Wish Upon a Matchmaker

As he talked, she subtly directed him back toward the kitchen table—where the coffee she’d made and the dessert she’d left were still waiting for them.

“I’m sure it won’t,” she told him. “And even if it did, there’re enough hair-care products out there to restore my hair to its natural shade,” she assured him with an easy, unself-conscious laugh. “Ms. Sommers seemed really sold on you and I trust her judgment implicitly. And I really liked what I saw on your website,” she added for good measure. “Some of those before-and-after photos were absolutely incredible.” That had really impressed her and confirmed the man’s abilities.

Stone had always believed in doing the best possible job he could, bar none, but he’d never been very comfortable being on the receiving end of praise. Now was no different.

He shrugged off her words, and murmured, “My sister was the one who put together the website,” as if that were enough to deflect the compliment and allow him to remain anonymously in the shadows.

“Your sister,” Danni echoed. The information didn’t diminish her response to his work and actually enhanced it slightly, expanding it in another direction. A direction she naturally followed.

“So, it’s a family business?” Danni assumed.

“No” was his first response, but then he reconsidered. He had to admit that in the last couple of years or so, Virginia had become exceedingly involved in helping him run his construction company—in more ways than just one. “Well, actually, yes in a way,” he amended. “Virginia put together that website and she handles the accounting end of the business.”

Initially, Virginia had done freelance accounting for several small businesses in the area, his among them. But of late, his business had been taking up more and more of his sister’s time. It would be nice, he caught himself thinking, to be able to pay her accordingly.

If this woman was serious about two-thirds of the things she said she wanted done to her house, he could afford to pay Virginia more money—not that she ever asked for more. That wasn’t her way—but he knew he’d be lost without her, not because of her accounting—or the fact that she had put together that website behind his back which, lucky for her, had turned out well—but because she was always there to help him with Ginny.

If not for Virginia, he would have had to resort to turning over Ginny’s care to complete strangers and he didn’t like the idea of people who weren’t family or friends looking after his little girl. Especially since Ginny was not all that easy on some people’s nerves. Strangers—even strangers who were paid for the job—were not always all that patient.

Virginia was.

“That sounds pretty much like a family business to me,” Danni was saying, unaware that there was a wistful smile on her lips. She would have given anything to have a brother or sister around to work with, to be there for them—and have them be there for her. She had some cousins, a couple who had relocated here as a matter of fact, but it wasn’t the same thing. “You have any other family?” she asked.

What was with all these non-work-related questions? “Why?” he asked.

“No reason,” Danni replied with an innocent shrug. “Just curious. I guess I just like knowing things about the people I’m dealing with.”

Stone had momentarily been captivated by the movement of her shoulders as they rose and fell in an innocent shrug.

But he came to fast enough.

“All you need to know is that I take pride in my work and I stand behind everything I do,” he informed her.

The woman nodded in response, then continued looking at him without saying a word. It was against his better judgment, but he decided there was no real harm in it, either. So he told her what she was obviously waiting to hear for reasons that completely escaped him.

“I have a daughter. Ginny. She’s four,” he added, “going on forty.”

The smile he received in return made the surrender of this small piece of information oddly worth it.

“My father used to say the same thing about me,” Danni recalled fondly. He’d always followed it up by telling her to slow down, that there was no hurry, the years would all be waiting for her no matter how long she would take to reach them.

“Well, my condolences to your father, then,” Stone told her. There wasn’t so much as a sliver of a smile as he said that.

Danni’s own smile didn’t appear to waver, but when he looked closer, Stone realized that what he was seeing was pain etched into the edges of that smile. She was far too young for that sort of pain.

“Too late for that,” she told him. “He passed on a few years ago.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that,” Stone told her stiffly. Then, to his surprise and horror, he heard himself saying, “Ginny’s mother did, too.”

He had absolutely no idea what possessed him to share that with her. Only that it somehow seemed appropriate at the moment.

Rather than gush or give him empty platitudes the way he expected, the woman whose house he’d just finished touring and whose table he was currently sitting at, reached over and placed her hand on his. The soft, gentle, fleeting contact seemed to convey the level of her sorrow, their common shared sorrow, far better than a battalion of words ever could have.

“Are you raising her by yourself?” she asked. There was compassion in her voice.

Sometimes it felt that way, but that was unfair. Virginia dealt with Ginny far more than he did—unless he was between jobs and had the time to spend with Ginny. “My sister moved in to help when my wife died.”

“Your sister the accountant who does your website?” she asked just to keep the details straight.

The smattering of a smile grew just for a moment before returning to a neutral expression. “That’s her.”

Danni smiled broadly again. “Then it really is a family business, isn’t it?”

He considered the situation for a moment, then realized he had no idea why he was fighting the concept so stringently. He wouldn’t have been able to take on any new jobs if it hadn’t been for Virginia. At the same time, his sister had placed her life and her own business pretty much on hold because of him.

That needed to change.

Soon.

Just not yet.

Chapter Four

“What do you mean you can’t watch Ginny for me?” Stone stared at his sister in utter disbelief. He’d been counting on Virginia. There was no back-up plan for him to turn to. “I’m supposed to be start working on that woman’s house today. The one who cooks things,” he added by way of a description in case Virginia didn’t remember who he was referring to.

Virginia was caught between feeling guilty over lying to Stone and putting him through this—even if it was for his own good—and trying desperately to suppress the laugh bubbling up in her throat in response to what her brother assumed for an enlightening description. Leave it to Stone to reduce a notable, thriving career and identify it in such a way that it could fit just about every single woman both he and she knew—excluding herself since she had yet to learn how to successfully boil water without burning something.

But, for the sake of playacting—and the fact that Maizie thought that it would be in everyone’s best interest to have Stone acquaint Danni with Ginny at the very outset of this relationship, Virginia pretended to be a little confused.

“Are you talking about the woman with the cable network cooking show?” she asked innocently.