Sweet Laurel Falls Read Online Free PDF

ever get used to that particular phrase? “You
sound surprised.”
    “I thought this year she wouldn’t really be in the mood for
Christmas. Usually it’s her favorite time of year but, you know. Everything is
different now.”
    He didn’t want to feel this sympathy. For the past three days,
he had simmered in his anger that she had kept this cataclysmic thing from him
all these years. Being here in Hope’s Crossing, being confronted with the
reality of her life and her pain and the difficult choices she must have faced
as a seventeen-year-old girl, everything seemed different.
    He felt deflated somehow and didn’t quite know what to do with
his anger.
    Sage fingered an ornament on the tree that looked as if it was
glued-together Popsicle sticks. The tree was covered in similar handmade
ornaments, and he wondered which Sage had made and which had been crafted by her
younger sister.
    “I hope Grandma and the aunts helped her and she didn’t have to
do it by herself,” Sage fretted. “That would have been so hard for her, taking
out all these old ornaments and everything on her own.”
    Sage’s compassion for her mother, despite everything, touched a
chord deep inside him. There was a tight bond between the two of them. Had it
always been there, or had their shared loss this year only heightened it?
    He spied a cluster of photographs on the wall, dominated by one
of Sage and Maura on a mountain trail somewhere, lit by perfect evening light
amid the ghostly trunks of an aspen grove. They had their arms around each
other, as well as a younger girl with purple highlights in her hair and a triple
row of earrings.
    “This must be Layla.”
    Sage moved beside him and reached a hand out to touch the
picture. “Yep. She was so pretty, wasn’t she?”
    “Beautiful,” he murmured. All three females were lovely. They
looked like a tight unit, and it was obvious even at a quick glance that they
had all adored each other.
    Maura had been divorced for a decade and had raised both girls
on her own. How had she managed it? he wondered, then reminded himself it was
none of his business. He was here only to establish a relationship with his
newly discovered daughter, not to walk down memory lane with Maura McKnight, the
girl who had once meant everything to him.
    “Oh, look. Presents.” Sage’s eyes were as wide as a little
kid’s as she looked at the prettily dressed packages under the tree. What had
she been like as a big-eyed preschooler waiting for Santa to arrive? He would
never know that. He’d missed all those Christmas Eves of putting out plates of
cookies and tucking his little girl into bed.
    “I guess I’d better head out to find a hotel. Are you sure
you’re okay now?” He couldn’t see any evidence of the tears from earlier, but a
guy never could tell.
    “Yeah. I’m fine. I’m just going to throw in a load of laundry
and check my Facebook, then go to bed.”
    “Okay, then. I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
    “Okay. Good night.”
    He turned to head toward the door and had almost reached it
when her voice stopped him.
    “Wait!”
    He paused, then was completely disconcerted when she reached up
and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m really glad we found each other, Jack.”
    On the way here, they had already had the awkward conversation
about what she should call him. She didn’t feel right calling him Dad at this
point in their relationship, so he had suggested Jack.
    “I am too,” he said gruffly.
    He meant the words, he thought, as he walked out into the snowy
evening lit by stars and the Christmas lights of Maura’s neighbors. Despite
everything, the realization that Sage was his daughter astonished and humbled
him. And yes, delighted him—even though it meant returning to Hope’s Crossing
after all these years and facing the past he thought he had left far behind.

CHAPTER THREE
    F OR A LONG TIME AFTER S AGE walked out with Jack, Maura sat in her chair with her hands folded together