Promises Under the Peach Tree (Harlequin Superromance) Read Online Free PDF

say you should be considering assisted living?”
    She’d been surprised by his tersely worded email urging Nina to convince his mother to move into a new place where she would have someone checking on her.
    “Because he doesn’t want to be bothered by phone calls from his mother.” Gram winked at her over the rim of her coffee cup, but Nina didn’t think she was joking.
    She peered over the white ruffled café curtains on one window to check on the movers’ progress in the barn and then took a seat at the table.
    “I know he’s selfish, Gram.” He’d never inconvenienced himself for them, and Nina doubted he was any different with his second wife or her children—half siblings Nina had met only because she insisted on visiting twice a year to at least make an effort. “But he’s never brought up something like assisted living before. Did the doctors voice new concerns to him?”
    “I have no idea what any of my doctors would have told him.” Gram rose to refresh her coffee even though she’d hardly taken three sips.
    “That sounds...carefully worded.” Nina’s eye strayed to the oversize vintage stove that Gram had used since her wedding, a Wedgewood appliance where Nina had learned how to bake.
    This kitchen had been a refuge for a child continually shuttled between feuding parents. When she was in Heartache, she wasn’t in the crossfire. On the downside, being left here time after time as a child and then permanently when she was ten years old only underscored that she wasn’t wanted. “I may have tuned out some of what your father said.” Gram shuffled back to the table, slower this time. Because of the full coffee cup, or did that knee still bother her more than she wanted to admit?
    Nina wanted to help, but also didn’t want to hover. She watched every cautious step and felt tense inside.
    “Would you mind if I followed up with your doctors?” Nina sipped her orange juice and tried to focus on the moment and what needed to be done—and not on Mack Finley.
    “You want to talk to my doctors. So they can tell you what? That I’m eighty-four and my bones are brittle?” Gram chuckled and pointed a pink fingernail at her. “We both know that already. I’m being careful. I don’t even wear cute shoes anymore.” She stuck out her mint-green-colored tennis sneaker as a reminder. “But if you really want to talk to them, sugar plum, of course you can.”
    “Sugar plum?”
    Gram smiled and patted her cheek. “I’ve missed you, pretty girl. You never visit for more than a weekend anymore, and I have a lot of endearments to cram into these days together.”
    Guilt pinched, but this time, it mingled with nostalgia.
    “I’ve missed you, too.” She sipped her coffee, her grandmother’s brew so strong she wondered if she’d have to hook up her espresso machine after all. “I don’t think I realized how much.”
    “I knew the bacon would win you over.”
    “Even the coffee is better here.” Everything tasted better at home. Maybe it was because she’d learned all that she knew about cooking and baking from the woman seated next to her. “I’m actually dying to cook in this kitchen again. I forgot how much I loved the stove. And I’ve been so focused on baking the last few years that I haven’t spent much time on other kinds of dishes.”
    “You cook all you want. I’d rather have you in the kitchen than playing sleuth at my doctor’s office.” Gram frowned and tapped her newly manicured nails against her coffee cup for a moment before she met Nina’s gaze. “I don’t want to give up my independence or this house, hon. So, please, make sure your father doesn’t try and pull a fast one on me to get me out of here, okay?”
    Worry made Nina’s stomach clench. Her grandmother had always seemed invincible. She’d carved out a living for herself in a big old empty farmhouse after her husband died when he’d been fifty-five. Gram had been on her own ever since, living frugally and