Touched by Angels (Angels Everywhere #3)(52)

“Potato is the soup of the day,” she said.

“Hannah, look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

She closed her eyes and braced herself “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“You don’t want my business?”

He was making this difficult.

“You’ve thought about contacting me, haven’t you?”

Again she didn’t answer. “Would you care for a bowl of soup with your sandwich?”

He didn’t respond for a number of seconds, and then, “The only thing I want is you, Hannah.”

“If you’ll take a number, I’ll have your lunch delivered.”

“Will you bring it?” he asked.

Her nod was nearly imperceptible. She saw the tension leave him and couldn’t keep from glancing up and offering him a quick smile. It took only a moment or more to finish compiling his sandwich. She carried that and a cup of coffee to his table and was pleased to note he sat as far away from the counter as possible.

“Thank you, Hannah,” he said when she placed the plate on the table. “Would you care to join me?”

“I can’t.” Her hands folded over the back of the chair across from him. She glanced over her shoulder, fearing her father would notice the two of them together.

“Is that your father?” Joshua asked, looking around her.

“Yes. Mom’s in the kitchen.”

“He doesn’t look like the kind of man who would force his daughter into a loveless marriage.”

“Joshua, please.”

He picked up the sandwich, and once again, Hannah looked back to make sure no one was watching her. “I sometimes walk by the pond in Central Park,” she whispered.

Joshua went still. “When?”

“I was thinking of taking a stroll there this afternoon.”

“In an hour?”

“Yes.”

Joshua’s handsome face broke into a wide grin. “I’ve always favored walking as an excellent form of exercise.”

Eleven

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Trey asked Jenny for the third time since they’d boarded the ferry headed for Ellis Island.

“I wouldn’t have suggested sight-seeing if I wasn’t feeling better,” Jenny insisted. They stood and watched as the New York skyline began to fade into the distance. “I want you to visit Ellis Island,” she continued. “It’s an emotional experience, at least it was for me the first time I made the trip. I found my great-grandfather’s name there.”

“Your great-grandfather? How?”

“I looked his name up on the computer. It showed me the year he arrived from Germany and his age at the time. I felt as though I’d stumbled upon an open treasure chest, only this one contained a part of my heritage.”

“This was your mother’s grandfather?”

Jenny answered him with a quick nod. “Can you imagine packing everything you own in this world in a single suitcase?” she asked, awed by the raw courage and grit her great-grandfather had shown when he was little more than a teenager. “He came to America with nothing but his dreams and the desire for a new life.”

“Is that so unusual?” Trey asked.

“Of course it is,” she answered, feeling slightly offended that Trey didn’t recognize the fortitude and faith her great-grandfather had demonstrated. “He didn’t have an easy life here, you know. First off he didn’t speak the language, and although he was well educated he was forced into taking a menial job. For years he and my great-grandmother struggled to make a decent life for themselves and their family. I can’t tell you how much I admire them for that.”

“What you did, leaving Montana for a chance on Broadway, wasn’t all that different.”

“Me?” Jenny didn’t see the correlation. Of course there was the obvious one, but her great-grandfather had come to America friendless and without the loving support of his family.

“As I recall, when you left Custer you went with a solitary suitcase. You came to the Big Apple without a job, with little money, and with only your dreams to feed you.”

“True,” she admitted reluctantly, not wanting Trey to continue comparing her with her great-grandfather. Not when she fell so far short.

Trey placed his hand on her shoulder. “It hasn’t been easy for you, has it?” he asked gently.

He didn’t know the half of it. Jenny turned her face into the wind and let the breeze off the Hudson River buffet against her. The thickness in her throat tightened to painful proportions, and she knew she dared not try to talk. Trey had tried to paint her as some kind of heroine, seeking her way in a new world. In retrospect, Jenny wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing to leave Montana. She wasn’t sure she was cut out for life in the city. In three years she’d never managed to feel at home in New York.

Jenny didn’t see herself as any modern-day champion.

“Jenny?”

Trey’s face had knit into a worried frown.

“I’m doing great,” she told him quickly, perhaps too quickly, because she felt his close scrutiny. Smiling, just then, would have been impossible.

Trey moved closer to her by the railing. The wind hit against him. His arm came loosely around her shoulder, and, needing him, she pressed her head against his solid strength.