Matchmakers Box Set: Matchmakers, Encore, Finding Hope (45 page)

Spring was all around Katie, and she drank it in. The trees had new leaves, a promise of hope. The heads of tulips had rose from the ground and colored the many flower boxes that Katie and her own mother had planted so many times when she was a young girl.

She looked out over the backyard where she’d played as a child, and she smiled. She’d married her George in that yard, and her son had married his wife there. When Sophia and David had finally made it to the altar, they too married in the beautiful yard.

Once again, Katie sat among her flowers and her family and watched as two people who loved one another became man and wife.

The students from their school of music played the “Wedding March” with their chosen instruments as Carissa walked down the aisle. The mixed sounds from the instruments might have been as welcoming as fingernails on a chalkboard to most, but to Thomas and Carissa, it was more beautiful than any symphony, and that fact shone in their smiles.

Carissa’s father gave her a smile as he lifted her veil, and Katie watched as the big man wiped tears from his eyes.

Sophia took Katie’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

“I did okay, didn’t I, Grandma?” Sophia whispered as the minister began the ceremony. “I learned my matchmaking from the best.”

Katie smiled. Yes, Sophia had learned from the best. At least Carissa and Thomas had had the foresight to get married right away. Sophia and David had dragged out their courtship for over a decade, making her and her best friend wait to see that their matchmaking had paired the perfect couple.

Hope turned from her sister’s side and waved at her mother and great-grandmother. Katie waved back. Someday it would be her turn to wed in the beautiful yard. It pained Katie to think she wouldn’t be there to see it, but she’d be there in spirit. Who knew, maybe she’d be there in some small way to play matchmaker for Hope too. After all, she’d already written letters to people in Mandy’s past to let them know Hope existed. Katie knew that there would come a time when Hope would want to know where she came from. And a time when her family—her whole family—would welcome her into their hearts.

It gave Katie some solace to know that, though she couldn’t hand pick a man for Hope, perhaps she’d set into motion all the pieces for Hope’s discovering where she came from and realizing just how blessed she was to have David and Sophia for her parents. It was a matchmaking of sorts, Katie thought.

Someday love would come looking for Hope too, and Katie smiled thinking that she just might be a part of that

BOOK THREE

FINDING HOPE

CHAPTER ONE

He’d seen it all in his chosen profession. The most popular: the cheating husband. There were bosses who suspected employees were skimming the till. And like the angry wives’, the bosses’ suspicions were usually correct. A missing relative or child was just as common, but this case piqued his interest more than most.

Trevor Jacobs looked down at the manila folder on the passenger seat of his car. He tugged at his collar. The Missouri summer was warming the inside of his car to temperatures that he was sure would kill a man. He picked up the folder and flipped it open.
Finding Mandy Marlow had been a challenge because she’d disappeared when she was seventeen. That had been forty years ago.

The last time her mother had seen her, Mandy’d had a newborn infant in her arms and had come back begging for money. Ruth Marlow, Mandy’s mother, had given him the case’s scant details over the phone. His notes clearly reflected that Mandy hadn’t gone asking for a place to stay or for help with the baby. She had wanted ten thousand dollars and they had refused. She had told them she’d be living with friends. Friends who would love her and her baby, unlike her parents.

He’d finally tied Mandy to a David Kendal, a retired airline pilot living in Kansas City, Missouri.

Mandy Marlow had lived in the Kansas City area approximately seven years after she had left her parents’ house. Her DMV records showed she’d lived in a house owned by David Kendal and exactly seventeen years after she’d last been seen by her family she changed her name to Mandy Kendal. He’d searched marriage records, but he found no record that Mandy and David had actually been married. She had assumed the name through proper channels. However, their names did appear together on the birth certificates of Carissa Marlow Kendal and one Hope Katherine Kendal.

Hope Kendal had been born by cesarean moments after they had pronounced Mandy Kendal dead. She had died of heart failure and had papers that had strictly instructed that she not be revived.

She hadn’t been.

David Kendal married a Sophia Burkhalter only three weeks later. He flipped through the notes. “In a lovely back yard ceremony of the home of the bride’s grandmother Katherine Burkhalter,” the newspaper clipping had stated. Adoption records showed that Sophia, now Kendal, had adopted Carissa, then seventeen, and the newborn Hope only three months after she’d been born.

What a tidy package, he thought. Ex-lover of the dead woman shares custody of his children with his new wife. What a twisted novel plot that would make. He laughed. However, armed with the facts he had, he knew it had been that simple.

A change of heart, or perhaps a shove in that direction, had Mandy Marlow—Mandy Kendal—giving up her children and refusing to fight for her own life.

Sweat beaded on his brow. Trevor reached for his bottle of water. It had grown warm. He drank it down and tossed it into the backseat with the other bottles he’d discarded there. He knew he wasn’t the ideal patron for a car rental company.

He flipped through his notes again and stared into the face he’d become familiar with.

Hope Katherine Kendal.

She stood in a crowded room, but the camera had zoomed in on her. She’d been intrigued by something, or someone. Long blonde hair cascaded behind her shoulders and crystal blue eyes watched him from the photo. She had lips that were full and just a bit pouty. The face that mesmerized from the photo had a cherubic look to her, but a super model’s features.

He knew he’d been fascinated by it too long, too many times. He’d seen it in his dreams. He’d found himself driving down the road thinking about her face.

Trevor checked his watch. He’d been sitting in the cemetery, in his parked car, for over two hours. He’d wait another two hours and then he’d move on.

But he didn’t have to wait any longer.

A blue Miata pulled up between him and the headstone that read Mandy Marlow Kendal. The beautiful blonde that he’d familiarized himself with stood there in person. He felt his heart race a little faster.

The pace of his heart was different from when he was about to confront most of those whom he’d followed. That was adrenaline. This was lust.

Hope stood just outside her car. She was dressed in jeans that rode low on curvy hips. She wore her tie-dyed shirt tucked in, giving her a look of being taller than she was. Her hair fell well down her back in a long tail.

Large sunglasses shielded her eyes, but he knew how blue they were.

She wasn’t moving. He was far enough from her he knew she couldn’t see him, but he wondered what she was thinking when she stood still on the narrow dirt road. She reached through the open window of her car and pulled out a bouquet of flowers.

Another car pulled up behind her. Trevor watched with intrigue. Carissa Kendal Samuel—he’d familiarized himself with her face as well—climbed out of her car and approached Hope.

He watched them exchange a few words and then an embrace. It was amazing how different sisters could be. Hope was fair. Her blonde hair was strikingly different from the dark hair of her sister. Carissa stood a few inches taller than Hope and her figure was straighter where Hope’s was voluptuous.

Arm in arm the sisters walked toward the grave of their birth mother. A smile crossed Trevor’s lips. Right on time.

Carissa laced her arm through her sister’s. “So, in twenty-three years this is the first time I caught you here?”

“You knew I came every year on the day that she died.” On the anniversary of her own birth.

“I did.” Carissa rested her head against her sister’s. “I just wasn’t sure why you did.”

“She’s a piece of me. She’s a piece I don’t know. A piece I’m afraid to ask about.”

“We’ve always been open about her.”

“I know. But I’m old enough to really understand. I think I want to understand now.” Hope bent and laid the flowers on Mandy’s grave then stood erect next to her sister again. “Do you really think she was always the person you knew?”

Carissa snorted out a laugh. “I hadn’t thought about it. My memories of her aren’t the happiest ones. I guess I never gave any consideration to who she was aside from that.”

Hope gave her sister a nod. Since she’d been ten years old she’d been curious. She’d remembered asking her father on the day they had buried her great-grandmother, Katie, if he’d take her to see her birth mother’s grave. She’d whispered it in his ear, not wanting to hurt her mother’s feelings. He’d agreed. They hadn’t gone that day, but he’d taken her.

They had stood where she now stood with her sister on her arm. They’d looked down at the grave without a word. She hadn’t asked questions and he hadn’t offered anything either. They just stood together in awkward silence.

The woman in the grave was not her mother. She understood that. Yes, Mandy had given birth to her, but that wasn’t motherhood. Sophia was her mother and would remain in her heart as just that. She’d raised her, molded her, and above all else loved her unconditionally. However, Mandy Marlow Kendal’s blood ran through her veins, and unlike her sister, whose biological father raised them both, Hope knew nothing of the two people who’d given her life.

Carissa gave her a nudge.

“I have to get back to the school. Thomas is planning dinner for you tonight. You are coming, aren’t you?”

“Me miss a birthday dinner that Thomas made? Not on your life.” She kissed her sister’s cheek. “Tell him I’ll be there and I’ll bring treats for the kids.”

“No candy,” Carissa pleaded. “Aiden has had enough sweets since he’s been staying with Mom while we work. Bryce’s teeth are going to rot out from under his braces, and Julie and Becky, well they just don’t need it.”

“Okay. I get it. I won’t let you know.” Hope grinned up at her sister, who only shook her head.

“You’re as bad as Mom.”

“We’re entitled.”

“Wait till you have kids. You will curse her and her giving ways.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

They fell silent again.

“Are you going to stay?” Carissa asked.

“Yeah. I think I need a few more minutes.”

“I’ll see you tonight, then.” Hope nodded without looking up. “Happy birthday,” Carissa added.

Hope tilted her head up toward her sister and smiled.

“Thanks.”

Carissa walked back to her car, leaving her sister to gather her thoughts over the grave of Mandy Kendal.

He watched Carissa’s car drive away. Finally, he thought. He couldn’t take the heat inside the car any longer.

Trevor slipped his business card into his pocket, climbed from the car, and put on his sunglasses. He walked across the grounds, slowly, as though he were searching for a stone.

She looked up at him as he neared and gave him a smile. Not an affectionate one, but that of someone who knew if you were in a cemetery, someone there mattered to you.

He wiped a hand over his brow.

“Hot day.”

“Sure is.” Her voice rang in his ears, penetrating every part of him. He’d studied the face, memorized the eyes, but had never heard the angelic ring of her voice.

A smile slid over his lips. “Visiting? Is this your grandmother?” He nodded to the grave where she stood.

“My birth mother.”

Trevor nodded again. She was specific, he thought.

Hope scanned a look over him, and though her eyes were still shielded by the sunglasses, a knot twisted in his stomach because she was looking right at him. Those eyes he’d studied in the picture and dreamed of at night focused on him.

“Are you searching for someone?”

“Yeah. My aunt is here somewhere.” At least he wasn’t lying. It was his great-great-aunt. Her grave marker read the year 1877, but he didn’t need to give the details. “I always forget where she’s buried.”

Hope nodded. “Good luck finding her.”

She turned to walk back toward her car.

This was the point in his findings, in a case like this, where he would introduce himself and tell her why he’d been sent to find her. He wasn’t ready for that. He wasn’t ready to hand her his card and say, “Your birth father is looking for you.” He wasn’t ready to put away the feeling he had when her eyes looked in his direction.

“I’m Trevor,” he called out to her and she stopped. “Trevor Jacobs.”

Hope turned back to him. “It’s nice to meet you.” She smiled warmly and continued back to her car.

“And you are?” He followed, then slowed, realizing he appeared too anxious.

“Are you following me?” She tilted down her sunglasses. The piercing blue eyes he knew so well looked right into him, and his heart slammed in his chest. He could barely breathe.

“I’m just new to the area. You know, trying to meet anyone I can.” He looked around. “Anywhere I can.” He laughed and she pushed up her glasses and studied him.

“Hope Kendal.” She extended her hand to him.

He took it and the shock that zapped between them had them both pulling their hands away.

“Wow,” he whispered as he looked down at his hand then back up to her.

“Shocking,” she joked. “Well, Mr. Jacobs, it was nice to meet you. I hope you find your aunt.”

He couldn’t move.

Hope walked to her car and he watched as she drove away. He looked back at his hand. It still tingled.

“It was a sign, Hope Kendal.” He turned back toward his car with a wide smile. “And I believe in signs.”

He swung open the car door and crawled in behind the wheel.