Lover's Leap (2 page)

“… when I finish school,” the boy said. “University isn’t for me. School already interferes too much with my days on the boat.”

“So what’s your average day like?” Lori asked.

While the young man spoke of sun and surf and the deep blue sea, Sarah considered her daughter. Lori had never been a shy child, but the time away at college had elevated her natural curiosity to new heights. The girl never stopped asking questions, never stopped wanting to learn.
I’m so proud of her
.

For the second time that day, Sarah thought of Lori’s father. This time bitterness overpowered any sweet.
You blew it, Murphy. You made a huge mistake when you turned your back on us. Our little girl is special. She could have brought such joy into your world
.

She could have been your redemption
.

   Cam Murphy was dragging. The party aboard the
Bliss
during last night’s private charter had been going so strong that the host offered him double the money to stay out two hours extra. As a businessman with a payroll to meet, he couldn’t turn down the extra work, but the late night combined with another lousy night’s sleep had made this morning’s run more challenging than usual.

Cam had been running on the beach every morning at daybreak for more than a decade. He ran for exercise. He ran on the beach in order to enjoy the beauty of the sand and the sea before the hordes of tourists descended. He used the time to organize his thoughts and make his plans for the day.

Lately, his morning run had helped chase away the what-ifs and if-onlys that plagued him while he lay awake in the middle of the night.

A recurring dream had disturbed his sleep at least three times a week for the past three months. Today, as his feet pounded the damp sand, he worked to shake off the effects of yet another nocturnal blast from the past, another night spent in Eternity effing Springs.

Considering that he’d reviewed today’s bookings before bed last night, he should have expected it. “Reese, party of two” had topped the list. It wasn’t an uncommon surname. Tourists named Reese went out on his boats at least two or three times a year. Inevitably, each time the name showed up on his manifest, he dreamed about Sarah or Eternity Springs or both. While it wasn’t exactly the recipe for peaceful sleep, he could deal with Colorado dreams two or three times a year.

He didn’t know why he was having these dreams now. He’d lived half of his life since leaving Colorado. An occasional dream about Eternity Springs he could understand, but this repetitive nonsense he’d endured since Christmas? It made no sense, and it was wearing him down.

Dreams of Sarah at nighttime meant thoughts of Sarah by daylight, along with the woulda-shoulda-couldas that invariably followed. Sharp as shark’s teeth, they nipped at him for hours on end. It would have been different if. He should have made another choice but. He could have changed everything if only.

Cam rubbed his eyes. He had his share of regrets in life, and some of them were huge. Most of them involved the holier-than-thou citizens of Eternity Springs, Colorado, and their precious, darling queen of the Good Girls, Sarah Reese.

Sarah Reese. High school sweetheart. Mother of his child. Destroyer of his heart.

Cam summoned a burst of speed, then dashed the final hundred yards to his beachfront home. An hour later, showered and dressed in his favorite shorts and an Adventures in Paradise T-shirt, he unlocked the door of the tour office and went to work.

He had hours of paperwork ahead of him today. Not for the first time, he wished for the days when his sole job was to introduce divers to the wonder of the reef. Life certainly had been simpler then. No payroll to make, no bankers to keep happy, no unexpected repair bills or skyrocketing insurance costs or increasing rents to fret over. Of course, he’d had no family to support then, either. At least, no family who wanted his support.

The ghosts of his youth flitted into his mind once again. Sarah, her head thrown back in infectious laughter. His father, belt in hand and meanness in his eyes.

His mother, lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor.

Cam shuddered and gave his head a hard shake, trying to flutter those images right back out again.

Today he needed to keep his thoughts centered on Devin. The boy would be the death of him yet. He landed in one scrape after another these days, and reminded Cam of himself at sixteen too much for comfort. Cam wanted better for Devin, so yesterday, when his son walked into the tour office sporting a black eye and brandishing a school suspension slip for fighting, he had just about lost it. Where had this self-destructive streak come from? What had changed for the boy in the past six months?

Cam suspected the source might be the new group of friends Devin had taken up with last summer. They were polite young men from good families, the kind of youngsters most parents wanted their children to befriend. Not Cam. Something about the group of boys bothered him. They were almost too polite, their handshakes too firm. They definitely had too much money to throw around.

Most telling of all, they rarely looked him in the eyes when they spoke to him. That made Cam’s trouble-coming antenna quiver.

He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Devin would arrive at the marina in thirty to forty-five minutes. Maybe he should put the paperwork on hold and go out on the boat with his boy today. Better yet, he could call in a sub for Devin, and they could both play hooky from work, leave the tourists to the rest of the crew, and take the
Freedom
out, just the two of them. Maybe a little father/son time would help Dev remember to make good choices next time the opportunity for stupidity reared its head.

Cam liked the idea. He was overdue for a day off. This paperwork could wait. He picked up the phone and made the arrangements. Ten minutes later, he boarded the
Bliss
to grab his personal diving gear. He’d just hauled it topside when he saw the owner of the
Wanderer
, the cruiser that occupied the slip next to Cam’s, standing at the stern, scowling fiercely down into the water. “G’day, Martin. Got a problem?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Looks like there’s a line tangled in my propeller shaft. I have a banker on board and a tight schedule. Wasn’t planning to get wet, but …” He started shrugging out of his suit coat.

Cam set down his gear on the deck of the
Bliss
. “Hold what you’ve got. I’ll check it out for you.”

Martin sighed with relief. “Thanks, man. I’ll owe you.”

Cam tugged off his T-shirt and toed out of his deck shoes. He pulled on his mask, then grabbed his diving knife and a flashlight and slipped over the side of the
Bliss
into the water. The harbor water was murky. He switched on his flashlight and swam to the cruiser’s stern. He spied the problem immediately. Unfortunately, a simple slice with his knife wouldn’t get the job done.

He surfaced and called up to his friend. “ ’Fraid it’s a little more complicated than a snagged line. You’re dragging trash, but I can handle it. I’ll need a bolt cutter.”

Cam grabbed hold of a dock line and treaded water while Martin went to get the tool he required. Above him, on the nearby bridge, he spied the Adventures in Paradise Tours van arriving.
Good
. When Martin handed down the tool he’d requested a minute later, Cam said, “Our van is pulling up. Would you please tell Devin I want to talk to him?”

“Sure.”

Cam clamped his diving knife between his teeth, then, with the bolt cutters in hand, submerged himself again. He went to work on the tangle around the prop shaft. The wire cable the cruiser had picked up somewhere dragged on the assembly, but he couldn’t see that the junk had caused any real damage to the unit. It took him a couple of breaths, but Cam managed to cut the trash away and free the cruiser’s prop.

He surfaced and swam to the
Bliss
’s swim deck. He hauled his tools aboard, then levered himself onto the deck. A
Bliss
crew member tossed him a towel. Cam dried his legs and then his chest before flipping the towel over his head to pull it back and forth across his back.

Aboard the
Wanderer
, Martin called, “Many thanks! I wish you fair winds and following seas, Cameron Daniel Murphy.”

Cam opened his mouth to reply when movement on the
Bliss
’s gangway caught his attention. He froze, his fists clamping the towel in a white-knuckled grip.

Twenty years might have passed, but he’d know her anywhere. No bigger than a minute and curved in all the right places. Dark hair cut short and sassy in a way that suited the angles of her face. And those eyes. Those gorgeous, long-lashed, Elizabeth Taylor violet eyes.

Sarah Reese.

   Cameron Daniel Murphy.

Sarah’s heart pounded. Her mouth went dry and her knees went weak and she thought she might hyperventilate.

Cam Murphy.

He looked … 
Wow … Oh, wow …
He looked like he’d come straight off the cover of a paperback romance. The boy she’d known two decades ago had disappeared beneath mature muscle and suntanned skin. He was still lean, his stomach still flat, but his shoulders had broadened and he’d added definition to his abs. He wore his hair a little longer and his beard lost-my-razor-three-days-ago scruffy. The words
beach bum
and
surfer dude
and
pirate
sprang to mind.

But his eyes—those mesmerizing eyes—hadn’t changed. He stared at her with eyes of shades of green. Mountain eyes. Just like Lori’s.

Lori.

Sarah gasped and twisted around to look at her daughter.
His daughter. Our daughter
. Lori stared back at her with a question in her eyes. His eyes.

Oh, Lori
. The potential consequences of this chance meeting hit Sarah like a brick.

Lori had wanted to contact her father ever since Sarah confessed the truth about his identity to her when Lori turned sixteen. In the months that followed, Lori had spent hours tracking the name Cameron D. Murphy on the Internet. Although she’d come up with what she considered to be half a dozen likely suspects, as far as Sarah knew she’d never taken the search for her father beyond that. At one point, when money was especially tight around the Reese house, Lori had asked her to hire a private investigator to find Cam to demand child support.

Now this beautiful, confident young woman watched Sarah with wary mountain eyes. “Mom? It’s not an uncommon name, right?”

Sarah tried to force words through her throat, but the sound that emerged was a strangled gurgle.

At her mother’s reaction, Lori’s expression slackened with shock, then she jerked her stare back toward Cam. “That
is
him?”

Feeling a little bit sick, Sarah braved another look, too.

His gaze remained locked on Sarah, heated and intense. Her stomach took another turn. She swayed slightly, feeling dizzy. Then abruptly, he shifted his stare toward Lori, and for a long moment, Sarah held her breath. He looked stunned.

“That’s
him
?” Lori repeated. “He’s your Cam?”

Cam mouthed a word, and Sarah was pretty sure that word was
mine
. He took one step forward just as the boy from this morning—Devin, the van driver—approached him, saying, “Hey, Dad. I didn’t think you were coming down here this morning. Martin said you wanted to see me?”

Dad
.

Dad?

Dad!

Fury stormed through Sarah like a hurricane. That boy was only a few years younger than Lori!

Lori reached out and caught hold of Sarah’s arm, steadying herself. Her voice broke on the words, “He has a family.”

Oh, baby. No. Not like this
.

“Mom, let’s get out of here,” Lori said, an anguished look in her eyes. “Now.”

Cam’s gaze upon them was tangible. Sarah felt frozen in place. “But, honey—”

“Please, Mom?”

Her daughter had gone white as the sails on the cruiser next to the catamaran, and seeing it, Sarah’s mama-bear instincts roared to life. “Sure, honey. We’ll go.”

“I’m sorry. I just can’t.” Lori had tears in those big green eyes of hers. “I’m not ready for this.”

“You know what? Neither am I.” Sarah gave Cam Murphy one last look—he hadn’t moved one of those outdoorsman muscles—then tucked her arm through Lori’s and turned her back on the man she’d once loved.

Once off the gangway, mother and daughter walked briskly. When they turned a corner, no longer in sight of the deck of the
Bliss
, Lori urged Sarah into a run.

It took some time, effort, and creativity, but the two Reese women ran all the way home. Back home to Colorado. Back to the caring, comforting shelter of Eternity Springs.

TWO

Eternity Springs, Colorado

The thermometer read a balmy twenty degrees as Lori loaded her suitcase into her car to begin the trip back to Texas and the second half of her spring semester at college. Smiling bravely against both her sorrow and the bitter cold, Sarah gave her daughter one last hug, then opened the driver’s-side door. “Drive safely. Call when you make a pit stop.”

“I will.” Lori took her seat behind the wheel and buckled her seat belt. “Love you, Mom.”

“Love you, too, Sunshine,” Sarah replied, proud that her voice didn’t crack. “Be safe.”

She stood out in the cold, her shoulders hunched and her hands in her coat pockets as the car backed out of the drive. As was her habit, Lori hit the car horn in two short bursts, then headed south on Aspen. Sarah watched and waved until the car was out of sight, then told herself that the tears in her eyes resulted from the cold wind.

Yeah, right
. Sending Lori back to college at the end of a break was still as hard as it had been her freshman year. Harder, in fact, considering recent events.

Of all the boats in all the world, why had Cam Murphy been drying himself off on that one?

She reentered the house through the front door and was met by Daisy and Duke, her golden retrievers. Her dogs sensed her mood and nuzzled at her legs, begging to be petted. She glanced at the clock, noting that she still had forty minutes before her friends showed up for the planning meeting for next summer’s quilt festival. The Patchwork Angels meetings usually took place at Angel’s Rest, but Sarah had asked them to come here this morning, since she hadn’t been sure of Lori’s departure time. With time to spare, she hung her coat on the rack in the entry hall and sank down onto the floor, where she took a few moments to bask in the dogs’ comforting company.

As Duke licked her face, she heard her mother call, “Frank?”

Frank Reese, Sarah’s father, had passed away when Lori was in middle school. Sighing, Sarah rose and walked toward the living room and her mother’s line of sight. “It’s Sarah, Mom.”

From her usual seat in her recliner, Ellen Reese looked up. “Where’s Daddy?”

Sarah drew a breath, silently cursed Alzheimer’s disease, then gently said, “He’s gone, Mama.”

Ellen nodded. “I thought so. I just had to ask.”

“I know, Mama.”

Ellen’s expression turned quizzical. “What am I supposed to do?”

Sarah smiled tenderly. “Why don’t you read the newspaper now, Mom? There’s a new edition of the
Eternity Times
on the table beside you.”

Ellen spied it and said, “All right. Thank you, dear.”

“You’re welcome.” Sarah waited to make sure that her mother was situated, then continued on to the kitchen. She poured another cup of coffee and contemplated the baked goods lining her counter that her restaurant customers would pick up later today. Ordinarily, she didn’t sample her own creations. This was no ordinary morning. Sometimes a girl simply needed a little high-caloric comfort.

She chose a lemon bar to go with her coffee, and she’d just sat down at her kitchen table to indulge when a rap sounded on the window glass of the mudroom door. She leaned over to look and saw Nic Callahan waving red-gloved fingers. Sarah gestured for her to come inside. Nic was Eternity Springs’s veterinarian, the mother of precious two-and-a-half-year-old twin girls, and she’d been Sarah’s best friend from childhood. A gust of frigid air blew in with her. “You’re early.”

“I know. I wanted to see Lori before she left.” Nic pulled off her gloves. “Did I miss her?”

“By about five minutes.”

“Well, darn.” Nic removed her stocking hat and scarf and stuck them into her coat pocket, then gave her long blond hair a shake. “She got off sooner than I’d figured.”

“She woke up early. Our body clocks haven’t quite adjusted to the time change yet. Her plane doesn’t leave Colorado Springs until mid-afternoon, but this way she won’t have to hurry.”

“She’s leaving her car at her friend’s place again?” Nic asked as she hung her coat on a rack in the mudroom.

“Yes.” Sarah rose and poured Nic a cup of coffee. “Her car already has one hundred twenty thousand miles on it, so the fewer trips back and forth to Texas, the better. We need it to last until she’s out of college.”

Lori didn’t need her car at school, and she had a friend whose family owned a storage unit and allowed her to keep her car there for a minimal charge. Flying out of Colorado Springs was much cheaper than flying from Gunnison-Crested Butte, and this way, Sarah didn’t have to make the drive to the airport in order to pick her up or send her off.

Nic took a seat across the kitchen table from Sarah, cradled her coffee mug in both hands, and asked, “So, how are you doing?”

“Fine. Grab a cookie if you want. I tried a new recipe for oatmeal-raisin cookies and they’re wonderful, if I say so myself.”

“Thanks, but I’m trying to resist the temptation, and you are attempting to change the subject. You are not fine, Sarah. Something is wrong. What is it?”

Nic knew her too well, but Sarah tried to fend her questions off. “It’s always tough to see Lori leave.”

Nic tilted her head to one side, and her blue eyes studied Sarah. “Yes, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? I think you need to talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

“Whatever happened on your trip.”

“We had a wonderful trip. We told you that.”

“Yes, you did. You two put on a good act. You might be able to hide it from everybody else, but I know you, and I know Lori. Something happened while you were away. Something not-so-wonderful.”

Daisy padded over to Nic and rubbed against her, silently demanding to be petted. Nic obliged before continuing, “I suspect it involved the tour to the Great Barrier Reef. We heard all about the rain forest but hardly anything about coral. So spill, girlfriend.”

Sarah took a bite of lemon bar and considered her response. She wasn’t really surprised that Nic had picked up on the undercurrents humming between her and Lori since they arrived home from Australia three days ago. From the moment she had spied Cam Murphy standing aboard that boat, Sarah’s emotions had swung all over the map. Lori, bless her heart, had all but curled into a fetal position and tuned out the world.

Sighing, she explained, “Lori didn’t want me talking about it while she was still home.”

“Oh, no.” Nic reached out and touched Sarah’s arm. “Was she hurt? Were you hurt?”

“No. No. It wasn’t like that.” Sarah grimaced. “Actually, I guess in a way it
was
like that. We saw Cam.”

At first, it didn’t click. Then Nic’s jaw dropped. “Cam?
Your
Cam? Cam Murphy?”

“He’s not
my
Cam,” Sarah snapped back. The resentment that had simmered inside her all the way across the Pacific flared, and she tossed her half-eaten lemon bar onto her plate. “He never was
my
Cam. The man has a son who is not that much younger than Lori. He must have married the first girl he saw when they let him out of juvie jail.”

“No.” Nic set down her coffee mug hard.

Sarah folded her arms, sat back in her chair, and nodded. “Yes.”

“Wow. Okay, tell me everything.”

Sarah took a moment to organize her thoughts, then gave her best friend in the world a blow-by-blow account of the events that had taken place at the marina in Cairns, Australia.

“Wait a minute,” Nic said. “You’re telling me that
Lori
wanted to run away from him? The same Lori who wanted you to hire an investigator to track down her father?”

“The very same. And she didn’t just
want
to run away from him. She
did
run away from him. I couldn’t believe it.” Sarah sighed and reached for her lemon bar once again. “I wasn’t all that steady myself, but Lori’s reaction floored me. She just wilted right in front of me.”

“Was it because of the boy?”

“You mean her
brother
?”

“Ow.” Nic winced.

“Yeah. Ow.” Sarah polished off her lemon bar, then said, “I’m sure that was part of it. You wouldn’t have recognized her, Nic. She was devastated. I’ve never seen her look like that. Not even when my dad died.”

“Poor Lori.” Nic winced on behalf of her friends. “So you left the marina and then what? Did he chase you down? Show up at your hotel?”

“I expected him to follow us. I know he recognized me. I was ready for him, too, I’ll have you know. But the sorry coward didn’t show. He had plenty of time, because it took us almost an hour to pack, check out, and get a cab to the airport. In hindsight, I should have known he’d keep his distance. He’s had years of practice, after all.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true. Lori and I talked our way onto an early flight, then we ignored the tears in each other’s eyes all the way across the Pacific.”

Sarah recalled how Lori had taken one last look around the airport terminal before they passed through security. Her daughter hadn’t missed the fact that despite having time to do so, Cam had chosen not to follow them. Once again, he had blown off his own child. Thinking about it now, fresh anger stirred inside Sarah.

“So that’s the real reason you didn’t get to see the Great Barrier Reef,” Nic said. “Not because you were sick.”

“Oh, I was sick, all right.”

Nic nodded and sipped her coffee, letting a long moment pass before she asked, “How did he look?”

Sarah scowled. “Disgustingly gorgeous. Sun, sea, and sand scruffy. Built, with a capital
B
. One thing about beach bums, they use their muscles.”

Nic gave in to temptation and reached for an oatmeal-raisin cookie and a paper napkin. “Lori got his height.”

“And his eyes.” Sarah closed her own eyes and relived that moment when Cam’s gaze locked onto hers. “It’s a good thing he ended up on the other side of the world. Anyone who saw them together would recognize the family resemblance.”

Nic started to say something, then obviously thought better of it and took a bite of cookie. “Yum. You’re right. These are spectacular.”

“And now you’re the one holding back.” Sarah chastised her friend with a frown. “What did you start to say?”

Nic set down her cookie, picked up her coffee, and looked at Sarah over the top of the mug. “If people found out, it wouldn’t be the disaster you think it would be, you know.”

Sarah bristled. “You’ve got to be kidding. Of course it would be a disaster. I
lied
, Nicole. I lied about who fathered my baby to everyone. Even to my own mother! Do you know how guilty I feel about that?”

“Look, you were sixteen and you had a good reason for doing it.”

“And the reason hasn’t changed, I might point out. People in town still hate Cam Murphy.”

“But we love you,” Nic fired back. “More important, everyone loves Lori. That wouldn’t change.”

A lump of emotion formed in Sarah’s throat at that. She truly did have the best of friends. “Maybe not, but I’d just as soon not test the theory. Lori feels the same way. We talked about it. She really has made a one-hundred-eighty-degree turnaround where Cam is concerned.”

“That’s more surprising than anything,” Nic mused. “Finding her father was the focus of half of her conversations back when she worked as my vet assistant.”

“Really? You never told me that.”

“Remember, that was right after you told her the truth about who her father really was. She was confused and angry with you. She vented to me.”

“I think she needs someone to vent to now. I asked her to make an appointment with a counselor at school, and she said she would.”

“Good thinking. But don’t forget, Lori is a levelheaded, goal-oriented girl. She’s done well with her grades. She’s shown a great deal of maturity when it comes to relationships. How many girls would have handled the situation with Chase as well as Lori did?”

Sarah thought of Nic’s reference to Lori’s relationship with their friend Ali Timberlake’s son, Chase. Chase and Lori had been summer sweethearts when Lori was in high school. Despite the fact that they liked each other a lot, the pair had recognized and acknowledged that they weren’t ready for something more serious and had chosen to remain friends.

“I don’t think you need to have any regrets,” Nic continued. “You’ve done a fine job with Lori. I hope that I can do half as well with my girls.”

Sarah smiled at her friend’s compliment and asked, “And how are Meg and Cari?”

“They’re two and terrible, and they make us so happy.”

“Are they with their dad this morning?”

Nic nodded. “Gabe’s brothers came in last night, so we had lots of helping hands around the kitchen this morning. They’re closing on the new family cabin that they’re buying out at Hummingbird Lake today.”

“That’s exciting.”

“Yes. I’ve missed having family in town since Mom and Aunt Janice moved to Florida. It’ll be nice to have the Callahans around more.”

“Family.” Sarah’s lips twisted in an unhappy frown as she brooded over the word. Mothers and daughters. Fathers and daughters. Fathers and
sons
. “I’m so angry at Cam, Nic. I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry in my life. He tells me he can’t be a father to our baby, then he turns around and has a child with someone else as quick as he can. The dog. I deserved better. Lori and I deserved better.”