“I’m afraid I wasn’t being entirely honest with you. After my stepbrother…your brother…died, all I could think about was…all he could talk about since he met you was…the kiss. The kiss, and how beautiful you were. And I knew, at that moment, I was going to have you.”
Eva was furious.
“You beast. You’re insensitive and cruel.” Eva practically hurled the words in his face. “How could you deceive me like that? You took advantage of me and made me fall…”
“Made you what, Eva?” he asked hopefully.
“Fall under your…spell,” she uttered miserably, dashing his hopes. “Just why are you here? And I want an honest answer from you for once.”
“As you might have guessed, Adam Prinsky was the count. He was your father. As his stepson, I am the executor of his last will and testament. I was instructed to find you, to go to the ends of the earth if I had to, to settle his affairs. As his only surviving blood heir, he left you all his earthly possessions. His company, his castle by the sea, almost everything, wealth which you can only imagine.”
“Well, you’ve done your job. Carried out your responsibility. I don’t want his money, or you. Now go away and leave me alone to grieve.”
She looked so helpless there, shaking and crying uncontrollably. He went to comfort her, but she turned away from him.
“Go,” she said, sniffling. “And I never want to see you again.”
“Eva, you can’t mean that,” he protested. He turned her toward him and took her face in his hands.
“Eva, look at me,” he said. “Please give me a chance to explain.”
“I’ve heard enough of your explanations,” she said, trying to pull away.
“When I first came, I couldn’t just come out and tell you. You weren’t ready. I had to find a way. You are right. I did deceive you. And for that I’m very sorry. So I stayed and got to know you, and I…”
She looked so lost. Those eyes of hers were searching his.
“I fell in love with you, Eva,” he said simply.
“Love?” Eva railed. “Love is nothing without honesty. You don’t know the meaning of the word.”
“I didn’t until I met you.”
****
His mouth was close, so close she could almost feel it on hers. She wanted to believe him. But all she could think about was her mother. She would never see her mother again.
“I need some time,” Eva said, removing his hands from her face and placing them in his lap. “It’s too much for me to process. You’d better leave.”
“Eva, I can’t leave you now. Not after what we shared last night. Please don’t ask me to. It would…break my heart.”
She looked into his eyes and thought he meant that.
“Tell me more about the spark,” Eva said, holding his gaze, trying to calm herself.
“It’s all right here in the Matchmaker’s Manual,” he said, pulling out the dusty book from his briefcase. She grabbed the book and hugged it to her. It was the last connection to her mother. “Is there really a section on…?”
“Yes, it’s under Continuity, on page 314, Section 159, under the subhead The Circle Unbroken.”
She flipped through the well-worn pages until his hand stopped her.
“Trust me. It’s there. I’ve committed it to memory. ‘When the spark is ready to be passed, there will come a single seismological, earth-shattering event, after which the two will come together and the seed will be planted and the matchmaker will bear a female child. She will be The One.’ ”
“And after which time the man will cruelly leave her, like the count—like my father—left my mother?” Eva questioned.
“And after which I intend to change the course of matchmaking history and never leave your side for the rest of my mortal life and the part of your immortal one I will be fortunate enough to share. We will live happily ever after, Eva.”
“So you are my destiny?”
“It would seem so.”
“And together we will produce a daughter?”
“One can only hope. Maybe we already have.”
“This is all so sudden. Where will we live? Will I have to leave this place?”
“We can live in the castle, which is nearby your ancient home. Eva, you can go home again.”
She tried to imagine it. It was what she had dreamed of for so long.
“It will never be the same,” she lamented, thinking of her mother.
“It will be better because we’ll be together.”
“But what about my business?”
“People are looking for love all over the world, Eva. Wait until you see the computer set-up I have. You’re going to love it.”
“You’ve been planning this all along, haven’t you,” Eva accused.
The emissary nodded.
“I don’t want to leave Lobster Cove. I love my home here.”
“I traveled around the world to be with you. Wherever you are is my home.”
Eva twisted her hands together and deliberated.
“Well, if I do marry you, I think I deserve to know your real name.”
“Prince. Noah Prince. I shortened it from Prinsky. Easier for business.”
“So, my prince has come to rescue me from my tower after all,” she said. Flashing a shy smile, she tossed her floor-length blonde hair over her shoulders. “And next, I suppose my love will grab onto my hair and attempt to scale the tower walls.”
“Eva, how can I convince you that my love for you is true, that this isn’t some illusive fairy tale?”
Tears began streaming down Eva’s face.
“I want it to be true, Noah.”
“Do you love me at all, Eva? Could you grow to love me?”
She wiped her face with the back of her hands and tasted her tears.
“Oh, Noah,” she said, trembling. “I think I might. But how can I be sure?”
“Hold that thought,” he said. “I’ve got to take care of something. Turn on your computer.”
She did. As Noah went to his laptop and started tapping furiously, Eva suddenly heard a ping.
“Let me just get this message,” she said, but he was deep in concentration.
She sat down at the terminal and blinked. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The message read: I have found the one for you!
Her heart was beating furiously with anticipation. She clicked on the message. Congratulations. I have found your perfect match. Simply follow these instructions.
The instructions were simple enough to follow.
Turn around.
Her heart stopped for a moment, she thought. She could barely breathe. Tears were streaming from her eyes, and she slowly turned in her seat. And there was Noah, sweet, wonderful, romantic Noah, her dearest love, smiling back at her. Another perfect match.
Lorraine’s Mandel Bread
(from her Aunt Ann Brown)
This recipe was provided by Marilyn’s mother, Lorraine.
Ingredients:
1 cup of oil
1 cup of sugar
3 eggs
Cream above ingredients well together.
Add gradually to the above creamed ingredients:
4 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
½ teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Add:
1 teaspoon vanilla (1/2 teaspoon almond extract optional)
A splash of amaretto liqueur (Optional)
1 cup of chopped almonds (or walnuts or pecans)
Chocolate chips (Optional)
Grated lemon or orange rind (approximately 1 Tbsp.)
Instructions:
Form into four 3x10 (approximate) “loaves,” (will be fairly loose and sticky consistency) on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes. Watch carefully against burning (should be very light beige). Remove and slice into ½-inch slices. Then dip them in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar and put them back into a slow oven for approximat
ely five minutes—turn—then bake for five minutes more, until crisp, again watching them carefully.
The Secret Ingredient: A Lot of Love
Bea’s Mandel Bread: A Family Tradition
This is another mandel bread recipe, from Bea Cohen, the mother of Marilyn’s friend Helene Romine, and it’s Marilyn’s favorite. Bea, who was known as quite a good cook, used pecans instead of almonds, because that’s what she had handy in south Georgia and Alabama where she lived. She was always asked to take her mandel bread to family get-togethers. And to this day, Helene makes it as a special treat for her kids and cousins. Marilyn has enjoyed Bea’s mandel bread on many special occasions and knows you will love it too. It sweetens any holiday.
Ingredients
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
3 cups flour
Cinnamon and sugar topping
Mix together:
¾ cup sugar
1-2 tablespoons cinnamon, enough to make the mixture light brown
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease a half sheet pan (13”x18”) with Pam or butter.
Beat eggs, add sugar and oil, and beat until mixed. Add salt, baking powder, nuts, and half the flour. Mix in the rest of the flour and vanilla. Pour into the pan and spread. The batter will be very thick.
Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 25 minutes or until light brown.
While still warm, cut the mandel bread into rectangles about ¾ inches wide by 2-3 inches long. Roll all sides in the cinnamon and sugar mixture.
Placing them on their sides, put the bars back into the baking pan, spacing them out so they don’t touch each other. They won’t all fit in one pan, so it will have to be done in stages. Have another pan handy for the next batch, which you can prepare while the first pan is in the oven.
Put the pan back into the oven at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Turn the bars over and toast for another 10-15 minutes, making sure they don’t get too dark. Place the bars on a rack and let cool. When completely cool, store in an airtight container.
*Note: Watch them carefully during the last step so they don’t get too dark.
A word about the author…
Marilyn Baron is a corporate public relations consultant in Atlanta. She’s a PRO member of Romance Writers of America (RWA) and Georgia Romance Writers (GRW) and winner of the GRW 2009 Chapter Service Award and writing awards in single title, suspense romance, novel with strong romantic elements and paranormal romance. She writes in a variety of genres for The Wild Rose Press, including: Humorous women’s fiction (Stones, Significant Others, and The Widows’ Gallery), a psychic suspense series (Sixth Sense, Homecoming Homicides, and Killer Cruise) and historical (Under the Moon Gate and Destiny: A Bermuda Love Story). Marilyn is a new appointee on the 2015 Roswell Reads Steering Committee and belongs to two book clubs. She graduated from The University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism (Public Relations sequence) and a minor in Creative Writing. Born in Miami, Florida, Marilyn lives in Roswell, Georgia, with her husband, and they have two daughters.
She says: What’s unique about my writing? I try to inject humor into everything I write. I like to laugh and my readers do too. I tend to feature older heroines, because let’s face it, we’re not getting any younger. I love to travel and I often set my stories in places I’ve visited, including Bermuda, Australia, and Europe. My favorite place to visit is Italy because I studied Italian, Mythology and Art History in Florence for six months in my junior year of college.
To find out more about my books, please visit my Web site at www.marilynbaron.com.
Thank you for purchasing
this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Someday My Prints Will Come Page 9