He nodded. “The envelope was taped to the back wall behind the pendulum.”
She tucked the envelope into her purse, torn about whether she even wanted to look at them. There were no doubt photos of her mother in there. And Grampa in better days. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go there. “Where is my grandfather clock, by the way?”
“Well…” He winked. “It’s not yours yet, but I’m taking good care of it. As of a week ago, it’s out of storage and in my living room. But did you know that thing goes off every hour on the hour? That’s why I opened it. To turn off the blasted gong.”
She giggled. “It’s called a chime. And that’s sort of the purpose of a grandfather clock—to keep track of time.”
“At two a.m. it’s called a gong. Beside, I don’t think I need to be reminded when it’s two a.m….and three a.m….and four a.m….and five—”
“Um… I get the picture.”
He grinned. Speaking of pictures, you wouldn’t want to go to a movie with me Friday night, would you? And out to dinner”—he glanced around the quaint diner—“at a real restaurant?”
Would she ever. “Let me check my calendar and get back to you.”
He looked deflated, which gave her courage.
She clicked her phone on, then back off again before it barely had time to light up. “Looks like I’m free.” She grinned up at him.
And was rewarded with an appearance of that dimple in his right cheek.
It struck her that she could handle looking at that infernal dimple for…well, the rest of her life.
September
Still slightly winded from climbing the twenty-eight steps to her apartment, Piper tossed her purse on the sofa and went to the refrigerator in search of supper. Grampa had thought she was “Grace” again. That made three days this week. And the nurses said he’d fallen twice wandering the halls at night.
She sighed. He’d been so good all summer she’d almost begun to hope this was as bad as it would get. But apparently that was not to be.
As September faded away, the days were getting shorter. When she’d left the library tonight the air had held a distinct chill. If not for the fact that Finn Neilson had talked her into paying the rest of what she owed him in twenty-five-dollar weekly increments, she would have been depressed.
She let a smile come at the thought of Finn, and it pulled her out of the threatening melancholy. Tomorrow was their date night—even Finn had started calling them dates—and she couldn’t be sad knowing he would meet her at the nursing home, help her cheer up Grampa, then take her out to dinner. The irony of her handing over twenty-five dollar checks while he paid for fifty-dollar dinners was not lost on her. Yet Finn insisted.
She looked around her apartment, wondering, not for the first time, where she would put the grandfather clock once she finally paid Finn off. She threw together a rather wilted salad and took it to the sofa to eat. As she cleared a stack of magazines and junk mail from the coffee table, the yellow corner of an envelope poked out—the photos Finn had found in the clock.
She never had mustered the courage to look at them, but tonight seemed like the right time. Her salad forgotten, she flipped through a veritable history of her childhood. Mom, in the hospital with a newborn Piper. The dad she’d never known looking on. Grandpa and two-year-old Piper fishing with Uncle Martin. Her first day of kindergarten. Instead of making her feel sad, looking at the photos made her feel blessed. In spite of everything, she’d been loved and loved well.
She flipped to the next photo and her breath caught. The color photograph had faded with age, but the image was clear and sharp. The scene was Grampa’s barn with a clutch of kids peering out of the hayloft door. She remembered the day as if it had happened yesterday.
She smiled seeing the only boy she’d ever kissed. Griff. She’d have to ask Grampa if he remembered the family. Griff… That spiky hair. Those ocean blue eyes. No wonder she’d had a bit of a crush on him. And the way he was looking at her in the photo, it seemed like the feeling might have been mutual.
Something stirred in the back of her memory and she brought the picture closer, as if it had a secret to tell. Wait a minute… She knew that dimple. Knew that ornery grin.
Could it be?
October
“I have something to show you.” Piper fished through her purse, realizing her hands were trembling. She hadn’t quite fit together all the pieces of the puzzle, but she was pretty sure of one thing: it was Finn Neilson in the photo she’d discovered last week. It had been all she could do to wait until today to ask him about it.
Beside her, Finn straddled the picnic bench and cocked his head, curiosity sparking in those blue eyes she loved. She handed the photo to him, accutely attuned to his reaction.
Above them, the sun poured through a blaze of autumn leaves. He squinted at the photo, then his eyes widened. “Where did you get this?” He sounded…intrigued.
If she didn’t love the picture so much, she might have burned it and pretended she’d never seen it.
Still, she had to know if he remembered her. From before. And if he did, why hadn’t he told her? “It was in that packet of photos you found in the clock. Is that you?”
His demeanor turned wary. “Of course. But I didn’t remember anyone taking a picture.”
“Well someone did.”
He inspected the photo, chuckling. “Yep. It looks like we posed and everything. How cool is that?” He tapped his image in the photograph. “Look at the way I’m looking at you! Man! I was smitten even then.”
She held her breath. He was smitten? Now? “But…that kid’s name…was Griff.” She’d wrestled all night, so afraid his explanation would hold some secret that might make this magical thing between them unravel. But by morning, she’d decided she didn’t care. She loved who Finn was now. She wasn’t sure there was anything he could tell her that would change her mind about that.
He made a face. “Griffin. Always did hate my given name. I started going by Finn in seventh grade. Get it? Grif-FINN?”
Relief turned her knees to jelly. “So… You are Griff. But why didn’t you tell me?”
Finn shrugged. “I figured if you remembered, you’d say something, and if you didn’t, why would I want to remind you and get another lecture?”
“A lecture?”
“For stealing that kiss when we were kids.”
She gave him a look. “Wait a minute—” She pointed at herself in the photo. “Do you remember me? From this day?”
“Every minute of it.” That charming grin grew on his face. Guileless. “You were a little sassball even then. As I recall you informed me I didn’t have permission to kiss you.”
“No… What I said was, ‘You’re supposed to ask.’”
He grinned. “May I?”
“What?”
He scooted closer until his knees touched hers under the table. “Kiss you.” He cupped a hand over her cheek, no hint of that grin now. “I’ve waited three lifetimes to get your permission.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
His fingers knit through her hair and cradled her neck. He pulled her closer, his mouth seeking hers.
She melted into the strength of him, breathing him in. He smelled of new-mown hay and fresh-cut grass. And this time he didn’t shimmie down the ladder and run away. He kissed her for a good long while. Like a man with permission.
And she kissed him…like a woman who’d waited nineteen years to kiss him back.
When they came up for air, the crooked grin was back. He took her face in his hands and kissed the tip of her nose. “See? I told you it wouldn’t take the full twenty-two months to pay off that clock.”
THE END
About the Author
DEBORAH RANEY dreamed of writing a book since the summer she read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books and discovered that a Kansas farm girl could, indeed, grow up to be a writer. After a happy twenty-year detour as a stay-at-home mom, Deb penned her first nov
el, A Vow to Cherish, which won a Silver Angel Award and inspired the acclaimed World Wide Pictures film of the same title. Since then, her books have won the RITA Award, HOLT Medallion, ACFW Carol Award, National Readers' Choice Award, as well as twice being finalists for the Christy Award. Deb teaches at writers' conferences across the country. She and her husband, Ken Raney, recently traded small-town life in Kansas ––the setting of many of Deb's novels––for life in the (relatively) big city of Wichita. They have four children and a growing brood of precious grandchildren who all live much too far away. Visit Deb on the Web at:
www.deborahraney.com
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