Read Online Sweet Laurel Falls by RaeAnne Thayne - Free Book Online Page A

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