Carole Page - Cassandra's Song

“More than friends?”

Antonio laughed. “Didn’t we agree to be colleagues in a friendly little conspiracy…?”

“Oh, you mean our parents. Of course!” She raised her water glass. “To your mother and my father…and whatever the future may bring.”

Even as Cassandra and Antonio toasted their harmless matchmaking scheme, she had an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach. What was it? What was her heart trying to tell her? She had no words for it, but she sensed she was opening the door to a barrage of emotional complications she had never bargained for. And now, as Antonio clasped her hand across the table, she knew it was too late to turn back….

writes from the heart about issues facing women today. A prolific author of over forty books and 800 stories and articles, she has published both fiction and nonfiction with a dozen major Christian publishers, including Thomas Nelson, Moody Press, Crossway Books, Bethany House, Tyndale House and Harvest House. An award-winning novelist, Carole has received the C.S. Lewis Honor Book Award and been a finalist several times for the prestigious Gold Medallion Award and the Campus Life Book of the Year Award.

A frequent speaker at churches, conferences, conventions, schools and retreats around the country, Carole shares her testimony and encourages women everywhere to discover and share their deepest passions, to keep passion alive on the home front and to unleash their passion for Christ (based on her inspiring new book, Becoming a Woman of Passion, by Fleming Revell).

Born and raised in Jackson, Michigan, Carole taught creative writing at Biola University in La Mirada, California, and serves on the Advisory Board of the American Christian Writers. She and her husband, Bill, live in Southern California and have three children (besides Misty in heaven) and three beautiful grandchildren.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

But God—so rich is He in His mercy! Because of

and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and

intense love with which He loved us, even when we

were dead (slain) by [our own] shortcomings and

trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship

and in union with Christ; [He gave us the very life

of Christ Himself, the same new life with which He

quickened Him, for] it is by grace (His favor and

mercy which you did not deserve) that you are

saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers

of Christ’s salvation).

—Ephesians 2: 4-5

In loving memory of my mother-and father-in-law, Alice and Anthony Page (born Antonio Pagliarulo) and in loving memory of their granddaughter and my niece, Karen Geston Abeloe. Your family loves you and misses you deeply.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

A ndrew Rowlands was just changing into something comfortable when his oldest daughter Cassandra peeked inside the bedroom door and said, “Dinner will be ready in half an hour, Daddy.”

He turned and flashed a generous smile. “Thanks, Cassie. I’ll be right down.”

She didn’t budge, just kept watching him. Her lovely face was doing the thing it always did when she was displeased. Her clear blue eyes darkened, her finely arched brows furrowed, and her heart-shaped lips slipped into a pout. “Oh, Daddy!”

“What’s wrong, kitten?” It was all he could do to hold back a chuckle. Cassie was twenty-six years old, but that childlike scowl brought back memories of a strong-willed toddler who stubbornly held her ground when she wanted something. How often he and Mandy had exchanged helpless smiles when their daughter folded her chubby arms and crooned, “Please, Mommy…Please, Daddy!”

“So what’s up, honey?” he asked now. “You look like you have something to say.”

She shook her pretty blond head. “No, Daddy. It’s just…you’re not going to wear that ratty old sweater to dinner, are you?”

He glanced in the mirror at his rumpled, brown, button-down sweater. “Why not? It’s my favorite. I’ve worn it all my life.”

“I know, Daddy. It looks it! Why don’t you wear your new dress shirt and the tie I gave you last Christmas?”

“For Pete’s sake, I’m only going downstairs to my own dining room for a heaping plate of spaghetti.” Fridays were always spaghetti nights. His youngest daughter Frannie’s specialty. She had become chief cook and bottle washer after Mandy’s death five years ago. A downright good cook she had become, too. Of his three daughters Frannie was most like her mother—a charming little spitfire at heart and oh, so overly protective. As if he needed protecting at his age!

“So will you change, Daddy?” Cassie remained in the doorway, grilling him with her gaze.

“If you insist. But a good white shirt and spaghetti don’t mix well. You know that, especially on laundry days.”

She beamed. “Don’t worry, Daddy. You won’t spill a drop.”

He returned a wry smile. “And if you believe that, my beauty, you’re sadly deluded. I’ll need a bib the size of a pup tent.”

Brianna, his middle daughter, had actually stitched a humongous terry cloth bib for him once—and later made them for her sisters as well—and all his daughters had laughed in bemused delight as she tied it around his neck while he sat, fork and knife ready, to attack a luscious mountain of meatballs and spaghetti. He had smugly devoured the entire plate without so much as a dollop of sauce on that voluminous bib. He had even managed to slip a meatball or two under the table to Ruggs, the family’s mop-haired mongrel mascot, so named because as a puppy he had a penchant for burrowing like a gopher under the throw rugs.

Cassie ignored his comment about the bib. “Splash on some of that smelly aftershave, too, Daddy,” she urged.

Before he could protest, she slipped back out and shut the door. He scowled at his reflection in the mirror and mumbled, “Something’s brewing. Something’s always going on with those three girls. Wonder what—or who—it is this time?”

In deference to his daughters’ wishes—when had he not given in to his daughters?—Andrew reluctantly pulled off his comfy threadbare sweater. With a sigh of resignation he slipped on his starched dress shirt and grabbed the monogrammed silk tie Cassandra had given him last Christmas. He buttoned the shirt and knotted the tie with deft fingers, casting a squint-eyed glance in the dresser mirror at his hefty, six-foot-four frame. Not bad for an old geezer two years short of the half-century mark. He still had his college-football physique in spite of the mountains of spaghetti his daughters had plied him with over the past five years. They hadn’t let him miss a meal, that was for sure. Yes, indeed, they were good girls. The best.

He gazed at the familiar framed photograph of his wife on the bureau. “You’d be proud of your daughters, Mandy,” he said in a husky whisper, his eyes misting over. “They’ve taken good care of me since…since we lost you. Too good. I think they’re matchmaking again. But they should know they’ll never find a woman for me as perfect as their mother.”

A familiar ache rose in his chest. After all this time he still felt a compulsive need to confide all the details of his life to his wife, God rest her soul. He cleared his throat and said aloud, “Mandy, I promise you, I’m as determined to protect our daughters, as they are to find me a new wife.”