Sweet Laurel Falls (26 page)

“I don’t know where most of it came from. Some colored rocks, a
piece of petrified wood, a pressed flower or two.”

“She loved the outdoors.”

“Yes.” He was quiet here, remembering the fey creature he had
married, a woman who had loved art and music and being with her son. Even before
her illness had progressed, some part of him had always resented their close
relationship. He had always felt as if the two of them had a bond that excluded
him.

“I loved your mother. I know you have some ridiculous notion
that I didn’t but…before her illness, before the voices in her head became so
loud they drowned out the rest of us, she was…my angel.”

“You locked her up. She loved being outside and you kept her
locked in a room, sedated to her teeth until she was a zombie.”

“She wasn’t locked up, ever. She had full run of the house.
Yes, I put locks on the doors of the house to keep her from wandering around. I
had to. She was out of control. She might have hurt someone. Do you know how
hard it was to keep her at home? The doctors wanted to put her in the state
hospital, but I refused. She would have hated that. Instead I paid for
round-the-clock care at a time when I could least afford it.”

He didn’t expect his son to understand. Jack had been a
teenager with the idealism of the young, certain he could fix any problem in the
world if only he set his mind to it. He had been busy with school and hadn’t
seen how Bethany was self-destructing.

“Is it completely impossible for you to believe that I thought
what I was doing was best, for her and for you?”

Jack leaned back in his chair. “Mostly for yourself. Don’t
forget that part.”

Yes. He couldn’t deny that. As much as he had loved his wife in
the beginning, when they were in their twenties and he thought she was the most
beautiful thing he had ever seen, by the time she killed herself, he had felt
trapped and angry and helpless, not a comfortable position for a man who had
firm goals and ambitions.

“I made mistakes, with her and with you. No doubt about it. I’m
sorry for that, son. And for…everything that came after. More sorry than I can
ever say.”

Jack gazed at him for a long moment, and Harry almost thought
he might believe him. If he could only have his son back—whatever crumbs of a
relationship Jack might be willing to throw at him—he would consider it fair
repayment for his activities these past months as the Angel of Hope.

If he thought his son was going to run into his arms as if this
was some dramatic made-for-television movie, he was destined for
disappointment.

“Thank you for the mementos,” Jack only said, his voice stiff
and unyielding.

Harry fought the urge to rub at the ache in his chest, knowing
this also had nothing to do with his A-fib. “You’re welcome,” he answered, just
as Maura and Sage returned to the dining room.

“This house is awesome, Harry,” Sage said. “I could throw a
party and invite everybody in my dorm tower and the other three in the unit.
That guest bathroom alone is bigger than my dorm room.”

He forced himself to smile at her. He might not ever be able to
pierce through the accumulated years of Jackson’s animosity. He had this
unexpected granddaughter now. If he treaded carefully with her, maybe, just
maybe, he wouldn’t have to be completely alone.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“S
EE
? T
HAT
WASN
’
T
SO
MISERABLE
, was it?”
Sage said from the backseat when they were finally back in Jack’s Lexus. “Nobody
poisoned anyone, at least.”

“As far as
you
know,” Jack
answered. “Do you have any idea how many poisons don’t show any symptoms until
hours after ingestion?”

Maura laughed, as he had intended. “Always the optimist, aren’t
you?”

“So if I wake up dead, you can say I told you so,” Sage
teased.

The finely wrought tension in his shoulders from the ordeal of
the evening seemed to ease with their lighthearted banter. He very much enjoyed
their company. Both of them.

“You’re right. It wasn’t completely miserable. The food was
good.” What he’d been able to taste, anyway.

“Particularly that mousse. I’m definitely trying that sometime.
Don’t you think it was nice of Harry to track down the recipe from his
housekeeper?”

Oh, yes. Jack was sure it had been quite a sacrifice for him to
call her in from the kitchen and order her to print out a copy for Sage.

“I think Harry is mellowing in his old age,” Maura said. “I
still can’t believe he’s the Angel of Hope. Of all the people in town I might
have guessed, Harry Lange would have been dead last on the list.”

“He denied it, remember?” Jack said. “Quite vehemently, in
fact.”

“You lived with the man for eighteen years. Couldn’t you tell
he was lying?”

The trouble there was half the things Harry had ever said to
him were lies, and he had never been very good at sorting through what was
truth. In this, he had to agree with Maura, however. Harry had obviously been
lying about his secret identity as the town’s mysterious benefactor. He had
evidence from his own eyes—that brief moment he had seen the Angel near Maura’s
house after Christmas and had wondered.

“I don’t think the three of us should tell anyone that it’s
Harry,” Sage said. “Can it be our secret?”

“I think you’re right.” Maura surprised him by agreeing. “He’s
worked really hard to keep his identity under wraps all these months. We should
keep it a secret among us.”

“Why?” Jack asked.

“Just the idea of the Angel, some secretive being who goes
around doing kindnesses, has been good for this town. Knowing it’s just a grumpy
old man trying to atone for the sins of his lifetime kind of ruins the fun and
beautiful mystery of it, don’t you think?”

Was that what Harry was trying to do by sneaking around helping
people with their troubles? Trying to atone somehow?

“Are you going to tell anybody Harry’s the Angel?” Sage asked
him.

“I can keep a secret if that’s what you think best. Who would I
tell, anyway?”

“Thanks.” His daughter beamed at him. “I’ll let Harry know
we’ve all agreed to a conspiracy of silence.”

Jack wasn’t sure how he felt about that—sharing a secret about
his father.

“He’s done a lot of good around Hope’s Crossing,” Maura said.
“I still can’t really believe it’s him.”

“Maybe he just wants you to think it’s him in order to deflect
attention from the
real
Angel,” Jack said, though he
didn’t really believe that himself.

“I would find that a little more palatable, to tell you the
truth, than the idea of Harry Lange sneaking around town giving out packets of
money and paying people’s utility bills. It’s a little disconcerting. Sort of
like trying to picture Katherine Thorne and my mom suddenly having a
hair-pulling catfight in the middle of the café.”

He had to smile at the incongruous image of the very ladylike
city council member and his former high school English teacher, both in their
sixties, battling it out,
mano a mano
.

Sage laughed out loud. “I would pay good money to see that. I
bet lots of people in town would. Hey, maybe if we asked them nicely, the two of
them would stage a mixed martial arts fight, with all proceeds to go to Layla’s
scholarship fund.”

“Don’t you dare even put that idea in your grandmother’s head,”
Maura said with a soft chuckle. “I could just see one of them breaking a hip and
blaming me.”

Jack laughed along with both of them. As he pulled up into the
driveway of Maura’s house, he felt a funny little bubble of something expand in
his chest. It took a moment for him to realize he was
happy
.

Now, there was an unexpected emotion. He had just spent two
hours with his father, he was back in Hope’s Crossing, a place he’d never wanted
to find himself. But he was with two women who made him laugh and think and
worry.

Two women he had come to care for deeply.

He turned off the engine and moved around to help them both out
of the vehicle. Inside, they could hear a few random, excited barks from
Puck.

Maura unlocked the door, and the dog rushed out with yips of
glee. She picked up his little wriggly body and scratched under his chin.
“There’s my good boy,” she murmured, and Jack had to smile. Sage had told him of
Maura’s initial resistance to keeping the dog. Apparently the little fuzzball
had won her over.

If only he could do the same.

The thought left him shocked and more than a little unsettled.
Did he
want
to “win her over”? He still had every
reason to be furious with her for his lost years with Sage. Could he move past
that to the soft, caring, courageous woman she had become?

“Thanks again for coming,” Sage said. “I know it wasn’t easy
for you, and it means a lot to me that you did it anyway, Dad.”

Dad. She had never called him that before. He stared at her,
his chest filling again with that effervescent joy.

“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly. Sage reached out and hugged
him in that open, generous way of hers and, after an awkward moment, he hugged
her back.

Over Sage’s shoulder, he met Maura’s gaze and saw a thicket of
emotions there he couldn’t begin to untangle.

“You don’t need to rush away, Jack,” she said after a moment.
“You’re welcome to stay and hang out with Sage. I’ll even get out of your hair.
I’m going to take Puck for a walk, since he’s been cooped up all evening by
himself.”

Sage pulled away and winced. “My friend Jennie texted before we
left and asked if I wanted to come over and watch a movie when we finished
dinner. I already told her yes. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her in ages,
but I can call her and cancel.”

“No. Don’t worry about it. I don’t want you to change your
plans on my account.”

He studied Maura and the leash, and thought of the empty town
house waiting for him. He didn’t want to go home yet, especially when they
hadn’t had a chance to talk about the kiss earlier in the kitchen that had
sizzled between them all night. “I was actually thinking a walk would be just
the thing after that chocolate mousse. Maura, do you mind company?”

Her mouth tightened slightly, but she quickly straightened it.
“Not at all,” she answered. “Puck would love to have you along.”

But you wouldn’t?
he wanted to ask,
but didn’t want to risk the bluntness of her answer in front of Sage.

“I probably won’t be that late, since I fall over by midnight
these days, but if you get back before I do, don’t wait up for me,” Sage
said.

Maura smiled and kissed her daughter on the cheek. “Good night,
honey. If I don’t see you when you come home, I’ll talk to you in the morning
before you go into the office.”

“Thanks, Mom. See you guys. Have fun.”

Maura looked as if fun was the last thing on her mind, but she
said nothing as she hooked the leash onto Puck, who just about wriggled out of
his fur in anticipation. Jack held the door open for her, and together they
walked out into the cool March night.

* * *

T
HIS
WAS
A
PHENOMENALLY
bad idea.

Maura gripped Puck’s leash as if the little eight-pound dog
might suddenly start dragging her down the street. Her shoulders already ached
from the effort she was making to ensure she kept a nice, safe bubble around
herself and didn’t accidentally bump into Jack.

Walking through the quiet streets of Hope’s Crossing with
Jackson Lange wasn’t exactly the soothing, Zen-like experience she had been
seeking when she’d come up with the idea to take Puck out on the leash. She was
almost painfully aware of Jack. All she could seem to think about was that kiss
in her kitchen earlier and how she hadn’t wanted to stop.

“Nice night,” he said into the silence, after they passed a few
houses on her street.

Oh? She hadn’t noticed. She drew in a breath and tried to focus
on the spill of stars and the huge full moon hovering above Woodrose Mountain,
instead of this fierce attraction that seemed to grow with every step.

“Spring is on its way, I guess. We’ve still got a few stray
snowstorms left in the year, but I think the worst of winter is behind us.”

She wasn’t sure she was ready for the change. Spring meant hope
and life and new growth, things that represented the inexorable march of time.
Like it or not, it was inevitable. Soon the sunny days would outnumber the snowy
ones, the tourist season would ease and the mountains would turn emerald and
new.

Were they really talking about the weather, with all these
currents that sparked and hissed between them? She racked her brain to come up
with something else to say and blurted out the first thing that came to her
mind.

“What was in the little box you carried out of your father’s
place?”

He was quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed on their route,
and she wasn’t sure he was going to answer. Was that a rude question? No. Nosy,
maybe, but not rude.

“A few mementos of my mother’s, apparently. Journals and
keepsakes. That’s what Harry said it was, anyway. I only had a brief glance at
the contents before you and Sage came back. For all I know, maybe underneath the
few things of my mother rest the still-beating hearts of all Harry’s business
rivals.”

Despite her scattered emotions, she had to laugh. “Look at
that. You made a joke.”

His mouth turned up at the edges. “I’ve still got a few jokes
left in me.”

“You always used to know how to make me laugh,” she said
softly. “I’d forgotten that.”

“Lately I seem to be remembering a whole slew of things that
have slipped away over the years.”

His words were pitched low, intense, and a subtle sense of
intimacy seemed to wrap around them like tendrils of smoke.

She knew she was being cowardly when she deliberately changed
the subject. “When do you start work on the recreation center?”

“Right away,” he answered. “The city council wants tentative
plans within the next six weeks or so. I’m heading to Singapore this week and
will work long-distance from there, then hit it hard when I return.”

“This will be a really valuable addition to Hope’s
Crossing.”

“You think?”

“Claire and the others at String Fever have tried to bring the
town together through the Giving Hope Day and other fundraisers, but I’m not
sure it’s been enough. When the tourists overwhelm the year-round residents by
ten-to-one some winter weekends, it’s tough to form a community. A recreation
center might be just the thing to help people connect with their neighbors.”

“That’s a pretty heavy expectation to put into one
building.”

“I’m sure you’re up to the challenge,” she said.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” he said with a half
laugh, just as he realized with some surprise that they had already reached
Sweet Laurel Falls.

* * *

T
HEY
COULD
HAVE
WALKED
in any direction. Was this a
conscious choice on her part? She wasn’t sure, she only knew that the night she
and Jack had walked here after Christmas seemed like the beginning of this sea
change in their relationship.

The warmer temperatures of the past week or so had begun to
melt the ice. Already the water was beginning to make channels and rivulets over
the face of it, and in some spots the ice had completely cracked away, shattered
by warmth and the force of the current.

She wasn’t quite ready to face how very much like that spill of
water she felt, half-frozen but beginning the painful process of thawing. Layla
was gone. She couldn’t change that, nor could she give such little honor to the
memory of the vibrant girl her daughter had been by curling up and wishing to
die along with her.

She took a seat on the small bench near the bridge that spanned
the creek and gave Puck the deceptive freedom to wander at the limits of his
retractable leash, sniffing at every rock and tuft of grass peeking through the
remaining patches of snow.

She loved it here. The stars, the city, the sound of the
trickling water. She inhaled the cool night air and tried to relax—an impossible
effort, especially when Jack sat down beside her and stretched his long legs
out. Loath to reveal just how much he unnerved her, she drew in a deep breath
and worked hard to relax taut muscles.

“So,” he said after an awkward moment. “How long do you think
we should keep ignoring what happened before dinner?”

“Oh, I was thinking ten or fifteen years ought to do it.”

He gave a rough, surprised laugh, shifting to face her. “It
seems only fair to tell you I’m more attracted to you than I ever was when I was
a stupid teenage kid.”

Her stomach muscles contracted as she remembered the heat of
that moment in the kitchen and, worse, that stunning, irresistible
tenderness.

“Fair? What’s fair about telling me that?” she muttered. “What
am I supposed to say?”

In the full moonlight, his features looked vaguely saturnine.
“You could tell me to go to hell. You could tell me not to waste my time or
energy. You could tell me you were completely unmoved by what happened and it
was like kissing that really ugly statue of Silas Van Duran in Miner’s
Park.”