The Valentine Grinch by Sheila Seabrook

noticed the glum slope to his
shoulders and she softened her voice. “What’s up, Gramps?”
    “Ah, bumpkin, love hurts.” He sighed, heavy and sad,
his expression shadowed with grief as he poked through the
decorations. “I miss my life. I miss my wife.”
    Amanda closed the distance between them and
carefully moved the decorations out of his reach. “Grandma misses
you, too.”
    “No, she doesn’t. She’s marrying that bastard Morty
and she’s forgotten all about me.”
    “Not true. Look how she carries your urn around all
the time.”
    “Only because she wants to put me six feet
under.”
    Amanda felt her heart break for the man who had once
carried her on his shoulders, swung her through the air and sang
lullabies to put her to sleep. “It’s time for Grandma to move
on.”
    He plopped down on the stool. “She’s my one true
love.”
    “And you are hers. She loved you first, before she
loved Morty. Isn’t that enough?”
    “If she marries Morty, I’ll lose her forever.” He
clenched his hands at his sides and surged to his feet, until he
towered over her and she stepped back. “You promised, bumpkin. You
promised to stop the wedding.”
    “But you had her for fifty-one years.”
    A noise at the side door caught her attention and
she turned to see Dane in the doorway, his face in shadows.
    “Who’re you talking to?”
    Amanda forced a smile. “Just myself. I wasn’t sure
if you’d show up.”
    “I promised you, didn’t I?” The furnace in the
garage clicked on, and Dane stepped out of the cold and closed the
door.
    “Tell him the truth about love, bumpkin.” Grandpa
flicked on the radio and an old time melody drifted through the
tiny speakers. “You die and get discarded with the trash.”
    Dane tugged off his jacket, tossed it on the clean
surface of the workbench, and picked up the radio to examine it.
“Must have a short.”
    Amanda glanced at her grandpa, who had started to
dance around the room to the melody, his arms lifted to encircle an
imaginary woman. His steps were smooth and for the first time ever,
she noticed how handsome he must have been in his younger days. How
could Grandma love Morty more than she loved the man she
married?
    Her attention turned back to Dane, who was focused
on the radio as he searched for a loose wire. She studied his face,
the crows feet around his eyes, the smile lines around his mouth,
the strong masculine angles belonging to a face she’d known
forever.
    Could they be both friends and lovers? Like her mom
and dad? Like Gramps and Grandma? Or would that destroy the special
bond they shared?
    He set down the radio and turned back to her. “I
can’t see anything wrong with this thing. Better tell your dad to
get a new one.”
    He flicked off the sound.
    Grandpa reached through him and turned it back
on.
    Dane stared at it for a moment, then reached out and
unplugged the portable unit from the wall.
    Grandpa plunked down on the stool. “I need some
entertainment to take my mind off Elvira’s wedding.”
    Across the room, Dane stood with his hands in his
pockets, tall and broad and somber, different from the boy she once
knew and yet so much the same. She decided she had to go for it —
go for him — and wiggled her eyebrows. “Wanna know a secret?”
    One masculine brow hooked up and a reluctant smile
crooked up the edges of his mouth. “You’re holding my Mandy hostage
in the city and you’re just a cheap copy?”
    “Ha ha.” She wiggled her finger at him and beckoned
him toward the car. When he stood shoulder to shoulder with her,
she leaned into him, felt the solid strength of his form and
whispered, “Yesterday I caught my parents making out in the
backseat of this car.”
    Grandpa hooted. “Elvira and I used to — you know —
like rabbits.”
    Amanda thought, Go away, Gramps . And in
a poof of white light, he vanished.
    Dane shifted away from her and squinted at the car
window. “Seriously?”
    “Serious as a heart attack. I
am