Currant Creek Valley (22 page)

He pulled around an RV going about five miles an hour as its driver looked for an elusive parking space. Ahead of it was a minivan with a luggage carrier on the top, probably with the same goal.

The summer tourist season was in full swing, making him grateful he had spent a few months in town during the shoulder months. Though the big tourist draw was the winter snow, summer in the area still offered a bounty of recreational activities, from fishing and camping to mountain biking and kayaking.

So far he mostly had found the increasing crowds manageable, a few annoying moose jams aside. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to the crush in winter and the inevitable invasion but he figured by then he might be able to approach it with the equanimity of the other locals—that the tourists poured money into the economy, which helped build roads and schools and community centers for the year-round residents.

He was now twelve minutes late. In three more minutes, the art camp organizers would probably start calling to look for him.

He had fully intended to leave work earlier but at the last minute, Harry Lange had dropped by the recreation-center site, nearly complete, and he hadn’t been able to extricate himself until now.

He really had to get this whole child-care thing figured out. Finding full-time help with Ethan had turned into a bigger challenge than he had expected, mainly because his house still wasn’t at all in optimal condition, though he wanted to think he had made progress.

Meantime, for the past two weeks since Ethan had come home, he had made do with this summer camp and a crowded day-care facility Ethan wasn’t very crazy about.

A few times, he had ended up taking Ethan along with him if a job site was safe enough for a seven-year-old. The situation was reaching the critical stage, though.

He pulled up in front of the aging community center, just down the road from the high school. The new recreation center in the canyon wasn’t really intended to replace this one but to augment the facilities. This one had a much more convenient location to town but his construction eye picked up various areas of the building that looked in need of attention, specifically the roof and new windows.

His vague worry that he would find Ethan sitting alone on the steps of the building, forlorn and afraid he had been forgotten, didn’t materialize. Instead, he found his son deep in animated conversation with Claire McKnight and her son, Owen, a few years older than Ethan.

Ethan was telling a story, apparently, with broad hand gestures and exaggerated expressions. Both Owen and Claire were laughing at whatever he said, which warmed Sam’s heart.

Even with the child-care chaos, his son had adapted remarkably well to their new situation here in Hope’s Crossing.

Ethan missed Nick and Cheri and their children, who had played such an important part in their lives since Kelli’s death, but he seemed to be embracing this new phase easily. Sam couldn’t help being deeply relieved to know his huge gamble seemed to be paying off.

“Hi, Dad!” Ethan exclaimed when he spotted him. His son grinned and ran to him, wrapping his arms around Sam’s waist, and the tension that came from dealing with contractors and job headaches and tourist traffic miraculously dissipated.

“Hey, there, kiddo. Did you have a good day?”

“Yes! I made a really cool bowl with a picture of a fish on it—I painted an Atlantic salmon—and it’s going to be fired in a real kiln tonight.”

“Wow. Very cool. Hi, Claire. Owen.”

“Hi, Mr. Delgado,” Owen said politely.

“Hi, Sam.”

To his delight, Claire gave him a hug in greeting around the bulk of her pregnant belly. The warm, generous welcome of so many in town still took him by surprise.

“Tell me you’re not running the art camp, along with everything else in town,” he said.

She looked slightly aghast at the idea. “Oh, my word, no. I was just picking up Owen. He’s been coming to the art camp every year since he was old enough and loves it.”

“This year we’ve been doing some computer animation. It’s very cool!”

“Great.”

Seeing Claire made him automatically think of Alexandra and he wanted to ask how she was doing. He hadn’t seen her since the memorial service for her friend Caroline the week before.

He had felt a little weird about going since he didn’t really know the woman, had only met her the very day of her death, but he had decided to attend for Alexandra’s sake, if nothing else.

She had looked pale and distant; her features that normally glowed with life had been tight and withdrawn. He had tried several times to talk to her, to convey his sympathies, but she had studiously avoided him.

Frustrated and, yes, rather hurt that she would turn away the comfort he wanted to offer, he had finally reminded himself everyone grieved differently. He certainly had learned that after Kelli’s death.

On some days after his wife’s funeral, he had wanted to sit on the couch and flip aimlessly through channels on the television so he didn’t have to think. Others, he had to throw himself into frenzied work to keep the gnawing pain away.

He had a feeling Alexandra was in the last camp. She hadn’t been around her house much, which meant she was probably working most of the time. Their disparate work schedules complicated the situation—he generally worked early in the morning until late afternoon and she went into work early afternoons until late at night at the restaurant, which made it difficult to connect, even if she had wanted to.

Which she plainly didn’t.

The two boys were talking about some of the things they enjoyed in art camp. Because of their age difference, they were apparently on different tracks and Owen was telling Ethan about some of the activities he could look forward to in future years. He found it curious that Ethan had always been comfortable talking with adults or older peers, though he sometimes grew impatient and frustrated with children his own age.

The boys’ conversation gave him the chance to speak more directly to Claire than he might have if Owen and Ethan had been paying attention to them.

“How is Alexandra doing?” he finally asked. “I’ve tried to talk to her since the memorial service for Mrs. Bybee but I can’t seem to run her to ground.”

Concern darkened her eyes. “She tries to hide it and go on like nothing is wrong but she’s pretty broken up inside. She and Caroline were very close. Alex even lived in Caro’s basement when she came back from Europe. I haven’t seen her like this in a long time, maybe even since her dad left.”

“Her dad left?” He frowned, feeling stupid for his ignorance. Why hadn’t she told him about such a crucial part of her life?

Claire also seemed surprised he didn’t know. “She never told you the gory details?”

“No.”

“Well, I suppose I should respect her decision not to share it.”

She paused, her mouth twisted into a frown. “On the other hand, it’s not exactly some kind of secret, since it affected the whole family, so why not?”

Yes. Why not?
he wanted to say. Any tidbit of information he could find out about Alexandra might help him understand why she struggled so hard to keep him away.

“Alex and I were in high school when he left. Her dad was a high school science teacher and very well respected in town. One day, out of the blue, he just decided he didn’t want to be tied down by a family anymore. Call it a midlife crisis or whatever but James McKnight decided he wanted to pursue his professional dreams and he didn’t think he could do that while he was stuck in Hope’s Crossing raising six children and teaching surly teenagers about protons and neutrons. He dropped everything and left to take a job on an archaeology dig near Mesa Verde. He never came back and was killed a few years later in a site accident.”

He stared at Claire. He didn’t think she would make up a story but he could hardly believe such a thing could be true. “How could someone as great as Mary Ella be married to such an ass?”

She laughed. “That is a darn good question, Sam. Actually, he was a good husband and great father through most of Alex’s childhood. He was really funny and nice. I used to love going to their house because it was so...different from my own. They were always laughing about something.”

“What happened? Why would he just walk away from that?”

“What makes any man decide to make choices that end up hurting people he is supposed to care about? Ego? Narcissism? Who knows? I haven’t ruled out a brain tumor, as crazy as that sounds.”

Claire looked pensive and sad and her hand automatically went to her abdomen. Her husband, Alexandra’s brother, had been affected by the same thing, he realized.

“Alex took it hard. All of them did, but Alex and James had been really close. She was the youngest daughter and was really a daddy’s girl. For a long time, she shut everybody out. I’m not sure she’s ever really gotten over it, if you want the truth.”

That explained so very much about Alexandra. He had asked her once if she was blaming him for somebody else’s sins. Her father’s abandonment must have devastated her at such a crucial point in her adolescence when she had most needed the example of a good, strong man in her life.

“I love Alex dearly, don’t get me wrong, but she can be the most stubborn person on the planet,” Claire continued. “I mean, why can’t she see that by running away now, she’s only repeating her father’s stupid mistakes?”

It took a moment for her words to penetrate his thick skull. “Whoa. Wait a minute. What did you say? Who’s running away?”

Claire stared at him. “Alex. I’m sorry. I thought you would have heard by now. She’s all but accepted a job to run a restaurant in Park City.”

The ground seemed to shift under his feet and he almost swayed with it. He couldn’t have heard her right. She couldn’t be leaving! “What about Brazen? She loves that place.”

“She does,” Claire agreed. “None of us can figure out what’s going on. She’s been so excited about the restaurant opening. Her whole life, all her years of preparation and training, have been devoted to that goal. And the restaurant is doing great, exceeding even Brodie’s expectations, with almost universally glowing reviews. Now, just a month after it opened, all she will say is she’s ready for the next challenge.”

“You’re not joking. She’s really leaving.” He couldn’t comprehend it.

“She says she is. I don’t know what she thinks she’ll find in Utah that she can’t have here in Hope’s Crossing.”

Once when he was in Afghanistan in a house-to-house raid for insurgents, a flash-bang grenade had gone off about three feet from him, leaving him nauseous and unable to see or hear or think for a good two minutes.

Yeah. This was worse.

Through his shock, he looked at his relaxed, happy son talking to Owen, at the town that had welcomed them with its clean streets, well-kept houses and historic streetlamps, all sheltered by the magnificent mountains.

“You don’t know why?” he managed to ask.

“Not really. I don’t know if it’s because of Caroline’s death or if something else happened. For all I know, it could be a combination of things. She won’t say. I’m her best friend and she probably tells me more than anyone else but she still keeps part of herself separate. All I know is that she told Brodie she would work at Brazen for another month while she trains one of her sous-chefs to take over and then she’s leaving. She’s even started looking for a renter for her house.”

She loved that house. She loved her restaurant, this town, her family. Why would she walk away from all of it?

He didn’t want to be a narcissistic idiot like her father but he had to wonder if it had anything to do with him and the way he had pushed her so hard to open her heart to him.

He released a heavy breath.

He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he was responsible for driving her away. He had no idea how but he was going to have to find her and make her tell him the truth.

What, exactly, he would do then, he had no idea.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

S
HE
WOULD
MISS
these quiet walks along the creek, just her dog and her thoughts and the silvery water rippling in the moonlight.

Friday evening, nearly two weeks after Caroline’s death, Alex headed out on her usual path to the fence where the Forest Service land began, with Leo sniffling along just ahead of her.

She no longer left him on the leash when they walked along this trail, confident now that he would return to her. He never moved far ahead of her and would circle back frequently, almost as if he felt the need to protect her.

If the trail curved in a way that took them out of sight of each other, she would round the bend and he would be there with his haunches planted in the dirt, waiting for her to catch up.

Tonight he seemed content to pad along beside her, probably as happy as she that she had managed to leave the restaurant before midnight, for once.

Nan, the sous-chef she intended to train as her replacement—though she didn’t know that yet—wanted to practice closing the restaurant and Alex had left her to it. She had been able to leave before it was even 9:00 p.m., something of a miracle.

Nan would do fine, she told herself. She was creative and organized, a rare combination, and a natural leader. The staff already listened to her. Brazen would do well with her at the helm—assuming she agreed to take over. Alex had talked to Brodie about it and the two of them planned to approach her sometime midweek about the transition.

Everything was coming together. She had a family interested in renting her house and was already scouting online to find a place in Park City that would allow her to have a dog.

Her family thought she was crazy to leave right now, just as the restaurant was taking off. Maybe she was. The thought of leaving everything she cared about behind terrified her but she knew she had to do it.

She wondered what Caroline would have said. She probably would have shook her head sadly and told Alex she couldn’t escape herself, no matter how hard or how far she ran.

Caroline was gone and she had taken her wisdom and her strength with her. Alex missed her terribly. Without her guidance, Alex had to rely on her own decisions and this one seemed inevitable. She couldn’t stay in Hope’s Crossing while Sam was here, moving on with his life.

It sounded melodramatic, even to her, but it was easier to leave than to face everything she had turned her back on.

The moon was high overhead when she reached the Forest Service gate. She leaned on it, looking up at the wild mountains in the distance while Leo headed down to the bank to drink from the cold waters of the creek.

She would miss this splendor, but she reminded herself Utah had mountains, too. Beautiful peaks, alpine valleys, creeks. Park City wasn’t all that different from Hope’s Crossing, actually.

The restaurant she would be taking over was already well established and successful. She didn’t expect to have any problems adjusting—other than missing her family and her friends and her home.

And Sam.

She rolled her eyes at herself. How could she miss someone who had barely been in her life a few months?

She hadn’t talked to him in weeks, not since the Giving Hope Day, though she knew he had been trying to reach her.

She had seen him at Caroline’s memorial service and had drawn undeniable comfort by just the sight of his big, solid strength, but she couldn’t face him.

He had called a couple times and she had only listened about a dozen times to his messages asking her to call him before she forced herself to delete them. Once she had been at home when he rang the doorbell, and had hidden away in her home office with the door closed, feeling stupid and immature and weak. Finally he had given up and left.

She never did have a chance to see Ethan’s bedroom finished or the tree house that had begun to take shape in their backyard. Things were probably better this way. Less messy. She would slip out of town and move on and he would continue dating Charlotte and maybe marry her someday.

They would move here to Currant Creek Valley and have a few more kids, easing seamlessly into the fabric of life in Hope’s Crossing.

Leo returned to her side and stuck his wet muzzle into her hand, sensing in that uncanny way of his that she needed a little love right then.

The dog had become a wonderful companion. She had cared for him for two months now, had put ads up everywhere she could think of, had checked regularly with the Humane Society shelter to see if anyone had come looking for him. So far, nothing.

Sometime in the last month, she had gone from thinking of him as a temporary guest to wondering what she had ever done without him. She loved him and refused to give him up.

“We belong together now, don’t we?”

The dog gave her that wise look he wore sometimes, as if he understood everything she said and agreed with her.

He licked her hand and then moved back down the way they had come. After a few feet on the darkened trail, he turned back with a “hurry up” sort of look.

She smiled, despite the melancholy that clung to her like a dusting of flour after a long day of baking.

“All right, all right. I’m coming. Let’s go home.”

The dog gave a cheerful little bark and started off. She walked behind with the flashlight.

When the trail reached the houses on Currant Creek Road, the path ended and she moved onto the road. Sam’s house was dark, she saw. Good. On the way past it earlier, she had seen lights and shadows moving around inside and had just about had to reach up a hand and physically yank her face around to keep from staring.

She quickened her pace and had just reached the edge of his lawn—neatly mowed now and beginning to green up—when his voice rang out.

“Alexandra!”

She closed her eyes. A few more seconds and she would have been safe. Damn it. She opened them and turned to find him trotting down his steps toward her.

Her heart gave one quick burst of joy at seeing him again, big and strong and wonderful, before her head reminded her how foolish a feeling that was since she wasn’t the one for him.

She had a couple choices here, none of them pleasant. She could sprint to her house and slam the door or she could muster her nerve and talk to the man for a few minutes.

Sprinting won out by a long shot but he reached her before she could put that particular plan into action.

“Lovely night for a walk.”

“It was. We’re heading home now. And yes, I have bear spray.” She held up the canister attached to her flashlight.

“Smart girl.”

Oh, no. She was very, very foolish. “Is Ethan in bed?”

“Yeah. He has been for the past few hours. He runs pretty hard all day. By bedtime, he’s ready to drop.”

She forced a smile, ignoring the pang in her heart. She still owed Ethan some brownies. Maybe she could fix them for him before she left.

“Well, good night,” she started to say, intending on a quick escape, but he spoke at the same moment and missed her words.

“I had a very interesting conversation with your friend Claire this afternoon,” he said.

Her stomach clutched and she wondered what Claire might have told him. “Did you? She’s an interesting person. You should ask her about the time Riley fished her out of Silver Strike Reservoir in the middle of a blizzard. He saved her life. The kids, too.”

“Fascinating. We didn’t cover that particular story but I’ll be sure to ask her about it next time. No, today she was busy telling me some other disturbing news.”

She couldn’t meet his dark, intense gaze. “Oh?”

“She told me you’re leaving.”

Darn it. Why couldn’t Claire have kept her big mouth shut? And why would she feel the need to discuss the subject with
Sam,
of all people?

She shifted her weight, wondering just how much of her feelings Claire might suspect. Probably all of them.

“Care to tell me why?”

She wanted to tell him it was none of his damn business. But a heated response like that would only make him suspect that perhaps it was.

“I was handed an unbelievable opportunity. One of those chances you have no choice but to grab when they spin your way.” She tried to make her voice cheerful and excited, though it took all her limited acting skills.

“My sister Rose has a friend who owns one of the top-rated restaurants in Deer Valley, with great visibility,” she went on. “He’s looking for a new chef, heard about Brazen from Rose and stopped by to check things out when he was in Colorado a few weeks ago. He was impressed enough to ask me if I would consider moving.”

“And you said yes.”

Not at first. She had initially turned him down flat. After taking a few hours to think about it, she had realized this was her best chance to leave Hope’s Crossing. Maybe it was a sign, coming as it did at this particular juncture in her life.

Though it scared her to death and she was very much afraid she was making a terrible mistake, the alternative—staying here with the status quo—was worse.

“How could I say no?”

“I don’t know. It shouldn’t be that tough for you. You’ve had plenty of practice saying it to me.”

She blinked but his expression was unreadable in the light from the moon and the streetlights.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving only weeks after opening Brazen. Shouldn’t you be savoring the challenge of making your own restaurant top rated, not taking over what somebody else has already accomplished?”

His words sliced right to the bone. It was ridiculous, really. She knew it was. Giving up her hopes, her dreams, her
life,
because of a man.

Why did he have to come to her town and ruin
everything?

“This way has a great deal less pressure. Brazen is doing well right now—”

“Amazingly well, from what I’ve heard. People are driving up from Denver just to say they ate there.”

Pleasure spiked through her but she tamped it down. “That could change in a moment. The dining public can be capricious. In the early days of a restaurant, one bad night or one bad review can be disastrous. The Park City restaurant has a track record and a fan base. All the glory with none of the pressure.”

She said the words with a flippancy she didn’t feel.

“So that’s why you’re leaving. Because this was an opportunity you couldn’t pass up.”

She forced a smile. “What other reason would there be?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. Two weeks ago, you were the damn poster girl for the Chamber of Commerce, full of all the reasons why Hope’s Crossing is the perfect town. Utopia with a ski lift. Now you’re ready to just walk away from all of that.”

She didn’t owe him any explanations. She should tell him good-night and walk the few hundred yards to her own house, just take her dog and go. As tempting as that was, she didn’t want him to think she was running away—from this discussion or from anything else.

“Just because I love Hope’s Crossing doesn’t mean I can’t be happy in Park City. Maybe I just need a change. Plenty of people start over somewhere new. You did.”

“And that’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

She frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

He fell silent, his gaze troubled as he absently patted Leo. “I’ve been running this through my head ever since talking to Claire today,” he finally said. “It sounds crazy. Completely crazy. But I have to ask. If I weren’t here, living down the street, would you still be all ready to throw your life away, everything you’ve worked so hard to build here, and move to another state? Away from your family, the home you just bought, the restaurant you’ve always wanted?”

Those nerves in her stomach now clutched so tightly she couldn’t seem to draw a breath. No. Oh, no. She couldn’t let him think that. While she managed a shaky little laugh, she was very much afraid she didn’t fool him for a second.

“Wow. Talk about unbridled conceit.”

“Yeah, maybe. But right now, listening to you talk about opportunities you couldn’t pass up and taking the easy route to success, my bullshit meter is spinning off the charts.”

“Maybe you ought to have somebody take a look at that.”

She couldn’t do this, lie to him, with any hopes of convincing either of them. And the truth was, she didn’t owe him any explanation. Why should she bother to try? She gripped Leo’s leash and took off blindly in the direction of her house but only made a few steps before he caught her, reaching for her arm.

“Alexandra.” The troubled sincerity in his voice stopped her progress more effectively than the fact that he was a six-foot, one-hundred-eighty-pound former Army Ranger, and she froze.

“Tell me the truth. Please. Does your decision to leave have anything at all to do with me?”

He still had his hand on her arm and she could feel the heat of him radiating through her muscles, her nerves, straight to her center. How could she flat-out lie to him? Her decision to leave had
everything
to do with him, but she certainly couldn’t tell him that.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She tried to sound dismissive and composed, hoping he didn’t hear the shaky note to her voice. “You really think I’m the kind of woman who would completely change my life because of a man?”

“Classic diversionary tactic. Answer a question with a question. Which was really no answer at all. If you can look me in the eyes and tell me straight up that your decision to leave has nothing to do with me, I’ll back off.”

She gazed at him solemnly, drawing on every ounce of deception and subterfuge she might possess while she prayed he couldn’t see the truth in her eyes. “My decision to leave has nothing to do with you.”

“Liar.” He said the single word softly, damningly.

She shrugged her arm away. “I’m too tired for this right now. Go to bed, Sam. Why don’t you take that colossal ego with you?”

She took a few more steps down the street, Leo beside her, trotting obediently along. Poor, confused dog.

Again Sam followed after her. This time he moved in front of her to block her way. They were now directly under the streetlight in front of Mr. Phillips’s house and she could easily see his expression. For once it was open and clear. He didn’t look angry. He looked upset, his eyes dark with concern and with something else. A soft, warm tenderness that terrified the hell out of her.