Sweet Laurel Falls Read Free

staring at a point above her
shoulder.
    “You’re here!” Mary Ella suddenly exclaimed. “Oh, darling. I’m
so happy you made it. I thought you weren’t coming until the weekend!”
    Her mother brushed past her, arms outstretched. Okay, this had to be a nightmare. As far as she knew, Mary
Ella would have no reason to even know about Jack,
as they had kept their relationship a secret that summer, in the tumult that was
their respective home lives.
    Wondering what alternative universe she had suddenly been
thrust into, she finally forced herself to turn around. Mary Ella wasn’t hugging
Jack, she was hugging someone behind him. When her
mother shifted, Maura finally caught a glimpse of who it was, and her insides
turned to thin, crackly ice.
    Her nineteen-year-old daughter, Sage, stood just a half step
behind Jackson Lange, hidden from view by the breadth of his shoulders.
    Her numb brain finally began
kicking out messages at a rapid-fire pace, and none of them were good.
    Sage. Together with Jackson Lange.
    The two of them, in the same room. Not just the same room—the
same freaking three-foot radius.
    She’d never had a panic attack, despite the past eight months
of purgatory, but she could feel one coming on now. Her heart raced and she
could feel each pulse throbbing in her chest, her neck, her face. “S-Sage.”
    Her daughter gave her a long look, but for the first time ever
Sage’s usually expressive eyes were shuttered.
    She knew.
    Maura wasn’t sure how she was so certain, especially as her
daughter’s features were closed and set, but somehow she could tell Sage knew
the truth. Finally. After nearly two decades.
    “Who’s your friend, sweetheart?” Mary Ella asked as she stepped
away from her oldest grandchild and gave Jack the sort of quizzical look she
wore when trying to place someone, as if she thought she recognized him but
wasn’t quite sure.
    “This is Jackson Lange. You’ve probably heard of him. He’s a
pretty famous architect.”
    Maura was aware of the little stir of excitement among her
friends. It was fairly common knowledge that Hope’s Crossing had spawned the man
many considered the next Frank Gehry.
    Mary Ella’s expression cooled and she took a slight step back.
“Of course. Harry’s son.”
    “I haven’t heard that particular phrase in a long time.” Those
were the first words he spoke, and she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that
his voice seemed lower, sexier, as it thrummed down her spine.
    “Yes. Harry Lange’s son.” Sage gave her mother that cool look
again. “And he’s not my friend. Not really. He’s my father.”
    Maura hissed in a breath. Okay. There it was.
    This Christmas had just climbed straight to the top of the
suck-o-meter.

CHAPTER TWO
    O KAY , THIS WAS A HUGE MISTAKE .
    Jack stood beside his daughter—his daughter. Hell. How had that happened?—and gazed around at the group of
women all staring at him as if he’d just walked in and mooned them all.
    When Sage had suggested stopping in at the bookstore to talk to
her mother first before he dropped her off at her house and found a hotel for
himself for a few days, he’d had no idea Maura would be in the middle of a
freaking Christmas party. He noted the cluster of gift bags, the personalized
glass decorations on the tree. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare
for this gathering, and he had just barged in and ruined it.
    “Your…father?” an older woman said faintly.
    Though twenty years had gone by, he clearly recognized Mary
Ella McKnight, with those green eyes all her children had inherited, now peering
at him through a pair of trendy little horn-rimmed glasses. She had taught him
English in high school, and he remembered with great fondness their discussions
on Milton and Wilkie Collins.
    She was still very pretty, with a soft, ageless kind of
beauty.
    “You didn’t know either?” Sage raised an eyebrow at her
grandmother’s obvious shock. “I guess it was a big secret