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    Young at Heart
    Young at Heart
    Young at Heart
    Ebook76 pages56 minutes

    Young at Heart

    By Charmaine Gordon

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Once Upon A Time... the ninety year old great grandmother begins a love story...

    Seventy year old Joyce Campbell expected her new left hip to heal at Helen Hayes Rehabilitation. What she didn’t expect was to fall in love with the distinguished silver haired Collin Brody who wouldn’t give her a second glance.

    Once he’d confessed he’d turned his hearing aids off so she wouldn’t distract him, they were off to share chicken noodle soup at a fancy restaurant on the Hudson River. His daughter came by, only to break their intimate spell. She didn’t fit in their family dynamics and quietly leaves.

    Thus a quest begins. Collin doesn’t know how to find her to beg forgiveness. His blood pressure spikes and in Nyack Hospital, a therapy dog, Kizzy, arrives to comfort and heal. Heartbroken, Joyce tries to move on.

    What happens next? The Beginning, not The End.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVanillaHeart
    Release dateJul 21, 2013
    ISBN9781301716647
    Young at Heart
    Author

    Charmaine Gordon

    Charmaine Gordon writes books about women who Survive and Thrive. Her motto is take one step and then another to leave your past behind and begin again. Six books and several short stories in three years, she’s always at work on the next story. The books include To Be Continued, Starting Over, Now What?, Reconstructing Charlie, Sin of Omission and The Catch, and her series of Mature Romances, The Beginning...Not the End.“I didn’t realize at the time while working as an actor in NYC, I’d become a sponge soaking up dialogue, setting, and stage directions. I learned many tools of writing during the years watching directors like Mike Nichols and actors including Harrison Ford, Anthony Hopkins, and Billy Crystal. And would you believe, I was Geraldine Ferraro’s stand– in leg model, my first job giving me entrée into all the Unions needed to work. When the sweet time ended, I began another career and creative juices flowed.”You can reach Charmaine athttp://authorCharmaineGordon.wordpress.comAnd on her FB page http://www.facebook.com/charmaine.gordon

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      Book preview

      Young at Heart - Charmaine Gordon

      Young at Heart

      Book 2, The Beginning…Not the End Series

      by Charmaine Gordon

      Copyright 2013 Charmaine Gordon

      Published by: Vanilla Heart Publishing on Smashwords

      Ebook Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

      Dedication

      Thanks to my good friend, Judy Goldstein Audevard for giving me permission to add her therapy dog Kizzy to the cast of characters in Young at Heart. The story is fiction. Everything about Kizzy is real. He has accomplished so much good in his life and now retires to live with Judy and Bob surrounded by a loving family.

      Acknowledgements

      To my publisher at Vanilla Heart, Kimberlee Williams, I give thanks for your support, shared ideas, friendship, and laughter. This is more than I ever dreamed of in our few years working together. Here’s to many more.

      Young at Heart

      by Charmaine Gordon

      Once Upon a Time…

      Who are all these people on the veranda and why don’t they go away?

      These are not exactly words a loving wife likes to hear from her husband of twenty years. Early onset of you-know-what? Not possible since we’re both in our nineties. But what the hell? I whispered in his hearing aid. All the children have come to celebrate our big anniversary and you better behave. They want me to tell the story of how we met.

      Again? he snorted. Boring. Add a twist or two. Change it up. They’ll never know the difference. He called for Edgar, his faithful manservant. Bring the rowdy bunch a batch of Miss Mary’s cookies.

      Tall, elegant in a black suit even though we were at our winter home in St. Augustine Beach, Florida, Edgar lifted an eyebrow asking in a silent gesture if the timing worked. I nodded.

      Yay, Grumpy. The little ones climbed on his lap, knocking off the Captain’s cap embroidered Grumpy. He settled them on replacement knees and patted tow heads with gnarled fingers.

      Yes, he had turned grumpy over the past decade. When did he grow old? When did we grow old? I sighed and ran my fingers through his silver hair. I’ve loved Collin Brody from the moment I saw him.

      There on a cushioned swing below sat Lindy, my grandest grandchild extraordinaire. I’d lived to see her graduate college, become a doctor and planned one day, when she married, I’d hold her baby in my arms. She waved, the bright sun catching her glow, the ocean lapping at the shore as if it too waited for The Story.

      Eager tanned faces lifted, their voices raised to speak the sweetest words from those I love.

      Once Upon A Time.

      Chapter 1

      In a voice now gone scratchy, I began my monologue.

      I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried all my tricks to get his attention. Today might be my last chance. Known as Queen of the quip in the out-patient clinic at Helen Hayes Rehabilitation Hospital, I knew how to make people laugh. This guy, the saddest looking Irish face I’d seen since I had to pick one out of a line-up, kept to himself, never speaking to anyone except Eddy Martin, the physical therapist we shared. I wanted to share more with this stand-offish private guy. Why? I don’t know. Something about him appealed to me.

      I can’t divulge the nature of his problem, Eddy said when I snooped. It’s not ethical. Ask him. Eddy’s kind brown eyes twinkled. You could make the Sphinx talk. After adjusting the Nu Step machine to begin today’s warm-up, Eddy left to care for someone else.

      Physical Therapy was an unlikely place for dating possibilities, the slightly sanitized scent in the huge room with professionals in white uniforms everywhere. Yet I love men and they were here with me and a bunch of other women.

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