Free The Gift of Hope by Pam Andrews Hanson

The Gift of Hope
    By Pam Andrews Hanson

    Copyright © 2011 by Pamela S. Hanson
     
    All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without the written permission of the author.
     
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

     
    CHAPTER 1
     
    “Who was on the phone?” Granny Doe asked from her spot on the living room couch where she was trying to get comfortable in spite of the brace on her broken leg.
    “Reverend Langdon,” her granddaughter Hope Randall said as she came into the room. “He’s going to drop by to see how you’re doing.”
    “Oh, goodness, I can’t let him see me in my nightclothes at seven in the evening.”
    “You look adorable in your fleece robe. The pink brings out the color in your cheeks. Anyway, he visits people in the hospital when they’re wearing those wretched gowns.” Hope smiled reassuringly at her grandmother.
    “When is he coming? Maybe I have time to change and do something with my hair.” She made a coil with her long white hair and tried to sweep it up into her usual French twist. “I need my combs.”
    Hope was amused by her grandmother’s unusual concern for her appearance but a bit puzzled.
    “He’s on his way. Why are you so worried?” she asked.
    “I don’t want him to think I’m too badly injured to be in charge of decorating the church for Christmas. Harriet Llewellyn has been trying to get the job for herself for years. She’ll see this as her big chance. I’m afraid she’ll bring in enormous inflatables like the ones in her yard. Can you believe she has one playing ‘Jingle Bells’ over and over and over? It drives her neighbors crazy.”
    Delores, or Doe as her friends called her, tried to reach her crutches, but Hope moved them away.
    “Stay right where you are,” Hope said with mock severity, still getting used to being Granny Doe’s caregiver.
    She’d given up her efficiency apartment in Blairton to move in with her paternal grandmother after her father and his new wife moved to Florida. A widower since Hope was a little girl, he deserved a second chance at happiness, but he’d been reluctant to leave his mother on her own in the small Iowa town.
    Hope was happy beyond words when he met and married Gloria after so many years of mourning for her mother. She prayed his new marriage would bring joy and contentment after so many years without a spouse.
    Hope adored Granny Doe who had helped raise her after her mother’s premature death from a congenital heart defect. She gladly embraced the role of companion, but this was the first time her grandparent had really needed her. She’d fallen down the front porch steps and fractured her leg because she hadn’t seen a thin coating of ice on the wooden risers.
    “I guess there’s no time to change,” Doe reluctantly admitted. “Anyway, you’re the one who should get dolled up for Reverend Langdon’s visit.”
    “Grandmother!” This wasn’t the first time the older woman had alluded to the new minister’s single status. He’d lost his wife to a rare blood disease nearly five years ago, before he was called to serve at the Blairton Bible Church. “Please, please, please, don’t try to play matchmaker. He hasn’t had nearly enough time to get over his wife’s death, if he ever will. It’s possible he’ll never love anyone he way he did his wife. I don’t want to be the one to find out.”
    “Well, fortunately you look lovely, no matter what you’re wearing,” Granny Doe said, ignoring Hope’s protest and frowning at her faded jeans and oversized blue sweatshirt. “Though I wish you hadn’t changed out that nice sage green pantsuit you wore to work today. Sometimes I look at you and see myself in my late twenties when I was