The Matchmaker's Happy Ending: Boardroom Bride and Groom

by Shirley Jump

  She knew she’d made the right choice, then and now. Nick was spontaneity personified; she was the one who stayed on the straight and narrow path. She’d learned that was where her talents lay—working in an environment she could control. Predict. Reason with. It was how she had survived her childhood after her father died. It was what she knew and understood, a world as comfortable as a blanket.

  Nick Gilbert, on the other hand, she couldn’t predict. Control. Or reason with. And that was exactly why she was going to make sure everything about him stayed in the past—as soon as this day was over.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NICK LOST THE STARING CONTEST before it barely began.

  “Okay, so I’ve done this before,” Angela began, her green eyes assessing him. “And you don’t have to, like, hang out with me or even pretend to be nice. I know you’re just here because you have to be.”

  Nick bit back a grin. “Same as you, right?”

  She nodded. “Exactly.”

  He put out his hand, waited for her to put her much smaller one into his and shake on it. “We’re agreed. Not to be friends, just—”

  “Stuck together. Until another Madeline thing is over and I go back to the fosters.”

  Nick released Angela’s hand, then gestured toward a bench beside the playground. Children climbed in and out of the brightly painted equipment, laughing and happy, while the sponsors stood around in little chatting clusters with foster parents and real parents. Angela, however, acted as if she was years and years beyond such games.

  How sad, Nick thought. Sadder than anything he’d seen in a long time. He didn’t have much experience with kids, heck, any experience besides his brothers and sisters and their children, but even he knew this wasn’t what kids should sound like. Jaded. Bitter. Like they could care less.

  “Okay, I’m new at this, so you’ll have to translate. Madeline thing? Fosters?”

  Angela rolled her eyes. “You know Madeline, the book? The one that makes being an orphan look like one big adventure?”

  That struck a memory in him of something he’d read as a kid. “Oh, that one. Full of nice nuns and cute dogs.”

  “Exactly.” Angela nodded. “Except real orphanages aren’t like that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Angela picked at an invisible piece of lint on her denim shorts. They were clean but worn, and Nick wondered if they were hand-me-downs. From an older child in the family where she was staying? From another foster child? From her old life? “The fosters aren’t so bad,” Angela said. “Most of ’em.”

  “Your foster parents.”

  She nodded. Her blond curls bounced with the movement, framing her face in a light halo that reflected the sun in a golden cloud. “These ones are kind of nice. Better than the ones before.”

  Nick didn’t want to ask about “the ones before.” Those five words were enough to tell him that this girl had been through more in her six years on earth than he had been in his twenty-eight. Suddenly he wanted to draw her against him and promise nothing bad would ever happen to her again.

  But he couldn’t. So he didn’t.

  “Are you happy there?” Nick asked. This was an odd position for him, being a sort of pseudoparent, even on a temporary basis. He wasn’t used to being the grown-up, at least being any more grown-up than he had to be in the courtroom, and it forced him to think in new ways. Forced him to look at the world differently than he ever had before.

  To see a world outside the two-parent, mostly ideal one he’d grown up in, too.

  “Yeah.” Angela shrugged. “The fosters say they want to adopt me.” She pointed toward a tall, friendly looking couple across the park, who looked as if they had stepped out of a magazine for perfect parents. They waved and smiled at Angela. Nice, happy, trying to include her in the family. “I’m waiting. See what they do.”

  Hedging her bets, Nick was sure. Not committing her heart until the ink was dry. He saw a flicker of hope in Angela’s eyes, then she popped off the bench, smoothed her shorts again.

  “I can go play with the other kids, and you can go with them, if you want.” She gestured at the other lawyers.

  Nick looked down into Angela’s eyes and thought he’d never seen anyone look as lonely and in need of a friend as she did. He could do “friend.” “Parent”...probably not so well. “Nope. I’m fine right here. I’ll let you in on a secret. Lawyers are totally not fun. And they don’t know any good jokes.”

  A smile flitted across her face, then blew away like a candle in a windstorm. She shrugged. “Okay, whatever.”

  A tough cookie, this one.

  Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. “Do you believe in magic, Angela?”

  She eyed him. “Not really. It’s for little kids.” But he could see a part of her still really wanted to be a little kid.

  And that, at least, Nick could give her. He was good at that.

  As Nick bent down and began working magic with a quarter and swift fingers, making the coin disappear and reappear in Angela’s ear, behind her head, under her chin—every time eliciting a smile and a gasp of surprise from the girl who’d given up on magic—Nick’s gaze strayed across the park to Carolyn. Even from here he could see her stiff posture, the frustration on her face as she struggled to connect with Bobby, her sponsored child.

  And he realized he had, indeed, seen that look of loneliness and of being lost, in another’s eyes once before—and noticed it lingered still, all these years later.

  Once before, he’d taken on the challenge of getting her to loosen up, and had had fun winning his own personal bet. Could he do it a second time? This time, not with the intention of winning her back—he’d already been down that road and knew where it led—but to help her make some inroads with those kids today. He didn’t know who looked more uncomfortable—Carolyn or poor Bobby.

  But as Nick crossed the field toward the table, one nagging doubt in his chest told him this time around getting past those walls Carolyn Duff had in place was going to take more than a simple magic trick.

  * * *

  He came up behind her, so quietly she almost didn’t notice. But Carolyn knew Nick could have been as silent as the wind and still she would have sensed his presence, felt him there.

  “Do you need some help?” he said.

  Did she need help? She needed an army battalion of it. Carolyn hadn’t felt so over her head since she’d prosecuted her first criminal case alone. Bobby Lester had stopped talking after exchanging a total of three words with her—“hi” and “thank you.” She’d earned a few smiles for the gifts, which had let her know she’d at least made good shopping choices, thanks to Nick’s advice, but the boy was as closemouthed as a clam. Now, he was off eating lunch with the other children, which was supposed to be followed by a short film in the park’s pavilion. Carolyn had volunteered to set up the games. Anything to avoid another trip into a conversational No Man’s Land. “No, I’m fine.”

  “And elephants are parading in the sky today, too.” Nick put a hand on her shoulder, the touch searing through the light cotton of her dress, and turned her gently to face him. “It’s not such a bad thing to ask for help, Carolyn.”

  “Really, Nick, this thing with the kids, it’s nothing. A few games with some children.” Children who wouldn’t talk to her. Children who were as foreign to her as Martians.

  She could do this. Heck, she could command a courtroom. Could get the toughest criminals to confess. Could win over the most jaded juries. So what if she had all the homemaking skills of a monkey?

  “Why won’t you let me help you?” he said. “Or let me get someone to—”

  “I can handle this, Nick.”

  Frustration sparked in his eyes and he took a step back. “Of course. I forgot. You’re Carolyn Duff, the bulldog who works alone
. Doesn’t need anyone.”

  She pivoted away from him. “Don’t...don’t call me that. It sounds...” The words trailed off, caught in her throat.

  “Sounds what?”

  “Sounds so cold coming from you.” The nickname she had taken pride in because it meant she was doing her job—the very job that had broken them apart.

  “How about if I call you Carolyn the Yorkie pup?” A tease in Nick’s voice, erasing all offense.

  She laughed. “Marginally better.”

  He moved closer. Every ounce of her went on alert, even though they were still a very respectable distance apart. “You’re not okay. I can tell.”

  “I am.”

  “You couldn’t lie if your life depended on it, Counselor.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m not on the witness stand.”

  He watched her, his gaze sweeping over her features. “How have you been, Carolyn? Really been since we broke up?”

  She started to say fine, but before she could get a word out, Nick interrupted her with another question.

  “Do you still sleep with the lights on?” he asked, his voice quiet, concerned.

  One question. That’s all it took to remind her that ninety-nine percent of the time, her life was completely in control. That everything was exactly as she wanted it. But there was that one percent that once in a while—when night fell—remembered a moment in her past that had turned everything from wonderful to terrible.

  She swallowed, but her throat remained parched. “He’s in jail, Nick. It’s over. And I’m fine.” She turned back to the games, getting to work. Stay busy, stay on task. Stay organized—and stay away from Nick. Who, even if she had told him all the details of her past, had never really listened. Not really.

  “Well, if you need to talk, I’m here, you know. We’re still friends.”

  She wheeled back to face him. “Come on, Nick. We’re not anything anymore. And if I needed someone to talk to, it wouldn’t be you.”

  He let out a gust. “Why not me?”

  “You don’t take anything seriously. That was half the problem. And that’s fine, that’s who you are. Makes you good with kids, at parties, not so good with relationships. So stop trying to perform an instant therapy session at a picnic, Nick. Just let it go.” She moved away, inserting distance. As much distance as she could, with the intensifying heat, the baking sun, the fenced-in area where all the games would be held, all of it seeming so much more enclosed with Nick here.

  She cast a glance in the direction of the pavilion, but the children were all sitting on blankets, watching a mermaid dance and sing on a projection screen. No saved-by-the-bell help to distract Nick would be arriving anytime soon. “I don’t have time for this, anyway. I have to get these games set up. The kids will be done anytime now, and if we don’t keep them entertained they’ll run rampant, and you know that will just drive Mary crazy. Just imagine a whole slew of little ones...” Carolyn kept rambling as she laid out rows of bean bags for the tic-tac-toe toss, then reached for a series of bright rainbow-colored beach balls and yellow plastic bats. “...and if we’re not ready, they’ll just run roughshod over—”

  “Hey, don’t be the game martyr here, Carolyn,” Nick said, interrupting her, laying a hand on hers, taking some of the toys out of her grasp. “Let me help.”

  “I’ve got it under control.”

  “Of course you do,” Nick said, then ignored her completely, moving down to the next set of games and reaching into the boxes to set up the fishing poles and magnetic fish that went along with the six-foot, round plastic pool that had been filled earlier. “Didn’t you just say, though, that I’m the one who excels at games? Let the master be of assistance.”

  She may be the one with the nickname of bulldog, but she knew she wasn’t the only one with the canine’s famous tenacity. What if Nick had been like that about their marriage? What if he had fought that hard to hold on to her? To get to know her, really know her. Not just play at being married, like it was a game of fetch.

  But he hadn’t. He had argued with her that day, of course, but then he had signed the papers and let her go, never saying another word.

  He’d given up on them as quickly as a man giving up on a sport he couldn’t master. A part of her had been relieved, and a part of her had been disappointed. Heartbroken.

  Realizing that Nick may have spoken a good game about wanting her, loving her to no end—

  And then in reality, not really meaning any of it. He’d done what Nick did best—chased her until he had the prize, then let her down when she needed him most.

  Carolyn spun around, the beanbags rustling in her grasp. “Why are you really here, Nick?”

  He paused. “Same as you. I sponsored a child, so I’m doing my part. Delivering the toys, interacting with my sponsoree.”

  “No, I meant here with me. You can interact at the food table. The craft table. A million places other than here. You really don’t need to help me...or keep trying to prove whatever point you are trying to prove.”

  “Here come the kids,” he said.

  And indeed Nick was saved from answering by a rising tide of excited voices, their high-pitched squeals coming at Nick and Carolyn like a chorus of dolphins.

  “Brace yourself,” Nick whispered in Carolyn’s ear, so close, so very close. And her resolve to stay away from him weakened.

  Just a bit.

  “Nick!” A little girl barreled forward, out of the crowd, straight into Nick’s legs, the force of her greeting breaking Nick and Carolyn apart. The little girl clasped him tight. With a laugh, Nick reached down and swung her up, into his arms.

  “Hey, Angela. Did you have fun?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh. Did I tell you about the movie we saw after lunch? It was a mermaid movie. I love mermaid movies. Especially mermaid movies with lots of fish. I love fish. ’Cuz I love to swim. Except I’ve never had a pool. I really wish I had a pool. Do you have a pool?”

  “Nope. But I like to swim, too. Swimming’s pretty fun, especially when there’s a slide or a diving board involved.”

  Carolyn scanned the crowd, seeking the face of Bobby. All the while, she listened to the excited chatter of Angela and Nick’s enthusiastic responses. How had he done that? Struck up such an immediate rapport with the child?

  “Hi, Miss Duff.”

  Carolyn looked down. Bobby stood before her, as solemn as a judge about to sentence a serial killer. “Hello, Bobby. Was your excursion entertaining?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And the film? Did you find that enjoyable?”

  Bobby toed at the grass. “Uh-huh.”

  Carolyn scrambled for another subject, something, anything. “Wonderful. Is that because you enjoy films with mermaids?”

  Bobby’s face scrunched up, and his shoulders rose and dropped. “They’re girls.”

  Carolyn took that as a negative. Okay. So she’d asked all the same questions Nick had, and received four words in response. None of the instantaneous best-buds stuff. What was she doing wrong?

  “We’ve been instructed to pair up for the games,” Carolyn said to the boy, indicating the first race, where other volunteers had slipped into place to man the stations. “Would you like to be on my team? For potato-sack races and the bean-bag toss?”

  Bobby glanced up at her, dubious. “Miss Duff, you’re a...”

  “A what?” Carolyn prompted when he didn’t finish.

  “A girl. I don’t know if you’d be a good racer.”

  “I ran track in high school, Bobby. I assure you, I’d be a wonderful racer.” Since Carolyn hadn’t done anything like this in what felt like a thousand years, she couldn’t be really sure. And her experience with children was nil, so her comfort level was in the negative digits. Still she put on a bright smile. “Wha
t do you say, want to give it a shot?”

  Bobby gave her a look that said he’d rather be sentenced to a lifetime of community service. “Do I have to? Can I just sit on the bench over there? And watch?”

  “Oh, yes. Certainly.” Carolyn watched him go, trying not to feel like a complete and total failure.

  She was surrounded by laughing, happy pairings. Sponsors and children who were slipping legs into potato sacks, talking as if they’d known each other for years. And here she couldn’t get one five-year-old to think she had any game ability at all.

  “Seems you’re one leg short of a sack race.”

  Nick’s voice. Carolyn turned around, to find Nick and Angela behind her. For a moment, she considered not admitting the truth, then decided that if she didn’t get some help with this kid thing, Bobby’s entire day would be a bust. And the most important thing here was Bobby—not her pride. “I lost my partner. He doesn’t find me very...fun,” she said, lowering her voice, “because I’m a girl.”

  Nick chuckled. “Now that I understand, being the older brother of some not-so-fun sisters.”

  “Girls can be fun. I’m...fun.”

  “You are.” A smile curved up his face. “Or at least, you were. From what I remember.”

  A heat brewed between them, built on past memories, but Carolyn knew they were as fragile as tissues, and nothing to build a future on. She brushed it off. “Well, apparently, Bobby doesn’t agree.”

  “Want to trade, for the race? Angela won’t mind, I’m sure. Once she came out of her shell and began to trust me, she really opened up. She’s a great sport.”

  “Nick, I’m not so good at this kind of thing.” Carolyn shifted from foot to foot, suddenly uncomfortable with the whole idea of racing in a sack in front of her colleagues. Possibly falling on her face. Making a fool of herself. Carolyn the Bulldog losing control, being silly? So not her. “I should probably sit out the games and—”

  “How will you ever get good at being with kids if you don’t try?”