Undercover Cook
Page 18
“So we can’t hear if she tells you to go to hell?”
“Stop it, Nick.” Eden smiled at Gabe. “She isn’t flying up from southern Nevada to tell you to go to hell.”
“You don’t know Bonita. She just might.” Gabe said it with a mixture of pride and anxiety. “This is killing me—”
“Granddad,” Nick said, “you guys were together for how many years?”
“Five. But—” Gabe broke off abruptly and his mouth went tight for a moment. “There she is,” he murmured.
And indeed, there she was. Eden recognized Bonita from the photos, a trim blonde woman in her early seventies with angular features. She was near the top of the escalator, carrying an oversize white bag and wearing skinny-legged pants and a fashionable dark green tunic. When she saw Gabe, her lips parted and then she started walking down the moving steps, squeezing past the two people in front of her.
Gabe started forward, but had only made it a few yards before she threw herself into his arms. He stood stiffly for a few seconds, then his arms closed around her and he held her, rocking her gently as the people moved around them.
“I didn’t think you…you sounded so uncertain…” Gabe muttered.
“I had to make certain,” she said. “I wasn’t going to come until I was certain.”
“And now?”
“I’m here,” she said.
Nick nudged Eden and when she looked up at him, he smiled and then held out his hand. Eden slipped her fingers into his and he squeezed them. “Time to leave the lovebirds alone.”
“I thought we were their ride.”
He shook his head. “Only if she told him to go to hell. Granddad has a cab waiting.”
“So we’re just here—”
“To make sure he looked all right,” Nick said with a smile. The automatic door opened and he and Eden walked out into the unseasonably warm October day.
“Think it’ll work out?” she asked as they crossed the street to the parking garage. Gabe had been very upfront about the mistakes he’d made, obviously in hopes that Nick wouldn’t follow suit. Eden loved him because of it. Gabe was becoming the grandfather she’d never had and she wanted him to be happy, so Bonita had better be careful.
“They’ve communicated for six months. They may have had some shaky times in the past, but you know what?” Nick stopped next to his SUV and pulled out the keys.
“What?” Eden asked with a half smile.
He settled his hands on her waist and leaned his face close to hers, looking at her in a way that made her catch her breath. “I know from personal experience that it’s possible to overcome a shaky start. To learn and grow and build something good from something bad.”
“You weren’t bad.”
“But I wasn’t good, either.” He kissed her lightly, but with the unspoken promise of better things to come. Soon. “All I can say is thank you for giving me a second chance.”
Eden pulled his lips back to hers, ignoring the couple dragging suitcases toward the exit behind them. “And all I can say is thank you for taking it.”
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781459219823
Copyright © 2012 by Jeannie Steinman
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com