Geri Krotow - A Rendezvous To Remember

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Stephen

My Everlasting

Acknowledgment

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

My heartfelt gratitude, respect and love to

Haywood Smith, Susan Wiggs and Debbie Macomber

for believing in me and my potential. You are soul sisters.

Special thanks to my editor extraordinaire,

Paula Eykelhof.

November 10, 2007

He stood hunched over the azaleas, shaping the bushes with ease despite the cold. Melinda Busher-Thompson burrowed her gloved hands deeper into the front pockets of her Berber coat as she watched him. Her exposed skin stung with the raw damp of the November day—another reason for her desire to leave western New York.

Yet Grandpa Jack moved through his garden as though he was still forty, like her, and not eighty-seven.

As if Grammy was still here.

“Hey, Grandpa.” Her all-weather moccasins squished over the scattered dead leaves Grandpa Jack had laid down for insulation.

“Hey, yourself, kiddo!” Pleasure lit up Jack Busher’s face. Melinda caught the sparkle in his violet-blue eyes before he enfolded her in one of his famous bear hugs.

Grandpa Jack might be thinner than he’d been when she was a child, but his embrace still held all the love in the world for her. She breathed in his scent—fall morning rain mixed with soap and old-fashioned cologne.

“I didn’t think you’d get here until tomorrow.”

The familiar vestiges of his English accent comforted her.

Jack pulled back to look at Melinda’s face but his hands were still on her upper arms. He squeezed her with just enough pressure that she felt it under her thick coat. Her heart pounded in response to the unconditional love she’d only ever found here with him and Grammy.

“I got into town late last night.”

“I see.” Jack grunted as he hoisted a pile of twigs he’d gathered and tossed them into his wheelbarrow.

“I didn’t want to wake you.” She held her breath for a moment, then watched the cloud of vapor as she expelled it forcefully from her lungs.

“I slept at my house last night but I have my luggage in the car so I can stay with you for the next two weeks.”

Jack’s expression stiffened.

“That won’t work, honey. You belong in your own place.”

“Grandpa, I belong with you right now.”

She felt her neck muscles tighten in exasperation. Grandpa refused to accept her broken marriage for what it was.

Irreparable.

“Melinda, you’ve always belonged with me, you’ll always be part of me. But no one’s been in your house for months, except me checking on it, and it needs some living. It’ll do the place good to have the furnace on and water running through the pipes.”

Jack paused in his raking and leveled a look at Melinda. It was the same look he used to give her as a teenager when he saw through her schemes.

“I’m not so old that I need a babysitter, honey.”

“I’m not here to babysit you, Grandpa. I miss you and we’ll have more time together if I stay here.”

“Phooey. We’ll have all the time we want. You need to be in your own home.”

He wasn’t going to back down on this one. Nor was he willing to discuss Nick with her.

Not yet.

“You taking care of yourself, girl?” Jack’s body might be fading but his eyes and perception weren’t.

“Sure, Grandpa.” She glanced down, but felt the strength of his gaze. “It’s not easy, you know….”

Her cheeks flushed with shame. How could she stand here whining about her loss when Grandpa mourned the loss of his life’s partner of more than sixty years?

His breath caught, and she heard the rasp in his throat. When she raised her eyes back to his, she saw the unshed tears. Guilt and grief washed over her and she clenched her fists in her coat pockets.

“Of course it’s not easy, pumpkin, but we have to go on. We’re still here. You know your Grammy wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He bent down to pick up the shears he’d dropped at their feet. When he straightened, she saw the strain on his face.

“I know, Grandpa. I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Nothing this family hasn’t experienced from its women before.”

They both laughed, and for a moment all the sorrow of the past three months was gone and it was just Melinda and Grandpa Jack out in the garden.

Exactly the way it’d been since Melinda could remember. She’d even taken her first steps here. Busher family legend said she’d reached for a tulip to pick, unaware of the rarity of bulb flowers in a Buffalo spring.

“Honey, I called you for a reason.” She heard the slight quaver in his voice, saw the deep lines around his mouth.

“Grandpa, you don’t have to explain. I told you I’d come whenever you needed me, and I meant it. I’m just sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

The truth was, she’d had to convince Senator Hodges that she’d only be gone two weeks. Thank God it wasn’t an election year or she’d never have gotten this vacation time. Since she’d taken over as head speechwriter for the senator, she’d had exactly one week off.

When Grammy died.

“You have your own life, Melinda. I don’t expect you to drop everything for me. You know that, honey.” He raked up the clippings from the azaleas and stooped to put them in the black plastic bag.

“Let me help you, Grandpa.”

Together they finished the rest of the job, and within twenty minutes were inside the warm kitchen. The kitchen was home to Melinda ever since Grandpa and Grammy moved into the large suburban house in the 1970s.

Hot coffee steamed from Grammy’s chipped ceramic mugs that Melinda set on the table in front of them.

“Your Grammy was always closest to you, Melinda, even more so than she was to your father or Lille.” Jack’s hands tightened around his mug.

“We don’t have to talk about this, Grandpa.” Sad conversations weren’t good for Grandpa Jack. Not in his deep state of grief.

“Yes, my dear, we do. Now let me finish.”

He covered Melinda’s hand with his, and a lifetime of Grandpa Jack conversations flooded through her heart at the contact. Tears seeped from her eyes but she remained silent.

This isn’t about you, Melinda. Be strong for Grandpa Jack.

“As close as Grammy was to you, my dear, she didn’t share everything. We didn’t share everything, not with anyone, really.”

Melinda sucked in a breath. Now what? She was going to find out she had long-lost sisters or brothers? The family had a fortune from bootlegging that they’d kept in Swiss accounts?

Grandpa Jack appeared oblivious to her thoughts.

“As you may remember, we married after the war, here in Buffalo.” Grandpa Jack looked out the kitchen window and as much as Melinda wanted to follow his gaze, she couldn’t stop staring at his face.

What was he going to tell her?

“But that’s not where the story started. Your father was born in 1944.” Melinda heard Grandpa’s words but still didn’t follow him.

“Yes, so he’s sixty-three.”

“And your aunt Lille’s one year older than he is.”

“Sixty-four.” As she did the math, Melinda realized that Aunt Lille seemed much younger than her years. But surely this wasn’t why Grandpa Jack was going through the family timelines.