Raeanne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One

Except for those children they passed, the streets appeared quiet, almost deserted. Most of the year-round residents of Hope’s Crossing would be at the funeral for Layla Parker. Ruth was there, which was the sole reason Holly and Jeff were the designated drivers taking Claire from the hospital to home.

Her mother couldn’t miss the funeral, not when she’d been friends with Mary Ella since they were girls. Claire understood that and had chosen to bite her lip and say nothing when Ruth arranged with Jeff and Holly to take her home from the hospital without consulting her on the matter. She would have preferred to call a taxi. Okay, truth be told, she would rather have tried to wheel herself the four hilly miles from the hospital to home rather than be dependent on her ex-husband.

“Careful on those bumps, honey.” Holly rested one of her perfectly manicured hands on Jeff’s arm. “Maybe you should slow down a little.”

“It’s fine. I’m only going twenty-two miles per hour. It’s a thirty-five zone.”

If he were speeding, he would still probably be safe from a ticket because Riley and most of his police department would probably be at the funeral with the rest of the town.

“How’s everything been at home?” she asked Macy quickly.

“Okay. While you’ve been in the hospital and we’ve been staying at Dad and Holly’s, I’ve been stopping at the house to take in the newspaper and the mail after school.”

“We dropped Chester off at the house before we went to the hospital. He’s super-excited to be back home.”

She could imagine. Holly wasn’t a big dog lover and probably insisted their poor aging basset hound sleep in the cold garage.

“You should have seen him, Mom. He went through every room, wagging his tail like crazy. You’d think he’d been gone a month instead of just a few days.”

If Claire had possessed a tail, she would probably do the same thing when they reached her house, she was that eager to be home. She couldn’t wait to be in her own space again.

Had it really been only five days since the accident? She felt as if she’d lived a dozen lifetimes in those days.

“I still think it’s too early for you to be going home.” Jeff frowned at her in the rearview mirror.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to take that up with Dr. Murray. He’s the one who signed the release papers.”

“You can’t take care of yourself. Geez, Claire, you can’t even get to the bathroom on your own.”

She forced herself to smile patiently, even as she fought the urge to remind Jeff that while he had the right to his opinions, she no longer had to listen to them. Truly one of the better things about not being married to the man anymore.

“Ruth will be staying at the house the first few nights. She’s insisting.”

Unfortunately, she hadn’t divorced her mother. It was a little tougher to ignore Ruth’s opinions, much as she would like to.

While Claire just wanted to go home and crawl into bed for a few weeks, yank the covers over her head and forget the rest of the world existed, she had two children who still needed to eat and do their homework and feed the dog. Pity parties were for women without obligations.

She had to be realistic about her limitations. Jeff was correct. Just taking care of herself was going to be enough of a challenge.

Having her mother there for a few days would be a big help. For a short time anyway, she could endure her mother harping on everything from the smelly dog to Owen’s muddy tennis shoes in the hall to the bad haircut of the news anchor on her favorite channel.

Claire had already resolved that she would simply grit her teeth and think how grateful she was that she still had a mother who cared about her and who was willing to step in for a few—and only a few, please God—days.

“What about after she leaves?” Holly asked. “Would you like me to stay with you for a few days? I would be more than happy to.”

Claire offered a weak smile while her insides writhed at the idea. The only thing worse than Ruth in her space for a few days would be Holly, all big teeth and perfect hair and her desperate need for Claire to be her friend.

“That’s a lovely offer, Holly. Really. Thank you. But I’m sure by the first of next week, the kids and I will have figured things out together and I should be a little more self-sufficient. Anyway, you don’t need the stress of worrying about somebody else right now. You need to take care of yourself and the little one.”

“I have had contractions every day since the accident,” she confessed, looking so young and worried that Claire was compelled to offer what little comfort she could.

“I’m sure they’re simply Braxton-Hicks. Nothing to worry about,” she said.

“That’s what I’ve told her.” Jeff gave his young wife a fond, indulgent sort of look. “She thinks just because my specialty is orthopedics, I’ve forgotten my OB-GYN rotation. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been through this twice before.”

If Claire remembered correctly, she was the one who’d been through this twice before, but the whole situation was just too strange for her and she wasn’t in the mood to point that out.

Jeff turned onto Blackberry Lane just then and a moment later pulled into the driveway, sparing her from having to come up with an answer.

For a moment, Claire just wanted to sit here and gaze at the wonderful familiarity of her house, bricks a weathered red, that charming porch out front, the ironwork fence with the arrowed finials around the perimeter of the yard.

She loved this house and had for years, long before the day she and Jeff made an offer on it three years ago. It was hers alone now, hers and the children’s, but she had never been so happy to be there.

Making her way from car to house was a bit of an ordeal. Beyond the difficulties of the transfer from the backseat to the wheelchair she was stuck in for a few weeks at least, her front door had four steps, too many for the portable folding ramp Jeff had wangled from somewhere. Owen finally suggested they use the back door leading to the kitchen because it only had two steps and a slightly larger doorway for the wheelchair, and finally Macy pushed her inside and she was home.

Chester gave a happy bark of greeting—as happy as his barks could sound anyway—but then he freaked out at something, maybe her cast or the sight of the wheelchair, and headed for his safe zone under the kitchen table.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Owen cajoled. “Come on out. It’s just Mom.”

“He’ll get used to it,” Claire said, although she’d been dealing with the whole thing for five days and she still wasn’t used to it all.

“He’s not coming. What a dorky dog.” Macy shook her head. “Maybe you should try one of his treats.”

As much as she loved Chester, Claire was too achy and exhausted right now to care much about showing up on the dog’s popularity list, but because it seemed so important to the kids, she took the treat Macy handed her from the pantry and held it down at the dog’s eye level.

Chester hesitated for only a moment before he waddled to her side for the treat, then started sniffing the wheels of the chair and her outstretched toes sticking out of the cast.

“As we talked about at the hospital, you’re several weeks from being able to tackle the stairs in this house,” Jeff said rather pompously. “We’ve moved some of your things down to the guest bedroom.”

“I know.” That part she didn’t mind. The guest room was actually one of the nicer rooms of the house, with an en suite bathroom and wide windows overlooking the mountains. She had created such a comfortable little spot there that even after the divorce, Jeff’s parents still preferred staying with her whenever they came to visit from their house in Arizona, much to Holly’s chagrin.

“We like to be closer to the children,” JoAnn had tried to explain to Holly during their last visit, but Claire suspected even after their new grandchild was born, the Bradfords would prefer this place, with its sunny garden and basketball hoop in the driveway to the glass and cedar showplace Jeff and Holly had built up in Snowcrest Estates.

“I brought down all your pillows and your favorite quilt,” Macy said. “The Western Star that your Grandma Van Duran made when you were a little girl. Holly helped me put fresh sheets on the bed for you.”

“Thank you. Both of you.” Claire managed a smile.

“You need to rest now,” Holly said sternly. “Jeff and I will stay here with the children until the funeral is over and your mother can get away and come here.”

“Can I drive you in?” Owen asked.

She smiled at her eager-to-please eight-year-old. “Of course.”

With care and concentration, he maneuvered the chair through the doors, which were just wide enough for it to fit. She was definitely going to have to come up with another solution than this wheelchair or all the lovely historic woodwork of the door frames she had worked so hard to refinish would be dinged and scraped.

As soon as she reached the bed and started the complicated process of transferring from the chair, she realized with not inconsiderable dismay that she would have to change into a nightgown from the skirt and cotton shirt her mother had brought to the hospital for her trip home.

The enormity of the task, given the cast on her arm, completely overwhelmed her. “Can you send Macy back to help me change?” she asked Owen.

“Don’t be silly,” Holly exclaimed from the doorway, where she and Jeff had apparently followed them. “I’ll help you.”

She absolutely did not want her ex-husband’s young, adorably pregnant wife helping her, but she didn’t exactly have a lot of options here. “Thank you,” she murmured.

When Jeff made no move to leave, Claire raised her eyebrows. It was an awkward situation all the way around. Although they had been married for ten years and had once been as intimate as two people could be with each other, that was in the past and she wasn’t changing clothes in front of him.

Jeff finally clued in and cleared his throat. “Come on, Owen. Let’s go see what we can find for lunch. You hungry?”

They left, closing the door behind them, leaving her and Holly alone.

While Claire did her best with the buttons on her shirt, Holly immediately went to the mirror-topped antique dresser and pulled out one of Claire’s nightgowns she and Macy must have brought down.

“I have to admit, it’s weird for me to see you this way,” Holly said.

“What do you mean?”

Holly gestured to the wheelchair and the hospital bed Jeff must have arranged to replace the queen normally in the room. Claire didn’t think that was strictly necessary, although she supposed it would help with transfers from the bed to the wheelchair. “I don’t know. Needy, I guess. You’re the most together person I know. It’s just…different to see you otherwise.”

“It’s not so comfortable for me, either,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Holly said quietly. “Really sorry. It must be hard for you.”

“Yes,” she admitted with reluctance.

“Well, don’t worry about it. I’m glad to help. Let’s get you more comfortable.”

Few moments in Claire’s life were as excruciatingly humiliating as being forced to sit, helpless and weak, as her ex-husband’s young and beautiful new wife helped her into the loose cotton nightgown.

Holly was actually very considerate and kind about the whole thing, to her relief, but by the time they finished Claire was exhausted and humiliated and could only think about another pain pill. Unfortunately, she wasn’t due to take a dose for a few hours yet. She was vigilant about keeping to the correct schedule, afraid of becoming dependent. She didn’t know if it was a genetic predisposition, but her mother’s dark history was entirely too vivid in her memory.

“There you are, Claire,” Holly said when she was finally settled into the bed, the soft quilt tucked to her chin. “Does that feel better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“It’s no trouble.” She smiled. “If you want the truth, it’s kind of nice to have you lean on me for a change instead of always the other way around. You just rest now. Come on, Chester. Let’s go.”

Claire hadn’t realized the dog was there, as well. She opened one eye and spotted his pudgy grumpiness circling around the rug beside the bed, preparing to settle in.

“No, leave him.”

Holly frowned. “Are you sure? He can be such a bother.”

“I’m sure.”

Holly looked skeptical but she shrugged. “Do you need anything else? Water? A book or something?”

“Only my cell phone over on the dresser, please.”

She needed to try again to call Maura after the funeral. Every day since the accident, she had tried numerous times, but Maura wouldn’t answer the phone. Claire couldn’t blame her. She was sure her friend was overwhelmed right now and the last thing she wanted to do was talk on the phone and endure more platitudes. Until Claire could make it in person to see her friend, the phone would have to do and she vowed to keep calling until Maura would talk to her.

“Thank you for taking care of the children so I don’t have to worry about them.”

“You’re welcome. Really.” Holly smiled and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Claire scooted as far as she could to the right side of the bed and reached down with her good arm. Chester licked at her fingers for a moment, then nudged at her to be petted.

She scratched his warm fur and thought about how much she hated being on the receiving end of help until she fell asleep.

“WHAT WAS THAT MAN THINKING? You can’t stay there by yourself. I’m coming over.”

Claire shifted her weight on the couch, holding the phone with one hand while she reached to rub the pain above her left eyebrow and bumped her head with plaster.

After nearly two weeks with the stupid thing, one would think she would remember it was there but she still found she forgot at odd moments.

“That’s not necessary, Mom. You don’t need to come over. I’m fine. Jeff must think so, right? Otherwise he and Holly wouldn’t have taken the kids to Denver for the weekend.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t have a bit of sense when it comes to Holly. If she said she wanted to take the kids to Denver, he would take them even if you were lying unconscious on the floor when they left.”

Claire blinked. Wow. That was unusual—for her mother to actually criticize her ex-husband. “Even Dr. Murray was happy with the way I’m healing,” she said. “Between the walker and the rolling office chair Alex rigged up for me, I can get anywhere on the main floor on my own and I’m keeping my fully charged cell phone on my person at all times.”

“I don’t care. I still don’t like the idea of you alone in that big house, especially on a night like tonight.”

Claire gazed outside at the rain sharply pelting the windows, hurled by the gusting canyon winds. For more than a week, Hope’s Crossing had seen lovely weather, which she’d been forced to enjoy from inside while she recuperated. Today had been overcast and cheerless, though, and an hour ago the wind and rain had started in earnest.

She had been looking forward to popping a bag of popcorn in the microwave and enjoying the rainstorm by herself, the first time she had truly been alone since the accident.

She had been home from the hospital for a week and had spent that time constantly surrounded by well-meaning friends. When Ruth wasn’t able to be there, she made sure someone else could stay. Evie or Alex or Angie or one of a half-dozen other friends.

Claire was grateful for all they’d done for her. Alex had coordinated so many meals that Claire now had a refrigerator and freezer full of food. Other friends had taken her shopping list to the store for her and brought back an armload of supplies and still another coordinated the car pool for the children so Claire didn’t need to worry about getting them to soccer or piano lessons. She knew from her one brief stilted phone call with Maura two days earlier that her friend was receiving much the same.

Claire was deeply grateful for all the help, but she was desperate for a moment to herself just to think.

Ruth didn’t seem to agree. “I don’t like this. Not a bit. What if you fall down? You could lie there all night and no one would even know. I’ll just come and sleep upstairs in your room again and you won’t even know I’m there.”

“I’m not going to fall. And remember, I’ve got my phone with me constantly. If I need help, I can call, email or text someone for help in a second.”

“Not if you’re unconscious.”

She held the phone away from her ear and screwed up her eyes, fighting the urge to bang the phone a few times against her head.

After the past six days, she should be an expert on dealing with overprotective people. Her mother, Holly, even the children had joined in the coddling action.

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” she repeated. If I trip in the bathroom and break my neck, you’ll be the first one I call. “I’m just going to sit here on the sofa and watch a DVD for an hour and then go straight to sleep, I swear. There’s absolutely no need for you to come over. I know how much you hate driving in this weather.”

Her mother hesitated a little at that and Claire knew she had pushed exactly the right button.

Ruth didn’t like driving at night or in snow or rain—a definite inconvenience when one chose to make a home in the high country of the Rockies. If she had to go somewhere during stormy weather, she inevitably would call Claire for a ride.

“Are you sure?” Claire heard the note of hesitation in her mother’s voice and mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Positive. I’ll be perfectly fine. I’ve got Chester to keep me company and enough leftovers in the house to last me until July.”

Ruth waffled for a few more moments before she finally caved. “All right. Because I guess you don’t want my company, I’ll stay put.”

Claire refused to feel even a twinge of guilt for the slightly hurt note in her mother’s voice.

“But call me if you change your mind and decide you want me there.”

“I will. Thanks, Mom. Good night.”

Her mother hung up and Claire closed her eyes and leaned her head against the couch, just relishing the silence, broken only by Chester’s snores on the floor beside the couch.

Dealing with her mother always exhausted her. Sometimes she was deeply jealous of the easy, comfortable relationship Alex and her sisters had with Mary Ella. Claire wanted that, too, but it seemed like every interaction with her mother ended in weary frustration that Ruth could be so needy and demanding.

Ruth hadn’t always been like that. Before her father’s scandalous death, Claire remembered her mother as a strong, funny, independent woman. Someone very much like Katherine Thorne.

When Claire was eight or nine, her mother had been the PTA president during a tumultuous time when some in Hope’s Crossing had been trying to gather support to build a new elementary school. Claire had vivid memories of her mother speaking out with vigor and eloquent prose about the importance of educating young minds in a safe, clean environment.

The memory always made her sad because of the stark contrast between that capable woman and what her mother had become later.

Claire sighed, reaching for the rolling office chair she had found much more convenient than the wheelchair she’d brought home from the hospital. She transferred to it and scooted with her healing sprained ankle into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and scanned the contents for something appealing to warm for her dinner. She finally settled on some of the sinfully divine cream of potato soup Dermot Caine had brought over from the diner a few days earlier—perfect for a cold, stormy night.

She dished some into a bowl, grateful the children hadn’t unloaded the dishwasher before they left or she would have had a struggle trying to reach the plates and bowls in the upper cupboard.

As she waited for the soup to warm in the microwave, her thoughts returned to her mother.

She could pinpoint exactly the moment Ruth had changed. April twentieth, twenty-four years ago, 11:42 p.m. She had been twelve years old, her brother eight, the same ages her kids were now. The night had been rainy, like this one. She remembered she had been sleeping when something awakened her. The doorbell, she realized later. Claire had blinked awake and lain there in bed, listening to the branches of the big elm click against the window in the swirling wind and wondering who could be ringing the doorbell so late and if her father would be angry with them because he always rose early for work.

And then she’d heard her mother cry out, a desperate, horrified kind of sound. With a sudden knot of apprehension in her stomach, Claire had opened her door fully and sidled out to the landing, looking down through the bars.

She had recognized the longtime police chief, Dean Coleman, but had been able to hear only bits of his hushed conversation.

Dead. Both shot. Jealous husband. I’m sorry, Ruth.

Everything changed in that moment. Gossip roared faster than a wind-stirred fire. Even though the adults in her life had tried to keep it from her and her brother, their children heard and absorbed snippets about the scandal and a few of them had delighted in whispering about it loud enough so they knew that Claire would overhear.

Her father—the man she had adored, president of the biggest bank in town, a leader of church and community—had been having a torrid affair with a cocktail waitress at the Dirty Dog, the sleazy bar outside of town.

Apparently the woman had a jealous husband, a biker thug by the name of Calvin Waters. When he came home early one night, he caught them in bed together. In a drunken rage, he shot them both with a sawed-off shotgun before turning the gun on himself.

The scandal had exploded in Hope’s Crossing. She could still remember those awful days as she had endured stares and whispers and hadn’t known what to do with all the anger and shame inside her—or with the grief for her lost innocence.

Claire and her brother had endured those first difficult months by keeping a few friends close and basically sticking their heads down and plowing through.

Ruth, on the other hand, had completely fallen apart. She had taken to her bed for several months after the scandal, addicted to alcohol and the Valium doctors had prescribed her for sleep.

Left with little choice, Claire had stepped up to take care of the three of them. She had been the one who did laundry, who fixed lunch for her younger brother, who walked him to school and helped with his homework and comforted him when he cried for a mother who had been too absorbed in her loss and humiliation to see her children needed her, too.

Claire knew now, taking charge of her flailing family had been her way of dealing with the chaos.

She sipped at her soup, wishing the rich, creamy taste could wipe away the bitter memories. Ruth had lived in that numb state for about six months, until Mary Ella and Katherine and other friends had forced her to break free of her addiction.

She had fought it with courage and strength and Claire would always admire that in her mother. But even after rehab, Ruth had continued to rely on Claire to make sure her life flowed smoothly.

Claire knew she bore plenty of responsibility for the patterns they had fallen into. Even when she had lived away from Hope’s Crossing while Jeff was in medical school, she had handled any crisis of Ruth’s long-distance, whether that was dealing with a parking ticket or a doctor bill or calling a plumber to repair a leaky faucet.

She could justify to herself that if she didn’t take care of things, her mother’s life would fall back into chaos, but she knew that was only an excuse. This was her way of feeling needed, important, to a mother who had basically forgotten her children amid her own pain.

With a sigh, she set down her soup. She wasn’t hungry after all. She would just watch the movie, she decided. She wheeled the chair to the sink and rinsed the bowl, reaching the switch on the disposal only with the help of a large soup ladle.