Sweet Laurel Falls. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ spot. Having dear friends and family members surrounding her in Hope’s Crossing was both a blessing and a curse. She knew they loved her and worried for her. While she understood their concern and tried to be grateful, mostly she just found it exhausting and overwhelming.

      Sometimes that ever-present concern made her feel as if she had been buried alive under an avalanche. It pressed down on her, heavy and suffocating, until all she wanted to do was scramble for an air pocket.

      Even her little bungalow on Mountain Laurel Road wouldn’t remain a haven for long. In a few days, her daughter Sage would be coming home from college for the holidays, bringing yet another pair of watchful eyes.

      She could do it. A few more weeks of pretending, and then she could have the cold nights of January to herself.

      After one last look around, she suddenly remembered she’d meant to grab a couple extra copies of this month’s book club selection off the shelf, in case anybody forgot theirs and needed it for reference. She had several copies in the display near the front, she remembered, and hurried in that direction.

      A light snow drifted past the front display window, the big, fluffy flakes reflecting the colorful Christmas lights on storefronts up and down Main Street. Hope’s Crossing was a true winter wonderland and local businesses worked hard to make the town glow with an old-fashioned, enticing charm. Nearly every store had some kind of light display. Hers were LED icicles that appeared to be dripping.

      The effort seemed to be working. Her store bustled with customers and, judging by the pedestrian and vehicle traffic on a normally slow Thursday night, the other businesses on Main Street were enjoying the same success.

      An SUV snagged the last parking space in front of the café across the street and a few stores down from her. A man in a leather jacket and Levi’s climbed out and snowflakes immediately landed on his wavy dark hair and the shoulders of his warm cocoa-colored coat. He looked sharp and put together.

      Everyone would be arriving any second now and she should go put the finishing touches on the scene she had created, but for some reason she was drawn to the man she could still barely see.

      Some indefinable aspect of him—the angle of his jaw or the way he moved—called to mind the image of her first love. Jackson Lange, sexy and dangerous, young, angry, ferociously smart.

      She rarely thought about Jack anymore, except on the rare occasions when his unpleasant father came into the store. Why she would be wasting time wondering about him now when she had so much to do was a mystery.

      The man walked around the other side of the vehicle to let someone out of the passenger side, a gesture she didn’t see enough these days. She was curious to see his companion, but before she could catch a glimpse of the woman, the front door of the shop opened and Claire and Evie burst through, bringing the scent of snow and Christmas. Their mingled laughter chimed more sweetly than carols.

      “I know,” Claire said. “That’s what I told him. But this is his first Christmas as a stepfather, and I swear, he’s more excited than Owen or Macy. I’ve had to hide the present stash a half-dozen times, and he finds every blasted spot.”

      “What do you expect, honey?” Evie untwisted her scarf, hand-knitted in a heathery wool that dangled with beads instead of fringe. “He’s a trained detective. It’s kind of what he does.”

      The two of them had probably walked over from the bead store Claire owned, just down the street a block. Evie rented an apartment upstairs from Claire. For now, anyway. Evie was dating Brodie Thorne, her friend Katherine’s son, and Maura expected their relationship was progressing quickly.

      Claire’s soft, pretty features lit up when she saw her. “Maura, honey, the store looks fabulous. I keep meaning to tell you every day when I come in for coffee, but you’re never standing still long enough.”

      “Your mom did a lot of the work. It was her idea to hang all the snowflakes and the ornaments. Isn’t that brilliant?”

      Ruth had been working at the bookstore for months, but Claire still seemed baffled by it. Maura couldn’t blame her. No one was more surprised than Maura when Ruth’s offer to help out temporarily during those dark days and weeks in the spring had turned into a permanent arrangement that had worked out beautifully for everyone concerned.

      “Ruth is a great employee,” she assured Claire again. “Hardworking and dependable, with these wonderful, unexpected flashes of ingenuity, like the snowflakes.”

      “And here she is now,” Evie announced.

      Sure enough, a moment later Ruth walked in, along with Maura’s mother, Mary Ella, and Katherine Thorne. With them was Janie Hamilton, a fairly new addition to town and another lost lamb Katherine had taken under her wing, and right behind them was Charlotte Caine, who owned the candy store in town.

      Maura took a deep breath and put on her game face, that forced smile that had become second nature since her world had changed forever eight months earlier. “Welcome, everyone. I’m so happy you can all come.”

      She stepped forward to hug and brush cheeks with everyone as they all began to shed coats and scarves and hats like penguins molting in the spring. Everyone seemed to have on holiday party clothes: shimmery blouses, festive patterned scarves, dangling earrings and beaded necklaces.

      She felt drab in her suede jacket, tailored cream shirt and jeans, though she was wearing one of her favorite chunky wood-bead necklaces she had made at String Fever last year.

      “What about Alex?” she asked. “Isn’t she coming?”

      “Angie’s picking her up,” her mother assured her. “They texted me a few minutes ago to tell me they’re running late. As usual.”

      “Whew. That’s a relief. She’s supposed to be bringing dessert, those delicious pumpkin spice cupcakes she makes.”

      “The ones with the cinnamon buttermilk icing? Oh, yay!” Claire said. “I guess since I’m not trying to fit into a wedding dress anymore, I might be able to let myself have one.”

      Maura could probably afford to eat five or six, since all her clothes fit her loosely now. Amazing how little appetite she had these days. “Everybody grab coffee or tea or whatever you’re drinking from the counter. I’ve got us set up in the corner.”

      She ushered everyone over to the coffee counter in time to see April hang her apron on the hook. Josh Kimball had come in to replace her for the evening shift. He waved and grinned his charmer of a grin at her, and she managed to dredge up a small smile for his perpetual raccoon eyes, white in an otherwise bronzed face where his goggles blocked the sun while he was snowboarding.

      “I’m off. I’ll see you later,” April said as she grabbed her coat.

      “Thank you for everything. Good luck with the night patrol. See you tomorrow.”

      “You got it.” April swung open the door just as a couple walked in—and suddenly all the air whooshed out of Maura’s lungs.

      It was the man she had seen a half hour earlier entering the café, the same impractical leather jacket, the same wavy dark hair, the same plaid scarf.

      In the hanging track lights of her store, she could clearly see her mistake.

      This man didn’t simply bear a mild, passing resemblance СКАЧАТЬ