скачать книгу бесплатно
Cassandra's Song
Carole Gift Page
A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN?Determined to marry off her widowed father, concert pianist Cassandra Rowlands had finally met the perfect stepmother candidate–only to find herself falling for the woman's son. Enigmatic, reclusive Antonio Pagliarulo was everything Cassandra had learned to avoid. Yet she found herself helplessly drawn to the passionate tenor, certain her feelings couldn't possibly be mutual….After years of self-imposed solitude, Antonio cared about Cassandra more than he had ever dreamed it was possible to love a woman. But he knew the minister's beautiful daughter was no stranger to heartache. He couldn't possibly expect her to understand his secret burden–or why he could never be free to marry….
“Actually, we will be more than friends, Cassandra.”
“More than friends?”
Antonio laughed. “Didn’t we agree to be colleagues in a friendly little conspiracy…?”
“Oh, you mean our parents. Of course!” She raised her water glass. “To your mother and my father…and whatever the future may bring.”
Even as Cassandra and Antonio toasted their harmless matchmaking scheme, she had an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach. What was it? What was her heart trying to tell her? She had no words for it, but she sensed she was opening the door to a barrage of emotional complications she had never bargained for. And now, as Antonio clasped her hand across the table, she knew it was too late to turn back….
CAROLE GIFT PAGE
writes from the heart about issues facing women today. A prolific author of over forty books and 800 stories and articles, she has published both fiction and nonfiction with a dozen major Christian publishers, including Thomas Nelson, Moody Press, Crossway Books, Bethany House, Tyndale House and Harvest House. An award-winning novelist, Carole has received the C.S. Lewis Honor Book Award and been a finalist several times for the prestigious Gold Medallion Award and the Campus Life Book of the Year Award.
A frequent speaker at churches, conferences, conventions, schools and retreats around the country, Carole shares her testimony and encourages women everywhere to discover and share their deepest passions, to keep passion alive on the home front and to unleash their passion for Christ (based on her inspiring new book, Becoming a Woman of Passion, by Fleming Revell).
Born and raised in Jackson, Michigan, Carole taught creative writing at Biola University in La Mirada, California, and serves on the Advisory Board of the American Christian Writers. She and her husband, Bill, live in Southern California and have three children (besides Misty in heaven) and three beautiful grandchildren.
Cassandra’s Song
Carole Gift Page
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
But God—so rich is He in His mercy! Because of
and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and
intense love with which He loved us, even when we
were dead (slain) by [our own] shortcomings and
trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship
and in union with Christ; [He gave us the very life
of Christ Himself, the same new life with which He
quickened Him, for] it is by grace (His favor and
mercy which you did not deserve) that you are
saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers
of Christ’s salvation).
—Ephesians 2: 4-5
In loving memory of my mother-and father-in-law, Alice and Anthony Page (born Antonio Pagliarulo) and in loving memory of their granddaughter and my niece, Karen Geston Abeloe. Your family loves you and misses you deeply.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Letter to Reader
Chapter One
A ndrew Rowlands was just changing into something comfortable when his oldest daughter Cassandra peeked inside the bedroom door and said, “Dinner will be ready in half an hour, Daddy.”
He turned and flashed a generous smile. “Thanks, Cassie. I’ll be right down.”
She didn’t budge, just kept watching him. Her lovely face was doing the thing it always did when she was displeased. Her clear blue eyes darkened, her finely arched brows furrowed, and her heart-shaped lips slipped into a pout. “Oh, Daddy!”
“What’s wrong, kitten?” It was all he could do to hold back a chuckle. Cassie was twenty-six years old, but that childlike scowl brought back memories of a strong-willed toddler who stubbornly held her ground when she wanted something. How often he and Mandy had exchanged helpless smiles when their daughter folded her chubby arms and crooned, “Please, Mommy…Please, Daddy!”
“So what’s up, honey?” he asked now. “You look like you have something to say.”
She shook her pretty blond head. “No, Daddy. It’s just…you’re not going to wear that ratty old sweater to dinner, are you?”
He glanced in the mirror at his rumpled, brown, button-down sweater. “Why not? It’s my favorite. I’ve worn it all my life.”
“I know, Daddy. It looks it! Why don’t you wear your new dress shirt and the tie I gave you last Christmas?”
“For Pete’s sake, I’m only going downstairs to my own dining room for a heaping plate of spaghetti.” Fridays were always spaghetti nights. His youngest daughter Frannie’s specialty. She had become chief cook and bottle washer after Mandy’s death five years ago. A downright good cook she had become, too. Of his three daughters Frannie was most like her mother—a charming little spitfire at heart and oh, so overly protective. As if he needed protecting at his age!
“So will you change, Daddy?” Cassie remained in the doorway, grilling him with her gaze.
“If you insist. But a good white shirt and spaghetti don’t mix well. You know that, especially on laundry days.”
She beamed. “Don’t worry, Daddy. You won’t spill a drop.”
He returned a wry smile. “And if you believe that, my beauty, you’re sadly deluded. I’ll need a bib the size of a pup tent.”
Brianna, his middle daughter, had actually stitched a humongous terry cloth bib for him once—and later made them for her sisters as well—and all his daughters had laughed in bemused delight as she tied it around his neck while he sat, fork and knife ready, to attack a luscious mountain of meatballs and spaghetti. He had smugly devoured the entire plate without so much as a dollop of sauce on that voluminous bib. He had even managed to slip a meatball or two under the table to Ruggs, the family’s mop-haired mongrel mascot, so named because as a puppy he had a penchant for burrowing like a gopher under the throw rugs.
Cassie ignored his comment about the bib. “Splash on some of that smelly aftershave, too, Daddy,” she urged.
Before he could protest, she slipped back out and shut the door. He scowled at his reflection in the mirror and mumbled, “Something’s brewing. Something’s always going on with those three girls. Wonder what—or who—it is this time?”
In deference to his daughters’ wishes—when had he not given in to his daughters?—Andrew reluctantly pulled off his comfy threadbare sweater. With a sigh of resignation he slipped on his starched dress shirt and grabbed the monogrammed silk tie Cassandra had given him last Christmas. He buttoned the shirt and knotted the tie with deft fingers, casting a squint-eyed glance in the dresser mirror at his hefty, six-foot-four frame. Not bad for an old geezer two years short of the half-century mark. He still had his college-football physique in spite of the mountains of spaghetti his daughters had plied him with over the past five years. They hadn’t let him miss a meal, that was for sure. Yes, indeed, they were good girls. The best.
He gazed at the familiar framed photograph of his wife on the bureau. “You’d be proud of your daughters, Mandy,” he said in a husky whisper, his eyes misting over. “They’ve taken good care of me since…since we lost you. Too good. I think they’re matchmaking again. But they should know they’ll never find a woman for me as perfect as their mother.”
A familiar ache rose in his chest. After all this time he still felt a compulsive need to confide all the details of his life to his wife, God rest her soul. He cleared his throat and said aloud, “Mandy, I promise you, I’m as determined to protect our daughters, as they are to find me a new wife.”
He paused, casting a glance around the comfortable bedroom that had been his and Mandy’s for well over twenty years. He hadn’t changed a thing since her death—not the chintz curtains or flowered wallpaper or blown-glass knickknacks. Even her perfume decanters remained on the dresser where he could breathe in her scent when he was lonely.
“Truth is, Mandy,” he said with a weary sigh, “I’m worried about the girls. They should all be out finding themselves husbands—good, decent, godly men—instead of hanging around the house taking care of me. Sure, they’ve got busy lives and successful careers, but I want them to experience the kind of love you and I shared. A special devotion only God can give a man and a woman. But, short of my prayers, I haven’t a clue how to make sure they find that kind of love.”
Andrew ran a comb through his thick, wavy brown hair and, as Cassie requested, splashed some aftershave on his cheeks. He chuckled craftily. “This stuff makes me smell like a perfume factory. Just hope the lady they’ve invited for dinner isn’t allergic.”
With a jaunty flourish he straightened his tie and strode out of the room, his head up, shoulders squared. Time to face the music. Or whatever mystery woman the girls had planned for him tonight. He cast a glance heavenward and smiled. Lord, let this evening not be a total fiasco. I’m sure the girls have worked hard and have the best of intentions. But You know I’m not in the market for a wife, no matter how many socks she can mend or how many soufflés she can bake without collapsing.
He was halfway down the spiral oak staircase, the pungent aroma of well-done roast beef in his nostrils—what happened to the usual spaghetti?—when he heard the melodic voices of his daughters rising from the kitchen. He paused with a bemused smile and listened. Let’s just see what you girls are up to.
Cassandra was shouting into the sunroom just off the kitchen. “Frannie, we need your help! When are you going to finish heaping clay on that monstrosity of a sculpture and come rescue this dinner?”
Frannie, from the sunroom: “It’s not a monstrosity; it’s a bust of Amelia Earhart, and if I stop now the clay will harden.”
“But you’re the cook in the family,” Brianna, his middle child, protested. “Just come check the roast, Frannie. Please! It’s tough as leather. What can we do with it?”
“Play football,” came the miffed retort.
“Good one, Frannie,” said Andrew under his breath from his stairway perch. He laughed in spite of himself. “My mellow, dulcet daughters. The three muses. Should have named them Faith, Hope and Love.”
At the moment their mellifluous voices were rising in shrill desperation. “Frannie, get in here! Bree is scorching the roast!”
“Not me, Frannie. It’s Cassie.”
“Okay, I’m coming. Just give me a minute,” said Frannie, sounding exasperated. “But if the dinner is wrecked, that’s what you two get for trying to marry Daddy off to every unattached woman in town!”
Andrew meandered on down the stairs. He couldn’t stifle another smile. Maybe the humiliation of a burned roast would teach his daughters to lay off the matchmaking. He sauntered into the kitchen where he could see Frannie in the sunroom beside the armature of her latest sculpture; she was in her artist’s smock, wet clay up to her elbows. Cassandra and Brianna stood beside the kitchen stove, peering into a pan that contained a black mound that could have been a large lump of coal or a small meteor that had burned up on entering earth’s atmosphere.
“Daddy, there’s a little problem with dinner,” Bree said. “I was on the phone with a client whose husband ran off with his secretary and left her alone with seven children. She was so upset, I just couldn’t break away—”
“And, Daddy, I was in the music room practicing the piano for Sunday’s cantata,” Cassandra lamented, “and it never occurred to me a roast needed so much water—”
“That’s because you two leave all the cooking to me,” Frannie said, emerging from the sunroom brushing a wisp of golden hair back from her clay-smudged cheek.
“That’s because we both work and you’re here at home…sculpting,” Cassandra stated thickly. “Besides, you always say you love cooking for Daddy.”
“I do, and if I’d had my way, we’d be having our usual spaghetti. It’s Daddy’s favorite.” She looked petulantly at Andrew. “Isn’t it, Daddy?”
“Yes, dear, but I love anything my girls fix, you know that.”
“Even this burnt offering?” challenged Frannie, pointing a clay-caked finger accusingly at the charred roast.
Andrew grimaced. A layer of smoke had settled around the ceiling, and he had to admit the smell was slightly reminiscent of brimstone. “Well, it’s the…the thought that counts. But maybe tonight we might think about going out to dinner.” He flicked his starched collar. “After all, I’m already dressed up.”
“That’s not necessary, Daddy,” said Frannie, going to the sink and turning on the spigot. “I’ll wash up and fix my usual spaghetti.” She gave her sisters a knowing look. “I should have it ready by the time our guest arrives.”
“Guest?” echoed Andrew, feigning ignorance.
Brianna tossed back her long russet hair, her cheeks turning a deep rose. “We’re having company, Daddy. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Why would I mind?” He could play their little game. “Who’s coming to dinner? Someone I know?”
“No, Daddy,” Cassandra said, nervously patting her upswept chignon. Several ringlets of her silky champagne-blond hair bobbed against her high cheekbones as she placed the lid on the roast and carried the pan toward the back door. “I’ll just put this outside where it can’t hurt anyone, and be right back.”
“Don’t feed it to Ruggs,” warned Frannie. “We don’t want to have to rush him off to the vet tonight.”
“Don’t worry, sister dear. I’ll dispose of this culinary disaster in the garbage. You just get that spaghetti started.”
“You girls still haven’t told me. Who’s coming over?”
Bree averted her gaze. “A very nice lady from my counseling center. She’s a child psychologist. We work together sometimes when I’m counseling families going through death or divorce. She’s wonderful with troubled children. You’ll love her, Daddy.”
“What’s her name?” asked Andrew, maintaining a noncommittal tone.
