Matchmaker, Matchmaker

by Donna Ball

  "No," he replied calmly, "but it's a good place to start."

  Cassie looked at him, and all she could think about was the chemistry that had flared between them when they had touched, the taste of his lips, the roar of her pulse... "That's ridiculous," she said abruptly. But she wasn't quite sure who she was addressing—herself or him. And her heart was still beating much too fast.

  "Cassie, look." He took another step toward her. "All I'm saying is—well, okay, maybe Mindy is perfect. But did you ever think there might be more than one perfect woman for every man?"

  Cassie hesitated. She hadn't considered that. To go through all this again, to start over...

  "I suppose," she admitted reluctantly. "Sometimes it does take more than one introduction. It often does,as a matter of fact. I even told you that from the beginning, didn't I?" She couldn't muster much enthusiasm as she looked at him. "I guess I could start looking..."

  "You don't have to."

  "What?"

  "I said you don't have to look. I've already found her."

  Cassie felt her heart sink to the floor. "What?" she repeated numbly.

  "You," Shane said simply. "It's you, Cassie, and I don't have to look anymore."

  The room wasn't spinning, Cassie assured herself. It was merely her head. She couldn't believe what she'd heard. The words kept echoing and she still couldn't believe it. It was her! Shane wanted her! A spiral of jubilation soared through her, and she wanted to cry out, to run to him and fling her arms around him, but the only sound that passed her lips was a stifled gasp. Her feet were rooted to the spot.

  Shane's eyes were bright with questions yet intense with determination as they searched hers. He spoke quickly, as though to forestall her protest. "Look, I know this wasn't supposed to happen, and you're going to give me a dozen reasons why it can't, but it doesn't matter. Cassie..."

  He caught her upper arms gently in his and bent over her. His eyes were still searching, but deep with intensity, and his expression was set with determination. "Cassie," he said again quietly. "It's like you're inside my skin, like everything I say or do or feel is because of you and I can't concentrate on anything except you. All the time I was with this other woman I was seeing you. Every time she spoke it was your voice I heard, and I missed you, Cassie. I don't want anyone else. I want you."

  His mouth covered hers and she responded helplessly, joyfully. Inside there was a voice that pleaded, This can't be happening, it isn't right, it will never work, it simply can't be.... But his kiss consumed her, searing her skin, weakening her muscles, blotting out reason. For one timeless, dizzying moment she lost herself in him and everything was right, nothing else mattered, and that was her gift to herself.

  His hand caressed her back and her waist and slipped around to cup her left breast. Her knees went weak. His lips trailed kisses down her neck and a shiver of heat went from the darting motion of his tongue to the base of her spine. She moaned and strived for reason. "Shane, don't... This isn't..."

  “I can feel your heart beating," he murmured. His fingers cupped the shape of her breast.' 'Cassie, tell me you don't want this."

  She made a genuine effort to twist away and looked up at him helplessly. "We can't... get carried away by the moment. It's what I've always said, where people always make their mistake. Shane, you know this isn't right."

  “You know you don't mean that."

  No, she didn't mean it. Everything in her heart screamed she didn't mean it, but her head was equally insistent in shouting danger warnings, and in the end it was her body that saved her. Shane started to draw her close again, secure against his chest, and her muscles wanted to melt against him. But in the next moment she wrenched abruptly away, burying her face in her hands as she was overcome by a violent fit of sneezing.

  "Cassie?"

  He reached for her in alarm, but she waved him away, stumbling toward the coffee table and a box of tissues. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and between fits of sneezing she supposed she did a little of both. "Do you see?" she gasped at last. She snatched up a handful of tissues and sent the box tumbling to the floor. "Not only do we have nothing in common—" she sneezed again "—but I'm allergic to you!"

  "What?" Outrage and astonishment were stamped on his face, but concern etched its way into his eyes as he came toward her. "Cassie, are you all right?"

  She flung up a hand to ward him off. "No! Stay away from me." Her voice was hoarse as she buried her lower face in the wad of tissues, staving off another attack of sneezing. "Cat hair," she gasped. "You've got cat hair all over your jacket!"

  Now his face registered incredulity, slowly mixed with amusement. "You're allergic to cats?"

  She nodded mutely, lifting her glasses to wipe her streaming eyes as she sank onto the sofa. Shane collapsed into the chair across from her. She couldn't see his expression, but she knew his eyes were laughing. She wanted to laugh, too, but she was too miserable.

  "Cassie," he said softly, and sure enough, she could hear the chuckling undertone in his voice. "You're one in a million."

  Cassie covered her hot face with the tissues and said nothing. At length the sniffles abated. Slowly she lowered the tissues and looked up at Shane wretchedly, staring at him. "What are you doing?" she croaked.

  He had removed his jacket and vest. Now he was standing and slowly unbuttoning his shirt. "Taking care of your allergy," he explained simply.

  She didn't need her glasses to see the lean expanse of tanned chest that was gradually uncovered, the firm pectoral muscles she remembered so well, the masculine pattern of dark hair. There was a tightness in her chest and a dryness in her throat that had nothing to do with an allergic reaction as she watched him tug the wrinkled tails of his shirt from his pants, then let the garment slip to the floor.

  He knelt on one knee beside her on the sofa, took her glasses from her limp fingers and set them aside. Cassie wanted to say something; she knew she should get up and move away, put an end to this. But when she lifted her hand to push him away, her fingers caressed the firm musculature of his chest instead, and the only sound that left her lips was a soft sigh. One night, Cassie, she thought as his lips touched the curve of her neck. You can let go for one night....

  And, in truth, she had no choice. Long-forgotten feelings surged to life beneath the touch of Shane's fingers, the brush of his lips. Her spine seemed to melt into the curve of the sofa as he pressed a deep kiss against her throat, and a rush of helpless, dizzying sensation flooded her limbs. She sank back into the welcoming softness of the cushions and entwined her fingers in his hair as she turned her mouth to his.

  She wound her arms around him and held him close, filled with him, absorbing him, awash in the wonder of him. His fingers stroked her eyelids. His face was hot and damp against hers. His heartbeat was wild, his breathing unsteady. And she was a part of all that was him.

  “Ah, Cassie," he whispered against her cheek. "Don't you know I adore you? How can you say this is wrong?"

  She couldn't remember. This was Shane, who made her laugh and made her angry, who astonished her and touched things within her she had never even guessed at before. It was Shane, whom she knew better than anyone else in the world and who was perfectly wrong for her... but nothing had ever felt so perfectly right. Their clothes fell away and they melted into each other as naturally as though they had been born for nothing more than to make love to each other. There was no awkwardness, no uncertainty, as was so often the case with first time lovers. It was all simply perfect. Perfectly right. They held each other for a long time, reluctant to part, dazed in the glow of what they had shared. They didn't speak, not even to murmur endearments, for they didn't have to. It was enough to know what they had discovered.

  Even afterward, when Cassie led Shane to her bed and they made love again, slowly and thoroughly with exquisite attention to every detail, she didn't allow the threads of rationality to intrude into their world. The magic lingered and expanded, and as long as it lasted she h
ad no regrets.

  ~

  EIGHT

  Shane awoke to the caress of a feminine hand on his shoulder and a warmth that spread through him like liquid sunshine. He turned and saw Cassie's face, her smile soft and sleepy, her hair tousled, her cheeks pink with the remnants of sleep, and he couldn't believe that he had ever imagined waking up to any other face. He couldn't believe that anything could ever be as perfect as the way he felt this morning, looking at her.

  "I have to go to work," she murmured.

  "Why?" He pulled her close and flung one leg across her hips, trapping her against him. "Your most important client is right here."

  Cassie laughed huskily and pressed her lips against his shoulder. "I can't argue with that.”

  His hand drifted over the contours of her body, curves and planes that were as familiar to him as his own, yet were still unique and exciting. The small firm breasts that filled his palms so perfectly, the fragile ribs and slim indentation of her waist, the sharp jut of her hipbone, the slender thighs... she fit against him as though she were designed for him, inch for inch, ounce for ounce. She was Cassie, and she was his.

  Merely thinking of her made his heart pound in his ears; touching her sent tendrils of flame through his senses. She smiled in awareness of his body's changes and instinctively shifted her position. Wordlessly they molded themselves together, one a part of the other, just as it had always been meant to be.

  Their lovemaking was lazy and luxuriant, and in a distant part of his mind Shane imagined hundreds of mornings like this, thousands. Endlessly discovering each other, reveling in each other, sharing each other forever. This was what he had been searching for all his life. How could he not have recognized it from the start?

  Afterward they lay together quietly, their fingers entwined, and the slim line of sunshine that filtered through a crack in the drapes slowly moved higher and higher across the bed. Cassie thought distantly, Daylight. How did it come so soon? She wanted to close her eyes and pretend she had never seen morning.

  “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me," she whispered to Shane.

  His fingers tightened on hers, and he kissed her tousled hair. "You're the only thing that's ever happened to me.

  She closed her eyes against the brief, choking wash of emotion. How wonderful he was. How beautiful it had been being with him. And how badly she wanted to go on pretending, for just a little while, that this was as lovely and uncomplicated and right as it seemed at that moment.

  "Do you know the only thing I'd rather do than this right now?" he asked after a while.

  She glanced up at him. It was getting late. "Take a shower?" she suggested.

  "Have breakfast." He glanced at her uncertainly. "I don't suppose you cook, do you?"

  Cassie forced a smile, but it was a little wistful, and the glow that had sustained her through the night was fading before the harsh light of day. "Shane, I need to tell you something."

  "No problem," he responded agreeably. He kissed her quickly and swung his feet onto the floor. "I'll just bet you're the type who keeps a whole stack of frozen waffles in the freezer, and it just so happens I've almost mastered frozen waffles. Just to show you how liberated I can be, I'll do breakfast."

  She laughed, but even that sounded strained. She sat up to touch his arm as he fastened his pants. "Forget the waffles for a minute. This is kind of important. And awkward."

  His expression softened with concern as he sat beside her on the bed, reaching for her hand. "Sure, honey, what is it?"

  But Cassie didn't feel right holding his hand while she said this; neither did it seem appropriate to be naked. She extracted her robe from the tangled covers and pulled it over her shoulders, turning away from him as she flipped her hair out of her collar.

  "Well, it's just that...I have a confession to make." She pretended to be busy belting and smoothing the folds of her robe and didn't look at him. "That day when you came into the office... things hadn't been going so well. The money I was going to get from you would have saved my business." And then she made herself look at him, though it took all her courage. "I never would have accepted your case otherwise. And now I feel—well, a little weird about the whole thing. I just didn't want you to find out from someone else and think that I... that I..."

  She didn't know quite how to finish, but he supplied the words for her. "Would go to any lengths to keep the customer happy?"

  Cassie flushed and started to turn away, but he caught her chin in his fingers. The twinkle in his eye immediately reassured her. "The only thing I'm sorry about," he told her, "is that you didn't go to these lengths sooner."

  Cassie pulled her face away reluctantly. "Come on, Shane. This is serious."

  "Okay, I'm sorry. I know it is." Immediately he assumed a thoughtful expression. "And I'm sorry to hear your business is in trouble. It looks like there's only one thing for you to do."

  "What's that?"

  "Marry me."

  She laughed, but the sound got caught in her throat. "Right. That's one way to avoid a breach of contract, isn't it?" She started to get up.

  “Cassie, I mean it." His voice was very sober and his fingers closed lightly around her arm. "I want you to marry me."

  A chill went down Cassie's spine as she turned to look at him. He was serious. Of course he was serious. Why hadn't she seen this coming? No, the trouble was that she had seen this coming, she had known it would happen and she had done nothing to stop it. She tried to keep her voice light as she replied, "Don't be silly, Shane. I can't marry you."

  Shane felt his own muscles tighten as Cassie got out of bed, walked over to the window and opened the drapes. The room was flooded with harsh morning light. "Why not?" he asked very reasonably.

  "Because it wouldn't work, that's why. Because we're perfectly wrong for each other, we have nothing in common, we wouldn't last a month and we'd make each other miserable. Have you seen my glasses?"

  "They're in the other room." Shane sat very still, measuring out the seconds by the beat of his heart as Cassie left the room in search of her glasses. He told himself he wasn't surprised. Why should he be surprised? It was just that, after last night, he had thought...

  "Found them!" she called. She returned to the bedroom and began rummaging through a drawer. Her movements were overly energetic, jerky and false. "I wish you'd look at the time. Emma will have the sheriff out. I've really got to get moving. Here—"

  "I'm in love with you, Cassie," Shane said.

  Cassie stopped, a bundle of underwear clutched in her hand, and let the words go through her like tiny arrows... arrows bathed in honey and tipped with poison. The muscles of her stomach clenched, and for a moment she couldn't get her breath. She turned to him, and it took all her strength to keep from running into his arms. "I'm in love with you, too, Shane," she said.

  She saw joy cross his face as he started to rise, and she squared her shoulders and forced resolution into her voice as she added steadily, "And that's exactly why this has to stop."

  For a moment nothing registered within Shane except incredulity. And then his careful pretense of control snapped. He leaped to his feet and exclaimed with exaggerated sarcasm, "I see! How stupid of me." He paced a few steps away from her and turned abruptly. "We're in love with each other, so naturally we can't get married! It makes perfect sense now. Thank you for explaining that."

  "Shane, don't—"

  "All right, I won't, if you'll be good enough to explain one more thing to me." He took an angry step toward her and gestured at the bed. "What was last night, then? Just another dress rehearsal? An audition? "

  The hurt and betrayal in his eyes went through her like a knife. She pressed a hand against her breastbone as though to subdue it, but somehow managed to keep her voice even as she replied, "Last night was two people who wanted to make love making love. It was beautiful and I'm glad but—"

  "But what? Now it's over? That's it? Just walk away?”

  “Don't tell me y
ou've never left a woman the morning after before!"

  "Not like this! Damn it, Cassie. Not like this!" He thrust his fingers through his hair, seeking calm, or failing that, at least a calmer tone of voice. He found neither. "You know this wasn't just a one-night stand for me. You know what I wanted—"

  "Yes, I know! You were in the mood to get married and I just happened to be available, so you thought you'd marry me! Well, I'm not available and I'm not going to marry you, Shane!"

  "Why not?" he demanded.

  It was so much easier to feel anger than the awful, crushing pain that bore down on her each time she looked into his eyes. It was so much easier to be aggressive than defensive, and anger was the best defense against her own weakness. She turned on him harshly.

  "Have you ever been to Rome?" she demanded.

  "Italy?" He seemed taken aback. "No."

  "Well, I have. And I liked it. And do you know what else? I'd like to go again. Would you?"

  "No, I—"

  "I'd like to go to Greece, too, and this winter my parents have invited me to go on a Caribbean cruise. How do you feel about ships, Shane?"

  "I don't see what this has to do with—"

  "Do you belong to the country club?" she pursued ruthlessly. "I do. You hate formal dances, don't you? I love them. Do you play golf? Tennis? What do you expect us to do together?"

  "Cassie, stop this—"

  “No!" She cried. "No, because don't you see that's just the tip of the iceberg. Those aren't even the things that matter! You grew up in an orphanage filled with children and I was a spoiled only child. You've spent your life in the wilderness and I've spent mine in the city. You barely finished high school and I was reading Chaucer when I was twelve. You want a wife. I want a career. You want a homemaker and I have to hire a maid service twice a month just to keep this apartment straight! You want someone to commit to for the rest of your life and I—"