Heartstrings and Diamond Rings

by Jane Graves

  “Uh-oh,” Heather said as Alison ducked under her umbrella with her. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “If eight months of my life going down the tubes is bad, then yes. It’s bad.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Let’s see. The Reader’s Digest version. Randy’s an asshole, and I’m an idiot.”

  Heather winced. “Get in the car. Then I want to hear everything.”

  Once they were inside the car, Alison told Heather the whole story, and Heather’s eyes grew wide.

  “He wanted a threesome? With Bonnie?” She paused. “Well, okay. If a guy’s a big enough jerk to want a threesome, of course it would be with Bonnie.”

  Tears welled in Alison’s eyes, and she hated it. Randy was not worth it.

  “Oh, hon,” Heather said. “I know you had such high hopes. I’m so sorry this happened.”

  “No. Don’t be sorry. What he did tonight saved me from wasting even more time on him.”

  “That’s true. But it doesn’t stop it from hurting.”

  And of course that made Alison cry even more, and Heather gave her a hug. “Randy’s an idiot,” she murmured, patting Alison on the back. “He didn’t deserve you.”

  Alison nodded, even though she really didn’t feel like such a great catch right about now.

  “You want me to go beat him up for you?” Heather said. “He’s bigger than I am, but I’m way more pissed.”

  “Would you? That would be wonderful.” Then she sighed. “Nice thought, but maybe you’d better not. This night is bad enough already. I don’t want to have to bail you out of jail.” She eased away from Heather and dropped her head back against the headrest, feeling miserable. “I’m a dating disaster. I’m done with men.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yeah, I am. I’m going to become a nun.”

  “You’re not Catholic.”

  She rolled her head around to look at Heather. “I could adapt. I’m not too fond of kneeling, but I do like wine. Trade-offs, you know?”

  “What about confession? That won’t exactly be a walk in the park for you.”

  “Yeah, maybe the first one will be a little lengthy. But once I purge the past ten years or so, the next ones will be a breeze. I mean, come on. After I’m a nun, what could I possibly have to own up to?”

  “Oh, right. Like the moment a cute priest walks by, you won’t be lusting in your heart?”

  Alison sighed. “That’s my problem, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Doesn’t matter if he’s Mr. Right or not. I’ll find a way to cram that square peg into that round hole or die trying. God, Heather. What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you. Randy’s the one with the problem.”

  “But what if I end up with somebody even worse than Randy because I’m so desperate to get married that I’ll settle for anyone?”

  “You would have figured Randy out sooner or later, even if he hadn’t…you know. Gone all pervert on you. Just be glad you’re rid of him.”

  “And who am I supposed to put in his place?”

  “Do you have to figure that out now?”

  “Sometime before I’m eighty would be nice.”

  “You have fifty years before you’re eighty.”

  And Alison knew what those fifty years were going to be like. A few years would pass. Then a few decades. And before she knew it, she’d be staring at some hairy‑eared octogenarian over their morning oatmeal at the home and wondering how long it might take to get him to pop the question.

  “It’s not like you’ve exhausted every possibility out there,” Heather said. “You just haven’t met the right guy yet. Give it some more time.”

  “But I’ve already tried everything! Singles bars. Speed dating. Video dating. Match dot com. E-Harmony. I’ve even considered setting fire to my own condo to try to meet a cute firefighter.”

  “Now there’s an approach I wouldn’t have thought of.”

  “Yeah, but it’d be just my luck that he’d be a firefighter who wore women’s underwear or had a wife he wasn’t telling me about.” She sighed. “Do you understand how much I suck at picking out men?”

  “Have you thought about letting somebody else pick one out for you?”

  “No,” Alison said with a wave of her hand. “No way. I’ve had enough bad blind dates to last me a lifetime.”

  “I’m not talking about letting your Aunt Brenda fix you up. That was a disaster.”

  Alison cringed at the memory. She’d never met a man before who grew marijuana in the backseat of his car.

  “I’m talking about a professional,” Heather said.

  “Huh?”

  “A matchmaker.”

  “Matchmaker? You mean, like one person who decides who you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with?” Alison screwed up her face. “Sorry. That’s just weird.”

  “No, really. I work with a woman who went to this matchmaker in downtown Plano, and she set her up with a really great guy. She was engaged four months later and married within the year.”

  Just the words “engaged” and “married” in the same sentence made Alison’s heart go pitty-pat. But she knew the truth. Nothing was ever that simple.

  “Pardon my skepticism, but what’s this friend of yours like? Tall? Skinny? Blonde? Ex‑cheerleader? Trust fund?”

  “Short, a little overweight, brown hair, ex-debate team, good job.”

  Now Alison was listening. Minus the debate team thing, Heather could be describing her.

  Alison pulled out her phone. “What’s this matchmaker’s name?”

  “Uh…I can’t remember. Rosie…Roxanne…something like that.”

  Alison Googled “matchmaker” and “Plano.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Did you know there’s a matchmaking service dedicated to finding you somebody to cheat with?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I guess that one’s for later. Before I can cheat on a man, first I have to find a man.” She flipped to another site. “And here’s one called Sugar Daddies. They match rich old men with hot young women.”

  “How young?”

  “Judging from these photos, barely legal.” Alison poked the screen. “I’m still not seeing…wait. Rochelle Scott? Matchmaking by Rochelle?”

  “Yeah. I think that’s it.”

  “Hmm. Says she’s been in business for thirty-five years. Nobody stays in business that long if they’re not successful, right?”

  “Oh, she’s successful, if you judge by what she charges.”

  “How much are we talking?”

  “That’s the downside. She charges fifteen hundred dollars for five introductions.”

  Alison winced. Three hundred dollars per man?

  Then she thought about the thousand dollars she’d once paid to spend a week at a singles resort in Florida. Instead of coming back with a man, she’d returned with a horrible sunburn and so many mosquito bites she looked like flesh-colored bubble wrap. She wasn’t one to throw money around indiscriminately, but if the woman could actually deliver, it might be worth it.

  She looked back at her phone and clicked through the website. “Listen to this,” she said, reading from the woman’s bio. “Rochelle Scott has a degree in psychology. She’s been matchmaking for thirty-five years. Out of more than three hundred marriages, there have been only sixteen divorces.” She looked at Heather. “That blows the national average out of the water. I’m going over there Monday.”

  Heather’s eyebrows shot up. “Now, wait a minute. I just threw that out there as something to think about. You need to let the sting of tonight wear off a little before you hop right back out there.”

  “Nope. I’m thirty and alone, and it’s bad. I imagine forty and alone is even worse.”

  “Doing anything on the rebound is usually a mistake. Forget about it for tonight. Come up to my place. Tony’s working late at the bar, so we can trash talk men all we want to.”
<
br />   “Right. You have nothing to gripe about where Tony’s concerned.”

  “Yeah? That’s what you think. He still hasn’t grasped the concept that dirty underwear goes in the hamper and that onion rings aren’t health food. And don’t get me started on his collection of Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions. You’d think they were the Dead Sea Scrolls the way he—”

  “Heather,” Alison said, “right about now, I’d kill for a messy guy eating onion rings while he’s staring at hot women in bikinis. Particularly if he looked like Tony.” Her eyes teared up again, and she hated it. “You know, when we were both single, it wasn’t so bad. But now…now you have Tony, and…” She sniffed a little. “I’m happy for you, Heather. I really am. But I’m really starting to feel like the odd woman out.” She let out a painful sigh. “It sucks to be me.”

  “Don’t you say that,” Heather told her. “Don’t you dare say that. You already have a good life. You have a great job. A nice place to live. Good friends. Money in the bank. And you’re a good person who does nice things for other people. So it does not suck to be you.”

  Alison sighed again. “Is it really so wrong to want the last piece of the puzzle?”

  “No. Of course not. I know how much you want to get married. I’m just saying that maybe you need to give the husband hunt a rest for a while.”

  “I would, except for that damned clock ticking inside my head.”

  Heather smiled. “He’s out there, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Right. Your knight in shining armor. Your forever guy. You just have to be patient. One day, when you least expect it—”

  “Don’t try to cheer me up. I’d rather wallow in my misery.”

  “No problem there. I have a really nice bottle of vodka I’ve been saving for an occasion like this.”

  “Will you keep me from doing something dumb if I drink too much? And yes, I’m referring to the state fair incident.”

  “Of course. And did I mention I also have a gallon of Blue Bell Cookies ’n Cream?”

  “Perfect. That’s why I can’t find a man, you know. My hips aren’t big enough.”

  Heather started the car and drove the few blocks to the condo complex where they both lived. Alison ran up the stairs to her place to get out of the big‑butt dress. As she stepped inside, Lucy, Ethel, and Ricky galloped into the living room, leaped onto her Queen Anne chair, and started in with a whiny chorus of meows as if she’d been lost at sea for thirty years and had finally been rescued.

  She turned her back to them and looked over her shoulder. “So what do you guys think? Does this dress make my butt look big?”

  More meows. In her state of mind right then, Alison took that as a unanimous yes.

  She grabbed cat food from the pantry. The cats did their usual serpentine around her ankles, then played musical bowls as she was dumping food into them. Lucy had always been the troublemaker, clawing her way straight up the drapes, then pouncing on Ricky’s head as he strolled by. He’d spit at her, she’d whack him with her paw, and then five minutes later they’d be curled up on the sofa in a wad of tabby cat nirvana. Ethel stayed out of the fray most of the time by plunking her hefty self on top of the bookcase in the living room, refusing to get involved in her brother’s and sister’s love-hate relationship.

  It was impossible to state just how much of a pain in the ass the three of them could be, and Alison loved them right down to their claws of destruction and their six a.m. drag races up and down the hall. She hadn’t intended to adopt them, but maybe it was a good thing she had. The way her luck was going, they might be all she’d ever have.

  She put on sweatpants, a T‑shirt, and a pair of flip‑flops and felt marginally better. She decided she was going to eat enough ice cream to get brain freeze, then warm her head back up with half a dozen vodka shots. And through it all, she intended to obliterate everything Randy from her phone, her Facebook, and her e-mail. If she got inebriated enough, when she got home, she’d head over to the forums at the Knot and spam them with love sucks messages, then grab a couple of issues of Modern Bride from her magazine rack and shred them.

  Now, that was wallowing in misery.

  Then Monday on her lunch hour, she’d head over to see Rochelle and pray the woman could work miracles.

  Chapter 2

  At noon on Monday, Alison brought her car to a halt in front of a dreamy little two-story prairie-style house on the outskirts of downtown Plano. It was painted a soft, mossy green with burgundy trim, and its front porch spanned the width of the house. Ivy twined around the porch rails. The landscaping was a little scraggly and overgrown, but an hour or two with pruning shears and a weed eater would do a world of good. In spite of the fact that she lived in a contemporary condo, whenever Alison closed her eyes and dreamed of marriage and family, she was living in a house like this.

  A lot of the houses in this area had been converted to office spaces—a lawyer here, a therapist there, a dentist, a yoga studio. A lot of those people worked downstairs, lived upstairs. If not for the small sign beside the house at 614 State Street that read “Matchmaking by Rochelle” with an arrow pointing around to the rear of the house, Alison wouldn’t have had a clue she was in the right place. She’d called ahead that morning to ask for an appointment. A man had answered who she assumed was Rochelle’s husband. He told her noon was fine, so here she was.

  Circling around to the back of the house, she found a French door with a sign that said Please Come In. She opened the door into a large room that probably hadn’t been redecorated since the house was new. That could have been a bad thing, but it was all so charming that Alison couldn’t help smiling. A flowered sofa with curvy Victorian lines and brocade pillows filled one wall. Beside it, a slender, elegant lamp with gold scrollwork sat on a Queen Ann end table. The midday sun filtered through a big stained-glass window, casting a multicolored glow on the polished hardwoods. A lot of people might have thought the house was a little old, a little dusty, a little dreary, and definitely in need of repairs. But to Alison, a house like this was a home.

  Then she glanced to the other side of the room where a man sat behind a desk. He looked up as she closed the door and rose to greet her. The moment their eyes met, she stopped short, feeling as if her feet were fused to the floor.

  Oh, my God.

  Alison knew she was a walking cliché—a woman who adored men who were tall, dark, and handsome—but she just couldn’t help it. She just accepted the fact that it was imprinted on her DNA and lived with it.

  And, boy, was she living with it now.

  He was at least six one or six two, with thick, dark hair and deep brown eyes. A hint of a five o’clock shadow darkened his face, giving him a rugged sensuality that made her think of winters in Wyoming in front of big, roaring fires. He wore jeans and a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing strong, tanned forearms. With a practiced sweep of her eyes she’d acquired through years of careful practice, she automatically took note of his left hand.

  No ring.

  There was only one explanation for this man’s presence here today. Not only was Rochelle a master matchmaker, she was also psychic. She’d read Alison’s mind, found her this incredibly gorgeous man, and had him waiting for her. Fifteen hundred bucks and he was hers.

  Now that was service.

  “You must be Alison,” he said, coming around the desk and holding out his hand, flashing her a friendly smile. “I’m Brandon. Brandon Scott.”

  She shook his hand, and it was perfect—warm and smooth, his handshake firm but gentle. I could get used to hands like these, she thought, even as she knew fate would never allow her the chance to. This was the kind of genetically blessed man who never gave a woman like her a second glance.

  He motioned to a guest chair in front of the desk. “Have a seat.”

  She sat down tentatively, then looked over her shoulder. “Uh…I’m looking for Rochelle?”

  He sat back down
at the desk, his smile dimming. “I’m afraid she’s not here. Rochelle died of a heart attack two weeks ago.”

  Alison blinked. “Died? But the person I talked to this morning—”

  “That was me.”

  “But I don’t understand. If Rochelle isn’t here—”

  “Rochelle may be gone, but her business is alive and well.”

  “So there’s a new matchmaker?”

  “Yes.” A smile spread slowly across his face. “You’re talking to him.”

  Alison couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d slapped her. Matchmakers were supposed to be little old ladies who offered you a cup of tea, then paged through a dusty book and magically located your soul mate. They weren’t supposed to look like a man who’d stepped right out of her daydreams.

  “You?” she said. “You’re a matchmaker?”

  “I’m Rochelle’s grandson.”

  Alison felt a stab of sympathy. “Then she was your grandmother? Oh…I’m so sorry. Her death must have been such a shock.”

  “Thank you,” Brandon said, his face darkening. “It was rather sudden. But my grandmother loved this business, and she wanted it to go on. I’ll be maintaining the clients she was working with at the time of her death as well as soliciting new business.”

  Alison felt the strangest push-pull she’d ever experienced in her life. Under normal circumstances, she’d pay fifteen hundred bucks just to look at this guy for an hour or so. But allow a strange man to pick out a man for her? How incredibly weird was that?

  “I’m sorry Mr.…uh…”

  “Brandon.”

  “Brandon. I don’t think this is going to work out.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “I was expecting a woman, so—”

  “Ah, so you think only a woman can be a matchmaker?”

  Wasn’t that obvious? “Well, you have to admit that a matchmaking man is a little…weird.”

  “What makes you think a man wouldn’t be capable of choosing the perfect partner for you?”