Pablo still knelt next to them. “Dear, God, look at what I’ve done to you. You need a doctor.” Pablo reached for his arm to help him to his feet, but Thomas shook his head.
“I have Carissa. She’ll take good care of me.”
Carissa laid a kiss on his forehead. “I promise.”
“I heard you tell this lunatic you were going to marry me.”
She laughed through the tears. “You heard that?”
“Yeah. I thought I should confirm it.”
Carissa nodded. “Mr. Thomas Samuel, I’d love to be your wife.”
EPILOGUE Spring was all around Katie and she drank it in. The trees had new leaves, a promise of hope. The heads of tulips had rose from the ground and colored the many flower boxes that Katie and her own mother had planted so many times when she was a young girl.
She looked out over the backyard where she’d played as a child and she smiled. She’d married her George in that yard, and her son had married his wife there. When Sophia and David had finally made it to the altar, they too married in the beautiful yard.
Once again, Katie sat among her flowers and her family and watched as two people who loved one another became man and wife.
The students from their school of music played the “Wedding March” with their chosen instruments as Carissa walked down the aisle. The mixed sounds from the instruments might have been as welcoming as fingernails on a chalkboard to most, but to Thomas and Carissa it was more beautiful than any symphony, and that fact shone in their smiles.
Carissa’s father gave her a smile as he lifted her veil, and Katie watched as the big man wiped tears from his eyes.
Sophia took Katie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I did okay, didn’t I, Grandma?” Sophia whispered as the minister began the ceremony. “I learned my
matchmaking from the best.” Katie smiled. Yes, Sophia had learned from the best. At least Carissa and Thomas had had the foresight to get married right away. Sophia and David had dragged out their courtship for over a decade, making her and her best friend wait to see that their matchmaking had paired the perfect couple.
Hope turned from her sister’s side and waved at her mother and great-grandmother. Katie waved back. Someday it would be her turn to wed in the beautiful yard. It pained Katie to think she wouldn’t be there to see it, but she’d be there in spirit. Who knew, maybe she’d be there in some small way to play matchmaker for Hope too; after all, she’d already written letters to people in Mandy’s past to let them know Hope existed. Katie knew that there would come a time when Hope would want to know where she came from. And a time when her family—her whole family—would welcome her into their hearts.
It gave Katie some solace to know that though she couldn’t handpick a man for Hope, perhaps she’d set into motion all the pieces of Hope’s discovering where she came from and realizing just how blessed she was to have David and Sophia for her parents. It was a matchmaking of sorts, Katie thought.
Someday love would come looking for Hope too, and Katie smiled thinking that she just might be a part of that.
Snowy Creek Romance™ is pleased to offer you this first chapter of HOPE’S DISCOVERY, from Book Three in the MATCHMAKER TRILOGY by Bernadette Marie.
HOPE’S DISCOVERY Winter 2011
ISBN-10: 1-59819-076-8 ISBN-13: 978-1-59819-076-2 The Matchmaker Trilogy HOPE’S DISCOVERY
CHAPTER ONE He’d seen it all in his chosen profession. The most popular, the cheating husband. There were bosses who suspected employees were skimming the till. And like the angry wives’, the bosses’ suspicions were usually correct. A missing relative or child was just as common, but this case piqued his interest more than most.
Trevor Jacobs looked down at the manila folder on the passenger seat of his car. He tugged at his collar. The Missouri summer was warming the inside of his car to temperatures that he was sure would kill a man. He picked up the folder and flipped it open.
Finding Mandy Marlow had been a challenge because she’d disappeared when she was seventeen. That had been forty years ago.
The last time her mother had seen her, Mandy’d had a newborn infant in her arms and had come back begging for money. Ruth Marlow, Mandy’s mother, had given him the case’s scant details over the phone. His notes clearly reflected that Mandy hadn’t gone asking for a place to stay or for help with the baby. She had wanted ten thousand dollars and they had refused. She had told them she’d be living with friends. Friends who would love her and her baby, unlike her parents.
He’d finally tied Mandy to a David Kendal, a retired airline pilot living in Kansas City, Missouri.
Mandy Marlow had lived in the Kansas City area approximately seven years after she had left her parents’ house. Her DMV records showed she’d lived in a house owned by David Kendal and exactly seventeen years after she’d last been seen by her family she changed her name to Mandy Kendal. He’d searched marriage records, but he found no record that Mandy and David had actually been married. She had assumed the name through proper channels. However, their names did appear together on the birth certificates of Carissa Marlow Kendal and one Hope Katherine Kendal.
Hope Kendal had been born by cesarean moments after they had pronounced Mandy Kendal dead. She had died of heart failure and had papers that had strictly instructed that she not be revived.
She hadn’t been.
David Kendal married a Sophia Burkhalter only three weeks later. He flipped through the notes. “In a lovely back yard ceremony of the home of the bride’s grandmother Katherine Burkhalter,” the newspaper clipping had stated. Adoption records showed that Sophia, now Kendal, had adopted Carissa, then seventeen, and the newborn Hope only three months after she’d been born.
What a tidy package, he thought. Ex-lover of the dead woman shares custody of his children with his new wife. What a twisted novel plot that would make. He laughed. However, armed with the facts he had, he knew it had been that simple.
A change of heart, or perhaps a shove in that direction, had Mandy Marlow—Mandy Kendal—giving up her children and refusing to fight for her own life.
Sweat beaded on his brow. Trevor reached for his bottle of water. It had grown warm. He drank it down and tossed it into the backseat with the other bottles he’d discarded there. He knew he wasn’t the ideal patron for a car rental company.
He flipped through his notes again and stared into the face he’d become familiar with.
Hope Katherine Kendal.
She stood in a crowded room, but the camera had zoomed in on her. She’d been intrigued by something, or someone. Long blonde hair cascaded behind her shoulders and crystal blue eyes watched him from the photo. She had lips that were full and just a bit pouty. The face that mesmerized from the photo had a cherubic look to her, but a super model’s features.
He knew he’d been fascinated by it too long, too many times. He’d seen it in his dreams. He’d found himself driving down the road thinking about her face.
Trevor checked his watch. He’d been sitting in the cemetery, in his parked car, for over two hours. He’d wait another two hours and then he’d move on.
But he didn’t have to wait any longer.
A blue Miata pulled up between him and the headstone that read Mandy Marlow Kendal. The beautiful blonde that he’d familiarized himself with stood there in person. He felt his heart race a little faster.
The pace of his heart was different from when he was about to confront most of those whom he’d followed. That was adrenaline. This was lust.
Hope stood just outside her car. She was dressed in jeans that rode low on curvy hips. She wore her tie-dyed shirt tucked in, giving her a look of being taller than she was. Her hair fell well down her back in a long tail.
Large sunglasses shielded her eyes, but he knew how blue they were.
She wasn’t moving. He was far enough from her he knew she couldn’t see him, but he wondered what she was thinking when she stood still on the narrow dirt road. She reached through the open windo
w of her car and pulled out a bouquet of flowers.
Another car pulled up behind her. Trevor watched with intrigue. Carissa Kendal Samuel—he’d familiarized himself with her face as well—climbed out of her car and approached Hope.
He watched them exchange a few words and then an embrace. It was amazing how different sisters could be. Hope was fair. Her blonde hair was strikingly different from the dark hair of her sister. Carissa stood a few inches taller than Hope and her figure was straighter where Hope’s was voluptuous.
Arm in arm the sisters walked toward the grave of their birth mother. A smile crossed Trevor’s lips. Right on time.
Carissa laced her arm through her sister’s. “So, in twenty-three years this is the first time I caught you here?”
“You knew I came every year on the day that she died.” On the anniversary of her own birth.
“I did.” Carissa rested her head against her sister’s. “I just wasn’t sure why you did.”
“She’s a piece of me. She’s a piece I don’t know. A piece I’m afraid to ask about.”
“We’ve always been open about her.”
“I know. But I’m old enough to really understand. I think I want to understand now.” Hope bent and laid the flowers on Mandy’s grave then stood erect next to her sister again. “Do you really think she was always the person you knew?”
Carissa snorted out a laugh. “I hadn’t thought about it. My memories of her aren’t the happiest ones. I guess I never gave any consideration to who she was aside from that.”
Hope gave her sister a nod. Since she’d been ten years old she’d been curious. She’d remembered asking her father on the day they had buried her great-grandmother, Katie, if he’d take her to see her birth mother’s grave. She’d whispered it in his ear, not wanting to hurt her mother’s feelings. He’d agreed. They hadn’t gone that day, but he’d taken her.
They had stood where she now stood with her sister on her arm. They’d looked down at the grave without a word. She hadn’t asked questions and he hadn’t offered anything either. They just stood together in awkward silence.
The woman in the grave was not her mother. She understood that. Yes, Mandy had given birth to her, but that wasn’t motherhood. Sophia was her mother and would remain in her heart as just that. She’d raised her, molded her, and above all else loved her unconditionally. However, Mandy Marlow Kendal’s blood ran through her veins, and unlike her sister, whose biological father raised them both, Hope knew nothing of the two people who’d given her life.
Carissa gave her a nudge.
“I have to get back to the school. Thomas is planning dinner for you tonight. You are coming, aren’t you?”
“Me miss a birthday dinner that Thomas made? Not on your life.” She kissed her sister’s cheek. “Tell him I’ll be there and I’ll bring treats for the kids.”
“No candy,” Carissa pleaded. “Aiden has had enough sweets since he’s been staying with Mom while we work. Bryce’s teeth are going to rot out from under his braces, and Julie and Becky, well they just don’t need it.”
“Okay. I get it. I won’t let you know.” Hope grinned up at her sister, who only shook her head.
“You’re as bad as Mom.”
“We’re entitled.”
“Wait till you have kids. You will curse her and her giving ways.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
They fell silent again.
“Are you going to stay?” Carissa asked.
“Yeah. I think I need a few more minutes.”
“I’ll see you tonight, then.” Hope nodded without looking up. “Happy birthday,” Carissa added.
Hope tilted her head up toward her sister and smiled.
“Thanks.”
Carissa walked back to her car, leaving her sister to gather her thoughts over the grave of Mandy Kendal.
He watched Carissa’s car drive away. Finally, he thought. He couldn’t take the heat inside the car any longer.
Trevor slipped his business card into his pocket, climbed from the car, and put on his sunglasses. He walked across the grounds, slowly, as though he were searching for a stone.
She looked up at him as he neared and gave him a smile. Not an affectionate one, but that of someone who knew if you were in a cemetery, someone there mattered to you.
He wiped a hand over his brow.
“Hot day.”
“Sure is.” Her voice rang in his ears, penetrating every part of him. He’d studied the face, memorized the eyes, but had never heard the angelic ring of her voice.
A smile slid over his lips. “Visiting? Is this your grandmother?” He nodded to the grave where she stood.
“My birth mother.”
Trevor nodded again. She was specific, he thought.
Hope scanned a look over him, and though her eyes were still shielded by the sunglasses, a knot twisted in his stomach because she was looking right at him. Those eyes he’d studied in the picture and dreamed of at night focused on him.
“Are you searching for someone?”
“Yeah. My aunt is here somewhere.” At least he wasn’t lying. It was his great-great-aunt. Her grave marker read the year 1877, but he didn’t need to give the details. “I always forget where she’s buried.”
Hope nodded. “Good luck finding her.”
She turned to walk back toward her car.
This was the point in his findings, in a case like this, where he would introduce himself and tell her why he’d been sent to find her. He wasn’t ready for that. He wasn’t ready to hand her his card and say, “Your birth father is looking for you.” He wasn’t ready to put away the feeling he had when her eyes looked in his direction.
“I’m Trevor,” he called out to her and she stopped. “Trevor Jacobs.”
Hope turned back to him. “It’s nice to meet you.” She smiled warmly and continued back to her car.
“And you are?” He followed, then slowed, realizing he appeared too anxious.
“Are you following me?” She tilted down her sunglasses. The piercing blue eyes he knew so well looked right into him, and his heart slammed in his chest. He could barely breathe.
“I’m just new to the area. You know, trying to meet anyone I can.” He looked around. “Anywhere I can.” He laughed and she pushed up her glasses and studied him.
“Hope Kendal.” She extended her hand to him.
He took it and the shock that zapped between them had them both pulling their hands away.
“Wow,” he whispered as he looked down at his hand then back up to her.
“Shocking,” she joked. “Well, Mr. Jacobs, it was nice to meet you. I hope you find your aunt.”
He couldn’t move.
Hope walked to her car and he watched as she drove away. He looked back at his hand. It still tingled.
“It was a sign, Hope Kendal.” He turned back toward his car with a wide smile. “And I believe in signs.”
He swung open the car door and crawled in behind the wheel.
Hope watched him climb into his car from her rearview mirror. He headed out of the cemetery in the opposite direction. When she was sure he was out of sight, she stopped the car with a jolt and took a deep breath.
She rubbed her hand on her pant leg, trying to ease the tingling in it. She shook her head. She could hear her greatgrandmother telling her she would meet a man someday that would take her breath away. They were walking through a meadow, she recalled.
Hope moved her head from side to side, trying to ease the tension in her neck. She was losing her mind. She’d never walked in the meadow with her great-grandmother. She’d only been ten when Katie died and she’d been too frail to walk anywhere.
But it was her voice that Hope heard in her vivid dreams. It was clear.
Hope adjusted behind the wheel, checked her mirrors, and put the car back into drive. She wasn’t going to worry about her sanity. She was fine. Everyone had dreams that meant a lot. She, however, had them often.
&
nbsp; Katie Burkhalter had been in her dreams since she’d been a small girl. She understood that. That was remembering someone you loved. As she’d gotten older, Katie was only a memory. There were no more dreams.
When she turned twenty the dreams had returned.
She and Katie walked in meadows, painted pictures of flowers, and even played the piano together. That thought alone had her laugh. She’d taken piano lessons from the time she was eight. Her brother-in-law had had the patience of a saint as he tried to teach her, but she was no good. The daughter of a world-renowned cellist and the sister of one of the most sought-after music teachers in the area, Hope Kendal couldn’t keep rhythm or play to save her soul. She’d started on the piano and moved on to other instruments. It was no use. She was not a musician.
She was an artist.
Hope didn’t hear the world, she saw it in vivid color and texture. What her mother, sister, and brother-in-law could convey in music, she could convey on canvas.
Luck had been on her side. The small store next to her sister’s music school had become available when she’d turned twenty-one. Already established as a mural artist, she opened a small gift shop where she could also sell her paintings and work on them as well. Business wasn’t booming, but it kept her busy, happy, and close to her family.
Now, with her hand still tingling and her
grandmother’s voice ringing in her ears, she felt the need to paint. She drove back to her studio.
She would keep the store closed for the rest of the day. After all, it was her birthday. She deserved a day off, but she would paint. She would paint him.
Music filtered through the walls as Hope set up her canvas and selected a pencil to sketch the face of the stranger she’d met. Thomas had a student just beyond the wall that separated Hope’s studio area from the music school. She recognized the muffled song. How many times had he tried to get her to play it? How many times had he not given up? How many times had she tried it? She was seventeen before they all decided her talents lay in another form. Painting was her avenue of expression.
Of course, her perseverance in playing the piano had stemmed from her being enamored with her brother-in-law. She’d been eight when he’d walked into her life. Now he was the father of her two nieces and two nephews and still the light of her life. She knew how blessed she was to have two very stable and wonderful men in her life.
ENCORE PERFORMANCE (THE MATCHMAKER TRILOGY) Page 20