

  Suddenly Maura’s whole life seemed to rearrange itself in her head. Everything she thought was right for her and for Jack seemed to shift and settle into a new picture.

  A son.

  She and Jack could be parents again. At last he would have the chance she had taken from him—to be a father, from the beginning. For sticky toddler kisses and coaching soccer games and helping with math homework, all the things he’d never had the chance to do with Sage.

  Her mind started racing with possibilities, but just as suddenly she forced them to a screeching halt. As much as that picture suddenly seemed perfect to her, it wouldn’t be fair to Jack. Surely he wouldn’t want to start the rest of their lives together changing diapers and fixing bottles and rocking a colicky baby....

  “I couldn’t ask that of you,” Sage finally said into the gaping maw of silence that stretched out between the four of them.

  “Why not?” Jack asked, his voice a little ragged.

  Maura stared at him. “Do you… Are you saying you would…actually consider it?”

  “I want to marry you, Maura. You know that. I want to have forever with you. I hadn’t expected an instant family to be part of that picture, but that’s what we would have had twenty years ago if things had worked out differently. We’re older now. More mature. Certainly we’re both better equipped to deal with a child.”

  He smiled broadly. “Besides. This wouldn’t be the first time I suddenly and unexpectedly became a father.”

  She gave a rough laugh at that, thinking of the strange and twisting journey their lives together had taken so far. This was a crazy idea, adopting a child before they were even officially married, but somehow it seemed exactly right.

  Sage sank back down onto one of the sofas, gazing at them both with a raw, almost painful hope. “I don’t want you to feel pressured or anything, but this would be beyond perfect. Maybe that’s the reason I couldn’t make a decision. Maybe in my heart, something like this is what I wanted all along but was afraid to ask—or even let myself think about.”

  M
aura gripped Jack’s fingers. He squeezed tightly, out of nerves or anticipation or simply love, she couldn’t tell.

  “You have to be sure, darling,” she said. “And you’ll have to be very clear in your own head that if we do this, we wouldn’t just be babysitting for you until you’re in a better place to be a parent. This would be our child. We would be the mother and father.”

  “I can’t imagine two better parents for my baby, Mom.” Sage gave a watery smile and Harry wrapped an arm around her. “I was a really good big sister to Layla. I think I can be a great big sister to your son too. It would be super cool to have a little brother.”

  Without releasing her hand, Jack reached for a tissue from a box on the table and passed it to her. That was the first moment she realized she was crying, tears of joy and anticipation and no small amount of fear.

  A baby.

  Dear heavens. They were going to have a baby.

  She didn’t have time to fully adjust to that before the chipper nurse from out front bustled into the room.

  “Okay. We’ve finally got your birthing room ready. If you’ll come with me, Sage, we’ll get you settled first, and then your family can come in.”

  “Okay.” Sage gave a nervous smile and followed the nurse. She seemed lighter somehow, freed of the fear and uncertainty she had been carrying along with her baby.

  After she left, Harry stood up, a look of sublime self-satisfaction on his weathered features. “I parked in one of the emergency-room spots. I should probably go move my car, even though they wouldn’t dare ticket me.”

  He headed out, leaving the two of them in the waiting room alone.

  Maura was nervous suddenly, still unable to believe the enormity of the decision they had just made. “Are you sure about this, Jack? It’s not too late to change your mind. We can figure something else out. I don’t want you to feel obligated to something you didn’t want.”