RaeAnne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry Summer\Woodrose Mountain\Sweet Laurel Falls (95 page)

She grinned at him. “I hope you don't mind, but I found all the
ingredients for cocoa in your cupboards. Even though we just had brunch like an
hour ago, I thought that would taste delicious on a cold day like today. Look, I
even found a thermos in the pantry!”

“I had nothing to do with that,” he admitted. “I paid a service
to stock the kitchen with the basics for me. I've barely even had time to look
through the cupboards.”

“They're really efficient, whoever you found. I've got
everything I need. I just need five more minutes for the milk to come to a
boil.”

“Not a problem. I'm not on any kind of timetable here. Do you
need help?” Not that he would be much, but it seemed only right to offer.

“No. I've got this. Why don't you go in and keep my mom
company? I wouldn't let her help either.”

Sage seemed determined to exert her independence at every turn.
He wondered if she had been that way before her sister's death, or if that
pivotal event had changed her in some fundamental way.

When he walked into the great room, he found Maura perched on
the edge of the sofa, leafing through a coffee-table book about the American
West.

“This is interesting,” she said when he walked in. “Did you
know the only survivor of the Battle of Little Bighorn was a horse named
Comanche?”

“I did not. Thanks for sharing.”

She laughed a little. “What's the point of having all these
fascinating books if you don't look inside them?”

“Here's the thing. All those books? The decorator picked them
all. I haven't read a single one.”

“Did you hire Vanessa Black with Design West Interiors? That
must be why she came into the store and placed a huge order a few weeks ago.
Thank you for that.”

“You're welcome.” He decided not to mention he had insisted to
Vanessa that any books be purchased from her store, even if she could have found
them cheaper somewhere else.

“Don't you think it's wrong to use books as props?”

It suddenly struck him as a pretty sad commentary on the state
of his life that he hadn't had time to look at any of his own books yet—and that
he had to pay someone else to create a home for him in the first place.

“I prefer to think of them as carefully chosen design elements.
Who knows, I might leaf through them at some point.”

“You should. You've got some great titles here. What is Sage up
to in the kitchen?”

“Making hot cocoa. The old-fashioned way, apparently.”

“That's how she prefers it when she has the chance.”

“She's handy in the kitchen, isn't she?” More than a month
since meeting Sage, he still felt as if he knew so little about her.

“She's always loved to cook. Cleaning up, now, that's another
story, but she loves creating new dishes. She and Layla used to come up with the
most amazing Sunday-morning breakfasts, all while I slept in. Let me tell you,
it's a little disconcerting to wake up to delectable smells filling your house
when you have no idea where they're coming from.”

She paused, a soft smile playing at her mouth. “I would stumble
into the kitchen and find the two of them in there laughing and giggling and
having a great time together.”

“It sounds like they were close.”

“Yes. They hardly noticed the four-year age difference between
them. Layla missed Sage so much when she went to college.”

He was sorry again for the grief both of them had endured at
the loss of someone they had loved. Before he could say anything, Maura quickly
changed the subject.

“What about you? Spend much time in the kitchen these
days?”

“Hardly any,” he admitted, after a pause. If she didn't want to
talk about her daughter, he wouldn't pry. “I make the occasional soup and
omelet, but I usually hire a meal service.”

“I must tell you, Jack, I'm a little surprised you're not
married. A wife seems like an even more handy accessory than a pile of
coffee-table books.”

“Last I checked, you can't buy one of those on SkyMall,
though.”

“That
is
an inconvenience. Can't
you find a service to help you with that too?”

He was silent before he confessed to what he considered his
second biggest mistake, after leaving Maura alone and pregnant here in Hope's
Crossing. “I was married once for about five minutes, before she decided she
wanted a little more out of a marriage than an empty chair at the dining room
table.”

He thought of Kari, elegant and lovely and completely the wrong
woman for him at a time when he had been totally focused on building his
business.

“I'm sorry.”

He shrugged. “Our divorce was amicable and easy. And almost
completely my fault, as you probably already assumed.”

“I don't believe I said anything of the sort.”

He had chosen poorly to begin with, but he hadn't handled their
difficulties at all well. “You don't have to say it. I've said it enough myself.
I was a lousy husband. Selfish and thoughtless and focused only on my
ambitions.”

“Rather like your father?”

He stared at her, caught completely off guard by the
comparison. He wasn't at all like Harry. His father had been a stone-cold
bastard.

“Sorry. I shouldn't have said that,” she said. “I always knew
your dreams were bigger than Hope's Crossing. Even if not for your feud with
your father, I think I knew you still would have needed to leave in order to
reach them. I'm happy for you, Jack. It's inspiring to see someone who nurtured
a dream as a young man and worked and struggled and fought to make it happen.
You must be pleased.”

Gut-check time. He sat back in his chair. Was he pleased at his
success? Yes, he enjoyed the awards and the recognition, but when was the last
time he remembered feeling excited about one of his projects? Whenever he
started a new project, when all the possibilities lay ahead of him, he welcomed
the challenge but he always wanted more.

Before he could figure out how to answer her, Sage came in
holding two thermoses. “Okay, the cocoa is finally ready. I made two kinds,
cinnamon and regular. Cinnamon's my favorite, FYI.”

“Good to know.” Maybe he had passed that particular gene to
her. He was a sucker for cinnamon drops and cinnamon cookies. He even liked
cinnamon schnapps.

As he helped the women into their coats, he reflected on his
conversation with Maura. What would she say if he told her this project in
Silver Strike Canyon, where he had once built so many ideas in his head, was the
first thing in a long time to stir his blood and spark his creativity?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

M
AURA FOUND IT FASCINATING
to watch Jack work.
Watching
Sage
take in everything Jack did with big
eyes and an eager expression was even more so. Sage followed him like Puck
followed her at home, writing down measurements and snapping pictures where he
directed her.

Her mother used to talk about how, when her older twin sisters
were learning to talk, they shared a language between them that only they seemed
to understand. By the time Maura came along a few years later, her sisters had
mostly outgrown it, but she could still remember they called juice
juba
for a long time and couldn't eat a pancake for
years without calling it
cakee.

As she watched Jack and Sage discuss the site, she imagined
this was how her mother had felt watching her toddler daughters play—a little on
the outside of their private communication and not quite sure how she fit
in.

“Where is the north boundary?” Sage asked.

“Just there at the ridgeline, but beyond that it's abutted by
Forest Service land,” he answered. “With proper covenants and usage permits, we
could possibly utilize that for a network of trails.”

They were so alike, it was almost painful to watch them
together, especially knowing she had kept them apart all these years.

“How big is the original property?” Sage asked.

“Three hundred acres, give or take an acre or two. It runs from
the streambed on the west to that fence line on the east, then from the road to
the ridgeline.”

Maura looked at the dimension of the lot, set perfectly in the
trees and with a stirring view of the ski resort, farther up the canyon. “And
Harry's just
giving
it to the town?”

“As far as I understand. But don't believe for a moment he's
doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He doesn't have one, remember? I'm
sure he's looking for some kind of tax break.”

“Still. This is a prime building lot, don't you think? Whatever
tax break he might receive, he could probably make twenty times that by building
condominiums here.”

“No doubt he has a hundred tangled ulterior motives. If memory
serves, he always did. Harry's reasons don't really matter to me, frankly. My
job, if I win the contract, is to design a recreation center that meets the
myriad needs of the community.”

From what little she had seen, especially that look of naked
longing she had spied in the old man's eyes just before Harry fell in the
bookstore, she couldn't help wondering if most of Harry Lange's motivations had
to do with the man standing in front of her.

“Now that you've had a good look at the site, you're welcome to
wait in the warm car. No need to freeze your feet off out here in the mud while
we finish surveying.” Jack must have clued in that she was feeling a little
excluded by all the lingo he and Sage were throwing back and forth.

The idea of a heater was not without merit, but she could see a
freshly groomed snowmobile trail that snaked off through the trees. Suddenly the
idea of stretching her legs a little seemed extraordinarily appealing.

“Since you're busy here, I think I'll take a little walk to
gain a different perspective of the site.” She gestured to the trail, clean and
enticing in the pale afternoon sunlight. “I should have a good view back this
way. Don't worry. I won't go far.”

Jack gave her an absent nod as he and Sage set up another
measurement. Neither of them seemed to pay much mind to her. She sighed a
little, reminded strongly of how Sage and Layla used to collude together in the
kitchen over spinach-mushroom quiche or sugar-drizzled pear cake.

She walked through the trees in a quiet hush broken only by the
river down below and the occasional throb of an engine on the roadway beyond
that. A few fresh inches of snow covered the packed snowmobile trail, but she
wore sturdy winter boots with good tread.

The sunshine filtered through the trees in lacy patterns, and
she was struck by the beauty of the bare, spindly red branches of the dogwoods
against the starkness of new snow. A few pine siskins flitted among the currant
bushes in search of any leftover berries, and she watched them for a moment
before continuing on her way.

She needed to get out more. Maybe she ought to ask Evie if she
could tag along on one of her cross-country ski excursions into the backcountry.
Every time she walked outside, she was reminded of her glorious surroundings and
her connection to Mother Earth.

The trail gained a little in elevation, making the way a little
more strenuous. She decided to walk only as far as an interesting-shaped pine
tree ahead, which made a V where two saplings had grown next to each other but
sprawled out to seek sunlight in opposite directions.

Much to her chagrin, she had to pause at the top to catch her
breath, even though the hill wasn't very steep. Wow. She was really out of
shape. When was the last time she had gone to the gym? Before Christmas.
Probably even before Thanksgiving and the onset of the holiday rush. Apparently
she needed a new recreation center in town worse than anyone else.

She leaned against one of the angled trees—only for a moment,
she told herself—and gazed down at the silvery river trickling through mounds of
snow. Past it, she could see the roadway gleaming black in the sun.

A blue SUV came around the corner much too fast, but the driver
managed to regain control and speed on down his merry way. She watched it for a
moment, shaking her head at the heedless idiot.

When she turned back, her breath caught. Though it was probably
a few hundred yards away at a downward angle, she saw something she should have
noticed immediately.

A huge Douglas fir grew alone perhaps four feet off the roadway
and had been turned into a makeshift memorial. Purple-and-pink plastic ribbons
fluttered in the breeze. Around the base of the tree—just below a pale portion
of the tree trunk where the bark had been scraped away ten months earlier—she
could see stuffed animals, plastic flowers, a white cross, all protected from
the snow by a small awning someone had erected.

Blood rushed from her face and she braced against the bent tree
here to keep her balance. She hadn't realized the recreation center site was so
close to the accident scene, down the canyon only a few hundred yards. She had
been here, of course. After the accident, she had asked Mary Ella to drive her
here, and the two of them had held each other and wept.

She drew in a breath now, unable to take her eyes away from
that benign-looking tree. Her brother Riley, who had studied the accident report
in great depth, had given her his solemn vow that Layla died immediately upon
being thrown from the vehicle, that she didn't suffer. It was a comfort of
sorts, but she couldn't help wondering if Layla had known even an instant's fear
as the vehicle rolled out of control.

She didn't know how long she stood there in the ankle-deep
snow, gazing across the road at the place where her world changed forever. She
couldn't seem to make her feet move back down the little hill toward Jack and
Sage, and so she stood listening to the resilient song of the pine siskins and
the wind in the trees and the endless trickle of the river.