Free Sweet Laurel Falls by RaeAnne Thayne

and Hope’s Crossing more.”
    “Maura,” he began, knowing he had no defense other than youth
and idiocy and his own single-minded resolve to make something out of his life
away from this place. Before he could figure out how to finish the sentence,
chimes rang softly on her front door and a new customer came in.
    He saw the man out of his peripheral vision for only a fleeting
instant, but something made him shift his head for a better look. Instantly, he
wished he hadn’t. Did his father have a freaking tracker on him?

CHAPTER FIVE
    “I S THAT BOOK ON SPELUNKING here yet?” Harry Lange
growled before he had even walked all the way through the doorway, as if every
employee had been lined up inside merely waiting for him to make an entrance. “I
could have had it a week ago if I had ordered the damn thing online.”
    His words were directed at Maura, Jack realized. Harry must
have seen her when he walked inside. It took another beat for his father to
recognize him, but Jack knew the instant he did.
Harry’s jaw sagged and ruddy color leached from his aging features as if
somebody had just slugged him in the gut.
    Maura looked from Harry to him and quickly stepped forward.
“I’m not sure, Mr. Lange. I’ll have to ask Ruth. She’s the one who handles the
special orders. If you can wait a few moments, I’ll see if I can find her.”
    Harry didn’t seem to have heard her. He continued to stare at
Jack, mouth slack and his eyes awash with a hundred tangled emotions Jack didn’t
want to see.
    So much for slipping into town and back out again without
seeing his father. Twice in the space of an hour must be some kind of cosmic
joke.
    The familiar raw fury for his father welled up, but now that he
was confronted with the actual man instead of only memories, it seemed muted,
somehow—as if the color and heat had bled from it as well.
    “J-Jackson?” Harry’s voice sounded strangled, as if he were
choking on one of the little mints from the checkout at Dermot Caine’s café.
    “Harry.” The single word came out clipped, cold.
    “I…hadn’t heard you were in town.”
    “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.” One he was quickly coming
to regret.
    “I see. How long will you…” His voice trailed off, and Jack
began to think maybe the pale cast to his features was from more than just
surprise.
    “I’m still working that out.”
    For politeness’ sake, he should probably move closer to his
father so they didn’t have to raise their voices to be heard a dozen feet apart,
but he couldn’t seem to generate the necessary forward momentum. Lord knew,
Harry wouldn’t be the one to budge. That much apparently hadn’t changed.
    Maura was finally the one to move first. She took a step
forward. “Mr. Lange, are you all right?” she asked suddenly, taking another few
steps.
    “I… No. Not really. Damn it.”
    His father lurched as if someone had struck him from behind. He
knocked a hip against a display table of new releases and swept a hand out to
steady himself, scattering books to the floor. Even so, he was unable to keep
his balance. Jack could see him start to head to the floor, but he was too far
away to reach him in time. Maura was closer, but even she couldn’t prevent Harry
from toppling. A hard crack sounded above the bustle from the coffee bar as the
side of his head made contact with the edge of the table before he slumped to
the ground.
    “Mr. Lange!” Maura exclaimed, kneeling next to the prone
figure.
    “Is he okay?”
    “I don’t know. He was standing there one minute, then hit the
ground the next. Mr. Lange!”
    She turned his father onto his back, and his aging features
were ashen and still. Was he dead? Had Jack managed to knock him off just by
showing up in town? He froze for a moment, aware of his own strange mix of
emotions—shock and dismay and most surprising, a completely unexpected
regret.
    “He’s unconscious!” Maura said. “Come on, Mr. Lange. Wake
up.”
    “He hit the