The Matchmaker's Plan

She glanced at him in the semidarkness of the car’s interior, noting that his classically handsome features revealed no hint of the impatience she knew he must be feeling. But he’d insisted on driving, insisted on accompanying her, despite her insistence that it wasn’t necessary. And she wasn’t ready to give up. “Oh, come on, Matt. You must remember your misspent youth and the places you took girls when you were Covington’s age.”

“That was a long time ago, and my youth was never as misspent as you might think.”

She sighed. “Neither was mine. But Scarlett seems determined to more than make up for my prudence.”

“I, somehow, have trouble associating you with prudence at any stage of your life.”

“I’ve learned to speak my mind, if that’s what you mean. But just because I won’t allow you—or anyone else—to trample on my opinions, doesn’t mean I go out of my way to take foolish chances.”

“Oh,” he said, aggravating her with the arrogance of the single syllable.

“Oh, is right. We are talking about two different things and I’d be happy to argue my point, but I think it’s much more important to find my sister. Where did you take girls when you wanted to be alone with them?”

His jaw tightened and he looked out the window for a moment, uncomfortable with the question or the answer. She neither knew nor cared which. “It is possible, Peyton, that they’re at a club somewhere listening to a band and having a couple of beers.”

“She’s fifteen, Matt. Covington is twenty and should know better than to take her anywhere, especially where alcohol is served.”

He put the car in gear. “We’ll drive over to the Cape. When I wanted to be alone for any reason, I went to our beach house. The Lockes have one that’s two doors down from ours. I probably should have thought of checking there first.”

She was grateful—more, really, than she wanted to admit—that he was willing to help her. She was appreciative of his concern for her sister. But mostly, she was thankful that the night concealed the wistful hunger inside her, kept him from seeing in her eyes that she wished he were taking her to his beach house, that instead of searching futilely for her foolish sister, she could have just one chance to be foolish herself.

The thought itself was foolish. She knew that. But as they sped into the night, shut inside the sports car, she couldn’t help wondering what might happen if she could forget only for a little while about being responsible, about what was the right thing to do, and give in to the attraction that burned like a fever beneath her skin.

She glanced at Matt as the car approached the bridge that would take them over to Cape Cod. And she wondered if they didn’t find Scarlett at the Lockes’ Cape Cod house, would Matt, perhaps, suggest a stop at his beach house?

And what might happen if he did?

Chapter Two

Matt took off his topcoat, gave it a shake to discourage the snowflakes from settling into the wool and hung it on the coat tree in the outer office. “T.J.,” he said. “What’s wrong with the music?”

His student assistant and gofer during the morning hours looked up from a huge, open textbook with a dazed, historical-facts frown and listened to the piped-in sound for a few seconds. “I think it’s ‘Jingle Bells’,” he said.

“My point exactly.” Matt cocked his head, inviting T.J. to pay closer attention. “That is the same song I heard at least two dozen times yesterday and the day before and the day before that and the day before that. I’m telling you, there’s a virus or something in the airwaves.”

“Well, it’s Christmas,” practical T.J. pointed out as he presented Matt with a sheaf of message slips with one hand while holding his place in the textbook with the other. “If x equals the number of holiday tunes and y is the number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, then depending on how you want to calculate it, z is the number of times you’re going to hear ‘Jingle Bells’.”

“Z is about two thousand times too many.”

“Do you want me to cancel the Muzak service?”

“An excellent idea, T.J. Except that if x equals the number of people in this building who like ‘Jingle Bells’ and y equals the number who don’t, then z is the number of screams I’m going to hear if I cancel the holiday music.”

T.J. frowned, considering possible solutions to that equation. “I guess you can borrow my earmuffs.” He reached under the desk for his backpack and offered up a sorry-looking pair of muffs.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll just check into canceling Christmas altogether.”

“Oh, okay. Well, they’re here if you want them.” The earmuffs disappeared under the desk again and T.J. went back to his history lesson.

Matt entered his private office and closed the door behind him, thinking “Jingle Bells” might stay on the other side. But the music drifted in, bright as tinsel, a melody on amphetamines, overorchestrated into a galloping, get-with-the-spirit-or-else intrusion. He was not in the mood to get in the spirit, not in the mood for the looming holidays, not in the mood to do much except stare out the window at the sputtering snowfall.

Instead, he took his seat behind the ornately carved wooden desk that had passed from one industrious Jonathan to the next for a couple of centuries. The leather chair sighed and creaked as it settled beneath his weight into a supple, familiar comfort. Heat shushed through the air register. “Jingle Bells” switched over to “Jingle Bell Rock” and somewhere out on the water a ship’s horn brayed. Matt tossed the phone slips aside and turned on his computer. A list of messages popped up on the screen almost instantly. A dozen Merry Christmas greetings. A dozen more generic Happy Holidays, one Happy Hanukkah, and two credit card offers. Scattered among the greetings were five interoffice messages—two marked with a flashing red urgent!—a forwarded joke, two unsolicited Thoughts for the Day, a reminder that he was expected at the Freemans’ annual Hijacked Holiday dinner party tomorrow evening and an invitation to yet another holiday get-together between Christmas and New Year’s Eve at the Stamfords’.

“Bah humbug,” he muttered and turned off the computer.

He picked up the phone messages again, sorting through them with misdirected irritation. Jessica. Jessica. Jessica. Ainsley. Miranda. And Ainsley, again. He didn’t want to talk to Jessica because he knew that, sooner or later, she’d turn the conversation toward some new or imagined grievance Peyton O’Reilly had caused. He didn’t want to talk to Ainsley because her conversation always included something especially funny or endearing her friend, Peyton O’Reilly, had done or said. Ainsley wasn’t giving up on her plan of making a match for him and Peyton, despite his attempts to discourage her. Ainsley blithely disregarded his resistance and continued to find ways to bring Peyton’s name into almost any conversation. Miranda didn’t talk about Peyton O’Reilly, but then he didn’t really want to hear about Nate’s two sets of twins, either. If Andy had called and left a message, Matt would have returned the call in a heartbeat. But wise Andrew had scheduled a trip to Utah and, at this very moment, was likely hiking up or skiing down some blessedly quiet mountain trail. Matt figured his little brother hadn’t heard “Jingle Bells” in at least twenty-four hours. Maybe longer.

“Merry Christmas, Matt!!” Ainsley’s cheery greeting came through ahead of her as she opened the door and walked in. Her cheeks were flushed and rosy from the cold, her blond curls peeked out from under a Christmas-green stocking hat, her upper body was bundled in a fleecy Christmas-green coat, her pants were black, her boots red, and there was a sparkly gold scarf looped like a garland around her neck.

“Are you dressed like a Christmas tree on purpose?” he asked, getting up to accept a hug even as he turned his smile from her to her companion.

Miranda looked equally healthy, happy and fetching, although she wasn’t dressed remotely like a holiday icon. All in ivory, hair sleek and secured beneath a hat as stylish as practical, her smile was pure confidence, with more than a hint of excitement. “Merry Christmas, Matt!” She switched on the overhead, flooding the dimly lit office with wattage. “It is okay to turn on a light when you’re actually in your office, you know. It’s only when you leave for the day that you need to make sure it’s off.”

“I’m experimenting,” he said.

“With eyestrain?”

“With the theory that this constant bombardment of Christmas music will be less irritating in the dark.”

“Well, bah humbug to you, too.” Ainsley thumped him playfully on the arm. “But never fear. We are here to improve your attitude, lighten your spirits and take you out for lunch. Our treat. And we won’t take no for an answer, so don’t even bother with an excuse.”

“I just got here,” he said. “I had a breakfast meeting that lasted all morning and I have about ten minutes before I have to meet Jessica for lunch.” He paused, then added. “A working lunch.”

Ainsley and Miranda exchanged a look—one of those sister moments they seemed to be sharing on a regular basis these days. Then, having come to some mutual and mysterious understanding, Miranda walked around the desk and picked up the phone. “T.J.,” she said a moment later, “call Ms. Martin-Kingsley and tell her Matt has an unexpected family situation and won’t be able to keep their luncheon appointment.” She listened for a moment, then laughed. “That’s right. She’ll have to work without him. Thanks, T.J.”

She hung up, smiled at Matt. “Fancy that. You’re free for lunch.”

“Is this an unexpected family situation?”

Ainsley slipped her arm through his, beamed up at him. “You weren’t expecting us, we’re family and we’re hungry.”

Miranda gestured voila! “An unexpected family situation. Besides, Matthew, you do not want to spend any more time with Jessica than you absolutely have to. It gives me a headache just to think about her.”

It often gave him one, too, but then, lately, thinking about women in general had the same effect. “Great,” he said. “You two are taking me to lunch. Where are we going?”

“The Red Parrot?” Miranda suggested with a questioning glance to Ainsley.

“Suits me.” Ainsley gave Matt’s arm a gentle tug. “Is Peyton here today?” she asked as they moved toward the door. “We should ask her to join us.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea.” Miranda’s comment was so quick, so close on the heels of Ainsley’s impromptu thought, that Matt would have had to be thicker than a slab of bacon not to realize this whole lunch scheme was a setup, put together and practiced ahead of time by his sisters for his ultimate good.

And that, in a nutshell, was the problem with women.

They believed a man could be improved, should be improved, and they were always eager to introduce him to a woman they thought was up to the task. He loved his sisters, liked and respected the men they’d chosen, believed each of them was better for having found the other. But that kind of relationship wasn’t for him. And it sure as hell wasn’t for him with Peyton. He’d come too close for comfort to thinking it might be possible not so very long ago and gotten burned for his effort. No, thank you.

“I’ve no idea where Ms. O’Reilly might be,” he said with a smile meant to convey benign indifference. “But I can guarantee she won’t want to have lunch with me.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?” Ainsley’s eyes sparkled with secrets and innuendo.