Dear Shy Guy
The Matchmaker Series
Laney Powell
Copyright © 2019 by Laney Powell
Dear Shy Guy: The Matchmaker Series
Spar Island Book #5
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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The Matchmaker Series
For all those who are searching for
The Happily Ever After
(With the totally hot guy)
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Spar Island Girls
About the Author
Also by Laney Powell
Hello, lucky you!
I’m Grace, and I will be helping you along this journey to find your true love. In this packet, you’ll find ten envelopes that can be sent to me via overnight delivery. I’ll make sure the intended recipient gets the letters. You don’t have to send ten letters—but I want you to be able to if you wish.
Once a quarter, I have Cocktails with Grace. It’s a small get-together that allows you to meet one another, if you haven’t yet, in a safe, neutral location. You decide when you meet. But I will tell you that one of the reasons I have a high rate of my matches becoming lasting relationships is that people take the time to write letters. We can’t help but share some of who we are in our letters, no matter how carefully we plan them.
If anything less than wonderful should occur, let me know. I want you to be happy and find what you’re seeking. So I will work with you until you do!
Good luck, and happy writing!
Love,
Grace
Nat
I read over the letter that had come with the ten FedEx envelopes. I’d been so excited about this, but now that I held the pieces in my hands, my heart beat faster and I could feel sweat break out all over my body. Then I took a breath and looked around the office. I needed to find a nice pen, and some nice paper. Nothing from here—everything had the company logo.
So I would need to go shopping.
It had seemed a good idea at the time. My brother had gotten back together with his old high school girlfriend, and they were so in love, I nearly went into a sugar coma when I was around them. My friend Annalise had met the love of her life, and all my friends were getting together with guys they were sure would be forever.
Except me. Natalia Dragomirov, spinster. With three older brothers and a protective dad, I had a hard time finding a guy that could deal with them. Not to mention, I was the chief employee for Santa Time, our Santa business. My dad had always hoped that one of my brothers would take it over, but honestly, they hated playing Santa. And I ran circles around them. I loved my job as an elf during the entire Santa season; I spent the rest of the year lining up the Santas and looking for new contracts with malls around the state. This year, we’d managed to get our Santas into every single mall in Rhode Island. That was me. All me. My dad finally admitted that not only was I completely kick-ass, but that I deserved to be the heir to his business. After the new year, he’d gone with me to our attorney, and we’d signed paperwork making me a partner in the business. I had to share everything with my mom if my dad, the other partner, was no longer here, but it was official. Santa Time was mine.
And I was delighted.
Only one thing was missing: I wanted someone to share it with. Like my brothers had. Aleksandr and Cate made me even more aware that I was alone.
I’d seen an ad for What The Heart Wants matchmaking agency in one of my holiday supply magazines. Once I saw it, I kept seeing it. Finally, I decided to heed the messages the universe was sending out and sign up. I had the money for the fees.
It was just the act of doing it.
First things first. I couldn’t write on the legal pad paper. I grabbed my coat, and the envelope from Grace, and headed out for the nearest card store. They had to have stationery, right? I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d written a real letter.
As I walked to my car, I looked at Grace’s letter again. The date of the next get-together was February 14. How fitting—Valentine’s Day. Her agency was in St. Louis, which I hadn’t realized when I signed up for it. Still, I could take the time off and fly out there, if this worked out. I didn’t know what I’d tell my parents, but I’d think of something.
At the card store, I found some paper that I thought was pretty. Cream, with what looked like flowers pressed into it. It was dainty, and delicate—not words that anyone would use to describe me.
But I knew I would love for a man to think of me that way. The thought came to me as I stood there with it in my hand. If I presented myself like this, the way I wanted to be seen, in addition to everything else about me, would he see me this way? This mystery man took on an even more important air.
We can’t help but share some of who we are in our letters, no matter how carefully we plan them.
Grace’s words came back to me. And that decided me. I was me. I liked who I was—the only Dragomirov girl, and able to run the family business. Now it was time to explore the side of me that no one I’d dated so far had seemed to pick up on. Mystery Man would see me as I wanted to be seen.
I marched to the counter and bought the paper. I loved it, and this would be the first part of me that he saw. If I wanted a change, I needed to be the person who started it.
Operation Mystery Man had begun.
Christopher
I looked at the packet that Grace handed me. “What’s this?”
“That is part of my ‘thank you’ to you,” she said, dimpling. Grace Graham was an older lady who ran a matchmaking agency. She was my client—she’d needed a major website update, and all of her systems were dinosaurs.
“What is it?”
“I put you into the shiny new system you built for me.” Her smile got even wider.
I didn’t know how that was possible. “Grace, I appreciate it, but I don’t—”
“You already have a match.”
“What? How? I never signed up for this!” The blood rushed to my ears, and I could feel panic rising. The last thing I needed was to try to impress a woman. The very last thing. No way.
“You filled out the questionnaire. And it put you right into the system, and there were three woman who came up as potential matches with you. Now your new method is pret-ty snazzy.” She patted me on the shoulder. “But what makes me special is that I pick the matches myself. I went through the applications, and I picked the best one for you.”
“Grace, I appreciate it, but you already paid me.” I had to get out of this.
“She already has her packet, Christopher. Give it a try. You aren’t obligated to anything other than a couple of letters.”
I took a breath to steady my heart rate. I needed to calm down, or my disability would come out in full force. “Grace, please—”
�
�No, please do this for me, Christopher. If you don’t like her, or you don’t feel anything, let me know. I’ll handle it from there.”
I opened my mouth and I could feel the block. I couldn’t speak, so I nodded. Three letters. I wrote emails all the time. I could do this.
* * *
Two hours later, I had a chance to read over Grace’s letter. I had to write an actual letter. I knew this because I’d become very familiar with her business. We had a contract for me to maintain and update her site and keep the various tasks running. Grace had managed all the matches on her own for years, but she was getting older, and she wanted a way to make things easier for herself without sacrificing the personal touch that made her successful.
I didn’t plan on being one of the new system’s guinea pigs. It didn’t seem, however, that I had much choice.
When I got home, I went into my office and looked around. I didn’t have anything that would do for writing a letter to a bank, much less to someone I wanted to see me as a date.
But did I want to get a date? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had one. I’d tried to date in high school, and then in college, and it had been an unmitigated disaster.
It’s not that I was completely horrid to look at, or anything. At least, I hoped I wasn’t. I was six foot three, with blond hair. I’d had a couple of girls tell me I looked like a surfer. My eyes were blue, and I worked out at the gym. None of that was the problem.
The problem was that I had a stutter. I’d mastered it by the time I got to high school, but most of my classmates had known me since elementary school. When I got upset, I still stuttered.
It didn’t garner me any cool points.
College had been better. Sort of. But I’d had a girlfriend for a couple of months who seemed nice, until we went to a party one night. I’d found her later that night talking to her friends, and she was making fun of my stutter. She’d heard it once, when I was frustrated with some class or something—and she was mocking it.
I’d left her at the party, and I hadn’t dated much since then. It wasn’t worth the risk. When I could be reduced to just my stutter, I figured why bother?
Since I worked as a web designer, I was able to work at home. I liked that. I didn’t have to worry about anyone catching me off guard, or getting upset about something, and my stutter bursting out like an unwanted party guest.
But that didn’t give me any opportunities to meet anyone—friends, women, nothing.
I’d been angry that Grace had been so pushy as to sign me up, to use my application—that I’d only done as a test to make sure things worked—when I hadn’t approved it. But maybe she was right. Maybe I needed this.
I read her letter again. I’d need to get some paper that looked nicer; something that was for letters, and not the notepads that I used for any writing I had to do around the house or office.
A small, tiny part of me allowed a little spark of hope to form. Could this really be something that would work for me?
It had worked for a lot of other people. There had to be people who had things going on like I did. Maybe not a stutter, but everyone had something. Grace had pictures all over her office of couples that had met through her service and gotten married. She got baby pictures in the mail all the time.
First things first. I snuffed out the hope. I wasn’t going to put any expectations on this until I got the letter from the woman I’d been matched with. Then I’d see.
The small flame refused to die.
Nat
I sat at my desk, pen in hand. The beautiful, pressed flower paper sat in front of me. Blank. So very blank. I didn’t know what to say. Pulling my laptop across the desk, I looked at Grace’s site again. She recommended that you write a couple of paragraphs, and tell the other person something about your work, without giving the business, your hobbies, and what you’re looking for in life.
Okay. I could do this. I took a breath and steeled myself to look again at the gorgeous blank paper. I solved lots of other problems every day, I could do this.
Be honest, write from the heart, Grace wrote.
I wrote a four-pager and tossed it. Too much information. I started again, and this one was one page, just enough info to not look all crazy. Before I chickened out, I put it in one of the FedEx envelopes and went online to arrange a pickup. When the driver stopped by later that day, I handed it over with my heart beating so hard I thought it was going to leap out of my chest. This was it. No going back now.
I worked hard the rest of the week, trying not to think about the letter. I wondered where he was, who he was.
I’d told Grace that I wasn’t interested in moving. She was in St. Louis, but she said she worked with clients all over the country, and my location wasn’t a problem at all. I wondered if he was here in Bristol.
I texted Annalise to tell her what I’d done. Before I hit Send, I stopped and erased it all. I wasn’t ready to talk about this. It was too fresh, too private. I didn’t want to hear that I was crazy, or that I’d wasted my money because she knew a perfect guy for me, or any of that nonsense.
Not that Annalise would say that. She was one of my oldest friends, one of the Spar Island Girls; the group of girls I’d grown up with. We’d been friends at first because our parents were friends, and they loved to take out their boats and hang out on these little spit islands out in Mt. Hope Bay called the Spar Islands. It was a great way to spend a day out on the water.
When we got older, we went out on our own. My brother Aleks used to take a bunch of us out in his boat. I suspected even then I was only invited because I was friends with Cate, and he adored her.
After a disastrous ending to the first time they’d dated, Aleks had finally gotten himself together in regard to Cate this past Christmas. Well, if you count getting the right idea after being a pretty big jackass. He nearly screwed things up with her this time, too. He was lucky, in my opinion, that Cate adored him, too, and was willing to put up with his shit. I don’t know that I would have given him another chance—but it showed me there was a lid for every pot, as my mom always said. Even a pot like my brother.
I didn’t want that—for it to be so difficult that there was so much push and pull between people before they finally got it together.
I loved my brother, and I loved Cate, and it was obvious that they were really happy together. I wanted that—but not all the drama it had taken for them to get there.
This had seemed like a better idea at the time. Take the time to get to know someone, to learn more about them through their letters. Then you could decide, after meeting, if this was worth pursuing. Grace had a really great record. Something like eighty-five percent of her couples that she matched were still together or married.
The questionnaire had been intense, and some of it made me uncomfortable. I was only twenty-one, and my parents felt that I didn’t need to worry about getting married. That I had plenty of time.
But I worked all the time. And I was focused on growing the business. My goal was to be the provider for all the Santas ever needed in the New England area. That would take time, and effort. I knew all the guys who still lived here. Anyone interested in me had gotten the talk from one or all of my brothers. If I hadn’t had the other Spar Island girls, I would have gone mad.
I laughed at myself a little. I was certainly mopey and all about how hard my life was.
That needed to stop right now. I had a great life, I was just wanting to make sure I had a chance to get the things I wanted out of it.
I hoped that Grace had found someone great. I’d told her that I liked tall men, but outside of that, I wasn’t picky. I hoped he’d be handsome, and someone that I would find attractive. I secretly hoped he’d be blond. I was dark haired, as was my entire family. I found men with light hair almost exotic looking.
Not that I’d told anyone else that. They would have laughed me out of the room. I guess it was true—that you preferred the things that were different from what you knew.
Now I had to find other things to do, so I didn’t hang around waiting for a letter for the rest of the week. And I hoped that he would write me soon.
Christopher
I looked at the envelope. Jesus, that was fast. Grace had given me the packet only five days previously. Had she already sent the info to this girl—woman—that she claimed was the perfect match for me?
I wanted to open it, but it made me nervous. After staring at it for what felt like forever, I ripped it open. There was a sealed envelope, and nothing else. The envelope had pressed flowers in the paper. When I took out the letter, I saw that the stationary was the same.
She had taken the time to use nice paper. I liked knowing that. I opened it and began to read.
Dear Mystery Man,
I’m calling you that until you tell me what you’d prefer I call you. I’m sitting here, staring at this paper, wondering what to say. I guess I’ll tell you a little about me.
I’m the only daughter in a family with three boys. I’m the youngest, and I work with my dad in the family business. He’s pretty traditional, so I wasn’t expected to be involved in it, much less take it over. But after the past year, my dad made me a partner, and I am so excited. I love what I do. I think that makes me lucky.
I still live in the same place I grew up, and while it’s small, I wouldn’t be anywhere else. The tough thing is, most of the people I grew up with moved away, so I find myself sort of isolated. I decided to sign up for this service because I like the idea of writing letters even if that’s old-fashioned.
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