The Matchmaker's Happy Ending. Shirley Jump
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game is just getting over,” the man said. “They’re probably all over at the Garden.”
“Great.” She lowered her arm, then thought of the ten-block hike home. Not fun in high heels. Even less fun after an eighteen-hour day, the last four spent dancing and socializing. She should have drunk an entire pot of coffee.
“I’ll make you a deal,” the man said. “I’ll give you a lift if you can wait until I’ve finished making the accident report. Then you can give your statement and kill two birds with one stone.”
She hesitated. “I don’t know. I’m really tired.”
“Stay for just a bit more. After tonight, you’ll never have to see me again.” He grinned.
He had a nice smile. An echoing smile curved across her face. She glanced down the street in the direction of her condo and thought of the soft bed waiting for her there. She weighed that against walking home. Option two made her feet hurt ten times more. Stupid shoes.
She glanced back at the misshapen silver car. “You’re sure you can drive me home? In that?”
“It runs. It’s just got a little junk in the trunk.” He grinned. “Sorry. Bad joke.”
A laugh escaped her and eased some of the tension in her shoulders, the pain in her feet. “Even a bad joke sounds good right now.” No cabs appeared, and that settled the decision for her. “Okay, I’ll wait.”
Not that it was going to be a hardship to wait with a view like that. This guy could have been a cover model. Whew. Hot, hot, hot. She should get his contact information. She had at least a dozen clients who would be—
You’re always working.
Marnie could hear her mother’s voice in her head. Take some time off. Have some fun. Date a guy for yourself. Don’t be so serious and buttoned up all the time.
What no one seemed to understand was this buttoned-up approach had fueled Marnie’s success. She’d seen how a laissez-faire approach to business could destroy a company and refused to repeat those mistakes herself. A distraction like Mr. Suit and Tie would only derail her, something she couldn’t afford.
The man opened the passenger’s side door. “Have a seat. You look like you’ve had a trying day. And I know how that feels.”
She sank into the leather seat, kicked off her shoes and let the platform heels tumble to the sidewalk. The man came to stand beside her, leaning against the rear passenger door. He had the look of a man comfortable in his own skin, at ease with the world. Confident, sexy, but not overly so. A hot combination, especially with the suit and tie. Her stance toward him softened.
“You’re right. I have had a long, trying day myself.” She put out her hand. “Let’s try this again. I’m Marnie Franklin.”
“Jack Knight.”
The name rang a bell, but the connection flitted away before she could grasp it because when he took her hand in his, a delicious spark ran through her, down her arm. If she hadn’t been seated, she might have jumped back in surprise. In her business, she shook hands with dozens of men in the course of a week. None had ever sent that little…zing through her. Maybe exhaustion had lowered her defenses. Or maybe the accident had shaken her up more than she thought. She released his hand, and brushed the hair out of her eyes, if only to keep from touching him again.
The police arrived, two officers who looked like they’d rather be going for a root canal than taking an other accident report in the dent and ding city of Boston. For the next ten minutes Marnie and Jack answered questions. After the police were gone, Jack turned to her. “Thanks for staying. You made a stressful day much better.”
“Glad to help.”
Jack bent down and picked up the black heels she’d kicked onto the sidewalk when she’d sat in his car. He handed them to Marnie, the twin heels dangling from his index finger by their strappy backs. In his strong, capable hands, the fancy shoes looked even more delicate. “Your shoes, Cinderella.” He gave her a wink, and that zing rushed through her a second time.
“I’m far from Cinderella.” She bent and slipped on the damnable slingbacks. Pretty, but painful. “More like the not-so-evil stepmother, trying to fix up all the stepsisters with princes.”
His smile had a dash of sexy, a glimmer of a tease. “Every woman deserves to be Cinderella at least once in her life.”
“Maybe so, if she believes in fairy tales and magic mice.”
She worked in the business of helping people fall in love, and had given up on the fairy tale herself a long time ago. Over the years, she’d become, if anything, more cautious, less willing to dip a toe in the romance pool. When she’d started matchmaking she’d been starry eyed, hopeful. But now…
Now she had a lot of years of reality beneath her and the stars had faded from her vision. She knew her business had suffered as a consequence. Somehow she needed to restore her belief in the very thing she touted to her clients—the existence of true love.
Jack shut her door and came around to the driver’s side. The car started with a soft purr. “Where to?”
She gave him her address, and he put the car in gear. She settled into the luxury seat. The dark leather hugged her body, warm and easy. Damn. She needed to step outside the basic car model box because sitting in this sedan made it pretty easy to fall for the whole Cinderella fantasy. It wasn’t a white horse, but it was a giant step closer to a royal ride. Having a good looking prince beside her helped feed that fantasy, too.
“I’m sorry for being grumpy earlier. That accident was the icing on a tough day. Thanks again for staying and talking to the cops for me,” he said. “I can’t believe you remembered all those details about the driver.”
She shrugged. “My father used to make me do that. Whenever we went someplace, he made sure I noticed the waiter’s name or the cab driver’s ID. He’d have me recite the address or license plate or some other detail. He said you never knew when doing that would come in handy, and he was right.” She could almost hear her father’s voice in her ear. Watch the details, Daisy-doo, be- cause you never know when they’ll matter. He’d rarely called her Marnie, almost always Daisy-doo, because of her love for the flowers. Kat had been Kitty, Erica had been Chatterbug. Marnie missed hearing her father’s wisdom, the way he lovingly teased his daughters. “Besides, the cab driver had his hands on the GPS more than the steering wheel, and that made me doubly nervous. If I could have, I would have jumped in the driver’s seat and taken the wheel myself.”
He chuckled. “Nice to meet a fellow control freak.”
“Me? I’m not a control freak.” She wrinkled her nose. “Okay, maybe I am. A little. But in my house, things were a little…crazy when I was a kid and someone had to take the reins.”
“Let me guess. You’re the oldest? An only?”
“The middle kid, but only younger than the oldest by nine months.”
“Oh, so not just the driver, but the peacemaker, too?” He tossed her a grin.
He’d nailed her, in a few words. “Do you read personality trait books in your spare time or something?”
“Nah. I’m just in a business where it’s essential to be able to read people, quickly, and well.”
“Me, too. Though sometimes you don’t like what you read.”
“True.” Jack glanced over at her, his blue eyes holding her features for a long moment before he returned his attention to the road. “So, Cinderella, what has made you so jaded?”
The conversational detour jolted her. She shifted in her seat. “Not jaded…realistic.”
“Well, that makes two of us. I find, in my line of work, that realism is a must.”
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