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.
“Mr. Lange is feeling a little under the weather,” Maura replied. “He passed out.”
“I didn’t pass out,” Harry snapped. “I just lost my balance. If you left a person with half a foot of aisle room in this place, I would have been fine.”
“See, that definitely sounds like you’re blaming me. Should I be calling my lawyer?” Maura returned.
“I’m not going to sue anybody.”
Don’t believe him, he wanted to tell Maura. If Harry saw any advantage to himself in a given situation, he wouldn’t hesitate to lie, steal and betray to get his way.
“O. M. G.!”
Maura blinked at Sage’s sudden exclamation. “What?”
“If Jack is my father, that means Mr. Lange is my grandfather!”
He bit back a four-letter word. Of all the moments for Sage to blurt out that little bit of information!
Harry’s eyes widened and he looked back and forth between the two of them. Maura was the one who had turned pale now. She looked as if she wanted to disappear behind a bookshelf, and Jack wanted to join her.
Harry did not need this information, something else he could figure out how to manipulate for his own purposes.
“What did she say?” Harry asked.
“Nothing,” Maura muttered. “Now would be a really good time for you to go back to sleep.”
“Who are you?” Harry asked Sage, his thick eyebrows arched like bristly caterpillars.
“My daughter,” Maura said quickly.
He narrowed his gaze. “Your daughter died in that car accident up Silver Strike Reservoir this spring. I was there, wasn’t I? I saw the whole thing.”
That was news to Jack. What had been his father’s involvement in the accident that killed Layla Parker?
“This is my older daughter, Sage.”
He should just keep his mouth zipped here. He knew damn well telling him about Sage was a mistake—but he also knew Harry well enough to be certain he would just keep pushing and pushing until somebody told him.
“And mine, apparently,” Jack finally said.
Maura sent him a quick, surprised look, as if she expected him to deny the whole thing. Harry, on the other hand, just stared.
“Have you taken a DNA test?” he asked.
None of your damn business, he wanted to say. He didn’t want his father mixed up in this complicated mess, but he was coming to realize he didn’t have much control over things. Harry just might have more contact with Sage than he would. He lived in Hope’s Crossing, after all. While Jack would be back in San Francisco, Harry would be free to pick up the phone whenever Sage was in town and meet her for lunch at the café or the resort or any blasted place he wanted.
“She’s my daughter. I’m convinced of it, and that’s all that matters.”
Harry opened his mouth to argue, but before he could, the door to the bookstore burst open, and a pair of burly paramedics hurried inside with emergency kits and dedicated focus.
“Back here,” Maura called and waved. They shifted directions and headed toward them.
“I don’t need the damn paramedics,” Harry grumbled.
“Well, you’ve got them,” Maura retorted. “Hey, Dougie.”
One of the paramedics, a guy who looked like he could probably bench-press half the bookstore, grinned at her. “Hey, Maur. What have we got?”
“Maybe nothing. I don’t know. I just thought it would be better to call you to check things out.”
“That’s what we’re here for. What happened?”
“Mr. Lange isn’t feeling well. He had some kind of incident. We were talking one moment and he fell over the next. I think he was unconscious for about thirty seconds to a minute.”
“I didn’t pass out,” Harry asserted. “I just lost my balance.”
“And then went to the Bahamas for the next little while,” Jack answered.
“Either way, it’s a good idea to check things out,” the other paramedic said.
“That’s what I figured,” Maura answered. “He hit his head on a table pretty hard when he fell.”
She stepped away from Harry and let the paramedics do their thing.
“Is he going to be okay?” Sage asked him, her voice low.
He figured his father would be harassing the paramedics all the way to the hospital, haranguing them on everything from their driving to the accommodations. “It’s just a precaution. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
For the first time, he noticed Sage looked a little pale too. This had to be weird for her, to find herself suddenly related to the old bastard.
“I don’t need a stupid gurney.”
“Sorry,
