Sweet Laurel Falls (9 page)

“Finding your father isn’t enough of a diversion?”

“For me. Not so much for you.”

Oh, having Jackson Lange back in Hope’s Crossing definitely
qualified as a distraction. She had been so scatterbrained today, she had barely
been able to function.

She scrutinized the little dog. Okay, he
was
cute. What would be the harm in babysitting him for a few weeks?
They hadn’t had a dog around the house since their much-beloved ancient golden
retriever had gone to the big fire hydrant in the sky the summer before Sage
started high school.

“Only until Josie goes back to school. And you have to promise
to do all the work, even if you’re putting in hours here at the store. Feed him,
water him, clean up any messes. Everything. I mean it.”

“I will, I swear. Thanks, Mom.” Sage stepped forward and kissed
her cheek. The little sneak of a dog reached in and gave her cheek a lick
too.

Two days ago her life had seemed so simple. Raw and empty and
filled with pain, but not all these complications. Now she had Jack to deal
with, and Sage and her grief and her secrets, and now a fuzz-faced dog.

“Keep in mind the most important thing. You’re cleaning up all
the messes,” she repeated, just to be clear.

“I know. I know. I won’t forget. I’m going to go out and show
Sierra and Joe. Just come grab me when you’re ready to go home.”

She gave her grandmother a kiss—and held the dog up to do the
same—before she blew out of the room as quickly as she’d entered.

“You’re a sucker, my dear,” Mary Ella drawled.

“You don’t have to tell me that. I always have been. I learned
it from you, the woman whose children talked her into three dogs, four cats, a
couple of gerbils, a tank full of fish and a fainting goat.”

“I miss that goat. My yard has never been as well groomed as
when we had him around to eat the grass. Maybe I should get another one.”

“I know a little shih tzu who could use a new house. Can’t
promise he’ll eat the grass, though.”

Mary Ella smiled and rose. “I’d better run, though after
quilting all day, I’m not sure these old fingers will be able to do much
beading.”

“Does that matter? You go to String Fever for the fun and
gossip as much as anything.”

“True enough.” Mary Ella paused and placed a hand on Maura’s
cheek. “I pray for the day when you will want the same thing again.”

“I will. Someday.” Absurdly, she wanted to lean into her
mother’s soft fingers and weep, but she forced herself to straighten her
shoulders. “If you find anything out about Harry, let me know. I should probably
be ready in case he decides to sue me for every penny, since my store is about
the only thing in town he
doesn’t
own.”

Mary Ella smiled again, but Maura was almost certain she saw
anxiousness in her green eyes.

CHAPTER SIX

A
GRANDDAUGHTER
.

All this time he had a granddaughter, living right under his
nose.

Harry Lange fidgeted in the damn hospital bed, trying to find a
more comfortable position. He abhorred the Hope’s Crossing hospital, even if he
had given the place enough cash over the years they should have named a wing
after him. The fawning doctors, the busybody nurses, the obsequious
administrators who had already been in to check that he was receiving
top-quality care.

This was the third time in a year he’d had the misfortune to
require treatment at this blasted place. Every visit left him more determined
than ever not to return unless it was to the basement morgue.

Most people in town considered him a bastard who plowed his way
through life, taking what he wanted without fear or second doubts. That wasn’t
precisely true. If he dared, he would grab these IVs and yank them out of his
arm, unpeel the cardiac leads and head for the door.

He might be strong-minded but he wasn’t stupid. He had a bad
heart. That was the cold, stark truth. Oh, the doctors gave it all kinds of
five-dollar words, but it boiled down to a bum ticker, so he was forced to lie
here helpless and let the idiots fuss over him while his son was here in Hope’s
Crossing for the first time in twenty years.

Jackson.

That moment when he had walked into the bookstore, turned his
head and seen his son standing there, strong and handsome and hearty, was one he
would remember for a long time. Oh, Harry had seen Jack over the years—not that
his son had any idea of those surreptitious trips, which Harry had made in
disguise when his sources let him know of some building dedication or
architectural award.

Jack never would have seen him at any of those places. Harry
had made sure of that. Those few glimpses of his son had been both incredibly
rewarding and bitterly painful, and had left him aching for more.

He reached for the water bottle beside his bed, cursing the
stupid lines tethering him to the equipment. Wouldn’t you know? The simpleton
nurse had left it just out of his reach. He was straining with one arm to reach
it without falling out of the bed, when he heard the door open.

“Help me here, will you, you idiot?” he barked, without taking
his gaze off the unattainable water bottle.

A long silence greeted him, and finally a voice answered,
“Still as charming as ever, I see.”

Off balance and extending his arm beyond a safe reach, Harry
would have fallen sideways out of bed if he hadn’t caught himself at the last
minute.

His heart fluttered, and he thought with horror that maybe he
was having another attack of angina from the damned atrial fibrillation he’d
been dealing with for a year, but then he realized it was just completely
understandable shock at the sight of his son in the doorway.

“Son.”

Jack’s mouth tightened at the word, but he moved closer to the
bed and picked up the water bottle Harry had been scrambling after like a pig
snuffling for apples.

“This what you were trying for?” Jack asked.

He grabbed at it, feeling ridiculous. “Yeah. Stupid nurses
always leave it just out of reach. What’s the point of making sure my water
bottle is full when I can’t grab it?”

Jack didn’t make a comment, only raised an eyebrow. Harry had
wondered himself if the nurses didn’t do it out of some kind of
passive-aggressive spite. He sipped at his water, wishing they could be meeting
under different circumstances, not when he was lying here in a damned hospital
gown.

“I didn’t expect you to show up.”

Jack shrugged. “Call it a crazy impulse. Maybe I just wanted to
see how close you were to kicking the bucket.”

He refused to show any reaction to that. He had reaped what
he’d sown with his son, hadn’t he? “I’ve still got a few miles left in me. The
idiot doctors say I’ve got atrial fibrillation. A-fib. I’ve been on medicine for
it, but I guess it’s not working as well as we thought.”

Jack seemed to digest that information. “Are they keeping you
long?”

“Just overnight while they run some more tests.” If they
couldn’t figure out the right medication, he was going to have to go to Denver
for a procedure to reshock his heart, but he decided not to tell Jack that. He
quickly changed the subject.

“What’s this about you having a daughter? You were a smart kid.
Didn’t you have the brains to use protection?”

Jack sighed. “It was a shock to me too. I haven’t spoken with
Maura in twenty years now. She never said a word to me about a pregnancy. I’d
like to think I would have taken responsibility if I had known. Every child
deserves a father willing to stand up and be a man and take part in raising
him.”

The implication being that
Harry
had done nothing of the sort. Which was true enough, but not the whole story,
something Jack wouldn’t have been able to see twenty years ago.

“She’s a smart girl, that one. I understand she was
valedictorian and earned an architectural scholarship at UC–Boulder. I guess
she’s a chip off the old block, right?”

Jack frowned. “How do you know anything about Sage? A few hours
ago, you had no idea who she even was.”

Harry had his sources, who had been busy all afternoon and
evening finding out everything they could about this new relation of his. Right
now, he figured he probably knew more about Sage McKnight than her own mother,
and he was pleased beyond measure that his granddaughter showed such promise,
despite her upbringing with that flighty woman.

“The mother, Maura. She’s a piece of work. Hooked up with a
musician a few years after you left. From what I hear, their marriage only
lasted about five years—long enough to make another kid. The girl who died.”

Annoyance tightened his son’s mouth, so much like his mother’s.
The girl shared the same mouth. Harry had ordered his people to send any
pictures they could find of her, and he was amazed now that he’d never picked up
on the resemblance when he had seen her around town over the years. Amazing what
a person could miss when he wasn’t expecting to see it.

“A real tragedy, that accident,” he went on. “All of Hope’s
Crossing has been in a tizzy since April, pointing fingers, trying to figure out
what went wrong. I’ll tell you what went wrong. Nothing new here. A bunch of
headstrong kids take a couple of drinks, smoke some weed, and think it all gives
them immortality and nothing can touch them.”

This
wasn’t
what he wanted to talk
about with Jack. Harry had waited twenty years for his son to return, and this
wasn’t at all the way he’d pictured their reunion.

He fidgeted and smoothed the blankets. “You didn’t come here to
talk about something that happened eight months ago to strangers in a town you
hate.”

Jack met his gaze head-on. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure
why I came here. It was a mistake. I should go. Sorry to have bothered you.”

No. Not yet!

Jackson turned as if to go, and Harry racked his brain for some
way to keep him here. He finally blurted out the first thing that came to his
mind.

“I thought maybe you were angling to be hired to design the
town’s new recreation center.”

His son gave a short laugh that didn’t sound amused in the
slightest. “Despite what you may think, I don’t need to come to Hope’s Crossing
trolling for business. My firm does fine.”

Better than fine, Harry thought with pride. They were one of
the most respected design companies on the West Coast, and his son had built the
whole thing out of nothing. Of course, he couldn’t mention he knew that very
well, that he had followed his son’s career intensely from the moment he’d
finished his graduate work at UC–Berkeley.

“Given your connection to me, I figured you might think you
have some kind of in. Well, you don’t.”

Jack looked if he didn’t know whether to be amused or offended.
“I would never assume such a thing, even if I knew what the hell you were
talking about.”

“It’s still in the initial planning stages, but I can tell you
it’s going to be a huge project and one of the most innovative facilities in the
nation, with indoor and outdoor recreation opportunities. You can get a project
prospectus like everybody else, so don’t think you can worm the information out
of me when I’m on my deathbed.”

“Now you’re on your deathbed.”

Harry shrugged. With his heart problems of the past year, he
felt closer than he ever had in his life. Regret was a miserable companion to a
man in the twilight of his life, especially since he had always considered
himself invincible.

And the man standing reluctantly by his bedside was his biggest
regret. The Grand Poobah of his failures.

“You can call my assistant if you want more information about
the recreation center. I’m sure it’s a project of larger magnitude than you’re
used to. Probably out of your league.”

“No doubt,” Jack murmured.

Before Harry could come up with something else to say, the door
opened without warning and his nurse backed in carrying a dinner tray.

“Time for your dinner and evening meds.” She turned around and
blinked a little when she saw Jack. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had
company.”

She gave his son a quick look and then a longer, more assessing
one. Yeah, Jack had always been a good-looking cuss. Much like Harry when he’d
been younger.

“This is my son, come to visit me on my deathbed,” Harry
said.

“Your…son? Oh.”

The nurse looked as surprised as she would if Harry had just
introduced him as his pet monkey. She was so young she probably didn’t even know
he had a son. She would have been just a kid when Jack left.

Harry had been alone for two decades in that big house in the
canyon. Twenty years. Too damn long.

For a time, he’d thought he wanted things that way. He had been
convinced Jack was a stubborn, self-righteous little prick who didn’t understand
the way the world worked. Jack didn’t want him in his life, and Harry had been
perfectly content to give him his way. Amazing how a little heart attack could
change a man’s perspective.

“How lovely to have your family with you.” She smiled. “Sorry
I’m so late with your dinner, but your food was held up in the kitchen. Better
late than never, isn’t it?”

“Is it? It’s lousy either way. I still don’t understand why the
fool doctors won’t let me have my chef bring me something decent.”

“We had this argument the last time you stayed with us. You
know your nutritional content has to be screened carefully for sodium, potassium
and magnesium. What would happen if we just let you have any old thing?”

“I might actually eat it,” Harry muttered.

“Oh, you.” She fussed around his IV tree for a moment, then
started switching out bags.

“I’ll go and let you have your dinner,” Jack said.

Harry wanted to call him back, assure him he wanted him to
stay, but he didn’t want to sound weak in front of either his son or the
nurse.

“Call my office if you want to see the prospectus,” he said
gruffly.

Jack gave him an “are you kidding” sort of look before he
left.

Harry watched him go, furious with himself. What the hell was
wrong with him? Twenty years of silence, and when he finally saw his son again,
he could only come up with inane conversation about
nothing
.

Would he ever see him again? Or was this the only moment he
would have to remember until he died?

He lay in the hospital bed under the watchful eye of the nurse,
wishing he could rub away the sudden ache in his chest that had nothing
whatsoever to do with his heart problems.

* * *

“D
OES
EVERYTHING
look okay?”

Maura pasted on a smile for her daughter. “Relax, honey. The
pork loin looks beautiful and smells even better. It will be delicious.”

“I shouldn’t be so nervous. It’s only dinner. It’s just… It’s
my dad, you know?”

Yes, she did remember that little fact. Maura forced a smile.
“I know. Everything will be perfect.”

Three days after Christmas, her dining room still looked
festive. A garland was draped around the chandelier, and the mantelpiece of the
old fireplace was covered in more garlands, gleaming ribbons and chunky
candles.

The table was set with her best china, white plates with
delicate blue borders. It was old and delicate, exquisite, really, a wedding
present from Chris’s parents. The set had once belonged to Chris’s maternal
great-grandmother, who had been one of the original silver queens in
Colorado.

After the divorce, she had tried to give it back to Jennie
Parker, but her ex-mother-in-law had insisted she keep it in order to hand it
down someday to Layla....

Her heart gave a sharp kick at the memory, and she bit her lip,
refusing to give in to the sudden burn of emotions. She knew this emptiness
would never fully go away, but the past week, the pain had seemed fresh and new.
Layla had loved the holidays. She was always the one who’d insisted on
decorating the tree the day after Thanksgiving, who would drag them out to go
caroling with the church choir through the neighborhood, who would wake up
before the sunrise on Christmas morning so she could rush in to see the pile of
presents.

Without her, the season seemed not a time of hope and renewal
but of bitter loss.

Christmas morning, three days earlier, had been particularly
poignant. She and Sage had both put on cheerful faces as they’d opened their
gifts to each other, but she could tell her daughter was feeling the same
ache.

Christmas night they had gone to the noisy, crowded McKnight
party at Mary Ella’s, where all her siblings gathered with their families.
Claire and Riley had been there with Owen and Macy, Angie and Jim, of course,
with their children, and Alex. Even her sister Rose had driven out with her
family from Utah in the middle of a snowstorm in order to make it back to Hope’s
Crossing to spend Christmas in Mary Ella’s small house.