Nighttime Sweethearts

“Oh, if you must,” Merry said crabbily and slammed the intercom button with the palm of her hand. She put the actress and gardener aside and picked up a photo of an award-winning nuclear physicist and a belly-button-flaunting rock diva. “Too big a stretch,” she decided unhappily.

There was that new handyman on the place. Gorgeous. Blond, blue-eyed, the build of a Greek god…

A shadow fell over her, and she looked up. The photos fell from her fingers. “You must be Rick Barnett,” she said, her annoyance at this disturbance forgotten.

It’s him, she decided, feeling a smile starting inside. So, fate had opted to help her with her final match. It had given her the man, now all she had to do was find the woman. She got up and took his hand, felt the strength in it and the crackle of his fate joining hers.

Merry studied the young man in front of her with avid interest now. The pure power of his build was enough to take a girl’s breath away. He was massive at the shoulders, narrow at waist and hips and—she snuck a look as he turned to find his chair—his butt was spectacular.

Once, she could tell, he had been an extremely handsome man. Dark thick hair fell over his brow. His features—forehead, chin, nose, jaw—were chiseled perfection. But now a black patch roguishly covered his left eye and a network of scars, puckered and purplish, ran down the left side of his face. His face was a study in contrasts, one half perfect, the other imperfect, as if the man himself was split in two, light and dark.

“Construction accident,” he said, before she could ask.

His voice was like gravel, flat and harsh, a voice that invited no intrusion into his private world and wanted no sympathy. Nonetheless, Merry heard and, glancing up, saw in the dark, ocean blue of the right eye that glared at her—Rick Barnett was a man in pain.

It startled Merry how completely she understood his situation. Had she not been transformed herself? From a woman so beautiful she put the stars to shame, to this? A bony, homely, horrible old crone?

The difference was that she had a chance to break the curse that had been put on her. The man who sat before her was transformed for life, and he looked to be in his mid to late twenties.

The young female rock star? she asked herself, surreptitiously moving the photo back into her range of vision.

No. It would take the most special of women to see beyond surface appearances. Not the rock star, she decided, shuffling that photo to the bottom of the stack.

She studied him carefully and was able to see what had not been taken from him, but what had been given to him. Oh, yes, his looks had been shattered, but she had the sudden sensation of seeing his heart.

Formidable strength, enormous pain and, under it all, an amazing capacity for love.

Love.

It was all she could do not to burst into song. She realized she must be smiling at him with far too much enthusiasm, because he looked at her suspiciously and then got up from his chair and wandered restlessly over to the window.

Merry watched how he moved, fluid, an athlete, and felt a sigh inside of her. She got up and joined him at the window.

“There are a number of possible sites,” she said. “That’s one over there, by the pool. We want the chapel to be a small, very tasteful building. La Torchere seems to inspire romance.” Especially recently.

He grunted at that, letting her know exactly what he thought of romance.

“The new owner has agreed with me that offering an entire wedding facility here would be an aesthetic plus for the resort.”

“Not to mention financially lucrative?” he asked.

Cynical, Merry thought, and felt her first shiver of doubt. The man was wounded, and he didn’t like romance. Magic was one thing. Miracles were quite another.

“I’m interested,” she said carefully, “in why you would agree to do a job like this? Something so small? Your reputation, naturally, made me think you would refuse so humble a job.”

He was studying the possible building site she had pointed out. If she had hoped his answer would reveal something she could use to find him a match, she was disappointed.

“I needed a break from the pressure of big jobs,” he told her.

“Oh,” she said, her mind whirling. Maybe he wasn’t the one. Maybe she had just leapt to that conclusion. Maybe the actress and the new handyman. She felt a certain reluctance to match up the new handyman.

What was that about?

But before she could consider it further Rick Barnett turned from the window. The hard light in his eye softened. “I felt oddly compelled to be here.”

Merry tried not to gasp out loud. Oh! Then it was him! But who would she pair him with? She wanted to hustle him out of her office without ceremony so she could go through her files. She felt a most delicious sense of warmth beginning in her belly.

And she realized, amazed at herself, that it was not completely because she was so close to breaking the curse.

No, there was something about this man, that made her want to see love transform his life. Suddenly, he went very still beside her, as if he had stopped breathing.

Intrigued, she went to his side and followed his gaze. He was staring, his eye narrowed to a hard squint, at Cynthia Forsythe, one of the guests whose files Merry had pored over earlier. She would be an ideal candidate for a match—she was young and beautiful and personable.

Except her mother, the famous historical writer, Emma Bluebell Forsythe, had cornered the matchmaking market for her daughter. The woman was intent on finding the perfect mate for Cynthia…and she was utterly insensitive to the fact that her daughter was not interested.

“Cynthia,” he said.

Merry started at the deep growl that came from the man beside her. Every hair on the back of her neck rose up.

“You know her?” she asked.

Something in his face closed and became colder than ice. “I did,” he said, “a long time ago.”

“I’d be happy to reintroduce you!”

The look he gave her could have stripped paint. “No,” he said. “In fact, I’d thank you not to mention me to her.”

Merry’s heart was pounding hard. What could be more perfect? Her last couple—a love-gone-wrong-made-right story!

But a glance into the cast stone of his face made her wonder if even magic could change what she saw there.

Still, she had a soft spot for him, the man who, like her, had been transformed, but unlike her was not ever going back to what he used to be.

How strong was her magic? Dare she waste it on this couple who were far from a sure thing when her whole life was at stake?

She sighed. Oh, how she had cursed this spell that had been put on her. How she had railed against it and wallowed in self-pity over it.

But, ever so reluctantly, Princess Meredith Montrosa Bessart, aka Merry Montrose, realized a truth. She had become a better person than she had been before.

Because, for just the briefest moment in time, just long enough to make up her mind, she was able to put the future happiness of two other people ahead of her own.

Rick and Cynthia it is, Merry decided, and began humming the wedding march. Naturally, he thought she was inspired by the imminent arrival of the new chapel, designed by him, but he winced nonetheless.

Chapter One

“No.”

Cynthia Forsythe marveled at the enormous power of that small word. She said it to her mother, the famous writer Emma Bluebell Forsythe, rarely, and she expected to feel guilty, saying it now.