Free At Hidden Falls (Angel's Bay Novel) by Barbara Freethy

bay, they’d been after him to come up with plans for restoring the eighty-year-old theater to its former glory and bringing it up to new earthquake standards. While a part of him wouldn’t have minded seeing the theater shut down for good, he knew he couldn’t walk away from the work that generations of Hartleys had devoted their lives to without at least taking a look.
    Victoria was sitting on the steps in front of the courtyard that led into the theater. Two years younger than he, Tory was a slender dynamo with short, light brown hair and green eyes. She always seemed to be handling a dozen things at once. She had more patience than he did, more tact, and more compassion. She was also usually the calmest person in a family of drama queens and kings, but judging by her worried expression, something had thrown her off her game.
    “I’m not that late, am I?” he asked, stopping in front of her.
    She shook her head as she looked up at him. “It’s not you. Annie Dupont has disappeared. The teenager whose baby we were hoping to adopt,” she reminded him.
    “What are you talking about?” He sat down on the step next to her.
    “No one has seen Annie since yesterday. I just got off the phone with Joe Silveira. He wants to talk to Steve and me this evening. He’s meeting with all of the prospective parents, hoping that Annie might have said something to one of us.”
    “Did she?”
    “The only thing she told me was that she thought I’d make a great mother.” Her voice caught on the last word, and she drew in a shaky breath, obviously barely hanging on to her composure.
    Tory’s struggles with fertility had been going on for more than seven years, and she’d only recently come to terms with the idea of adopting. “I’m sorry. I know your hopes were high,” he said.
    “You’d think I would have learned by now not to get my hopes up. It was a long shot. Annie was talking to other parents, but I still let myself imagine holding that baby in my arms.” She shook her head. “What a fool I was.”
    “You said no one has seen Annie, but what about the baby?”
    “She left him behind with Charlotte and her mother. It looks like the pressure of trying to decide what to do became too much for her, and she ran away. I don’t know what will happen now. Maybe the chief will know more when we meet later.” She paused. “All that aside, I’m worried about Annie. She’s young, scared, and alone. I’m sure she’s emotionally fragile, and I don’t want her to hurt herself in any way.”
    “Is there any chance of that?”
    “Well, Charlotte met Annie after she jumped off the pier into the bay when she was a few months pregnant.”
    “So she’s not very stable.”
    “She had a rough childhood. Her father is a war veteran and crazy, from what I understand. Her mother died a few years ago. But Annie has been thriving with Charlotte and her mother. I want her to come back, even if she chooses not to give her child away, because her baby needs a mother.”
    Nick put his arm around Tory’s shoulders and gave her a hug. She had always had a soft heart. “I know how much you care about both of them. Maybe this is a temporary thing. Annie got scared and took off to clear her head. She’ll come back and make the right decision.”
    “I hope you’re right. But since when are you the optimist in the family?” she added dryly.
    He smiled. “Don’t get used to it.”
    She got to her feet. “We should go inside. Mom and Dad have been driving me crazy, asking when you’re coming. They want to get you started on plans as soon as possible.”
    “I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” he reminded her as he stood up. “I said I’d take a look.”
    “Oh, please. Once you set foot in that building, there will be no turning back. Besides the fact that everyone in the family will hound you relentlessly, you’ll get caught up in the excitement, in the magic—you know you will. Deep down inside, you’re a Hartley, and