Sweet Laurel Falls (12 page)

Sage had reminded her of something she used to say, that a
child could never have too many people to love her. Maybe there was truth in
that. Jack obviously cared for Sage. How could she possibly resent that?

Before she could say anything, she heard that click of nails on
hardwood again. Finished with his water, Puck was apparently ready for more fun.
He scampered into the room, past them both. Before she could grab him or call
out to stop him, he headed straight for the couch and jumped up, straight onto
Sage’s legs.

“Puck!” she grumbled sleepily, and pushed the dog off her
legs.

“Sorry. He moves faster than I do,” Maura said.

Sage turned her attention to the doorway, blinking a little to
clear away her sleepiness.

“Oh. You’re back.”

“Sorry we woke you.”

“It’s okay. I couldn’t reach Michelle, my roommate that wanted
to Skype. I guess I dozed off while I was waiting for her. I don’t think I was
asleep very long. How was your walk?”

Maura thought of those tantalizing moments back at the falls
when his heat had tugged at something deep inside. “Um, good. I’m making cocoa.
Do you want some?”

“Sure. That would be great. Thanks.”

She sat up and stretched, her shirt pooching out a little.
Maura frowned. Sage had gained weight since she’d left for school in August. She
really hoped she wasn’t stress eating in the dorm to ease her pain over losing
Layla.

Though her mother always insisted on hot cocoa the
old-fashioned way, Maura didn’t have the time and patience for that, not when
she bought high-quality gourmet mixes that tasted just as good, mixed up with
water heated in the microwave.

After preparing a mug for each of them, she carried a tray back
into the family room. Jack smiled his thanks when she handed him a mug, and she
tried to ignore the little tingle as their hands brushed.

Sage took only a small sip of hers before setting it down on
the coffee table. She took a deep breath and faced them both. “Okay, I have to
talk to both of you. I wanted to do this at dinner. That’s actually the reason I
wanted Jack to come over, but then when it came down to it, I just… I couldn’t
ruin the meal.”

Apprehension congealed in Maura’s stomach. This, whatever Sage
wanted to say, must have been the reason she was so distracted throughout
dinner.

She set her own mug down and reached for Sage’s hand. “What is
it, honey?”

Her daughter gripped her fingers for a moment, then released
them and folded her hands together in her lap. “I’m not going back to school
when it starts next week.”

The vague apprehension turned to a full-fledged groan. They had
fought about this all summer. After Layla’s death, Sage had come home to be with
her and had wanted to take a semester off to help at the store.

“You are,” she said now, sounding like an old, scratchy record
of the conversation they’d had throughout July and early August. “You have a
scholarship.”

“I know, Mom. Don’t you think I know? That’s exactly why I need
to take a semester off. My grades last semester sucked! I mean, seriously
sucked. I’m barely going to be able to hold on to the scholarship as it is, and
if I don’t get my act together, I won’t have the credits to get into grad
school.”

“I can’t believe you want to run away, just because things are
tough right now.”

“I’m not running away! I’ve got everything figured out. I
talked to my counselor before I left, and she said we can work things out with
the scholarship for me to take one semester off. I can take some online courses
that will help bring my GPA up again, even finish the last of my generals online
so I can be ready next fall to start taking classes for my major.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Oh, she did
not
want to have this fight while Jack was sitting there watching
them, but she also wasn’t about to let Sage walk away from her dreams.

“Mom, listen to me.”

“Why should I, when you’re not being reasonable? You’ve been
given a chance of a lifetime. I won’t let you throw it away.”

“I’m not going to throw anything away. Would you just trust me,
for once? I know what I’m doing. I came up with a viable plan to take online
classes and you won’t even listen to it! You’re
completely
unreasonable when it comes to school.”

She dug her nails into her palms and curbed her sharp retort.
Sage was probably right about that. Maura had missed out on her chance to go to
college. She’d been too busy working as a checker at the grocery store and
nursing her newborn. Maybe that’s why she had been so insistent that Sage had to
seize every opportunity that had been offered to her.

“What are you going to do here? Work as a barista at the
store?”

“You say that like it’s a terrible thing. I like working behind
the counter, Mom.”

“Not for the rest of your life. You have bigger dreams.”

“Yes. And that’s all they will remain—dreams—until I can bring
my grades up again. I’m just not sure my head is in the game right now.”

Well, get it in the game!
she
wanted to yell, but she knew that wouldn’t accomplish anything other than to
ramp up the tension.

“Okay, let’s calm down here,” Jack interjected into the
conversation.

She had to fight the urge to smack him, to tell him he didn’t
get the right to come in and change everything. He hadn’t been there all along
the way, to sit at the kitchen table doing math homework or helping with book
reports or editing scholarship applications.

Not by any choice of his own, she reminded herself, which took
most of that particular wind out of her sails.

“Honey, I think this is a mistake,” she said, fighting for a
calm, even tone. “Once you stop to take a break from school, returning will only
become harder.”

“I know that’s your big concern. Just like I know there’s no
way you’ll let me turn into some kind of slacker, living in your basement and
hanging out with my friends all the time. You’ll push me to go back until my
eyeballs bleed.”

“We don’t have a basement,” Maura muttered.

“Metaphor, Mom.” Sage rose from the couch and crossed to her.
When her daughter held her arms out, Maura could only hug her in return.

“We want the same thing for me. I want to be an architect.
Nothing’s changed. If anything, I want it more now than ever. I’m going to go
back and finish up. It’s just…so much has happened this year. I was still
reeling from Layla and now, finding Jack and everything…I just need time to
absorb, you know?”

Did she have to sound so damn reasonable? How could Maura
argue?

“I have a possible solution,” Jack said.

Sage turned to him, her cheek still pressed to Maura’s.
“Oh?”

“What if you come to work for me while you take a brief break
from school? At Lange & Associates, you could gain practical experience
working in a real architectural firm, which might help you determine whether
this is really what you want to do with your life before you invest more time
and energy in school. And also in the plus column, this would offer me the
chance to come to know my daughter a little better.”

Beside her, Sage’s jaw sagged and she pulled away a little for
a closer look at her father. “Are you serious? That would be
incredible!
”

She looked as if she’d just won the lottery, the Publishers
Clearing House and a round-the-world cruise in one fell swoop.

Maura, on the other hand, felt sick. The room seemed to spin a
little and a hard ball of nausea lodged in her gut. Sage, living in the Bay
Area? How would she bear it? Riley had gone away to live there and had come back
a completely different person, hard and angry and
damaged
somehow.

Granted, he had been an undercover police officer in one of the
most violent areas of the country, and that probably had more than a little
something to do with the change in him. Sage would be working in an office
somewhere with Jack to watch over her, nothing like Riley’s experience.

Somehow that didn’t make Maura feel any better.

She forced herself to sip at her cocoa and gripped the handle
so hard her knuckles turned white.

“Don’t you think that’s the
perfect
idea?” Sage asked her when she didn’t immediately answer.

What was she supposed to say to that? “It’s…an idea. California
seems like a long way right now.”

She felt the weight of Jack’s gaze on her and tried to compose
her features into a blank slate, giving away nothing of her inner turmoil.
Somehow she didn’t think she succeeded very well.

“I didn’t mean the San Francisco office,” he said. “We’re fully
and efficiently staffed there. But if I were to open a temporary office in
Colorado, I’ll definitely need help.”

“Really? You want to open a temporary office here?”

“I’m thinking about it,” he told Sage. “With the project in
Denver I was telling you about and the possibility that I might submit a
proposal for the recreation center, having a more regionally based office isn’t
a bad option.”

Some of the tension coiled inside her seemed to ease, but she
still couldn’t shake the feeling she was losing her daughter. She felt as if she
stood belaying for Sage at the bottom of a rocky cliff. Once Sage reached the
top, she would slip free of her ropes and disappear forever.

“Denver wouldn’t be so bad, Mom,” she said. “Just a little
farther than Boulder. I could easily come home for the weekends.”

“Sure. Of course.”

“Actually, I was thinking I could probably find empty office
space for a short-term lease in Hope’s Crossing. I wouldn’t need much.”

What sort of strange dimension had she just entered, where
Jackson Lange would seriously consider setting up an office in Hope’s Crossing,
even temporarily?

“Here? That would be fantastic!” Sage exclaimed. “Brilliant!
This way I could still help you in the store on evenings and weekends.”

Maura was suddenly aware of her deep exhaustion. From the
moment she had climbed out of the hot tub and found him watching her, she had
felt as if her emotions had been on some insane amusement-park ride, jostled
this way and that, zinging around corkscrews and loop-the-loops, plunging here,
climbing here. She couldn’t take any more and suddenly wanted nothing more than
to be hiding out in her bedroom.

Sage wouldn’t be leaving her, apparently. For a little longer,
anyway, she could still stand at the bottom of the cliff and hold the rope while
her daughter climbed higher. On the flip side, if Jack opened an office in
Hope’s Crossing, that would mean she was stuck with him. Instead of going back
to San Francisco, he would be here, just a few miles away.

“That’s a very generous offer, Jack,” she managed.

“Not generous at all. I’m gaining more than anyone out of the
deal.”

“This could be a wonderful opportunity,” she said to Sage. “You
will still need to remember that your online classes take priority. An
internship, even with the best architectural firm around, won’t benefit you if
you don’t return to school and finish your degree.”

“I know.” Sage jumped up, much more ebullient than she had been
when she had broached the topic of school. “This is fantastic. I can’t believe
it. This went so much better than I had hoped. I was dreading talking to you
about school, but you’ve been totally cool about it. Thank you. Thank you both
so much for being awesome parents.”

Maura wasn’t
cool
about anything.
Not the decision to leave school, not the self-motivation required for online
classes and especially not Jack sweeping in to save the day. He was supposed to
be leaving town today. She figured any further interaction between them would
channel through Sage. Suddenly he was not only invading her family but the town
she loved.

She saw this as a huge mistake on Sage’s part—and on Jack’s.
What was he thinking to imagine for a moment that he wanted to live and work in
Hope’s Crossing again, even for their daughter’s sake? He wouldn’t be able to
stand it for long, she suspected. Temporarily relocating to town in order to
help Sage through this rough patch sounded lofty and helpful, but Jack couldn’t
be seeing the bigger picture of actually having to stay here longer than a few
weeks. He couldn’t just change his zip code and expect his life to go on as
usual. Soon enough, he would tire of the slower pace, the sometimes intrusive
neighbors.

She had no control over any of it. Not Sage, not Jack. Good
grief, she barely had control over herself, judging by that moment at the falls
when she had wanted to lean into his heat and soak it through her skin.

She could only cross her fingers and hope Sage didn’t end up
with a broken heart—and that she wouldn’t either.

* * *

W
HAT
JUST
HAPPENED
in there?

After saying good-night to Sage and Maura, Jack walked out into
the cold Colorado night, where he was surrounded by the familiar scents of snow
and pine and
home
.

Something about this place must be messing with his head. What
else would explain an otherwise sane man suddenly committing to a plan that
would compel him to stay in Hope’s Crossing? He still couldn’t quite believe he
was even considering throwing his name into the hat for the community recreation
center. Now he was about to open up a damned branch office here.

And why? One reason. Because he hadn’t been able to bear the
shadow of pain in Maura McKnight’s eyes when she thought her daughter would be
leaving her to move with him to San Francisco.

Man, he was a sucker. Why should it matter if she suffered a
little at the loss of face time with her kid? Wasn’t this what they called
karmic justice? She had robbed him of nearly twenty years with his child. While
he might be gradually coming to accept her reasons and finding a little more
compassion for a scared teenage girl, that didn’t ameliorate his own loss.