The Matchmaker's Plan. Karen Whittenburg Toller
that somewhere in the night, he was going to need a drink.
AINSLEY LOOPED her arms around Ivan’s neck and smiled at him as they danced, swaying in one place, wrapped in the light of the day’s happiness. “Well, Mrs. Donovan, you’re looking especially pleased with yourself,” he said. “That secretive little smile wouldn’t have anything to do with your big brother’s mysterious disappearance, would it?”
“Now, why would I be happy that Matt walked out on my wedding reception and hasn’t returned?” But she was happy. Happy to be Ivan’s wife. Happy that Matt and Peyton had left together. Happy to think her impulsive introduction of possibilities had taken effect so quickly. She hadn’t expected that. Not at all. But it did add an extra dollop to her happiness level, which was spilling over as it was. “He didn’t even say goodbye to me.”
“I imagine he feels there’ll be opportunities for goodbyes tomorrow at the family brunch.” Ivan leaned in, pressed his cheek against her hair. “It is my personal opinion that right now you’re ecstatic because he left with Peyton O’Reilly more than an hour ago and we haven’t seen either of them since. I’d say you’re thinking you’ve successfully introduced Matt to the possibility that he has met his match in Peyton.”
She drew back to caution him. “Shh, Ivan. Talking about it could jinx it. Just because they left together tonight doesn’t mean we can call my matchmaking a success.” She offered up a conspiratorial smile. “Although I’m feeling very optimistic. I’ve known for ages that if the two of them were ever alone together long enough, they’d figure out there was a reason their discussions are so passionate.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been playing matchmaker at our wedding, Mrs. Donovan. Couldn’t you take the day off?”
She feigned an expression of grievous resignation. “You’ll simply have to get used to it, Ivan. A matchmaker’s lot in life is to find opportunities wherever and whenever they present themselves. It’s a full-time job, especially for an apprentice matchmaker like me.”
“You are taking two weeks off for our honeymoon, though, right? No matchmaking will be taking place in Italy.”
She lifted her shoulders in a dainty shrug. “I can’t promise, Ivan, but I expect I’ll be too busy to think much about my career, especially with all the sightseeing and so on we’ll be doing.”
“I certainly intend to keep you busy with the so on part.”
She giggled, thrilled at the prospect of having his undivided attention for two entire weeks. “I bought a tour book called See Italy in a Weekend. But as creative as you and I are, I imagine we could squeeze all the highlights into half a day, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said, and whirled her around the dance floor, the bride and groom celebrating this one moment…and all the moments still to come.
“THEY’RE NOT HERE, either.” Matt swung the car around in a slow U-turn, allowing the beam from the headlights to sweep across the deserted park. Not another car in sight. No sign of two young people looking for trouble. No sign of anyone else at all. “And, frankly, I don’t know where else to look.”
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,