The Matchmakers (8 page)

 
`Show me your wings,
Tinkerbell.Ćhapter Ten Callie’s big green eyes grew even wider at his
suggestion, and Nick had to ask himself why all this wasn’t enough to make him
believe. For heaven’s sake, the greater miracle would have been that the Minuteman
Motel raked in enough profit to remodel even
one
of its rooms into something that rivaled the VIP suites he’d
seen in Vegas or Atlantic City. There wasn’t a place east of the Poconos with
rooms this fabulous. `Ask me something else. Anything else.´ Was there a hint
of panic in her voice? `Why? Don’t all faeries have wings?´ `Yes. But I’m not
allowed to show anyone. That’s one of Freya’s strict rules. No wish granting
and no«wing-showing. Period. Now, how about that leprechaun? Or a pixie? I can
parade a herd of centaurs through your living room or maybe even a unicorn scratch
that. I can’t do a unicorn.´ He grinned, not sure why he was enjoying this so
much. `Why not? Maybe a unicorn would do it.´ `They’re only visible to virgins,
Nick. I venture I’m about fifteen years too late for
you
to see a unicorn.Śhe matched his self-satisfied smirk. `Fourteen
years, if you must know. How about you?´ Her jaw dropped, but she recovered her
shock and matched his smile. `Two hundred and seventy-seven. And that’s only
because I was a late bloomer.´ He laughed. `So you’re two hundred and
seventy-seven years old?Ánd she’d taken offense at his remark about not
thinking she was a runaway teenager? `That’s absurd. What kind of a Fae do you
think I am? I’m three hundred and twenty-nine.´ He looked at her. `Okay, three
thirty, but my birthday was last month. That’s the last time I grant a birthday
wish.´ Nick eyed the hot tub and the faux waterfall that trickled down from
mossy boulders into the frothy depths of contoured blue-green vinyl. `So you
got in trouble by granting yourself a birthday wish?´ `No. Not me. I granted
someone else my birthday wish.´ Her voice became distant. He turned and found
her perched on the arm of the sectional sofa, studying her fingernails. `Her
name was Felicia. My job was to help her find true love with Paul, her
childhood sweetheart.´ `Let me guess: Paul wasn’t interested.Śhe gave him
a shocked look and clucked her tongue. `Why do you assume it’s the man who has
to be convinced of these things? Paul was not the problem at all. He loved her,
always had loved her, but she didn’t believe it. Felicia was a bit of a Plain
Jane. She’d never really spread her«wings«and she wanted to. She needed to
before she could understand that what she had with Paul was the real thing.

 
She couldn’t see that he was the man
of her dreams because her dreams involved another man, a man who naturally didn’t
have the time of day for her.´ `And we’re back to my theory.´ Nick took the
other end of the sofa and leaned back in the cushions. God, with a cold beer
and that popcorn she’d been talking about, heaven was only a click of the TV remote
away. `Please.´ `So what happened? You granted Plain Jane her wish, and she
caught the eye of the wrong guy.Ćallie nodded. `It wasn’t supposed to be
forever. I just wanted her to gain a little confidence. The other man Jack he
fell hard and Felicia was thrilled. I’m ashamed to say it made me feel good to
see her so happy.´ `Why should you be ashamed of that? Isn’t that your job?´ `No.
My job is to do what Freya tells me. Felicia and Paul. They were the job.
Felicia and Jack well, that was a disaster.´ `He hurt her?´ `Nope.
She
hurt
him
. Ripped out his lying, cheating, skirt-chasing heart and
showed it to him.´ Nick paled. Heart-ripping didn’t bode well. `Not
literally.Ćallie tossed her head and clucked her tongue again. `You see,
Jack was like you. He loved for the moment, bounced from woman to woman, bed to
bed ´ `I don’t bounce from bed to bed.´ Who was he kidding? He just didn’t like
being reminded of it. `Jack had all the right moves, and his plans included
using Felicia like he’d used a dozen other women before her, and then something
bad happened.´ Nick leaned forward. `She killed him?´ `Of course not! He fell
in love with her. Real, true love. The kind that doesn’t come along that often
and stays with you for the rest of your life, no matter what else happens to
you.´ `But she loved him, too, right?´ `Nope. She loved what he represented. She
loved the freedom from the lifelong assumption that she’d end up with Paul.´ `So
she broke Paul’s heart, too?´ `Shattered. It takes a lot to destroy true love,
but with my help, Felicia managed to do it.´ Nick saw the color rise in Callie’s
cheeks. The admission shamed her, and that bothered him. She’d tried to help
someone and had gotten burned for it. It didn’t seem fair.

 
`So what happened?´ `Freya stepped
in. She has the power to undo things«things done by Fae, anyway. She was able
to negate the wish I granted Felicia and turn things back, but that came with a
price.´ `Your banishment.´ `A price for Felicia as well. She never gained the
confidence her relationship with Jack gave her. She loves Paul and he loves
her, and they’ll be together forever as they should have been, but she’s always
going to wonder what might have been. She’ll never act on those feelings. She’ll
never see Jack again, and he’ll continue on as the womanizer he was because he’ll
never fall in love the way he fell for Felicia. But no one gets hurt this way.´
Nick contemplated. Wasn’t it better when no one got hurt? `And for that,
you«and me«we have to do this thing for Freya so we don’t end up like
Jack?Ćallie nodded. `Don’t think you’re an innocent bystander to my train
wreck, Nick Garrett. Freya picked you because you
are
Jack. You’re just like him, and she saw what happened to him
when he cared for Felicia. It changed him completely. Having her in his life
righted some kind of wrong that had shaped his psyche and made him a user.´ Nick’s
brow wrinkled. A minute ago he’d felt sorry for Jack; now he wanted no part of
his association with the guy. `His last name didn’t happen to be µthe Ripper’,
by any chance? You’re making me out to be some kind of monster.´ `You’re not a
monster, Nick, and neither was Jack, but without love, who knows what you’ll
become. This is Freya’s gift to you, to all the men like Jack.´ Nick shifted on
the comfortable cushions to face her. `Explain to me how being able to have my
heart ripped out is a gift.´ `Do I have to spell it out for you?´ Her
exasperated sigh echoed in the room, which seemed twice as large as it should
be. `Yes, please.´ `To lose your ability to love will destroy part of your
soul. You don’t want that, Nick. I know you don’t want to go from this«to
this
.Śhe punctuated her statement
with a wave of the remote control in her hand. In less than the wink of an eye,
their surroundings changed. Nick found himself sitting on a lumpy twin bed,
facing a dusty mirror rather than a plasma screen. Callie now perched on a
straight-backed chair near where the bubbling Jacuzzi had been a moment ago. `Does
that illustrate my point?´ Nick blinked. Her disappearing act had been one
thing, but this was beyond anything he’d ever seen. `How exactly do you do
that?Śhe shrugged. `It’s magick, not science.´ `If you can do that, why
can’t you just make people fall in love?´ `I can’t create love. I can only help
it along, and right now, I can’t even do that without your help.´ `Hmm«so, if I
help you, will you bring back the TV?Ín response, she launched the remote at
him. He caught it, laughing. `I’m kidding. You’ve convinced me. I don’t
understand any of this, but I believe it. I’ll help you.´ `Thank you.´ Nick
shrugged, dismissing the sincerity in her tone. `Where do we start?Éven as he
said the words, though, he had a sinking feeling he would live to regret them. Hours
later, Nick rolled over and focused his bleary gaze on the alarm clock. Six AM.
He had to search his tired brain for the date« Saturday, as he recalled. He’d
crawled into bed just after two o’clock, leaving Callie curled up on the sofa
under his NY Mets blanket, flipping through cable channels and scribbling notes
on an old legal pad he’d found at the bottom of the kitchen junk drawer. She’d
refused to evict him from his bed, and some previously undiscovered part of his
psyche refused to ask her to join him. That alone made him question his sanity.
Despite his grudging acceptance of her Fae nature, something would not allow
him to take advantage of her. He told himself it was his long lost sense of
chivalry bubbling to the surface. Or maybe it was the irrational fear that her
Fae goddess was correct in some divine assumption that he was nothing more than
a rutting male, fit for no purpose other than to serve as a punishment to an
errant faerie. He groaned. He’d already taxed his brain too much for one
morning. He gave the clock an evil glare and rolled back onto his stomach just
as the tantalizing aroma of eggs, toast and fresh brewed coffee wafted into the
bedroom. His stomach rumbled, and he decided sleep could wait. He rolled out of
bed and followed his nose to the kitchen. He found her there, barefoot and
dressed in loose gray sweats and the clingy Farley’s t-shirt. She looked hot
and sweet and adorable as she tried to keep a dozen huge oranges from rolling
off the kitchen counter. Despite the sudden yearning in his gut, Nick leaned
against the kitchen doorjamb and watched her, fascinated and a little
dumbfounded by what he’d gotten himself into. One softball-sized orange bounced
onto the linoleum, narrowly missing her bare toes. She sighed in frustration
and bent to retrieve it just as two others plunged from the counter. `Gravity
be damned!śhe muttered. His laugh startled her, and she jumped at his
intrusion. He crossed the kitchen and scooped up the fallen fruit for her. `What
are you doing?´ The sound of sizzling eggs drew his attention to the frying pan
on the stove where fluffy yellow mounds gave off a mouthwatering aroma. There
hadn’t been a single egg in his fridge last night, or a fresh orange, or any of
the other ingredients she had arranged on the counter and the kitchen table. `Pulp
or no pulp?śhe asked, gesturing with the point of a very sharp knife
before she sliced an orange in half. `You’re squeezing orange juice?´ `Of
course.´ `They sell it already squeezed, you know.´ `I know.´ `When did you go
shopping?´ The look she gave him answered his question. `Scrambled, right?´ `Yeah«
If you popped all this into existence, is it«real?Ágain with the look. She
handed him a piece of toast, which burned his fingers before he tossed it on a plate.
`Feel real?´ `Why not just pop in some fresh squeezed orange juice? Or
breakfast in bed?´ He moved over to investigate the eggs further. They looked
perfect. He turned off the burner and shuffled the pan a little, thinking that
even the women he slept with didn’t make him breakfast most of the time.

           
`Cooking helps me think.
Plus, popping things into existence all over the place takes a lot of energy,
and after a while, I’d start to fade. I have to admit, I went a little crazy
last night at the motel. I wore myself out, and I actually fell asleep for a
little while.´ `Hmm.´ Nick scanned the kitchen trying to figure out whose life
he’d woken up in this morning. The table was set for two. The place smelled
heavenly, and the beautiful girl who’d spent the night on his couch was handing
him a plate of scrambled eggs. What if he got used to this? How had it
happened? Yesterday he had a stalker. Today«a housekeeper. What would he have
tomorrow? God help him, a wife? On that disturbing thought, his appetite fled. `Nick?
Are you in there?´ `Hmm.´ He took a seat, and she handed him a steaming mug of
coffee. He had to concentrate on not dropping it. She pulled up the other
chair, sat and began slathering butter on a piece of toast. `I’ve been thinking
about our options here. I considered starting an online dating service, but
that could take too long to build a database of people and get them to meet
face to face. What about an in-person matchmaking service? We can draft a
questionnaire to hand out around town, put an ad in the Yellow Pages. Then we
could find a place to get everyone together, like a hall or something Nick?´ `Huh?´
`Drink some coffee.´ `I’m not a morning person,´ he mumbled, raising the mug to
his lips. `No kidding.Śhe arched a perfect brow and took a bite of toast. `I
put an X through video dating, too. It tends to attract smarmies. I think we’ll
have better luck if we keep things small and intimate
 
        
very
one on one. I’m going to apply for a waitressing job at Farley’s, and if you
ask around at work tomorrow and get some more background on Teresa and John ´ Smarmies?
`Slow down, Tinkerbell. The caffeine hasn’t reached my brain yet. A waitressing
job?´ The thought of men hitting on Callie the way they hit on Diane and Hayden
made Nick irritable. `That way I can keep an eye on Diane and Farley and make
sure things go smoothly.´ Nick laughed into his mug. `If you wanted things to
go smoothly, you shouldn’t have picked Diane and Farley.´ `Well, what do you
suggest? In fact, we have to go back there tonight and find out how the flat
tire worked. For all we know, we could be one down already.´ `You think it’ll
happen that fast?´ He gave her a skeptical look. Her pert nose wrinkled. `Why
not? True love happens fast. Why do you think we’ve only got sixty days? We’re
expected to unite couples who are already meant for each other. It should be
easy.´ Nick took another swallow of coffee. Damn, it was perfect coffee. `Aren’t
you the cock-eyed optimist?´ he said after perusing the eggs on his plate. `There’s
nothing easy about love, Tinkerbell. Nothing easy at all.Ćhapter Eleven After
breakfast, Callie left Nick in the kitchen investigating the now fully stocked
refrigerator. She made her way to the bedroom where she changed her clothes,
choosing faded jeans and a denim work shirt over a plain white t-shirt. She
surveyed her reflection in the mirror. She looked like a lumberjack’s bride,
and the October chill made her feel like a Popsicle. She couldn’t even stretch
her wings. She needed a good stretch, too, somewhere far away from Nick. Ever
since he’d shown up in the kitchen, shirtless, his sun-streaked hair pleasantly
messy and a night’s growth of stubble darkening his jaw, she’d felt unbalanced
and oddly self-conscious. Sitting across the table from him, watching him
through the steam rising from his coffee mug, she’d entertained the treacherous
thought that he was too handsome for his own good, sexy in fact. That assessment
in itself was understandable. Men who easily met society’s standards for good
looks were often those more inclined to womanize. It made sense and fit with
the way humans, and all animals, had been designed. Alpha males had a greater
desire and a greater ability to spread their DNA. They attracted, and were
attracted to, a greater number of females. Even though Callie’s very existence
transcended science, she possessed a hearty respect for the irrefutable facts
of biology. What bothered her was not that, as a female of her species, she
could appreciate his muscular arms and smooth chest, sprinkled with fine blond
hairs, or find his granite jaw and the cleft in his strong chin faintly endearing.
No. What bothered Callie was that while she’d been savagely buttering a piece
of toast that she didn’t intend to eat, her gaze had roamed unbidden down his
denim-clad thighs and back up to those icy-blue eyes. Heavy-lidded, with a
mixture of sleepiness and inherent male confusion, they’d drawn her in and
destroyed the Zen calm she’d attempted to create with the project of cooking
breakfast.