Okay, she’d allow herself one more kiss.

      Just one more kiss, and then she’d call a halt to this, tell him that he was being incredibly hasty and foolish and a whole host of other things as well, ending it by saying that one of them had to be sensible.

      In a second, in just another second, she’d tell him all that and more.

      More.

      The single word shimmered in her head, a silent entreaty to the man who was knocking out all the carefully laid foundations of her world. Very effectively reducing her to a pile of palpitating rubble.

      She had one last card to play.

      “What about your sons?” Tracy asked as, tapping the last of her strength, she created yet another chasm between their lips.

      “Let them get their own women,” Micah told her, kissing her again.

      Melting her again.

      Dear Reader,

      When I first came up with the idea of MATCHMAKING MAMAS, it was going to be only a three-book series. But as you might have noticed, I have a great deal of trouble letting go.

      This time around, our ladies, Maizie, Theresa and Cecilia, bring together two people who really need one another in more ways than one. Tracy Ryan is an extremely successful lawyer who is a dynamo in the courtroom but very lonely when she closes her door at night. Micah Muldare, a senior reliability engineer, had an extremely happy marriage that ended when his wife died of a brain aneurysm, leaving him with a mountain of medical bills and two very young sons. But a ring of hackers hijacking computers places his future—not to mention his freedom—in jeopardy just as his aunt turns her attention to his non-existent love life. Maizie brings Tracy and Micah together, and the lady lawyer stays to fix more than his legal problems. She fixes his heart, and he returns the favor.

      I hope you enjoy this latest installment of one of my favorite series. As ever, I thank you for reading, and from the bottom of my heart I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

      All the best,

       Marie Ferrarella

      About the Author

      MARIE FERRARELLA, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA^®Award-winning author, has written more than two hundred books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

      Once Upon

       a Matchmaker

      Marie Ferrarella

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To

       Gail Chasan

       who, mercifully, gets

       my sense of humor

       Prologue

      “He’s a good, decent man,” Sheila Barrett said.

      The “he” the tall, striking woman referred to was her nephew, the young man she’d taken into her home and raised when her sister and brother-in-law were killed in a car crash.

      That had been nearly twenty years ago. Micah Muldare was more like a son than a nephew to her and, like a mother, she worried about him. In her opinion, she had good cause to be worried. He’d all but become an emotional hermit.

      “But ever since his wife, Ella, died, he’s become almost driven, throwing himself into his work. If I even try to mention socializing, he tells me he’s too busy.” She pressed her lips together, trying to suppress the wave of sadness welling up within her. “It’s like he’s always trying to outrun the pain.”

      Sheila didn’t usually pour out her heart this way, even to a good friend like Maizie Sommers, but at this point, she needed help getting through to her nephew. If anything, the situation was getting worse, not better.

      “What about his sons?” Maizie asked. “Didn’t you tell me that he has two little boys? How is he with them?”

      Sheila nodded, pausing for a moment to take another sip of the exotic-tasting tea she’d ordered. Maizie, a real estate agent, had suggested that they meet here in this little café to discuss what was bothering her. The problem, it seemed, was right up Maizie’s alley.

      In addition to having her own real estate company, Maizie, along with her two lifelong best friends, Theresa Manetti and Cecilia Parnell, dabbled in matchmaking. Initially undertaken just to match up their own single children, they’d come to enjoy such success that now they did it for their friends. Knowing about this sideline, Sheila had come to her, worried about Micah and looking for help.

      “Gary and Greg,” Sheila confirmed. “They’re five and four, and he adores them. But the boys are seeing less and less of their father because he’s immersing himself in his career. And it’s not helping,” she confided. “Any of them.”

      “Work is never a substitute for a good relationship,” Maizie maintained.

      Sheila couldn’t agree more. “The boys need a mother and Micah needs someone to love who loves him back.” She looked at her friend, feeling somewhat uneasy. “I don’t usually meddle in his life—”

      “And I’m sure he appreciates that, but sometimes those we love need a little push in the right direction. Nothing wrong with that,” Maizie assured her.

      “He’d be really upset if he knew I was even discussing his life like this—”

      Maizie flashed the other woman an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry. This’ll all be discretely handled. Let me see what I can do,” Maizie told her. “Mother’s Day is coming up,” she noted, thinking that could somehow be utilized in this case, then promised, “I’ll get back to you before then.”

      The wheels in Maizie’s head went into high gear as she began to consider possibilities. Operation Micah Muldare had begun the moment Sheila had sat down at her table.

       Chapter One

      So this was what all the secrecy, giggling and whispers had been about.

      Micah Muldare sat on the sofa, looking at the gift his sons had quite literally surprised him with. A gift he wasn’t expecting, commemorating a day that he’d never thought applied to him. He’d just unwrapped the gift and it was now sitting on the coffee table, a source of mystification, at least for him.

      His boys, four-year-old Greg and five-year-old Gary, sat—or more accurately perched—on either side of him like energized bookends, unable to remain still for more than several seconds at a time. Blond, blue-eyed and small boned, his sons looked like little carbon copies of each other.

      They looked like Ella.

      Micah shut the thought away. It had been two years, but his heart still wasn’t ready for that kind of comparison.

      Maybe someday, just not yet.

      “Do you like it, Daddy?” Gary, the more animated of the two, asked eagerly. The boy was fairly beaming as he put the question to him. His bright blue eyes took in every tiny movement.

      Micah eyed at the mug on the coffee table. “I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” Micah told his son. “Actually, I wasn’t expecting anything at all today.”

      It was Mother’s Day. Granted he’d been doing double duty for the past two years, being both mother and father to his two sons, but he hadn’t expected any sort of acknowledgment from the boys on Mother’s Day. On Father’s Day, yes,