Читать книгу Raeanne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One - RaeAnne Thayne - Страница 13

HOSPITAL SLEEP WAS THE WORST. As she expected, her dreams were tortured and disjointed. Every time she seemed to drift off, the nurses would come in to make her move her arms and legs, to give her more meds, to check her vital signs.

When she awoke to pale morning sunlight streaming through the gap in the blinds that hadn’t been fully closed, she was blessedly alone and only in moderate pain.

She gazed at that beam of sunlight and even though she wanted to stay there in the quiet peace of morning, she made herself revisit the accident. Something teased at her, some discordant note she couldn’t quite place. Her mother wasn’t telling her something and for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what.

With the subtle whir and beep of monitors in the background, she remembered that terrifying soar into the water again, her pain and overwhelming fear for the children, then Riley’s quiet voice, offering strength and comfort.

She wasn’t imagining. Somehow during the night, full recollection had returned. Riley had been there, out in that cold water with them. He had saved them. She considered it nothing short of a miracle that he’d seen them at all. That stretch of canyon could be sparsely populated at night. If they had gone off the road when no other cars had been in sight, they might have frozen out in that lake before someone else sighted them there below the roadway, trapped and helpless as the car filled with icy water.

She certainly wouldn’t have had the strength to extract the children on her own, not with her injuries. If not for Riley, she didn’t want to think what might have happened to them.

Riley. The most unexpected rescuer she could imagine. Teasing, tormenting, hell-raising Riley. Somehow he had been there right when she needed him and had risked his own safety to make sure she and the children were okay.

She hoped he hadn’t suffered any ill effects from being out in the water so long. She should call Alex. Alex would know. Probably once the doctors allowed visitors today, one of the McKnights—Alex, Angie, Maura or even Mary Ella—would stop by to check on her.

When she heard a quiet rap on her closed door a moment later, she called out “Come in,” expecting a nurse to bustle in with more antibiotics or a breakfast tray or something.

Instead, a tall, dark-haired figure appeared in the doorway as if she had conjured him with her thoughts. He wore a dress shirt and tie and a pair of slacks and had obviously dropped in on his way to the police station.

“Riley. Hi!”

In an instant, she was aware of how terrible she must look. Her hair was probably matted and tangled, she was wearing an oh-so-attractive hospital gown and she hadn’t seen the inside of her makeup bag in thirty-six hours. She was mortified for just a moment, then gave herself a mental eye roll. She was alive. That was the important thing. She couldn’t do anything about the rest of it anyway.

She must be feeling better if she could worry about her vanity, she thought, as Riley moved into the small hospital room, taking up more space than he should given the laws of physics and particle displacement.

“Hi. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

She worked the button on the bed that raised her head to more of a sitting position. “I’ve been up for a while. I was just thinking about you, actually.”

Surprise flickered in the green of his eyes. “Oh?”

“I was hoping you didn’t suffer any hypothermia or anything from the accident. You were in that water with us a long time.”

“Nothing some hot coffee and a couple of blankets didn’t take care of. I’m fine.”

He didn’t smile when he spoke and she again had that strange, instinctive sense that something was terribly wrong. Like her mother, he looked haggard and tired. A few more lines fanned from his eyes, a new tightness around his mouth.

“What about you?” he asked. “You’re looking good.”

She made a face. “And you used to be such a good liar.”

Now he did smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes as he pulled a chair over closer to her bedside.

“So what does the doc say? What are the damages?”

She thought of her conversation with Jeff and then later in the evening with Dr. Murray, who had indeed been kindly and avuncular. “My arm is broken in two places and my left ankle now has more hardware than the robot Owen built for his science fair project last fall. The right ankle is sprained. The head is okay. Mild concussion and only four stitches. Dr. Murray tells me to expect to feel like I was hit by a truck for at least a month.”

His mouth tightened even more. “I’m sorry, Claire. So damn sorry.”

The words seemed to vibrate through the room, much more intense than just casual sympathy for an injured acquaintance. She frowned and studied him more closely.

Through those signs of exhaustion, she saw something else. Something that looked oddly like guilt. “Why do you say it like that?”

He was silent for a moment. “Do you know what caused your accident?”

“Yes. I remember that much. Some joker coming down the canyon took a curve too fast for conditions and veered into my lane. I swerved away to avoid him and went off the road.”

“Right. That joker was a suspect trying to get away from me.”

She blinked, aware of the machines beeping and the low buzz of activity outside, probably doctors beginning their rounds.

“A suspect? In what?”

He sighed. “Burglary. Multiple burglaries.”

In all the craziness of the past few days, it had seemed natural to focus on the accident than on what had come before. “Of my store?”

“Yours and the others hit that night. I had a call about suspicious activity at a house that was supposed to be vacant. The suspect vehicle matched the description of the one seen outside the downtown businesses that were burglarized. I thought I could catch the suspects, maybe with stolen property. When I decided conditions weren’t ideal for pursuit, I pulled back but it was too late. They were already spooked. If I hadn’t been chasing him, that idiot Charlie Beaumont wouldn’t have come around that corner like a bat out of hell and you wouldn’t have had to swerve to avoid him and we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.”

She stared at him. “Charlie Beaumont?”

She pictured Genevieve’s younger brother, small for his age and cocky and, like Riley had been, often in trouble.

“He was driving?”

Riley nodded and something bleak and cold swept across his features.

Her brain didn’t seem to be working right. She couldn’t seem to make the connections click together. “You’re saying Charlie robbed my store and all the others in town?”

“He and…a few others.”

That bleakness sharpened and she again wondered what she was missing.

“That’s the theory we’re going with,” he went on. “So far the evidence seems to back it up. Charlie’s not talking on advice from his attorney.”

“Mayor Beaumont,” she guessed.

He nodded. “But we have confessions from a couple of the other teens involved and they’ve led us to some of the stolen items.”

“There must be a mistake. I know Charlie has had some trouble, but this is…crazy.”

“No mistake,” he said.

“But the Beaumonts are rolling in money. Why would Charlie need to take a computer and some spare change from my till? Why would he destroy his sister’s wedding dress?”

“Who knows? The thrill of it, maybe? Whatever the reason, Charlie and the others are in serious, serious trouble. I’m sorry you were tangled up in it. One of those wrong place, wrong time kind of things.”

She thought of the weird confluence of events that had led her to the canyon at that moment, of Jordie’s parents falling ill, of her spontaneous offer to take him home from the Spring Fling, of the late-spring snowstorm that hit so fast and so hard.

“You probably thought Hope’s Crossing would be tame compared to what you left in Oakland.”

His jaw tightened. “I certainly didn’t expect this.”

“Okay,” she finally said, exasperated with all the layers of subtext that seemed more treacherous than the imaginary tendrils of seaweed in her nightmares. “What aren’t you and everyone else telling me?”

His features turned wary. “Why would you think I’m keeping something from you?”

“I have two children, Riley. I’ve got a built-in lie detector. It’s part of the mom job description.”

He looked surprised. Good. That was better than that bleak sadness in his eyes. “You’re comparing the behavior of your two children trying to get out of trouble to a cop who spent the last five years undercover, lying to keep from being stabbed in his sleep?”

She didn’t like thinking about his life before he came home, but that still didn’t keep her from picking up on his tactics. “My children also seem to think that if they distract me by changing the subject, I’ll forget my train of thought. What aren’t you telling me?”

He studied her for a long moment and then released a long, slow breath and looked away. “After he ran you off the road, Charlie Beaumont crashed his pickup a little way down the canyon. Rolled it and hit the trees.”

She gasped and the movement hurt her head. “Oh, no. Tell me everyone is okay.”

He didn’t answer and she shifted on the bed, pulling the blankets higher against the sudden chill.

“They’re not okay,” she said when his silence stretched on and she didn’t need to see the confirmation in his eyes to know she was right.

“A few of them had only minor injuries.”

“But?”

For a long moment, she didn’t think he would answer her. When he did, his voice was weary and his eyes held a deep sorrow. “Two girls were thrown from the vehicle. One sustained severe head trauma and had to be airlifted to the children’s hospital in Denver. And…another one didn’t make it.”

Claire’s hand clenched convulsively on the blanket. How could she lie here feeling sorry for herself, worrying about her store—about her vanity for heaven’s sake—when a mother somewhere had lost a child?

“Who?” she whispered.

“You don’t need to worry about this, Claire. You just need to focus on yourself.”

“Who?” she demanded more forcefully.

He sighed. “Taryn Thorne is the girl with the head injuries.”

“Oh, poor Katherine!”

Her friend adored her only granddaughter, fifteen and slender and turning into a beauty with her big dark eyes and long dark hair.

Taryn sometimes came into the store. Just the week before, Claire had helped her make a pair of custom earrings for a school dance.

What was Katherine going through? Claire suddenly hated that she couldn’t help her friend through this, that she was stuck here in a stupid hospital bed instead of offering solace and aid to Katherine when she needed it.

“And the other girl?” she finally asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

Riley didn’t answer for a long time, that bleakness turning his eyes a wintry green.

“You don’t need to worry about this right now.”

“Stop saying that. Tell me. Please, Riley.”

He finally spoke in a voice so low that she almost didn’t hear him. “Layla.”

When the name finally registered, icy disbelief crackled through her. Layla. Maura’s daughter. Riley and Alex’s niece. Mary Ella’s granddaughter.

Layla, who had worked in her store sometimes in exchange for beads to make the funky Goth jewelry she adored.

“No. Oh, no. Oh, poor Maura.”

Her throat was heavy and tears spilled over and she was only vaguely aware of Riley reaching for her uncasted hand.

“I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry, Claire. You need your strength to recover, not to worry about Maura and the rest of us left to grieve with her.”

She wept then, noisy, painful tears that clogged her throat and burned her eyes and hurt her heart. Through it all, Riley held her hand in both of his, looking tortured. She wanted him to hug her as he’d done that day in the store, but she knew he couldn’t, not with her casted arm awkward and heavy between them.

He handed her the box of tissues and she must have used half of them before the storm of tears gave way to a deep, primal ache.

“How is your family?” she finally asked.

“Hanging in. We McKnights are tough, but this is…”

“Unimaginable.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Ri. This isn’t what you expected.”

“No, I’m—”

Whatever he was going to say was cut off when the door swung wide and her mother bustled in carrying one of Claire’s beaded bags and her arms loaded with magazines and books.

Ruth stopped in the doorway and did a double take Claire might have found funny if she hadn’t been staggering under the weight of her grief for Layla.

“What do you think you’re doing here?”

Riley blinked a little at Ruth’s outrage, then he shuttered any expression.

“Visiting Claire. I thought she might want to know the status of the investigation into the break-in at her store.”

Claire didn’t care anymore. She would have gladly endured the violation and outrage of hundreds of burglaries if it meant Layla could still be alive, with her black-painted fingernails and the mascara she would layer on with a trowel.

Ruth squinted at Claire and the scattered tissues on top of the blanket. She advanced on Riley, her features furious. “You told her, didn’t you?”

This was what her mother had been keeping from her, Claire realized finally, why she was drawn and upset. She had said nothing to Claire yesterday, had prevented Jeff from telling her, as well.

“Yes,” Riley answered. “She asked. I answered.”

“You had no right. No right!”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Mother? Maura is my friend. Alex is my best friend. I needed to know. You shouldn’t have tried to keep it from me.”

Ruth bristled and looked offended, an expression she wore with comfortable familiarity. “I didn’t want to upset you. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal.”

“A few broken bones, which will heal,” Claire shot back. “I didn’t lose a child!”

Ruth aimed another vitriolic look at Riley. If her mother hadn’t already disliked him, she would loathe him now for going against her misguided wishes.

“What good does it do for you to know right now? You would find out soon enough. Look at how upset you are.”

Ruth would never understand that Claire was angry at her for withholding the information, not at Riley. With her classic myopia, her mother could always figure out a way to make herself the injured party in any conflict, so why bother trying to explain?

“I’d better go. I’ve got to head down to the station.”

He seemed so different from the teasing, flirtatious man who had come into her store after the robbery and her heart ached. “I’m so sorry, Riley,” she murmured, knowing the words were grossly inadequate, but they were all she had available. “Thank you again for everything that night.”

“I’m glad you’re doing better. Take care of yourself, Claire.”

She nodded and watched him go, then settled in to face an exhausting day of busybody nurses and poking, prodding doctors and, worse, having to cope with her mother.

“ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE okay back there?” Jeff met her gaze in the rearview mirror.

Claire shifted on the backseat of his Escalade, trying to ignore the pain shooting through her muscles with every rotation of the tires.

She hugged Owen to her and reached across his back to hold Macy’s hand. What were a few bumps in the road when she finally had her children close?

“I’m fine. It’s only a fifteen-minute drive anyway.”

“You really should have taken the front seat.” Seated beside Jeff, Holly leaned around the headrest and gave Claire a stern look.

She was absolutely right but Claire refused to give her the satisfaction of agreeing. It had been stupid to insist on taking the backseat, where she didn’t have nearly enough leg room for a cast. She had to stop literally bending herself in half to make everyone else happy.

“But then I would have missed the chance to sit by the kids and I’ve missed them like crazy.”

She forced a smile and somehow managed to keep it from wobbling away when Jeff hit one of the town’s legendary late-spring potholes and the subsequent lurch sent her meager hospital lunch sloshing around her insides.

It was only the pain pills making her nauseated, she knew. That and the fact that she was actually in motion again after being confined to her hospital room for nearly five days.

“It looks as if most of the snow has finally melted.”

Indeed, with the capriciousness of a Rocky Mountain spring, the temperature during her brief trip from the wide hospital front doors to Jeff’s backseat had been mild and pleasant. Outside the car window, she saw children playing on muddy lawns already beginning to turn a pale green and as Jeff turned onto Blue Sage Road, she enjoyed the sight of the bright yellow and red tulips beginning to bud in Caroline Bybee’s always-spectacular garden.

“It’s about time,” Macy groused. “It seems like winter went on forever this year.”

“I know, right,” Holly said. “I mean, Sunday is Easter and everything. I was thinking we’d have to hide eggs in the snow this year.”

That wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in Claire’s memory. In the high Rockies, Hope’s Crossing had been known to see heavy snowstorms into late May, but usually by the first of April, most of the remaining snow was up at the higher elevation of the ski resort.

“I’m glad it’s warmer today, for Maura’s sake,” she murmured.

Except for those children they passed, the streets appeared quiet, almost deserted. Most of the year-round residents of Hope’s Crossing would be at the funeral for Layla Parker. Ruth was there, which was the sole reason Holly and Jeff were the designated drivers taking Claire from the hospital to home.

Her mother couldn’t miss the funeral, not when she’d been friends with Mary Ella since they were girls. Claire understood that and had chosen to bite her lip and say nothing when Ruth arranged with Jeff and Holly to take her home from the hospital without consulting her on the matter. She would have preferred to call a taxi. Okay, truth be told, she would rather have tried to wheel herself the four hilly miles from the hospital to home rather than be dependent on her ex-husband.

“Careful on those bumps, honey.” Holly rested one of her perfectly manicured hands on Jeff’s arm. “Maybe you should slow down a little.”

“It’s fine. I’m only going twenty-two miles per hour. It’s a thirty-five zone.”

If he were speeding, he would still probably be safe from a ticket because Riley and most of his police department would probably be at the funeral with the rest of the town.

“How’s everything been at home?” she asked Macy quickly.

“Okay. While you’ve been in the hospital and we’ve been staying at Dad and Holly’s, I’ve been stopping at the house to take in the newspaper and the mail after school.”

“We dropped Chester off at the house before we went to the hospital. He’s super-excited to be back home.”

She could imagine. Holly wasn’t a big dog lover and probably insisted their poor aging basset hound sleep in the cold garage.

“You should have seen him, Mom. He went through every room, wagging his tail like crazy. You’d think he’d been gone a month instead of just a few days.”

If Claire had possessed a tail, she would probably do the same thing when they reached her house, she was that eager to be home. She couldn’t wait to be in her own space again.

Had it really been only five days since the accident? She felt as if she’d lived a dozen lifetimes in those days.

“I still think it’s too early for you to be going home.” Jeff frowned at her in the rearview mirror.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to take that up with Dr. Murray. He’s the one who signed the release papers.”

“You can’t take care of yourself. Geez, Claire, you can’t even get to the bathroom on your own.”

She forced herself to smile patiently, even as she fought the urge to remind Jeff that while he had the right to his opinions, she no longer had to listen to them. Truly one of the better things about not being married to the man anymore.

“Ruth will be staying at the house the first few nights. She’s insisting.”

Unfortunately, she hadn’t divorced her mother. It was a little tougher to ignore Ruth’s opinions, much as she would like to.

While Claire just wanted to go home and crawl into bed for a few weeks, yank the covers over her head and forget the rest of the world existed, she had two children who still needed to eat and do their homework and feed the dog. Pity parties were for women without obligations.

She had to be realistic about her limitations. Jeff was correct. Just taking care of herself was going to be enough of a challenge.

Having her mother there for a few days would be a big help. For a short time anyway, she could endure her mother harping on everything from the smelly dog to Owen’s muddy tennis shoes in the hall to the bad haircut of the news anchor on her favorite channel.

Claire had already resolved that she would simply grit her teeth and think how grateful she was that she still had a mother who cared about her and who was willing to step in for a few—and only a few, please God—days.

“What about after she leaves?” Holly asked. “Would you like me to stay with you for a few days? I would be more than happy to.”

Claire offered a weak smile while her insides writhed at the idea. The only thing worse than Ruth in her space for a few days would be Holly, all big teeth and perfect hair and her desperate need for Claire to be her friend.

“That’s a lovely offer, Holly. Really. Thank you. But I’m sure by the first of next week, the kids and I will have figured things out together and I should be a little more self-sufficient. Anyway, you don’t need the stress of worrying about somebody else right now. You need to take care of yourself and the little one.”

“I have had contractions every day since the accident,” she confessed, looking so young and worried that Claire was compelled to offer what little comfort she could.

“I’m sure they’re simply Braxton-Hicks. Nothing to worry about,” she said.

“That’s what I’ve told her.” Jeff gave his young wife a fond, indulgent sort of look. “She thinks just because my specialty is orthopedics, I’ve forgotten my OB-GYN rotation. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been through this twice before.”

If Claire remembered correctly, she was the one who’d been through this twice before, but the whole situation was just too strange for her and she wasn’t in the mood to point that out.

Jeff turned onto Blackberry Lane just then and a moment later pulled into the driveway, sparing her from having to come up with an answer.

For a moment, Claire just wanted to sit here and gaze at the wonderful familiarity of her house, bricks a weathered red, that charming porch out front, the ironwork fence with the arrowed finials around the perimeter of the yard.

She loved this house and had for years, long before the day she and Jeff made an offer on it three years ago. It was hers alone now, hers and the children’s, but she had never been so happy to be there.

Making her way from car to house was a bit of an ordeal. Beyond the difficulties of the transfer from the backseat to the wheelchair she was stuck in for a few weeks at least, her front door had four steps, too many for the portable folding ramp Jeff had wangled from somewhere. Owen finally suggested they use the back door leading to the kitchen because it only had two steps and a slightly larger doorway for the wheelchair, and finally Macy pushed her inside and she was home.

Chester gave a happy bark of greeting—as happy as his barks could sound anyway—but then he freaked out at something, maybe her cast or the sight of the wheelchair, and headed for his safe zone under the kitchen table.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Owen cajoled. “Come on out. It’s just Mom.”

“He’ll get used to it,” Claire said, although she’d been dealing with the whole thing for five days and she still wasn’t used to it all.

“He’s not coming. What a dorky dog.” Macy shook her head. “Maybe you should try one of his treats.”

As much as she loved Chester, Claire was too achy and exhausted right now to care much about showing up on the dog’s popularity list, but because it seemed so important to the kids, she took the treat Macy handed her from the pantry and held it down at the dog’s eye level.

Chester hesitated for only a moment before he waddled to her side for the treat, then started sniffing the wheels of the chair and her outstretched toes sticking out of the cast.

“As we talked about at the hospital, you’re several weeks from being able to tackle the stairs in this house,” Jeff said rather pompously. “We’ve moved some of your things down to the guest bedroom.”

“I know.” That part she didn’t mind. The guest room was actually one of the nicer rooms of the house, with an en suite bathroom and wide windows overlooking the mountains. She had created such a comfortable little spot there that even after the divorce, Jeff’s parents still preferred staying with her whenever they came to visit from their house in Arizona, much to Holly’s chagrin.

“We like to be closer to the children,” JoAnn had tried to explain to Holly during their last visit, but Claire suspected even after their new grandchild was born, the Bradfords would prefer this place, with its sunny garden and basketball hoop in the driveway to the glass and cedar showplace Jeff and Holly had built up in Snowcrest Estates.

“I brought down all your pillows and your favorite quilt,” Macy said. “The Western Star that your Grandma Van Duran made when you were a little girl. Holly helped me put fresh sheets on the bed for you.”

“Thank you. Both of you.” Claire managed a smile.

“You need to rest now,” Holly said sternly. “Jeff and I will stay here with the children until the funeral is over and your mother can get away and come here.”

“Can I drive you in?” Owen asked.

She smiled at her eager-to-please eight-year-old. “Of course.”

With care and concentration, he maneuvered the chair through the doors, which were just wide enough for it to fit. She was definitely going to have to come up with another solution than this wheelchair or all the lovely historic woodwork of the door frames she had worked so hard to refinish would be dinged and scraped.

As soon as she reached the bed and started the complicated process of transferring from the chair, she realized with not inconsiderable dismay that she would have to change into a nightgown from the skirt and cotton shirt her mother had brought to the hospital for her trip home.

The enormity of the task, given the cast on her arm, completely overwhelmed her. “Can you send Macy back to help me change?” she asked Owen.

“Don’t be silly,” Holly exclaimed from the doorway, where she and Jeff had apparently followed them. “I’ll help you.”

She absolutely did not want her ex-husband’s young, adorably pregnant wife helping her, but she didn’t exactly have a lot of options here. “Thank you,” she murmured.

When Jeff made no move to leave, Claire raised her eyebrows. It was an awkward situation all the way around. Although they had been married for ten years and had once been as intimate as two people could be with each other, that was in the past and she wasn’t changing clothes in front of him.

Jeff finally clued in and cleared his throat. “Come on, Owen. Let’s go see what we can find for lunch. You hungry?”

They left, closing the door behind them, leaving her and Holly alone.

While Claire did her best with the buttons on her shirt, Holly immediately went to the mirror-topped antique dresser and pulled out one of Claire’s nightgowns she and Macy must have brought down.

“I have to admit, it’s weird for me to see you this way,” Holly said.

“What do you mean?”

Holly gestured to the wheelchair and the hospital bed Jeff must have arranged to replace the queen normally in the room. Claire didn’t think that was strictly necessary, although she supposed it would help with transfers from the bed to the wheelchair. “I don’t know. Needy, I guess. You’re the most together person I know. It’s just…different to see you otherwise.”

“It’s not so comfortable for me, either,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Holly said quietly. “Really sorry. It must be hard for you.”

“Yes,” she admitted with reluctance.

“Well, don’t worry about it. I’m glad to help. Let’s get you more comfortable.”

Few moments in Claire’s life were as excruciatingly humiliating as being forced to sit, helpless and weak, as her ex-husband’s young and beautiful new wife helped her into the loose cotton nightgown.

Holly was actually very considerate and kind about the whole thing, to her relief, but by the time they finished Claire was exhausted and humiliated and could only think about another pain pill. Unfortunately, she wasn’t due to take a dose for a few hours yet. She was vigilant about keeping to the correct schedule, afraid of becoming dependent. She didn’t know if it was a genetic predisposition, but her mother’s dark history was entirely too vivid in her memory.

“There you are, Claire,” Holly said when she was finally settled into the bed, the soft quilt tucked to her chin. “Does that feel better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“It’s no trouble.” She smiled. “If you want the truth, it’s kind of nice to have you lean on me for a change instead of always the other way around. You just rest now. Come on, Chester. Let’s go.”

Claire hadn’t realized the dog was there, as well. She opened one eye and spotted his pudgy grumpiness circling around the rug beside the bed, preparing to settle in.

“No, leave him.”

Holly frowned. “Are you sure? He can be such a bother.”

“I’m sure.”

Holly looked skeptical but she shrugged. “Do you need anything else? Water? A book or something?”

“Only my cell phone over on the dresser, please.”

She needed to try again to call Maura after the funeral. Every day since the accident, she had tried numerous times, but Maura wouldn’t answer the phone. Claire couldn’t blame her. She was sure her friend was overwhelmed right now and the last thing she wanted to do was talk on the phone and endure more platitudes. Until Claire could make it in person to see her friend, the phone would have to do and she vowed to keep calling until Maura would talk to her.

“Thank you for taking care of the children so I don’t have to worry about them.”

“You’re welcome. Really.” Holly smiled and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Claire scooted as far as she could to the right side of the bed and reached down with her good arm. Chester licked at her fingers for a moment, then nudged at her to be petted.

She scratched his warm fur and thought about how much she hated being on the receiving end of help until she fell asleep.

“WHAT WAS THAT MAN THINKING? You can’t stay there by yourself. I’m coming over.”

Claire shifted her weight on the couch, holding the phone with one hand while she reached to rub the pain above her left eyebrow and bumped her head with plaster.

After nearly two weeks with the stupid thing, one would think she would remember it was there but she still found she forgot at odd moments.

“That’s not necessary, Mom. You don’t need to come over. I’m fine. Jeff must think so, right? Otherwise he and Holly wouldn’t have taken the kids to Denver for the weekend.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t have a bit of sense when it comes to Holly. If she said she wanted to take the kids to Denver, he would take them even if you were lying unconscious on the floor when they left.”

Claire blinked. Wow. That was unusual—for her mother to actually criticize her ex-husband. “Even Dr. Murray was happy with the way I’m healing,” she said. “Between the walker and the rolling office chair Alex rigged up for me, I can get anywhere on the main floor on my own and I’m keeping my fully charged cell phone on my person at all times.”

“I don’t care. I still don’t like the idea of you alone in that big house, especially on a night like tonight.”

Claire gazed outside at the rain sharply pelting the windows, hurled by the gusting canyon winds. For more than a week, Hope’s Crossing had seen lovely weather, which she’d been forced to enjoy from inside while she recuperated. Today had been overcast and cheerless, though, and an hour ago the wind and rain had started in earnest.

She had been looking forward to popping a bag of popcorn in the microwave and enjoying the rainstorm by herself, the first time she had truly been alone since the accident.

She had been home from the hospital for a week and had spent that time constantly surrounded by well-meaning friends. When Ruth wasn’t able to be there, she made sure someone else could stay. Evie or Alex or Angie or one of a half-dozen other friends.

Claire was grateful for all they’d done for her. Alex had coordinated so many meals that Claire now had a refrigerator and freezer full of food. Other friends had taken her shopping list to the store for her and brought back an armload of supplies and still another coordinated the car pool for the children so Claire didn’t need to worry about getting them to soccer or piano lessons. She knew from her one brief stilted phone call with Maura two days earlier that her friend was receiving much the same.

Claire was deeply grateful for all the help, but she was desperate for a moment to herself just to think.

Ruth didn’t seem to agree. “I don’t like this. Not a bit. What if you fall down? You could lie there all night and no one would even know. I’ll just come and sleep upstairs in your room again and you won’t even know I’m there.”

“I’m not going to fall. And remember, I’ve got my phone with me constantly. If I need help, I can call, email or text someone for help in a second.”

“Not if you’re unconscious.”

She held the phone away from her ear and screwed up her eyes, fighting the urge to bang the phone a few times against her head.

After the past six days, she should be an expert on dealing with overprotective people. Her mother, Holly, even the children had joined in the coddling action.

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” she repeated. If I trip in the bathroom and break my neck, you’ll be the first one I call. “I’m just going to sit here on the sofa and watch a DVD for an hour and then go straight to sleep, I swear. There’s absolutely no need for you to come over. I know how much you hate driving in this weather.”

Her mother hesitated a little at that and Claire knew she had pushed exactly the right button.

Ruth didn’t like driving at night or in snow or rain—a definite inconvenience when one chose to make a home in the high country of the Rockies. If she had to go somewhere during stormy weather, she inevitably would call Claire for a ride.

“Are you sure?” Claire heard the note of hesitation in her mother’s voice and mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Positive. I’ll be perfectly fine. I’ve got Chester to keep me company and enough leftovers in the house to last me until July.”

Ruth waffled for a few more moments before she finally caved. “All right. Because I guess you don’t want my company, I’ll stay put.”

Claire refused to feel even a twinge of guilt for the slightly hurt note in her mother’s voice.

“But call me if you change your mind and decide you want me there.”

“I will. Thanks, Mom. Good night.”

Her mother hung up and Claire closed her eyes and leaned her head against the couch, just relishing the silence, broken only by Chester’s snores on the floor beside the couch.

Dealing with her mother always exhausted her. Sometimes she was deeply jealous of the easy, comfortable relationship Alex and her sisters had with Mary Ella. Claire wanted that, too, but it seemed like every interaction with her mother ended in weary frustration that Ruth could be so needy and demanding.

Ruth hadn’t always been like that. Before her father’s scandalous death, Claire remembered her mother as a strong, funny, independent woman. Someone very much like Katherine Thorne.

When Claire was eight or nine, her mother had been the PTA president during a tumultuous time when some in Hope’s Crossing had been trying to gather support to build a new elementary school. Claire had vivid memories of her mother speaking out with vigor and eloquent prose about the importance of educating young minds in a safe, clean environment.

The memory always made her sad because of the stark contrast between that capable woman and what her mother had become later.

Claire sighed, reaching for the rolling office chair she had found much more convenient than the wheelchair she’d brought home from the hospital. She transferred to it and scooted with her healing sprained ankle into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and scanned the contents for something appealing to warm for her dinner. She finally settled on some of the sinfully divine cream of potato soup Dermot Caine had brought over from the diner a few days earlier—perfect for a cold, stormy night.

She dished some into a bowl, grateful the children hadn’t unloaded the dishwasher before they left or she would have had a struggle trying to reach the plates and bowls in the upper cupboard.

As she waited for the soup to warm in the microwave, her thoughts returned to her mother.

She could pinpoint exactly the moment Ruth had changed. April twentieth, twenty-four years ago, 11:42 p.m. She had been twelve years old, her brother eight, the same ages her kids were now. The night had been rainy, like this one. She remembered she had been sleeping when something awakened her. The doorbell, she realized later. Claire had blinked awake and lain there in bed, listening to the branches of the big elm click against the window in the swirling wind and wondering who could be ringing the doorbell so late and if her father would be angry with them because he always rose early for work.

And then she’d heard her mother cry out, a desperate, horrified kind of sound. With a sudden knot of apprehension in her stomach, Claire had opened her door fully and sidled out to the landing, looking down through the bars.

She had recognized the longtime police chief, Dean Coleman, but had been able to hear only bits of his hushed conversation.

Dead. Both shot. Jealous husband. I’m sorry, Ruth.

Everything changed in that moment. Gossip roared faster than a wind-stirred fire. Even though the adults in her life had tried to keep it from her and her brother, their children heard and absorbed snippets about the scandal and a few of them had delighted in whispering about it loud enough so they knew that Claire would overhear.

Her father—the man she had adored, president of the biggest bank in town, a leader of church and community—had been having a torrid affair with a cocktail waitress at the Dirty Dog, the sleazy bar outside of town.

Apparently the woman had a jealous husband, a biker thug by the name of Calvin Waters. When he came home early one night, he caught them in bed together. In a drunken rage, he shot them both with a sawed-off shotgun before turning the gun on himself.

The scandal had exploded in Hope’s Crossing. She could still remember those awful days as she had endured stares and whispers and hadn’t known what to do with all the anger and shame inside her—or with the grief for her lost innocence.

Claire and her brother had endured those first difficult months by keeping a few friends close and basically sticking their heads down and plowing through.

Ruth, on the other hand, had completely fallen apart. She had taken to her bed for several months after the scandal, addicted to alcohol and the Valium doctors had prescribed her for sleep.

Left with little choice, Claire had stepped up to take care of the three of them. She had been the one who did laundry, who fixed lunch for her younger brother, who walked him to school and helped with his homework and comforted him when he cried for a mother who had been too absorbed in her loss and humiliation to see her children needed her, too.

Claire knew now, taking charge of her flailing family had been her way of dealing with the chaos.

She sipped at her soup, wishing the rich, creamy taste could wipe away the bitter memories. Ruth had lived in that numb state for about six months, until Mary Ella and Katherine and other friends had forced her to break free of her addiction.

She had fought it with courage and strength and Claire would always admire that in her mother. But even after rehab, Ruth had continued to rely on Claire to make sure her life flowed smoothly.

Claire knew she bore plenty of responsibility for the patterns they had fallen into. Even when she had lived away from Hope’s Crossing while Jeff was in medical school, she had handled any crisis of Ruth’s long-distance, whether that was dealing with a parking ticket or a doctor bill or calling a plumber to repair a leaky faucet.

She could justify to herself that if she didn’t take care of things, her mother’s life would fall back into chaos, but she knew that was only an excuse. This was her way of feeling needed, important, to a mother who had basically forgotten her children amid her own pain.

With a sigh, she set down her soup. She wasn’t hungry after all. She would just watch the movie, she decided. She wheeled the chair to the sink and rinsed the bowl, reaching the switch on the disposal only with the help of a large soup ladle.

She headed back to the family room and turned on the movie, eager for any kind of distraction from her thoughts. The movie apparently worked too well. She barely remembered the first scene—when she awoke some time later, the credits were rolling and Chester was standing in the doorway, his hackles raised.

“What’s the matter, bud?” she asked.

He gave that low-throated hound howl of his and scrambled for the front door, his hackles raised and his claws clicking on the wood floor.

Claire frowned but curiosity compelled her to transfer to her rolling office chair and follow him. Chester wasn’t much of a watchdog but he would sometimes have these weird fits of protectiveness. Probably just the Stimsons’ cat or maybe a mule deer coming out of the mountains to forage among the spring greens. For all she knew, her silly dog could be barking at the wind that still howled.

“Come on, boy. It’s okay. Settle down.”

Still, the basset hound stood beside the door, that low growl sounding somehow ominous in the silent house.

Claire maneuvered down the hallway after him until she reached the window beside the front door, set just low enough that she could peek over the sill from her seated position.

She squinted into the darkness and caught a flash of movement that materialized into a dark shape there on the porch.

Her heart skittered.

Someone was out there.