Carissa shook her head. “Hope.”
“Yeah, Hope.” He fidgeted with his phone.
“Dad, if you want to back out…”
“No.” He shot his head up to look at her. “She’s mine.” A smile slid across his lips when he said it.
“You are the most amazing man. I know Sophia will see that.”
“You’re too kind.” He stood and kissed her on the cheek. “We’ll see what happens. Let’s see if she even comes home. But first I think we’d better go do some shopping.”
“Shopping? Dad, are you okay?”
“Mandy is going to have that baby any minute. We’d better have a crib, some diapers, and some clothes for her.”
“Oh, yeah. Wow, Dad.” Her own baby sister. She hugged herself, and then she hugged him. “I can’t believe we’re going to be three of us.”
He squeezed her hard. After a second, he turned away and wiped his hands under his eyes. “Neither can I.”
Within three hours, they had purchased everything they needed for the baby. They drove it out to the new house they’d had built. What was to be the spare room had to be transformed into a nursery.
“I hope she likes princesses.” Carissa deposited another armful of little outfits onto the stack of Hope’s bedding and clothing.
“Honey, you like them. She’ll love them.” He patted her knee from where he knelt on the floor, assembling a swing. “Little sisters think the world of big sisters.”
“Lots of pressure.”
“Yeah, so you’d better walk the straight and narrow. She’ll be watching.”
“I realize that now.” Would she be a good big sister? She hoped so. Carissa sat back on her heels. “Did you tell the ladies?”
“No. Only Todd and Jeremy know. It’ll be easier to explain when we have Hope and Mandy is…” He didn’t come out and say it, but Carissa was having the same thought.
“I guess we should think about moving things in here this weekend, huh?” The house looked so empty and bare. It needed to be filled…with people who loved it, and loved each other.
“I guess so. You know, maybe we should store the bassinet in the car and stay with the ladies for the first few days. I just realized I have no idea how to take care of a newborn baby.”
A laugh escaped Carissa. “Yeah, a seven-year-old was hard enough for you.”
“I did okay.”
“Yeah, you did. But c’mon, you have to admit it was a struggle.”
“I’ll admit it only because you want me to.” Her dad was such a goof, and that’s exactly the way she loved him.
“I think I turned out okay. It’s been years since the principal has called you or since I was in a fight.”
“You turned out perfect.”
“I did, didn’t I?” She touched his arm. “Thanks to you. And Hope will turn out perfect, too.”
Sophia boarded the plane in Pennsylvania and blew out a breath when she realized it would be the last leg of her trip. She’d made one phone call to Sally Foster from the airport. She was disappointed to find out that the house had sold. She’d find something in the future. For the time being, she’d live with her grandmother. She’d always be welcome in her grandmother’s home.
She looked at her watch. She’d land at two o’clock. The party would end at four. She would at least make it in enough time to make an appearance.
When she was in flight, she took out her mirror, fixed up her makeup, and did what she could with her hair. She’d tried to sleep on the previous flights, but still her eyes looked hollow. She’d worn a sundress, and the gauze material looked like it’d held up to the travel. Instinctively, she tapped her fingers to her Saint Nicholas medal.
Several hours later, she stood outside the church where her Katie and Millie—and David and Carissa—were celebrating the ladies’ eighty-fourth birthday. She gulped in a deep breath. Her heart hammered in her chest as she stepped inside.
The room was still full, and laughter surrounded her. Carissa had decorated with the few items they’d purchased together. Katie was leaning over in animated conversation, and she patted her tiara. The table of food was almost completely empty—they’d obviously made good choices.
Mary Alice noticed her and raced across the room. Sophia set down her bags and her instrument a moment before her friend enveloped her in a hug.
“God, I’m glad you’re home.” She stepped back and looked her over, her hands secured to Sophia’s shoulders as if to hold her in place. “You look good.”
“Thank you.”
“She’s right,” David said behind her friend. “You look good.”
Mary Alice gave her a wink and rejoined the party.
Sophia stood still as David walked around her. His eyes were cold, and she certainly didn’t blame him.
“I’m glad you could make it for the party.” His voice was shaky. She knew he wanted to be angry, and that he hadn’t expected her to return.
“So am I.”
“I’m sorry to hear about the Vatican.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.” Her heart ached at all the pain she’d caused him over a dream that never could have come true. She felt like she needed to take the opportunity to apologize right there.
“David, I want to...” Carissa’s moving to her father’s side interrupted her thought. “Carissa.” Her voice thickened as she looked at the girl who had changed so much in the short time she’d known her.
“I told them all that you’d come back. I told them you didn’t leave us for good.” Carissa wrapped her arms around Sophia and hugged her tight.
“Sophia.” Her grandmother called her, and with a regretful glance at David, she crossed the room to her.
“Happy birthday, Grandma.” She kissed her cheek. “Happy birthday, Millie.” She moved to kiss David’s aunt, who sat in her chair looking weak, Sophia thought. “Your tiaras look wonderful.”
“That was a wonderful surprise. Carissa told us how you picked them out for us.”
“Yes, we did,” she said, realizing Carissa was by her side. She wrapped her arm around her shoulders and leaned her head against hers. She had missed so many years. They both had.
She felt David’s presence behind her, and when she felt his hand on her shoulder, she knew she’d been forgiven. She reached her hand to his, and he gave her a squeeze.
“I wanted to apologize to you all for the way I acted. It wasn’t until I was in Rome that I realized I wanted you all more than my career or even the Vatican. By then it was too late, and I was stuck there.” She turned to David. “I hope you’ll forgive me—again.”
“Sophie, I love you.” He smiled as he caressed her cheek
“I love you.” She turned to Carissa. “And I love you.”
“Oh, Sophia.” Carissa wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“So, let me do this right.” She reached to the back of her neck and unclasped the chain that held her Saint Nicholas medal.
“Carissa, when I was little, my mother put this on me. She said it was to protect children. I had it on during our accident,” she said, dangling it in her hand. “I guess it worked. I’ve waited my whole life to pass it on. But I always knew I would only pass it to my child.” She took a deep breath as Carissa’s eyes widened. “Carissa, would you do me the honor of allowing me to adopt you before you turn eighteen and be your mother?”
Silence had fallen over the hall. Someone sobbed softly.
Carissa stood silent, her mouth gaping. She looked over to her father, who smiled.
She nodded through joyful tears.
“Good, turn around,” Sophia instructed, and Carissa turned her back to Sophia and lifted her hair.
Sophia clasped the chain around her neck.
Carissa turned around, grasping it in her fingers, and looked down at it.
“Oh my God.” She drew Sophia into her arms for a long hug. “You were already my mom anyway.”
It was a long time before Sophia could speak.
�
�David.” She turned to him and looked up into his dark eyes. “We always planned a life together. I never meant for it to fall apart. So now that I have your daughter’s approval and she accepts me as her mother, I’d like to ask you, would you do me the honor...”
He was shaking his head. “Stop. Please stop.” He took her hands in his. “Sophie, we have a lot of talking to do.”
“I know.”
“Things have changed around here, and you have no idea. No one does. Our lives are about to change.” He exchanged an uneasy glance with Carissa.
“Yes, they are.” She was smiling, but he was still shaking his head.
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Do you love me?”
“Oh, David, you know…”
“Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Will you trust me with your life and the life of your family?”
“Yes.”
“And if I made a decision, you’d stand behind me?”
“Yes.” Her answer was soft. An icy knot formed in her stomach. “David, what’s going on?”
“I want my answer first. I asked you to wait, and now I’m ready. Sophia Burkhalter, will you marry me?”
She smiled. Her heart was racing. Sophia took a breath to give him her answer, but someone screamed his name. Chaos erupted.
An extremely pregnant woman stood in the doorway, clutching her stomach. Her face was ghostly white, and her body swayed. She fell to her knees and then crumpled to the floor.
“Mandy!” David yelled. He raced to the pregnant woman. To Mandy.
“Mom!” Carissa tore away from Sophia and followed him.
Todd and Jeremy Krantz were already at her, assessing her. They started CPR on her.
Sophia backed toward her grandmother. Carissa called Mandy mom.
Todd was on the phone calling in the emergency, his expertise obvious by the words he chose to explain the situation in a calm and precise manner. It seemed to take forever, but the ambulance arrived at the church within minutes.
Sophia watched as everyone hovered over Mandy. She’d made it a few steps closer to the scene. So this was Mandy, and she was pregnant. Tears stung her eyes, and hate filled her belly.
“Where are her papers?” Todd asked over the commotion.
“In her purse,” David answered. Sophia felt sick.
“Where are her DNR papers and the papers we had her sign?”
“All in her purse.” David repeated, holding tight to her hand. “The baby. Is the baby okay?” he asked the paramedics, and the words shot through Sophia. “You can’t stop saving her until the baby is here.”
A paramedic who wrote information on his gloved hand asked, “What’s her name?”
“Mandy Kendal,” David said.
Sophia swayed, but Mary Alice was there with her hands on her shoulders to steady her.
The paramedics lifted Mandy onto the gurney. She was hooked to monitors and had an IV, and Sophia wasn’t sure how it had all gotten in place.
“The baby is fine. We’ll get her there in time.” They began to push her out. “Who’s riding with us?”
“I am,” David said, following them out of the hall.
“And who are you?”
“David Kendal. I’m the baby’s father,” he said clearly.
Sophia’s legs gave out from under her and she sat down on the floor.
The hall emptied within minutes. Sophia remained on the floor with her head between her knees, trying to suck in what air she could. Mary Alice brought her a cup of water and sat down next to her.
“I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“Are you out of your mind? I’m not going there.” Her stomach burned from the pain of deceit.
“You left last time without asking questions. Don’t do it this time.”
“Oh, you can bet I won’t. I’ll ask him questions until his dear lungs run out of breath answering them.” She clenched her teeth, but a wave of emotion escaped in a grunt.
“Then listen when he does.” There was no more tenderness in Mary Alice’s voice.
“What do you know about all of this?”
“I don’t know anything. But I know for a fact, no matter what that man said, that baby is not his.”
“He admitted it in front of everyone. Of course it’s his.” Sophia’s words were icy and bitter.
“I’ve been around for the past ten years. I’ve been the wife of his closest friend for that long. I’m the employer of his daughter. I stayed up nights drinking coffee and talking to him when you walked out and he was suddenly a father and didn’t know what to do. I was the shoulder he cried on when Carissa was raked over the coals by the counselor at school when she wrecked her bike and they wouldn’t leave her alone. I was there helping him clean up when Mandy lost her mind and tried to kill herself, and I’ve been here watching him pine his life away waiting for you. Where have you been?”
The air in the room was gone again, leaving her light-headed, and Sophia sobbed, but her tears had dried up.
She looked up and realized Mary Alice was still sitting there on the floor with her. Just like a best friend would.
She found tears again, and they fell. Katie handed her a napkin, and she wiped them away.
“Come on, I’ll take you and the ladies home.” Mary Alice stood and offered her hands to Sophia, who took them and rose to her feet.
“I love you. I’m so sorry…”
“I love you too, and that’s why I’m not slapping you silly right now.” Mary Alice wrapped her arms around Sophia and held her tight. “You’re going to go home and get some rest. You look beat. I’ll go down and see what I can find out.” She held her at arm’s length. “But he’ll come to you, and you know he will. Listen when he talks. He’s going to have one hell of a story to tell you.”
The last two weeks had been a whirlwind. She’d really only spent four days with David. In all honesty, how could she expect that ten years would mend in four days?
She closed her eyes for a moment, but the image of David holding Mandy’s hand had seared into her mind.
When the sun peeked through Sophia’s bedroom window, she opened her eyes. It was a new day. A day Sophia had begun to doubt would ever arrive.
She dressed and slipped into her running shoes. A quick look outside confirmed David’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Not that she’d expected to see it there.
Pushing aside any thought of what he was going through, Sophia started down the stairs. She opened the front door and took in a breath of cool morning air. Her eyes ached from the night of tears she’d shed, and she shielded them from the sun.
“’Bout time,” Katie said from her rocker. “Been waiting an hour for you.”
“Grandma, it’s only seven o’clock. What are you doing?” Her voice cracked.
“I figured you’d need to run. I didn’t know if you’d do it with your shoes or with your suitcases, but I figured.”
Sophia shook her head and let out a breath. She’d been pegged. “I thought a run would be nice. Clear my head.”
Katie patted the seat of the chair next to her and waited till Sophia sat. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Teaching position at the high school is going to open up next fall. Carissa said that old man is going to retire. That was after he told her he’d never heard anyone play that piece of music as lovely as she did.”
“She got the chair?” Sophia felt a lift in the tension that resided in her neck, and she could swear she felt her heart swell with pride.
“She sure did,” Katie said, patting Sophia’s leg. “She was pretty happy, though she would have been much happier had you been here to share it with her.”
Sophia’s head dipped down. “Grandma, I’ve made such big mistakes, and I thought I could get past them. Now I don’t know what to think.” A tear welled in her eye, and she batted it away. “That woman had his last name and h
e said that was his baby. Todd Krantz seemed to know about it, too.”
“Well I sure as hell don’t know what’s going on, but he’ll tell us. He closed on that house he built the other day. I think they’ll still look for one around here though, being that it’s Carissa’s last year and all.” She sat quietly for a moment, resting her gaze on Sophia. “What about you. Are you staying?”
She swallowed the lump of fear that had lodged itself in her throat. “I want to. I just don’t know if I can handle it.”
“You can. You’re a strong woman.”
“I had thought about staying no matter what happened between me and David. I even looked at the house on Cherry Street. I put in a bid for it.”
“Did you?”
Sophia nodded. “Carissa took me by it, and the realtor was there.”
“Carissa? What did she think of the house?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. She just figured I’d need a place to live if I stayed. They both want me to stay.”
“I think he asked you to stay, get married, and be a mother.”
Sophia nodded again. “But now…”
“David looked at the house too.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Still looked as nice as when you both lived there and fixed it up.”
Sophia shot a look at her grandmother. “You went through the house too?” Katie nodded. “Why?”
“You know, this was supposed to be a much happier event.”
“What are you talking about?”
Katie pulled a chain from around her neck. Dangling from it was a key. Sophia’s eyes widened.
“I both lost the sale of the house.” Sophia narrowed her eyes on her grandmother.
“Yes, and so did David. You were both pains in the ass when I was trying to close the deal.” Katie grinned.
“Grandma, what did you do?”
Katie handed her the key. “I wanted you home. I bought back your home. This is my gift for you because you’ve always been such a wonderful gift to me.”
The tears that had welled in her eyes fell. She scooted out of her chair, knelt before her grandmother, and wrapped her arms around her. “I don’t know what to say.”
Matchmakers, no. 1 Page 16
