Make Me a Match

She shook her head and walked back toward the house, aware she should be unnerved by his threat, feeling a shimmery thrill instead.

He was going to keep an eye on her, hmm? That should be interesting.

Okay, so she’d sworn off men.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t drive one remarkably irritating specimen a little crazy—strictly on his own terms—did it?

She added a swish to her walk.

Take that!

Chapter Three

“May I help you?”

Jon Woods closed the glass door behind him and turned to find an older woman with flyaway white hair and robin egg-blue eyes.

Smoothing her hands over a yellow apron emblazoned with the words Lora Dunes Florist, she tilted her head and regarded him. Seldom had he been studied with quite so diligent a gaze. He felt she was taking in and recording every inch of his six feet, every one of his one hundred and seventy-five pounds, every brownish hair on his head.

“I need flowers,” he said.

She smiled brilliantly. “You’ve come to the right place. Oh, unless you need them arranged because I’m all alone here and not very good at actually making fancy arrangements. Now, for that, young man, you need to see my daughter or better yet, my granddaughter. Lora is a whiz with flowers, it’s in her blood. Why she could make a handful of weeds look like a million bucks.” She glanced at her watch and added, “She should be back from midday deliveries in about an hour. I could fetch you some nice iced tea while you wait.…”

Her voice trailed off expectantly. He couldn’t help but smile. The woman had said everything so fast she was now a tad breathless.

He said, “I just want some flowers.”

“This way to the cooler,” she said over her shoulder. “Is this for your wife?”

“For a friend,” he said firmly.

The older woman stopped in front of a refrigerated glass case in which resided dozens and dozens of flowers of all shapes, colors, sizes. He’d never seen so many flowers in one place at one time. “Do you actually send these specific flowers all the way to Los Angeles?”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry, I didn’t understand. You want to send flowers?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need to come check out our book. We fax your order to a florist down there.”

He stared at the huge book she offered. No way was he going to flip through all of that. “How about a dozen white roses. Long stems. In a box,” he said.

“Excellent choice,” the woman said as she retrieved an order form.

As he took a platinum charge card out of his wallet, he said, “It must be nice working alongside your granddaughter.”

The woman studied the card for a second. “Lora is such a dear. And so pretty! It’s hard to believe she’s still unmarried. Of course, that former fiancé of hers is to blame.”

A fiancé? Hadn’t Lora mentioned she’d recently sworn off men? So, she’d been jilted, that’s why she was so touchy. Jilted by a young man, setting her sights on an older one, huh? At odds with the dating scene? Well she’d been mistaken if she thought she could take a shortcut to marriage by trapping Victor. He said, “Are you saying she doesn’t date?”

“Calvin broke her heart, but she’ll mend when the right man comes along. You watch!”

He said, “I think I may have seen your granddaughter around. She’s very pretty.” He finally noticed a name tag pinned to the woman’s apron. Ella.

“Looks just like her mother and her great-grandmother. The looks skipped my generation. I look like my grandfather.”

“You sell yourself short,” he said.

She all but blushed. “So, it must be a pretty special lady you’re sending these roses to. Your mother, maybe?” This innocent question was accompanied by a swift upward glance from the corners of her blue eyes.

Without smiling at the transparency of the conversation, he said, “No. Now, about Lora—”

“Maybe if I put in a good word, she’ll go out with you. After all, you’re not a teenager, are you?”

“Not for a long time now.”

“Good. Lora is a dear. So many plans…not that she isn’t getting ready to settle down. She would have married that no-account Calvin if he hadn’t left her like he did. I think a woman, even in this day and age of liberation, needs a man to take care of her. What do you think?”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

He’d obviously given the wrong answer. Ella made a deep sound in her throat before demanding, “Are you one of those men who think a woman should work all day as well as have the babies and care for the home?”

He tried a smile and a shrug and a noncommittal, “I suppose it depends on what the woman wants.”

“Humph—” she said, handing him back his credit card.

He got the distinct feeling he’d fallen from her graces, which meant she might clam up so he added, “Of course, I hope when I marry that my wife will be content with a more traditional role.” He almost choked on these words. Trina’s idea of cleaning a house was hiring a maid.

Warmth flooded the older woman’s smile. “That’s a beautiful jacket you’re wearing. The fabric is gorgeous. Cashmere? I bet you didn’t purchase it in our little town. It’s too pricey for Fern Glen.”

It was a pricey jacket. He’d bought it the winter before. He’d bought it because Trina liked him in good clothes.

Truth was, Trina liked all sorts of good things. They’d met when she brought her aging dog into the office because of a cough. Turned out the dog was allergic to cigarette smoke and Trina’s boyfriend smoked. So much for the boyfriend. Once Trina had made sure Jon didn’t have any habits that might annoy her pup, she’d whirled into his life like a tornado through a trailer park.

Not that he’d minded. Trina was a looker with a very suggestive walk and a sultry laugh. She’d introduced him to all her friends, invited him to countless Hollywood parties. She’d secured dozens of new patients for him, mostly women, all obsessed with their pets to one degree or another. He’d heard himself called the “vet to the stars,” a nickname that was good for business but made him squirm. He was learning to live with it, however, and there was no doubt that life with Trina was exhilarating. He’d been about to suggest she move in with him when his dad died.

“Must take a good job to afford such classy clothes,” Ella said.

He regarded her with new misgivings. Why was she going on like this? Was it money she was after or was it a boyfriend for her granddaughter? Or both? Had he been right about Lora’s motives?

For an instant he was disappointed. He didn’t want to be right. There was something so fresh and breezy about Lora Gifford—he’d never really met anyone quite like her. Open one moment, closed the next, fabricating details right before his eyes, biting her lip as she apparently fought her conscience when telling them.

And her looks. She was an eyeful but not in the Trina way. Lora was something of a waif, casual about her appearance, scrubbed clean and tantalizingly wholesome, but mismatched and dwarfed within her sweater and jeans.

And yet alluring, somehow.

As a matter of fact, out in that gazebo, he’d had to remind himself he wasn’t interested in her as a woman. There had been a couple of times when she’d looked at him and he’d felt his heart skip around. Was she right, had he flirted with her in his office without even knowing he was doing so?

Tonight he would call Trina and insist she venture north for a visit. He was under no illusion that she would find this remote coastline any more invigorating than he did, but if she cared for him, she would surely find time to come brighten his volunteer exile, wouldn’t she?