Hope's Discovery (THE MATCHMAKER TRILOGY)

by Marie, Bernadette

  Both women stood and looked down and the closed box. Hope didn’t want to be the first to see what their birth mother was hiding.

  “Okay.” Carissa blew out a breath. “Here we go.”

  She slowly slid the lid from the box and Hope held her breath. Inside the safe-deposit box were stock certificates. Carissa pulled them out and laid them to the side. There was another bundle of money and a letter addressed to “My Daughters.”

  Carissa lifted the letter out of the box and her hands, unsteady and shaking, rattled the envelope.

  They exchanged glances again.

  “Open it. Fast,” Hope said, her own lip quivering.

  Carissa started to run her finger through the envelope that bared the name of the bank. She pulled the letter from the envelope and the letterhead had the name of the bank as well.

  She cleared her throat and began.

  To My Beautiful Daughters,

  As I write this, I am sitting in a little room at the bank filling this safe-deposit box that I hope someday you will find. I know that I will never return here.

  I am seven months pregnant with a baby that I know will be a girl. I am headed to Kansas City to give birth to her and convince a wonderful man to raise her. I have done all I can to ensure that he will be able to take her without problems. I have changed my name to match his, and if I can convince him to be her father, he will only have to carry her out of the hospital and give her a wonderful life.

  I was told that if I carried the baby to term I would die. I feel weak and I’m sure this to be very true. I have stopped taking my medications because after she is born, I do not want to live.

  I have chosen a path for my life that has left me unhappy. I have disgraced my family and have lost all connection to them.

  Carissa, if you are reading this, please know that I did love you. You were an amazing gift to me that I didn’t respect.

  She stopped reading, took a breath, and wiped her eyes. Hope gave her a nod and urged her to continue.

  I know since I walked away from you, leaving you with your father, you’ve blossomed into a beautiful woman. I’ve heard you play your cello and I’ve seen you turn into a beautiful woman. I’ve never been too far away.

  “Oh, wow!” Carissa handed the letter to Hope. “Finish this,” she said.

  Hope nodded and took the letter.

  The baby I am carrying is your sister. And I hope that you and your father will consider raising her so that you will be together. This baby will need her family. I will be gone, and her father does not know about her.

  I’ve done something I’m not proud of. I had an affair with a married man. He’s someone I’ve known my whole life. He was my father’s business partner.

  Hope looked up from the letter, realizing Mandy had told them who her birth father was. Even without a name they had somewhere to start looking.

  He gave me the stocks for the company because he felt I was owed them after my father died. I hope they will be worth something to you someday. The other money that I have put into an account, and what I have stored here, was given to me by his wife to stay away from him and never mention the baby. I have sunk low enough to have accepted her bribe and to have run away. I was afraid that if I didn’t disappear, she would have had me killed and that would have killed my baby too.

  I know I will die, but I want my baby to live.

  Hope stopped and put her hand to her chest. “She was protecting me.”

  Carissa nodded. “She’d cleaned up. I know her conscience played a big role in her giving you to us, but I didn’t know someone had paid her off to do it.”

  “I’m glad they did,” Hope said, covering her sister’s hand with her own. She took a deep breath and continued to read the letter.

  Carissa, I’m sorry for everything I have ever done. To have been fair to you I should have told David about you from the start and let him have you. He wanted to keep you and I lied to him. I hurt you and I’m so very sorry. I hope you can accept my apology.

  Please take care of my baby and love her. She is your sister and I know that will mean something to you.

  I love you both. I’m sorry I will never get to know the baby that grows inside of me. I’m sure if all goes well and she is raised a Kendal she will be perfect too.

  Love, Mandy

  They both sat silently. Hope tried to hold back the wall of tears, and watched as her sister did the same, but eventually they broke through.

  Carissa blew out a ragged breath. “She didn’t even sign the letter, Mom,” she said with a shake of her head. “Let’s get out of here.” She took the stocks and cash and slid them into her purse.

  Hope took the letter, put it into the envelope, and carried them out with her. It was the first time in her life she felt a connection to Mandy Marlow, and she wasn’t sure what to do with the feeling.

  They drove home in silence. Hope tried to make sense of the words of a woman who had been dead for twenty-three years. And from Carissa’s tapping of her fingers on the steering wheel she assumed she was doing the same.

  Hope had counted the cash that Mandy had left in the box. There was ten thousand dollars. Neither of them had staked claim to the money or the stocks. Hope was sure she didn’t want the responsibility of Mandy’s last gift.

  Trevor put his suitcase into his mother’s car and stood at the curb waiting for her. In a few hours he’d be in the arms of the woman he loved. He’d never have thought he could miss a woman so much, but he missed Hope completely.

  “Do you have everything?” Violet asked as she locked the front door.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is she picking you up when you get there?”

  He smiled. “Yes. Her father is watching the store so she can be at the airport.” He walked to the driver’s side of the car and opened the door for his mother.

  “You are bringing her here to meet me, right?”

  “Of course. For your birthday.”

  With a rise of her brows she looked at him over her sunglasses. “That’s only a few weeks away. You’ll be flying in then too?”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Not at all,” she said, patting his cheek with her hand as she slid into the seat, and Trevor shut the door.

  At the airport, Violet pulled to the curb and met Trevor at the back of the car.

  “I feel like this goodbye is so permanent.” Her voice cracked, and it gave a tug at Trevor’s chest.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  Violet slapped him on the shoulder and took off her sunglasses. “I’m your mother. I’m allowed to feel the disappointment of losing my only son.” She took a deep breath, lifting her shoulders and dropping them again. “But my baby is in love.” She clasped her hands to her chest. “He’s in love.” This time a smile brightened her face.

  “I am.” His grin was so huge it hurt. “She’ll love you too.”

  “Of course she will.” Violet kissed her son on the cheek. “Be happy.”

  “I will.”

  “Be careful.”

  On a sigh he said, “I will.”

  Trevor picked up his suitcase and the box that Ruth Marlow had given him. He kissed his mother once more and disappeared into the airport to make his journey back to Hope.

  Just as he passed through security and found his gate he opened his phone to call Hope, but it rang in his hands.

  “Jacobs,” he answered as he set the box down on the seat next to him.

  “Mr. Jacobs, it’s Ruth Marlow.”

  “Mrs. Marlow, I didn’t expect to hear from you.” He sat up in the seat. “How can I help you?”

  “Well, after you were here I did some looking around. I got to thinking about Delores Buchanan.”

  “And you remembered something?”

  “Yes.” He heard her take a deep breath. “When my husband died, Donald Buchanan bought back my husband’s shares of the company from me. I had no use for them. My husband had set us up to live nicely through retirement. So I s
old them to him. But when Delores cornered me in the antique store last month, she asked me about my stocks for the company.”

  Trevor’s heart began to race. “She didn’t know her husband bought them back from you?”

  “That’s how it sounded. But that was a very long time ago. Maybe she forgot. Anyway, I just thought I’d let you know I remembered that part of the conversation.”

  “I appreciate it very much. Again, if you think of anything…”

  “I’ll be sure to let you know.” She didn’t say goodbye right away, and just as Trevor took a breath to speak Ruth asked, “Are you on your way back to her?”

  “Yes. She’ll be picking me up at the airport.”

  “I assume she and her sister are beautiful. My Mandy was beautiful once. Drugs and alcohol changed how she looked, but once she was very pretty.”

  “Both of her girls are beautiful, Mrs. Marlow. In fact, if you don’t mind my saying, when I saw you I could see a lot of Hope in you.”

  “Really?” Her voice lifted.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m glad they had a nice life.”

  “Mrs. Marlow, are you sure you don’t want to meet them?”

  There was a pause and Trevor thought perhaps she’d changed her mind. “No. Take care of them, Mr. Jacobs. I know you love her very much, and that will be nice to know. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Marlow.” He closed his phone just as they called for his flight.

  Quickly he dialed Hope’s phone, but it went straight to voice mail. He closed it again and boarded the plane. In only a few hours, he’d be in her arms.

  Twenty minutes until closing, the door to Hope’s store opened and the bell rang. David looked up from his crossword puzzle and smiled at the woman who sauntered in. He’d hoped to get away with helping Hope out and not having to have talked to any customers, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen.

  “Good afternoon. Nice day, isn’t it?” he asked with a smile, but the woman coolly looked him over.

  “Where is the woman who owns the store?” Her red-painted lips were pursed.

  “She had an errand to run. I’m her father. Can I help you with something?”

  The woman snorted a laughed and jaunted out her chin. “You are her father?”

  “Yes.”

  He watched as she ran her tongue over her teeth and considered him.

  “So you were the first one Mandy Marlow sank her claws into.” She clutched the shiny black purse that hung from the crook in her elbow on rhinestone-encrusted straps.

  The mere mention of the woman’s name had David’s skin chill. He stood from his seat to be eye level with the woman who seemed to have secrets hidden behind her dark stare. “Who are you?”

  “I am obviously no one. But now that I’ve seen your face, I remember you.”

  He studied her, at a disadvantage because he had no idea who she was. “I’m sorry. I don’t recall your name,” he said, trying to keep his calm.

  “You wouldn’t. You were too busy knocking up seventeen-year-olds.”

  Her words stabbed him in the heart. Right where he assumed she was aiming. Whoever the nasty woman was, she was part of his past, but why she was standing in his daughter’s store looking for her was beyond him.

  “I don’t know what you want with my daughter, but I’d appreciate it if you left.”

  “All I want is what is mine. I’ll be back for it.” She turned and stalked out the door.

  David huffed out a breath and watched as the woman drove away in a taxi that had waited right outside.

  Hope was waiting for him at the baggage claim, and the smile on her face told him she missed him as much as he’d missed her.

  She ran to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, and the part of him that hadn’t felt whole since he’d left her was complete again.

  “How long were you gone?” She kissed him hard on the mouth and he held her close to him, never wanting to let her go again.

  “Too long.” He lifted his head back to look at her. “Everything is quiet?”

  “Sure.” She kissed him again before releasing her grasp on him. “Thomas hasn’t let me out of his sight for three days. I’ve had to go to work with him in the morning, lock up, and go home with him at night. It’s like I’m in protective lockdown.”

  “Well, that’s okay.” He retrieved his luggage and with his arm wrapped around Hope’s waist, they started toward the parking garage. “Where is your sister today?”

  “Teaching, why?”

  “I have something for both of you. But I want you together when I give it to you.”

  “You brought us a present?”

  “You could say that.” They reached her car, and Trevor tossed his suitcase into the trunk and gave it a slam. “So does your offer still stand?” he asked as he slid into the car.

  “Which one?”

  “All of them,” he said with a wink and she smiled as she slid on her sunglasses. “The one about me staying with you. I’m officially homeless in Kansas City and New York.”

  Hope turned her head toward him and removed the sunglasses she’d just put on. “You’re homeless in New York?”

  “Yeah. Funny, the landlord decided that it was my neglect that caused my apartment to get broken into. He sees that, as I trashed the place, he no longer wants me or Bryce as tenants of said space.”

  “Bryce?”

  “My roommate.”

  “Wow, so he evicted you?”

  “Yep. So up to the fourth floor I went to grovel to the redhead with the big boobs who’s been chasing me for the past three months.”

  “Oh.” She replaced her sunglasses and started the car. “So you’re going to stay with her?”

  “Didn’t I just ask to stay with you?”

  Hope turned to him, her brows knit behind the shield of her glasses. “Well… yes.”

  “Okay.”

  “So what’s with the redhead?”

  “Trying to see if it gets under your skin. That means you’re into me.” He slid his own sunglasses on and smiled.

  “Trevor, that’s not nice.”

  “What’s nice is that Bryce has the hots for the redhead, who, I was told over and over again, has a name. Patricia, I think he said. But she took him in and all of his crap.”

  “Oh.” She shook her head. “So he’s living in the same building he was evicted from, with the redhead who has big boobs who was chasing you?”

  “Yep that sums it up.”

  “And you’re not living in New York anymore?”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  She hadn’t moved the car. She didn’t say anything else. He turned to her, pulled his sunglasses from his face, and adjusted himself in the seat.

  “There isn’t anywhere else in the world I’d rather be than right here with you.” He watched her swallow hard. “Did I make a mistake?”

  She shook her head and pulled her sunglasses off, again, and tears began to stream down her cheeks.

  “Hope, don’t be sad. I can make arrangements…”

  “Don’t you dare.” She smiled as she sniffed back her tears. “My grandmother told me in a dream once you’d come searching for me, and here you are.”

  “Here I am.”

  “Did you come searching for me, Trevor?”

  His heart kicked up a notch, and he pressed his palms against his thighs to keep his hands from shaking. “Yes. I did in fact come searching for you.”

  “Then that would explain why I’ve fallen in love with you.” She smiled and raised her hand to his cheek. “I fell in love with you the moment I saw you,” she whispered. “I only paint those I love.”

  Hope slid her sunglasses back on her face and backed out of the parking space.

  “So how is your family?”

  “Oh, fine. Mom looks forward to meeting you in a few weeks.”

  Hope smiled. “You told her about me?”

  “I don’t have to tell my mother much. She knows me
pretty well. We’re very close.”

  “So she knows I’ve stolen your heart.”

  “Yes,” he said, reaching for her hand and interlacing their fingers. “Why don’t you call your sister and have her meet us at your… our place when she’s done teaching.”

  Hope nodded and dialed the phone while she sat at a stoplight. Trevor watched her carefully as she spoke to her sister. She didn’t look toward him and she answered any questions that Carissa was asking with a grunt. Something had transpired while he’d been gone. He had his secrets, and now it seemed she had her own.

  Hope pulled up in front of the apartment, and Trevor hurried to her side of the car to open her door.

  Hope stepped out and rested a hand on his arm. “You know, I could really get used to that.”

  “You’ll have to. I’ll always be doing it.” He leaned in and kissed her. “I guess you’ll need to get used to me saying something else too.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, her lashes fluttering up at him.

  “That I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “Maybe after your sister leaves, we can have a nice long talk about us.” He’d put it out there and even behind her sunglasses he knew her eyes had changed. “A fill-in-the-blanks kind of talk.”

  Hope nodded, then shut the door and started across the street.

  Trevor carried his suitcase and the box from Ruth up the stairs and stood behind her as she slid the key into the lock, but she didn’t have to turn it, the door pushed in.

  “What in the…”

  “Don’t move.” Trevor dropped his suitcase and the box.

  He pushed open the door and stood for a moment. Reaching inside the door, he took an umbrella from her umbrella stand and gripped it in his hands like a weapon.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered to her and she nodded.

  He stepped into the hallway and looked down the hall toward the kitchen and back toward the living room. He took a few more steps and then stopped. The entire living room had been torn apart, the bookshelves emptied, and desk drawers pulled out. He walked down to the bedroom. It too had been gone through. Trevor backed his way through the kitchen. Cupboard doors were left open, and a few broken plates crunched under his foot, but there was no one in the apartment but him.