Rachel Van Dyken Read Free Page B

emerald eyes. The rarity of the event wasn’t lost on her, and she was a quick study. “What might ye be about?”
    “I’m going dancing.”
    “I see. Um… and will there be a young lady joining ye this evenin’, Mr. Graham?” She glanced at Mr. Hanigan , who winked knowingly and chuckled under his breath.
    The suggestion brought a warm blush cr eeping across Blaine’s face in response. “Yes,” he murmured. “Miss Bell, a stewardess on the flight last night. She’ll be joining me.”
    “Well, then!” Mrs. Callahan clapped her hands together. “Ye best be getting ‘round , says I !” Her delight took him by surprise, but it seemed contagious . Mr. Hanigan grinned and slapped Blaine on the back in congratulations, while the other two boarders nodded their whole-hearted approval.
    Blaine shrugged and rose from his chair. “I’ll just go grab my wallet.” As he strode down the hall and up the stairs to his room, his stomach churned uneasily. It had been a long time since he’d last been out with a woman . How long? Four? Five years? It had been in Italy if he remembered right. Celebrating V-E Day. Everyone was carousing in the streets then – t here wa s a good chance it didn’t actua lly count.
    With anxiety surging through him, he scoured his room for his wallet, becoming increasingly frazzled in the search. It was just like him to misplace the st upid thing in this situation.
    “Captain Graham?” Mrs. Callahan hollered up the stairwell. “Captain Graham?”
    Hearing the tangible fear in her voice sent a chill down his spine, and he sped down the stairs. “What is it? What’s wrong, Mrs. Callahan?” Her eyes were bugging wide with apprehension.
    “There’s a telegram for ye.”
    Telegrams never carried good news. The war years were too recent, and Mrs. Callahan told him she had held her breath every time the buzzer r a ng in those days, waiting for the telegram which would finally confirm her worst fears of the fate of her only son. That telegram was delivered six years ago, but the residual effects of that one delivery haunted her still.
    She stood beside the courier with her hands clasped together over her mouth. Her eyes glistened with the threatening tears and burned with fear into Blaine’s face.
    He approached the uniformed man and took the envelope from his outstretched hand. The man’s face was emotionless, revealing nothing, but the intensity of Mrs. Callahan’s concern transferred to Blaine. He ran his free hand through his sandy blond hair and stared at the envelope in his trembling hand.
    “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Mr. Hanigan intoned.
    “Just open it , lad ,” encouraged another boarder, Mr. Case y.
    Blaine glanced from one face to an other, then peeled the flap open and read the message silently. When he looked up again, all their eyes were glued to him for his reaction. An uncertain grin spread across his face as he folded the telegram and put it in his pocket. “Mr. Hanigan is right. It’s nothing. Nothing to be concerned about, Mrs. Callahan.” He cleared his throat and averted his eyes to the old grandfather clock. “Well, I need to be going… How do I look?”
    Outside on the front steps, he pulled the paper out of his pocket again an d tried to absorb the words printed there.
    His father was dying. He wanted him to come home.

Chapter Two
    Young Mara Crawford’s hands shook as she checked the mailbox for the second time that day.
    Nothing.
    It shouldn’t surprise her, yet every day she still held hope that David’s son would respond to her telegram. It had only been a few days . Had he even received it? Should she send another?
    The wind picked up, blowing her dark hair into her face. Mara closed the mailbox and sighed. Her job description did not include telling a dying man his son wasn’t coming home, yet as the snow and gravel crunched beneath her feet , she accepted the fact that the prodigal may never return. God never promised life would be easy or