A Rendezvous To Remember

A Rendezvous To Remember
Geri Krotow

World War II to Present."My dear Melinda, I hate to see you throw away what may be the love of your life…"Melinda Thompson knew that her grandmother had always adored Nick. But Grammy's gone now and Melinda's on the verge of divorce…When she comes home to her widowed grandfather, Grandpa Jack hands her a leather-bound journal–and invites her to look into some family secrets. Grammy's voice rings out from the journal, begun when she was in her twenties and living in Nazi-occupied Belgium. Breathlessly, Melinda reads the story of a young woman involved in the Resistance and the British airman whose life she saved. The story of passionate love and a wartime promise. One that saw her grandparents, Esm? and Jack, through World War II. And a marriage of more than sixty years. With the example of her grandparents' lives, Melinda looks for the courage to believe again. In the love of her life.

A Rendezvous to Remember

Geri Krotow

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Dedication

For Stephen

My Everlasting

Contents

Acknowledgment

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

Acknowledgment

My heartfelt gratitude, respect and love to

Haywood Smith, Susan Wiggs and Debbie Macomber

for believing in me and my potential. You are soul sisters.

Special thanks to my editor extraordinaire,

Paula Eykelhof.

Chapter 1

November 10, 2007

He stood hunched over the azaleas, shaping the bushes with ease despite the cold. Melinda Busher-Thompson burrowed her gloved hands deeper into the front pockets of her Berber coat as she watched him. Her exposed skin stung with the raw damp of the November day—another reason for her desire to leave western New York.

Yet Grandpa Jack moved through his garden as though he was still forty, like her, and not eighty-seven.

As if Grammy was still here.

“Hey, Grandpa.” Her all-weather moccasins squished over the scattered dead leaves Grandpa Jack had laid down for insulation.

“Hey, yourself, kiddo!” Pleasure lit up Jack Busher’s face. Melinda caught the sparkle in his violet-blue eyes before he enfolded her in one of his famous bear hugs.

Grandpa Jack might be thinner than he’d been when she was a child, but his embrace still held all the love in the world for her. She breathed in his scent—fall morning rain mixed with soap and old-fashioned cologne.

“I didn’t think you’d get here until tomorrow.”

The familiar vestiges of his English accent comforted her.

Jack pulled back to look at Melinda’s face but his hands were still on her upper arms. He squeezed her with just enough pressure that she felt it under her thick coat. Her heart pounded in response to the unconditional love she’d only ever found here with him and Grammy.