Page 7 of Midnight Clear

“And you already sold the house?” Sophie asked.

“We closed this morning,” Maggie said gently. “We bought a little place right on the beach. I’m not going to lie. I’m looking forward to not spending the winter having to shovel driveways and sidewalks.”

“Instead you’ll be boarding up windows for hurricanes,” Junie cried.

“Nonsense,” Lori said. “I’m sure there are plenty of attractive young men we could hire to do it for us.”

“Are you in a rebellious stage?” Junie asked. “Is this because of menopause? Maybe you need to find a man and settle down.”

Lori just grinned unrepentantly and inhaled deeply as the waitress set another basket of rolls on the table. “Who says I haven’t got one?” she asked slyly.

“Aunt Lori!” Junie said.

Sophie felt tears prick her eyes, but she blinked them back as she stared at her mother. A look of understanding passed between them.

“I want you to be happy,” Sophie finally said. “I can think of no one who deserves it more than you. Thank you for everything you’ve sacrificed for us.”

Maggie’s eyes misted and she said, “It’s not sacrifice. It’s love. That’s what mothers do.”

ChapterThree

Hank O’Hara loved early mornings.

He’d been in construction long enough that anything past 5 a.m. was sleeping late. He liked his routine. He liked waking up to the smell of coffee as the automatic coffee maker brewed its first pot of the day. And he loved the heated floors of the cabin he’d built with his own two hands as he shuffled to the kitchen to get his day started.

His pattern rarely changed.

Hank poured his first cup of coffee and made his way back to the bathroom where he stepped into the large walk-in shower that looked out over the lake. It was frozen and covered in a fresh dusting of snow that had fallen overnight, but the snow had stopped and there was a clear view of a perfect, untouched landscape. There was a silvery sheen of light that reflected across the ice as the sun rose on the other side of the mountain. It was a priceless view, and one he treasured every morning.

He dressed in jeans and a white thermal undershirt, and then he put a thick wool flannel shirt on top of it. His laptop was open and he was already reading through emails from everyone from his foremen to his lawyers about the different properties O’Hara Construction was involved in.

He’d grown up with a hammer in his hand. His parents’ ranch was just a couple of miles down the road, and while he hadn’t loved waking up at the crack of dawn to feed animals and muck out stalls, he had loved hopping on the four-wheeler with his tool belt and mending fences or any other structure that had always seemed to need fixing.

Hank spent the next hour on the phone and sorting out meetings, and then he looked at the time. He didn’t want to be late for his meeting with Sophie Jacobs. She was skittish enough as it was, and he couldn’t say he blamed her. From her way of thinking, he was the Big Bad Wolf coming to devour poor Little Red Riding Hood.

He rinsed out his coffee cup in the sink and packed up his laptop in his leather satchel. Most of his work nowadays required technology instead of hammer and nails. But that was the price of success.

He put on his boots and slipped on his lambskin coat, and then he left through the kitchen into the heated garage where his 4X4 pickup truck sat waiting. It was a working man’s truck, with all the amenities of a luxury sedan. He spent more time in the truck than he did at home.

It took twenty minutes to drive from the land his family had owned for more than a hundred and fifty years and into town. It gave him a good chance to think about Sophie. They’d probably never said more than a few sentences to each other in the last ten years, but boy, did she make a lasting impression.

All those corkscrew curls flying wildly around a face with sharp cheekbones and a stubborn chin. She was tiny, but there was an unmistakable grit about her that made a person look twice.He’dcertainly looked twice. And the second time he’d looked he’d noticed those eyes. Almost too big for her face. And the color of the aged whiskey his father kept in his office drawer that he pretended his mother didn’t know about.

He’d been looking at her ever since.

The irony was she hadn’t looked twice at him. The woman worked nonstop and had never given him more than a quick hello or a passing glance. She was solely focused on making that bookstore something of her own. And she had. But sometimes, no matter how hard a person worked, things came against them that were out of their control.

Now he could only pray that she actually showed up for the meeting.

He sighed and shifted in his seat as he turned into the parking lot of the newest condos he’d been building. They were posh and expensive and had gorgeous views from every window. They were half done and the goal was to be open by late summer. Almost every unit had already been sold. No, Laurel Valley was no longer the sleepy, hidden town it had once been. The population was growing and they had no choice but to let it.

His office was set up on the ground floor of the condos for now, but instead of going inside he walked to the crosswalk and then across the street toward the large Christmas tree. Downtown was different this early in the morning. Most of the shops and the ice-skating rink didn’t open until ten, so there was only a scattering of people out and about.

He looked across all the faces, but Sophie was nowhere to be seen. He checked his phone again and saw it was still another ten minutes before he’d told her to arrive. A lack of confidence had never been one of his weaknesses. But he was starting to second-guess himself and thinking he might have handled it all wrong with Sophie. That stubborn tilt to her chin was there for a reason.

On the opposite side of the rink was a small outdoor restaurant that was open only during the tourist seasons. There were tables with red umbrellas in the summer, and in the winter there were heaters that sat between the tables. They only served breakfast and lunch, and the hostess beamed at him as he approached.

“What’s up, Hank?” she asked. “We don’t usually see you for breakfast.”

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