Free Sweet Laurel Falls by RaeAnne Thayne Page A

edge of the table pretty hard.”
    “Give me your coat.”
    “Why?”
    “Just give it to me, Jack!”
    He reluctantly handed over the custom-sewn leather jacket he
had picked up during his time in Italy. She bunched it up and tucked it under
Harry’s head. Even that bit of commotion didn’t make his father snap out of
it.
    “Come on, Harry, this is stupid. Wake up.” His father’s eyelids
fluttered a little at his voice, but his eyes didn’t open.
    If he had ever imagined a reunion with his father—which he
absolutely hadn’t —he was pretty sure this wasn’t
what he would have predicted, with his father sprawled out on the ground looking
lifeless and ashen.
    “Harry!” he barked.
    That seemed to do the trick. Harry’s eyelids jerked a few
times, and seconds later he finally opened his eyes fully. They were dazed and
blank for a moment before they sharpened, his gaze fixed on Jack with shades of
that same stunned disbelief. “What…happened?”
    Jack couldn’t seem to say anything, frozen in place by the
years of bitterness and hatred he had fed and nurtured for this man.
    “You fell,” Maura finally answered.
    She tugged and pulled the jacket to a better position under the
old man’s head and seemed unfazed when he batted away her hands.
    “Get away from me,” he snapped. “I just need to catch my
breath.”
    She eased away, picking a cell phone out of her pocket. “Fine.
You should know we charge extra for napping in the middle of the store.”
    “Smarty.”
    She gave him a tart look even as she started hitting buttons on
her phone.
    “What are you doing? Put that away! I hope you don’t think I’m
going to let you take a picture of me for all your girlfriends to cackle
about.”
    Jack noted with concern that, despite his protests, his
father’s voice still sounded feeble and his features hadn’t lost that pallid
cast.
    “I hadn’t planned to take a picture, no. But that’s a great
idea.”
    “What are you doing, then?”
    “Calling nine-one-one. You need to go to the emergency room to
be checked out.”
    If anything, that made Harry look even more horrified. “Forget
it. I’m fine. I just lost my balance, that’s all.” He tried to scramble up, and
Jack finally had to move forward to help Maura keep him in place.
    Harry gave a sharp intake of breath when Jack grabbed his arm
and gazed at him with an expression he couldn’t decipher.
    “You passed out in my store,” Maura said sternly. “I’m not
about to leave myself open to some future lawsuit where you claim negligence.
I’m calling the paramedics. You can fight it out with them.”
    Harry jerked his gaze away from Jack to summon a halfhearted
glower, but he subsided back against the cushion of his jacket. Really? He was
going to give in without a fight? For the first time, Jack began to wonder if
something was seriously wrong with Harry’s health.
    “This is just want you wanted, isn’t it?” Harry said bitterly.
It took a moment for Jack to realize the words were directed at him. “It
probably gives you no end of pleasure to come back after all these years and see
some weak, pathetic old man on the floor at your feet.”
    Any concern and sympathy he might have briefly entertained for
Harry dried up like the Mojave in August. “You’re not that old.”
    Harry frowned at him and gave Maura a nasty look in turn. “At
least help me up. I’m fine. I don’t need to be lying on the damn floor. Help me
to one of those chairs over there.”
    She looked undecided, then gazed around the crowd of curious
customers that had begun to gather around.
    “If we do, will you promise to stay put instead of trying to
juke around us and run out to avoid the EMTs?”
    “Very funny. I’m not running anywhere. Now help me up.”
    She sighed and reached for one of Harry’s arms, gesturing for
Jack to take the other. He would have liked to ignore her. Hell, he would have
liked to yank his eight-hundred-dollar Milano leather jacket out