Matchmaker and the Manhattan Millionaire

by Cara Colter

  And then his sister had cast him as her hero. According to her, he had lived up to her expectations.

  But he had paid a price for shouldering all that responsibility very young. Ever since then, he’d avoided having people rely on him. According to his sister, Theresa, who liked to offer her opinion even when it hadn’t been asked for—especially when it hadn’t been asked for—it was her fault he had become the quintessential bachelor, so allergic to commitment he couldn’t even have a houseplant in his apartment.

  And now Theresa and his brother-in-law, Mike, were gleefully getting ready to cash in on a bet he’d made a long time ago, when he was young—and possibly full of tequila.

  Be committed by thirty or—

  “You obviously don’t look like our typical burglars, but due to the circumstances if you could tell us your business here at this time of night, it would be appreciated.”

  “I have an appointment with Jane Clark,” Jonas said.

  “See, that’s the problem,” the policeman said. “She died last week, and there are actually people scummy enough to read the obituaries and target her premises.”

  Jonas felt a shiver of shock go through his system. He glanced at the woman, and could see she was fighting back tears.

  “He’s not a scumbag,” the quavering voice beside him offered.

  Given that he had held her over a barrel with his offer to help her for a price—even though he had been kidding—Jonas thought that was very generous.

  “It’s my fault. I should have been phoning people and letting them know about Aunt Jane. Just in case they hadn’t done what, apparently, scumbags do and read the obituaries. I’m supposed to be looking after things.”

  She was so genuine that both the policeman relaxed noticeably. “Your aunt was a much-loved fixture in this community,” one of them offered. “She’ll be missed by all of us.”

  She hiccuped. And then a tiny little noise escaped her, like the mew of a hurt kitten.

  All three men in the room reacted in the same way—silence, stiffening body postures, an exchange of panicky looks.

  A crime in progress was one thing. Largely manageable, a defined response called for and given, an event with a high possibility of a defined and satisfactory ending.

  Tears falling—female tears—was quite another.

  Within minutes the explanations had been given and accepted, the men in blue had reset the alarm and left with what appeared to Jonas to be uncommon haste.

  He could see why. With those huge dark eyes misted with tears, and that full bottom lip trembling with emotion, she had become the kind of woman any man feared most.

  Totally vulnerable. Soft. Needy. One who could use a strong shoulder to cry on. He could, unfortunately, picture her clinging like a limpet, sobbing against him, him patting her back...

  Stop it, Jonas ordered himself. He slid a longing look at the door that the other men had just exited, took a deep breath and decided to finish this business as quickly as possible.

  “Your aunt died?” Jonas said. “Why didn’t you say something instead of letting me act like a complete jerk?”

  “Maybe not a complete jerk,” she said with a little sniffle. “Fifty percent. You did offer me a get-out-of-jail-for-free card.”

  “Only not for free,” he reminded her. “Why didn’t you tell me? Right away?”

  “I couldn’t bring myself to shout it through the door. I’ve been having trouble letting people know. I think it helps me keep the reality of it from setting in. I know lots of people thought she was eccentric—

  Madame Cosmos, he thought guiltily.

  “But she was the most loving person I ever knew. She was the only person in my family I could count on. She was—”

  And then she was crying. Big sobs that shook her whole body, exactly the kind of sobs he and the policemen had been trying to head off at the pass since the clouds of that particular storm had first gathered in her eyes.

  “I thought I could just send you a letter. And the refund, so that th-this didn’t happen.”

  What was a man to do? Jonas looked longingly at the door one more time.

  “Hey,” he said, trying for his most empathetic tone, “it’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay!” she cried. “I loved her. I loved her more than anyone in the whole world!”

  Empathetic tones were probably not his strong suit. Her distress required a response from him, whether he wanted to give one or not.

  Like a man going to the gallows—a man with not one single option left—he went to her.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said softly. The reassurance had not worked the first time, and it did not work now. The tears were streaming down her face. It was a good thing she didn’t have on any mascara! A wail of pure despair came from her.

  With no options left, he folded his arms around her.

  His last hope was that she would be sensible—she looked like the sensible type—and that she would push him away.

  But she did not. And oddly, he did not feel as if he had just climbed the stairs to the gallows. As she nestled into him, a lovely warmth enveloped him. He could feel her tears puddling on his shirt, and after hesitating for just a second, his hand found her hair and he stroked the wild, springy silk of it.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered over and over, his tone as soothing as he knew how to make it. Touching her hair seemed to be releasing a scent that reminded him of the bouquet of fresh spring flowers he had given his sister for Mother’s Day. The aroma was fresh and light and ever so faintly spicy.

  “Th-thank y-you.” She didn’t attempt to pull away. “I’m not usually so emotional.”

  “Ah.”

  “Really.”

  The really was followed by a hiccup. Adorable.

  He acted fast. “I withdraw the proposal. The fiancée for a weekend, the whole fake mate thing.”

  She gave him a watery smile at the fake mate reference, then tilted her head and looked up at him, gauging something. Apparently, she reached the wrong conclusion, that he was a decent guy.

  “These might be the dumbest words I ever said,” she said softly, “but why don’t you tell me why you have a sudden, urgent need for an engagement? My aunt must have thought your reasons were compelling. I might consider your offer, after all.”

  Now that he had actually felt her soft curves pressed against him, now that his shirt was wet from her tears, now that the enchanting scent of her hair was burned into his brain, probably forever, now that he had found her hiccup adorable, that didn’t seem like it was a very good idea.

  He stepped back from her rapidly and looked at her, took in those huge eyes, tears studded in the lashes and strands of luscious hair just beginning to pull free from the clasp that held them, the plump lip, that looked freshly licked, somehow, quivering.

  Jonas was pretty sure he needed someone not complicated and he was pretty sure this woman in front of him would not fit that criteria. At all.

  Her name, provided to the police, came to his lips. “Kristen—”

  “Krissy,” she corrected him.

  “Krissy, it’s okay. I’ll figure out something else.”

  “But now I’m curious.”

  He suddenly did not want her to be curious about any part of his life. It felt extremely dangerous. There was an expression: curiosity killed the cat.

  Only in this circumstance, the cat could be him!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I’M VERY SORRY about your aunt,” Jonas said with formality, backing away from Krissy slowly, like a man backing away from extreme danger. He felt the door behind him. He put his hand on it. Have a nice life, he wished her silently.

  “Wait! They reset the alarm! We will have to go out the back.”

  There was no we. Or at least after he escaped out that back door there would be
no we.

  “Look, I’m going to leave, too,” she said, her composure returning and her tone soothing, as if she was talking to a flighty animal that was about to bolt. “We can go together. If it’s not too much trouble, perhaps you could walk with me? I have to get to Penn Station to get my train home. You could fill me in on the details as to why you need a fiancée.”

  “Uh—”

  “Fake mate,” she said with way too much enjoyment. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  Actually, he did mind. He suddenly didn’t want her knowing any of the details of his quest for a temporary arrangement of the fiancée kind. On the other hand, he did not want her going out the back door by herself, or walking by herself, either. And Penn Station at this time of night?

  “Where’s home?” he asked reluctantly.

  “Sunshine Cove. It’s a little hamlet in the Hudson Valley—

  “I know where it is.” A memory tickled. “Is Moo-Moo’s still there?”

  She smiled. Now there was a dangerous thing, far more dangerous than the tears that still wetted the front of his shirt. That smile—along with the fresh memory of her hair, wild and springy under his touch—confirmed his thought that lurking under that deliberately frumpy librarian look was something else entirely.

  “Still there,” she said. “The best strawberry milkshake in the world.”

  Jonas formed an unfortunate picture of those lush lips closing over a straw.

  “A strawberry shake?” he scoffed, partly to erase the visual. “You don’t waste a trip to Moo-Moo’s and have a strawberry shake. You have the Triple Chocolate Volcano Sundae.”

  She frowned at him. “You needn’t say that like a strawberry shake is boring.”

  “Well...”

  “They use real strawberries!”

  This, right here, was why he needed to cut his losses. She was prepared to defend a strawberry milkshake, as if he had somehow called her boring, and not the milkshake. And for some reason, instead of cutting his losses, he was prepared to goad her on.

  “Caramel Cream Banana Bliss, Gooey Gluey Fudge Cake, Thunder Mountain Raspberry Dazzle or, wait for it, Strawberry Shake.”

  “Yes,” she said stubbornly.

  “Every time?”

  “Sometimes I have a vanilla cone,” she said, as if this was an act of defiance that she was prepared to defend to the death.

  “Now you’re just trying to bug me.”

  She was silent.

  “I suppose they use real vanilla?” Jonas asked.

  “They do. You can see the pieces of ground bean in the ice cream.”

  “Well, that’s exciting.”

  “We all have different ideas of what’s exciting.”

  That made him look right at her hair. And then her lips. And then, hastily, away. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

  He wondered, a renegade thought that he completely failed to head off at the pass, if they weren’t talking about ice cream, what she would find exciting.

  “You’re very familiar with the menu,” she said, her tone a little stiff, as if he had managed to hurt her feelings. Which he probably had. He wasn’t good with the sensitive type of woman. She had claimed she usually wasn’t emotional, but he was seeing no sign of that.

  “I did try to work my way through the entire menu,” Jonas admitted proudly. “Back in the day, Moo-Moo’s was a big outing for my family.”

  It was the kind of memory that he, allergic to sensitivity, avoided. Still, it pushed in, the four of them piling into a station wagon for a rare day away from the failing family resort. The day would be laughter filled, love filled. That thing called family, feeling so steady, so safe, so strong, despite the cloud of financial insecurity they had lived under. How wrong a man—a boy at the time—could be in his sense that things could last forever.

  Still, Sunshine Cove was exactly the kind of place he would picture Krissy living: one of those satellite enclaves served by commuter trains, the quintessential Hudson Valley town with mature trees and old manor houses tucked back on big grassy lots, and a sleepy main street that felt like a homecoming.

  “I think I had better—” cut his losses came to mind. And yet that was not the direction he was moving in. He knew what he was going to do. Felt weirdly as if he had to do.

  Jonas heard a sound. What was it? A heating system with a squealing belt turning on? A cat fighting in the alley? For some reason, it shivered along his spine. “Did you hear that?”

  “No, what?”

  “It sounded almost like the alarm going off again, only way more quiet.”

  Krissy tilted her head at him.

  Jonas could not tell her the full truth. It sounded like someone in the distance laughing. He was not sure he had ever heard Madame Cosmos laugh, but he was pretty sure if she did it would have the alarm-like stridency of a cackle of pure delight.

  It made him reconsider what he was just about to offer to do. After all, what was the point of Krissy thinking he was the kind of perfect gentleman a strawberry shake woman like her would require him to be? And what was the point of leaving himself open to her curiosity when he had decided Krissy as his fake mate would be way too complicated?

  “I don’t hear anything,” she said decidedly after a moment. “You think you had better what?”

  What, indeed? he asked himself.

  * * *

  “I think I had better drive you home,” Jonas said.

  Krissy could hear the reluctance in his voice. Well, who could blame him? It was a long drive, and the round trip would take him deep into the night. Plus, she had cried all over him, and he had decided, on the basis of milkshake choice, that she was boring.

  She suspected his motive was pity. Who wanted to be pitied by such an excruciatingly attractive man?

  Still, it was so tempting! A car instead of the train, an opportunity to bring some of these boxes home. Plus, it would be so quick. And her dog had now been home alone for way too long.

  Crusher. Was she actually dreading going home to the new resident?

  Of course not! In fact, for the dog’s sake alone, she should accept the ride. But underneath all those very good reasons to accept Jonas’s offer, Krissy was aware of something else. Despite the disagreement over what was exciting in ice cream products—or maybe because of it—she wanted to spend more time with him. She was intrigued. She wanted to unravel the mystery of why Jonas, a man brimming with such confidence, such a sense of himself, was searching for a fiancée.

  All the more reason to say no, as if a pro and con sheet was being built in her head. Despite his association with her aunt, he was a complete stranger.

  On the other hand, she always said no. It was her default answer for nearly everything, including trying other items on the menu at Moo-Moo’s. Why not say yes for once? Why not be open to life being surprising?

  It occurred to her that maybe she just didn’t want to be alone.

  “That would be very kind,” she shocked them both by saying.

  Moments later, weighed down with boxes, they emerged from the alley behind Match Made in Heaven. Jonas led her down the street and stopped at a sleek-looking car that was not like anything she had ever seen before.

  “What is this?” she asked, annoyed that her voice had a reverent whisper to it. Obviously, the kind of car a man like him—a Triple Chocolate Volcano Sundae guy—drove. Or a James Bond type. Or a business tycoon.

  Her own car suddenly seemed as boring as her ice cream choices, an economical subcompact that was good on gas and was a less than exciting shade of white. In fact, her car was about the same shade as a vanilla cone.

  This car was vintage, very sporty and low-slung. Without knowing a single thing about cars, Krissy knew it was powerful. It glinted a deep and glossy muted pewter under the streetlight.

  �
�It’s the cause of all my problems,” Jonas said with rough affection. He opened the passenger-side door and leaned in, stowing the box he was carrying in the back. She ordered herself not to look at the way his jacket rode up and his slacks stretched tight, but part of her mutinied against the order.

  Jonas was a beautifully made man!

  She was blushing by the time he turned back to her, but thankfully it was dark enough out that he seemed not to notice. He held open the door for her, and she slid into the seat. She was immediately embraced by the scent of rich leather, mingled with another scent that she recognized from when he had held her. Tangy. Clean. Male. The end result was one of being immersed in the man’s subtle sensuality.

  A moment later he got in the driver’s side, turned the ignition and the car growled to life.

  “It’s a Jaguar,” he said.

  He pronounced it Jag-guare, which for some reason was nearly as swoonworthy as him leaning over to stow those boxes.

  “Nineteen sixty-four,” he said proudly.

  “And how is it the cause of all your problems?” Krissy ventured, after he had pulled smoothly into traffic. She had to admire the way he drove, handling the powerful car with the casual inborn confidence one might associate with riding high-strung horses.

  “It was the first major purchase I ever made. Way back in the day. It was kind of like my I have arrived statement. I love this car madly.”

  She slid him a look. In the glow of the dashboard panel, it was evident all of that was true. He had definitely arrived. And he was in love with his car. She wondered how many women were jealous of his passion for the car, and Krissy vowed not to be one of them.

  “And how is it the source of all your problems?”

  “I acquired it the same week my best friend, Mike, asked my sister, Theresa, to marry him. We started our business together. That’s how he celebrated his arrival. I bought a car. He proposed marriage.”

  Jonas’s voice was rough with wry affection as he continued. “I thought they were both way too young to be making that kind of commitment. I told him I, personally, would be waiting until I was thirty. He scoffed at that, not seeing me as the commitment type, ever.