Sweet Laurel Falls (29 page)

“This doesn’t change anything,” she muttered as they made their
way through the house to the living area.

His laugh was rough and amused. “You can tell yourself that,
but we both know better, don’t we?”

Sage was the first one they bumped into back at the party. She
gave them both a curious look, and he wondered if anyone else could sense the
tensile connection between him and Mary Ella now. “There you are. What happened
to you?”

Love. That’s what happened, missy. Not
that it’s any of your business.

“Did you ever find the yarn?” she pressed when he didn’t
immediately answer.

Yarn? It took him a moment to remember the errand she had sent
him on earlier. First he’d been distracted by the cigar and then by the even
more tempting forbidden treat of Mary Ella.

“No. And I’ve been over the whole house.” It wasn’t
quite
a lie—he had traipsed through every room, but he
had been showing Mary Ella the Colvilles instead of looking for yarn. “Let me go
take another look in my office.”

“No. Forget it. We’ll just use the red that we already have. It
will look fine.”

“I’ll look anyway.” He brushed a kiss on his granddaughter’s
forehead, then squeezed Mary Ella’s arm slightly. She trembled just a little,
which made him grin broadly, and he walked away whistling—
whistling,
for hell’s sake—the tune to “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
as he headed to his office.

In his office, the woody, cedary smell of cigar smoke was
stronger than it should have been. He frowned and looked around. The whistle
died on his lips when he spotted Jackson on the terrace, in the same spot where
he’d been when Mary Ella had come in a half hour earlier—and enjoying one of the
same cigars.

“Make yourself at home,” he said, still feeling so great after
kissing Mary Ella McKnight that he could almost look at his son without the
customary sorrow and guilt.

“Sage sent me in here to look for you. Something about yarn. I
didn’t find you, but I did happen to spy an open box full of particularly fine
Coronas and couldn’t resist.”

He frowned at the dark circles under Jack’s eyes and the lines
of exhaustion bracketing his mouth. “Maybe you would be better off finding a bed
and taking a nap instead of stealing my cigars. You look like hell.”

Jack shrugged. “Give me a break. I was up two nights straight
before I left Singapore trying to wrap things up so I could get away, then spent
the next twenty-two hours either flying or waiting around in airports.”

He wanted to tell Jack not to let work completely consume him
or he might one day find himself alone and unhappy, but he choked back the
words. This didn’t seem the time for lectures, especially not when he was just
so damn happy to be with his son.

“I’m sure it means the world to Sage that you made the effort
to be here.”

Jack narrowed his gaze as if parsing the words for mockery,
then appeared to accept them as genuine. “I had to try, even if it was tough.”
He paused. “Maura tells me you and Sage are becoming close.”

He loved her with the same fierceness he loved her father. “Are
you going to try to tell me you don’t want me in her life?”

What would he do if that were the case? He had treated Jack so
horribly he didn’t know how he could ever atone. He had tried in small ways. Oh,
his will was written to leave everything to him, even before Jack had come back
to town, and over the years he had worked behind the scenes to steer juicy
projects his son’s way.

He knew it wasn’t enough. If Jack wanted him to stay away from
Sage, he would have to accept that as penance for his sins, even though it would
kill him. Possibly quite literally.

He waited for Jack to say the words that would crush him, but
his son only puffed the cigar. “Why would I make you stay out of Sage’s life, as
long as you continue to treat her well?” he finally asked.

Gratitude and relief almost made Harry weep, much to his
dismay. “She’s a good girl,” he said gruffly. “I…care about her very much.”

“I can tell,” Jack said. “Word is you don’t entertain often.
Yet here you are flinging open those big gates for Sage.”

It was such a small thing. Why was everybody making such a big
deal about it? Had he really become such a recluse that people considered him
another Howard Hughes, hoarding his fingernail clippings and his used tissues in
his mansion?

He stood for a long moment while Jack smoked. His son didn’t
seem to mind his presence, and Harry was aware of a fragile happiness bubbling
inside him. He was here, with his son, and for once they weren’t fighting. He
was half tempted to relight the long stub of his own cigar, still in the ashtray
on the table, but he didn’t dare. Smoking even one was risky with his bad
ticker, and for the first time in far too long he had plenty of things to keep
him alive.

Including his granddaughter, he suddenly remembered, who would
be ready to put him in a nursing home for dementia if he let himself become
distracted by one more thing.

“I should probably go,” he said with deep regret. “Sage sent me
in here to find something for her. She’s going to have my hide if I don’t get
back out there. You’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like. Have another
cigar. Hell, have two or three.”

Jack nodded, and Harry hurried to his desk and opened the
drawers until he found the bag of yarn. He gazed at his son out on his terrace
in the spring sunshine, with one of his cigars in his hand, and Harry smiled
with a deep, contented joy before he hurried back out to find his
granddaughter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

J
ACK
SAT
FOR
A
WHILE
in the very comfortable chair
outside his father’s office, watching a few clouds scud across the snow-topped
mountain peaks. He wasn’t quite sure what had just happened between the two of
them, but it seemed somehow significant, as if they had crossed some Continental
Divide in their relationship.

He wasn’t sure he could forget everything his father had done,
but maybe it was time, at last, to find room for a little forgiveness. Harry had
certainly made mistakes. Those tramlines and ski lifts etching their way up the
greening hillsides were a prime example.

Could Jack find some semblance of peace with his father? He was
mellowing, he supposed. Maybe age and experience had leaked away some of the hot
anger of youth, or maybe it was due to becoming a father himself. He still
didn’t know if he could move beyond their past, but for the first time in two
decades, he realized he wasn’t averse to trying.

He saw a flash for a moment as someone headed out across the
sloping lawn, headed toward the horse paddocks just beyond the grass. Maura, he
realized. He recognized her slim frame and the lavender dress she wore, which
flowed around her legs with every step.

A deep yearning stirred. He had missed her this past month
while he had been overseas. In the past, he had always enjoyed the traveling
aspect of his job, the hands-on involvement on a project, but all he had wanted
these past weeks was to come home to her.

The constant flow of emails and phone calls and Skyping—their
modern-day long-distance courtship—had only heightened this ache to be with her.
Every time he talked to her only whetted his need to talk to her the next
time.

They traded stories about their day, she asked his business
advice, they laughed and joked and rediscovered each other. Every time they
ended a call, he felt the keen loss of the connection and had to force himself
not to pick up the phone and call her right back.

So what the hell was he doing sitting here by himself when she
was out there, a strong, beautiful, vibrant woman instead of an image on a
monitor or a voice on the phone?

He tossed the cigar in the ashtray on the terrace and vaulted
over the three-foot stone fence surrounding the terrace, probably built to keep
out the animals and the rabble, and headed toward her.

She didn’t seem aware of his approach and appeared lost in
thought as she leaned on the top railing of the paddock, watching a few elegant,
undoubtedly expensive, horses graze inside.

“Hey,” he finally said when he was only a few steps away.

She turned in surprise, and her expression seemed to instantly
light up with joy when she saw him. “Jack. Hi!”

He was helpless against the tide of warmth that flowed through
him, sweet and cleansing, washing away everything that had come before. He was
in love with this woman. Deeply and profoundly.

He had loved the girl she had been, sweet and generous. His
first love. But the woman Maura had become—a woman of courage and strength and
grace—she was
everything
to him.

“Where did you go earlier?” she asked. “I looked around some
time ago and you had disappeared.”

“Sage sent me on an errand and I ended up stealing—and then
very much savoring—the guilty pleasure of one of my father’s cigars.”

She smiled while the breeze played with the ends of her
hair.

“Why are you out here by yourself?” he asked.

“Brodie and Evie and Taryn just left. Taryn was tired.”

“She looked good.”

“Doesn’t she? If you had seen her a few months ago, you would
be completely stunned at how far she has come. So I was walking them out to
their car and the sunshine felt so good, I couldn’t resist walking back here to
see Harry’s view from the back.”

He leaned his elbows on the railing next to her, relishing the
sunshine on his head and the earthy smell of springtime around them. He wasn’t
sure he had ever been so exhausted, but just standing here beside Maura filled
him with a sweet, seductive peace. “It turned out to be a beautiful day.”

“Yes.” Out of the corner of his gaze, he saw her draw her
bottom lip between her teeth. “Do you think the butterflies will survive?”

“Of course they will.” He didn’t know a damn thing about
butterflies, but he wasn’t about to tell her otherwise. “You said Sage
researched this out. If the butterfly people said it’s warm enough for them, I’m
sure they’ll be just fine.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You would say that even if you thought
they were all doomed, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

Her laughter rippled over him, and he finally couldn’t resist
the overwhelming need to pull her into his arms. With a sigh, she settled
against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and lifting her face for his
kiss.

He managed to bank his wild desire—for now—and kept the kiss
soft and gentle, with all the tenderness inside him.

Finally, when he wasn’t sure how much longer he could be noble
and considerate and mindful of the solemnity of the day, he slid his mouth away
and caressed her cheek with his thumb.

“I think the butterflies will be fine. Despite how lovely and
fragile they look, they’re survivors, accustomed to weathering storms. A great
deal like someone else I know.” He paused, gazing intently at her, his heart
pounding in his chest like one of those horses on a racetrack. “The woman I
happen to be in love with, actually.”

She stared at him, her eyes huge in that soft, lovely face, and
he thought he saw a quick blaze of joy there before her lashes came down.
“Jack…”

“I really didn’t intend to say that. Either the cigar or my
fatigue must have loosened my tongue. This isn’t the time or the place, today of
all days. I just wanted you to know where my head and heart are.”

He wrapped his hand around her fingers and brought their
clasped hands to his chest. “Right here. With you.”

She still didn’t say anything, only continued to gaze at him
out of those eyes as green as the new growth around them. Had he ruined
everything between them? Moved too fast? Spoken when he should have shut the
hell up?

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “I know you’re not
ready for this. Not with everything going on in your life. We can talk again
when I come back for good in a few weeks.”

“Not for good,” she whispered. “Only until you move back to San
Francisco.”

“What if I didn’t have to go back to San Francisco?” He
couldn’t quite believe the words were coming out of his mouth, but even as he
spoke them, he realized he meant them completely.

She stared at him, her eyes huge. “What?”

“I have a partner who handles the administrative side of things
at the main office very well. I don’t see why I couldn’t keep the office here in
Hope’s Crossing and use that as my central base.”

Her laugh had a disbelieving edge. “You
really
must be exhausted. You do realize what you’re saying,
right?”

Over the past few months, he had witnessed genuine concern and
caring in Hope’s Crossing and had come to see that perhaps he had viewed the
town through the sometimes skewed perception of youth. No doubt he could still
find pockets of intolerance and small-mindedness in Hope’s Crossing, but the
majority of the people he had come to know were warmly generous. Why wouldn’t he
want to live here?

“I would still have to travel sometimes. That’s the nature of
my job. But I would always come back to you.”

Her fingers still nestled in his and he could feel them tremble
in his grasp. He lifted them to his mouth and kissed the soft skin at the back
of her hand. “I love you, Maura. I want to be with you. Whether that’s here or
in San Francisco or in Singapore. It doesn’t matter to me.”

* * *

M
AURA
COULDN
’
T
SEEM
to catch hold of
any of her scattered thoughts. She could only stare at him, trying to gauge
whether he spoke truth. She was inordinately aware of their surroundings—the
fading afternoon sunlight, the soft breath of a spring breeze, the horses now
cantering through the pasture behind Jack.

Joy seemed to burst inside her, bright and lovely and
right.
Her love for him was a sweet ache in her chest,
a quiver in her stomach, but she couldn’t find the words to tell him. Instead,
she did the next best thing. She reached on tiptoes and kissed him, their
still-clasped hands caught between them.

He hitched in a breath and returned the kiss, his mouth warm
with the taste of cinnamon. He kissed her with such soft tenderness she could
feel the ache of tears behind her eyes. The past weeks ran through her mind, the
late-night phone calls where neither of them wanted to be the first to hang up,
the sharing and the teasing and her inexorable journey toward falling in love
with him all over again.

“I love you, Jack,” she murmured. “Some part of me never
stopped, all these years. I had the reminder of you every day when I would look
at our daughter, so curious and determined, just like her father.”

“She’s become a beautiful, strong woman. Like her mother.”

Could they really have a second chance together? It seemed a
miracle, somehow. A rare and precious gift, after the hellish year she had
endured. She smiled against his mouth, aware of a subtle shifting and settling
inside her, a quiet peace she had never expected to find with Jackson Lange, of
all people.

Over his shoulder, she caught a bright flash of
yellow-and-orange out of the corner of her gaze and she shifted in his arms for
a better view.

“Jack! Look!” she exclaimed.

He followed the direction where she pointed, to where a monarch
butterfly dipped and danced among the early-spring flowers of Harry’s
landscaping.

“Do you think that’s one of the butterflies from the ceremony?”
she asked. “Surely it wouldn’t have made it all the way up the canyon. That’s
three miles at least.”

“Stranger things have happened. Maybe he hitchhiked in
somebody’s car.”

“It is. I’m sure it is.” She watched the butterfly alight on a
huge, plump peony, its wings bright and cheery, and felt the last icy fingers
around her heart crack and break away. It was almost as if Layla had sent her a
sign, promising her all would be well.

She lifted her face to the sunshine and to Jack, suddenly sure
of it.