RaeAnne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry Summer\Woodrose Mountain\Sweet Laurel Falls (85 page)

The implication being that
Harry
had done nothing of the sort. Which was true enough, but not the whole story,
something Jack wouldn't have been able to see twenty years ago.

“She's a smart girl, that one. I understand she was
valedictorian and earned an architectural scholarship at UC–Boulder. I guess
she's a chip off the old block, right?”

Jack frowned. “How do you know anything about Sage? A few hours
ago, you had no idea who she even was.”

Harry had his sources, who had been busy all afternoon and
evening finding out everything they could about this new relation of his. Right
now, he figured he probably knew more about Sage McKnight than her own mother,
and he was pleased beyond measure that his granddaughter showed such promise,
despite her upbringing with that flighty woman.

“The mother, Maura. She's a piece of work. Hooked up with a
musician a few years after you left. From what I hear, their marriage only
lasted about five years—long enough to make another kid. The girl who died.”

Annoyance tightened his son's mouth, so much like his mother's.
The girl shared the same mouth. Harry had ordered his people to send any
pictures they could find of her, and he was amazed now that he'd never picked up
on the resemblance when he had seen her around town over the years. Amazing what
a person could miss when he wasn't expecting to see it.

“A real tragedy, that accident,” he went on. “All of Hope's
Crossing has been in a tizzy since April, pointing fingers, trying to figure out
what went wrong. I'll tell you what went wrong. Nothing new here. A bunch of
headstrong kids take a couple of drinks, smoke some weed, and think it all gives
them immortality and nothing can touch them.”

This
wasn't
what he wanted to talk
about with Jack. Harry had waited twenty years for his son to return, and this
wasn't at all the way he'd pictured their reunion.

He fidgeted and smoothed the blankets. “You didn't come here to
talk about something that happened eight months ago to strangers in a town you
hate.”

Jack met his gaze head-on. “To tell you the truth, I'm not sure
why I came here. It was a mistake. I should go. Sorry to have bothered you.”

No. Not yet!

Jackson turned as if to go, and Harry racked his brain for some
way to keep him here. He finally blurted out the first thing that came to his
mind.

“I thought maybe you were angling to be hired to design the
town's new recreation center.”

His son gave a short laugh that didn't sound amused in the
slightest. “Despite what you may think, I don't need to come to Hope's Crossing
trolling for business. My firm does fine.”

Better than fine, Harry thought with pride. They were one of
the most respected design companies on the West Coast, and his son had built the
whole thing out of nothing. Of course, he couldn't mention he knew that very
well, that he had followed his son's career intensely from the moment he'd
finished his graduate work at UC–Berkeley.

“Given your connection to me, I figured you might think you
have some kind of in. Well, you don't.”

Jack looked if he didn't know whether to be amused or offended.
“I would never assume such a thing, even if I knew what the hell you were
talking about.”

“It's still in the initial planning stages, but I can tell you
it's going to be a huge project and one of the most innovative facilities in the
nation, with indoor and outdoor recreation opportunities. You can get a project
prospectus like everybody else, so don't think you can worm the information out
of me when I'm on my deathbed.”

“Now you're on your deathbed.”

Harry shrugged. With his heart problems of the past year, he
felt closer than he ever had in his life. Regret was a miserable companion to a
man in the twilight of his life, especially since he had always considered
himself invincible.

And the man standing reluctantly by his bedside was his biggest
regret. The Grand Poobah of his failures.

“You can call my assistant if you want more information about
the recreation center. I'm sure it's a project of larger magnitude than you're
used to. Probably out of your league.”

“No doubt,” Jack murmured.

Before Harry could come up with something else to say, the door
opened without warning and his nurse backed in carrying a dinner tray.

“Time for your dinner and evening meds.” She turned around and
blinked a little when she saw Jack. “Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't realize you had
company.”

She gave his son a quick look and then a longer, more assessing
one. Yeah, Jack had always been a good-looking cuss. Much like Harry when he'd
been younger.

“This is my son, come to visit me on my deathbed,” Harry
said.

“Your…son? Oh.”

The nurse looked as surprised as she would if Harry had just
introduced him as his pet monkey. She was so young she probably didn't even know
he had a son. She would have been just a kid when Jack left.

Harry had been alone for two decades in that big house in the
canyon. Twenty years. Too damn long.

For a time, he'd thought he wanted things that way. He had been
convinced Jack was a stubborn, self-righteous little prick who didn't understand
the way the world worked. Jack didn't want him in his life, and Harry had been
perfectly content to give him his way. Amazing how a little heart attack could
change a man's perspective.

“How lovely to have your family with you.” She smiled. “Sorry
I'm so late with your dinner, but your food was held up in the kitchen. Better
late than never, isn't it?”

“Is it? It's lousy either way. I still don't understand why the
fool doctors won't let me have my chef bring me something decent.”

“We had this argument the last time you stayed with us. You
know your nutritional content has to be screened carefully for sodium, potassium
and magnesium. What would happen if we just let you have any old thing?”

“I might actually eat it,” Harry muttered.

“Oh, you.” She fussed around his IV tree for a moment, then
started switching out bags.

“I'll go and let you have your dinner,” Jack said.

Harry wanted to call him back, assure him he wanted him to
stay, but he didn't want to sound weak in front of either his son or the
nurse.

“Call my office if you want to see the prospectus,” he said
gruffly.

Jack gave him an “are you kidding” sort of look before he
left.

Harry watched him go, furious with himself. What the hell was
wrong with him? Twenty years of silence, and when he finally saw his son again,
he could only come up with inane conversation about
nothing
.

Would he ever see him again? Or was this the only moment he
would have to remember until he died?

He lay in the hospital bed under the watchful eye of the nurse,
wishing he could rub away the sudden ache in his chest that had nothing
whatsoever to do with his heart problems.

* * *

“D
OES
EVERYTHING
look okay?”

Maura pasted on a smile for her daughter. “Relax, honey. The
pork loin looks beautiful and smells even better. It will be delicious.”

“I shouldn't be so nervous. It's only dinner. It's just… It's
my dad, you know?”

Yes, she did remember that little fact. Maura forced a smile.
“I know. Everything will be perfect.”

Three days after Christmas, her dining room still looked
festive. A garland was draped around the chandelier, and the mantelpiece of the
old fireplace was covered in more garlands, gleaming ribbons and chunky
candles.

The table was set with her best china, white plates with
delicate blue borders. It was old and delicate, exquisite, really, a wedding
present from Chris's parents. The set had once belonged to Chris's maternal
great-grandmother, who had been one of the original silver queens in
Colorado.

After the divorce, she had tried to give it back to Jennie
Parker, but her ex-mother-in-law had insisted she keep it in order to hand it
down someday to Layla....

Her heart gave a sharp kick at the memory, and she bit her lip,
refusing to give in to the sudden burn of emotions. She knew this emptiness
would never fully go away, but the past week, the pain had seemed fresh and new.
Layla had loved the holidays. She was always the one who'd insisted on
decorating the tree the day after Thanksgiving, who would drag them out to go
caroling with the church choir through the neighborhood, who would wake up
before the sunrise on Christmas morning so she could rush in to see the pile of
presents.

Without her, the season seemed not a time of hope and renewal
but of bitter loss.

Christmas morning, three days earlier, had been particularly
poignant. She and Sage had both put on cheerful faces as they'd opened their
gifts to each other, but she could tell her daughter was feeling the same
ache.

Christmas night they had gone to the noisy, crowded McKnight
party at Mary Ella's, where all her siblings gathered with their families.
Claire and Riley had been there with Owen and Macy, Angie and Jim, of course,
with their children, and Alex. Even her sister Rose had driven out with her
family from Utah in the middle of a snowstorm in order to make it back to Hope's
Crossing to spend Christmas in Mary Ella's small house.

She suspected Rose and Michael had come for her sake, to lend
emotional support on her first Christmas without Layla. While she had been
touched at the gesture and happy to see her just-older sister, she had thought a
few times that the avalanche of concern just kept piling on.

She touched the edge of a place setting and straightened the
silverware a little, remembering how when she and Sage had returned home from
the noise and craziness of the family gathering, they had sat here in the living
room by the fire, watching the lights twinkle on the tree, snowflakes gently
falling and the little shih tzu puppy wrestling with a leftover ribbon. She had
been able to hold it together, until she'd looked over and seen tears trickling
down Sage's cheeks.

“I miss her,” Sage had said softly. “Sometimes I miss her so
much I don't think I can bear it.”

“Oh, honey. I know,” she had said. What else could she say? She
knew from experience no words were adequate to soothe this pain, so she had held
Sage and the two of them had cried that they would share no more Christmases
with Layla.

Today Sage hadn't had time to grieve for her sister, too busy
shopping and cleaning and cooking. Maura was glad for that, even if Sage was
doing all this work for her father. Jack was due to arrive in half an hour for
one last evening with his daughter before he left in the morning to return to
the coast.

One more day and he would be gone. She had hardly seen him
since that first morning after he'd arrived in town, just brief moments when
he'd picked up or dropped off Sage on their way to some outing. This would be
the longest time she had spent in his company since their ill-fated breakfast at
the Center of Hope Café.

If she had her choice, she would have tried to get out of this
dinner and let Sage have a quiet evening with her father. What could she do,
though? Sage had asked her to stay, and she couldn't find a decent excuse to
refuse.

Maybe after he left, she would be able to breathe again.

She looked around the beautifully presented dining table again,
but couldn't see anything out of place.

“So put me to work. What can I help you do?” she asked.

Sage shook her head. “Nothing! Absolutely nothing. You've been
working at the store all day. Jack won't be here for forty-five minutes. You can
go take a nap or read a book or play with Puck—whatever you want, as long as
it's something relaxing, not working here in the kitchen with me. This is my
gift to the both of you. My parents.”

Okay, she probably shouldn't feel so squeamish about being
lumped into that category with him. It was the truth, after all, but considering
herself a co-parent with Jack still felt so strange after all these years on her
own.

“Are you sure? I don't mind helping.”

“Positive. Everything's under control. Why don't you go take a
soak in the hot tub?” Sage suggested.

The idea had instant appeal. The hot tub on the edge of her
patio overlooking Woodrose Mountain was her one indulgence, especially on winter
nights with the snow falling gently on her face. “I wouldn't feel right leaving
you in here to do all the work.”

“Mom, go!” Sage ordered. “I'm serious. You'll only be in the
way. I've got this.”

She wanted to argue but saw the futility of it. A soak actually
would
be perfect and might soothe her psyche a
bit, give her a little inner peace to handle the ordeal of the next few
hours.

“Okay. I won't be long.”

“Take your time,” Sage said.

Maura finally surrendered and hurried into her bedroom to
change into her swimming suit, and grab a towel and the book she was currently
reading for the January book club meeting.

She hadn't shoveled the path to the hot tub since the last
storm, and the two inches of new snow froze her toes in her flip-flops. But she
danced quickly through it and worked the lid off, then slid into the always-hot
water with a sigh of pure bliss.

Oh, she had needed this, she admitted. The stress of the
holidays had just about done her in. She should make time to come out here every
night, instead of saving it for a once- or twice-weekly treat.

When Chris lived here with them, he had put the hot tub in the
backyard to soak sore muscles after a day on the slopes. After the divorce, it
had become her escape from dealing all day with two girls by herself. Once they
were in bed, she used to love coming out here to gaze up at the stars and read a
book and feel like herself again, a woman with dreams and regrets, instead of
only someone's mother.