A Match Made by Cupid (Harlequin Special Edition) (14 page)

His cell rang, interrupting his mental stroll down the worst-case-scenario path. It was his brother. Jace answered with, “Good timing, Grady. I was ten seconds away from bashing my head against the wall.”

Grady laughed. “I thought you finished the renovations on the house?”

“Did.” Jace had purchased his house as a fixer-upper, and over the past several months had finally fixed up the place. “But that’s not what I’m referring to. Anyway, what’s up?”

“Couple of things. First, we read the article you sent us,” Grady said slowly, “and we talked it over, and we’re good with you printing it.”

“Olivia, too? I worried about how she’d react.” After reviewing the drunk-driving article again, Jace had sent it on to Grady and Olivia. He figured it should be their decision whether Cody appeared in the article or not. “Reading it had to be tough.”

“Yup. It was. But we… Hell, Jace, we’re both impressed with what you did.” Grady’s voice lowered and cracked. “Sharing this is difficult, but if it somehow helps even one person avoid the pain we’ve experienced, then it’s worth it. So we want you to go ahead with it.”

A knot of emotion closed Jace’s throat. He swallowed to push it away. “Thanks, bro,” he said, forcing his voice to remain even. “That’s originally why I wrote it. But I also wanted to honor Cody and others who…others like him.”

“That comes through loud and clear. You’ll let us know when it will be printed?”

“I don’t know that it will be,” Jace cautioned. “Have to run it by Kurt first. But, yeah, if I get the go-ahead, I’ll let you know.”

“He’ll print it. You did a damn fine job, Jace.” Grady cleared his throat. “Now, about this Valentine’s Day thing. Olivia’s all for the idea, and while I’m less inclined to agree, she’s managed to talk me into it. So I suppose you can run with that, too.”

Jace laughed. His brother was all about the romance but wasn’t so fond of broadcasting that he was a softie. “You have to pass Melanie’s test first. She hasn’t yet agreed to include family members.”

Grady’s obvious sigh of relief came through the line. “So I still have a shot of getting out of this?”

“That you do. I, ah, was thinking of bringing Melanie to Mom and Dad’s one night for dinner.”

Grady whistled. “Finally going to introduce her to the family, huh? Mom will be thrilled.”

Thrilled was an understatement. Karen Foster would be beside herself over Jace bringing an actual woman home. He’d never done that before. “Think you and Olivia can be there, too?”

“I don’t see why not. We’re there a couple of times a week as it is. Give me a call when you know the day.”

Jace smiled. Plain and simple, his family rocked. “Will do.”

Ending the call, Jace stood and stretched. His stomach grumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten. He put together a quick lunch and returned to the living room. Now that he had Grady and Olivia’s approval, he sent the Cody article to Kurt. He hoped that Grady was right, that Kurt would decide to run the piece.

He had just swallowed the last bite of his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich when a new email popped into his in-box. It was from Seth. The stress that gathered and grew in between emails and phone calls from his younger brother eased. For now, Jace knew Seth was fine. Clicking open the email, he started to read and quickly found himself grinning.

It seemed Seth was in the same wacko world that Jace had lived in ever since meeting Melanie. Apparently, his brother had fallen for a local woman sometime during his leave in October. The woman, Rebecca, hadn’t replied to any of Seth’s recent emails, and when Seth tried to phone her, he discovered her number had been disconnected. Hell, that didn’t sound good. Jace stopped grinning and read the rest.

Because he was worried and unable to verify that Rebecca was okay, Seth had wondered if Jace would mind checking on her. It seemed a bit of overkill to Jace. If a woman didn’t respond to a man’s attentions, that tended to mean she wasn’t interested. But if Seth wanted him to pay this Rebecca person a visit, he would. Anything to help his brother stay focused.

Jace typed a quick reply, copied down Rebecca’s address and made a mental note to stop by one day after work. He could be wrong. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances that would explain the non-replies and the disconnected phone. He hoped so, for his brother’s sake.

Next, he sent an email to one of his contacts—a private detective that he’d interviewed for the
Gazette
about a missing person’s case some time back. He passed along the small amount of information he had on David Prentiss, asked for help in locating him and hit Send before he could change his mind.

Possibly a mistake. He’d gone round and round with himself on this particular subject for the past few days. Melanie had specifically said she needed more time before making a decision. But he had to do something to try to repair the sadness he saw in her eyes.

Besides, he figured there was no harm in getting the ball rolling. That way, assuming his contact was able to find any information, Jace would have it ready for Melanie if and when she wanted it. If she decided to keep the status quo, on the other hand, then Jace just might have to pay a visit to David Prentiss himself.

Melanie spent the majority of Monday going through the interviews she and Jace had conducted on Friday, noting which couples she thought would work well for the article. Strangely, she had a tough time narrowing down the long list. Instead of focusing on the reasons why a couple wasn’t a good fit, she kept latching on to reasons why they
were
.

She blamed herself for that one. Ever since her…encounter with Jace, her head had seemingly become filled with bits of fluff that stopped her from thinking clearly. She’d also developed the irritating habit of daydreaming. About Jace. About that night. About
him
and what he might be thinking, feeling. If that night had stuck with him the way it had with her.

Which then, naturally, led her to obsessing over why she was behaving so out of character. Perhaps she was coming down with a cold. One could hope, anyway.

That evening, she retrieved her car, complete with a new starter. All told, the price tag for the repair came in at just over three hundred dollars. Melanie used her credit card to pay the bill, but that was fine. It could have been worse.

Tuesday, she read through the new influx of letters for her advice column, proofed her current column and got a head start on the following week’s. For whatever reason, the appropriate responses to the various relationship questions came to her more easily than normal, almost intuitively. That pleased her, even if she didn’t understand why.

Right before leaving for the day, her mother called to cancel dinner, stating she had plans with Wade. When Melanie asked about joining them, Loretta hemmed and hawed with a zillion excuses. Concerned, Melanie pushed. But Loretta assured her that she was fine, that she was busy with wedding preparations and promised they’d get together soon.

Through it all, Melanie did her best to keep a polite distance from Jace. Not because she wasn’t interested, but because she was
too
interested. One week of spending time with the man and she’d basically begged him to take her to bed. Worse, she didn’t trust herself not to beg him again if they were left alone for very long.

Maybe that wasn’t bad. Maybe it could even be good. But she didn’t know yet. So until her ability to think coherently returned, alone time with Jace was out of the question.

Whenever he approached her, she was ready with a question about the article, her column or anything else regarding the
Gazette
. She turned down his few invitations to dinner with excuses that he likely saw straight through, but he didn’t question her. On Friday, though, he leaned over and kissed her on the courthouse steps.

Hunger roared to life inside of her with the simplicity of flipping a switch. She wrapped her arms around his neck and returned the kiss before her brain could process her body’s actions. And then, she spent all weekend wishing she’d turned that kiss into a weekend in bed.

To combat her obvious insanity and approaching meltdown, she insisted on driving herself to Wednesday’s interviews. They arrived at the senior-living community at nine, spent thirty minutes with the director and then met with two couples before noon. After a quick lunch, they interviewed another two couples.

Now, Jace and Melanie were sitting in a window-filled kitchen in one of the community’s private apartments. This was the interview that Jace had mentioned last week, the one where the couple had been married for over fifty years. Patrick and Doreen Breckenridge were gray-haired, slightly stooped over and in their late seventies. Even so, they appeared healthy and strong.

Mrs. Breckenridge folded her soft, wrinkled hands on the table. “This is so much fun, having you two here. I don’t know what we can possibly tell you that’s newsworthy, though.”

With a wink and a smile, Jace said, “With five children, twelve grandchildren, and—two?—great-grandchildren, I’m guessing you have plenty to share.”

A light pink blush stole over the woman’s apple-round cheeks. “Well, aren’t you a charmer? And, yes, we have two great-grandchildren. Sophia, who just turned three, and Evan, who will be six next month. They were here yesterday,” Doreen continued, her eyes softening in recollection. “They visit one afternoon a week.”

Patrick set his coffee cup on the small, glass-topped table. “Still isn’t enough for my Doreen. She’d have those youngsters here every day if it were possible. Dang ragamuffins, always underfoot. You couldn’t walk through this room yesterday, what with Sophia banging on every pot and pan we own. Gave me a headache,” he grumbled.

“Listen to the old man.” Doreen shook her head in amusement. “You’d never guess he paces by the window watching for their car, would you?”

“Someone has to make sure they don’t trample your flowerbeds when they run to the door,” Patrick said gruffly as he fidgeted in his chair.

“It’s January, dear.” Doreen patted her husband’s hand. “There’s nothing out there to trample. And who was it that sat right here with a wooden spoon in one hand and my soup pot lid in the other, banging away with our great-granddaughter? Oh, yes, that was you. So there is no sense in letting these young people believe you’re a grump.”

Patrick made a harrumph sound. “I am a grump.”

“Yes, dear,” Doreen said, her blue eyes sparkling. “Whatever you say.”

Jace leaned over the table. “So, I saw an excellent golf course on our way in. Looked to be eighteen holes. Do either of you play?”

“Oh, you’re talking his language now,” Doreen said, chuckling. “Why do you think we moved to this community?”

“We moved here because your sister is here,” Patrick was quick to say. “But the golf course didn’t hurt any,” he admitted with a sly grin.

Jace jumped in, asking about Patrick’s game. Melanie sat back and watched.

As it turned out, Kurt had been correct: she was learning a lot from Jace. For example, the rhythm to these interviews was vastly different from what they’d done at the courthouse. Rather than getting right to the point, Jace eased into each interview by talking about family, hobbies or life in the community. Then, once everyone was comfortable, he somehow managed to effortlessly change tactics.

About fifteen minutes into the conversation, Jace switched his attention to Doreen, asking, “So, do you have any pictures from your wedding? We’d love to see them.”

Again, her cheeks flushed pink. “Really?”

“Why wouldn’t he? You were a beautiful bride,” Patrick said, no longer playing the grumpy-old-man card. “Go get the photo book, and bring a few from when the kids were growing up, too. I want to show them our house.”

“I love it here, but I do miss our home,” Doreen said as she left the kitchen.

Patrick looked at Jace. “We started with two rooms and a bathroom. That was it. Every couple of years, we’d add on another room. Took us ten years to finish that house.” He nodded toward the space his wife had just vacated. “And her another ten to get her flowers just so.”

From there, the interview progressed without a hitch. Melanie and Jace learned how Patrick and Doreen met—she’d originally dated his brother. Only one date, though, Patrick pointed out. Because, obviously, she’d seen the smarter and handsomer brother and fallen instantly in love. Not so long ago, Melanie would’ve scoffed at that statement.

Now, she wasn’t so sure.

The couple shared stories about the early years of their marriage, the struggles they faced with raising a large family and how they’d almost lost the home they’d worked so hard to build when Patrick was out of work for close to two years. Mostly, though, their reminiscing focused on their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Throughout the conversation, Melanie noticed Doreen shooting speculative glances toward her and Jace, and then looking at her husband with a small, secretive smile. Melanie wondered why, but didn’t give it too much thought.

When the interview came to a close, Jace thanked them and started to stand from his chair. Doreen gave him a knowing glance. “I just have to ask…I’ve been wondering this entire time if you two are a couple. Are you?”

Patrick harrumphed again. “Of course they are. I saw that the second they walked in.”