The Matchmaker's Happy Ending: Boardroom Bride and Groom

by Shirley Jump

  “And my father’s business was part of that bottom line? Because it meant more to your father gone than working?”

  “Yes.” Saying it to Marnie’s face hurt Jack far more than speaking to any of the other business owners in that pile of folders on his desk. He wished he could undo the past, flip a switch, and change everything. “Every time I did what my father asked me to do, I died a little inside. I was so caught up in the thrill of it all, the hunt, the chase, the capture, that I couldn’t see the impact on the people, or on me.”

  Marnie just listened.

  “When I met your father, and convinced him to sign with us,” Jack said, “I liked him. A lot. And for the first time, I felt like the lowest level of scum there was because I knew I was lying and I knew what was going to happen to his business. I realized what I’d been doing and how it had turned me into someone I didn’t even like, someone who lied to get what he wanted, who toed the company line no matter what it cost other people. After that, I quit working for my father. I walked away. It took me a couple weeks to find another job, and in that time, my dad went to your father and told him there was no hope. Nothing to salvage. He convinced your father to sign over the rest of the company to Knight.”

  “For pennies on the dollar.”

  Jack nodded. “By the time my father died and I was in that president’s chair, it was too late. Your father had left, and didn’t want to come back to the business.” He still remembered that morning meeting with Tom Franklin. Regrets had haunted Jack for years. He’d been too late, then and now. Too damned late.

  “Wait. You offered my father his company back?”

  “His was one of the first I tried to fix. It was the one I wanted most to save, but your dad was done, and I think, glad to be out of the chief’s role. He said he loved the industry, but hated the stress of being an owner. He seemed...relieved when I talked to him. I kept trying. I called him every week. But he kept saying no. Said he wanted to be retired and enjoy what time he had left. So I stopped.”

  “What do you mean, what time he had left?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Oh, hell. Jack hesitated. He looked into Marnie’s wide green eyes, and wondered if deep inside her, she already knew what he was going to say. “Your father had a heart condition. He’d known about it for years and I think that’s what really drove him to get investors, to try to take some of the stress off his shoulders. After I lost my dad from the same thing, I tried to encourage Tom to get to the doctor, listen to the medical advice, but he was...” Jack’s voice trailed off.

  “A proud and stubborn man.” She let out a gust and jerked to her feet. For a moment, she fumed, then she nodded. “My mother had hinted at this. That my father wanted time, and that she wanted him to have it, too. They knew. But they kept it from us.”

  “He didn’t want you to worry, I’m sure. That’s why he kept this all secret.”

  “Secrets are how people get hurt!” The words exploded out of her and she turned away. “If that’s love, I don’t want it.” She waved a hand, as if brushing away a wasp. “Leave it for everyone else.”

  He stepped to the side, until she looked up at him again. In her face, he saw the scared woman buried deep inside her. So afraid to trust. That had been him, too, for much too long. No more. If he kept letting fear rule his heart, he was going to miss out on someone incredible. Marnie.

  “Marnie, your father did love you girls and your mother,” Jack said. “He talked about you all like his family was the best in the world. He was trying to protect you all, right or wrong.”

  After a long moment, realization and acceptance dawned in Marnie’s eyes. “Because then we’d want to help. We’d want to talk about it. And if there’s one thing my family excelled at, it was not talking about anything.” She cursed and shook her head, then wrapped her arms around herself, even though the day was warm. “My whole life was like that. Things happening beyond my control. My father would keep his business worries to himself, play the jokester, the happy guy, my mother would act like everything was perfect, and I’d feel like I was missing something. Something necessary and important.”

  Jack rose and took her hand in his. “Oh, Marnie, I’m sure they didn’t do it to hurt you.”

  “But it did all the same. And so I grew up, and I decided I’d control everything I could. And do the same for them. Protect my mother from...you. From love, from happiness.”

  “From me?”

  “I was afraid that if she saw you, she’d remember what had happened to my father and be hurt all over again. But really, I was just looking for a reason to stay away from this...risk between us.” She bit her lip, and finally admitted the truth to herself. Her father had lost his business and her world had been thrust into chaos. Then he died, and the chaos got worse. Both things happened outside her realm of control, and had only made her dig her heels in further. “I have my lists and my organizational things and it all gives me comfort. I went into a business where I can control people’s happy endings. And you know what?” She lifted her gaze to his, and felt tears fill her eyes. “Control hasn’t made me any happier. It’s made me scared and reluctant. And left me alone. The only match I can’t make is the one for myself, because falling in love means letting go. Taking a chance. Trusting another person. And maybe getting hurt in the process.”

  Jack danced his fingers along her cheek. “And would that be so bad?”

  She nodded, scared even now. A part of her wanted to hold on to the comfort of that fear, but she had done that for far too long and ended up running from Jack, running from the truth, and most of all, running from the very thing she wanted.

  Love.

  Her gaze went to the statues again and she realized her father may not have told her everything, but in his own way, he’d always been trying to prepare his daughters for the end. “Whenever he read Make Way for Ducklings to me, my father used to add an epilogue. He would tell me that there would be a day when Mr. and Mrs. Mallard could no longer lead the way for the ducklings to go to the little island, and that the ducklings shouldn’t worry. When that day came, that was when the ducklings knew it was time for them to spread their wings and find their own ponds. He said the Mallards knew their ducklings would be fine because they were smart and strong and would always have the love of their parents at their backs.” The tears slid down her cheeks now, dropping onto her hands and glistening in the fading light. What she wouldn’t give to hear him tell that story one more time. “He wanted me and my sisters to find our own ponds and not to worry about him.”

  “Because you are smart and strong and would always have his love.”

  She nodded, mute, and the tears fell, and Jack pulled her into his chest, holding her tight and strong. She cried for a long time, while pigeons cooed at their feet and the sun began to set over Boston. She cried and his heart broke for her, and he wished that of all the things he had fixed, that he could fix this one most of all. She cried and Jack envied her father, and hoped Tom Franklin knew how lucky he had been to have people love him like this.

  Finally, Marnie drew back and swiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  He whisked away one more tear with his thumb, then cupped her jaw. “Don’t be. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up to my father sooner. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when your father needed me most. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all of this sooner. I’m sorry for a thousand things, and a thousand more. I’ve been trying to make it up to the people my father’s company destroyed ever since that day, because that’s the only thing that’s going to let me sleep at night. I can’t change the past, but hopefully I can make the future better.”

  “And the Hendricksons? Are they part of that?”

  Jack shook his head. “That was all your father’s idea. He said he wanted to see the next generation carry the company forward. He
told me to contact Doug and tell him that after he got out of college, he could buy the building and its contents for a fair price.”

  “You held on to that property all this time? Because my father asked you to?”

  Jack nodded. “It was the least I could do.” He brushed back the lock of hair that had fallen across her brow. “I’m sorry, Marnie.”

  It was as if he couldn’t say the words enough. She was the face of his and his father’s selfish decisions, the mirror Jack looked into every day. But telling her and getting the truth on the table, as painful as it had been, had eased the guilt in his chest. For the first time since he’d taken a seat behind his father’s desk, he felt as if he’d made a difference. Like he could stop beating himself up for the past.

  “I’m glad you’re helping Doug. I truly am. I couldn’t think of a single soul that would take better care of my father’s dream.” She gave him a grateful smile. “My mother told me once that my father said he thought you were a good man when he met you.”

  “Really?” Jack thought of who he had been, and couldn’t imagine why Tom would say such a thing.

  “One of my father’s skills, and I think it’s something I inherited and use in my matchmaking, is seeing the best in people. He knew who you were inside, and that’s what he saw. That’s all he saw. That’s why he trusted you.”

  Jack shook his head. “He must have had a crystal ball into the future because I sure wasn’t a good man back then.”

  “But now, you are.”

  “Now I’m just trying to make up for the past. Going into the same office, day after day, and trying to undo the damage.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure that makes me good or bad, more...doing my job.”

  She thought about that for a second as a trio of bicyclers sped past them, and a family paused to admire the bronze ducklings. The end of the day brought more people to the park, their voices rising and falling like music.

  “You know, you and I are a lot alike,” Marnie said. “We both keep taking comfort in the things we know, the things we can rein in, rather than risk it all for the unknown. It’s like what you said in your speech about taking chances. It’s so much easier, isn’t it, not to confront, not to upset? It’s just another way to control the situation. When really—” at this, she let out a little laugh “—the one you’re really not confronting is yourself. Your own fears and insecurities and worries.”

  How right she was. He’d gone along with his father’s plans for years, because he didn’t want to look in the mirror at what he’d been doing. And now, he’d avoided relationships under the guise of not wanting to repeat his family history, rather than looking at the inner demons that kept him from making a commitment. He took her hand, letting his thumb rub across the back of her fingers. Her hand felt good in his, right. “All we can do, as my stepfather says, is to live and learn, and do things different going forward.”

  She nodded. “That’s good advice, Jack. You should take it.”

  “I’m trying.” He grinned.

  “I mean it. You should go after the things you’re afraid of.”

  “I’m trying to go after you.” He moved closer, reaching for her, but she stepped out of his grasp. “But you keep running away from me.”

  He reached up and cupped her jaw. He could look at her face every day for the rest of his life. Hear her say his name every morning and night, forever. After his engagement ended, he’d been afraid to risk his heart, and it almost cost him this woman. His stepfather had been right. He had been scared, terrified really, of opening his heart to Marnie because it meant taking a risk that he could turn out like his father. He was done with that. Done with worrying. The best thing to do—

  Take the leap anyway.

  Jack let his thumb trail along her bottom lip. “All that fire and sass, in one woman. No wonder I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t, Jack. Don’t do this.”

  She was going to bolt, and he didn’t know how to stop that. Despite her words, the woman who brought people together for a living still lived in fear of her own happy ending, held that fear like a security blanket. He and Marnie were so alike, he thought, burned by their pasts and using their jobs to cover for their emotions.

  “Don’t what, fall in love with you? Too late, Marnie.”

  She swallowed hard and her eyes widened. “But we’ve only known each other a few weeks and we barely dated or anything.”

  “When you know, you know. Doesn’t that happen to your clients all the time?”

  “Yes, but this is different.”

  “How?”

  “It just is.”

  He wanted to shake her, to tell her to take down that stubborn wall, and open her heart. But he knew she would do that only when she was ready. Pushing her would only push her away, the last thing he wanted.

  His gaze dropped to her lips, trembling with the fear still in her heart, then raised his gaze to her eyes, wide, cautious. “Why are you so terrified of the very thing you tell everyone else in the world to go after?”

  “I...I’m not.” The lie flushed her cheeks.

  “Do you know why my engagement ended?” Jack said. “Tanya left me because she said I was cold. Uninvolved. More interested in work than in our relationship. I lost her, and it was all my fault. I’ve kept my heart closed off ever since, and worked myself half to death, because I thought that was easier. After all, I learned that art from the master.” He let out a gust and a low curse. “The irony of the whole thing is that the one man I never wanted to emulate—my father—was the man I had started to become. I won’t make that mistake again, nor am I going to spend one more day alone just because I’m afraid of his legacy. I’m done running from relationships. The question is—” he took her hand again “—are you?”

  “You think I’m running? Look in the mirror, Jack. You’re afraid, too.”

  “I’m not afraid of anything, Marnie.”

  “Really? You told Luanne that you originally went to college to be a writer, then changed your major to business. Why? Because you wanted to make your father happy, not you. You told me yourself that you don’t love your job, and you had thought about doing something else, but put it off. My question for you is why are you still working in your father’s business if your first love was in writing?”

  He scoffed. “Any business person will tell you that a job like that, where the sales and return on investment are almost completely out of your hands, is crazy. I’ve read the statistics. I know how many writers are making poverty level wages, and how many—”

  “Are talking themselves out of it because they’re afraid. Stop investing in other people, Jack, and invest in yourself. Then maybe...” Her green eyes met his, soft, vulnerable. “Maybe we can be.”

  Now she did leave, and this time, he didn’t follow her. He sat back down on the bench and watched the bronze ducks marching on a perpetual journey to lands unknown. And wondered how a smart man could be so very, very stupid.

  * * *

  Marnie stood at her thirty-first wedding of the year and tried like heck to look happy. Instead, she suspected she had a face fit for a funeral. She shifted on her heels, slipped a glance at her watch, and bit back a groan. She’d only been here for five minutes. She couldn’t make a decent exit until at least thirty minutes had passed.

  This was what she worked so hard for, this was the icing on the matchmaking cake, and all the other times, she loved the moment when she saw a couple she had brought together pledge to be together forever. But not this time.

  Not since Jack.

  She hadn’t taken any of his calls. Had refused the flowers he’d sent over. He’d even sent over a first edition of Make Way for Ducklings, with a little note inside that said:

  The only way to get to the right pond is to take the risk and cross the street
. Love, Jack.

  That one word had scared her spitless, and she’d tucked the book on a shelf. Erica had just shook her head and not said anything. Marnie buried herself with work, staying late and getting to the office early, making matches until her head hurt.

  Late at night, Marnie faced the truth. She was doing it again. Running from her own fears. Rather than confronting them. Was she always going to be like this? Afraid to take the very risks she encouraged her clients to take?

  Her sisters and her mother had taken a leap of faith when it came to love. All three were happy as could be, and yet Marnie held back. Why?

  She stood to the side of the room, watching couples kiss and dance, while the bride and groom waltzed to their favorite song. Marnie stood alone, flying solo, like she did at most of these events. And feeling miserable.

  She had thought, when she walked out of the park, that she was doing the right thing. But really, she had been retreating again. All the emotions of the last few days had overwhelmed her, and brought her deepest fears roaring to the surface. So much for that resolve to go ahead and fall for Jack.

  Okay, she had done that. She had fallen for him when he named the daisy Fred. But acting on those feelings—

  That terrified her.

  Jack had told her that people live and learn and then try to do things different going forward. Thus far, all she’d done was stick to her comfort zone. Which sure as heck wasn’t keeping her warm at night.

  Wedding guests tapped their forks against their wine glasses, the musical sound signaling to the bride and groom to kiss. Marnie watched Janet and Mark Shalvis giggle, then join hands and kiss each other, happiness exuding from them like perfume.