Heartstrings and Diamond Rings

by Jane Graves

  But she was confident he’d learn to love them. Eventually.

  They went to Heather and Tony’s one night for dinner, and they had a good time. Heather said he was nice, even though she offered only a halfhearted smile when she said it. Tony said he was nice, too, but Alison got the distinct impression that maybe he’d found that one man he didn’t like. Not that he said that. She was probably just being overly sensitive.

  Because Justin was nice. And nice was good. Expecting fireworks and arrow‑shooting cupids and starry-eyed infatuation was only going to keep her alone for the rest of her life. It was as she’d always said. Adult relationships were all about modest expectations, and she intended never to forget that again.

  As the weeks passed, Brandon had more business than he ever could have anticipated. Most of his days were taken up with appointments, background checks, and phone calls. When he wasn’t busy in the office, he got out and about around town, talking to people wherever he could and passing out his business cards. Pretty soon he had more clients than he knew what to do with. He’d learned which questions to ask and what body language to watch for, so he was having good success with his matches.

  Maybe it really was true. Maybe there really was somebody for everybody.

  “Do you think people have soul mates?” Brandon asked Tom one evening as they were in the kitchen eating takeout Chinese. “That one person they’re destined to be with?”

  “Absolutely,” Tom said, grabbing a crab wonton. “Tracy and I are destined to be together in a big ol’ king-size bed with a six-pack of beer and a stack of condoms on the nightstand. But for some reason, I can’t get her to see that.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Well, I did read in Paranormal magazine that soul mates are people who knew each other in a former life. Then they’re reincarnated and end up together in this life. But that means in order to believe in soul mates, you also have to believe in reincarnation.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know about the reincarnation thing, but I’ve made matches for three clients who told me they thought I’d found them their soul mates. I used to think that was a crock, but…” He shrugged.

  “Oh, come on. You’re not actually believing your own press, are you? Love is a crapshoot. You said so yourself. Matchmaking is just the power of suggestion. You tell a client that somebody is their soul mate, and because they trust you, they believe it.”

  “Yeah. Maybe so.”

  “And the more you can get them to believe it, the more money you make. So how’s it going? Your office needs a revolving door to keep up with the traffic. Does that mean you’re on track moneywise?”

  “I need to take stock this weekend. Do some projections for the next few weeks. But things are looking good. In fact, I’m sure I’m ahead of schedule.”

  “Hey, the quicker you can get the money and shut things down here, the better. Just let me know when to set up the closing. I’m itching to get this project under way.”

  “Me, too,” Brandon said, and then wondered why he didn’t really feel the words he was saying.

  No. That wasn’t true. Of course he did. The profit potential of the project was huge, and more than once he’d sat back and imagined what it was going to be like to finally have money again, and he’d reveled in the feeling.

  So why wasn’t he reveling in it now?

  No. That wasn’t true. He was doing plenty of reveling. Who wouldn’t, with that kind of money on the horizon?

  But he was also imagining the day he’d have to shut down this business. He’d have to tell his clients he hadn’t matched up yet that he couldn’t work with them anymore, and then send them back out into the world to figure it out for themselves. But if they’d had a chance at finding somebody that way, they never would have hired him in the first place.

  Then he thought about Alison. Had she ever looked into Justin’s eyes with that soul-deep twinge of recognition? Did she say to herself, This is the man. He’s the one I’m destined to be with forever?

  Maybe soul mates did exist. And maybe Justin was hers.

  Brandon still went to McCaffrey’s once or twice a week, but these days he made it a point to show up only on weekday afternoons when he knew Alison would be at work. He was happy she was happy with Justin. He just didn’t want to see all that happiness in person.

  “Here’s what I think we should do once you have the money in place,” Tom said. “We should go to Houston. Sign the papers. Then we can get a couple of rooms at some ridiculously expensive hotel, dump our luggage, and hit the town. With luck, we can round up a few lovely ladies and make an evening of it. It’ll be like that night in Vegas all over again.”

  When this whole thing began, Brandon would have looked forward to that right along with Tom. Now it seemed like something he’d done in another lifetime and barely remembered.

  Then he heard a knock. He went to the door and looked out the peephole.

  Justin?

  Chapter 23

  Brandon opened the door. “Hey, Justin. What can I do for you?”

  “I know it’s not your office hours, but I was hoping you’d have a minute.”

  There was usually only one reason a client came back for a return visit, and that was because his current match wasn’t working out and he was looking for a new one. What if he’d split with Alison? What if she was free? What if…

  “Is something wrong between you and Alison?” he asked.

  “No. Of course not.” He paused. “Well, maybe a little. I need your advice about something.”

  “Sure. Come in.”

  They sat down in the living room, and Justin said, “I know Alison wants to get married someday, and so do I. I have a profitable business. A nice house. Nice car. Money in the bank. So a wife is next.”

  Brandon wondered how Alison felt about being number four on Justin’s to‑do list.

  “We’ve been dating a while now, and I want to move things to the next level with her, but I’m not sure how to do it.”

  “The next level?”

  “You’re the kind of guy who’s probably slept with a lot of women, right?”

  Good Lord, where was this going? “A few.”

  “Right. So I thought maybe you could help me. It’s the next step, you know. Dating for a while, and then sex. But she doesn’t seem all that interested.”

  Brandon tried to quell the part of him that was irrationally happy to hear that. “She’s doesn’t?”

  “No. And I don’t know why.”

  I’ll tell you why. You’re a screaming bore. “No idea at all?”

  “No. I cooked dinner for her the other night. I lit candles. Played music. But…nothing. She said she needed to get up early to do some work from the office, and she left right after dinner.”

  Brandon felt a surge of pleasure over that, only to slap it away. This is what she wants, so help the guy get it right. You want her to be happy, don’t you?

  Yes. He did. So he said the words that almost made him choke. “Maybe you should take her away for the weekend.”

  “A weekend getaway? I’ve heard women like those. Hmm. I have a certificate for a free night’s stay at the Holiday Inn in Waco. My TV wasn’t working the last time I was there, so they gave me a voucher for a free night.”

  Was this guy as clueless as he sounded? Yeah, it was the ultimate seduction scenario, all right. A crappy double bed with kids screaming next door and a free buffet breakfast.

  “No,” Brandon said. “Someplace nice. Go to Austin or San Antonio. And think five stars.”

  “Hmm. They have that river in San Antonio. And the Alamo.”

  “Justin. No Alamo.”

  “But she likes old stuff.”

  “This isn’t a sightseeing weekend. You’re there for romance. Two hundred people died at the Alamo. Death is not romantic. No Alamo.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I hear you.”

  “Take her to the Hotel Contessa on the River Walk. Dinner at Le Rêve.”

  “Sounds expensive
.”

  “Is she worth it?”

  The man hesitated. He actually hesitated. Brandon had the urge to smack him one to get him really clear about the woman he was hesitating about.

  “Yes. Of course she is.”

  Damned right she is.

  “And I do want to take things to the next level.”

  “Then pull out all the stops,” Brandon said. “Romance her like you’ve never romanced a woman before.”

  “Thanks,” Justin said. “I really do want to do this right. I like Alison. I like her a lot. I think we could…you know. Eventually get serious. But sex is the next step, right?”

  “Yep. That’s the next step.” A step he didn’t really want to talk about anymore since he wasn’t the one taking that step with her.

  “Thanks for the advice,” Justin said. “I’m going to try to set something up for a week from Friday.”

  Then he shook Brandon’s hand. For the first time. Brandon noticed what a weak grip Justin had. He’d always believed that men with weak handshakes were weak in other ways, as well. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

  It didn’t matter. He was the right guy. Just what Alison was looking for.

  Weak handshake and all.

  A few days later, Brandon slid onto a bar stool at McCaffrey’s, intending to relax for a while and catch a Rangers game. The place was rarely busy on weekday afternoons, so he usually found himself sitting on the same stool and ordering the same beer. Heather was behind the bar when he came in, and before he even sat down, she had that usual beer in front of him.

  He’d come to realize that, in general, Heather ran the business end of the place with a firm hand, while Tony’s job was to make sure anyone who walked through the door felt comfortable enough to sit down and stay a while. Their marriage was clearly a case of opposites attracting, but anyone who stopped long enough to watch them saw just how much they loved each other.

  Until now, Brandon had been the kind of guy who wouldn’t have noticed that in a million years. But in the past few months, he saw love and romance wherever he turned. A young couple pushing a baby in a stroller down State Street. An elderly couple sitting in lawn chairs beneath their magnolia tree. Twenty‑somethings in this very bar executing every imaginable kind of mating ritual. And the people who came to him looking for that one special person to make their lives complete. He’d become so immersed in getting new clients and making one match after another sometimes he almost forgot what his life had been like before.

  Heather rested her forearms on the bar. “So did you see who’s sitting in the corner booth?”

  Brandon turned around to look, and he immediately wished he hadn’t.

  Alison was there with Justin.

  Just then she turned and saw him staring. She froze for a moment, then looked away, turning her attention back to Justin. No wave, no smile, no nothing. So she wasn’t even going to speak to him. She was going to act as if he wasn’t there. But did he really want to talk to her? Especially when she was sitting with the guy who was going to be spending a romantic weekend with her?

  By what seemed like mutual consent, he and Heather hadn’t discussed Alison at all these past few weeks. It was as if the moment he set her up with Justin, the topic became off limits.

  “I thought Alison worked until five,” he said.

  “She took the day off to take her cats for their annual checkup,” Heather said. “Evidently that’s quite an ordeal.”

  “Justin skipped out of work, too?”

  “He’s the boss. He can do anything he wants to.”

  Yeah. He was a highly successful businessman who could put a diamond ring on Alison’s finger and promise her forever.

  “So I guess they’re getting along pretty well,” he said.

  “You haven’t talked to her lately?”

  “Not since right after her first date with him. Once I know things are going well, I usually just step aside. So what’s he doing here with her today?”

  “He had a meeting in East Plano, so they met for a late lunch.” Heather wiped some water drops from the bar with a dishrag. “Do you know why they’re sitting in a booth?”

  “Uh…no. Why?”

  “Because Justin says the bar stools are bad for his back. He has slight curvature of the spine, you know.”

  Actually, Brandon didn’t know that. And really, he could have lived from now on without ever knowing it.

  Heather wiped some more, even though the water drops had long since disappeared. “He doesn’t like her hot pink pumps.”

  “What?”

  “You know the ones.”

  He did. He’d go to his grave with those shoes indelibly imprinted on his brain. “Why doesn’t he like them?”

  “Because he’s only three inches taller than she is, and when she wears them, she can look down at the top of his head. I think he’s self-conscious about his bald spot.”

  Brandon wanted to ask why Justin was concerned with his bald spot when he could be looking at Alison’s legs in those incredible shoes, but who was he to judge?

  “When he eats, he doesn’t like one food on his plate to touch another one,” Heather said.

  What did she want him to say to that? The truth? That it was just a little bit weird?

  “He has three humidifiers in his house,” Heather said, just about wiping a hole through the bar. “He says he needs to keep his nasal mucosa moist.”

  “So?”

  Heather threw the dishrag down and leaned in, her voice an irate whisper. “So why did you set her up with him?”

  Brandon drew back with surprise. “What?”

  “Okay, I know I shouldn’t say anything, but Justin is such a drag.” She pointed to the dishrag. “Alison turns about as animated as that every time he walks into the room.”

  “He’s everything she said she wanted in a man.”

  “Then maybe you need to read between the lines.”

  Brandon turned away. “Not my job.”

  “Beg to differ. It’s your job to set her up with the right man.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Justin.”

  “But there’s not much right about him, either.”

  “Yeah, there is. He’s smart, decent looking, successful—”

  “He’s a bore.”

  “Alison is my client. She’s the one I answer to.”

  “Okay,” Heather said. “Better question. What’s going on between you two?”

  Brandon’s heart skipped. “What do you mean?”

  “Something was happening between you that night at the bar when her father was taken to the emergency room, and it looked like a good thing to me. And then you set her up with that guy.”

  And that was just about to kill him, no matter how much he wanted to say it didn’t.

  “And when you turned around just now and saw her with Justin…well, let’s just say you weren’t a happy man.”

  “Hey, you wanted me as far away from Alison as possible, remember? So I’m giving you what you wanted.”

  “Yeah. About that.” She exhaled. “I was wrong about you, Brandon. You’re not the kind of guy I thought you were. I treated you like crap, and I’m sorry.”

  No, damn it, she hadn’t been wrong. She’d been so right it was scary.

  “I appreciate that,” he said. “I never wanted any hard feelings.”

  “I can’t get anything out of Alison. She just keeps saying she thinks Justin is the one, and that she’s very happy.”

  “Then I think you need to take her at her word.” Brandon rose from his bar stool.

  “She hasn’t slept with him yet,” Heather said.

  Brandon kept his face impassive, as if it didn’t matter at all. But for some reason, it mattered very much.

  “But that won’t last for long,” Heather went on. “He’s taking her to San Antonio this weekend. They’re staying in a nice hotel on the River Walk.” She paused. “One room.”

  He wished Heather hadn’t brought that up.
Not that he intended to tell her he was the one who had suggested the trip in the first place. He just could have done without somebody else saying it out loud when he was already having such a hard time pretending it wasn’t happening.

  “How do you feel about that?” Heather asked.

  Brandon tossed a few bills on the bar. “I think San Antonio is fun. The weather should be nice. If they get there before sunset—”

  “It’s you she wants.”

  Don’t tell me that. I already know, and it’s killing me.

  He knew it in the way she’d looked at him that night, the way she’d kissed him, the way her eyes had been filled with disappointment when he’d turned her down. But he could never be the kind of man she needed. Justin could.

  “No,” he said. “It’s Justin she wants. And that’s the end of it.”

  With that, he left the bar, telling himself it was the last time he was going to risk stepping foot in McCaffrey’s again.

  On Monday afternoon, Alison was sitting at her desk reading her e-mail and eating her third Mallorific bar of the day, when Lois sidled up next to her.

  “So…you got any jobs for me?”

  “No,” Alison said. “Not right now.”

  “It’s been a while. Sure you don’t need some letterhead?”

  “Nope.”

  “Brochures?”

  “Nope.”

  “Door hangers?”

  “Nope.”

  “Surely that matchmaker guy needs something else.”

  “No,” Alison said through gritted teeth. “Nothing.”

  Lois’s eyes shifted back and forth. “You can’t just do that, Alison.”

  “Do what?”

  “Give me work, then take it away. It’s like you laid me off, or something.”

  “It’s contract work. That’s the way it goes.”

  “You don’t have to be so mean about it.”