“Good morning…” He stopped, unable to remember her name.
“Julie. I’m Julie.”
“Good morning, Julie,” he said realizing that she was the one who resembled Mandy so closely. “Is your aunt here?”
“Yeah, she’s here.” She ran toward the back of the house, and Trevor shut the front door.
Hope appeared a moment later and smiled just as she had in his dream the night before.
“You look beautiful,” he said as he crossed to her and kissed her gently on the lips. They were soft. It was a welcome warmth after he’d lost hours of sleep worrying about her.
“I missed you last night,” she whispered as she ran her hands up his chest and he wrapped his arms around her waist. After yesterday, to have her embrace him settled his nerves. Perhaps she hadn’t realized just how deep into the investigation he was on both sides.
“How could you miss me? You had your entire family hovering over you.”
“I slept with six- and eight-year-old cover hogs.”
Trevor smiled. “That must be where you get it.”
Hope’s eyes opened wide and she shook her head. “Beware, Mr. Jacobs.” She drew her eyebrows together. “Insult me again and you may be sleeping alone for a very long time.”
He laughed as she turned, grabbed his hand, and pulled him to the small kitchen where her family sat crowded around the table.
“Good morning, Trevor.” Sophia greeted him with a cup of coffee.
“Good morning.”
David stood and silently shook his hand. They had a pact. David knew all his secrets. With one word, he could make or break Trevor’s relationship with Hope.
Trevor sat down with her family while Hope finished the last of her packing. They talked with him and around him as though he were a part of their day-to-day life. They did it all without one word about Mandy Marlow, break-ins, or company stocks. He noticed David never looked up from his newspaper and he was okay with that. He didn’t know if he could carry on a nonchalant conversation with the man yet. He was, however, eternally grateful that David hadn’t told anyone about his connection to Donald Buchanan. If he had, Trevor assumed he wouldn’t be sitting calmly among them. Sophia would have been frying him up on the stove instead.
“So when you get back to Kansas City will you set up shop for yourself?” Carissa asked. “Hope told me you wouldn’t be staying in New York any longer.”
His eyes widened. She obviously trusted them with almost everything. A shiver ran through him. Just how much about their relationship had Hope shared with her family?
“Um, yeah. My mom has connections everywhere. So I’ll sit down with her this week and brainstorm on a plan. I’d like to remain independent if I can.”
“It’s always nice to work for yourself,” Thomas added.
“I’ve always enjoyed it.” Trevor looked up as Hope walked through the doorway. “Are you all set?”
“I think so.”
He stood and pushed in his chair. “Thank you for the coffee.”
“Take care of our little girl,” David said. He lowered his head and shot Trevor a look of warning before he kissed Hope on the cheek. “We’ll take care of the shop and I’ll keep an eye on the apartment too. You just try to relax and enjoy yourself.”
“I will. I love you all.”
They turned and walked out of the house. Trevor carried her suitcase, but before she could hurry away from him, he grabbed hold of her hand and interlaced their fingers.
“I was thinking. We really should ship the painting. I don’t think it’ll travel very well on the plane,” Hope said as Trevor loaded her suitcase into the trunk on her car.
“That makes sense.” He shut the trunk and before he opened her door, he pulled her to him hard, crushing his mouth to hers.
He’d missed the taste of her and the feel of her in his arms. It seemed like it had been weeks, when it had only been days.
“I missed you,” he said with a whisper on her lips.
“I missed you too.”
Hope was quiet during the flight. Her nerves twisted her gut.
Trevor took her hand. “Nervous?”
“Extremely!”
“My folks are great. I don’t want you to worry. They are going to love you.”
She let out a sigh. “I believe you. But Trev”—she turned in her seat toward him as the plane landed—“I’ve been thinking. Since we’re in New York… I want to meet Donald Buchanan.”
Trevor’s lips pursed and he looked out the window as the plane taxied to the terminal. “With everything going on with his wife, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I mean, I promised your family that I would keep you safe and away from harm.”
Hope nodded. She wouldn’t pursue it further. At least not with him.
The tension of meeting his mother was quickly dealt with when Hope and Trevor walked around the wall to the baggage claim, and there stood his parents waiting for him. Hope would have known his father anywhere. He was simply a version of Trevor with an additional twenty-five years on him. Violet Jacobs stood prim and proper, dressed immaculately with pearls and pumps. The smile on her face was that of a woman who had missed her son, even if she’d only seen him off the day before.
“Trevor, I was so glad you called.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a loud kiss on his cheek. “I know I fed you breakfast yesterday, but knowing you were moving away, I missed you bunches since then.”
“Mom, you’re so sappy.”
“Always have been, always will be.” She smiled as she patted him on the cheek and then her smile turned to Hope. “You must be Hope.” She extended her perfectly manicured hand toward her and shook Hope’s trembling one. “Trevor spent the better part of his last visit talking about you. It is so nice to finally meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Jacobs.”
“Oh, there will be none of that.” Violet patted her hand. “I am Violet. And this quiet beast here is Brandon.”
Brandon took a step forward and shook her hand.
“Glad to meet you.” He glanced at Trevor. “Didn’t think you’d come back so soon. I figured I would have to take more of Bryce’s money before I got to take more of yours.”
“Keep thinking that. Keep thinking it.”
They walked to the parking garage, and Hope sat in the back seat with Violet. She could feel her eyes on her and she wanted to speak, but nothing would come out. The woman was as nice as could be, but Hope couldn’t help but feel inferior looking at Violet’s clothing, manicure, and hearing the precise tone in her voice, which demanded a respect. What would it be like, she wondered, to command the attention around you just by showing confidence?
Violet shifted in her seat to face Hope. “Hope, Trevor tells me you’re an artist.”
“Yes. I have a small gift shop where I sell my work.” The smile was natural when she spoke of her store. She’d always figured it was like her child. She’d conceived it, nurtured it, and took very good care of it. Pride swelled inside her when someone asked about it.
“Oh, I think that is wonderful. I can’t wait to see it. Tell me about your family.”
Hope swallowed the lump in her throat and relaxed against the seat. “Well, my father is a retired airline pilot and my mother was a professional cellist before I was born. My sister and her husband run a music school.”
Violet leaned forward and placed a hand on Trevor’s shoulder. “Trev, you told me about her mom, right? She played in Europe?”
He nodded. “Yes, I told you that.”
Hope smiled. “She and my brother-in-law toured with Pablo DiAngelo.”
“That’s right!” Violet wiggled in her seat. “Oh, he was one sexy man. I suppose he still is, but you don’t hear about him much. Does your mother still keep in touch with him?”
“Christmas cards and they exchange e-mails. I’ve met him a few times, but that’s really about it. To me he was just my mother’s friend. I never thought of him
as much more than that.”
Violet nodded. “It sounds like you’re family is close knit, from what Trev tells me.”
“We are.” In all of her life she’d never known a family bound by blood that was closer than her own. “We are very close.”
“I’m glad Trevor will have a family around. We’ll miss him, but I know he’ll be well taken care of.”
Hope let out a silent breath as she relaxed around the woman who had been first and foremost in Trevor’s life.
Violet tapped her fingertips together. “You know that landlord of yours dropped off a bill to the office, Trevor.”
“A bill?” He turned in his seat until he was facing his mother, his arm flung over the back of the chair. “I took care of the damage to the apartment.”
“Seems as though Scary Buchanan thinks you’re hiding something.”
Hope touched Trevor’s arm. “I thought she was in Kansas City. That’s why we came early.” Her voice filled with panic.
“You’re safe enough. We won’t let anything happen to you,” Violet assured her. “But Trevor, whoever broke into your apartment came back about the time you boarded the plane yesterday. They broke into your landlord’s apartment, stole the keys, and hit that pretty redhead Bryce is staying with.”
Trevor pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
Hope sat back in her seat. Her quest to find out about her mother’s past and the identity of her birth father was putting people in danger. But she’d come this far. She didn’t think she could stop now.
Hope and Trevor settled into his old room. She was pleased to find that his parents were a little more open to their sharing a room.
Trevor opened the door to the bathroom.
“It joins the other bedroom, but there’s no one in there. It used to be my sister’s room.”
“You had to share a bathroom with your sister?”
“Torture, right? Imagine an eight-year-old boy and a twelve-year-old girl. It was a good thing I didn’t think hygiene was important yet. Her crap was all over all the time. I used to sit in there and spray everything. Sometimes I’d empty the container just to see how long it would take. Talk about pissing someone off.”
“Not to mention the mess.”
“Well since I always had to clean it up I wasn’t going to mention it.” He walked to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You look beat.”
“It’s been a busy few days.”
“Tell you what.” He kissed her gently. “You take a rest. My mom hasn’t said anything, but I will guarantee you that by six o’clock this place is going to be packed. My guess is that my sister and her family and my ex-roommate, Bryce, will be here for dinner. Everyone wants to meet the woman who turned my life upside down.”
Hope forced a smile. She was sure his ex-roommate and the redhead were going to be glad to meet her—after all, it was her fault Bryce had been kicked out of his apartment and the new one they shared had been broken into. She was bad luck. It was just a matter of time before someone made Trevor realize it.
David sat at Carissa’s kitchen table and watched as his grandchildren ran out the back door and out into the yard where he’d married Sophia, and Carissa had married Thomas. Would his Hope be married in that yard? And would she be marrying Trevor?
When Thomas walked into the kitchen with a notepad, David gave him a nod and asked Carissa to sit with them.
“Now that Trevor has your sister out of the picture for a few days, Thomas and I thought we’d try to nab Buchanan’s wife.”
“Nab her? Like put her in a potato sack and throw her in the Missouri?” Carissa shook her hair over her shoulders and looked skeptically at him.
“Smarty. She wants to get to Hope. She wants those stocks and that money. I think she’s the one behind all the break-ins.”
“Well, not personally,” Thomas added.
“Of course, but what are you going to do, Batman and Robin? How will you save us all?” Carissa’s lips curled into a smile.
“I’m thinking we are going to use you for bait.” David stated his plan and watched as her eyes went from humored to angry in a flash.
“Bait? Me?” Carissa turned to Thomas. “You’re going to set me up?”
“She’ll follow you if she knows Hope is gone.”
“Neither of those things are settling well with me at this moment. I don’t want to be bait and I don’t like that Hope isn’t with us.”
“She’s safe,” David assured her.
“I think you threw her to the wolves.”
“Carissa.” Thomas reached for her hand. “Your father and I think this Buchanan woman knows you went to the bank and closed out the box. I did some searching and found that Donald Buchanan gave those stocks to Mandy. They are in her name. As it sits, you are the rightful owner of them as you have the power of attorney.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Too late!”
“I don’t see why even from the grave Mandy Marlow sees fit to meddle in my life.” She shoved back her chair and got up to pace a circle in the kitchen.
David stood and walked to Carissa. He held her arms and looked at her. After all the years they’d had together, he still couldn’t see Mandy in her. She was his daughter through and through. “Listen. I won’t let anything happen to you, and it should be fairly easy to get her in our grasp. But we need you to lead her to us.”
He watched her mull it over.
She looked at Thomas, who nodded his head. Then she looked back at her father and narrowed her eyes.
Carissa sat back down at the table and David followed. She gripped her hands together and lifted her head. “What do I have to do?”
“You have to let them break into the house,” David said.
“What? I’m not going to let that happen and put my children in danger.” She turned to Thomas. “What if they hit the school? That puts our students in danger.”
“Do you really think I’d do this if I thought it would endanger our children?”
Carissa squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds and let her shoulders drop before looking back at her husband. “No.”
“Then listen to us for a minute,” Thomas pleaded with her.
She shook her head. “I don’t like this. I really don’t like this.” She huffed out a breath. “What do I need to do?”
David leaned his arms on the table. “We’re going to do some surveillance on the house. Thomas has talked to the neighbors, and they’re going to be keeping a keen eye on everything from front and back.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be hard. Mrs. Nelson watches everything that goes on from her window anyway. If you look out there right now you’ll see the curtain move and her fingers poke through.”
“She was old thirty years ago when I first started seeing your mother. There were a few occasions when she’d come out and yell at us for kissing in the moonlight.” He smiled, he couldn’t help himself. Those ten years Sophia disappeared from his life had all but been banished by the twenty-three years he’d had her as his wife.
“Back to them messing up my house.”
“Well, we plan to catch them in the act. They seem to move during the day. We see them enter and we call the police.”
“Dad, this sounds crazy. This isn’t going to work.”
“Let’s try.” He lifted his brows, and she nodded with a roll of her eyes. “Next, I went down to Hope’s this morning and set up surveillance cameras at the store. If we can detain her long enough, we can get the police to get her too.”
“And charge her with what? Shopping in a gift store?”
“No, I think it will just be a matter of holding on to her for a few minutes until the police arrive. It’s just a hunch that the goons she has busting up people’s houses will squeal when in custody.”
“Goons? Squeal? You’ve been watching too many cop shows.”
“Maybe, but it’s worth a try.”
“I don’t really care about the money or the stocks.
We could just give them back to her.”
David shook his head. “No. Donald Buchanan deserves the right to give them to his daughter if that’s what he wants to do.” It pained him to call Hope someone else’s daughter. He’d never thought of her as anything but his own. After all, the very moment she was born, they’d handed her to him. He’d watched her take her first breath and witnessed every first from there on out. Just recently, he’d watched her fall in love, and, he thought, it looked good on her.
David let out a breath. “I don’t think Donald has any ill will toward Mandy or Hope. After all, he sent Trevor to find her so he could meet her. I would assume he’d have her best interests at heart.”
“He sent Trevor?” Carissa shot back up on her feet. “He was following her, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what? If she doesn’t know that Trevor has been part of this from the start, then she’s in more danger than we think. What is wrong with the two of you?”
Carissa headed to the phone on the wall and picked up the receiver. Thomas moved quickly and grabbed it from her hand. “What are you doing?”
“I think my baby sister needs to be warned she’s with some lying, sleazy private investigator who is going to deliver her to Delores Buchanan on a silver plate.”
“He’s not doing that.”
“You two are some piece of work. You let her go.” She turned her angry eyes back to David. “You knew about this. How will I ever forgive you if something happens to her?”
Hadn’t he lost sleep over that himself? If something happened to Hope, he’d never be able to live with himself. “Carissa, he isn’t going to hurt her. He only wants what’s best for her.”
“I think you’re crazy.”
“Maybe!” He stood and walked across the kitchen. “I can’t help but believe that he loves her. I saw it in his eyes when he told me.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. “Yes, Donald Buchanan hired him to find Mandy and to see if there was a child. Yes, he did his job. But in the meantime they fell in love.”
“Carissa.” Thomas’s voice had her turning toward her husband. “You can’t control when you fall in love, no matter how hard you fight not to.”
Hope's Discovery (THE MATCHMAKER TRILOGY) Page 17