RaeAnne Thayne - Willowleaf Lane

She could only imagine how the café must have buzzed with the news. People would be talking about this for some time to come.

“Well, nobody had the courtesy to warn me. I just about fell over when he walked in. I still can’t believe it. How can he return to town like nothing’s happened? Does he expect us to just throw out the red carpet like this town has always done for him?”

“Now, Charley...”

She perched on the edge of the desk. “I’m serious. He gives Hope’s Crossing a bad name. I can’t believe people can’t see that. Now he’s back and he’s going to dredge everything up all over again.”

“I think you’re exaggerating a wee bit.” Dermot gave her a chiding sort of look, the same one he used to wear when she didn’t finish her orange juice in the morning or when she chose to stay home and study instead of go to social activities at school. “A man shouldn’t have to pay the rest of his life because of a few poor decisions.”

“Poor decisions? I’d call it more than that. He was a drug dealer! He ran a steroid and prescription drug ring out of the team locker room.”

“The charges against him were dropped, remember?”

“Because of a technicality in the evidence. He’s never once denied it.”

She didn’t want to admit to her father that she had followed coverage of the case religiously, though she had a feeling Dermot might already know. He seemed to have uncanny insight when it came to her, as much as she might try to be obscure and mysterious.

Spencer’s situation was one of those fall-from-grace scandals the media seemed to relish voraciously. He had been a much-admired sports celebrity with a huge paycheck and a slew of endorsements—a kid from nowhere with fierce talent and extraordinary good looks who had made it big early in the game and continued to produce stunning wins for the Pioneers for the next decade.

She couldn’t lie to herself. She had also followed Spence’s career with the same interest as she did the scandal later. Despite past betrayals, she had celebrated his success, happy for him that he had attained every goal he set out for himself as a driven, angry teen. His nickname, Smokin’ Hot Gregory—Smoke—referred not just to his stunning good looks but also his wicked fastball that had once been clocked at over a hundred miles an hour.

Then three years ago, everything changed. In one horrible game against the Oakland Athletics, he suffered what turned out to be a career-ending injury. Months later, after he had tried to come back, she had caught the press conference when he admitted to a problem with prescription drugs following his injury and that he had gone into rehab for it.

With other Pioneers fans, she had celebrated when he returned to the program as a pitching coach—and then, like the rest of Hope’s Crossing, she had felt personally betrayed when accusations were leveled against him. Someone had been supplying prescription drugs and steroids to his teammates and the evidence against Spence was overwhelming, including a large shipment found in his vehicle parked in the team lot.

Then, in another stunning development, the judge threw out the charges just days before he was supposed to go to trial. Not that the court of public opinion shifted its vote so readily.

While Spence never went to prison, he lost his career, his endorsements, his reputation—and when his stunning former supermodel of a wife was found floating facedown in their pool the very afternoon the charges were dropped, most people blamed him for that, too.

Through it all, Dermot had only seen the good. It was a particularly exasperating failing of her father’s, particularly in Spence’s case.

“Say what you want about him, but he was always a good boy,” her father said now, quite predictably, with that same admonishing look. “You know he had no sort of home life at all, what with his father dying young and his mother tippling away anything she could earn here. My heart fair ached for the lad.”

For some reason, at her father’s words, she pictured Peyton, pale and thin and troubled.

“He has a girl. A daughter. Skinny as a pike. She could use a little of your good apple pie, if you ask me.”

“Or your fudge.”

“I gave her some.”

She smiled a little, remembering the girl’s stunned expression at the simple act of kindness, as if nobody had ever done anything spontaneously nice for her before, then her features had shifted back to truculence when her father found her in Sugar Rush.

“I don’t think she likes it here much.”

“Oh, the poor lamb.”

Predictably, her father was easily distracted by a sad case, and she decided to push yet another even more tender button to avoid further discussion of Spence Gregory.

“Sorry. I didn’t come in to talk about Spence or his daughter. I wanted to let you know I’m heading out to drive up Snowflake Canyon tonight to check on Dylan. Do you have anything you want me to take to him?”

Dermot’s features softened with worry even as he stood up from his chair a little gingerly, as if his bones ached.

“Excellent idea.” He draped an arm over her shoulder and they headed out of the office toward the kitchen. “You’re a grand sister, you are. The meat loaf is good today. He always favors that. And I’m sure I could find a bit of soup and perhaps some leftover fried chicken. Another of his favorites.”

“Perfect. Those should keep him going for a while.”

“That boy. What are we to do with him?”

She leaned her head against Pop’s shoulder. “I wish I knew. He can’t go on like this. I think he’s lost an extra twenty pounds just since he’s been home.”

She didn’t need to add that Dylan hadn’t any spare poundage to lose, not after the severe injuries and then resulting infection that had nearly killed him.

“You’re a sweet girl to worry so for your brother. Someday he’ll thank you for it. You’ll see.”

She wasn’t so sure of that. Though he had come home several weeks ago, he felt even more distant than when he had been back east receiving treatment.

She just kept hoping that if she tried hard enough, she could find the key to helping her brother.

As she helped Pop package up several meals for Dylan, along with some cookies and a nice slice of cake, she reminded herself her brother was a worthwhile thing to fret about, not the sudden reappearance in her life of a man she had long ago vowed that she despised.

CHAPTER THREE

ON A JULY evening, Hope’s Crossing was a lovely, serene place, far removed from the bustle and craziness of the winter season, when the streets would be clogged with traffic and long lines of bundled-up customers would stretch out of all the better restaurants.

Though the town had plenty of summer visitors, for some reason they didn’t seem as pervasive, maybe because so many of them were out enjoying the backcountry.

She drove past the ball diamonds and saw what looked like a Little League game in full swing. It dredged up memories of late spring evenings when she would perch on the bleachers while Hope’s Crossing High played—ostensibly to watch her brother but she spent plenty of time checking out the boy who usually occupied the pitcher’s mound.

She had been pathetic. Really. Just a few yards shy of creepy Stalkerville.

With a sigh, she turned her attention back to the road and turned up Silver Strike Canyon, where the trees bowed over the road, heavy with summer growth, and the river gleamed bright in the sweet golden light.

After only a mile or so, she took the turn up the box canyon known as Snowflake Canyon. The road rose steeply here, winding in hairpins up the backside of the mountains that enfolded the town, and it took all her concentration to drive here.