Sweet Laurel Falls (3 page)

That little tidbit also appeared to be news to Maura. “You rode
here with him?” she asked her daughter. “Is something wrong with the Honda?”

“It hasn’t been starting the last week or so. I think it just
needs a new battery, but I figured I could drive the pickup while I was home and
catch a ride back to school with one of my friends after the break. I can deal
with the Honda before school starts next semester.”

“You should have called me. I could have driven to Boulder to
pick you up.”

“Sorry, Mom. My car troubles just didn’t seem all that
important in light of…everything else.”

“I guess that’s understandable.” Maura forced a smile, but he
could clearly see the bone-deep weariness beneath it. What had happened to the
vibrant, alive girl who’d always made him laugh, even when they were both
dealing with family chaos and pain?

“So what now?” she asked. Though she looked at her daughter, he
picked up the subtext of the question, directed at him.
What else are you planning to do to screw up my life?

“I think you should get back to your book club Christmas party
for now. I’m really sorry we interrupted it.”

“Between Ruth and Claire and your grandmother, I’m sure
everything will be fine,” Maura assured her.

Much to his astonished dismay, tears filled Sage’s eyes. “But I
know how much you always look forward to the party and the fun you have throwing
it for your friends. It’s always the highlight of your Christmas. If anything,
you needed it more than ever this year, and now I’ve ruined everything for
you.”

Maura gave him a harsh look, as if this rapid-fire emotional
outburst were
his
fault, then she stepped forward to
wrap Sage in her arms.

“It’s only a party,” she said. “No big deal. They can all carry
on just fine without me. And if you want the truth, I almost canceled it this
year. I haven’t really been in the mood for Christmas.”

This information only seemed to make Sage sniffle harder, and
he watched helplessly while Maura comforted her. Judging by the mood swings and
the emotional outbursts, apparently he had a hell of a lot to learn about having
a nineteen-year-old daughter.

“You’re exhausted, honey. I’m sure you’ve been studying hard
for finals.”

“I haven’t been able to sleep much since the lecture,” she
admitted, resting her darker head on her mother’s shoulder. He had a feeling the
bond between them would survive the secret Maura had never told her daughter. As
he saw the two of them together, something sharp and achy twisted in his
gut.

He had an almost-grown daughter he suddenly felt responsible
for, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do about it.

“Why don’t you take my car home and go back to the house to get
some rest,” Maura said. “I’ll catch a ride with your grandmother or with Claire.
We can talk more in the morning when we’re both rested and…more calm.”

“I’ll take her home,” Jack offered quietly.

“Thank you, but I wouldn’t want to put you to any more trouble.
You’ve done enough by bringing her all this way from Boulder. I’m sure you need
to get back to…wherever you came from.”

In a rush to send him on his way, was she? “Actually, I’m
planning to stay in town a few days.”

“Why?” she asked, green eyes wide with surprise. “You hate
Hope’s Crossing.”

“I just found out I have a daughter. I’m not in any particular
hurry to walk back out of her life right away.”

The surprise shifted to something that looked like horror, as
if she had never expected him to genuinely want to be part of their daughter’s
world on any ongoing basis. Sage, though, lifted her head from her mother’s
shoulder and gave him a watery smile. “That’s great. Really great.”

“What do you say we meet for breakfast in the morning? Unless
you have to be here at the bookstore first thing.”

Maybe a night’s rest would give them all a little breathing
space and offer him, at least, a chance to regain equilibrium, before any deeper
discussion about the decisions made in the past and where they would go from
here.

“I own the place. I don’t have to punch a clock.”

“Which usually means you’re here from about eight a.m. to ten
p.m.” Sage gave her mother a teasing look.

“I can meet for breakfast,” Maura said. “Tomorrow I don’t have
anything pressing at the store until midmorning.”

“Perfect. Why don’t we meet at the Center of Hope Café at
around eight-thirty? We stopped there to grab a bite at the counter before we
walked over here, and I’m happy to say their food is just as good as I
remembered.”

“The café? I don’t know if that’s the greatest idea. You might
not want to…” she started to say, but her words trailed off.

“Want to what?” he asked.

She seemed to reconsider the subject of any objection on his
part. “No. On second thought, sure. Eight-thirty at the café should work just
fine.”

“Okay. I’ll see you then. Shall we go, Sage?”

“Yeah.” She pressed her cheek to her mother’s. “I’m still
furious you didn’t tell me about my father. I probably will be for a while. But
I still love you and I will forever and ever.”

“Back at you,” Maura said, a catch in her voice that she
quickly cleared away.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Sage asked him after they walked
through the bookstore and the lightly falling snow to the SUV, which he had
rented what seemed a lifetime ago at the Denver airport before his lecture.

“You would know that better than I do.”

“I thought I knew my mother. We’re best friends. I still can’t
believe she would keep this huge secret from me.”

He wondered at Maura’s reasons for that. Why didn’t she tell
Sage? Why didn’t she tell
him?
Surely in the years
since he’d left, she could have found some way to tell him about his child.

The idea of it was still overwhelming as hell.

“You’ll have to give me directions to your place,” he said
after she fastened her seat belt.

“Oh. Right. We live on Mountain Laurel Road. Do you remember
where that is?”

“I think so.” If he remembered correctly, it was just past
Sweet Laurel Falls, one of his favorite places in town. The falls had been one
of their secret rendezvous points. Why he should remember that right now, he had
no idea. “I know the general direction, anyway. Be sure to tell me if I start to
head off course.”

Traffic was busier than he expected as he drove through Hope’s
Crossing with the wipers beating back the falling snow. He hardly recognized the
downtown. When he had lived here, many of these storefronts had been empty or
had housed businesses that barely survived on the margin. Now trendy
restaurants, bustling bars catering to tourists and boutiques with elegant
holiday window displays seemed to jostle for space.

Some of the historic buildings were still there, but he could
see new buildings as well. Much to his surprise, some faction in town had
apparently made an effort to keep the town’s historic flavor, even among the new
developments. Instead of a modern hodgepodge of architectural styles that would
be jarring and unpleasant with the mountain grandeur surrounding the town, it
looked as if restrictions had been enacted to require strict adherence to
building codes. Even in the few strip-mall-type developments they passed with
pizza places, frozen yogurt shops and fast-food places that might appeal to
tourists, the buildings had cedar-shake roofs and no flashy signage to jar with
the setting.

As he drove up the hill toward Mountain Laurel Road, the
surroundings seemed more familiar, even after twenty years. In his day, this
area of town had been called Old Hope, a neighborhood of smaller, wood-framed
houses, some of them dating back to the town’s past as a rough and rugged mining
town. A few of the houses had been torn down and small condominium units or more
modern homes built in their place, and many had obviously been rehabbed.

He could easily tell which were vacation homes—they invariably
had some sort of kitschy decoration on the exterior, like a crossed pair of old
wooden skis or snowshoes, or some other kind of cabin-chic decoration. He saw a
couple of carved wooden bears and even a wooden moose head on a garage.

“Turn here,” Sage said. “Our house is the small brick-and-tan
house on the right, three houses from the corner.”

From what he had just seen in town, Maura ran a prosperous
business in Hope’s Crossing. According to the information he had gleaned from
Sage over the past few days, she had been married for five years to Chris
Parker, frontman for Pendragon, a band even
Jack
had
heard of before.

She must have received a healthy alimony and child support
settlement from the guy when their marriage broke up. So why was she living in a
small Craftsman bungalow that looked as though it couldn’t be more than nine
hundred square feet?

Despite its small size, the house appeared cozy and warm
nestled here in the mountains. Snow drifted down to settle on the wide, deep
porch, and a brightly lit Christmas tree blazed from the double windows in
front. The lot was roomy, giving her plenty of space for an attached garage that
looked as if it had been added to the main house later.

He glimpsed movement by the side of the house and spied a
couple of cold and hungry mule deer trying to browse off the shrubs, which
looked as if they had been wrapped to avoid just such an eventuality. The deer
looked up when Jack’s headlights pulled into the driveway, then it turned and
bounded away, jumping over a low cedar fence to her neighbor’s property. Its
mate followed suit and disappeared in a flash of white hindquarters.

Now, there was an encounter that brought back memories. When he
was a kid and lived up Silver Strike Canyon, he and his mother would often take
walks to look for deer. She would even sometimes wake him up if a big buck would
wander through their yard.

“Thanks for the ride. I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I can walk you in. Help you with your bag and your
laundry.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

He hadn’t been given the chance to do anything to help his
daughter in nearly twenty years. Carrying in her bags was a small gesture, but
at least it was
something.
He didn’t bother arguing
with her; he only climbed out of the SUV and reached into the backseat for the
wicker laundry basket she’d loaded up at her apartment in Boulder, hefted it
under one arm and picked her suitcase up with the other.

Sage made a sound of frustration, but followed him up the four
steps to the porch and unlocked the house with a set of keys she pulled from her
backpack. Warmth washed over them as Sage pushed open the door to let him
inside, and the house smelled of cinnamon and clove and evergreen branches from
the garlands draped around.

Jack found himself more interested than he probably should have
been in Maura’s house. He took in the built-in bookshelves, the exposed rafters,
the extensive woodwork, all softened by colorful textiles and art-glass light
fixtures.

“Looks like Mom went all out with the Christmas decorations. A
tree and everything.”

He glanced at his daughter.
His
daughter
. Would he ever get used to that particular phrase? “You
sound surprised.”

“I thought this year she wouldn’t really be in the mood for
Christmas. Usually it’s her favorite time of year but, you know. Everything is
different now.”

He didn’t want to feel this sympathy. For the past three days,
he had simmered in his anger that she had kept this cataclysmic thing from him
all these years. Being here in Hope’s Crossing, being confronted with the
reality of her life and her pain and the difficult choices she must have faced
as a seventeen-year-old girl, everything seemed different.

He felt deflated somehow and didn’t quite know what to do with
his anger.

Sage fingered an ornament on the tree that looked as if it was
glued-together Popsicle sticks. The tree was covered in similar handmade
ornaments, and he wondered which Sage had made and which had been crafted by her
younger sister.

“I hope Grandma and the aunts helped her and she didn’t have to
do it by herself,” Sage fretted. “That would have been so hard for her, taking
out all these old ornaments and everything on her own.”

Sage’s compassion for her mother, despite everything, touched a
chord deep inside him. There was a tight bond between the two of them. Had it
always been there, or had their shared loss this year only heightened it?

He spied a cluster of photographs on the wall, dominated by one
of Sage and Maura on a mountain trail somewhere, lit by perfect evening light
amid the ghostly trunks of an aspen grove. They had their arms around each
other, as well as a younger girl with purple highlights in her hair and a triple
row of earrings.

“This must be Layla.”

Sage moved beside him and reached a hand out to touch the
picture. “Yep. She was so pretty, wasn’t she?”

“Beautiful,” he murmured. All three females were lovely. They
looked like a tight unit, and it was obvious even at a quick glance that they
had all adored each other.

Maura had been divorced for a decade and had raised both girls
on her own. How had she managed it? he wondered, then reminded himself it was
none of his business. He was here only to establish a relationship with his
newly discovered daughter, not to walk down memory lane with Maura McKnight, the
girl who had once meant everything to him.

“Oh, look. Presents.” Sage’s eyes were as wide as a little
kid’s as she looked at the prettily dressed packages under the tree. What had
she been like as a big-eyed preschooler waiting for Santa to arrive? He would
never know that. He’d missed all those Christmas Eves of putting out plates of
cookies and tucking his little girl into bed.