Raeanne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry Summer

He looked intrigued and she remembered Mary Ella talking about how much Riley had always loved a good mystery.

“Obviously that wasn’t the end of it, as your visitor tonight indicates.”

“Not by a long shot. The rest of the winter, rumors started trickling around town of others who had been recipients of this unexpected generosity. Money left in mailboxes, baskets of food on porches, bills paid anonymously. Nothing along the lines of Caroline’s car, but always coming just at a critical moment when people were most discouraged.”

She smiled and gazed at her own basket, touched all over again that someone had gone to so much trouble on her behalf. For the first time, she realized that much of the impact these little gestures had on the recipient came not so much from the tangible gift as from the act of giving itself, the idea that someone had invested time and energy and thought into meeting a need without expectation of even a thank-you.

“Somewhere along the way, somebody coined the mysterious benefactor the Angel of Hope and the name stuck. It’s become quite a legend in town, with everyone trying to figure out who it might be. So far no one’s been able to catch him or her in the act. I probably came closer tonight than anyone else. It’s been really good for the town. I don’t think any of us realized just how fractured we’d become as a community until these things started happening.”

“Fractured? What do you mean?”

“Hope’s Crossing isn’t the same place it was when we were kids. It hasn’t been for a while.”

“Back then, the ski resort was just getting off the ground, only one double lift and a few runs,” he said.

“Right. We all thought Harry Lange and the other developers were smoking something funny to ever think they could make a go of another destination ski resort when Colorado was already glutted with them.”

“Their gamble paid off.”

“Right. Here we are, needing those tourists to survive,” she said, a little glumly.

“Any insight into who might be doing the good deeds?”

“There are about as many theories about that zipping around town as I’ve got seed beads at the store. I was thinking maybe it’s your mom.”

He snorted. “You’re crazy. My mom raised six kids by herself on a schoolteacher’s salary and whatever pitiful child support my dad condescended to pay before he died. No way would she be able to afford to buy a car for Widow Bybee, as much as she might love the cranky old girl.”

“It was only a theory. I think you’re probably right, not necessarily because of the money but because once Mary Ella was out of town visiting Lila when somebody had a cord of firewood sent to Fletcher Jones up in Miner’s Hollow.”

“Playing devil’s advocate here—not that I buy your theory for a minute—but even if my mother was out of town with my sister, she could have arranged the firewood delivery over the phone or before she left.”

“True enough, but she’s been in the store with me a few times when we heard about something the Angel of Hope had done. She was genuinely shocked and thrilled when we heard someone had paid the entire hotel bill for Mark and Amy Denton when their preemie was in the NICU for three weeks in Denver. I don’t think Mary Ella could possibly be that good of an actress. She was crying and everything.”

“I don’t know. She put on a pretty good show that everything was just fine after my dad left.”

She sent him a searching look, surprised he would refer to what had been a traumatic time for his family. He looked as if he regretted saying anything, so she returned to their previous topic.

“After I discarded the theory of your mother being the Angel of Hope, I thought it might be Katherine.”

He nodded. “Now that I might believe. She and Brodie are loaded. Between the sporting goods store and their condo developments, not to mention that her husband was one of the original investors in the ski resort, Katherine could easily afford to run around town helping people out.”

“Except right now, Katherine has far more important things on her mind than bringing me blackberry fudge and a magazine or two. She’s in Denver. I’ve talked to her every day since I’ve been home and I know she hasn’t left Taryn’s side at the children’s hospital.”

She was instantly sorry she’d brought up the accident. Riley’s expression grew shuttered and sudden tension seemed to seethe and coil between them.

Chester seemed to sense something was wrong. He lifted his head from the hearth rug and looked back and forth between them. He yawned and clambered to his feet and waddled over to the side of Riley’s armchair, as if trying to offer his canine version of moral support.

Riley reached down and scratched the scruff of his neck, his mouth a tight line.

She decided not to tiptoe around the subject. “Have you been to see Maura today?” she asked.

That bleak look in his eyes made her long for the teasing rascal he’d been as a boy. “I try to stop by every day. I swung by on my lunch hour earlier.”

“I’ve only talked to her briefly. Most of the time when I call, I reach her voice mail.”

“You’re not the only one. She’s shutting everyone out. Even when I show up in person, she doesn’t want to talk. She pretends everything is just as it was.”

“I guess some pain is so deep you have to swim through it on your own.”

“True enough.”

“How are you?” she asked after a long moment. “How are you really?”

“Fine,” he said shortly.

When she continued to look at him, he finally sighed. “I’ve had better months.”

She had a feeling he didn’t admit that to many people and she was touched that he would share with her. Without thinking other than to offer him comfort, she reached across the space between them and rested a hand on his forearm.

He looked down at her fingers for a long moment and when his gaze rose to meet hers, she wanted to think some of the darkness had lifted from his eyes.

Something flowed between them, something as warm and sweet as the homemade caramel sauce they drizzled over the ice-cream sundaes at Sugar Rush.

“You looked tired when you came in. Have you been sleeping?”

He shrugged but didn’t answer directly. “Why are you worrying about me, Claire? You’re the one with all the broken bones.”

“My injuries will heal,” she said softly.

He slid his arm away from her fingers on the pretext of scratching the back of his neck. “Don’t worry about me, Claire. Worry about Maura and the rest of my family and about the Thornes.” He quickly changed the subject. “So who’s next on your list, if not Ma or Katherine Thorne for the Angel of Hope?”

She decided to let him think he was distracting her, although she wanted to inform him she would worry about him whether he liked it or not. “I don’t know. I’m running out of possibilities.”

“What if it’s a whole group of people? Some kind of loosely structured consortium?”

She laughed. “A what?”

“What if you’ve got more than one Angel of Hope? An alliance of do-gooders? It could be all of them. Ma and Katherine, maybe even your mother. I could see Angie and her husband joining in.”

She considered the idea. “Okay, that’s an option. Maybe whoever gave Caroline her car was only the one who started it all, then others joined it.”

“I like it. So, really, the Angel of Hope could be anyone. And everyone.”

They lapsed into an easy sort of silence while she mulled the likelihood of that. It did fit. She had always considered it a little unlikely that one person could be orchestrating everything.

How would such a group work? Would they act independently or gather for a vote on who to help? While the rain clicked against the windows and the wind howled in the eaves of the old house and the fire simmered in the grate, she imagined the scene. A group of mysterious do-gooders gathered in a room somewhere drinking coffee and discussing the troubles of the people in Hope’s Crossing like the court of Zeus on Olympus.

She smiled a little at the image and opened her mouth to share it with Riley when she noticed his eyes were closed—really closed this time.