Wish Upon a Matchmaker

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.