RaeAnne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry Summer\Woodrose Mountain\Sweet Laurel Falls (3 page)

“Genevieve Beaumont. The mayor's daughter.”

Her grand society wedding to the son of one of the region's richest bachelors was still eight months away. Maybe Gen would have time to order a replacement gown between now and then and Claire could still have time to finish the beadwork.

Or maybe the somewhat spoiled bride-to-be would decide to sue Claire for every penny she eked out of the store, for whatever breach in security had potentially ruined Genevieve's big day.

Chester nudged her leg with his head and she wanted to sink to the floor in the middle of all those spilled beads, gather him in her arms and indulge in a big, soggy pity party. The emotions clogged her throat and burned behind her eyes, but she blinked them back and swallowed hard. She had no time to indulge in tears, not now when she had such a mess to clean up—and especially not in front of the new chief of police, for heaven's sake.

“This is a nightmare. It makes no sense. Why just destroy the dress when they didn't even bother to take the crystals? They're worth a fortune.”

“I don't know the answer to that yet. But I promise you, Claire, I'll find out.”

Riley might have been an annoying little pest when he was younger and a hell-on-wheels troublemaker when he hit his teen years, but all she had heard over the years from Alex and the rest of his family indicated he had shaped up from his wayward youth and truly found his calling with police work.

Most people in Hope's Crossing seemed to think the town was lucky he had agreed to give up his life as an
undercover detective in the Bay Area to come back, although she had heard rumors there was discontent in the police department over his hiring.

“Tell me what else I can do to help you, then.”

“Just sit tight while I finish processing the scene. Maybe you and your dog here could head over to Maura's place for coffee or something. I might be here a while.”

“I'd rather stay, if you don't mind. We'll do our best to keep out of your way.”

“Not a problem. I'm glad to have the company, I only wish it were under better circumstances.”

For the next hour, she had a front-row seat as Riley worked the scene—collecting evidence, lifting fingerprints, taking photos.

It was a bit of a jarring dichotomy trying to reconcile the pain in the neck she remembered with this wholly competent officer of the law. Mixed in there was the wild, angry teenager he'd been after his parents' divorce, but by then she'd been living in Boulder for college and had only heard everything secondhand about his drinking, smoking and more.

The Riley she remembered was the one who had hidden a voice-activated tape recorder in his sister's room during one of Claire's frequent sleepovers at the McKnight home so he could overhear what she and Alex talked and giggled about.

Their conversation had inevitably centered around boys, of course, because they were probably twelve or thirteen at the time and beginning to be obsessed with the opposite sex. Claire had just started to notice the smartest, cutest boy in the grade ahead of her, Jeff
Bradford. Alexandra at the time had been enamored with the quarterback on the freshman football team, Jason Kolpecki.

They had talked long into the night about their current crushes with no clue that Riley, the sneak, had recorded all of it—and then threatened to share the tape recording with the boys in question if they didn't meet his demands, a mortifying prospect.

It was probably a good thing those who weren't thrilled about Riley's return didn't know their new chief of police had once included blackmail in his repertoire. She and Alex had spent every Saturday for two months taking over his customary duty of mowing and edging the McKnights' lawn in exchange for Riley's promise to destroy the tape.

All the teasing and mischief of their childhood seemed worlds away, buried deep under the weight of all that had come later. Her father's scandalous death, her mother's subsequent breakdowns,
his
father's midlife crisis that had decimated his family and Riley's own wild youth.

Sometimes she thought she would give anything to go back to that peaceful time, when the only thing she had to worry about in junior high was her algebra grade and Riley leaking to Jeff Bradford that she had a crush on him.

After another half hour while he spent considerable time on his cell phone with, she assumed, officers working the other crime scenes, he finally collected the last evidence and loaded everything into a bag.

“That should do it,” he said. “I'm going to send
everything here to the crime lab and hopefully we can get a print or two.”

“Thanks, Riley. I really appreciate everything you've done.”

“No problem. I hope to have information for you as soon as possible.”

He gave her the big, broad, charming smile he had perfected as the youngest and only boy in a family of five sisters, the same smile that helped him wiggle out of more trouble than she cared to think about.

A little sizzle of attraction sparked through her, just like the flickering lights floating down the mountainside in the hands of skiers during the annual Christmas Eve candle festival at the resort. She frowned, especially when he stepped a little closer and reached for her hand.

“It really is terrific to see you, Claire. When things settle a little, what do you say I take you up to the resort for dinner so we can catch up under better circumstances?”

Okay, she had been out of the dating scene for pretty much
ever,
since she had started seeing Jeff when she was fifteen, but that sounded suspiciously like Riley McKnight was asking her out.

“Uh.” Brilliant answer, she knew. She couldn't help it—she couldn't remember the last time anything beyond leaving her grocery list at home managed to fluster her. Surely she must have misunderstood. He was just being polite, wasn't he?

“It was only a simple dinner invitation, Claire.” A dimple quirked at the edge of his mouth. “I didn't intend to send you into a panic.”

She forced a bland smile and reminded herself this was pesky Riley McKnight. “The day you send me into a panic is the day I dye my hair purple and join a punk-rock band.”

“Now
that
I would love to see.”

Too late, she remembered that he never backed down from a challenge. Once when they were kids, Alex had been grounded for a month when she dared her brother to ride his bike down from the top of the Woodrose Mountain trail without hitting his brakes once. He'd made it almost to the bottom before his spectacular crash—and, of course, never once considered braking to slow his descent. That would have been cheating.

That was years ago. A man didn't become a decorated law enforcement officer without gaining a little wisdom along the way and learning how to pick his battles, right?

“I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to catch up,” she answered as calmly as she could manage. “Alex tells me you're renting the old Harper place on Blackberry Lane. That's just down the street from my house. I'm in the redbrick house with the portico.”

He smiled again. “Great. Guess I know where to head when I need to borrow a cup of sugar.”

How on earth did he manage to make such a simple statement sound vaguely sexy? She decided to ignore it—just as she decided it would probably be better not to mention it had been a long time since she'd loaned anyone a cup of sugar—or enjoyed any other euphemism, for that matter.

“Is it all right if I reopen the store now? I can't afford to be closed all day.”

“As far as the police are concerned, sure. Do you need me to send somebody over to help you clean up?”

She shook her head. “I'll check around and see if I can round up a crew.”

“Okay. So I'll call you, right?”

She frowned. She was so out of practice at this, she had no idea how to tactfully discourage him. Better to just plow ahead, she decided. “Riley, I don't know if that's such a great idea…”

He gave her a long, amused look. “Funny, I figured you'd want to know what's going on with the case.”

“Of course I do!”

“What else did you think I meant?”

She had no way of answering that without sounding like an idiot.
Now
she remembered why he used to drive her and Alex crazy.

“Absolutely nothing. Please do call me. About the case anyway.”

“Right. I'll be in touch.”

Only after he left and she moved to close the door behind him did she remember that silly horoscope.
Something fun and exciting is heading your way.
That was Riley McKnight, all right. Too bad she wasn't in the market for either of those things—and especially not with her best friend's younger brother.

CHAPTER TWO

F
OR THE FIRST TIME IN
months, Claire was relieved when business was slow. She didn't know how she could provide any sort of decent customer service when she still had hours of work to do clearing up the mess the burglars had left behind.

In desperation, she had finally swept the tens of thousands of spilled beads into one huge bin to be sorted back into compartmentalized trays. If she'd been forced to tackle it by herself, she didn't know what she would have done.

“This is going to take months. You know that, don't you, honey?”

Ruth seemed to read her mind, in that uncanny way her mother had perfected. Claire managed to keep from grinding her teeth, but before she could answer, her best friend chimed in from the other end of the worktable.

“Are you kidding, Mrs. T.?” Alex McKnight's dimple, much like her brother's, flashed with her grin. “You've got the town's best and brightest beaders here. With all of us superwomen working together, we can probably cut the job down to three weeks, tops.”

“I say we can do it in two,” Evie Blanchard, Claire's assistant manager, spoke in her quietly cheerful way.
Monday was supposed to be her day off, but when Evie heard about the burglary, she had insisted on cutting short a late-season cross-country ski outing to help with the cleanup effort.

Evie and Alex were two of the seven women surrounding the String Fever worktable, each with a small kaleidoscopic pile of beads in front of them they were sorting by color and shape into compartmentalized trays that lined the middle of the table. After that, the spilled beads would have to be sorted by size and type—furnace glass, handblown glass, semiprecious stones, cloisonné—and organized once more on the shelves.

Claire's mother sat at one end near Maura—Alex's next oldest sister—and Mary Ella, their mother. To Claire's left was Evie and on her right was Katherine Thorne, who had sold her the store nearly two years ago, while Alex sat across the table.

Chester, of course, presided from his place of honor on his favorite blanket, curled up on his side. Sometimes she thought half her customers came into the store just to visit her dog, who was never quite as happy as when he was stretched out in his corner at String Fever, listening to all the chatter.

During those first difficult months after Jeff moved out, String Fever was where she found solace and calm, here amid her friends. Like beads on a wire, they were all connected, linked together by bonds of friendship and family, by shared experiences and a common passion for beading.

“Did you hear about Jeanie Strebel?” Maura, Alex's older sister, was saying.

“No. What happened?” Claire asked.

“She was knocking icicles off her roof with a broom the other night and a big one shot right down and knocked her over. Broke her leg in three places. Jeff did surgery yesterday, from what I hear. Her daughter told me she was going to be in the hospital until Sunday.”

“Oh, no!” Mary Ella exclaimed. “And they've already been hit with more than their share of troubles since Ardell had his heart surgery three months ago.”

Maura nodded. “I bumped into Brianna at the market this morning before I opened the store and she told me all about it. Have you seen those twins of hers, by the way? They're growing like crazy and have the most darling dark curls and huge eyes. Anyway, guess what happened while her dad was at the hospital with her mom last night?”

They all waited expectantly and Maura let the pause lengthen for dramatic effect.

“Come on, Maur.” Alex finally ruined the anticipation. “Just get on with it. What happened?”

“They had a visit from the Angel of Hope.”

Excitement seemed to shimmer around the table at the announcement. Even Ruth leaned forward, her eyes wide. “Really? Another one?” she asked.

“It had to be. Somebody left ten crisp hundred-dollar bills in an envelope slipped under their front door to help with medical expenses. You should have seen Brianna's face when she told me about it. That sweet girl. Her eyes were all red and weepy and she just glowed from the inside out.”

For the past few months, a mysterious benefactor
had been stepping in to help people who most needed it. When Caroline Bybee's ancient Plymouth coughed its final death knell last fall, she woke up one morning to find a later-model used sedan in her driveway, complete with a gift title and a note signed only “Drive Carefully.”

A few weeks before that, a young divorced mother who sometimes came into the store told Claire someone had paid her heating bill for the entire winter. She had no idea how or why but the gas company assured her she had full credit on her bill to last into the spring.

During the holiday season, Claire had heard that more than one struggling family—all with young children—had discovered envelopes full of cash on their doorstep with only the words “Merry Christmas from Someone Who Cares.”

Those were only the things she knew about. She had to wonder how many acts of generosity had somehow escaped the winding tendrils of the Hope's Crossing grapevine. She didn't know who had first come up with the nickname Angel of Hope, but the whole town had been buzzing about the identity of the benevolent patron.