RaeAnne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry Summer\Woodrose Mountain\Sweet Laurel Falls (109 page)

“Completely circumstantial.”

Her smile spilled over with triumph. “Absolutely. But you just
confirmed it.”

Early on, he had decided to do most of his Angel shopping
online or in Denver, where he had a better chance at anonymity. The Polly Ellis
situation had come up quickly and he hadn't wanted to wait until he had a chance
to make the arrangements, so he had gone against his better instincts and
shopped locally.

And look where it got him. Ratted out by his own stupidity.

On the other hand, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that she
knew. Instead of prickling with animosity—which he knew damn well he fully
deserved—Mary Ella gazed at him with a soft light in her eyes.

He caught his breath suddenly when she reached a hand out and
rested it gently on his arm. “You've done a good thing for Hope's Crossing,
Harry. This town needed something to bring us together. All of us knew deep
inside that something good and right was missing in our town, but no one knew
how to fix it and bring us together again. As usual, you took the lead.”

Goose bumps erupted on his skin where she touched him. He
didn't know what to say, so he did the only thing he could think of. He covered
her hand resting on his arm with his opposite hand. Her fingers were small,
slim. Delicate. A low ache began somewhere inside him, wistful and subdued. He
missed the softness of a woman's hand in his. He hadn't realized how very much
until right this moment.

He was vaguely aware through his own yearning that her fingers
had stiffened when he touched her, but she didn't pull away. If he was going to
be an idiot for Mary Ella McKnight, he might as well go all the way. Take a
chance. Jump off the cliff. Float the rapids.

Live.

With his heart in his throat, waiting any moment for her to
slap him or shove him away or yell, he reached a hand out and acted on his
earlier impulse, pushing her hair aside. The strands were silky and he wanted to
rub it between his fingers, maybe bury his face in it. Instead he slid a hand
over her cheek, still soft despite the few fine wrinkles there, and leaned in to
steal the kiss he had been thinking about for longer than he cared to
remember.

“Don't you dare,” she ordered in that bossy English-teacher
tone he had always secretly been crazy about, though he wanted to think her
voice sounded husky and strained.

“Go ahead and stop me,” he growled.

She didn't.

And when she kissed him back with a fierceness that shocked
both of them, it was everything he dreamed and more.

When they emerged from his bedroom sometime later, Mary Ella's
cheeks were pink and her hair was a little messier and he was pretty sure he
just might have lipstick on his jawline.

“This doesn't change anything,” she muttered as they made their
way through the house to the living area.

His laugh was rough and amused. “You can tell yourself that,
but we both know better, don't we?”

Sage was the first one they bumped into back at the party. She
gave them both a curious look, and he wondered if anyone else could sense the
tensile connection between him and Mary Ella now. “There you are. What happened
to you?”

Love. That's what happened, missy. Not
that it's any of your business.

“Did you ever find the yarn?” she pressed when he didn't
immediately answer.

Yarn? It took him a moment to remember the errand she had sent
him on earlier. First he'd been distracted by the cigar and then by the even
more tempting forbidden treat of Mary Ella.

“No. And I've been over the whole house.” It wasn't
quite
a lie—he had traipsed through every room, but he
had been showing Mary Ella the Colvilles instead of looking for yarn. “Let me go
take another look in my office.”

“No. Forget it. We'll just use the red that we already have. It
will look fine.”

“I'll look anyway.” He brushed a kiss on his granddaughter's
forehead, then squeezed Mary Ella's arm slightly. She trembled just a little,
which made him grin broadly, and he walked away whistling—
whistling,
for hell's sake—the tune to “I've Got You Under My Skin”
as he headed to his office.

In his office, the woody, cedary smell of cigar smoke was
stronger than it should have been. He frowned and looked around. The whistle
died on his lips when he spotted Jackson on the terrace, in the same spot where
he'd been when Mary Ella had come in a half hour earlier—and enjoying one of the
same cigars.

“Make yourself at home,” he said, still feeling so great after
kissing Mary Ella McKnight that he could almost look at his son without the
customary sorrow and guilt.

“Sage sent me in here to look for you. Something about yarn. I
didn't find you, but I did happen to spy an open box full of particularly fine
Coronas and couldn't resist.”

He frowned at the dark circles under Jack's eyes and the lines
of exhaustion bracketing his mouth. “Maybe you would be better off finding a bed
and taking a nap instead of stealing my cigars. You look like hell.”

Jack shrugged. “Give me a break. I was up two nights straight
before I left Singapore trying to wrap things up so I could get away, then spent
the next twenty-two hours either flying or waiting around in airports.”

He wanted to tell Jack not to let work completely consume him
or he might one day find himself alone and unhappy, but he choked back the
words. This didn't seem the time for lectures, especially not when he was just
so damn happy to be with his son.

“I'm sure it means the world to Sage that you made the effort
to be here.”

Jack narrowed his gaze as if parsing the words for mockery,
then appeared to accept them as genuine. “I had to try, even if it was tough.”
He paused. “Maura tells me you and Sage are becoming close.”

He loved her with the same fierceness he loved her father. “Are
you going to try to tell me you don't want me in her life?”

What would he do if that were the case? He had treated Jack so
horribly he didn't know how he could ever atone. He had tried in small ways. Oh,
his will was written to leave everything to him, even before Jack had come back
to town, and over the years he had worked behind the scenes to steer juicy
projects his son's way.

He knew it wasn't enough. If Jack wanted him to stay away from
Sage, he would have to accept that as penance for his sins, even though it would
kill him. Possibly quite literally.

He waited for Jack to say the words that would crush him, but
his son only puffed the cigar. “Why would I make you stay out of Sage's life, as
long as you continue to treat her well?” he finally asked.

Gratitude and relief almost made Harry weep, much to his
dismay. “She's a good girl,” he said gruffly. “I…care about her very much.”

“I can tell,” Jack said. “Word is you don't entertain often.
Yet here you are flinging open those big gates for Sage.”

It was such a small thing. Why was everybody making such a big
deal about it? Had he really become such a recluse that people considered him
another Howard Hughes, hoarding his fingernail clippings and his used tissues in
his mansion?

He stood for a long moment while Jack smoked. His son didn't
seem to mind his presence, and Harry was aware of a fragile happiness bubbling
inside him. He was here, with his son, and for once they weren't fighting. He
was half tempted to relight the long stub of his own cigar, still in the ashtray
on the table, but he didn't dare. Smoking even one was risky with his bad
ticker, and for the first time in far too long he had plenty of things to keep
him alive.

Including his granddaughter, he suddenly remembered, who would
be ready to put him in a nursing home for dementia if he let himself become
distracted by one more thing.

“I should probably go,” he said with deep regret. “Sage sent me
in here to find something for her. She's going to have my hide if I don't get
back out there. You're welcome to stay as long as you'd like. Have another
cigar. Hell, have two or three.”

Jack nodded, and Harry hurried to his desk and opened the
drawers until he found the bag of yarn. He gazed at his son out on his terrace
in the spring sunshine, with one of his cigars in his hand, and Harry smiled
with a deep, contented joy before he hurried back out to find his
granddaughter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

J
ACK
SAT
FOR
A
WHILE
in the very comfortable chair
outside his father's office, watching a few clouds scud across the snow-topped
mountain peaks. He wasn't quite sure what had just happened between the two of
them, but it seemed somehow significant, as if they had crossed some Continental
Divide in their relationship.

He wasn't sure he could forget everything his father had done,
but maybe it was time, at last, to find room for a little forgiveness. Harry had
certainly made mistakes. Those tramlines and ski lifts etching their way up the
greening hillsides were a prime example.

Could Jack find some semblance of peace with his father? He was
mellowing, he supposed. Maybe age and experience had leaked away some of the hot
anger of youth, or maybe it was due to becoming a father himself. He still
didn't know if he could move beyond their past, but for the first time in two
decades, he realized he wasn't averse to trying.

He saw a flash for a moment as someone headed out across the
sloping lawn, headed toward the horse paddocks just beyond the grass. Maura, he
realized. He recognized her slim frame and the lavender dress she wore, which
flowed around her legs with every step.

A deep yearning stirred. He had missed her this past month
while he had been overseas. In the past, he had always enjoyed the traveling
aspect of his job, the hands-on involvement on a project, but all he had wanted
these past weeks was to come home to her.

The constant flow of emails and phone calls and Skyping—their
modern-day long-distance courtship—had only heightened this ache to be with her.
Every time he talked to her only whetted his need to talk to her the next
time.

They traded stories about their day, she asked his business
advice, they laughed and joked and rediscovered each other. Every time they
ended a call, he felt the keen loss of the connection and had to force himself
not to pick up the phone and call her right back.

So what the hell was he doing sitting here by himself when she
was out there, a strong, beautiful, vibrant woman instead of an image on a
monitor or a voice on the phone?

He tossed the cigar in the ashtray on the terrace and vaulted
over the three-foot stone fence surrounding the terrace, probably built to keep
out the animals and the rabble, and headed toward her.

She didn't seem aware of his approach and appeared lost in
thought as she leaned on the top railing of the paddock, watching a few elegant,
undoubtedly expensive, horses graze inside.

“Hey,” he finally said when he was only a few steps away.

She turned in surprise, and her expression seemed to instantly
light up with joy when she saw him. “Jack. Hi!”

He was helpless against the tide of warmth that flowed through
him, sweet and cleansing, washing away everything that had come before. He was
in love with this woman. Deeply and profoundly.

He had loved the girl she had been, sweet and generous. His
first love. But the woman Maura had become—a woman of courage and strength and
grace—she was
everything
to him.

“Where did you go earlier?” she asked. “I looked around some
time ago and you had disappeared.”

“Sage sent me on an errand and I ended up stealing—and then
very much savoring—the guilty pleasure of one of my father's cigars.”

She smiled while the breeze played with the ends of her
hair.

“Why are you out here by yourself?” he asked.

“Brodie and Evie and Taryn just left. Taryn was tired.”

“She looked good.”

“Doesn't she? If you had seen her a few months ago, you would
be completely stunned at how far she has come. So I was walking them out to
their car and the sunshine felt so good, I couldn't resist walking back here to
see Harry's view from the back.”

He leaned his elbows on the railing next to her, relishing the
sunshine on his head and the earthy smell of springtime around them. He wasn't
sure he had ever been so exhausted, but just standing here beside Maura filled
him with a sweet, seductive peace. “It turned out to be a beautiful day.”

“Yes.” Out of the corner of his gaze, he saw her draw her
bottom lip between her teeth. “Do you think the butterflies will survive?”

“Of course they will.” He didn't know a damn thing about
butterflies, but he wasn't about to tell her otherwise. “You said Sage
researched this out. If the butterfly people said it's warm enough for them, I'm
sure they'll be just fine.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You would say that even if you thought
they were all doomed, wouldn't you?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

Her laughter rippled over him, and he finally couldn't resist
the overwhelming need to pull her into his arms. With a sigh, she settled
against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and lifting her face for his
kiss.

He managed to bank his wild desire—for now—and kept the kiss
soft and gentle, with all the tenderness inside him.

Finally, when he wasn't sure how much longer he could be noble
and considerate and mindful of the solemnity of the day, he slid his mouth away
and caressed her cheek with his thumb.