Mistletoe Mine (8 page)

“It’s already six-fifteen.”

Their ride to the marina was scheduled to arrive at seven o’clock, and getting ready would take fifteen minutes, tops. She didn’t need to hurry. “Five more minutes.”

Indulgent frustration laced Lori’s voice. “When exactly did we switch roles? I think it must have been the first day of the trip, when you spent half of that interminable plane ride flirting with the man across the aisle.”

Sarah grinned into her pillow, then lazily rolled her head and looked at her daughter. Her heart melted with a potent combination of love and pride. Lori was a sophomore majoring in biomedical science at Texas A&M University and making excellent progress toward her goal of earning admission to A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine. She’d worked hard to work ahead and cleared an extra ten days of spring break with her professors. At twenty, she was taller than her mother by seven inches—a fact she loved to tease five-foot-nothing Sarah about at every opportunity. She had Sarah’s high cheekbones and dark hair, and her grandmother Ellen’s sweet smile. Her eyes were a beautiful blend of shades of green. Sarah’s late father had called them mountain eyes, because her eyes were a mountainside of aspen and fir and piñon and cottonwood.

Sarah didn’t see the mountains when she looked at Lori’s eyes. She saw Cam Murphy. Her daughter had her father’s eyes. She had Cam’s height and Cam’s eyes—two distinctive characteristics that provided Sarah an unwelcome reminder of the man she’d just as soon forget.

“I wasn’t flirting with the guy across the aisle. I was just being friendly. He was the one doing all the flirting.”

“Yeah, right.” Lori’s eyes gleamed with amusement as they made an exaggerated roll. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m going to wander over to the lobby and get two cups of coffee. If you’re not out of bed by the time I come back, I’ll drink both of them.”

Sarah scowled and grumbled, “Obviously I didn’t spank you enough when you were little.”

Lori laughed, and a moment later, Sarah heard the door to their suite softly close. She gave a wistful sigh, rolled onto her back, and sat up. Her reluctance to rise had more to do with the fact that today was the last day of their dream-of-a-lifetime vacation than with fatigue.

They’d had an absolutely, positively wonderful trip, seeing enough of the country to make them feel like they’d gotten a taste of Australia but not so much that they felt rushed. The past three nights they’d spent here at a magnificent resort on the Coral Sea, and today they’d ice their vacation cake with a catamaran trip out to the Great Barrier Reef.

Sarah stretched as she gazed out through glass-pane French doors, past the veranda, with its private spa tub, and across the golden-sand beach toward the turquoise sea. She crossed to the doors and pushed them open, then took time to count her blessings. This trip had been the grand prize in a contest sponsored by Angel’s Rest, the healing center and spa owned by her friend Celeste Blessing in the little Rocky Mountain town where they lived. Back home in Eternity Springs, snow covered the ground, and the day they’d left, the thermometer flirted with zero degrees. As the seaside breeze softly stirred, Sarah murmured, “I still can’t believe I’m here.”

She’d dreamed of visiting Australia since childhood. Back in high school, she and Cam had stretched out on a quilt up at their favorite make-out spot, Lover’s Leap, and planned how they’d backpack across Europe, explore the pyramids of Egypt, and dive the Great Barrier Reef. When life took a pair of unexpected turns their junior year, youthful dreams had faded in the face of stark, cold reality.

She wished one of those realities would hurry back with the coffee.

Sarah turned away from the breathtaking view and headed into the bathroom. When she emerged showered and dressed ten minutes later, she spied Lori seated outside on the veranda. Two cups of coffee and two huge cinnamon rolls waited on the small table between the chairs.

“You are both wonderful and wicked, my child,” Sarah told her daughter as she took her seat. “I’ll gain two pounds just looking at that roll.”

“Nah, we have a strenuous day ahead of us. We need the calories. Besides, you need to check out the competition. You might want to tweak your recipe for the cinnamon rolls you make for the Mocha Moose.”

Sarah sipped her coffee and raised her brows in disdain. “My cinnamon roll recipe doesn’t need to be tweaked, thank you very much.”

Lori tilted her head, considering, then said, “Okay, you’re right. It’s impossible to improve on perfection.”

Sarah operated Eternity Springs’s only grocery store, the Trading Post, established by her great-grandfather and run by family members ever since, but she supplemented her income by baking breads and desserts for a number of the businesses in town. She knew her way around a cake of yeast. She dipped her head in regal acceptance of her daughter’s compliment, then tore off a piece of roll and popped it into her mouth. Sweet flavor exploded on her tongue. “Yum, this is good. Could use a tiny bit more vanilla, though, I think.”

The two women shared a grin, then polished off their breakfast. Moments later, tote bags stuffed with necessities of a day on the water in hand, they exited their suite. Seeing that the tour company van had yet to arrive, Sarah lamented, “I could have had my ten minutes, after all.”

“Oh, stop it. I’m too excited to listen to you whine. Aren’t you excited?”

“Yes, I’m excited.” Sarah threaded her arm through Lori’s and squeezed. She
was
excited. The tour’s itinerary sounded divine. First, the catamaran would sail to a cay famous for its protected sandy lagoon, gorgeous beach, and migratory bird population. Then while Sarah snorkeled—she’d never learned to dive—Lori, who’d earned her certification while away at college, would join other tour members in a drift dive along the reef. Following a gourmet lunch and some beach time, they’d sail to the Outer Barrier Reef for more snorkeling for Sarah and a wall dive for Lori.

Diving the Great Barrier Reef. Wow
. As a passenger van sporting the Adventures in Paradise Tours logo pulled into the resort’s circular drive, Sarah couldn’t help but think of Cam. She seldom allowed her mind to go there, but today, as their daughter was about to fulfill one of those Lover’s Leap dreams, she couldn’t hold back the memories.

Cameron Daniel Murphy. In so many ways, he’d been born a troubled soul. His mother had been a Cavanaugh, the darling daughter of the town’s leading family until she’d rebelled against her parents by marrying the town scoundrel, Brian Murphy. They’d disowned her, disinherited her, moved away from Eternity Springs, and died in a plane crash shortly before Cassie gave birth to Cam.

Cassie and Brian Murphy had struggled to make ends meet, and when Cassie showed up a time or two with bruises on her face, it set tongues wagging, but no one stepped in to help. Cassie died when Cam was eight years old, and Brian Murphy surrendered to alcoholism like his father had before him. It surprised no one. After all, he
was
a Murphy.

Cam had never stood a chance in Eternity Springs. For as long as Sarah could remember, Eternity Springs had waited with bated breath for the Murphy curse to show itself in Cam. They didn’t have to wait very long. Cam first ran afoul of the law when he spray-painted threats on the courthouse wall when he was nine, and for the next few years, he was in trouble more often than he was out of it.

But my, oh, my, he’d done it for her—long before she even knew what “it” was. As a young man he’d been as wild and beautiful as the cougars that prowled the surrounding forests. In the end, he’d proved to be much more dangerous.

Their relationship had begun innocently enough when Cam had come to her rescue up on Murphy Mountain. On a Saturday in the spring of their freshman year, while on a camping trip with kids from church, a mix-up in car assignments and an afternoon nap in the sunshine had left Sarah stranded. While she hiked down the mountain, Cam drove past on his motorcycle. When he stopped and offered to help, she hesitated. He was too young to have his driver’s license, and she knew her parents would kill her if she rode with him—especially on a motorcycle. But her feet hurt and the forbidden thrill beckoned. They’d taken the long way home.

Cam Murphy had charmed her that afternoon, and the relationship that developed between the two teenagers over the next year had remained a secret pleasure. To this day, most people in Eternity Springs believed the lie about Lori’s paternity that she’d told to protect her precious child’s shoulders from bearing the weight of “Murphy bad blood.”

Yet Sarah had loved Cam Murphy with every fiber of her foolish, teenaged soul. She’d had to grow up in order to put her love for him behind her. His rejection and the reality of a dependent child had made it easier to accomplish.

The van braked to a stop in front of them, shaking Sarah from her reverie. The driver’s door opened, and a young man with sun-streaked hair, suntanned skin, and a bruised and swollen black eye exited the shuttle with a spring in his step. “G’day, ladies,” he said in that wonderful Aussie drawl. “Reese, party of two, for Adventures in Paradise Tours?”

“That’s us,” Lori confirmed. Her eyes widened and she winced when she got a good look at his injury. “Wow. I bet that hurts.”

The boy flashed a grin. “Not much. I’ve had worse. M’name’s Devin, and I’m your transportation to the marina and the
Bliss
. Hop on in, and I’ll introduce you to our other guests.”

The two physicians and their wives were from Minnesota, the men in their mid-forties, the women a decade younger, nearer to her age, she’d guess. The doctors claimed to be experienced scuba divers. One of the wives planned to snorkel, but the other confessed to a fear of sharks that kept her out of the ocean.

“I’m perfectly happy to sunbathe,” she told Sarah. “Some friends of ours took this tour a year ago and said the scenery of the cay alone is worth the price of the ticket.”

The other wife leaned toward Sarah and lowered her voice. “She also said the captain and crew weren’t half bad to look at, either.”

Lori must have overheard that exchange, because she glanced at Sarah and mouthed “No flirting.”

Sarah smothered a smile, then listened in as her daughter peppered the young driver with questions about the tour.

“No, I wish I went out on the boat every day,” Devin was saying. “I’m suspended from school this week, and I have some fines I have to pay off, so I’m working with my dad on the tours.”

“Oh. Well, um … what does your dad do on the tours?” Lori replied, obviously floundering on how to respond to the boy’s revelations.

Devin shrugged. “He does a little bit of everything, but he’s a water rat at heart. He’d rather be diving the reef than just about anything.”

“Will he be diving with us today?”

“Maybe. Don’t know. He had a party that ran pretty late last night, but don’t worry. Our regular crew are great mates. We’re still small—we run only two boats—but we’re the best tour operator in Queensland. You’re gonna have a bonza time today.”

If the boy’s father had been up late partying, then Sarah hoped he wasn’t part of this trip. She admitted to being somewhat nervous about her baby diving today—she’d seen the movie
Jaws
way too many times over the years—and she didn’t want the lead diver suffering from a hangover.

“I’m so excited,” Lori said to Devin. “This is going to be the highlight of our trip.”

“That’s our goal at Adventures in Paradise. Customer service is king.” He flashed a grin and added, “I sound like a used-car salesman, don’t I?”

Lori laughed, and Sarah’s attention was pulled away when the sunbather doctor’s wife asked her where she was from. It came as no surprise that the obviously wealthy Minnesotans had been to Telluride, Vail, and Aspen but had never heard of Eternity Springs. “Next time you plan to visit Colorado, you should consider a stay at Angel’s Rest, our new healing center and spa. It’s a heavenly place. You’d love it.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” one of the doctors said.

“I adore spa vacations,” his wife added.

“Is there golf?” the other doctor asked.

“No, I’m afraid not. But we do have some of the best trout fishing in the world nearby at the Taylor River.”

“Taylor River rainbows,” he responded. “I’ve heard of them. We’ll have to put your Angel’s Rest on our bucket list.”

Satisfied that she’d done her part as an Eternity Springs ambassador, Sarah sat back and tuned in to Lori’s conversation once again.

“… when I finish school,” the boy said. “University isn’t for me. School already interferes too much with my days on the boat.”

“So what’s your average day like?” Lori asked.

While the young man spoke of sun and surf and the deep blue sea, Sarah considered her daughter. Lori had never been a shy child, but the time away at college had elevated her natural curiosity to new heights. The girl never stopped asking questions, never stopped wanting to learn.
I’m so proud of her
.

For the second time that day, Sarah thought of Lori’s father. This time bitterness overpowered any sweet.
You blew it, Murphy. You made a huge mistake when you turned your back on us. Our little girl is special. She could have brought such joy into your world
.

She could have been your redemption
.

   Cam Murphy was dragging. The party aboard the
Bliss
during last night’s private charter had been going so strong that the host offered him double the money to stay out two hours extra. As a businessman with a payroll to meet, he couldn’t turn down the extra work, but the late night combined with another lousy night’s sleep had made this morning’s run more challenging than usual.

Cam had been running on the beach every morning at daybreak for more than a decade. He ran for exercise. He ran on the beach in order to enjoy the beauty of the sand and the sea before the hordes of tourists descended. He used the time to organize his thoughts and make his plans for the day.

Lately, his morning run had helped chase away the what-ifs and if-onlys that plagued him while he lay awake in the middle of the night.