RaeAnne Thayne - Sweet Laurel Falls

His words were directed at Maura, Jack realized. Harry must have seen her when he walked inside. It took another beat for his father to recognize him , but Jack knew the instant he did. Harry’s jaw sagged and ruddy color leached from his aging features as if somebody had just slugged him in the gut.

Maura looked from Harry to him and quickly stepped forward. “I’m not sure, Mr. Lange. I’ll have to ask Ruth. She’s the one who handles the special orders. If you can wait a few moments, I’ll see if I can find her.”

Harry didn’t seem to have heard her. He continued to stare at Jack, mouth slack and his eyes awash with a hundred tangled emotions Jack didn’t want to see.

So much for slipping into town and back out again without seeing his father. Twice in the space of an hour must be some kind of cosmic joke.

The familiar raw fury for his father welled up, but now that he was confronted with the actual man instead of only memories, it seemed muted, somehow—as if the color and heat had bled from it as well.

“J-Jackson?” Harry’s voice sounded strangled, as if he were choking on one of the little mints from the checkout at Dermot Caine’s café.

“Harry.” The single word came out clipped, cold.

“I…hadn’t heard you were in town.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.” One he was quickly coming to regret.

“I see. How long will you…” His voice trailed off, and Jack began to think maybe the pale cast to his features was from more than just surprise.

“I’m still working that out.”

For politeness’ sake, he should probably move closer to his father so they didn’t have to raise their voices to be heard a dozen feet apart, but he couldn’t seem to generate the necessary forward momentum. Lord knew, Harry wouldn’t be the one to budge. That much apparently hadn’t changed.

Maura was finally the one to move first. She took a step forward. “Mr. Lange, are you all right?” she asked suddenly, taking another few steps.

“I…No. Not really. Damn it.”

His father lurched as if someone had struck him from behind. He knocked a hip against a display table of new releases and swept a hand out to steady himself, scattering books to the floor. Even so, he was unable to keep his balance. Jack could see him start to head to the floor, but he was too far away to reach him in time. Maura was closer, but even she couldn’t prevent Harry from toppling. A hard crack sounded above the bustle from the coffee bar as the side of his head made contact with the edge of the table before he slumped to the ground.

“Mr. Lange!” Maura exclaimed, kneeling next to the prone figure.

“Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. He was standing there one minute, then hit the ground the next. Mr. Lange!”

She turned his father onto his back, and his aging features were ashen and still. Was he dead? Had Jack managed to knock him off just by showing up in town? He froze for a moment, aware of his own strange mix of emotions—shock and dismay and most surprising, a completely unexpected regret.

“He’s unconscious!” Maura said. “Come on, Mr. Lange. Wake up.”

“He hit the 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 from under Harry’s head and make his own escape from Dog-Eared Books & Brew, but common decency—as well as a completely ridiculous desire not to look like a bigger ass to her than he already did—compelled him to step forward and grab Harry’s other arm.

His father was still not quite seventy. Jack imagined without the pallor he would still be fairly hale and hearty. Still, the old man felt almost frail as he and Maura supported him toward a plump armchair in the nearby travel section.

“What’s going on?”

At the new voice, he looked over and found Sage gazing at the three of them in puzzled consternation.