RaeAnne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry Summer\Woodrose Mountain\Sweet Laurel Falls (100 page)

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.

“I hope so. I better go. My parents are probably ready to call
hotel security to go look for me. Uh, thank you for the tea. And the
conversation. They both helped.”

“You're welcome. Anytime. And I mean that.”

She blinked a little, then gave him a tentative smile that
seemed to arrow straight to his damaged heart. “Okay. Thanks. I might take you
up on that.”

He rose, grateful his almost seventy-year-old bones hadn't
creaked too loudly, and walked her to the elevator, wishing he knew how to
protect this vulnerable, wounded child and take away the pain he knew was
coming.

“If you want me to, I can kick Sawyer Danforth out of his room
right this minute and bar him and his snooty parents from ever staying at my
lodge.”

Her jaw dropped and her eyes filled with horror. “How did you…
I never said it was Sawyer.”

“Didn't you hear what I said about good genes? You're not the
only smart one in this family, missy. I know what's going on in my own
hotel.”

He regretted saying anything when her shoulders went tight
again and she gazed in panic at the elevator and then back at him. “You can't
say anything. Please!” she begged. “He said he was going to tell Genevieve
himself when the time is right. If word gets out to her before he has the
chance, he's going to be so pissed.”

It would serve the little prick right for not keeping his
business in his pants. He didn't care about hurting Danforth, but he didn't want
to cause his granddaughter any more distress. “I can keep my mouth shut,” he
promised. That didn't mean he couldn't drop a hint in his housekeeper's ear
about putting the scratchiest sheets on his bed and substituting his shampoo for
itching powder.

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“In return, you can do something for me.”

She instantly looked wary. “What?”

“I invited your parents and you to dinner at my house on
Sunday. I doubt either of them is inclined to accept that invitation. You can
make sure they do.”

“The rumors are true, then. You
are
a crazy old man. How am I supposed to do that when Jack hates you and you're not
on my mom's list of favorite people either?”

“You're a smart girl,” he repeated as the elevator doors
opened. “Lange genes, remember? I'm sure you'll think of something.”

She shook her head in exasperation, but to his eternal shock,
she stepped out of the elevator and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thanks for the tea and sympathy,” she said, then slid back
inside just as the doors closed behind her.

He stood for a long time gazing at the elevator with a finger
pressed against the skin she had kissed, feeling foolish that he thought he
could still pick up the scent of her in the air, of lemons and tears.

His granddaughter needed him, damn it. And her parents did too,
for that matter. He had become very good at subterfuge this past year. Now what
could he do to help the three of them?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Y
OU
'
RE
GOING
WHERE?
”

Maura sighed and straightened a line of books on a shelf in the
home-improvement section, aware of Mary Ella's horror-stricken expression beside
her. “Yes. You heard me correctly. As much as I would vastly prefer taking you
up on your offer to catch a movie tonight, I have plans. We've been invited to
Harry's for dinner. I tried desperately to get out of it. I mean, who wouldn't?
But Sage pulled the poor, pitiful
I just want to get to
know my grandfather
card, and now I'm stuck.”

“I don't care
what
card she pulled.
I would have sliced off two or three fingers if it meant I didn't have to share
a meal with That Man.”

Despite her own internal struggle over the impending evening,
Maura had to smile at her mother's dramatics. “But, Mom, you have so much in
common. You both love art and music and books, and now you even share a
grandchild!”

“Oh, thank you very much for that reminder.”

“Seriously, why do you hate Harry so much? You're nice to
everyone else in town, even grouchy Frances Redmond, but you treat Harry like he
ran over your dog or something. What did he ever do to deserve this gargantuan
grudge you hold against him?”

Mary Ella leaned back against the bookshelf, pensive. “You can
thank Jack for it.”

“Jack?”

“He was one of my favorite students. Oh, I know all about how
teachers are supposed to see the good in all our students and not pick
favorites, but that is sometimes easier said than done when you're teaching
literature and composition to moody teenagers. I've taught hundreds of young
people. Maybe into the thousands. But something about Jack just…touched me. He
was so wounded and he tried desperately not to show it. I knew what his
childhood must have been like, growing up with an…unstable mother like Bethany
Lange.”

“She was more than unstable, Mom. She suffered from
schizophrenia.”

“Yes. You should have known her before her mental illness
started to manifest itself. She was just one of those beautiful spirits, you
know? Everyone loved her.”

She seemed wistful here, and Maura let the silence continue
until her curiosity swelled. “Your feud with Harry?” she finally prompted.

“Oh. Right. Well, I had Jack in my English class that terrible
spring when Bethany committed suicide. I tried to go easy on him with
assignments, but he insisted on filling every one. My heart was just breaking
for him. Do you know, he only missed one day of class, to go to her
funeral.”

“I don't doubt that.” Something soft and tender fluttered in
her chest as she pictured him lost and grieving for his mother but determined to
focus on his goals.

“In one of our last assignments, I allowed the students to
write an essay about anything they chose. Jack wrote this really heartbreaking
piece about watching a beautiful bird trapped in a thicket of thorns, trying
desperately to free itself, beating its wings bloody in the effort. He had tried
to help but the bird had pecked and pecked at him and refused to let him
close—obviously a metaphor for his relationship with his mother. He seemed so
troubled that I decided—foolishly now, I can see that—to show it to Harry. I
thought maybe he would, I don't know, make sure Jack received grief counseling
or something to assure him Bethany's suicide wasn't his fault.”