Sweet Laurel Falls Read Online Free

time ago.
    “A child can never have too many people who love her, Mom. You
taught me that. Why did you keep my father out of our lives all this time? He
didn’t have any idea I even existed. If he hadn’t come to campus to give a
lecture, both of us would still be in the dark.”
    “A lecture?”
    “Right. On sustainable design, one of my own passions. It was
wonderful, really inspiring. I went up afterward to talk to him and mentioned I
was from Hope’s Crossing. It only took us a minute to figure things out.”
    Maura frowned. “Figure what out? That the two of us dated when
I was barely seventeen? How could you both instantly jump from that to thinking
he’s your…your sperm donor?”
    The term annoyed the hell out of him. “Because neither of us is
stupid. She told me who her mother was. When I asked how old she was, I could
figure out the math. I knew exactly who you were with nine months before her
birthday.”
    And ten months before and eleven months and every spare moment
they could get their hands on each other that summer.
    “That doesn’t prove a thing. You took off. You weren’t here,
Jack. How do you know I didn’t pick up with the whole basketball team after you
left?” Defiance and something that looked suspiciously like fear flashed in her
eyes.
    She had been a virgin their first time together. They both had
been, fumbling and awkward and embarrassed but certain they were deeply in love.
Even if not for the proof sitting beside him, he wouldn’t have believed the
smart and loving girl she had been would suddenly turn into the kind of girl who
would sleep around with just anybody.
    “Look at her,” he said, gentling his tone. “She has my mother’s
nose and my mouth and chin. We can run the DNA, but I don’t need to. Sage is my
daughter. For three days, I’ve just been trying to figure out why the hell you
didn’t tell me.”
    For the first time, she met his gaze for longer than a few
seconds. “Think about it, Jack,” she finally said. “What difference would it
have made? Would you have come back?”
    He couldn’t lie, to her or to himself. “No. But you could have
come with me.”
    “And lived in some rat-hole apartment while you dropped out of
college and worked three jobs to support us, resenting me the whole time? That
would have been the perfect happily-ever-after every young girl dreams
about.”
    “I still had a right to know.”
    She suddenly looked tired, defeated, and he saw deep shadows in
her eyes that he sensed had nothing to do with him.
    “Well, I guess you know now. Yes. She’s your daughter. There
was no one else. There it is. Now you know, and we can be one big, freaking
happy family for the holidays.”
    “Mom.” Sage moved forward a little as if to reach for Maura’s
hand, but then she checked the motion and slid back into her chair.
    Pain etched Maura’s features briefly, but she contained it.
“Okay. I should have told you. Give me a break here. I was just a scared kid who
didn’t know what to do. You left without a forwarding address, Jack, and didn’t
contact me one single time after you left, despite all your promises. What else
was I supposed to do? I finally tracked down your number at Berkeley about four
months after you left and tried to call you. Three times I tried in a week. Once
you were at the library, and twice you were on a date, at least according to
your roommate. I left my number, but you never called me back, which basically
gave me the message loud and clear that you were done with me. What more was I
supposed to do?”
    He remembered those first few months at school after that last
horrible fight with his father, after he had opted to leave everything
behind—even the only warm and beautiful thing that had happened to him in Hope’s
Crossing since his mother’s death.
    He remembered the message from Maura his roommate had given him
and the sloppily scrawled phone number. He had stared at it for hours and had
even dialed the