Blackberry Summer (24 page)

In the light from her porch, he saw her eyebrows
rise in surprise. “They loathe each other. Didn’t you know?”

He scoffed. “My mother doesn’t hate anyone. I don’t even think she holds a grudge against my
father,
for Pete’s sake, after everything he did to her.”

“Harry must be the exception, then. She can’t stand him and I’ve heard her say as much. I get the feeling he feels the same.”

“Why?”

“No idea. Mary Ella won’t say. They’re always polite when I’ve seen them together.”

He just couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of his calm, even-tempered mother having a feud with anyone. If he had to pick someone, though, it would probably be Harry Lange. The guy was a lightning rod for resentment and anger. People in town either revered him or despised him. When he gathered the original investors together and sold his own large chunk of property in Silver Strike Canyon for what would later become the ski resort, people either seemed to think he saved Hope’s Crossing from eventual extinction or ruined the small-town bucolic lifestyle forever.

“You just need to give the town a chance,” Claire went on. “Once they see the good job you’re doing as police chief, once they have a little more time to get to know you, people will come around.”

She looked so sweet and earnest in the moonlight that his chest ached. “It’s a nice theory, Claire, but don’t you think I ruined any chance of that when I caused an accident that killed my own niece?”

“Riley—”

He cut her off, not eager to tug any harder on this particular thread of conversation.

“Come on. Let’s get you inside.”

“You don’t have to carry me up. If you could just bring the crutches down, I can show you how much better I’m doing on the stairs.”

With that, all the myriad emotions he’d been trying to keep capped and controlled burst out, a geyser of frustration. “Shut up. Just shut up, will you? I’m really not in the mood right now to listen to someone else tell me all the frigging reasons they don’t want my help.”

Eyes wide, she opened her mouth but closed it again when he scooped her out of the wheelchair and stalked up the stairs and through the door, the dog bounding ahead of them.

“Where do you want me to put you?”

“Um, the family room, I guess,” she said, her voice low and he felt like a world-class jerk all over again for taking his sudden bad mood out on her.

He set her on the sofa she favored in her warm, cozy family room. “I’ll bring in your crutches and the wheelchair and take Chester off the leash. Give me a minute.”

With guilt riding him hard, he lifted the wheelchair inside, setting it in the kitchen, then carried in her crutches. The hard metal retained the cold from being left outside and he appreciated the reminder. He had already done enough to hurt her physically, right? He didn’t need to make things worse.

He walked into the family room and set the crutches where she could reach them. “Can you handle things by yourself from here?”

“I… Yes. Thank you.”

“Good night, then. Thank you for the walk,” he said, his voice more curt than he intended. He turned to go, but her words stopped him.

“Why are you mad at
me,
Riley?” She didn’t sound angry, only confused and maybe a little forlorn.

He sighed. All evening, he’d done nothing but take his bad mood on her. He owed her better than that. He owed her the truth, no matter how difficult it was for him. “Again, because I’m an ass.”

He sat beside her on the sofa and took her hand in his again, although it took several moments for him to figure out how to word what he had to say.

“I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “I’ve still got a crush on you, Claire. Actually, that’s not true and hasn’t been since I came back to town. I think my feelings are deeper than that, though I’ll admit I’m not positive because I’ve never been in this situation before.”

Her hand trembled slightly in his but she didn’t pull away. “The thing is,” he went on, “I’m afraid friendship is not going to be enough for me anymore. At the same time, I know as well as you do that anything more than that is impossible.”

“Is it?” she finally asked quietly, her eyes a soft, glittery blue. “As crazy as it seems, I’m beginning to, um, have feelings for you, as well. I wouldn’t have thought this a few weeks ago. Or even, maybe, a few days ago, but…I think maybe I would like to see where things go here.”

For one instant, joy burst through him, wild and
fierce, but as quickly as the next breath went cold and dark like a blazing mountainside doused in fire retardant.

He dropped her hand and eased away on the sofa. “I’ll tell you where it will go. Where it always goes, when it comes to me and women. You said it yourself. You won’t have a fling with me. That’s all this would be. We’ll have a hot, passionate relationship for a few weeks and then I’ll start to feel edgy and restless, smothering in my own claustrophobia, and I’ll do or say something colossally stupid and end up hurting you.”

“Nice of you to give me the program notes ahead of time so I can follow along.”

He glared at her glibness, at that hint of a smile on her features. “It’s not funny, Claire. This is far beyond funny. I’m not willing to do that. This is different.
Every thing’s
different. You’re important to me. Besides that, you’re my sister’s best friend. You’re practically part of the family. You deserve better than to be the latest in a long line of women I’ve ended up hurting.”

What the hell was wrong with him? He couldn’t believe he was being so noble. After all her words a few nights ago telling him she didn’t want a fling with him, Claire Bradford was basically giving him the green light to see how things might develop between them. He ought to just shut the hell up and kiss her, for crying out loud.

Did he have to pick this moment to do the right thing? Yes. When it came right down to it, he didn’t have any other choice. The memory of Maura’s pain and Mrs. Redmond’s anger only reinforced that.

“I’m sorry, Claire. There’s too much at stake here, for you and for me.”

He brushed his mouth against her cheek one last time, burning the scent of her into his memory, and then let himself out.

F
OR THE FIRST TIME SHE
could remember, Claire was grateful for the rapid-fire pace of her life. Juggling all the whirling plates in her life left little time and energy for anything else.

Between end-of-school-year parent-teacher conferences, follow-up doctor appointments for her and the children, the business of running String Fever and the rapidly approaching service day and benefit, the only time she could spare for regret were those few moments just before she crashed in bed each night. She would lie under the Western Star quilt her grandmother had made when Claire was a girl and try to ignore the aching sense of loss for what might have been.

The rest of the time, she was frenetically busy, like now. With only two weeks before the Giving Hope benefit, Claire was pushing herself to finish the most ambitious necklace she had ever created for the auction, in between customers at the store.

She had two customers currently in the store, and they couldn’t have been more different. Janie Hamilton was a plump, pretty, tired-looking woman who had recently moved to town. She sat at the worktable making a colorful pair of earrings out of wire wrap and lampwork beads, while the thin and elegant Sarah
Colville, a summer season regular, leafed through a beading magazine for ideas.

“Thank you again for letting me use your tools.” Janie smiled tentatively. “Somehow in the move, I’ve lost a box of supplies and I haven’t had time to replenish them. They were really good quality and I hate to buy inferior products just to get by until I’ve had a chance to look through everything.”

Claire smiled. “No problem at all. I’m glad of the company. How are you and your children settling in after your first few weeks?”

“Good so far. Everyone has been very kind to us.”

Claire wondered about the other woman’s story. She had heard from Ruth that the woman was a widow who had moved with her three children to be closer to her mother and aunt. Moving this close to the end of the school season seemed an odd choice for a mother, but Claire wasn’t about to pry.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what are you working on?” Janie asked. “It looks as if it’s going to be exquisite. I love that big heart pendant. Is it rose quartz?”

Claire closed a jump ring with her pliers. “It is. It was found by a rock hound friend of mine not very far from here.”

“It’s a great centerpiece to the design.”

“Thank you. I hope it will come together soon. I’m afraid I’m not at my best beading form right now. It’s a necklace I’m making for the scholarship benefit.”

The challenging piece used various precious and semiprecious gems all found natively in the Rockies. She had designed it using a variety of beading tech
niques and right now, Claire didn’t feel proficient at any of them.

“I imagine the cast makes things awkward.”

She smiled. “A bit, but I’ll soldier through it. I’m hoping the piece does well at the scholarship benefit.”

“Oh, you are a wicked girl. Let me take a look.” Sarah shifted toward the table and Claire wanted to hide the whole thing suddenly. Sarah was a true artist, in every sense of the word. The renowned painter owned a vacation home in the area with her husband, but unlike most of those who purchased second homes in the area to take advantage of the skiing, they rarely spent time in Hope’s Crossing in the winter. She said they preferred winters at their primary residence in Tucson, but both came to the cooler mountains to paint in the summer.

She was one of Claire’s favorite customers and she always enjoyed having her in the store, except today when she was struggling so much with the necklace design.

“It’s still a work in progress,” she said.

“Oh, don’t be coy. You know it’s going to be spectacular, especially the contrast between that aquamarine and the topaz. Why don’t you let me just pay you for it now and forgo all the trouble of having to bid for it at this auction?”

“What’s the fun in that?”

“You’re going to be difficult, aren’t you?”

“I’ve got to have
something
to auction off. I’m in charge of the whole thing.”

“I hadn’t heard about an auction,” Janie said. “When is it?”

“Two weeks from tomorrow. We’re actually having an entire day of activities to encourage people to help their neighbors. It’s in honor of a girl who was killed in a car accident last month.”

Janie’s eyes softened. “What a lovely idea!”

“You bought a house over on Sage Hill Road, right? If you have anything around your new home you could use help with, please let us know. Right now we have more volunteers than projects.”

“I can’t think of anything. Our house is quite well-maintained, but I’d love to volunteer my children. If nothing else, it will get them out of the house and perhaps help them make some new friends.”

“We’re hoping it’s fun for everyone who participates. We’ve got raffles and giveaways, free food throughout the day. We’re going to set up a bounce house and several other inflatable attractions like that over at Miner’s Park and for every half hour of time they volunteer, the children get a ticket.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.” Janie smiled as she finished off her second earring. “I have to say, I’ve been really impressed with Hope’s Crossing. I didn’t expect to feel so welcomed from the very first day we arrived.”

“It’s not perfect,” Claire said, thinking of Riley and the opposition that had become vocal and annoying, led by J. D. Nyman. “But it’s a nice place.”

“It’s why we keep coming back year after year,” Sarah said. “Every time we think it’s just too difficult keeping up two homes, we remember that’s one thing
we love most about Hope’s Crossing, besides Walter’s beloved fishing streams. We don’t find that same sense of community during the winter when we’re home in Tucson.”

“The moving van wasn’t parked at our house ten minutes before we had four or five neighbors over asking if they could help us unload,” Janie said. “It was a bit disconcerting, if you want the truth. I thought it was because they somehow knew my husband had just died.” She forced a smile. “But I don’t see how that could be possible. I have a feeling they would have showed up regardless of our situation.”

Claire tried to imagine losing her husband after a long, debilitating illness, as Ruth had told her was the case. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. She vowed to have Janie and her children over to dinner as soon as the craziness of the benefit subsided and she could breathe again.

“You know,” she said as she was ringing up the other woman’s bead purchases, “your family might be interested in helping with the construction of new playground equipment at that small park near you, the one that has only a couple measly little swings and a slide now. I can get you the information if you’d like.”

“I would love it!”

She handed over one of her many lists. “Write down your contact information for me and I’ll let that project coordinator know. Here’s my card, too. If you don’t hear from someone by next week, call me back and I’ll put you in touch with them.”

“Thank you!” With her new dangly earrings catching the late-morning sunbeams, Janie looked somehow
lighter as she left than she had when she came in. This was why Claire loved owning a bead shop. People came here for pretty little luxuries they might not otherwise allow themselves. Creating the pieces themselves added an extra layer of enjoyment and they invariably left happier than when they’d walked through the doors.

One bead at a time, she was trying to make the world a little brighter.

When she left, Sarah set down her magazine again. “I didn’t want to say this when you had another customer, but I think what you’re doing for this town is marvelous. I’ve been thinking about it and I would like to donate a painting to your auction. Just last week I finished an oil on canvas of the resident elk herd browsing in that meadow above Dutchman’s Pass. It’s quite lovely, one of my favorites in quite a while.”

“Are you sure?” Claire asked, awed at the offer. Sarah’s exquisite paintings hung in galleries across the West.

“Well, I can’t guarantee anyone will buy it, but Walter will at least bid on it so I don’t humiliate myself.”

No one buy it? Sarah’s work was sought after by collectors across the country. She’d heard somewhere her paintings were selling well into five figures. Goose bumps popped out on her arms. “Sarah, my word. Thank you. It’s too much.”

“It’s too much only if I say it’s too much. I want to do this. My heart has been broken for Maura since I heard about the accident. She has always been kind to us when we go for coffee at her bookstore. This is
just a small thing, but if it helps ease her pain a little, I want to do it.”

Maura had a way of drawing people to her. Dog-Eared Books & Brew was as much a town institution as the Center of Hope Café. Earlier in the week, Claire and Alex had stopped at Maura’s house and she had been dismayed at the changes in her friend. Everyone who knew and loved her was keeping collective fingers crossed this benefit would help her find a little hope herself.

“I’ll warn you,” Sarah went on, “you won’t catch me out raking leaves or building playground equipment or painting up some rickety old shed or whatever. A painting is all you’re getting out of me. But at least it’s something.”

Claire smiled and on impulse hugged Sarah’s whippet-thin shoulders. After a surprised moment, Sarah returned the hug briefly, then stepped away.

“I’d better go. I told Walter I would pick up some of that gooey macaroni and cheese he loves from the café for his lunch. If I don’t hurry he’ll be grousing around like a hungry grizzly, tearing open kitchen cabinets and knocking shelves out of the refrigerator.”

“We can’t have that.”

“I’ll take this magazine. I think I’m going to make that charm bracelet for my granddaughter’s birthday. Do you have all the supplies I’ll need?”

Claire quickly perused the list and nodded. “We should. I’ve got another copy of this. I’ll have all the findings ready for you when you come back and you’ll only need to pick out the beads you want to use.”

“That is why I put off all my bead projects until
we come back to Hope’s Crossing for the summer, my dear. That and, of course, Chester.”

At his name, her lazy hound thumped his tail on the rug. Claire smiled at both of them and rang up the magazine for Sarah.

When the other woman left, she let her dog out into the back garden. She had just returned inside and headed for the worktable when her cell phone gave a soft little wind-chime ringtone. It took her a moment to remember she had changed her mother’s ringtone to something a little more benign than the nuclear meltdown warning. She supposed that was progress.

“Hi, Mom. How are you?”

“Okay. Are you busy?”

Claire thought of all the phone calls she still had to make today for the benefit, the Venetian glass bead order she had been trying to place for a week and her pitifully slow progress on the necklace she was thinking of naming the Heart of Hope.

“Not bad. What’s up?”

“Any chance you can close the store for half an hour and come down to the bookshop? I was going to come over there after the lunch rush, but I’ve got a handful of customers who think I have all day to hang around.”

Claire chewed the inside of her cheek, grateful her mother couldn’t see her fighting a smile. Somehow Ruth hadn’t quite caught on that running a business had more to do with meeting your customers’ needs than vice versa.

“Evie should be coming downstairs in a few minutes. She can cover for me.”

“Great. I’ll see you in a while. I’ve got to go. No, sir,
I’m afraid we don’t carry any climbing guide books with Norwegian translations,” she heard her say in the background before Ruth cut off the call.

Claire set down her phone, marveling at the changes in her mother in just a few weeks. Ruth could still revert to her needy, demanding self on occasion, but working at the bookstore in Maura’s absence seemed to fill a need in her mother to be useful.

If she’d known how much Ruth would thrive in a retail setting, Claire would have encouraged her mother to get a job years ago. Not at String Fever, of course. The changes in her mother weren’t
that
extreme.

Maura’s bookstore was across the street and up Main Street on the opposite corner, three storefronts from the café. Fifteen minutes later, after Evie came down for her shift, Claire grabbed the cane she used these days instead of the crutches for stability and headed out into the gorgeous late-May afternoon, warm and sunny.

Everything had greened up beautifully except the very tops of the mountains, which retained their snow-caps year-round.

She couldn’t believe school would be out in only a week. The children had a summer full of fun activities planned, from baseball teams to tennis lessons to sleepaway camp. Add to that the impending arrival of their new half brother in a few months and the summer was bound to be as hectic as the past few weeks.

Claire walked past the bike shop and the year-round Christmas store the tourists loved, with its twinkling lights and the train in the window that ran three hundred sixty-five days a year. She crossed at the crosswalk
and headed toward the bookstore. If only they could have this sort of perfect weather on Giving Hope Day, with only a few plump white clouds to mar the vast blue sky….

Ooomph.
She was so busy sky-gazing that she plowed right into a solid bulk and caught her breath as a couple of strong arms grabbed her to keep her from stumbling.

“I’m sorry, Claire. My fault. Are you okay?”

Riley. Her insides tumbled around and she looked up. Yep. He was as gorgeous as ever. She hadn’t seen him up close since that night at her house. Even though he had driven past a few times when she had been outside with the children on his way to or from his own rental house, he hadn’t stopped.

Somehow she’d forgotten the shock of those green eyes, the angle of his jaw. He wore a tan jacket and a light blue dress shirt with no tie, his badge clipped to the front breast pocket, and she had an insane urge to just rest against him for a moment. Or a hundred moments.