Читать книгу Sweet Laurel Falls - RaeAnne Thayne - Страница 8

DESPITE THE RADICAL CHANGES to the rest of the town, the Center of Hope Café had changed very little in the twenty years since Jack had been here.

That might be new wallpaper on the wall, something brighter to replace the old wood paneling he remembered, but the booths were covered in the same red vinyl and the ceiling was still the old-fashioned tin-stamped sort favored around the turn of the century.

Even the owner, Dermot Caine, still stood behind the U-shaped bar. He had to be in his mid-sixties, but he had the familiar shock of white hair he’d worn as long as Jack could remember and the same piercing blue eyes that seemed capable of ferreting out any secret.

Despite the calorie-heavy comfort food the café was famous for, Dermot had stayed in shape and looked as if he could beat any comers in an arm-wrestling contest, probably from years of working the grill.

Just now he was busy talking to a couple of guys in Stetsons. Jack looked around for Maura and Sage but couldn’t spot them. He didn’t see anyone else he recognized either. It looked as if the Center of Hope was popular with both locals and tourists, at least judging by the odd mix of high-dollar ski gear and ranch coats.

He stood waiting to be seated for just a moment before Dermot walked over, no trace of recognition in his gaze. No surprise there. Jack had been gone twenty years. He probably looked markedly different than that kid who used to come into the café to study after the library had closed for the night.

It sure as hell had beat going home.

“Hello there and welcome to the Center of Hope Café.” Dermot had a trace of Ireland in his voice. Jack could easily have pictured him running a corner pub in a little town in County Galway somewhere, surrounded by mossy-green fields and stone fences. “You’ve got a couple of choices this lovely morning. You can find yourself a vacant spot at the counter, or I can fix you up with a booth or a table. Your preference.”

“I’m actually waiting for two more. A booth would be fine.”

“I’ve got a prime spot right here by the window. Will that suit you?”

“Perfectly. Thank you.” He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a convenient hook made from a portion of an elk antler on the wall beside the booth. As he slid into the booth, Dermot set out a trio of menus and opened one for him.

“Here. You can have a little sneak peek at the menu before the rest of your party comes. We also have made-to-order omelets, if that suits your fancy. The breakfast special this morning is our eggs Benedict, famous in three counties. Can I get you some coffee or juice while you’re waiting?”

Ordinarily, he would have liked to extend the courtesy of at least ordering beverages for Sage and Maura. Since he had no idea what they would like, he opted to play it safe and order only for himself. “I’ll have both. Regular coffee and a small grapefruit juice. Thank you.”

Dermot nodded. “Coming right up.” He paused for just a moment, his blue eyes narrowed. “Have you been in before? I usually have a good eye for my customers. I keep thinking I should know you, but I’m afraid my memory’s not what it once was and I can’t quite place you. Sorry, I am, for that.”

“Don’t apologize. I would have been surprised if you had recognized me. It’s been twenty years. You used to serve me chocolate malts from the fountain with extra whipped cream while I did my homework in the corner.” It was a surprisingly pleasant memory, especially considering he didn’t think he had many of this town. That hadn’t involved Maura, anyway.

“Jackson Lange,” Dermot exclaimed. “Lordy, it’s been an age, it has. How have you been, son?”

How did a man encapsulate his journey over the past two decades? Hard work, ambition, amazing good fortune in his chosen field and not such good fortune in his painfully short-lived marriage. “I can’t complain. How about you? How’s Mrs. Caine?”

His cheerful smile slipped a little. “I lost her some fifteen years back. The cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Aye. So am I. I miss her every single day. But we had seven beautiful children together, and her memory lives on in them and our eight grandchildren.”

He gestured to the other two menus. “And what about you? Are you meeting your family here, then?”

He thought of Sage, the daughter he hadn’t known existed a handful of days ago. “Something like that.”

“I’ll treat you right. Don’t you worry. Our French toast is still legendary around these parts. We still cover it in toasted almonds and dust it with powdered sugar.”

He usually was a coffee-and-toast kind of guy, but he had fond memories of that French toast. An indulgence once in a while probably wouldn’t kill him. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dermot smiled at him and headed to the kitchen, probably for his juice. Through the window, Jack watched Main Street bustle to life. The woman who was trying to change the marquee on the little two-theater cinema up the road had to stop about five times to return the wave of someone driving past, and a couple of women in winter workout gear who had dogs on leashes paused at just about every storefront to talk to somebody.

The scene reminded him of a small village outside Milan where he had rented an apartment for two months during the construction of a hotel and regional conference center a few miles from town. He used to love to grab a cappuccino and sit on the square with a sketchbook and pencil, watching the town wake up to greet the day.

In his career, Jack had worked on projects across the world, from Riyadh to Rio de Janeiro. He loved the excitement and vitality of a large city. The streets outside his loft in San Francisco bustled with life, and he enjoyed sitting out on the terrace and watching it from time to time, but he had to admit, he always found something appealing about the slower pace of a small town, where neighbors took time to stop their own lives to chat and care about each other.

Dermot walked out with his juice and a coffeepot. “Still waiting?” he asked as he flipped a cup over and expertly poured.

“I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”

“I’ll keep an eye out, unless you would like me to take your order now.”

“No. I’ll wait.”

A few moments later, while he was watching the dog walkers grab a shovel out of an elderly man’s hands in front of a jewelry store and start clearing snow off his store entrance, Maura and Sage came in. Their faces were both flushed from the cold, but he was struck for the first time how alike they looked. Sage was an interesting mix of the both of them, but in the morning light and with her darker, curlier hair covered by a beanie, she looked very much like her mother.

The women spotted him instantly and hurried over to the booth.

“Sorry we’re late,” Maura said without explanation, but Sage gave a heavy sigh.

“It’s my fault,” Sage said. “I was so tired and had a hard time getting moving this morning.”

“You’re here now. That’s the important thing.” He rose and helped them out of their coats. Sage wore a bulky red sweater under hers, while Maura wore a pale blue turtleneck and a long spill of silver-and-blue beads that reminded him of a waterfall.

He was struck by how thin she appeared. The shirt bagged at her wrists, and he wondered if she had lost weight in the months since her daughter died.

“I’ve been enjoying the café,” he said after they slid into the other side of the booth together, with Sage on the inside. “It hasn’t changed much in twenty years.”

“The food’s still just as good,” Maura said. “Unfortunately, the tourists have figured that out too.”

“I noticed that. It’s been hopping since I got here.”

The conversation lagged, and to cover the awkwardness, he picked up their menus from the table and opened them, then handed them to the women. He hadn’t worked his way through college tending bar at a little dive near the Gourmet Ghetto for nothing.

“So Mr. Caine recommended the French toast.”

“That’s what I always get when we come here for breakfast,” Sage told him. “It’s sooo good. Like having dessert for breakfast. Mom usually has a poached egg and whole wheat toast. That’s like driving all the way to Disneyland and not riding Space Mountain!”

“Maybe I’ll try the French toast this morning too,” Maura said, a hint of rebellion in her tone.

She seemed to be in a prickly mood, probably unhappy at the prospect of sharing a booth and a meal with him.

“Sorry I didn’t order coffee for either of you. I wasn’t sure of your preferences.”

“I usually like coffee in the morning,” Sage told him, “but I’m not sure my stomach can handle it today. I’d better go for tea.”

As if on cue, Dermot Caine headed toward their booth and did an almost comical double take when he saw Maura and Sage sitting with him. Jack wondered at it, until he remembered his comment about waiting for his family, in a manner of speaking.

Well, if the word wasn’t out around town that he was Sage’s father after the scene at the bookstore the night before, he imagined it wouldn’t take long for the Hope’s Crossing grapevine to start humming.

“Sage, my darlin’. Home for the holidays, are you?”

“That’s the plan, Mr. C.” She beamed at the older man, who plainly adored her.

“And how is school going for you?”

Sage made a face. “Meh. I had a chemistry and biology class in the same semester. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Well, you’re such a smarty, I’m sure you’ll do fine.” He turned to face Maura. Somehow Jack wasn’t surprised when he reached out and covered her hand with his. “And how are you, my dear?”

“I’m fine, Dermot. Thanks.” She gave him a smile, but Jack didn’t miss the way she moved her hand back to her lap as soon as Dermot lifted his away, as if she couldn’t bear to hold even a trace of sympathy.

“I’m guessing you’ll be wanting water for tea.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Make that two,” Sage said.

“Sure thing. And what else can I bring you? Have you had time to decide?”

They all settled on French toast, which seemed to delight Dermot Caine to no end. “I’ll add an extra dollop of fresh cream on the side for you. No charge,” he promised.

After he left, awkwardness returned to the booth. What strange dynamics between the three of them, he thought. Twenty years ago, Maura had been his best friend. They could never seem to stop talking—about politics, about religion, about their hopes and dreams for the future.

Over the past few days, he had seen Sage several times, and their conversation had been easy and wide-changing. He had years of her life to catch up on, and she seemed fascinated with his career, asking him questions nonstop about his life since he’d left Hope’s Crossing and about some of the projects he had designed.

Maura and Sage seemed very close as mother and daughter, and he would have expected them to have plenty to talk about.

So why did these jerky silences seem to strangle the conversation when the three of them were together?

“I guess you found a hotel room,” Sage finally said after Dermot returned with cups of hot water and the two women busied themselves selecting their tea bags.

“It wasn’t easy,” he admitted. “I ended up stopping at a couple different places and finally found a room at the Blue Columbine.”

“That’s a really nice place,” Sage said. “My mom’s friend Lucy owns it.”

Good to know. He would have to take a careful look at the basket of muffins that had been left outside his door that morning to make sure nobody had slipped rat poison into it. “The bed was comfortable. That’s usually what matters most to me.”

“You didn’t want to stay up at the Silver Strike?” Maura asked with a sharp smile that seemed at odds with her lovely features. “I’ve never seen the rooms there, but I’ve heard they’re spectacular. Fodor’s gives the place a glowing review.”

His mouth tightened. She really thought she had the right to taunt him about that damn ski resort, after everything? Did she not understand she was on shaky ground here? He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to forgive her for keeping Sage from him all these years. He certainly wasn’t in the mood to deal with her prickly mood or veiled taunts about his father’s ski resort.

“I’ll pass. A B and B in town is fine with me for now.”

“For now? How long are you planning to stay in Hope’s Crossing?” she asked bluntly.

Sage sat forward, eyes focused on him with bright intensity as she awaited his answer. He chose his words carefully. “I’m not sure yet. I was thinking about sticking around for a week or two, until after the holidays.”

For all their surface resemblance, the two women had completely disparate reactions. Sage grinned at him with delight, while Maura looked as if Dermot had just fed her a teaspoon full of alum with her tea.

“That’s great. Really great!” Sage enthused. “I was afraid you were leaving today.”

“How can you spare the time?” Maura asked woodenly. “You’re a big-shot architect, just as you always dreamed.”

“It’s a slow time of year for me, which is why I was able to accept the lecture invitation. After the holidays, things will heat up. I’ve got a couple of projects in the region, actually, one in Denver and one in Montana, and a big one overseas in Singapore coming up, but my schedule is a little looser than normal this month.”

Maura stirred her tea, then took a cautious sip before speaking in a polite tone that belied the shadow of dismay he could see in her eyes. “Do you really want to spend that much time in Hope’s Crossing?”

He shrugged. No doubt she was thinking his presence would ruin her whole holiday. He didn’t care. He wasn’t really in the mood to play nice, not after she had kept his daughter from him for nineteen Christmases. “I was thinking maybe Sage and I could take off for a few days to Denver to study some of the architectural styles.”

“Really?” Sage’s eyes lit up as if he had just handed her keys to a brand-new car. “That would be fantastic! I would love it.”

Maura avoided his gaze to look out the window, and he could almost taste her resentment, as thick and bitter as bad coffee. When she finally looked back at the pair of them, she offered up a small, tense smile.

“That would provide a good chance for the two of you to spend some time together. If you do stick around, there are plenty of things to do around here as well. Art galleries, restaurants, hundreds of miles of cross-country ski trails. I’m sure you remember how lovely the canyon can be when it has fresh powder. Of course, that’s what all the skiers love too, and what brings them here in droves.”

It was another caustic dig, another reminder of what had finally forced him to turn his back on Hope’s Crossing—his father’s final, vicious betrayal and the gross misuse of land his mother had intended to leave to him.

Eventually he would probably have to drive up to the ski resort to see for himself how greed had destroyed his mother’s legacy. But not today.

“We should go up for the Christmas Eve candlelight ski,” Sage exclaimed. “We haven’t done that in a few years, have we, Mom? It’s so beautiful to watch all the little flames dancing down the mountainside.”

“That sounds great,” Maura said.

Not to Jack. The last place he wanted to be on Christmas Eve was up at the ski resort. He started to give some polite answer when his attention was caught by someone else coming into the café. He couldn’t see the man’s features from here when he turned away to speak to Dermot, but something inside Jack froze.

He didn’t need to see him clearly to know who was currently trying to push around the restaurant owner, despite the futility of anyone thinking they could intimidate Dermot Caine.

His father.

The biggest son of a bitch who had ever lived.

Dermot cast a quick look in their direction and grabbed Harry’s arm, obviously intent on steering him the opposite way.

“Hold your horses. Let me at least take my coat off, you daft Irish fool.”

Those were the first words he had heard his father speak in nearly two decades. He was taken completely by surprise at the twisted, complex mix of emotions that washed over him like flood waters through a rain-parched arroyo.

At the overloud voice, Maura turned around to follow the sound of the commotion. When she turned around, he didn’t detect any hint of surprise in her expression.

Was his father a regular at the cafe? He must be. He suddenly remembered Maura’s reaction the night before when he had suggested they meet here for breakfast, her initial hesitation and then the too-quick agreement. She must have expected Harry to show up eventually.

This was a damn setup. He should have known.

What happened to her? When they were wild teenagers in love, Maura had been his anchor, the only bright spot in a world that had never been all that great but had completely fallen apart after his mother’s suicide. It was obvious that sweet and loving girl had disappeared twenty years ago.

“Low,” he murmured.

She sipped at her tea again and gave him an innocent look that didn’t fool him for a second. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re a liar now too?”

Sage looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to interpret the simmer of tension, but Maura quickly distracted her. “The Christmas Eve ski is always fun. What else would you like to do this year?”

“I always love the wagon rides they have through Snowflake Canyon to look at the lights.”

“We can add that to the schedule,” Maura assured her.

They talked about other traditions, leaving Jack to simmer in his frustration. He had known he would eventually have to see his father. He just hadn’t expected it to be twelve hours after he arrived in town.

Dermot must have remembered the vast rift between him and his father. To Jack’s relief, he had seated Harry in an area of the restaurant that angled away from them, out of sight of their booth. At least he wouldn’t have to come face-to-face with the man. Even so, any culinary anticipation for the cafe’s much-vaunted French toast had turned to ashes in his gut.

A bleached-blond college-age kid with the slouchy dress and manner of a ski bum brought their food over a few moments later, three plates brimming with golden French toast with little crackly pieces of sugar-coated fried dough and sliced almonds on top.

“Hey, Sage, Maura. Stranger Dude. Dermot’s tied up in the kitchen for a while,” he explained. “He asked me to take care of you. So if you need anything else, give me a shout-out.”

“Thanks, Logan.”

“How’s school?” Sage asked.

“Good. I think I made the dean’s list. I had a killer final in statistics, but I think I aced it. You?”

“Pretty good. Not dean’s-list good, but I was happy with it. Did you have Professor Lee for stats? I’ve got him next semester.”

“He’s brutal, man.”

“Hey, I might need a ride back to Boulder after the break. When are you taking off?”

“Haven’t thought that far in advance. My first class isn’t until ten-thirty the Monday school starts, so I might get in a few runs as soon as the lifts open before I head back.”

“I’ll text you after New Year’s to figure things out.”

“Okay. Like I said, if you need anything, let me know.”

The conversation between the young people gave Jack a chance to regain his perspective. It wasn’t Maura’s fault Harry ate breakfast at the café. He had sensed something off in her reaction when he’d made the suggestion to eat here the night before and should have pursued it.

Besides, he was an adult. He could certainly spend a few minutes in the same restaurant with the man he despised. Yes, it had been petty of her to set him up like that, but if he were going to hold a grudge, he had bigger grievances against her. As far as he could see, there was no reason to let Harry ruin a perfectly delicious breakfast.

“So we talked about cross-country skiing and sleigh rides and Christmas Eve candlelight skis. What else do I need to see in Hope’s Crossing while I’m here?” he asked Sage.

She launched into a long list of her favorite things to do in town. By the time she finished, even he was thinking maybe Hope’s Crossing wasn’t the purgatory he remembered.

“Sounds like you two have plenty to keep you busy until school starts up again,” Maura said. She had only eaten about four or five bites of her French toast and one nibble of the crispy bacon that accompanied it.

Sage suddenly looked stricken, as if she had only just remembered that her mother might have expected to spend some of the holiday break with her. “We could do a lot of this together, the three of us.”

There was no “three of us.” Just two people who had once loved each other and the child they had created together.

“No, this will be good,” Maura assured her with a smile that only looked slightly forced. “You know how busy I’m going to be up until Christmas Eve and then the week after with all the holiday returns. This way I won’t have to worry about you being bored while I’m stuck at the store.”

She checked her watch and set down her napkin. “Speaking of busy, I probably need to run. Mornings are hectic in December. It seems like everyone in town decides to take a coffee break at the same time and fit in a little shopping too.”

The purpose of suggesting they meet for breakfast had been to come to some sort of agreement on how their tangled relationship would proceed from here. He wasn’t sure they had accomplished that particular goal, but they seemed to have reached an accord of some sort, Harry’s unexpected presence notwithstanding.

“Do you need some extra help with the rush?” Sage asked.

“You don’t need to come in,” Maura assured her. “You should spend the day with your, er…with Jack while you have a chance.”

“Well, yeah, I want to. But to tell you the truth, I haven’t had a chance to do any Christmas shopping yet, and I could use a little extra money. I hate to dip into my college fund for presents if I don’t have to.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Jack assured her. “I’ve got plenty of work to catch up on. Maybe we could always meet this evening.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Sage asked.

“Not at all.” The two of them didn’t need to spend twenty-four hours a day together. It was probably better to take their interactions in small doses while he was still adjusting to the idea of even having a daughter.

Besides, he didn’t want Maura to think he planned to monopolize every moment with Sage while he was in Hope’s Crossing.

“In that case,” Maura said, her features a little more relaxed, “I would love to have you work at the store today. We’ve been slammed the last few days, and I’m sure Ruth could use help restocking.”

With that settled, they returned to their breakfast. He was happy to see Maura eat a few more bites and finish off the citrus slices that came with it. When breakfast was over, they wrangled for a moment over the bill, but he solved the issue by taking his credit card and the ticket to the cash register, leaving her to glower after him.

“I’ll walk you over to the store,” he said to the two of them after signing the credit card receipt handed him by the snowboarding academic. “The only place I could find to park was in that alley behind your store.”

“Parking is our big problem downtown, as you have probably figured out. The Downtown Merchants’ Alliance is talking about building a big parking structure a block to the west, if we can do it in an aesthetically pleasing way that fits in with the rest of the town.”

After leaving the café, they walked up half a block to the light so they could cross the street. As he looked up the length of Main Street, he was struck again by the charm of the town, with electrified reproductions of historic gas lamps lining the street and brick-paved sidewalks instead of concrete. The town leaders seemed to have gone to a great deal of trouble to manage the growth in that pleasing way Maura was talking about that stayed true to its character, with none of the jumble of styles so many communities adopted by default.

Beneath the wooden sign reading Dog-Eared Books & Brew, he held the door open for the two women and stepped inside the welcoming warmth to say goodbye to Sage.

“What time do you think you’ll be free for dinner?”

“I don’t know. Can you give me a second, though, before we figure out details? I’ve had to pee since before Logan brought our breakfast, and I’m not sure I can wait even five more minutes.”

“Uh, sure.”

She gave him a grateful smile and hurried to the back of the store, leaving him to watch with bemusement at her abrupt exit.

Maura gave a short laugh. “That’s Sage for you. Sorry about that. When she was a little girl, I always had to remind her to take a minute and visit the bathroom. She tended to hold it until the very last second, because she didn’t want to bother wasting time with such inconsequential things when she could be creating a masterpiece skyscraper out of blocks or redesigning her Barbie house to make better use of the available space.”

He could almost picture her, dark curls flying, green eyes earnest, that chin they shared set with determination. A hard kernel of regret seemed to be lodged somewhere in his chest. He had missed so much. Everything. Ballet recitals and bedtime stories and soccer games.

This whole thing was so surreal. He had always told himself he didn’t want or need a family. His own childhood had been so tumultuous, marked by his mother’s mental chaos and Harry’s increasing impatience and frustration and his subsequent cold distance. In his mind, family was turmoil and pain.

Jack had always just figured that since he didn’t have the desire—or the necessary skills—to be a father, he was better off just avoiding that eventuality altogether. That had been one of the things that had drawn him to Kari, her insistence that her career mattered too much for her to derail it with a side trip on the Mommy Track.

Mere months into their marriage, she’d done a rapid about-face and started buying baby magazines and comparing crib specifications. Even before that, he’d known their marriage had been a mistake. She hated his travel and his long hours, she couldn’t stand his friends, she started drinking more than she ever had when they were dating.

Bringing a child into the middle of something that was already so shaky would have been a disaster. They started counseling, but when he found out she had stopped taking her birth control pills despite his entreaties that they at least give the counseling a chance to work, he had started sleeping on the sofa in his office.

She filed for divorce two weeks later and ended up married to another attorney in her office a month after the decree came down.

Yeah, he had always figured he and kids wouldn’t be a good mix. But these little glimpses into Sage’s childhood filled him with poignant regret.

Nothing he could do about that now. He realized that Maura was watching him warily and he forced himself to smile. “I like your place.”

She tilted her head, studying him as if to gauge his sincerity, and he was struck again by her fragile beauty. With that sadness that never quite left her eyes, she made a man want to wrap his arms around her, tuck her up against his side and promise to take care of her forever.

Not him, of course. He was long past his knight-in-shining-armor phase.

“Thanks,” she finally said. “I like it too. It’s been a work in progress the last five or six years, but I think I’ve finally arranged things the way I like.”

She untwisted her striped purple scarf and shrugged out of her coat before he had a chance to help her, then hung both on a rack nestled between ceiling-high shelves.

“A bookstore and coffeehouse. That seems a far cry from your dreams of writing the great American novel.”

She seemed surprised that he would remember those dreams. “Not that far. I still like to write, but I mostly dabble for my own enjoyment. I discovered I’m very happy surrounded by books written by other people—and the readers who love them.”

“It’s a bit of a dying business, isn’t it?”

She frowned and stopped to align an untidy shelf of paperback mysteries. “I don’t believe a passion for actual books you can hold in your hands will ever go away. We have an enormous children’s section, which is growing in popularity as parents come to realize that children need to turn real pages once in a while instead of merely flipping a finger across a screen. Our travel section is also very popular, as is the young adult fiction.”

She shrugged. “Anyway, I’ve made sure people come to the store for more than just books, though it’s still the best place in town to find elusive titles. We’ve become a gathering spot for anyone who loves the written word. We have book groups and author signings, writer nights, even an evening set aside a couple times a month for singles.”

“You’ve really built something impressive here.”

She paused and looked embarrassed. “Sorry. You hit a hot button.”

“I don’t mind. I admire passion in a woman.”

In a person. That’s what he meant to say. In a person. Anyone. But it was too late to take the word back. Maura sent him a charged look and suddenly the bookstore felt over-warm. He had a random, completely unwelcome memory of the two of them wrapped together on a blanket up near Silver Lake, with the aspens whispering around them and the wind sighing in the pine trees.

She cleared her throat and he thought he saw a slight flush on her cheeks, but he figured he must have been mistaken when she went on the offensive. “What is this whole business about sticking around town for a few weeks, Jack? You don’t want to be here. You hate Hope’s Crossing.”

He didn’t want to take her on right now. He ought to just smile politely, offer some benign answer and head over to browse the bestseller shelf, but somehow he couldn’t do that.

“If I want to see my daughter—the daughter you didn’t tell me about, remember?—I’m stuck here, aren’t I?” he said quietly.

“Not necessarily. Why can’t you just wait and visit Sage in Boulder when she returns to school? Or have her come visit you in San Francisco. You don’t have to be here.”

“I’m not leaving. Not until after Christmas, anyway.”

“You’re just doing this to ruin my holidays, aren’t you?”

He could feel his temper fray, despite his efforts to hang on to the tattered edges. “What else? I stayed up all night trying to come up with ways to make you pay for keeping my daughter from me. Ruining your holidays seemed the perfect revenge for twenty years of glaring silence. That’s the kind of vindictive bastard I am, right?”

“I have no idea,” she shot back. “How am I supposed to know what kind of bastard you are now?”

“Insinuating I was a bastard twenty years ago to knock you up and leave town.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You must have thought it, though, a million times over the years.”

That was the core of the anger that had simmered through him since that life-changing moment after his lecture. What she must have thought of him, how she must have hated him to keep this from him.

For twenty years their time together had been a cherished memory, something he used to take out and relive when life seemed particularly discouraging.

He had wondered about her many times over the years. His first love, something good and bright and beautiful to a young man who had needed that desperately.

To know that she must have been cursing his name all that time for leaving her alone with unimaginable responsibility was a bitter pill.

“You didn’t tell me, Maura. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“Not forget me, as if you couldn’t wait to walk away from everything we shared. As if I meant nothing to you!”

As soon as she blurted out the words, she pressed a hand to her mouth as if horrified by them.

“I loved you,” he murmured. “Believe whatever else you want about me, but I loved you, Maura.”

“Yet you hated your father and Hope’s Crossing more.”

“Maura,” he began, knowing he had no defense other than youth and idiocy and his own single-minded resolve to make something out of his life away from this place. Before he could figure out how to finish the sentence, chimes rang softly on her front door and a new customer came in.

He saw the man out of his peripheral vision for only a fleeting instant, but something made him shift his head for a better look. Instantly, he wished he hadn’t. Did his father have a freaking tracker on him?