Make Me a Match

by Diana Holquist

  “That is the most ridiculous—”

  “Dr. Burns, I think I need a thorough physical.” He leaned in even farther.

  She could feel his hot breath. My God, he’s gorgeous. This affirmation made her whole body feel like a cascade of tumbling molecules. Then she thought, My lord, he’s about to kiss me, and snapped out of her lust-induced haze long enough to pull away from him.

  What was she doing? She was engaged. So, he was gorgeous? Gorgeous didn’t mean True Love. Gorgeous and electric and slightly smoky around the eyes meant True Lust—even more dangerous than True Love. Lust made a person make mistakes. It made a person do terrible things that engaged, co-op-owning doctors didn’t do, like kissing hunky strangers in the park. She backed away from him. “You need a psychiatrist,” she said.

  “Me? I’m not the one picking up strange men in parks.”

  Cecelia sighed. “Can’t a woman slip a man a note saying that he’s dying without it being taken as a proposition?” Hmmm, that didn’t come out exactly as she planned.

  He squinted one eye.

  “Oh, forget it,” she said irritably.

  He rubbed his chin. “Look. I’d love to forget this. But first, you have to give me a better explanation for your weirdo behavior. So, are we going to have a beer after the game to talk about your trawling-for-jocks-in-the-park problem or not?”

  “That depends,” she said. She had to think. This was definitely not going as planned. First, she hadn’t accomplished her mission if he thought her letter was just some lame pickup prank. Second, she was letting his good looks—okay, his fiendish sexiness—get the best of her. She couldn’t run back to Jack and her comfortable world until she made sure that he believed her message.

  Unless, of course, she didn’t have to deliver her message. “I know that this sounds peculiar, but what’s your middle name?” she asked.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “You think that sounds peculiar? Cecelia Burns, M.D., peculiar doesn’t even begin to describe anything about the last few days. Listen, I’ve got to get back to the field. Meet me after the game. Trudy’s Bar. I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Tell me your middle name. Please? I won’t bug you again.”

  “No way, Doctor.” He stood up straight. “My middle name is my secret until you give me some satisfactory answers.”

  Suddenly a rough, gravelly voice broke through the trees. “Hey, Finn, you two-timing weasel. What are you doing? Taking a crap back there? Pull up your pants and get the hell out on that field before I send out the dogs.”

  “Your mother?” Cecelia asked.

  He flashed her his sexy smile and she thought, I want a man with a sense of humor. Then she thought, I want a man with a body like his. Then she thought, Get me the hell out of here before I ruin my life.

  “Duty calls. Meet me later?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. I told you everything I can. Please go see a doctor.”

  “Okay,” Finn said. He gave her one last, long look. “You are probably the oddest person I’ve ever met. But don’t worry. I’ll see a doctor. After this strange little encounter, how could I not?” He turned and trotted back toward the field.

  Cecelia took a deep breath. There, she had done it. She hadn’t done it particularly well, but she had done it. She could go back to her normal life.

  Except that she now had a smashing view of Finn from behind. Her hormones reared up again and she thought, No harm in looking. After all, she’d never have to see him again.

  Suddenly he spun around.

  She yanked her eyes up to the treetops an instant too late.

  His smile was so wide, it nearly split his face in two. Then he turned again and disappeared down the path. She sank back down to the base of the tree and cradled her head in her hands.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” she said to the tree roots. She stood up and kicked the tree. “No! Damn it!” Because despite her humiliation at being caught, despite the fact that he was a stone-age primitive who was definitely not her type—despite all that, she hadn’t had that much fun in, well, in ten years.

  Chapter 8

  The wedding gown was sleeveless, smooth satin. Not a bad start. Cecelia looked into her eyes in the mirror and thought of Finn. Oh, God. That was so wrong. She had to stop thinking about Finn. About his shoulders. Those thighs. The way he—Cecelia scowled at her reflection. I am buying a wedding dress for my wedding to Jack. She had to concentrate. Finn was over. Done.

  She turned her back to the mirror. Damn. It was always something with these dresses. If the fabric dipped any lower, she’d need someone to stand behind her or she’d moon the congregation. She turned to the front again. What was holding it up? She twisted to the left, and her right boob popped out. She’d have to hire someone for the front too.

  “Let me see!” Amy called from outside the dressing room. Before Cecelia could fix the dress, Amy was in with her. “Well, that certainly gives new meaning to ‘to have and to hold.’”

  Cecelia shimmied herself back into the bodice. “I said you could come with me only if you behaved. And behaved means waiting outside.”

  “Oh, relax, honey. This is supposed to be fun.”

  “Fun? This is serious. I have two weeks left to find a dress.”

  “Two weeks! I thought you weren’t getting married until October.”

  “I need time for delivery, alterations, accessories. My schedule’s carefully planned. Four months is exactly enough time.”

  “Of course it is,” Amy said, as if Cecelia’s careful planning were the saddest thing she’d ever heard.

  “Out.”

  “Oh, come on. I won’t peek at your underwear.”

  “Out.”

  “I can’t believe you wear white cotton underwear.”

  “Out!”

  Amy sighed and left the room. Cecelia struggled out of the peep-show dress and into another. This one was slinky and see-through. Why had she let Amy pick out dresses for her to try? And where had she found them, the Porno Bride section?

  “I should work here,” Amy called in through the door. “I could save people a lot of aggravation.”

  “Here or Frederick’s of Hollywood?” Cecelia bent her right leg. There, now if she stood just like that, no one could see the outline of her crotch through the fabric. Jack’s mother would have a coronary. Of course, then Cecelia could save her and she’d owe Cecelia her life, which might make for a much better mother-in-law. Of course, if Finn saw her in this dress—she caught herself. She was thinking about Finn again. About his rough hands running over the smooth fabric—

  “I heard that sales lady in the showroom say that finding a dress is harder than finding a man. I could do both.”

  “I already have the man,” Cecelia reminded her. Jack, she reminded herself.

  “Oh, c’mon. Finn didn’t change your mind even a teeny bit? I saw that guy, Cel.”

  Did he? Cecelia met her eyes in the mirror. She was overcome with the knowledge that she had no one in the entire world to talk to. If Finn were her True Love, shouldn’t she have felt it deep down in her soul—not deep down, well, elsewhere? True Love was supposed to be pure, a force that couldn’t be denied, a whirlwind as rare and memorable as a perfectly fitted wedding dress. Not a rush of teenage hormones clouding her brain.

  Amy pushed open the door a crack. “So? Was I right or was I right? Is it perfect?”

  “Perfect for a stripper.” Cecelia whipped the gown over her head. Four more dresses hung obediently, waiting their turn. The sight of them exhausted Cecelia.

  Amy came into the room and put her hand on Cecelia’s naked shoulder. “Let me help you. You’re wearing yourself out.”

  “No. I’m fine.” She reached for another pouf of blinding whiteness. She stepped into it and instantly became tangled in its folds.

  Amy tugged the fabric this way and that until Cecelia found the head and armholes.

  “So, Finn,” Amy
said, “spill.”

  Cecelia adjusted the sleeves. Sleeves were good. Now, hopefully, this one had a back. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  Amy stepped in to do the buttons and her closeness flooded Cecelia with its warmth. When the two of them had come into the bridal department, the saleswoman gushed with relief over Cecelia not being alone this time. “How nice that you have a second opinion,” the woman had said, clapping her hands. “It’s so much better than—” But the woman had stopped, unable to say the horrible words “being alone.”

  Amy carefully fastened each button.

  “Mom should be here,” Cecelia said. The words aloud were more powerful than anticipated, and she instantly regretted them.

  Amy arranged the dress on Cecelia’s shoulders. “She’d be all weepy and impossible over how beautiful you look.”

  “Right.” Cecelia felt her eyes go wet with tears. She blinked them back. Her mother hadn’t been around since she was twelve. Why did she care if she were here now? “It would be awful.”

  “She has terrible taste.”

  “After all those years in India, she’d want me to wear a sari.”

  “There.” Amy did the last button and stood back.

  Cecelia looked at herself in wonder. “Oh, my God.”

  Amy sighed. “It’s perfect.”

  “It even fits.” Cecelia looked at herself every which way. “I feel weird. Like the wedding’s really going to happen. This is the first time I’ve felt it.”

  “It’s the one. Oh, Cel. It’s really the one.”

  Cecelia turned to and fro. “I won’t need to alter it a bit. I must have tried on two hundred dresses.”

  “You found it. You look beautiful.”

  “We found it.” Cecelia couldn’t keep from grinning. Her life was really going to go as planned, despite Amy.

  Amy put her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “Now, all we need is a man who fits as well.”

  “Daddy, tell me more about that lady you were kissing in the bushes.”

  Finn stared at the jellyfish tank in front of him. This was the second time they’d been to the aquarium in a week, and Maya was calling the jellyfish the names she had given them on her first trip as if she could actually tell “Claude” from “Jessica.” Knowing Maya, she probably could.

  “Kissing?” Finn stared at his reflection in the glass. He hadn’t been kissing Cecelia. Although he certainly had wanted to. Had Maya been spying on them? Or was she reading his mind again? Because just then, he had been thinking about kissing Cecelia. Kissing her like he hadn’t kissed anyone in a long, long time—

  Well, in two years.

  “I told you, I was helping her find her ball. Which was your fault because you’re the one who got me onto Trudy’s ball team without telling me—”

  “But you said you liked her? Right? Like, maybe she’d make a good mom?”

  Finn was grateful that the low light hid his blush. Why was everywhere in Baltimore so dark? Or was he just used to the stark Florida sun? “I think Jessica is fighting with Claude.”

  Maya stared into the tank. “They can’t fight. They don’t have brains.”

  “You don’t need brains to fight.” Or brains to get involved with a beautiful woman. You just needed brains to stay away. Especially from a woman who slipped weird notes into your bag. But then, if he didn’t have a brain, maybe he could stop thinking about her for one minute of his day. “You know, that lady was very nice and I’m glad I could help her. But I don’t think she was stable.”

  “Granny Trudy says that you’re lonely.”

  “Does she?”

  “So, that means you’re not stable either. You guys would be perfect. For stability-type reasons.”

  “Maya, it’s not that simple.”

  “Granny Trudy says we’ve got to help you.”

  “Really?”

  Maya turned away from the jellyfish and started toward the shark tank. By the end of their four weeks in Baltimore, she was going to be leading tours around this place.

  “Granny Trudy and me, we think you were too direct. We think that ’cause she’s a doctor and real smart, you have to be suede.”

  “Suede?”

  “Yeah. You know, cool.”

  “Suave.”

  “Whatever.”

  They were walking down the ramp into the shark pit. The walkway spiraled toward the bottom while the sharks swam around on all sides in endless circles. Suave. Suede. Sexy. Suspicious. “Hey, how’d you know she was a doctor?” Finn asked.

  “You told me.” Maya ran ahead of him. He watched her cockeyed ponytail bounce behind her. Despite the jolt of the very unconventional granny, he was glad that they had come to Baltimore. Maya was having a ball and Trudy, while not exactly sugar and spice, gave Maya more female attention than she’d had in a long time. Everything was falling into place.

  A shark swam by and he shuddered at the cold-blooded look in its eye.

  When had he told Maya that Cecelia was a doctor? He couldn’t recall doing that. Maybe she had been spying. He’d have to talk to her about that.

  He leaned onto the railing and stared into the tank. Cecelia’s eyes were imprinted on his brain. It was almost like a spell. What, really, was so bad about getting involved with a woman? It didn’t have to be serious. Granny Trudy seemed perfectly happy to babysit Maya every chance she had. Of course, she’d probably spend the time teaching her to break and enter, but Maya was a good kid, she’d be fine.

  It could just be dinner.

  A walk in the park.

  He thought back to their last park interlude.

  Okay, maybe not the park.

  Dinner. A few drinks. A harmless experiment to get him back in the dating world. Nothing serious.

  Damn, who was he kidding? A woman like her wouldn’t want to have dinner with a guy like him.

  Finn closed his eyes and let his head drop. Cecelia’s dark, bottomless eyes. He couldn’t get them out of his head. A heart-shaped face. Perfect sun-kissed skin. She looked as if below her sedate doctor’s facade, there was the soul of a gypsy.

  And she wanted him too. He was sure of it. He had seen it in her eyes when he caught her watching him.

  And what was up with that weird note?

  He looked up and startled. An enormous white shark was staring right at him. It paused mid-swim for a long moment, before it turned tail and swished away.

  Chapter 9

  The patient, Mr. Brush, a seventy-two-year-old litigator in a paper robe, was going to die of a massive heart attack if he didn’t change his ways. Yelling at Cecelia like an irate hockey fan wasn’t helping. Cecelia stood back and watched him vent, his rage filling the tiny examining room like noxious smoke. He was not going to settle for seeing a mere child-doctor, he bellowed. He was not going to trust his life to a girl, he raged. And certainly not a child-girl-immigrant who probably got her degree at East Timbuktu School of Medicine and Agricultural Science.

  Cecelia took the abuse calmly, more sorry than Mr. Brush that his usual doctor, Elliot, wasn’t there. He’s caught in an emergency situation, she explained between bellows, trying to keep her voice soothing. Unavoidable delay to save a life, she said. This was the fourth of Elliot’s patients in a row she had disappointed with her presence. She would have to start wearing her diploma around her neck to get any respect in this place.

  But still, this man’s direct abuse was better than the woman before him. Mrs. Steubens had been silent, tight-lipped, terse to the point of rudeness. Dr. Williams already asked me that, dear, she kept saying, looking over Cecelia’s shoulder as if Cecelia had stumbled in to make small talk while the real doctor was delayed.

  Cecelia sighed, then decided to make her move. While Mr. Brush continued to rant, Cecelia approached him slowly and firmly, like a naturalist accustomed to handling wild animals. Ignoring his flailing arms, she pressed the stethoscope to his chest. Her hand rested on his shoulder. Her head bent in concentration. His stream of invective be
came a trickle, then a drop, then nothing.

  The rest of the exam went well. Cecelia finished with Mr. Brush (now calm as a kitten), and let herself out into the bustling hallway. She sucked in the fresh air in relief. Too many patients and every one an important leader of Baltimore society, or the mother of an important leader, or the half-cousin-twice-removed of an important leader. It was impossible to put these people off.

  She closed her eyes. She had to see two more of Elliot’s patients before she could go home. Home, where Amy was waiting to pester her with endless talk of True Love. Well, forget that. It had been three days since meeting Finn in the park, and she still hadn’t heard from him. Not that she expected to hear from him. She certainly didn’t want to hear from him. With any luck, he was gone, vanished into thin air as quickly as he had appeared. That was the way men like him operated.

  Cecelia opened her eyes and gulped from her water bottle as she reluctantly approached the next examination room. She pulled the medical file from the holder on the outside of the closed door and thumbed through it. Male, age thirty-one, complaining of chest pains. She knocked gently on the door. “Ready?” she asked.

  “Come in,” a strangely familiar voice said.

  She pushed open the door, saw the jeans-and-T-shirt-clad man sitting on the examination table, backed out of the room, and slammed the door shut behind her.

  “Coward!” Finn called from inside the room.

  Cecelia braced her back against the closed door. She stared up at the ugly, water-damaged ceiling and tried to get control over her heart.

  “You told me to see a doctor,” Finn called. “Well, here I am. Where’s my doctor?”

  She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Finn was here, in her office, and she was glad.

  That wasn’t right.

  And something else wasn’t right.

  What had she seen by his side on the table? Luggage? And what was that in his hand? She had shut the door so quickly, she hadn’t taken it all in.