Matchmakers Box Set: Matchmakers, Encore, Finding Hope (26 page)

In all the years she’d had that scar, no one had asked her what had happened in such a way. No, instead they had looked at it and made their own conclusions. Which still, to this day, made her angry. Anyone who’d been around her biological mother assumed they were the same. She’d tried to slit her wrists, so her daughter must have done the same damn thing. Then there was that school counselor. Carissa almost couldn’t breathe.

She’d called her a liar and her father one as well. Convinced that he was covering for her, she’d threatened to take Carissa from her father. All because of the stupid scar on her wrist from a bicycle accident.

Sophia had scars, and they had bonded over them. They’d declared themselves warriors and never hid them again under necklaces, scarves, bracelets, or long sleeves. But pride in showing her scars didn’t stop people from assuming she’d tried to end it all.

She let out a long, steady breath and let the sadness she felt from people not believing her drain away.

Then there was Thomas, who assumed nothing. She’d known Thomas Samuel going on three days, and already she was shedding tears over him, after having been fairly suggestive toward him. What had her mother done by bringing him into their lives?

Carissa sat up. Oh, dear God! She’d been set up. She set her jaw. What was Sophia thinking? Matchmaking was Katie and her Aunt Millie’s game, not her mother’s. Why would she think she needed to be set up?

At twenty-five, she was far from being a spinster. She’d had her share of relationships. Okay, so at best, she’d dated. But to call in a stranger… Carissa stood and paced the room again.

She’d heard stories about Thomas, sure. Not that she’d ever paid too much attention. Sophia only spoke to Carissa of the legendary Pablo, and those who toured with him, when they would sit and play their cellos together. Carissa knew it was Sophia’s way of not bringing it up in front of her father. After all, for years he’d thought Sophia had left him for Pablo. It was a sore subject.

When Carissa had approached her mother about the school, her eyes lit up. “You’ll need help,” she’d said.

“I thought you’d help me.”

“I’m busy with Hope. But I know someone who could use some roots, and he’s one hell of a musician.” In no time, Thomas Samuel was on his way back to the States to live. What kind of power did Sophia Kendal have over this man?

And now, what kind of power did he have over Carissa?

She certainly wasn’t a winner in the relationship department. The last thing she wanted was a broken heart, and she’d been fairly successful in avoiding them. If things needed to be ended, she ended them. She wasn’t about to pine for a man who didn’t want her. However, she was fairly sure that Thomas Samuel wanted her. And likewise, she couldn’t stop thinking she wanted much more from him than just to be smitten.

Carissa started pulling off her running clothes and throwing them into the laundry basket. She caught sight of the scar on her wrist. Damn, it had hurt. She ran her fingers over it. How she hadn’t broken her arm she’d never know. A smile slipped across her lips. Thomas had noticed the scar, but it had taken three days, and when he saw it, he didn’t assume. He didn’t think she’d done something so horrible to scar herself. She sucked in a breath to steady herself. Things were going to be different with Thomas Samuel around.

Grateful that Carissa had loaned him her car keys, Thomas drove through town in search of a haircut.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in Kansas City. Maybe he’d never been. He laughed at himself. He was alone in a car, and he was laughing at himself. A year ago that would have been a sure sign he needed a drink. Even thinking about that now made his palms sweat.

“Keep it together, man,” he warned himself as he came upon a barbershop. Just the sight of it had him wincing.

The last time he’d been in a barbershop, his father had dragged him there. He hadn’t approved of the length of Thomas’s hair and was bound and determined to make his point.

Thomas parked the car, squared his shoulders, and went inside.

There was a line of men on a bench, and all eyes turned to him when he walked through the door. He hung his jacket on the rack near the door. Instructions were called out to him to sit and wait, and he did.

Men came and went, and the line moved down the bench.

As the next chair opened, Thomas stood and started toward the space. At the same time, the door opened and a young man, perhaps fifteen years old, walked in and headed toward the open chair.

“What are you doing here? You have practice,” the barber said to the boy.

“Didn’t want to go. Thought I’d see if you needed help here.”

“You think you can just miss practice and the coach will let you play? Go.” He turned back to Thomas and nodded with his head for him to sit in the chair. Thomas sat as the man reached for a cape to drape over him.

“I’m not going back.” The boy moved closer to the man, as if daring him to scold him more. “If you don’t need my help, fine, but I don’t care about basketball and I’m not going back.”

The boy turned to walk out, but the barber grabbed his arm and swung him around. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that.”

Thomas sat only inches away. He could see the marks the man was making on the young boy’s arm. His own arm began to ache from the memory of having been grabbed like that.

He swallowed hard and stood from the chair. “So, you play basketball?” His voice cracked as both sets of eyes turned toward him. “Great sport.”

“No one asked for you to talk to my son.” The barber stiffened his back, but kept his grip on his son.

“No, but I think you could let go of him and have a discussion rather than hurt him like you are.”

The man let go of his son’s arm and took a step toward Thomas. His heart began to race, and he could feel the sweat bead on his forehead. It had been a while since he’d been hit. He braced for it.

The man walked up to him until they were chest to chest. Thomas saw the fear in the young boy’s face as he turned and ran from the shop.

“You have something to say?”

Thomas balled his fists at his sides. “I don’t think you should touch him like that.”

The barber kept his eyes directed on Thomas. He ran his tongue on the inside of his cheek, moving closer to Thomas until he nudged him backward.

“Why don’t you get the hell out of here and never, ever come back.”

Thomas sucked in a breath and stepped to the side, away from the chair. He noticed all eyes were on him, but he kept walking.

He released his fists and let the door slam behind him.

Perhaps he hadn’t stopped the young boy from eventually getting beaten, but for that moment, the boy had gotten away.

He hurried to the car and fell into the seat behind the wheel. Breathing deeply, he tried to slow his heart rate. No child, no matter the age, deserved to be treated the way that man treated that boy or his father had treated him.

Trying to control his anger, he drove toward the mall. He’d just find one of those franchise places and get his haircut.

He emerged an hour later from the mall salon looking well-groomed, he thought. His nerves were still shaky, and his jaw hurt from grinding his teeth when he thought of the man. He didn’t want to go back to the house in that state of mind, so he decided to walk around the mall to kill time before he returned.

He’d been only a moment from pounding his fist into the face of the man who’d made him so angry. The beer-gut-and-bar-fight build of the barber guaranteed he’d have beaten Thomas down, but it didn’t matter. No one deserved to have children when he treated them like that.

He walked down the mall, looking in windows.

He gave it some thought. Only someone who couldn’t control his anger would think of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong and hitting a man over his own family business. He sucked in a breath. It was only proof that he was no better than his father. But the cycle would stop with him. He’d never have a child that he could pass on such a trait to. No, the anger and abuse stopped with him. It was the least he could do for humanity.

He continued his walk through the mall. Things had changed a lot in the eighteen years that he’d been away from the States. The mall crowd seemed so much younger than he’d remembered. When had he gotten so old?

There’d been a time he and Sophia would talk about what they’d missed stateside while living in Europe. There were stores, restaurants, scenic spots. She’d always kept a place in Seattle, but he’d never had one except for in Rome.

After a while, they didn’t miss anything. Well, she missed David, he decided. Eventually she left everything to return to him, as she should have done much earlier in her career.

He stopped at the food court and bought a hot dog and soda. Even those standbys tasted so different from the ones in Rome.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d sat in the food court watching people pass by him, but it amused him. Everyone had their own agenda. He recognized the men who were being dragged through the mall by the women that were three steps ahead of them. He recognized the woman on a mission. He’d seen that same expression on his mother’s face a time or two. Then there were the teenage girls that were there to be seen and heard. He wondered if that was once Carissa.

Thomas tried to imagine her childhood.

He knew she’d showed up on David and Sophia’s doorstep when she was very young. Sophia left to play with Pablo after that. He really didn’t know about Carissa at all.

He took a sip of his soda, which had gone flat, and decided he’d been there longer than he’d thought. He tossed his trash in the bin and walked down the mall. He was tempted to buy something to make his room at Katie’s homey. However, doing so would say he was laying down roots, and he wasn’t sure he could commit to that. Sure, when Sophia had first called and offered him the chance to help start the school, he’d have bought land and built a house. Now, after spending a few days with Carissa, he couldn’t make that kind of statement. Eventually he was going to break her heart and hurt her. He just hoped he could convince her to move on from any feelings he knew she was having before he did just that. Even worse, he was afraid he’d physically hurt her, and that had his stomach tied in knots, especially after the incident at the barbershop.

Outside a store window, he had to squeeze his eyes shut. In all his life, he’d never raised his hand to another human being. More than enough times, he’d been on the receiving end of it all, but never the giving. Yet how far did that have to travel in your blood before you did it? After all, he’d turned into a raging alcoholic and almost killed one of his dearest friends.

Pablo had destroyed his career in Rome for what he’d done to Pierre, and who could blame him? Sophia’s call had come at the right time. He’d been without work for a long time, and without Pablo’s support in the music community, Thomas was just a washed-up pianist. If Pablo could, he would bury Thomas’s career completely.

“Thomas?” He heard his name called from behind him, and he snapped around to see Sophia and Katie slowly walking toward him. He adjusted his attitude and put on his best smile.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Sophia said as she approached him. “You looked deep in thought.”

“I suppose I was.”

“Are you doing some shopping?”

“Just killing time. Carissa is working, so she loaned me her car.”

“All the better. She hates being interrupted when she works. Let’s just say, there’s a Jekyll and Hyde personality that comes out.”

Thomas smiled. He knew others like that. Sophia, for one.

“So what are your plans for the rest of the day?” she continued.

“I think I’ll drive around town and get acquainted a bit. Maybe you could give me directions to the school, and I could stop by and help David.”

Sophia nodded and began to look through her purse for a pen and a piece of paper.

“I think Carissa and I are going to go to dinner tonight.” He said it as nonchalantly as he could, but Sophia’s head snapped up.

“Really?” Her eyes opened wide, and a smile slid across her lips. “I heard she dragged you out for a run to The Spot for breakfast, too.”

“That she did. She runs faster than you ever did.”

Sophia laughed and went back to writing out directions to the school on the back of a receipt.

“Okay, here are directions from the mall and then directions back home.”

“You know me too well, dear friend.”

“I hope so.”

Thomas took his instructions, said his goodbyes, and headed back down the mall toward the parking lot.

Katie scanned her granddaughter’s face. “Sophia, what are you doing?”

“Nothing, Grandma.”

Katie smiled with a shake of her head. “Well, at least I taught you well. Matchmaking is an art, and you can’t meddle too much or it gets sloppy.”

“I agree. Carissa’s smarter than I am and has a stronger will. He’ll be either in or out, but by the sounds of it, he’s in.”

“I raised a hopeless romantic.” Katie began pushing her walker down the mall and Sophia followed, laughing.

“No, Grandma, I’m a hopeful romantic.”

David walked out of the building toting a two-by-four as Carissa’s car pulled up in front and parked. He was sure she was there to check up on his progress. She’d already called three times. When he saw Thomas climb from the driver’s seat and Carissa wasn’t with him, mild apprehension rose in his belly.

“Hey.” He gave Thomas a nod as he headed to the chop saw set up just outside the door and set the board on the saw’s table. He pulled the pencil from behind his ear and darkened the line he’d made inside earlier. “Did you come to offer a hand?”

“Well, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not much of a handy kind of guy, but I thought I’d come by and see what I could help out with. Carissa has students all day. I’d just be in her way.”

David chewed on the inside of his cheek and considered him with a nod.

“Cutting that board or taking a break?” Jeremy walked outside and stopped, scanning a look over Thomas. “Oh, hi.”