Sweet Laurel Falls

Sweet Laurel Falls
RaeAnne Thayne

Love knows no seasonSpring should bring renewal, but Maura McKnight-Parker cannot escape the past. Still reeling from the loss of one daughter, the former free-spirit is thrown for a loop by the return of her older daughter, Sage, and the reappearance of her first love, Sage’s father.Jackson Lange never knew his daughter – never even knew that he’d left the love of his life pregnant when he fled their small town – but he had never forgotten Maura. Now they are all back, but Sage has her own secret, one that will test the fragile bonds of a reunited family.Thrown together by circumstances and dedicated to those whom they love, Maura and Jackson must learn to move forward and let go of the mistakes of their past for the bright future that awaits them and their friends in Hope's Crossing…

Dear Reader,

Somebody asked me recently why so many of my characters have suffered something horrible. Wow. Gut check! I looked through my previous books and realised I do write a great deal about people who have been through rough times. The loss of a spouse, infertility, a terrible accident, an injured child. Hmm. Definitely a pattern there!

As I dug a little deeper, it wasn’t so surprising. I find it inspiring to write about people who have faced difficult things and yet have managed to overcome, to move forward with their lives and find joy once more. I am heartened by the many examples in my own life of friends and family who manage to face hard times with grace and dignity and come through to the other side with a beautiful strength.

That perfectly describes Maura McKnight-Parker. She has suffered unimaginable loss, the death of her teenage daughter. While she is tempted to hide away in her pain, she still has a family and a business to contend with and so she forces herself to take one difficult step after another. When Jackson Lange, her childhood sweetheart, bursts back into her life, the ice around her heart begins to crack like Sweet Laurel Falls spilling back to life in springtime.

I loved writing Maura and Jack’s story. While I shed more than a few tears for a mother’s pain, I also smiled more than I ever have while writing a book. It’s a story filled with sweetness and laughter and the healing peace that only love can offer.

All my best,

RaeAnne

Sweet Laurel Falls

RaeAnne Thayne

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)

To the members of the Utah chapter

of Romance Writers of America. You inspire me

with your dedication, talent and sheer grit and

I will forever be grateful for your friendship.

CHAPTER ONE

FORGET CHRISTMAS VACATION. This year, Maura McKnight-Parker wanted a vacation from Christmas. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could just crawl into a warm cave somewhere and sleep through the holidays?

With a sigh, Maura took a final look around at the cozy nook where she had arranged several of the plump sofas and chairs normally scattered throughout her bookstore-slash-coffeehouse. Everything appeared ready for the Books and Bites book club Christmas party and gift exchange tonight.

Nibbles? Check. M&M’s, spiced nuts and popcorn mix waited in holiday-printed bowls, and she had even dragged out her Christmas china and coffee mugs for said nibbles.

Decorations? Check. Not much to do there, since the halls of Dog-Eared Books & Brew had already been decked the week before Thanksgiving with artificial Christmas trees adorned in elegant blues and whites and silver. Snowflakes and gleaming ornaments in the same color scheme dangled from the ceiling, lightly dancing in the currents of air whenever anybody opened the front door.

Gifts? Yes. She had set up a little tabletop tree with handmade blown-glass ornaments for each of the book club members that she had commissioned from an artist with a gallery in town.

In addition to that pretty bit of swag, she had spent the past few days scouring shelves and boxes in her office and had filled gift bags for all the book club members, brimming with coffee and tea samples and some of the promotional bookmarks, notepads and other tchotchkes authors and their publicists were always sending to the store.

Despite a deep-seated wish that she could just hole up in her house for Christmas like a fox in a cozy den, she had worked tirelessly for days to make this party a success. If she were a scam artist, she would have called this baiting her trap. She had to convince her dearest friends and family members that she was indeed trying to move forward with her life after the hell of the past year. To accomplish that, she needed to put on a convincing show for them.

Maybe then, everybody would back off and give her a little space to find her own way.

“What do you think?” she asked April Herrera, who was taking a load of Books & Brew coffee mugs out of the small dishwasher behind the counter.

The assistant manager for the coffeehouse side of her business gazed at the setup with an enchanted look in her eyes that seemed at odds with her henna-colored hair, pencil-thin eyebrows and various diamond studs. The silk long-underwear shirt she wore underneath her barista shirt and apron hid the various tattoos Maura knew adorned her arms.

Judging only by appearances, April ought to be wild and cynical. Instead, she was just about the sweetest person Maura knew. More important, she was smart and hardworking and intuitive about her customers.

“It looks super in here. Just perfect. You guys are going to have such a great time.”

Maura tended to have a soft spot for rebellious girls, probably because she’d been one in another lifetime. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”

“I really wish I could. Your book club meetings are always a hoot. Your mom cracks me up every time she comes in, and it’s hilarious to watch Ruth and Claire together. Do they ever agree on a book?”

“Rarely,” she answered. Or anything else, for that matter. Ruth Tatum worked in the bookstore, and she and her daughter had what could best be described as a complicated relationship. “You should really stay. You know everyone would love to have you again. Your comments on the last book were really insightful.”

“I can’t. Sorry. I’ve really got to take off as soon as Josh gets here. This is my very first time night-skiing with the team.”

“How’s that going?” she asked.

“Excellent.” The young woman’s face lit up. “I think they’re ready to put me on the schedule on a regular basis.”

April was training for the ski patrol and also taking classes in hope of eventually becoming a paramedic. Maura didn’t know how she juggled work and class and her two-year-old son, especially on her own. Maybe that was another reason she had taken April under her wing—she could certainly relate to being a young single mother just trying to survive.

“That’s terrific. If you need me to make any adjustments to your work schedule here, just say the word. I’m flexible. And I’m happy to babysit Trek whenever you need.”

“Thanks, Maur.”

“Maybe you can come to the book club meeting in January, if it fits around all the plates you have spinning.”

“Definitely!” April started to add something else, but a customer at the coffee counter rang the little bell, and she gave Maura a “later” kind of wave and headed back to take the order.

Personally, Maura couldn’t wait for January, to finally turn that page of her calendar to a new year. Maybe once the holiday craziness was over, she could escape some of the pressure of trying to act as if everything was fine when she was frozen solid inside.

She grabbed one more bowl of spicy nuts and set it on a side table, then moved a bowl of plump, airy peppermints to another spot. Having dear friends and family members surrounding her in Hope’s Crossing was both a blessing and a curse. She knew they loved her and worried for her. While she understood their concern and tried to be grateful, mostly she just found it exhausting and overwhelming.

Sometimes that ever-present concern made her feel as if she had been buried alive under an avalanche. It pressed down on her, heavy and suffocating, until all she wanted to do was scramble for an air pocket.

Even her little bungalow on Mountain Laurel Road wouldn’t remain a haven for long. In a few days, her daughter Sage would be coming home from college for the holidays, bringing yet another pair of watchful eyes.

She could do it. A few more weeks of pretending, and then she could have the cold nights of January to herself.

After one last look around, she suddenly remembered she’d meant to grab a couple extra copies of this month’s book club selection off the shelf, in case anybody forgot theirs and needed it for reference. She had several copies in the display near the front, she remembered, and hurried in that direction.

A light snow drifted past the front display window, the big, fluffy flakes reflecting the colorful Christmas lights on storefronts up and down Main Street. Hope’s Crossing was a true winter wonderland and local businesses worked hard to make the town glow with an old-fashioned, enticing charm. Nearly every store had some kind of light display. Hers were LED icicles that appeared to be dripping.

The effort seemed to be working. Her store bustled with customers and, judging by the pedestrian and vehicle traffic on a normally slow Thursday night, the other businesses on Main Street were enjoying the same success.

An SUV snagged the last parking space in front of the café across the street and a few stores down from her. A man in a leather jacket and Levi’s climbed out and snowflakes immediately landed on his wavy dark hair and the shoulders of his warm cocoa-colored coat. He looked sharp and put together.

Everyone would be arriving any second now and she should go put the finishing touches on the scene she had created, but for some reason she was drawn to the man she could still barely see.