LITMIR.BIZ

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having a bouncer, but there was always a first time.

      Too late. He turned just at that moment and his blue-eyed gaze met hers. She saw definite recognition there. Oddly, he didn’t seem at all surprised to see her, almost as if he had come looking for her. That was impossible, of course. In nearly twenty years, he hadn’t made the smallest effort to find her. Not that it would have taken much work on his part. She hadn’t gone anywhere.

      The years had been unfairly kind to him, she saw, had taken a teenage boy who had been brooding and angry and undeniably gorgeous to all the other teenage girls and turned him into a sexy, potent male, with intense blue eyes, a firm mouth and the resolute jawline that just might be the only thing he shared with his father.

      “Are you all right?”

      She managed to look away and saw her mother studying her with concern. “What?”

      “You’ve gone pale, darling. And I asked you three times if you made these delicious truffles. What’s the matter?”

      “I…” She couldn’t come up with a way to answer, since every single brain cell had apparently decided to stage a temporary work stoppage.

      He was coming this way. She watched him take one step toward her and then another. Her palms went damp and she could feel the blood rush out of her head, which didn’t help the small matter of her sudden inability to form a coherent thought.

      In a panic, she turned away, as if maybe she could block out the last two minutes and pretend it was just a slice out of her nightmares.

      “Why, yes. Yes, I did make the truffles. It wasn’t hard at all. The secret is to add the cream slowly and use high-quality flavoring… .”

      She launched into a whole explanation about the homemade chocolate balls, but eventually the words petered out when she realized nobody was paying attention to her. They were staring at a point above her shoulder.

      “You’re here!” Mary Ella suddenly exclaimed. “Oh, darling. I’m so happy you made it. I thought you weren’t coming until the weekend!”

      Her mother brushed past her, arms outstretched. Okay, this had to be a nightmare. As far as she knew, Mary Ella would have no reason to even know about Jack, as they had kept their relationship a secret that summer, in the tumult that was their respective home lives.

      Wondering what alternative universe she had suddenly been thrust into, she finally forced herself to turn around. Mary Ella wasn’t hugging Jack, she was hugging someone behind him. When her mother shifted, Maura finally caught a glimpse of who it was, and her insides turned to thin, crackly ice.

      Her nineteen-year-old daughter, Sage, stood just a half step behind Jackson Lange, hidden from view by the breadth of his shoulders.

      Her numb brain finally began kicking out messages at a rapid-fire pace, and none of them were good.

      Sage. Together with Jackson Lange.

      The two of them, in the same room. Not just the same room—the same freaking three-foot radius.

      She’d never had a panic attack, despite the past eight months of purgatory, but she could feel one coming on now. Her heart raced and she could feel each pulse throbbing in her chest, her neck, her face. “S-Sage.”

      Her daughter gave her a long look, but for the first time ever Sage’s usually expressive eyes were shuttered.

      She knew.

      Maura wasn’t sure how she was so certain, especially as her daughter’s features were closed and set, but somehow she could tell Sage knew the truth. Finally. After nearly two decades.

      “Who’s your friend, sweetheart?” Mary Ella asked as she stepped away from her oldest grandchild and gave Jack the sort of quizzical look she wore when trying to place someone, as if she thought she recognized him but wasn’t quite sure.

      “This is Jackson Lange. You’ve probably heard of him. He’s a pretty famous architect.”

      Maura was aware of the little stir of excitement among her friends. It was fairly common knowledge that Hope’s Crossing had spawned the man many considered the next Frank Gehry.

      Mary Ella’s expression cooled and she took a slight step back. “Of course. Harry’s son.”

      “I haven’t heard that particular phrase in a long time.” Those were the first words he spoke, and she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that his voice seemed lower, sexier, as it thrummed down her spine.

      “Yes. Harry Lange’s son.” Sage gave her mother that cool look again. “And he’s not my friend. Not really. He’s my father.”

      Maura hissed in a breath. Okay. There it was.

      This Christmas had just climbed straight to the top of the suck-o-meter.

       CHAPTER TWO

      OKAY, THIS WAS A HUGE MISTAKE.

      Jack stood beside his daughter—his daughter. Hell. How had that happened?—and gazed around at the group of women all staring at him as if he’d just walked in and mooned them all.

      When Sage had suggested stopping in at the bookstore to talk to her mother first before he dropped her off at her house and found a hotel for himself for a few days, he’d had no idea Maura would be in the middle of a freaking Christmas party. He noted the cluster of gift bags, the personalized glass decorations on the tree. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare for this gathering, and he had just barged in and ruined it.

      “Your…father?” an older woman said faintly.

      Though twenty years had gone by, he clearly recognized Mary Ella McKnight, with those green eyes all her children had inherited, now peering at him through a pair of trendy little horn-rimmed glasses. She had taught him English in high school, and he remembered with great fondness their discussions on Milton and Wilkie Collins.

      She was still very pretty, with a soft, ageless kind of beauty.

      “You didn’t know either?” Sage raised an eyebrow at her grandmother’s obvious shock. “I guess it was a big secret to everyone. I thought I was the last to know.”

      He had met Sage only days ago, but her sudden barbed tone seemed very unlike the sweet, earnest young woman he had come to know. That she would burst in and spring him on Maura like this without any advance warning seemed either thoughtless or cruel. He should say something to ease the tension of the moment, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to come up with anything polite and innocuous that didn’t start with “How the hell could you keep this from me?”

      A woman with chestnut hair who looked vaguely familiar stepped forward and rested a hand on Maura’s arm. “Are you all right, my dear?” the woman asked.

      Maura gave a jerky shake of her head and swallowed, her features pale. According to what Sage had told him, Maura was still grieving the loss of her other daughter, he suddenly remembered, and he felt like an even bigger ass for bursting in here like this.

      “Maybe the three of you should go back to your office where you could have a little privacy for this discussion,” the other woman gently suggested.

      Maura gazed at her blankly for a moment, then seemed to gather her composure from somewhere deep inside. “I’m…I’m sorry. I wasn’t…This is a bit of a shock. Yes. We should go back to my office. Thank you, Claire. Do you mind helping your mother lead the book discussion? When Alex gets here, she should have the, uh, refreshments.”

      He really should have made sure Sage had talked to her mother about all of this before he showed up, but then, he hadn’t really been thinking clearly in the three days since the carefully arranged life he thought he had constructed for himself had imploded around him.

      Three days ago, he had been living his life, continuing to build Lange & Associates, preparing for an undergraduate

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