True Love, Inc.

She tucked a lush wave of hair behind her ear. It was one of the few utterly female things he’d seen her do, and he found it intriguing. Almost as intriguing as the way that little mole dipped and lifted with her every expression.

“Twenty-eight.” She tucked more hair behind her other ear and moistened her lips before adding, “Last month.”

She looked younger than that right now, despite the eyewear and the formal air she put on.

“Ah, well, you’d be a little old for me, then. I think I’d prefer a woman in her early twenties at this point in my life,” Cam replied.

She definitely rolled her eyes at that, although she tried to hide it by pushing up her glasses. But her tone remained professional and impassive when she continued with, “Do you have a problem with a woman who was married and is either divorced or widowed now?”

“No divorcées.”

Maddie stopped writing and hugged the yellow pad of paper to her chest. The pose struck him as oddly defensive.

“Why’s that?”

“I took those same vows, and I made them work. Even when Angela got sick. Even when it got really ugly. ’Til death do us part.’ I’m not interested in someone who can’t keep their end of the bargain.”

Her expression remained clouded, but she nodded. “I can understand that.”

“Good, because I won’t compromise on this point.”

It was just icing on the cake if his stand on principle made it that much harder for her to fix him up. He wondered if that was why she seemed to take it so personally.

“Very well. What about...children? What if the woman either never married or is widowed and has children?”

He slouched back in his chair and folded his arms, the memories swarming him like flies at a barbecue. When he finally spoke, the words seemed to scrape against his throat, leaving it raw and aching.

“I like kids. Angie and I planned to have a big family, perhaps because each of us came from such small families. I’m an only child and Angie has one sister. Caroline was just starting to crawl when Ang first got sick.” He swallowed thickly, but the bitterness and something even more acidic remained. He doubted he would ever forget the terrible panic he’d experienced the day he first heard a doctor say the word cancer.

“So, you don’t mind children,” Maddie prodded, her tone gentle and magnolia-kissed.

“No. I like kids. One of my biggest regrets is that we weren’t able to have more before...I guess I would just prefer someone who got married first.”

“Is that another one of the points on which you won’t compromise?”

“Yes.”

She made a final note before sliding the pen behind her ear. Most of the ballpoint was lost immediately in the wavy mass of mahogany. Again, he found himself thinking that there was something out of place about that hair on Maddie Daniels. In every other way she was a polished, buttoned-down professional. Practical and conservative, almost to the point of being prim. She was a woman who wore classic styles that would look as tidy and unobtrusive in ten years as they did today. Yet the hair curled around her face, a little unruly, a tad spirited and free. He wondered if that was intentional or a piece of her subconscious poking through.

“So, just to recap, you’re looking for a tall, well-endowed blonde with great legs and small feet who is in her early twenties, never divorced and possibly the mother of children. Does that sound about right?”

It didn’t sound right at all, but Cam nodded, anyway. What did it matter? Maddie Daniels could ask all the questions she wanted. She could take all the information she wanted and feed it into some computer database filled with other singles. But she would never be able to find him a perfect match, another true love.

“Give me a couple of weeks to sort through everything. Then I’ll give you a call.” She stuffed the notepad and pen back into her briefcase and pulled off the glasses before rising.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

“Yes,” she said dryly. “I’m sure you will.”

Later that evening, while Maddie nibbled on a turkey sandwich in her quiet apartment, she spread out her notes on the small coffee table in front of the couch and went over Cameron’s responses one more time. So much of what he’d said had come as no surprise. Yet Maddie couldn’t say why it bothered her so much that his ideal woman seemed to be the antithesis of her: blond, younger, voluptuous, never divorced. She rubbed her aching knee and hip. He wanted a woman with great legs, and he liked children, so it followed that he would want a woman who could have them. The doctors had been clear on that point—Maddie would never become pregnant again.

Well, what did it matter that she wasn’t his type? She had no cause to feel slighted, no right to feel sorry for herself that her future yawned long and lonely. Maddie’s job was to find matches for her clients, and she was good at it. Very good.

The Polaroid snapshot she’d taken of Cameron was paper-clipped to the outside of a file folder marked with his name. She ran a fingertip over the strong, stubborn line of his jaw.

“I’m going to find someone to make you happy, Cameron Foley,” she vowed.

Chapter Three

On Saturday morning, Maddie decided to indulge herself with a rare day off of work. Traverse City’s annual weeklong National Cherry Festival was gearing up, and the televised coverage showed that tourists and residents alike were standing five deep along the parade route that snaked through downtown.

Maddie wasn’t one for crowds. Just the thought of being jostled and shoved in an exuberant sea of humanity made her eager to stay well out of its range. But the throbbing cadence of the marching bands had her tapping her toes as she sat on the couch reading the newspaper. And the cheerful chatter and excited laughter that floated through her open windows made it seem obscene to stay cooped up in her apartment, watching the parade on her small television, when she could hear it passing a couple of blocks away.

Besides, the day promised to be gorgeous, perfect for spending a little time outdoors, soaking up a judicious amount of sun while wearing a judicious amount of sunscreen. She would just walk down to the small coffee shop on Front Street and grab a cup of the house blend, staying as far away from the crowds as possible and experiencing the excitement of the parade from the periphery. She shrugged off the uncomfortable thought that too much of her life seemed to be lived that way these days—on the sidelines, watching rather than participating.

She applied a liberal amount of sunscreen to her face, neck and forearms, and dressed in a pair of white cotton slacks and a bright red T-shirt in honor of the occasion. The shirt had three-quarter-length sleeves, but it still exposed her right arm from just below the elbow. She stood in front of the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the bathroom door and nibbled her bottom lip. With the fingers of her left hand, she skimmed the length of the ugly scar. It had faded some in the months since the accident, but it was still a hideous purplish red, although the doctors assured her that someday it would turn a less eyecatching white.

Whether it was mottled red or shiny white, Maddie would always know it was there. She would always know the utter failure it represented. She could hide it from prying eyes with long sleeves, but she couldn’t hide it from herself. So what was the point? Securing her hair into a ponytail, she went off in search of her sneakers.

Maddie walked close to the buildings, brushing a hand along the reassuring comfort of their solid surfaces. Well back from the milling crowds, she couldn’t see much of the passing parade, except for the tops of some of the taller floats as they made their way down Front Street and a brightly suited clown who played a tiny concertina as he walked along on stilts. At the coffee shop, she ducked inside, grateful for the short line, but customers filled the small shop’s six indoor tables. Cradling the insulated cup in her palm, she returned outside, knowing even before she looked that the half-dozen wrought-iron tables arranged along the sidewalk would be occupied as well. Determined to enjoy the morning sun’s warmth on her face, she ignored the ache in her hip, leaned against the building’s brick facade and sipped her coffee.

“Maddie!” a high-pitched voice squealed a moment later.

She glanced to her right in time to see Caroline Foley closing the distance between them at a full-out run. The child’s pixie face was smudged with tears. Even more surprising, when Caroline reached Maddie, she barely managed to come to a complete stop before she threw her arms around Maddie’s waist in a hug so fierce, it almost knocked them both over. As it was, it succeeded in spilling most of Maddie’s coffee on the sidewalk.

“Hey, what’s happened?” she asked, when she’d managed to pry Caroline loose.

The girl’s lower lip trembled and a pair of fat tears spilled down her cheeks. “My daddy got lost.”

“I see.” Maddie set what was left of her coffee on the ledge of the shop’s front window and reached into her pocket for a tissue. Dabbing at the dirty tear tracks on Caroline’s face, she asked, “Do you remember where he was before he wandered off?”

A pair of slim shoulders shrugged as Caroline shuddered out a breath. “H-he was talking to Aunt Eve. Uncle Richard and the boys had gone to get elephant ears. I wanted to go, too, but Daddy said I had to wait. Then he just...disappeared.”