Heartstrings and Diamond Rings (25 page)

Later at home, just as she was turning out the light to go to sleep, her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID.

Brandon?

She fingered the button without pushing it, her heart suddenly beating faster and her mouth going dry.

Oh, will you stop freaking out? Just answer the damned call.

She rolled to her back, her head on her pillow, and hit the button. “Brandon. Hi.”

“Hi, Alison. I’m just calling to see how your date with Justin went.”

She squeezed her eyes closed. “Good. It was good.”

“I didn’t get a knock on my door, so I figured it must have been okay.”

She wasn’t sure if he was going for an inside joke and she was supposed to laugh. In the end, he didn’t, so she didn’t either.

“I talked to Justin,” Brandon said. “He really liked you, Alison. And he says you’re going on a second date.”

“Yes. He’s taking me to the Dallas Antique Show next week.”

“That’s perfect. You should like that, right?”

You should know. You put him up to it.
“Yeah.”

A long silence stretched between them.

“If things don’t work out between you and Justin—”

“I think they will.”

“Good. Maybe he’s the one, huh?”

“Maybe he is.”

Another long silence.

“Well,” Brandon said. “Keep me posted. And let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”

“I will.”

That damned silence again.

“Well, good-bye,” he said finally.

“Good-bye.”

Alison clicked her phone off and tossed it to the bed beside her. She stared at the ceiling, telling herself that if she’d never met Brandon, she’d think she hit the jackpot with Justin, so it was time to put thoughts of him behind her. He wasn’t her future, but Justin might be. And from this moment forward,
he
was the one she was going to be thinking about.

So there it was. Brandon had done it. He’d finally sent Alison on a first date that had been a success. And that meant he was a success for matching them up. He knew that should make him happy.

So why didn’t it?

Get over it. You gave her exactly what she wanted.

He tried to focus on the TV show he’d been watching before he called her, but his mind wandered all over the place. Pretty soon he was thinking about Marco and Delilah, whose first date was tonight, too. With luck, he’d be as successful with them as he’d been with Alison.

Assuming you could call what he’d done with Alison a success.

She hadn’t really sounded like a woman who was enamored with the new man she’d just met. But hadn’t she told Brandon that she didn’t expect fireworks? That if she wanted a family man, she’d have to settle for a little bit of ordinary? Yeah. That was exactly what she’d said.

And he’d told her that was bullshit.

But if really was bullshit, why had he matched her up with Mr. Ordinary?

Because that was what she said she wanted.

Damn it.
His mind was going in so many circles it was making his head hurt.

Finally he gave up on the TV show he was watching, grabbed a beer, and went out to the front porch, where he sat down on the swing. He’d turned off the porch light, telling himself that lately it had drawn too many bugs, but the truth was that he wouldn’t mind catching a furtive glimpse at Marco and Delilah when they returned to her house after their date.

He didn’t have to wait long.

He heard the low hum of an engine, and a few seconds later, Marco’s truck pulled up in front of Delilah’s house. He got out and opened her door for her. He took her hand, a little awkwardly, and helped her out. Then she took his arm and he led her toward her front porch.

Marco was being a gentleman. Brandon had expected nothing less. But was there more going on between them than just that? What had their date been like? As they climbed the steps and stopped at Delilah’s door, both of them looked so uncomfortable that he started to think things hadn’t gone well at all.

Then Marco turned around to walk away.

No, no, no! Talk, smile, laugh, do something. I have to know. Don’t leave me wondering!

And then Delilah opened her door and was going inside, and Marco was walking down the porch steps.
Damn it.
It was over, and Brandon still didn’t know how things had gone between them.

Suddenly he imagined the phone call he was going to get from Marco, the one where he berated him for setting him up on a date that had been excruciating for him. And Delilah. How was she going to feel about the evening? As if one more man was rejecting her?

Then suddenly, halfway down the steps, Marco stopped. Apparently Delilah heard his footsteps stop and wondered why, because she turned back around and tilted her head to listen. Marco looked over his shoulder at her. His indecision hung in the air between them, and it seemed as if an eternity passed before he finally turned around and went back up the steps. He came to a halt in front of Delilah, and she tilted her head up at him expectantly. He leaned in and said something to her. She smiled and looked away. After a moment, he put his fingertips beneath her chin and tilted her face up again.

And then he kissed her.

Just a soft, gentle kiss. The barest brush of his lips against hers that lasted only a few seconds. Delilah put her hand against his arm, resting it there as lightly as a butterfly landing. When Marco pulled away, she put her hand against her chest as if to calm her beating heart.

Marco backed away, but before he could leave the porch, Delilah reached out and caught his arm. Brandon watched, holding his breath. Slowly she coaxed Marco back again, sliding her hand down his arm to take hold of his hand. Then she turned around and led him inside, and the man who had to be reminded to smile was smiling ear to ear.

As the door closed behind them, Brandon felt a rush of pure joy. He pumped his fist in the air.
Yes, yes, yes!

Marco and Delilah desperately needed somebody, and he’d helped them find each other. He didn’t know if it would lead to anything permanent, but at least for one night, maybe the pieces of their hearts that had been iced over for so long would finally begin to thaw.

God
, that felt good.

A three-quarter moon cast a soft glow around the neighborhood, surrounded by a clear, star-filled sky. Brandon drained his beer and set the bottle down on the porch, then started to swing again—back and forth, back and forth—as he listened to the night wind rustling through the trees. And in that moment, the most surprising thought crossed his mind.

Life is good.

Then he thought about Alison, and his heart twisted with regret. He only hoped she and Justin were as happy as Delilah and Marco were right now, no matter how miserable he felt about that himself.

It’s for the best
, he thought.
For both of us.

The next weekend, Justin took Alison to the antique show. It was spectacular in every way, just as she’d expected it would be. Then they went on a third date to dinner and a play at the Eisemann, and when he took her home from that, he actually got up the nerve to kiss her good night. It wasn’t half bad, really. Way better than Randy, who had a tongue like a piece of raw liver.

But not one tenth as good as Brandon.

Over the next few weeks, they occasionally spent time at Justin’s house, a soulless McMansion in West Plano that was very pretty to look at but no different from the twenty other houses on the block. At her condo, the cast of
I Love Lucy
was having a hard time warming up to him, mainly because he had never had cats and was mildly afraid of them. She gave him points for trying, but when Lucy took up residence on the sofa behind his head one evening and started batting at his hair, it was all he could do not to run screaming.

But she was confident he’d learn to love them. Eventually.

They went to Heather and Tony’s one night for dinner, and they had a good time. Heather said he was nice, even though she offered only a halfhearted smile when she said it. Tony said he was nice, too, but Alison got the distinct impression that maybe he’d found that one man he didn’t like. Not that he said that. She was probably just being overly sensitive.

Because Justin
was
nice. And nice was good. Expecting fireworks and arrow‑shooting cupids and starry-eyed infatuation was only going to keep her alone for the rest of her life. It was as she’d always said. Adult relationships were all about modest expectations, and she intended never to forget that again.

As the weeks passed, Brandon had more business than he ever could have anticipated. Most of his days were taken up with appointments, background checks, and phone calls. When he wasn’t busy in the office, he got out and about around town, talking to people wherever he could and passing out his business cards. Pretty soon he had more clients than he knew what to do with. He’d learned which questions to ask and what body language to watch for, so he was having good success with his matches.

Maybe it really was true. Maybe there really was somebody for everybody.

“Do you think people have soul mates?” Brandon asked Tom one evening as they were in the kitchen eating takeout Chinese. “That one person they’re destined to be with?”

“Absolutely,” Tom said, grabbing a crab wonton. “Tracy and I are destined to be together in a big ol’ king-size bed with a six-pack of beer and a stack of condoms on the nightstand. But for some reason, I can’t get her to see that.”

“Seriously.”

“Well, I did read in
Paranormal
magazine that soul mates are people who knew each other in a former life. Then they’re reincarnated and end up together in this life. But that means in order to believe in soul mates, you also have to believe in reincarnation.”

“Hmm. I don’t know about the reincarnation thing, but I’ve made matches for three clients who told me they thought I’d found them their soul mates. I used to think that was a crock, but…” He shrugged.

“Oh, come on. You’re not actually believing your own press, are you? Love is a crapshoot. You said so yourself. Matchmaking is just the power of suggestion. You tell a client that somebody is their soul mate, and because they trust you, they believe it.”

“Yeah. Maybe so.”

“And the more you can get them to believe it, the more money you make. So how’s it going? Your office needs a revolving door to keep up with the traffic. Does that mean you’re on track moneywise?”

“I need to take stock this weekend. Do some projections for the next few weeks. But things are looking good. In fact, I’m sure I’m ahead of schedule.”

“Hey, the quicker you can get the money and shut things down here, the better. Just let me know when to set up the closing. I’m itching to get this project under way.”

“Me, too,” Brandon said, and then wondered why he didn’t really feel the words he was saying.

No. That wasn’t true. Of course he did. The profit potential of the project was huge, and more than once he’d sat back and imagined what it was going to be like to finally have money again, and he’d reveled in the feeling.

So why wasn’t he reveling in it now?

No. That wasn’t true. He was doing plenty of reveling. Who wouldn’t, with that kind of money on the horizon?

But he was also imagining the day he’d have to shut down this business. He’d have to tell his clients he hadn’t matched up yet that he couldn’t work with them anymore, and then send them back out into the world to figure it out for themselves. But if they’d had a chance at finding somebody that way, they never would have hired him in the first place.

Then he thought about Alison. Had she ever looked into Justin’s eyes with that soul-deep twinge of recognition? Did she say to herself,
This is the man. He’s the one I’m destined to be with forever?

Maybe soul mates did exist. And maybe Justin was hers.

Brandon still went to McCaffrey’s once or twice a week, but these days he made it a point to show up only on weekday afternoons when he knew Alison would be at work. He was happy she was happy with Justin. He just didn’t want to see all that happiness in person.

“Here’s what I think we should do once you have the money in place,” Tom said. “We should go to Houston. Sign the papers. Then we can get a couple of rooms at some ridiculously expensive hotel, dump our luggage, and hit the town. With luck, we can round up a few lovely ladies and make an evening of it. It’ll be like that night in Vegas all over again.”

When this whole thing began, Brandon would have looked forward to that right along with Tom. Now it seemed like something he’d done in another lifetime and barely remembered.

Then he heard a knock. He went to the door and looked out the peephole.

Justin?

B
randon opened the door. “Hey, Justin. What can I do for you?”

“I know it’s not your office hours, but I was hoping you’d have a minute.”

There was usually only one reason a client came back for a return visit, and that was because his current match wasn’t working out and he was looking for a new one. What if he’d split with Alison? What if she was free? What if…

“Is something wrong between you and Alison?” he asked.

“No. Of course not.” He paused. “Well, maybe a little. I need your advice about something.”

“Sure. Come in.”

They sat down in the living room, and Justin said, “I know Alison wants to get married someday, and so do I. I have a profitable business. A nice house. Nice car. Money in the bank. So a wife is next.”

Brandon wondered how Alison felt about being number four on Justin’s to‑do list.

“We’ve been dating a while now, and I want to move things to the next level with her, but I’m not sure how to do it.”

“The next level?”

“You’re the kind of guy who’s probably slept with a lot of women, right?”

Good Lord, where was
this
going?
“A few.”

“Right. So I thought maybe you could help me. It’s the next step, you know. Dating for a while, and then sex. But she doesn’t seem all that interested.”

Brandon tried to quell the part of him that was irrationally happy to hear that. “She’s doesn’t?”

“No. And I don’t know why.”

I’ll tell you why. You’re a screaming bore.
“No idea at all?”

“No. I cooked dinner for her the other night. I lit candles. Played music. But…nothing. She said she needed to get up early to do some work from the office, and she left right after dinner.”

Brandon felt a surge of pleasure over that, only to slap it away.
This is what she wants, so help the guy get it right. You want her to be happy, don’t you?

Yes. He did. So he said the words that almost made him choke. “Maybe you should take her away for the weekend.”

“A weekend getaway? I’ve heard women like those.
Hmm.
I have a certificate for a free night’s stay at the Holiday Inn in Waco. My TV wasn’t working the last time I was there, so they gave me a voucher for a free night.”

Was this guy as clueless as he sounded? Yeah, it was the ultimate seduction scenario, all right. A crappy double bed with kids screaming next door and a free buffet breakfast.

“No,” Brandon said. “Someplace nice. Go to Austin or San Antonio. And think five stars.”

“Hmm. They have that river in San Antonio. And the Alamo.”

“Justin. No Alamo.”

“But she likes old stuff.”

“This isn’t a sightseeing weekend. You’re there for romance. Two hundred people died at the Alamo. Death is not romantic.
No Alamo.
”

“Yeah. Okay. I hear you.”

“Take her to the Hotel Contessa on the River Walk. Dinner at Le Rêve.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“Is she worth it?”

The man hesitated. He actually
hesitated
. Brandon had the urge to smack him one to get him really clear about the woman he was hesitating about.

“Yes. Of course she is.”

Damned right she is.

“And I do want to take things to the next level.”

“Then pull out all the stops,” Brandon said. “Romance her like you’ve never romanced a woman before.”

“Thanks,” Justin said. “I really do want to do this right. I like Alison. I like her a lot. I think we could…you know. Eventually get serious. But sex is the next step, right?”

“Yep. That’s the next step.” A step he didn’t really want to talk about anymore since he wasn’t the one taking that step with her.

“Thanks for the advice,” Justin said. “I’m going to try to set something up for a week from Friday.”

Then he shook Brandon’s hand. For the first time. Brandon noticed what a weak grip Justin had. He’d always believed that men with weak handshakes were weak in other ways, as well. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

It didn’t matter. He was the right guy. Just what Alison was looking for.

Weak handshake and all.

A few days later, Brandon slid onto a bar stool at McCaffrey’s, intending to relax for a while and catch a Rangers game. The place was rarely busy on weekday afternoons, so he usually found himself sitting on the same stool and ordering the same beer. Heather was behind the bar when he came in, and before he even sat down, she had that usual beer in front of him.

He’d come to realize that, in general, Heather ran the business end of the place with a firm hand, while Tony’s job was to make sure anyone who walked through the door felt comfortable enough to sit down and stay a while. Their marriage was clearly a case of opposites attracting, but anyone who stopped long enough to watch them saw just how much they loved each other.

Until now, Brandon had been the kind of guy who wouldn’t have noticed that in a million years. But in the past few months, he saw love and romance wherever he turned. A young couple pushing a baby in a stroller down State Street. An elderly couple sitting in lawn chairs beneath their magnolia tree. Twenty‑somethings in this very bar executing every imaginable kind of mating ritual. And the people who came to him looking for that one special person to make their lives complete. He’d become so immersed in getting new clients and making one match after another sometimes he almost forgot what his life had been like before.

Heather rested her forearms on the bar. “So did you see who’s sitting in the corner booth?”

Brandon turned around to look, and he immediately wished he hadn’t.

Alison was there with Justin.

Just then she turned and saw him staring. She froze for a moment, then looked away, turning her attention back to Justin. No wave, no smile, no nothing. So she wasn’t even going to speak to him. She was going to act as if he wasn’t there. But did he really want to talk to her? Especially when she was sitting with the guy who was going to be spending a romantic weekend with her?

By what seemed like mutual consent, he and Heather hadn’t discussed Alison at all these past few weeks. It was as if the moment he set her up with Justin, the topic became off limits.

“I thought Alison worked until five,” he said.

“She took the day off to take her cats for their annual checkup,” Heather said. “Evidently that’s quite an ordeal.”

“Justin skipped out of work, too?”

“He’s the boss. He can do anything he wants to.”

Yeah. He was a highly successful businessman who could put a diamond ring on Alison’s finger and promise her forever.

“So I guess they’re getting along pretty well,” he said.

“You haven’t talked to her lately?”

“Not since right after her first date with him. Once I know things are going well, I usually just step aside. So what’s he doing here with her today?”

“He had a meeting in East Plano, so they met for a late lunch.” Heather wiped some water drops from the bar with a dishrag. “Do you know why they’re sitting in a booth?”

“Uh…no. Why?”

“Because Justin says the bar stools are bad for his back. He has slight curvature of the spine, you know.”

Actually, Brandon didn’t know that. And really, he could have lived from now on without ever knowing it.

Heather wiped some more, even though the water drops had long since disappeared. “He doesn’t like her hot pink pumps.”

“What?”

“You know the ones.”

He did. He’d go to his grave with those shoes indelibly imprinted on his brain. “Why doesn’t he like them?”

“Because he’s only three inches taller than she is, and when she wears them, she can look down at the top of his head. I think he’s self-conscious about his bald spot.”

Brandon wanted to ask why Justin was concerned with his bald spot when he could be looking at Alison’s legs in those incredible shoes, but who was he to judge?

“When he eats, he doesn’t like one food on his plate to touch another one,” Heather said.

What did she want him to say to that? The truth? That it was just a little bit weird?

“He has three humidifiers in his house,” Heather said, just about wiping a hole through the bar. “He says he needs to keep his nasal mucosa moist.”

“So?”

Heather threw the dishrag down and leaned in, her voice an irate whisper. “So why did you set her
up
with him?”

Brandon drew back with surprise. “What?”

“Okay, I know I shouldn’t say anything, but Justin is
such
a drag.” She pointed to the dishrag. “Alison turns about as animated as
that
every time he walks into the room.”

“He’s everything she said she wanted in a man.”

“Then maybe you need to read between the lines.”

Brandon turned away. “Not my job.”

“Beg to differ. It’s your job to set her up with the right man.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Justin.”

“But there’s not much right about him, either.”

“Yeah, there is. He’s smart, decent looking, successful—”

“He’s a
bore
.”

“Alison is my client. She’s the one I answer to.”

“Okay,” Heather said. “Better question. What’s going on between you two?”

Brandon’s heart skipped. “What do you mean?”

“Something was happening between you that night at the bar when her father was taken to the emergency room, and it looked like a good thing to me. And then you set her up with that guy.”

And that was just about to kill him, no matter how much he wanted to say it didn’t.

“And when you turned around just now and saw her with Justin…well, let’s just say you weren’t a happy man.”

“Hey, you wanted me as far away from Alison as possible, remember? So I’m giving you what you wanted.”

“Yeah. About that.” She exhaled. “I was wrong about you, Brandon. You’re not the kind of guy I thought you were. I treated you like crap, and I’m sorry.”

No, damn it, she hadn’t been wrong. She’d been so right it was scary.

“I appreciate that,” he said. “I never wanted any hard feelings.”

“I can’t get anything out of Alison. She just keeps saying she thinks Justin is the one, and that she’s very happy.”

“Then I think you need to take her at her word.” Brandon rose from his bar stool.

“She hasn’t slept with him yet,” Heather said.

Brandon kept his face impassive, as if it didn’t matter at all. But for some reason, it mattered very much.

“But that won’t last for long,” Heather went on. “He’s taking her to San Antonio this weekend. They’re staying in a nice hotel on the River Walk.” She paused. “One room.”

He wished Heather hadn’t brought that up. Not that he intended to tell her he was the one who had suggested the trip in the first place. He just could have done without somebody else saying it out loud when he was already having such a hard time pretending it wasn’t happening.

“How do you feel about that?” Heather asked.

Brandon tossed a few bills on the bar. “I think San Antonio is fun. The weather should be nice. If they get there before sunset—”

“It’s you she wants.”

Don’t tell me that. I already know, and it’s killing me.

He knew it in the way she’d looked at him that night, the way she’d kissed him, the way her eyes had been filled with disappointment when he’d turned her down. But he could never be the kind of man she needed. Justin could.

“No,” he said. “It’s Justin she wants. And that’s the end of it.”

With that, he left the bar, telling himself it was the last time he was going to risk stepping foot in McCaffrey’s again.

On Monday afternoon, Alison was sitting at her desk reading her e-mail and eating her third Mallorific bar of the day, when Lois sidled up next to her.

“So…you got any jobs for me?”

“No,” Alison said. “Not right now.”

“It’s been a while. Sure you don’t need some letterhead?”

“Nope.”

“Brochures?”

“Nope.”

“Door hangers?”

“Nope.”

“Surely that matchmaker guy needs something else.”

“No,” Alison said through gritted teeth.
“Nothing.”

Lois’s eyes shifted back and forth. “You can’t just
do
that, Alison.”

“Do what?”

“Give me work, then take it away. It’s like you laid me off, or something.”

“It’s contract work. That’s the way it goes.”

“You don’t have to be so mean about it.”

Alison spun around. “Lois. That’s not the only way you can get Godiva. You want Godiva? Go buy it.”

Lois gasped. “Will you keep your voice
down
?” She leaned in, berating Alison with a furious whisper. “I don’t buy competitor’s products!”

But you sure do eat them
.

“Wait a minute,” Lois whispered angrily. “I know what you’re doing. You’re giving the jobs to Sherri. You’ve always liked her better than me.”

Alison liked just about anybody better than Lois, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that nobody else in this place would do hundreds of dollars of work on the side for a box of chocolates, so really, Sherri wasn’t even an option. Assuming there were going to be more jobs, which there weren’t.

“No, Lois. I’m not giving work to Sherri, either.”

“Fine.” Lois started for her cubicle, only to turn back with a hopeful expression. “Have you thought about postcards? Maybe those oversized ones—”

“Don’t need them.”

“His website could use some work.”

“Maybe later.”

“Magnets. People keep those. I could design you a—”

“Lois,” Alison snapped. “There will be no more Godiva. There will be no more jobs. None. Never again. Do you hear me?”

Lois drew back. “Well, okay. You don’t have to bite the head right off my shoulders.” She started toward her desk, then looked back. “It’s like I’ve always said. You’re not a nice person, Alison. No matter what people say.”

No. She
was
a nice person. Brandon had told her so. Many times. He might even have said so again if she’d been nice enough to speak to him yesterday afternoon at McCaffrey’s. Then again, he hadn’t exactly jumped up off his bar stool to greet her, either. She’d thought about casually asking Heather if he’d said anything about her, but that would be an admission that she cared either way, which she didn’t.