Little Matchmakers

by Jennifer Greene

  Still…how to approach this topic with his son? And what would he tell Will about the meeting with his teacher?

  He whipped around the corner—and charged smack into someone leaning against the wall. Or…not someone. Her. Petie’s mom. Garnet.

  * * *

  While Pete needed a stop in the boy’s bathroom, Garnet leaned against the cool wall and closed her eyes. She replayed every second of her conversation with Mrs. Riddle. Then did it all over again.

  The lump in her throat refused to disappear.

  She’d always been a marshmallow. A soft, peace-loving marshmallow. Confrontations always gave her nightmares.

  Still, where her son was concerned, Garnet could change from happy wallflower into riled-up mama porcupine in two seconds flat. Nobody hurt her son. It was hard for her to hear even the smallest criticism of Petie for the obvious reason.

  He wasn’t just the best thing in her life. He was the best kid in the entire universe.

  For Mrs. Riddle’s sake, the teacher was lucky she hadn’t picked on Petie.

  Instead, she’d picked on Garnet.

  Normally Garnet was braced for criticism. Lots of people had found fault with her—particularly in her own family. Lots of people claimed she’d disappointed them. But no one had ever suggested that she wasn’t a good mother. At least before today.

  Garnet still had the lump in her throat, the stab in her heart. Mrs. Riddle hadn’t exactly said that she was an inadequate mom, but she’d implied it. A boy needed male role models. She’d failed to provide them. And that didn’t bite just because the teacher said it. It bit because Garnet had worried about the same darn thing for eons now.

  Absently she lifted a hand and immediately discovered a ragged cuticle.

  Dang it. She loved working with dirt. Dirt, herbs, spices, flowers, plants of all kinds. But she always wore gloves when she was working outside—not because she was vain about her hands, but because of this. The instant a nail split, or a cuticle got ragged, she couldn’t stand it. She had to fix it. She couldn’t think with a frayed cuticle.

  She was just biting the offending cuticle when a Mack truck ran into her.

  The air whooshed out of her lungs. Her head hit the cement wall at the same time the Mack truck tire connected with her foot…the vulnerable, naked foot in the green Teva sandals.

  “Aw, hell. Aw, hell. I’m really sorry. I wasn’t looking—are you all right?”

  If she were unconscious and in a coma, she’d have recognized that low, wicked baritone. Tucker. Tucker MacKinnon.

  It just wasn’t fair. Being hit with a real Mack truck, she could have coped with. Freight train, no problem. Bulldozer, ditto. Anything or anyone but Tucker.

  He was undoubtedly trying to help, by steadying her, then rushing his hands down her arms, his gaze searching, seeking any injuries. She certainly had some. The back of her head was gushing something warm and wet, and so was her right foot.

  None of the injuries were lethal. She was just going to be stuck with a couple of bruises. He was big; she was small. That was the total equation. It’s just that if she had to have an accident, she wished it could have happened with anything but Tucker. Anyone but Tucker.

  “I’m fine,” she said. Although temporarily she was pretty sure her right foot was broken in fifty or sixty places.

  “You can’t be fine. You’re not fine. Damn. The back of your head’s getting a goose egg, and there’s blood.”

  Undoubtedly. She’d scraped her head against the cement wall. Something had to give, and it hadn’t been the wall.

  “Let me see.” His eyes were suddenly close enough for her to experience that electric-blue color close up. “The school’s so deserted I just wasn’t expecting anyone to be there. I was waiting for my son, thinking, not looking where I was going. Listen—”

  After checking out her head, his hands cuffed her shoulders again. He was still squinting. Still searching for injuries. She was still dying, but more from embarrassment by then, particularly when he hunkered down.

  “Broke your big toenail.” He winced in sympathy. “Just hope I didn’t break a toe. Or two.”

  He had. But who cared? Once the football hero of the county—there was no one in the county who didn’t know the MacKinnon name—and he was kneeling at her feet. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

  “How about if you just sit down right here, in the hall. I’ll run into the office. They have to have some Band-Aids and first-aid supplies around here.” Again, he tilted her head, not to look for injuries this time. He met her eyes. “Garnet, I couldn’t be sorrier.”

  “It’s okay. Honestly. Don’t bother. I’ve got first-aid stuff at home.”

  He’d always made her nervous. It wasn’t his fault, nothing he did. It was her. She’d always felt goofy around him. Drawing attention to herself over a hurt only made it worse.

  “Nonsense. You don’t want to trail blood into your car. And I think we should get some ice on your head. Just hold up. I’ll be back in two shakes.”

  He’d barely taken three strides before Pete charged out of the boy’s bathroom, saw her and sprinted over. He seemed to recognize Tucker as an afterthought, and immediately frowned. “Mr. MacKinnon. Did you hurt my mom?”

  “No, Pete. Well, yes. I mean, I did, but it wasn’t intentional—”

  “Pete, I’m totally okay.”

  Pete, even if he was built on the small side, could turn more protective than a marine. He pushed his round glasses higher on his nose and faced Tucker. “Why would you hurt my mom? What happened?”

  The commotion must have been heard from a distance, because from the office hall, Tucker’s tall son suddenly charged into view. “Dad. Hey. What’s going on. Mrs. Cattrell, how come you’re bleeding?”

  “Your dad hurt my mom,” Petie informed him.

  Will’s jaw dropped. “No way.”

  “Just look at my mom if you don’t believe me. She’s bleeding all over the place.”

  “But my dad would never do anything like that. That’s dumb.”

  Tucker had to raise his voice to be heard. “Boys. Both of you. Go to the office. Ask for a first-aid kit and an ice pack.”

  Both boys laid out an “okay” and galloped together down the side hall, looking a lot like Mutt and Jeff. Garnet wanted to echo again that she was fine, and just wanted to go home, but it was like arguing with a freight train.

  Tucker hunkered down again. “I know. You’re going to live. But it won’t kill you to have those two places disinfected and covered up.”

  “I know. I just hate—”

  His tone changed, turned quieter. “Garnet. I heard what Mrs. Riddle said about your Petie. And this is obviously a poor time to pursue the subject. But I think we might both benefit from talking together.”

  “Talk about…?”

  “My Will. Your Pete.” He hesitated. “It’s probably easier for me to get away than you. I could steal an hour around seven tonight. You free then?”

  Free was a relative word. Like the song said, freedom was just another word for nothing left to lose, and looking at Tucker, Garnet knew perfectly well that she had a ton to lose by spending any time with him. Her dignity…although she’d already lost most of that, by bleeding all over the school hall. Her pride…though, she still had her pride. Something she’d guarded tighter than gold for the last few years.

  “I just want to talk about the boys,” he said. “A half hour? Your place?”

  The boys. Truth was, she wouldn’t mind talking about Petie. If there was an alpha male in a three-state radius, it was Tucker. After Mrs. Riddle’s comments, Garnet really wouldn’t mind hearing his opinion.

  “A half hour,” she conceded uneasily.

  He smiled. A smile that knocked her common sense to its knees.

  And
then the boys descended on them, carrying a pan of water, most of which sloshed onto the floor, an ice pack, a brown bottle of betaine and a giant first-aid box. The principal and school secretary trailed right behind the boys.

  Garnet closed her eyes and wished she could click her heels together three times and land in Kansas. How much worse could a bad day get?

  Chapter Two

  Apparently the day could get much, much worse—but Garnet couldn’t guess that. Initially the drive home from school lifted her spirits.

  On the third turn, she saw the sign for Plain Vanilla. A quarter mile later, blacktop turned to gravel, and the hot, brilliant sun disappeared, turned into the fragrant shade of pine forest. One more turn in the road, and her pride and joy came into view.

  Petie scrabbled from the old van in a flash. Once he’d seen his report card—all As except for a C in gym—he never asked another thing about her meeting with Mrs. Riddle. School, schedules and the Mrs. Riddles in his life were now completely forgotten. All those academic As had earned him the right to download the latest game he wanted.

  Garnet climbed from the van more slowly. Her right foot was still smarting, her head doing an annoying little throb—but she didn’t really care. She took a long, lazy moment to cherish the view.

  Her five acres had been scrap-scrub when she bought them six years before. No one thought she could make anything of it—especially not her parents, and heaven knew, she had a long, long history of disappointing her family.

  Plain Vanilla had been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  It had almost broken hers.

  Four customers were parked below the shop—not bad, for midday on a Thursday. Nothing about Plain Vanilla was fancy. The building had shake-shingle siding, with a long overhang for a traditional country-style porch. Unless a serious storm threatened, the double screen doors were kept open and welcoming. Pots of herbs and flowers added color.

  The parking lot was known to get a little weedy, but she could already inhale the scents emanating from the shop. Basil and chives. Lavender and vanilla. Scents hung low in this tuck of valley. So, of course, did the heat.

  Her bungalow was invisible from here, behind the shop, but to the right stretched open ground—the hodgepodge of raised beds and climate-controlled greenhouses where she grew her own herbs and spices. Two years ago, she—and the bank—had added horizontal blinds that could be opened or closed, to protect the plants from too much sun.

  Except for the fancy blinds, she’d made everything herself. There’d never been money for professionals…but she’d had two staff from the start, primarily because she couldn’t work 24-hour days and handle Petie, especially when he’d been little.

  And from inside the shop, she suddenly heard two women’s voices…and suspected her son had tattled about her being hurt, because two bodies hightailed down the porch steps faster than she could run for cover.

  Mary Lou was somewhere between fifty-five and ninety-five, tougher than beef jerky, and looked it. Her health was precarious, not that she’d admit it. Garnet had “discovered her” five years ago, when Mary Lou had shown up at the back door, fixed her with a scissor-sharp scowl, said her husband was dead, she was bored out of her skull, and she needed to work, no wages needed, just a job.

  Garnet had hired her and never looked back. If a thief ever came around, Mary Lou would probably scare him to death, and heaven knew she was a worker.

  “Garnet! Peter said you were hurt! Who did what to you, you tell me right now!”

  “It was just a couple of bumps, absolutely nothing.”

  Mary Lou frowned, but then immediately went off on her own bumps that day. “Well, this morning was a blinger. First off, the postman forgot to leave me stamps and I was going to pay bills. Then Georgia Cunningham, she came in, bought fifty dollars’ worth of all kinds of things, put two twenties on the counter and left. Just like that. I was going to call the police, but then I thought I’d wait until you got home. But I think she should spend the night in jail, myself. Ten dollars! She cheated us of ten dollars! I never…”

  Then it was Sally, striding right behind her. “Peter said there was a man who knocked you down—”

  “It was a complete accident. No biggie. What’s wrong?”

  Sally had dark caramel skin, hair done in dreads and a perpetual frown that did a great job of concealing a gorgeous face. She had two kids and a no-good husband. She worked like a fiend, loved the plants as much as Garnet did and could stand up for herself anywhere she needed to—except at home.

  Garnet could tell when her jerk-water husband had done something because Sally’s hands would start jittering; she couldn’t stand still.

  “I got a rash on the lavender.”

  “Which one?”

  “The French blue. They’re just speckles on the leaves, but they weren’t there yesterday. I’ve been trying to look it up. We don’t want it spreading. But you know me and reading those stupid manuals—”

  “I know. It’s okay. We’ll go check it out.”

  And that was how it went, one crisis after another all afternoon. Early on, she hustled home to talk to Pete—and to make sure he’d had lunch. But of course, being Petie, he’d made himself a sandwich, cleaned up and naturally parked in front of his computer…a water-cooled system that he’d put together himself last Christmas.

  She ruffled his mop of brown hair—hair so luxuriously thick she was jealous of it. He was scrunched up in his computer chair, imitating a human pretzel. “Hey. I didn’t get a chance to tell you what Mrs. Riddle had to say.”

  “Not now, Mom. I’m at level four.”

  “Okay. We can talk about it later, I guess.” She hesitated. “Mr. MacKinnon’s coming over for a little while after dinner.”

  “You mean Will’s dad? That Mr. MacKinnon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Will coming over, too?”

  “I don’t know. He might.”

  “Okay. Whatever.”

  No “why” or “what for?” He didn’t care. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose, then bent his head to the game again. She couldn’t resist giving him a fast smooch on his forehead. Now that he was ten, she had to steal kisses, kidnap hugs.

  “Mom. I’m creating an alternate universe right now. It’s really hard.”

  “Okay, okay.” She smiled…but the smile faded in seconds. This was exactly what Mrs. Riddle had implied. Petie was all too happy alone. Everything he loved had always been inside. He’d just never been the kind of kid to play outside, getting into scrapes and mud with playmates.

  So, she told herself there was no reason to get nervous about Tucker stopping by. It was a good idea. Single parents had problems that two-parent families just didn’t have. As different as their sons were, it’d be nice to talk to someone else who lived with a ten-year-old. It wasn’t like a personal meeting. Or a date. Or anything remotely like that.

  She couldn’t imagine Tucker looking at her that way.

  The women in her family were bred to be hothouse Southern belles, Charleston style, women who could do the debutante thing and have dinner for forty—with fresh flowers and crystal—prepared in an hour’s notice. Garnet wasn’t adopted, although when she was eleven, she’d checked to make sure. Something had gone wrong, anyway. Her sisters and mom—even her grandmother—had gracious beauty and poise without even trying.

  She’d been born plain vanilla. Always had been, always would be.

  The point, though, was that she never got back in the house until nearly six. She’d wanted a shower and clean clothes and a major spiff-up before Tucker got there. Instead, life just kept interfering. Sally needed help with updating Plain Vanilla’s website and Facebook page, which Garnet loved on a par with triple taxes and bee stings. And then Mary Lou cornered her in the backroom, where new herb and spi
ce recipes needed a taste test and review.

  By the time Garnet finally charged back home, Petie had made dinner—peanut butter and banana sandwiches, one of his specialties, followed by fresh brownies. Brownies were one of Petie’s favorite creations. This time he’d added raspberries, blueberries and marshmallows. She never knew what he was going to put in next.

  “Hey, I’d have made you dinner,” she told him.

  “Yeah, well, you were busy and I was starving for peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Mom…”

  “What?”

  “You know that crazy-looking cat that’s been around for the last week or so?”

  “The black-and-orange-and-white one?”

  “Yeah. I think she’s pregnant, because I saw her on the window sill about an hour ago, and her stomach was, like, huge.”

  “No,” Garnet said.

  “I never asked you anything.”

  “You were going to.”

  Petie shot her a look, one of his most endearing. “I understand why you said no. You have to feel like you’re the one in charge. We’ll talk about it later.”

  She chased after him with a dish towel. “Sometimes you sound older than Methuselah.”

  “Just because I’m smarter than you?”

  “Petie. We can’t adopt every single animal who wanders on our porch!”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “I’m still recovering from the ferret you took in.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “And the raccoon babies.”

  “Yes, Mom.” He said consolingly, “It’s okay for you to say no. Really. I won’t feel neglected or deprived or anything like that.”

  She couldn’t shoot the kid. He was the best thing in her world. She loved him more than life. But he was getting a mouth, and their teasing took another twenty minutes off the clock. She charged into the bathroom, took one look in the mirror and knew she didn’t remotely have enough time. She needed a shower, a hair wash, her foot rebandaged, a haircut, a hair style, a wardrobe refurbishing, shaved legs, time to buy some makeup in town, maybe some jewelry and new sandals.