ENCORE PERFORMANCE (THE MATCHMAKER TRILOGY) (4 page)

Thomas stood to her side and swept a look around. He
saw nothing but heaps of debris in a building that should be
torn down and a better one built in its place. How did she
think that in a few months she could turn the dilapidated
structure into a music school and make money at it?

He let out a slow, steady, quiet breath. That wasn’t him
thinking, it was his father, and it killed him that someone
else’s joy could inspire such negativity in him. He turned
back to Carissa, who was still gazing around the space as
though she could see everything in its place.

“What do you envision?”
“Well this will be a waiting room for the parents and a
reception area. So we’ll put a wall here.” She raised her
hands to help him visualize. “Then through the door”—she
boxed it in with her hands as she walked through, stepping
over an old rolled-up rug—“there will be two classrooms
on either side of the hallway. They’ll be private lesson
rooms. Then . . .” Her eyes grew wide as she walked
toward the back of the building. She skirted around a set of
old display cases with broken shelves. “This area will be
open space. We’ll do group lessons, orchestra, and band
practice here.”
She settled her eyes on him and he worked up a smile.
“Do you have a classroom that could be used for
theory classes? Something with space where they could
have a chalkboard and desks?”
“Well that sounds like a public school, not a music
school.” She laughed when she said it, and he couldn’t
believe an actual class of theory wasn’t important to her.
She was still dancing circles around the room, taking it in.
He’d talk to her about it later. But you couldn’t have a
school without theory as a basic class.
Carissa spun back toward him.
“What do you think?” Her hair was pulled back from
her face and it gave him full view of the wonder in her
eyes. No matter what he thought of the dingy building with
its peeling paint, he couldn’t help but get caught up in
Carissa’s excitement.
“I think I’m honored to be here. The smile on your
face is priceless.”
Her brows creased. “I guess we should get to cleaning,
huh?”
“I think that would be a good idea.” Relief washed
over him. He needed to be busy because standing there
looking at her in her pair of battered jeans which hugged
her narrow hips and the plaid button-up shirt, which
covered a red tank top, and was left open was enough to
raise the heat of his body. Cleaning would be a good
deterrent from the thoughts he was having about the
collapse of the building—and the things he’d like to do to
Carissa.

Carissa shook her arms to get the feeling back in them,
then rolled her shoulders to work out the kinks that were
forming in her back. She’d been wiping the soap off the
front windows for the better part of an hour while Thomas
hauled old pieces of scrap wood and shelving to the
Dumpster.

“This will be a good venture.” Thomas walked toward
her. “Open your hand.”
Just as he’d asked, she held open her hand to him.
Gently he laid a fifty-cent piece on her palm. When she
shifted her gaze from the dull coin up to his eyes, warmth
flooded through her.
He took her hand and curled her fingers around the
coin. “Just think, that’s worth fifty lucky pennies.” He
winked, then turned back to finish his trash duty.
Carissa let her heart settle before opening her hand and
looking at the coin. She couldn’t help but think he was
right. It was a good venture.
They swept, dusted, and mopped. By one o’clock, they
had the majority of the cleaning done.
Thomas blew out a breath and wiped the back of his
hand over his brow. He pushed the hair from his eyes—
those blue eyes that could pierce her in a way no one else’s
ever had. His perfectly pressed T-shirt had worked its way
out of his pants and there was a streak of dirt on his cheek.
“You have a little something there.” She raised her
hand to his cheek to wipe it off but his hand was quicker.
He’d winced. She noticed it as he caught her hand.
After a settling moment, he let her brush away the dirt.
“Thank you.” His voice cracked.
“My pleasure.” She smiled because it was. Carissa’s
mouth had gone dry from being so close to him. She
backed away from him and moistened her lips. “I could use
a hamburger, what about you?”
“Shouldn’t we go home and shower?”
She swallowed hard as she pushed away the mental
image of Thomas in the shower . . . with her. Her neck
heated, and she averted her gaze to the window until she
caught her breath. The sky was blue.
“This place is outdoor seating and it’s still nice enough
out. What do ya say?”
He tucked his shirt back into the waist of his jeans.
“Okay, but my treat if you’re buying breakfast
tomorrow.”
“You’re on.” She grinned, hoping her true feelings
weren’t plastered over her face for him to see. “And then
we’ll go get Hope and take her for that juice I promised
her. Maybe we could discuss the remodeling plans,” she
added, hoping to focus her mind back on her work and
away from the thoughts about working on Thomas.

He’d laughed when she’d ordered a quarter-pound
hamburger with extra ketchup, large onion rings, and a
chocolate shake.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a woman order that
much food. His mother never would have ordered anything
other than a child-sized hamburger, if they’d ever eaten out
that is.

“Got some appetite.” They set their trays down on the
table.
“Yeah, well, you were buying. Wanted to get your
money’s worth.”
He wondered where she’d put it all. Obviously, she
didn’t eat like that all the time. Her body was so perfect.
Every curve was in the right place, but it was taut and tight
in all the right places too.
Moving his eyes from her was becoming harder to do.
Even as she dragged an onion ring through a mound of
ketchup and bit it in two. The delight in her eyes from the
simple act of enjoying a meal was something he’d never
seen in a woman. His mother spent mealtimes catering to
her children and her overbearing husband. The women with
whom he’d toured in Rome were too worried about their
appearance to find pleasure in the fine art of a simple meal.
None of that seemed to matter to Carissa.
A few wayward strands of hair had fallen from the
ponytail at the back of her head and there was a smudge on
her forehead. Carissa lived in the moment and reveled in
each moment she took in. Watching her lifted his spirits.
The desire to feel that passion with his very own hands was
overwhelming. He diverted his eyes and focused on a long
sip of his soda.
Carissa bit into her hamburger and ketchup spurted
from its side and landed on her chin. Laughing, she set
down the burger and wiped off her face.
“So tell me, Thomas Samuel, where did you call home
before you traveled the world?”
He choked on the soda. He coughed, cleared his throat,
and set down the cup. Trying to keep his voice steady he
answered, “Um, I lived in Chicago.”
“Chicago?” The word purred from her throat, but still
left him with a bitter taste. “Oh, I’d love to go to Chicago
someday.”
“You’ve never been?”
“No. I really haven’t been anywhere but here.” Her
eyes glossed with tears.
“You don’t like to travel?”
Carissa shrugged. “I never really wanted to be
anywhere but here. Here I was safe and taken care of.”
It was a vulnerable moment and his heart urged to ask
questions.
He didn’t.
He’d have like to have known what she meant, but if
he asked then so would she. It was better to leave some
rocks unturned.
“What time does Hope get out of school?” he asked
instead.
“She gets out at two thirty. We’ll head over to my
parents’ house to pick her up.”
He looked down at the dust on his shirt and then back
up at her with a flick of his head to move the hair from his
eyes.
“Do we have time to swing by home and get a
shower?”
“You are worse than a woman.” Her laughter was like
a crescendo in a musical movement that dictated his life.
He waited for the pause, for the beat to change, but with
Carissa it didn’t.
“That’s what happens when you live around a man like
Pablo DiAngelo for most of your life. He wears off. Trust
me, until he demanded I constantly be so
perfect
, I wasn’t.”
He’d thought once that being Pablo DiAngelo’s
prodigy was the path to a new and better life. It had only
been a detour, he now realized.
His life had been orchestrated like a fine movement, in
tune with everyone else’s lives and personalities. He’d
thought he was happy, but perhaps it was only contentment.
Pure happiness was what he saw in Carissa’s eyes when she
was with her family, when she spoke of her school, and
when she ate a hamburger with too much ketchup.
Carissa shot him a glance and a smile that knocked his
heart rate up. He wanted what she had, that zest for life.
Even more than that, he wanted her.

They sat in the quaint juice shop where Carissa had
worked as a teenager. Thomas sipped on a drink that Hope
promised him he’d love and listened as she rambled on
about her day in third grade.

He wondered if the little person in front of him would
take a breath before delving into another tale, but she just
kept going.

“I don’t see that happening.” Carissa shook her head.
“Mom isn’t much of a dog person.”
“Well I think I could ask.” Finally, Hope sipped on her
juice.
Carissa smoothed Hope’s hair with her hand.
“We should probably get you back home to finish your
homework.”
Hope protested with a grunt. “It’s Friday. I’m not
doing spelling words on Friday.”
Thomas winced. He’d uttered those same words once.
Homework had never been his favorite thing to do. Hadn’t
he learned the hard way to make sure it was done early
each night? He watched Hope sip on her drink. There were
better ways to teach a child to have responsibility than how
he had learned.
“Just think, if you do your homework on Friday then
you have all weekend to play.” “Fine.” Hope rolled her
eyes. “Can I spend the night at your house?”
“Not tonight. I have students in the morning.”
Thomas felt a tug at his heart. Carissa had said no, but
Hope wasn’t upset. She’d simply nodded and the smile
stayed in her eyes.
Once, small eyes had looked at him so trustingly. He
swallowed hard and pushed back the memory where it
belonged, in his past.

Carissa tidied up the kitchen after dinner while
Thomas sat with Katie and watched
Jeopardy
. He’d asked
if he could help, but she’d shooed him away claiming she
needed her space.

What she’d needed was a few moments alone to
breathe and collect her thoughts.
Her mind should have been on the business license
application that needed to be finalized, the call to the
insurance agent that was to have been returned, and list
she’d started of instruments she wanted to purchase.
Scheduling meetings at the local schools and thinking of
advertising should have been her main concern. Instead,
she was thinking about the man in the other room
answering questions to some game show.
Since he’d come down the stairs that morning, her
heart hadn’t stopped racing.
That blond disheveled hair and those blue eyes had
burned into her mind. His soft voice with the carefully
chosen words had her head spinning. It wasn’t like her to
see a man and have her skin grow hot, but she wasn’t one
to take her time either. She didn’t want to complicate things
with someone who was there to work with her, but she
couldn’t help but want to taste him.
“Katie says it’s time for her medicine,” he called. “I
told her I’d come and get it.”
When she heard his voice from the other room she bit
her lip.
“It’s in that cupboard. It’s the little cup.” She scrubbed
a plate in the sink, trying to occupy her mind.
“You set it all up for her?”
“Yes. One time my aunt took her medicine three times
because she couldn’t remember that she’d taken it. She was
in the hospital for a week.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you.” He smiled before
opening the cupboard door. He grabbed the cup and walked
back out to Katie.
Carissa let out a breath. She thought about the night
before when she’d turned and walked right into him. She’d
felt his hands on her hips, his body pressed to hers, and his
breath on her skin. God, she’d wished she’d just kissed
him. She wished she’d pressed her lips to his. She wished
she’d pulled him closer to her. Oh if she’d only . . .
“Carissa.” She gasped and spun around when Thomas
said her name. He winked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to
startle you.”
“Just in deep thought I guess.”
“I’m going to head to bed. I think all my travels are
catching up with me.” He walked toward her. “Thank you
for the day and for dinner. You’re a wonderful cook.”
“Thank you.” She stuttered and nearly dropped the
plate in the sink when she realized how close he stood to
her.
“I’ll be ready for that run and coffee before you start
teaching tomorrow.” He stepped closer and kissed her
cheek. Carissa’s breath hitched. “Good night.” He left the
whisper echoing in her ear.

Thomas admired Carissa from inside the house. She
lifted one leg onto the railing of the porch and stretched
over it. He could see plenty of her and every part was toned
and beautiful. She wore a tiny pair of running shorts and a
fitted shirt that clung to her curves. He bit his lip. A run
was exactly what he needed now. Perhaps a run into an icy
river. He squared his shoulders and joined her on the porch.

“Good morning. I thought you were a no-show.” She
smiled at him and her eyes seared him. She'd pulled her
long, dark hair back in a tail away from her face and her
eyes were larger, he swore it. She had full lips, the kind that
a man could find pleasure in for hours. He shook it off.

Any sleep he had had been filled with dreams of Carissa.
“Me either.” She reached for her sweatshirt that lay on
the chair next to her. She tied it around her waist and
looked into his eyes. “I kept thinking I should have kissed
you when I ran into you the other night. It’s sure made it
hard to sleep lately.” She winked and started down the
steps.
Thomas’s feet didn’t move. Was she kidding? His
heart was racing now and he hadn’t run a step. He wiped at
the sweat that formed on his brow.
“Are you coming?” she called back to him from the
street corner.
God, was she clueless as to what she’d just done? He
took his first step and then another. Dear Lord, he was in
trouble.
He never did run
with
her. It was much more like him
following her. When she stopped in front of a diner, he was
grateful. They hadn’t run far, but he was certainly not in as
good of shape as the woman he’d been chasing all the way
from the house.
She stood with her arms over her head, stretching from
side to side. Then she untied the sweatshirt from her hips
and slid it over her arms.
Thomas finally caught up to her and immediately bent
over with his hands on his knees.
Carissa laughed. “I thought you could run.”
“So did I. Sophia never ran that fast.”
“Then she was taking it easy on you.” She tightened
the tail of hair at the back of her head. “Stand up.”
“I can’t.” He panted as his vision went blurry and all
he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears.
She walked to him and pulled on his arms until she had
them cuffed at the wrists and lifted over his head. “There. It
lets in more air. You’re just cutting off your oxygen by
bending over.”
He couldn’t say anything. He just stood there staring at
her glistening face and trying his damndest to suck in
oxygen.
She was watching him carefully and when his
breathing began to settle she smiled at him.
“Feel better?” When he nodded, she tugged open the
door of the diner. “Good, I’m hungry.”
Thomas took in the atmosphere of the small diner. No
one there seemed out of place. Some people were in suits,
most of them were in relaxed casual Saturday wear. A few
looked like they hadn’t seen a pillow yet. Others waved to
the staff and other patrons as they headed out to a long,
hard day of manual labor. The air filled with their voices
and the smells of bacon and coffee. He’d missed such a
place. Carissa waved to the woman behind the counter and
found a booth for them to sit in. He followed, sitting across
from her.
“This place is great.”
“This was always one of my favorite places to come to
with my dad when I was growing up.” She tossed her head
from side to side and he watched as she worked the tension
from her neck.
“A hangout, huh?”
“Well it was one of his favorite places because he
always came here with Sophia. He didn’t tell me that until
after I fell in love with her myself or I would have protested
and never have wanted to come here again.”
She threw a menu his way and he opened it, glancing
at the options.
“Didn’t you always love Sophia? How could you not?
She’s amazing.”
“Because when you’re little and someone feeds you
lines of BS about why your dad left, you tend to hate the
person he’s living with.” She said it so matter-of-factly he
only nodded in agreement.
The waitress arrived at the table and Carissa looked up
at her with a smile.
“Good morning, Betsy.”
“Good mornin’, honey. Got a new beau?” Thomas
wiggled in his seat as she scanned her eyes over him.
“Kinda skinny.”
“You can fix that, right?”
Thomas grinned as he watched the two women banter.
“That would be my job.” She winked.
They ordered and Thomas tucked his menu back
behind the napkin dispenser as Betsy walked away.
“What time is your first student?”
“Not until ten.”
“But you dragged my butt out of the house at seven?”
“You run to breakfast, you take a nice stroll back.”
Yes, that did make sense. “Then home for a shower and off
to work.”
Suddenly his head filled with images of her in the
shower. When he got home, his would have to be a cold
one.
“I was giving some thought to the design of the school
last night.”
“You were?” Her brows knit and he worried she
wasn’t open to criticism. But it would be better to add his
opinion before all the interior walls were complete.
“I was thinking that back room is going to be awfully
big. Don’t you think you could put some tables in and room
to do book work?”
“Book work?”
“Theory.”
Carissa’s beautiful pouty lips thinned and she shifted
her glance out the window and then back toward him.
“Theory goes home in a book and comes back for me
to look over and put a sticker on. It’s part of every lesson,
but not meant for a class of its own. We want the kids to
enjoy their classes, not dread them.”
“I don’t see why you don’t—” Betsy interrupted with a
plate of food and the conversation on theory came to a halt.
He watched as she doctored her breakfast with condiments,
keeping her thoughts to herself.
Perhaps the discussion over theory would be best for
another time. But time would soon be running out. He had
opinions and he damn well thought she should listen.
They ate their breakfast and managed to fill an hour
with small talk, which did not include the curriculum of the
school.
Thomas found Carissa intoxicating, once she’d stopped
snarling at him. She was witty, funny, smart, and a little
mouthy. What amazed him was how much she was like
Sophia though they’d never spent her childhood together
for her to have adopted those traits and qualities.
“Well look what the cat dragged in.” A hand fell onto
his shoulder and he froze at the sound of David’s voice.
“Daddy.” Carissa jumped up to kiss her father on the
cheek. “Where’s Mom?”
“She headed over to Katie’s to pick her up for her hair
appointment. You know Katie. She won’t miss it.”
Hope sat next to Thomas, bouncing on the cushion of
the booth. David gave her a look of warning and she settled
in even closer to Thomas.
David draped his arm over Carissa’s shoulders. “So
what are you two up to?”
Thomas felt the need to speak up. He’d done nothing
but sit and have a meal with Carissa, but suddenly he felt as
though he’d been caught doing something illicit.
Carissa spoke before he could begin to babble. “I made
him go for a run before my first student.”
“Yep, she’s just like her mother,” David confirmed.
“Not quite.” Thomas shook his head as he looked at
Carissa. “She runs faster.”
Carissa threw her napkin at him. “We have to go. Want
the booth?”
“Sure.” David moved into the spot Carissa vacated. “It
was nice to see you again, Thomas.” He held his hand out
as Thomas stood.
Thomas shook his hand. “Likewise. Good-bye, Hope.
Enjoy your Saturday.”