Kitabı oxu: «Wish Upon a Matchmaker»

“You don’t want to be labeled a culinary tease now, do you?” Stone asked the question so seriously, for a moment Danni didn’t realize that he was kidding her.

“Heaven forbid!” She laughed. He was being kind, and she appreciated it.

“Good, then go whip up something. Impress me with your ability to create something delicious out of nothing.”

“I’ll do my best.” It felt good to laugh, she thought. Good to feel useful again. A surge of deep gratitude spiked through her. “You’re a good man, Stone Scarborough.”

He shrugged off the compliment, not comfortable with its weight. “I’m only as good as I have to be,” he told her.

Why that sounded like a promise of things to come to her she didn’t know, but it did.

And it sent a little thrill of anticipation through her.

About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA^® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

Wish Upon a Matchmaker
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To

Andrew Gallagher,

who mentioned

his daughter’s name

to me

and inspired a story.

Prologue

“Are you the lady who finds mommies?”

The high-pitched, rather intelligent little voice cut a hole in Maizie Sommers’s mental haze. For the last half hour, the successful Realtor had been busy putting together an ad for her newest local real estate listing so that it could be entered on her website. Finding just the right words to place the proper emphasis on the twenty-year-old ranch house’s best features had been nothing short of a challenge. The term fixer-upper carried such a negative connotation.

Absorbed in the task, Maizie had only vaguely heard the front door to her office opening and closing. It had registered as just so much background noise. Part of her thought she’d only imagined it.

Especially when she’d glanced in the direction of the door and hadn’t seen anyone come in.

But there obviously was a reason for that. The person who had come in was only approximately half the size of an adult.

Maizie stopped working and after looking around, she half rose in her seat and looked over the edge of her desk. Ten small fingertips were firmly pressed against it. The little girl pushed herself up as far as she could go, standing on the very tiptoes of her black patent-leather shoes.

Maizie put down her pen and smiled at the child, judging her to be around four, or possibly a small five. Slight and a strawberry-blonde, her newest visitor had exceptionally intelligent-looking blue eyes. She was going to be a knockout in a dozen years, Maizie judged.

“Hello.”

The girl, who more than anything resembled a perfect little doll, tossed her head—sending her curls bouncing—and paused only a moment to politely return the greeting, “Hello,” before she got back down to business.

No doubt, she was a woman on a mission.

“Are you the lady who finds mommies?” the pint-size strawberry-blonde asked again. “My friend Greg said you found one for his dad and that she’s really nice and now they’re all very happy.”

Maizie never forgot a name, especially not a child’s name. The little girl was talking about Greg and Gary Muldare. After Sheila, Micah Muldare’s aunt, had come to see her, lamenting the young widower’s state, she and her two dearest friends had strategized and gotten the boys’ father, Micah, together with a bright, up-and-coming dynamo of a lawyer, Tracy Ryan, who solved Micah’s legal problems and along the way wound up becoming Mrs. Micah Muldare.

Word was getting around faster and faster, Maizie mused with a smile. She’d had walk-in clients before—both for her professional services and for her unofficial ones, but none of her clients had ever come in the economy size.

“What happened to your mommy, dear?” Maizie asked the girl kindly.

And just what was the child doing here by herself? Had the little girl run away in order to come see her? Her own daughter had been precocious, but even she hadn’t been this independent at such a young age.

There was just the slightest hint of sorrow in her voice as the girl said, “Mommy died before I could remember her, but Daddy remembers, and it makes him sad when he does. I want Daddy to be happy like Greg’s daddy is.” Her voice took on conviction as she said, “My daddy needs one. He needs a mommy,” she clarified in case that had gotten lost in the shuffle of words. “Can you find him one? And make her pretty, because my daddy said he wants one as pretty as me. That’s why he’s with Elizabeth now,” she confided. “She’s pretty, but she’s not a mommy, just a lady.” Lowering her voice as she raised herself up as far as she could on her toes so that only Maizie could hear, she said in what amounted to a stage whisper, “I don’t think she likes kids.”

Before Maizie could recover or comment on either the little girl’s request, or her summation of her father’s current relationship, the door to her widely sought-after real estate agency opened a second time in the space of less than five minutes.

It wasn’t that Maizie was unaccustomed to a lot of foot traffic, thanks to both her reputation and the popular shopping center location of her agency, she was more than used to a constant flow of humanity. However, the two people who worked for her were currently out showing properties, and she had no appointments on her calendar for at least an hour. She’d been promising herself a quick lunch now for the last ninety minutes—the second she finished writing the ad.

But something far more interesting had come up and her neglected stomach was pushed into second place.

Humor curved the corners of Maizie’s mouth. She’d never had a walk-in who wasn’t able to see over her desk before.

But just as Maizie had gotten her newest would-be client to tell her story, an utterly frazzled-looking woman suddenly burst into her real estate office. The second she did, the woman made a beeline for the tiny visitor who was standing on the other side of Maizie’s desk.

“Virginia Ann Scarborough, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” the blonde demanded as she fell to her knees and smothered the little girl in a huge hug that utterly reeked of relief as well as panic.

“No,” the little girl replied in a small, somewhat contrite voice. Her pained expression told Maizie that the girl was merely enduring the hug. Apparently, unlike the distraught woman who’d found her, she hadn’t been at all afraid.

“I was trying to find a mommy for Daddy,” the child explained, as if that would clear everything up and exonerate her as well.

“You know you’re not supposed to run off like that, Ginny,” the woman chided.

Making a swift survey of the little girl, the woman appeared satisfied that the only thing worse for wear were her own nerves. She rose to her feet and only then turned her attention to the other person in the room.

“I’m very sorry about this,” she apologized to Maizie. “I hope my niece didn’t break anything.”

“I wasn’t in here long enough to break anything, Aunt Virginia,” the girl protested indignantly.

Maizie rose from behind her desk, a little bemused. “Are you her guardian?” she asked the woman, nodding at the little girl.

“I’m her aunt.” She slanted an exasperated look at the little girl that was nonetheless laced with love. “Her long-suffering aunt. I swear, Ginny, if you weren’t named after me …” Ginny’s aunt let her voice trail off, then flashed another apologetic smile at Maizie as she took a firm hold of Ginny’s hand, her intent clear. She was taking the little girl out of the office. “I’m sorry about all this—”

“No, please, wait,” Maizie coaxed in her best maternal, nurturing voice. “You look a little frazzled. Let me get you a nice cup of tea.” She glanced down at Ginny. “And I think I might have some lemonade for you if you like.”

“Yes, please,” Ginny said with restrained enthusiasm.

“No, really, we’ve been enough trouble already,” Virginia protested.

“Nonsense. You’re no trouble at all and I must say my curiosity has been piqued,” Maizie admitted as she went to the small island against the wall that housed an all-in-one unit, combining a small refrigerator, a stove with microwave features and a sink on one side. With a minimum of movements, she made a hot Chai tea for Virginia and poured a glass of lemonade for the small whirling dervish who’d been named after her.

“Now then, Ginny,” Maizie began, addressing Ginny as she handed her the glass of lemonade, “you said something about your daddy needing a wife.”

Hearing that, Virginia’s eyes widened in stunned amazement. “Ginny, you didn’t—why would you do that?” the woman demanded of her niece.

“Because she finds them,” Ginny told her aunt, nodding at Maizie. “Greg said so,” she said with the conviction of the very young.

“This lady runs a real estate agency,” Virginia pointed out, her nerves beginning to fray no doubt.

“Perhaps I should explain,” Maizie interjected, coming to Ginny’s rescue. “My friends and I dabble in matchmaking on the side—there’s no charge,” she said quickly in case the other woman thought this was some sort of a scam, “just the satisfaction of bringing together two people who were meant for each other but who might never—without the proper intervention—come together,” she said. Her eyes shifted to Ginny. “Like your friend Greg’s father and Tracy Ryan. My friends and I supply the ‘intervention,’ so to speak,” she told Virginia.

“Is that why you begged me to bring you here, to the ice cream parlor?” she asked her niece.

“They have very good ice cream,” Ginny piped up innocently.

“See what I’m up against?” Virginia asked Maizie wearily.

Maizie did her best to appear sympathetic. In her line of work, she’d had a great deal of practice. “Are you her father’s sister?” she asked.

Virginia nodded. “His name is Stone Scarborough. I’m his younger sister. I moved in with him to help out after Eva—Ginny’s mother—died. That was a year and a half ago. I’m still helping,” she added.

And you want to move on with your life, Maizie surmised from the other woman’s choice of words and her tone.

Maizie sat back in her chair, her mouth curving in a smile of anticipation. She could sense the thrill of a challenge taking hold. Nothing she loved more than being challenged.

“So, tell me about your brother,” she coaxed Virginia.

“I don’t know where to start,” Virginia said with a sigh.

“At the beginning is always a good place,” Maizie encouraged.

“I guess it is.” Taking a deep breath, the other woman began to talk, with frequent interjections coming from Ginny.

Maizie listened attentively to both.

And a plan began to form.

Chapter One

Stone Scarborough stared at his younger sister, trying to make sense out of what she had, rather breathlessly, just told him.

Whatever it was, Virginia seemed very animated about it and he’d managed to glean that it had something to do with the business card she had just pressed into his hand. But her narrative came out so disjointed he found himself feeling the way he had back in the days when he’d walk into the middle of a movie with his late wife—Eva never managed to be on time for anything no matter how hard she tried—and he was forced to try to make heads or tails out of what he was subsequently watching.

In addition to Virginia’s overwhelming flow of words, his daughter, Ginny, seemed to have caught the fever and was fairly bouncing up and down right in front of him. It was as if both were experiencing a massive sugar attack.

In an attempt to sort out the verbiage, Stone held his hand up to get Virginia to stop talking for a moment, regroup and begin at the beginning.

“Run this by me one more time,” Stone urged his sister. “From the top,” he added.

His sister Virginia shook her head, her light blond ponytail swishing from side to side. “You know, for a brilliant man, you can be so slow sometimes.”

“Must be in comparison to the company I keep,” he said drolly. If he practiced for a year, he’d never be able to talk as fast as his sister—or his daughter. “Humor me,” he instructed, looking down at the card in his hand. “Why am I calling this woman?”

Taking a breath, Virginia recited the facts. “The number belongs to Maizie Sommers. She’s a Realtor who owns her own company. She said she needs the name of a good general contractor to recommend to her clients.”

He had never believed in coincidences or good fortune without there being strings of some sort, no matter how invisible, attached.

Consequently, Stone regarded the card in his hand with more than a smattering of suspicion. “And she just walked up to you and said, ‘Hmm, you look like you probably know a good general contractor,’ as she handed her card to you?”

“No.”

Virginia closed her eyes, doing her best to get herself under control. She knew she’d gotten too excited, but the picture that Maizie Sommers had painted for her earlier today had filled her with hope. It had been a very long time since she’d seen her brother with more than an obligatory smile on his lips.

And, like her niece, she really didn’t care for the woman he was currently seeing. Try as she might, she couldn’t get herself to warm up to Elizabeth Wells—and she definitely didn’t see the woman as being Ginny’s stepmother. For one thing, the woman was not the patient sort.

“Okay, from the top,” Virginia announced. “And this time,” she told her brother, “try to pay attention, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Stone replied, executing a mock salute and doing his best to be patient.

Stone had just been on the receiving end of disappointing news. The owners of a house he was scheduled to begin work on had just changed their minds and canceled the project on him. That didn’t exactly put him in the best of moods.

He didn’t have time to waste like this. There were cages he needed to rattle in order to replace the work he’d lost. But Virginia had gotten right in his face and insisted that he listen to her.

“Well?” Stone prodded.

Virginia took a deep breath. She decided that she would stay as close to the truth as possible without coming right out and telling her brother that he was being set up—not to take a fall, but to fall in love. If he even suspected that, he would never agree to any of this. And he needed to agree because, at the very least, he would wind up earning some money doing what he did best these days—working with his hands.

Five years ago, he’d been an aerospace engineer. But that industry was all but dead in Southern California, so he had fallen back on what he’d done while working his way through college. He’d worked in construction.

But now that was on shaky grounds. The economy had taken a bite out of everyone’s livelihood and his line of work was seeing a definite downturn. Remodeling was a luxury people felt they could put off until later without any major consequences. Virginia was confident that her brother wouldn’t turn down work.

She just had to sell him on how this had all come about.

“Okay, from the top,” Virginia said, echoing his words, then started with her narrative. “I took Ginny out for some ice cream.”

Stone looked a wee bit exasperated. “Just what she needs, more sugar.” He loved his daughter more than life itself, but there were times when getting her to behave was a challenge—one that wore him out. Stone slanted a glance toward his only child. Ginny had been in constant motion since she and Virginia had walked in. “Is that why she’s bouncing five inches off the ground?” he asked.

“You’re interrupting,” Virginia accused, frowning at him.

He suppressed a sigh and waved his sister on. “Sorry, continue.”

“Anyway, we went to that old-fashioned ice cream parlor at the Brubaker Mall, and I got her an ice cream cone. They had so many wonderful flavors to choose from, I couldn’t resist so I decided that I’d get one, too—it’s been a while since I just indulged in a treat,” she explained by way of a sidebar.

“The point, Virginia, Get to the point,” Stone directed. Ever since they were children, the shortest distance between two points for Virginia had never once been a straight line; it always wound up being an elaborate journey—a very pronounced squiggly line if he didn’t adamantly put his foot down about it.

“Okay. While I was getting myself a cone, Ginny decided to go exploring—” Catching her lower lip between her teeth, Virginia slanted a side glance in her brother’s direction. She was waiting to get the inevitable explosion out of the way.

Stone was looking sharply at his daughter. “Ginny, you know better than to go running off like that.”

Rather than protest, Ginny surprised him by looking down contritely at her shoes and murmuring, “Yes, Daddy.”

It wasn’t that his only child was willful. She was just extremely exuberant and given to incredibly energetic enthusiasm. This apparent remorse, however, was a whole different side of her he’d never seen before.

Had something put the fear of consequences into his little girl?

Concerned, Stone glanced back at his sister for a further explanation.

Virginia instantly obliged. “I caught up with Ginny just next door. She’d wandered into a real estate office,” she told him.

Stone could only stare at his sister. Ginny in a toy store he could understand, but what could have possibly attracted his precocious child to walk into a real estate office?

“Why?” he asked, looking from Ginny to his sister and then back again, waiting for one of them to give him a satisfactory answer.

Virginia was at a loss as to how to explain this part and was about to say she had no idea why Ginny did half the things she did when Ginny suddenly said, “I heard you say that you didn’t know if you could find enough work to pay the bills, so I asked the lady if any of the houses in the pictures needed fixing—’cause you could do it.”

Virginia was as stunned as her brother with her niece’s creative explanation. It took her a beat to pick up the lifeline that had just been thrown her way.

“As it turned out, she did,” Virginia confirmed belatedly. “Your daughter charmed her,” Virginia said, putting her arm around Ginny’s small shoulders, “and instead of just ushering us out, the woman said that as a matter of fact, she was currently looking for a good general contractor for her reference file. Naturally, Ginny and I told her you were the best, so she gave me her card and said that you should call her when you had the time.”

It sounded like a fairy tale, but in there somewhere Stone assumed was the truth, otherwise, why had the woman given his sister her card? And, since he suddenly found himself unexpectedly free, what did he have to lose by calling?

“Well,” Stone said slowly, looking the card over again, “I could always use another contact but …” He glanced at his daughter, concerned and reading his own interpretation into what she’d just said. “Honey, we’re going to be just fine,” he assured her. “I don’t want you worrying about things like bills for a long time to come. I’ll take care of us,” he promised.

“Yes, Daddy.” Ginny smiled at him. It was the same smile he’d seen on her mother’s face, Stone thought with a pang. A smile he missed seeing. “I just wanted to help,” she told him.

“You do, honey, just by being you, you do,” Stone assured her. He regarded the card again. No time like the present, he decided. “Okay, let’s see what this Maizie Sommers has to say.”

Ginny crossed her index finger and middle finger on both hands and held them up for him to see as he took out his cell phone.

We’ve got a great little girl, Eva. God but I wish you were here to see her, Stone couldn’t help thinking as he called the number on the card.

He had no way of knowing that his daughter wasn’t crossing her fingers because she was hoping he’d wind up with a job. Ginny was hoping that the “nice lady at the agency” would do for her father what she’d already done for Greg’s father and that was to find her father someone who would be her new mommy.

Stone returned his daughter’s hopeful smile as he heard the phone ringing on the other end.

It rang a total of two times and then he could hear the other end pick up. A sunny voice was saying, “This is Maizie Sommers, how can I help you?”

Stone turned away from his daughter and his sister, focusing his attention on the person on the other end of the call.

“Ms. Sommers, this is Stone Scarborough—” He got no further than that.

“Ah, yes,” Maizie said warmly, “the general contractor. I’ve been waiting for your call.”

Her admission caught him off guard. “You have?” Was business on her end bad, too? And if so, then what sort of work could she possibly have for him? Still, he’d called so he might as well see where this actually wound up leading.

“Absolutely,” she replied. “Are you by any chance available tonight?”

“Tonight?” he echoed, wondering if he’d just made a big mistake.

Something didn’t seem right. Maybe this woman wasn’t looking for a general contractor but for something else entirely. Granted this Maizie Sommers didn’t sound as eager and excited as Virginia had when she’d told him about this, but the woman was incredibly cheerful. Too cheerful to be talking strictly about work.

Several possibilities ran through his head, but he tamped them down until he had more to go on. No point in thinking the worst—yet.

“Yes. Or if that’s too short a notice for you, then perhaps tomorrow evening might be better for you.”

She kept specifying evenings, which made it sound way too much like making arrangements for a date. “Why not in the daytime?” he asked suspiciously.

The woman took the question in stride, making it sound as if she was already prepared for it. Maybe he was being too suspicious, Stone told himself.

“I’m afraid the woman I’m giving your name to isn’t available during the daytime,” Maizie told him. “At least, not until the weekend. She’s busy taping her program during the day,” Maizie explained.

“Her program?” Stone repeated, confused.

This was a lot like talking to Virginia, he thought, wondering if vague obscurity was a gender thing or if he was just slow, the way Virginia had accused him of being. Either way, he was in need of either a further explanation—or subtitles.

“Yes, she has a daily cooking show broadcast on a cable network and right now, her weekdays are taken up taping the program before a studio audience. When she first came out here and signed her contract,” Maizie continued proudly, “I sold her this lovely house. That was about six months ago.

“I got her a really good deal on the house, but that was because the owner was in a hurry to sell. The house needed a lot of work and it was sold as is. She didn’t have the time then, or, I suspect, the money, for repairs. The poor dear was just starting out. But the program’s doing really well and she feels that she can finally afford to have the house fixed up the way she’d like.” Maizie paused for a moment, letting that all sink in before she asked him, “Are you interested, Mr. Scarborough?”

It was work. He was more than interested. “Yes, of course I am.” But he had a question of his own. “Don’t you want to see some of my work before you refer me to someone?”

She liked the fact that he was cautious and that he wasn’t trying to rush her into any sort of an agreement. For her part, she had already researched his background and had seen all she needed to. Virginia Scarborough had shown her a photograph of her brother and given her enough background information to get her started in the right direction.

She felt she had the perfect match for Ginny’s father. Matches usually didn’t present themselves this quickly. They ordinarily took a little time. However, this time she’d thought of Danni almost immediately.

That, to her, was a very good sign.

“Your sister and daughter speak quite highly of you, Mr. Scarborough.”

“And that’s enough?” he asked rather skeptically.

“Yes,” Maizie told him with feeling, and then added with a slight chuckle, “of course, what I saw on your webpage didn’t exactly hurt, either.”

“My webpage?” Stone echoed, confused. He turned to look quizzically at his sister as he said it. This was all news to him.

“Yes, your sister very kindly gave me the URL address. I must say it was very impressive, Mr. Scarborough,” Maizie said warmly. “If my house was in need of work, I would hire you in a minute.”

He supposed that was good news, but he was still a little confused. “Thanks,” he murmured belatedly.

Poor man was probably still trying to figure out what hit him, Maizie thought, amused.

“So, do I have your permission to pass your name on to my client?” she asked. Maizie had learned that it never paid to appear to take things for granted. People liked the illusion of being in charge of their own fate—even when they weren’t.

“Yes, of course,” Stone said with feeling. If this was on the level—and it was beginning to sound that way—he definitely wanted the work. He made a point of never turning anything down.

“Wonderful,” Maizie said, enthused. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing from her shortly,” she promised. “Just so you know, her name is Danni Everett.”

“Danni Everett,” he repeated.

Despite what the woman on the other end of the line had said about a cooking program on one of the cable channels, the name was not familiar to him. But then, he didn’t exactly spend his days watching cable channels or any other channels for that matter. When he wasn’t working—or trying to land work—he spent time with Ginny. That meant being outdoors, not locked in some room with the TV on, tuned to some brain-crushing program.

Stone politely ended the call and then turned to look at his sister again.

“My webpage?” he asked. “I thought we were going to discuss that.” The last he remembered, he’d told Virginia he’d get back to her. She’d obviously decided to go on without him.

“We did discuss it,” Virginia told him innocently. “You said we’d talk about it when you had time. I decided that would take too long so I just put a few simple things together. You can change it any way you want.”

“Oh, thanks,” he said sarcastically.

Virginia sighed. Stone had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the present century for his own good. “Look, I do your accounting for you. I’ve got access to all your old jobs and the before-and-after photos you always take.”

Photos, he thought, that his sister had insisted he take before and after undertaking each job that came his way in order to keep an accurate record of the work that he did do. He was a detail man only insofar as the actual construction work that he did. The other details, organizing the before-and-after photographs, keeping them readily accessible, well, he wasn’t so good at that. But luckily, he now had to admit, Virginia was.

And apparently, she’d put that talent to work. But Stone didn’t want her thinking she was off the hook just yet.

“Just how long has this webpage been up?” he asked.

“About a week,” Virginia answered. However, she avoided looking at him when she said it.

“No, it’s longer than that, Aunt Virginia,” Ginny piped up. “You told Maizie it was up for two months.”

Virginia offered her brother a forced smile. “I exaggerated,” she told him.

“To whom?” he asked. “Her or me?”

“Um…”

The time didn’t matter as much as the actual deed. “The point is, Virginia, you put up the webpage without telling me.”

“I was waiting for the right time to tell you,” she answered. It looked as if she had waited too long. With a sigh of surrender, she said, “I guess this is it.”

Virginia took her netbook out of her purse, turned it on and then typed in the appropriate address. Once the website was up, she turned the computer around so that the screen faced him.

“What do you think?”

Stone took in the various photographs he’d taken of his work, work he was very proud of and with good reason. Still, he shrugged carelessly. “Not bad.”

That sounded like typical Stone, Virginia thought. He wasn’t exactly heavy-handed with his praise. Nonetheless, she splayed a hand over her chest, tilting her head back dramatically as she cried, “Oh, be still my heart. I don’t know if I can handle such heady praise.”

Stone got the message. And, in all honesty, the website did look rather impressive. She’d done a commendable job.

“Okay, good.” He paused. “Better than good,” he amended.

Virginia did a rapid movement with her hand, urging him on. “Keep going,” she coaxed.

The phone rang just then. “Later,” he told his sister. Taking his cell out again, he answered the call. “Hello?”

“Is this Scarborough Construction?” an exceedingly melodic voice on the other end of the call asked.

He thought he detected just a trace of a Southern accent in the woman’s voice. He caught himself trying to place it.

“Yes,” he replied, wondering if this was the woman the Realtor had just told him about. Could she have gotten back to them so quickly?

He was all set to doubt it, but then he heard the woman with the melodic voice say, “Maizie Sommers gave me your phone number. I was wondering if we could get together tomorrow evening … if you’re free, that is. I’d like to show you around my home and explain to you what I’d like to have done.”

He felt as if he were standing in the direct path of a city-owned snowplow. “Sure. What time?”