Passionate Kisses 2 Boxed Set: Love in Bloom

by Magda Alexander

  “You sly fox,” she muttered as she cut the ignition. “Getting on just fine, my ass.”

  She knew something wasn’t right when Grandma refused to FaceTime and kept redirecting their phone conversations any time Jade mentioned driving up to help out. Here was the proof. Grimy sun porch windows. Dark interior. A thick layer of pollen on her grandmother’s car. The house looked completely abandoned.

  Grandma must be at some kind of rehab facility until she could be on her own again. Yet every time they’d talked on the phone, she’d put on a cheerful front, insisting she was fine and didn’t need Jade to upend her life to help an old woman get back on her feet. No mention of living (and no doubt paying a premium for rent) somewhere away from the home she loved so much.

  Despite her doubts, Jade had accepted her grandmother’s assurances. Then Brad had confused her face with a punching bag, and suddenly, moving to Dover, Vermont to lend a hand-whether her help was wanted or not-seemed like the thing to do.

  But from the looks of things, Grandma wasn’t here. The house looked all locked up. What was she going to do now? She couldn’t go back to Boston. Wouldn’t go back, even if she could.

  She had to find her grandmother. Maybe the neighbors knew where she was.

  Flipping down the visor, she assessed the damage of driving up from Boston in August with broken AC. Yikes. Her hair was everywhere. She looked like a wookiee who’d stuck its finger in a light socket.

  Wetting her hand with the bottle of water in her cup holder, she smoothed her flyaway brunette strands and redid her ponytail. Better. Fortunately, the pancake concealer had fared better than her hair. Never let it be said exotic dancers didn’t get perks. The makeup alone was worth stripping for. She hardly looked battered at all. Hopefully, Grandma Nina’s neighbors wouldn’t notice the swelling-the one thing makeup couldn’t disguise.

  A slight breeze brought some relief from the heat when she stepped out of her car and into the bath-water-warm shade of the purple maple she’d parked under. The white craftsman with the wrap-around porch was up first.

  A woman with iron-gray curls answered the door. Jade’s memory supplied an image of this woman gardening on hands and knees, her face hidden by an enormous sun hat, while an older man waxed the Oldsmobile in the driveway.

  The woman wore a flowered apron over a sleeveless Muumuu. She blinked at Jade. Cautious recognition took its time brightening her eyes.

  “Hi, I’m Jade. Nina Alderwood’s granddaughter?” She made it a question.

  The recognition settled in with a broad smile. “I remember you. You have a sister, don’t you? Mrs. McIntyre. Betty.” She indicated herself with a thick-knuckled hand. “Joe’s my husband. I’ve known your grandmother for, what, twenty years, now? Practically watched you and your sister grow up from across the hedges.” Her eyes crinkled fondly.

  “Nice to meet you. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you? I didn’t exactly warn her I was coming. I thought she’d be at home.”

  Betty McIntyre put her hand on her chest. “Oh, my, no. She hasn’t been home since her fall. Staying at Senior First, down in Wilmington. Been there since they let her out of critical care. Joe brought her over himself and took care of shutting up the house. He used to take care of your grandmother’s yard and do her minor repairs, but Joe’s back isn’t what it used to be. Shame, too. Poor Nina’s yard is running wild. There’s a lawn service we use. I keep meaning to give her their number.

  “You see, I visit her every afternoon to bring her any stray mail and keep her company. She tells me you two speak on the telephone often. So nice of you to call your grandmother. I know she appreciates it. I was just going to head over after lunch. I’d offer you a ride, but I have some errands to run after. I’m sure you don’t want to come with me to the pharmacy or the butcher’s. Speaking of olive loaf, would you like a sandwich, dear? I was just making myself and Joe one. What did you say your name was, again, Jane?”

  Note to self: Betty’s a talker. Better not ask for directions. GoogleMaps, ahoy.

  “Um, it’s Jade.” How to extricate herself?

  “Shame about the fall,” Betty said, unnecessarily. “Really put a crimp in your grandmother’s style. Told me just the other day she doesn’t think she’ll be able to come back to the house any time soon. Only bathroom is on the upper floor, and of course, there’s the steps up to the porch. Poor dear can’t even get out of bed without a walker and a nurse, and they only started letting her do that yesterday. Joe was just telling me she might be better off finding a renter who can take care of the place. He’s willing to help when he can, of course, but his back isn’t what it used to be.” A grating buzzer sounded from somewhere behind her. “Oh, that’ll be the snickerdoodles. Those are Joe’s favorites. Care to have one? I’ll be bringing a dozen by for your grandmother this afternoon.”

  Ah. That explained the cinnamon-y smell wafting out of Betty’s house. “No thanks on the cookies, though they sound awesome. Thanks for letting me know where I can find Grandma.” She inched toward the porch steps.

  “Oh!” Betty waved her hand in a hold-on gesture. “Why don’t I give you the keys Nina left with us?” Now Betty was inching into her front hall. “Of course, she’ll want you to stay at the house. Needs a breath of life in it, if you ask me. You are staying, aren’t you?”

  Jade nodded. “As long as it’s okay with Grandma. I was going to help her out for as long as she needed.”

  “Oh, lovely. Nina will like that. Just a moment, dear, and I’ll get those keys.” She hurried to the kitchen. “Drop your things at the house,” she shouted to the accompaniment of the shriek-thump of an oven door and the clatter of two cookie trays being set on a stovetop. “Then you can come back over and have a cookie while I tell you how to get to Senior First.”

  A minute later, Betty was back with Grandma Nina’s full ring of house and car keys. A bejeweled unicorn and a stick of pepper spray hung from the chain, along with a half-dozen keys. The unicorn had been a gift from Jilly. The pepper spray a gift from Jade.

  It was just plain wrong that Grandma Nina wasn’t in possession of her own keys.

  She closed her hand around them, declined the snickerdoodles again, lied through her teeth about knowing how to get to Senior First, and hightailed it off the McIntyre’s porch with a promise she’d come by for cookies another time.

  Arms crossed, keys biting into her hand, she leaned a hip against her Jetta. The electric blue paintjob warmed her skin through her Daisy Dukes as she stole a minute to process what she’d just learned from Betty. Senior First sounded like some kind of nursing home. How could her grandmother not tell her she was in a nursing home? Jade would have come earlier if it meant Grandma Nina could have stayed in her house during her recovery.

  She studied the house with its fairy-tale turret and multiple chimneys. It was the home she wished she’d grown up in instead of the shag-carpeted trailer in Quincy, Mass, her mom had worked two crappy jobs to lease. Her mom used to drive her and Jilly up here to spend the weekend once a month or so. In the summers, they’d stay longer, for a week or more at a time.

  The magic of the house used to call to her. Before the wheels would come to a full stop, she would bolt from her mom’s car and race inside to hug Grandma Nina and Grandpa Earl, fill up on sweets, and rediscover all the old-house nooks and crannies that no single-wide ever had.

  Looking across the scrubby lawn to the dark house, she felt none of that familiar magic. Because no one’s home.

  Grandpa Earl had died years ago. Grandma was in a frigging nursing home. The house looked old. Tired. Maybe it needed an injection of life, like Betty had suggested.

  It had always been Grandma Nina making the house seem so alive. Looked like it was up to her now.

  Well, she hadn’t quit her job and schlepped all her clothes in the back of her Jetta to sit on the curb and sweat. If there was anything she was good at, it was rolling up her sleeves and getting to work. She’d have Grandma Nina b
ack in her house in no time.

  *****

  Draonius bristled awake with a start, pulling his scores of essences around himself like a cloak. Someone had entered the house. And not just anyone. Someone worth feeding on.

  He tasted the flavors of human emotion, swirling them about his palate like a fine wine. A heady nose of loneliness overshadowed by optimism. Tannins of shame and anger sparkled under the surface along with a memory of recent violence. Best of all was the richness of sensual yearning that shaded the presence in the richest, darkest crimson he’d ever savored.

  At last, a soul worth getting drunk on.

  After years of sipping on the dried-up dreams of a widowed harridan and the occasional glut of a child’s immature fantasies, this feast of wounded, burning woman was almost too good to be true. Delighted, he pushed a prickle of awareness into the favorite of his essences, pulling her closer than the others.

  Do you feel that, Mercy, love?

  Mmm, she sighed, waking like a relaxed cat. She stretched, and her tendrils caressed his sensitive core. Even as pure spirit, she retained the sensuality and grace that had first drawn him to her.

  She snapped to attention and perked toward the resonance that had awakened him. Oooh! Pretty! She lunged for the source.

  He drew her back. Not so fast, my hungry little witch. Night has not yet fallen.

  You’re strong enough, darling. Please? Please let me go to it. It feels so lovely, like it was made for us.

  He stroked the silky essence she’d been reduced to when he took her life over a century ago. Ah, but your confidence is inspiring. If only your belief were enough. I am not strong enough to protect you above. As soon as the sun sets, I will send our talented Joshua to explore. Small loss if his tether breaks. But losing you, love, that would be a tragedy.

  But it feels so good. I want to wrap myself in it. Please, please, please.

  Enough. He stabbed a spike of power through her as a warning.

  She flattened her essence in submission. Meekly, she said, It feels of youthful passion and desire. I have not felt such things in so long. She inched back up, and he rewarded her contrition with a tingle of pleasure.

  She is indeed something special. As you were. He only hoped the woman intended to spend the night. He dared not wish for more than that. One night of feasting after so long a dry spell would ease his punishment, if only a little.

  Do you suppose her dreams will free us? Mercy gave voice to his deepest longing. The stupid bitch.

  Never speak to me of freedom! It’s your fault we’re trapped here in the first place.

  He wrenched her into a knot of pain until her shrieks soothed the ache of hope her words had created.

  Chapter Two

  “Is that my Jade?” Grandma Nina’s face lit up when Jade marched into her room. She was sitting up in a cushy bed with lowered rails. Her face was thinner and more wrinkled than Jade remembered, and the white roots fading to orange meant her hair hadn’t seen the underside of a salon hair dryer since before her fall. If not for the iPad on her lap chirping with Angry Birds sounds, Jade might have felt sorry for her.

  She fisted her hands on her hips. “When were you going to tell me you moved out of your house?”

  “Lovely to see you, too, dear. Come on in and stay a while.” Grandma Nina smiled, a perfect blend of innocence and mischief.

  The wind went out of her sails. It was too good to see her grandmother to stay annoyed at her for keeping a secret of this magnitude. Going to the bed, she took her grandmother’s outstretched hand. Nails painted a shimmery opal. It was nice to see her attending to the details she could while she was stuck in bed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you needed help?” she asked, hitching a hip on the bed. The lip of the rail made it uncomfortable, but she needed to be close. She’d missed her grandmother. “I could have come up after the fall. It’s not like I had anything going on. Even if I did, family comes first. You didn’t have to check yourself into this place.” She looked around the room, noting the soft carpet, mauve-painted walls, crown molding, and flat-screen TV on the wall. She’d been expecting something sterile and institutional.

  “This place has round-the-clock nursing staff, a whole wing for PT, three square meals a day that I don’t have to cook or clean up after, premium cable, and a shower with a seat in it. I don’t got any of that at the house.” She set her tablet on the bedside table and held out her free arm. “Now come give your crippled Grandma a hug.”

  She folded into her grandmother’s embrace, breathing in her familiar scent of pressed rose soap. “I missed you.”

  “You too, sweetie.” Her grandmother patted her on the back.

  Jade curled up beside her in the bed. “Can you afford all this?” All those amenities sounded great, but it had to cost a fortune.

  “Don’t you worry about that. Your Grandpa Earl knew how to invest. If the old dog could see me now, he’d be so jealous.” She chuckled and squeezed Jade’s knee before taking her hand again. Her grandmother had always been affectionate with her. She was like a one-stop oasis of love and acceptance. “Maybe if he’d stuck around, he’d be living the high life with me.”

  Jade studied their hands, one tan and smooth, the other pale and wrinkled. Why did good people have to get old? “How long you going to stay here?”

  “Long as I can, that’s how long. I like it here. And it’s not all intermediate care and assisted living, either. There are apartments across the parking lot for us independent folks. Right on a golf course and everything. Did I mention the Jacuzzi? Or Fred Beltlinker? Now that’s a hunk of man if I ever saw one. I don’t mind that he’s only got the one leg. He’s got everything else that counts, and some of his own teeth, too. Moved out of intermediate yesterday and stopped in this morning to tell me his son brought him a new floaty thing for the pool. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a midnight skinny dip with that man.”

  After scrubbing that image from her brain, Jade asked, “What about the house?” And what the heck would she do with herself now? She’d come up believing Grandma Nina was laid up at home, needing help to do every little thing. She’d made the trip with a purpose. Now she felt useless. Grandma Nina was better than fine. She was in senior heaven.

  “Figured the smart thing would be to look for a renter.” She waved her hand to indicate the room. “Help offset the cost of this place. It’s a good house. Paid for, too. Don’t want to sell it. It’ll be yours after I go, you know.”

  Jade sat up in her chair. “What?”

  “It’s going to you. In my will. Jillian’s getting the money. You’re getting the house. With your mom gone, rest her soul, it’s just you girls I’ve got left, and don’t think I’m going to blow everything on pampering myself. There’ll be plenty left for each of you to have a little something. Why, the house was worth a good three-hundred Gs at the last appraisal. And property value only goes up. Land is where it’s at. Land and gold. You never go wrong with either.”

  Jade groaned. “I don’t care about the house, Grandma. I mean, why are you talking about dying? This is crazy. You’re not dying.”

  “Sure I am. We’re all dying. Some of us are just closer to it than others. According to the statistics, I could very well go this year. Did you know a woman’s risk of death doubles in the year after a hip fracture? It’s true. I saw it on The Doctors.”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  “Of course I’m going to die. If not this year, it won’t be far off.”

  “You’re not dying. Stop it. You just broke your hip. They fixed it. You’ll do some PT. You’ll go back to your house. I’ll be your on-call nurse. I’ll even get a job and pay for your cable and internet. I’ll drive you over to see Mr. Belt-whoozit whenever you want. So, who do I have to talk to to sign you out or whatever?” She was sitting up now, facing her grandmother with a leg crooked on the bed. Her knee was bouncing.

  Grandma Nina gave her The Look. That one with the narrowed eye. When she was little
, she used to swear that look gave her grandmother the power to read her mind. As usual, The Look zeroed in on the one thing Jade didn’t want anyone to see, especially her grandmother.

  “I hope you gave as good as you got,” she said quietly.

  Jade pressed her lips together and looked away.

  “Your mother always tried to cover the bruises, too, but makeup doesn’t hide the swelling. Was it the Italian Stallion? What’s his name, Brad?”

  Jade blew out a breath, making the wisps of hair around her face tickle her cheeks. She nodded.

  “You stay in the house as long as you need to, honey.”

  Jade heard her own pulse in the silence. She was so busted. Grandma Nina had been able to tell in ten minutes she hadn’t come up to help, but to run away. She was supposed to be taking care of Grandma Nina, but Grandma Nina was taking care of her. Just like always.

  “So,” her grandmother said. “How’s The Palace? Casey treating you right?”

  She must have the only grandmother in the world who asked how it was going at the strip club like it was an ad agency and her boss was a classy businessman in a suit and tie. Guess when your daughter died a crack addict you didn’t mind so much if your granddaughter took off her clothes for money. At least Jade never did drugs.

  “I kind of quit.” She winced, feeling like an idiot. Maybe she’d overreacted to Brad hitting her. Most people didn’t leave their home, job, and state because their boyfriend hit them. But then most people probably didn’t grow up witnessing what could happen if they stayed.

  Logically, each repeat offense should be harder and harder to forgive. Too bad her mother had never subscribed that particular bit of logic. The first time she’d been battered was the closest she’d come to ending things. Each succeeding black eye seemed like less of a big deal until violence became part and parcel of relationships.

  Jade hadn’t wanted to take the risk she would be the same way. She’d vowed that if a boyfriend ever hit her, he would get zero second chances. That’s why she ran when Brad hit her. He couldn’t do it again if she wasn’t around. Seemed like a no-brainer at the time. Now, it seemed like overkill.