Currant Creek Valley Read online

  Thoughts of her had been simmering under his consciousness since he had last seen her drive away on a darkened Hope’s Crossing street.

  He had known the whole time he had worked at the restaurant that this was her kitchen. Did she prefer pull handles or knobs? Would she notice this or that extra little touch while she cooked in the kitchen? How could he make the space work best for her?

  The other woman suddenly cleared her throat, and he realized Alexandra was staring right back at him, her glittery gaze fixed on his mouth. She had to be remembering that cataclysmic kiss.

  And if it had affected her, too, why the hell was she avoiding him?

  “Oh. Yes.” She looked away and he saw a hint of color climb her elegant cheekbones. “Mom, this is Sam Delgado. He’s finishing up the restaurant kitchen for Brodie. Sam, this is my mother, Mary Ella McKnight.”

  He smiled, juggling the to-go container to his left arm so he could shake her hand. She had auburn hair where her daughter was blonde but they shared the same finely etched bone structure, the same slender build.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. McKnight.”

  “Hello, Sam. Alex was telling me how quickly the work is going at the restaurant. I do hope you’re enjoying your stay in Hope’s Crossing.”

  “I’ve only been here a week or so, but so far everyone has been very kind. Your daughter even gave me a guided tour the other night.”

  “Did she?” Mary Ella gave Alexandra a surprised look.

  “You know me. Always doing my part to welcome visitors,” Alexandra murmured.

  Mary Ella’s mouth tightened and he sensed some current between them he didn’t quite understand. He probably should be on his way but he was loath to leave now that she couldn’t avoid him, hot coffee notwithstanding.

  “I saw the sign still up for Leonidas when I came in,” he said. “No luck finding his owner, then?”

  She shook her head. “For now, I’ve still got company.”

  “Leonidas? That’s the name of the dog you’ve been keeping?” her mother asked.

  He probably shouldn’t enjoy sharing this little secret with her but he couldn’t help it.

  “That’s what I’ve been calling him, anyway,” Alexandra answered. “Remember those Belgian chocolates I gave you for Mother’s Day last year?”

  “How could I forget? I only let myself have one of them a week and savored them until Labor Day. This must be some dog.”

  “He is pretty great. I still haven’t had any luck finding his home. Every day I call the two vet offices in town, the shelter, everywhere I can think of. I think they’re getting a little annoyed with me. So far, no one has reported a missing chocolate Labrador. It’s the weirdest thing. He had to come from somewhere. Someone certainly seems to have been taking good care of him, right? He was skinny but not starving.”

  Ethan had hounded Sam again for a dog when he talked to him on the phone the night before. His son seemed to think adding a canine member to their family was a given once they finally settled into their own place, after all these years of moving around.

  He didn’t have the heart to tell the kid they would be so busy settling in that a dog was somewhere far in the future.

  At least he had made a little progress that morning finding somewhere to live. He was meeting with a real estate agent later, and Brodie Thorne had given him a lead on a couple places, including one house on the outskirts of town that needed some work but would be livable in the meantime. It was well within his budget.

  He started to ask Alexandra if she knew anything about the neighborhood but she spoke before he could.

  “My kitchen is looking fantastic.”

  Her approval was gratifying, he had to admit. “I’m glad you think so. Maybe you ought to stop by when I’m there so I can show you a couple things.”

  “Sure. I could do that,” she said slowly. “I’ve stopped by a few times but...I guess I’ve missed you.”

  That color ratcheted up a notch or two, he noticed. He wasn’t the only one who picked up on it. Her mother was giving her a very curious look. He wanted to ask why she was avoiding him but he couldn’t very well do that with Mary Ella standing there.

  “It would be good to have your input a little more directly. Could we arrange a time to...” He almost said hook up but didn’t want her to think he meant that in the sexual sense. “Meet up?” he quickly amended. “I can meet you after your shift at the restaurant, if that works for you. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.”

  “You’ve got the day off tomorrow, don’t you?” her mother said, quite helpfully, he thought.

  Alexandra frowned just briefly but long enough for him to pick up that she didn’t appreciate her mother’s input nearly as much as he did. “Yes. Yes, I do. I guess I could swing by at some point in the day.”

  “We should be there all day. Come over anytime that works for you.”

  “I’ll do that.” After a bit of an awkward moment, she gestured to the coffee. “You probably should go, unless your crew likes cold coffee.”

  “Right.” He had completely forgotten his objective. “See you later, Alexandra. Mrs. McKnight, it was a pleasure to meet you.”

  Both women gave him smiles of varying warmth—Mary Ella’s looked welcoming and friendly while Alexandra’s struck him as guarded and wary.

  Why? he wondered as he walked out of the bookstore and back to his truck, parked on a side street. They had a great time together, so why was she so determined to keep him at a distance now?

  She obviously regretted their kiss. His ego might have been bruised by that if he didn’t remember her heated response, the way her mouth had softened under his and how she had held on to him as if she couldn’t bear to let him go.

  He did remember those things, though, which made her reaction afterward all the more baffling.

  The woman was a puzzle. A beautiful, funny, complicated puzzle.

  One he very much wanted to figure out.

  * * *

  AFTER SAM WALKED OUT of Books & Brew, taking all that masculine strength with him, the fine tension that had clenched Alex’s shoulders when she saw him standing there began to seep away.

  She inhaled deeply, ridiculously aware that she had been holding her breath during the conversation, on edge and off balance.

  Drat the man! He had no business bursting into her life right now and messing with her head and her hormones, not when she was so close to grabbing for everything she had ever wanted.

  “I’m so glad you could meet me for coffee this morning,” Mary Ella said. “I know you were working late last night.”

  She focused on her mother instead of this jittery mess of nerves in her stomach. “I love Maura’s coffee.”

  “Your sister runs a fine shop, doesn’t she?”

  The pride in Mary Ella’s voice made her smile. “She does indeed. Remarkably well, and all while raising the most beautiful baby in the world.”

  “Our Henry isn’t that much of a baby anymore.” Her mother’s expression was soft, as it was when she talked about any of her children or grandchildren. “He’s going to be a year old in June. Maura said he’s been trying to take a few steps along the furniture.”

  “The time is just flying by. Any day now he’s going to start growing a beard.”

  Mary Ella made a face. “Okay, he’s still a baby for a while now. But the older I get, the faster time seems to spin.”

  They reached the front of the line and placed their orders, then found a couple padded chairs in one of the conversation nooks Maura had placed throughout her store for the convenience and enjoyment of her customers.

  They chatted about Maura and Jack and Sage, just finishing her third year of undergraduate work at the University of Colorado in Boulder, then moved on to talk about Riley and Claire’s upcoming happy event.

  Throughout the conversation, Alex became aware that she wasn’t the only one who seemed unsettled this morning. Mary Ella—usually calm as Silver Strike Reservoir on a summer morn
ing—fidgeted in her chair as if she couldn’t quite find a comfortable spot, and her fingers drummed with impatience on the padded armrest as they awaited their order.

  When their drinks arrived, Mary Ella took a single sip of her tea and set the cup back on the saucer so abruptly some sloshed over the side and onto her lap.

  Worry blossomed inside Alex like a noxious weed in Caroline’s garden. This was not like her mother, usually the epitome of easy grace. Something was up.

  “What’s going on? You’re acting like you’ve already had about a dozen cups of tea this morning.”

  Mary Ella set her tea—cup, saucer and all—onto the small table between them and tucked a strand of tastefully colored auburn hair behind her ear with fingers that trembled. “This is hard. Harder than I thought it would be.”

  That noxious weed of worry grew into a bristly, towering stalk. Something was seriously wrong. Cancer was the first thing that came to mind, maybe because of Caroline or because she had just seen Sam, who had tragically lost his young wife to the devil disease, though she didn’t really have confirmation of that yet.

  “What is it? Are you ill?” How would she bear it if she lost her mother? Mary Ella was in her sixties, yes, but she was healthier than the rest of them and still walked four miles every morning and lifted weights at the gym three times a week.

  “I’m trying to talk to each of you children separately. I’ve already called and spoken with Lila and Rose. I had a moment last night to talk to Maura and Angie and I’m going over to Riley’s after I talk to you. It doesn’t get easier, I can tell you that.”

  Panic fluttered inside her, dark and ugly, and she thought she just might be sick herself. “Is it cancer? If it is, I’ll be there for you every minute. You know I will. I’ll drive you to the chemo, I’ll fix you anything that sounds good that you think you might be able to eat. I’ll even shave my head when your hair falls out.”

  Mary Ella’s eyes had gone wide during this little speech and if Alex wasn’t mistaken, sudden tears swam in them. Her mother gave a shocked little laugh and reached for her hand.

  Those fingers trembling in hers didn’t set her mind at ease. “Oh, darling. I don’t have cancer, but if I did, I would absolutely want you at my back. You have always been such a wonderful daughter. I couldn’t ask for better children. All of you.”

  For a time in those rough teen years, she hadn’t treated her mother very well and the memory still ate at her.

  “Okay. Okay. You don’t have cancer.” Relief flooded through the panic. “What’s this about, then?”

  “I feel silly, especially now after that little side trip into terrible possibilities. I don’t have cancer, I promise. Everything’s fine. Better than fine, actually.”

  Mary Ella’s throat worked as she swallowed hard. “It’s just... I don’t know quite how to say this but...I’m getting married.”

  She stared for several long seconds as the words soaked into her brain, not quite sure how to react.

  The news wasn’t really unexpected. Mary Ella had been in a relationship for a year now, but accepting something as an inevitable outcome in the abstract was far different from being faced with the blunt reality of it.

  “Does Harry know?” she finally quipped.

  Mary Ella made a face. “Very funny. Yes. He’s been asking me since Christmas. I just... It took me a long time to feel comfortable saying yes.”

  Their romance had shocked everyone in town, especially because Mary Ella had made no secret the past twenty years of her contempt for the man. She had always considered him greedy and soulless, someone who had betrayed his own son, traded his family away for a handful of gold.

  Something had shifted between them the year before, however, around the time Harry’s son, Jackson, had come back into Maura’s life after he discovered they shared a daughter, Sage.

  Tension tightened her mother’s features and Alex knew Mary Ella was waiting for some other response from her than a joke. She didn’t quite know what to say. Those strained and difficult teenage years aside, she loved her mother dearly and wasn’t sure Harry Lange was good enough for her.

  “Are you...okay with it?” Mary Ella finally asked.

  She gave a rueful shake of her head, squeezing her mother’s fingers. “I don’t know, Mom,” she said. “Don’t you think you could hold out for someone a little more financially secure who might take better care of you in your old age so we don’t have to?”

  Mary Ella chuckled, some of the tautness of her muscles easing a little at Alex’s light tone. “I don’t care about his money. Harry knows that. I hope my own children do, too.”

  “You know I’m teasing, Mom. Though if you were any other woman, I might suspect you of marrying him just to get your hands on his Sarah Colville paintings.”

  “I’m considering that a very big bonus. I’m marrying the man I love and in the process gaining an entire houseful of paintings by my favorite artist.”

  Mary Ella no longer looked as if she were going to climb the walls in a minute, but anxiety still furrowed her forehead. Alex swallowed the rest of her conflicted emotions and reached across the space between them to hug her.

  “I’m happy for you, Mom,” she said, meaning every word. “I may not have been all that crazy about Harry when you started seeing him—you can’t expect to unleash shock waves of epic proportions like that on the whole town without rattling a few people—but he’s started growing on me.”

  Mary Ella’s laugh was shaky with relief. “Thank you for saying that, my dear. Your sisters said much the same. Well, except for Lila and Rose, who haven’t really had a chance to get to know him this last year, as the rest of you have. Even they said they trusted my judgment. I only hope Riley will be as understanding.”

  Her brother could be overprotective of the women in his family and often tried to boss them all around, but he and Harry also had a weirdly amicable relationship.

  “I’m sure he’ll be happy for you,” she said. “If he’s not, Claire will make sure he comes around. So when’s the big day?”

  “We thought the holidays would be a special time for a wedding. Claire and Riley’s was so beautiful a few years ago, all those silvery snowflakes. We don’t want anything big, mainly for family and close friends, at Harry’s house. It will be lovely in the winter, with a fire blazing and those windows that look out over the mountains.”

  “I’m doing the food, of course.”

  “Absolutely not,” Mary Ella answered promptly. “You can plan the menu and hire the caterers if you insist on it, but I want you to be part of the family, front and center, not hiding away in the kitchen by yourself.”

  There went her escape plan. Ah, well. “Poor Maura. First she had to deal with Harry as a father-in-law and now he’s going to be her stepfather, too.”

  “She’s actually great with it. She and Jack both. We told them first. I hope you don’t mind. Sage, of course, didn’t seem at all surprised.”

  “None of us are, Mom. Everyone can see how happy you and Harry are together. He’s been a different person this last year. Amazing, after all these years, to realize the man actually has a heart under all that bluster.”

  “A good, caring one. And healthier than it’s been in years.”

  No matter her own misgivings about the relationship, she hoped for many joyful years for the two of them. Her mother didn’t need more loss.

  “Harry makes you happy. That’s the important thing. You deserve somebody great in your life.”

  Mary Ella gave her a careful look. “So do you, my dear.”

  “Mom. Don’t start again.”

  “I know. I know. It’s just...you’ve been alone all these years. Don’t you ever think maybe there’s somebody great out there looking for you?”

  Ugh. Slip an engagement ring on her finger and a woman seemed to think everyone else needed one.

  “Mom, can’t we just celebrate your happy news?”

  “Hear me out. Last week I met this real
ly nice young lawyer at the firm that handles Harry’s affairs in Denver. He’s been divorced about six months. No kids. He’s great-looking. Brown hair, blue eyes. He dresses well and it’s obvious he takes care of himself. More important, he’s funny and charming and kind. We had dinner with him and the entire time, I kept thinking how the two of you would be perfect for each other.”

  “I’m not in the market for nice young lawyers, Mom.”

  Mary Ella looked undeterred. “Okay. That’s fine. What about doctors, then? One of Harry’s cardiac specialists is also unmarried. He looks just like that scruffy Irish fellow you and Claire think is so good-looking.”

  It took her a minute to figure out her mother meant Colin Farrell. Scruffy Irish fellow, indeed.

  While she had to admit to being intrigued by the concept of a physician who looked like Colin Farrell, she couldn’t help worrying that all of Harry’s connections had apparently widened her dating pool, at least as far as her mother was concerned.

  “I appreciate that. Really I do. But I’m not looking for a lawyer or a doctor. I’m really happy with my life. I just bought a house, after all, and the restaurant will be opening in a few weeks. Everything is perfect.”

  Mary Ella looked doubtful. “What about that nice construction worker? He definitely looks like he could fill out a tool belt.”

  “Mom!”

  “What? What did I say?”

  She shook her head, trying to banish that image from her entirely too active imagination.

  “I mean it. My life is arranged exactly the way I want it.”

  Mary Ella grew quiet. She sipped at her tea for a long moment then set her cup down on the saucer and faced Alex squarely, her green eyes a murky mix of sadness, concern and that lingering joy that couldn’t quite be squelched.

  “Not all men are like your father, Alexandra. You know that, right?”

  They rarely approached the topic of James McKnight. She really didn’t want to discuss it now.