The Matchmaker's Sister

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  As if she would be impressed by a sports car.

  “Take me! Take me!” Kali hopped up and down with eagerness.

  “Me, too, Uncle Nicky! Me, too!”

  “Girls,” Nate said sternly, and they subsided. “Miranda,” he said, “I think we need a few minutes alone. To talk.”

  Nick laughed. “You’re sounding mysterious, brother. Not to mention a little serious. Although I’ll admit to a healthy curiosity about finding you here in my brother’s new business venture, Miranda.”

  “Miranda and I are—”

  “I’m the decorator.” Miranda cut off Nate’s explanation, drawing Nick’s attention easily. “I’ve been helping your brother get this place ready for the opening on Saturday. But my part is done. Nothing left to do but set the furniture in place and brew the coffee.” She thought her voice sounded a pitch too high, her delivery a tad too fast, but it was the best she could do. “And now, I really must leave.”

  “Let me give you a lift,” Nick repeated, upping the charm in his ready smile, ignoring, or not even noticing, the tension rocketing from Nate to her and back again. “Anywhere you want to go.”

  At one time, his offer would have made her go weak at the knees with delight. Similar to the twins’ reaction. But now, all she could think about was how to get away from Nate’s questioning gaze, how to avoid having him come after her and demand an explanation she didn’t want to give.

  And there was a way. Right in front of her. Nick. If she’d been destined to fall in love with one of the Shepard brothers, why couldn’t she have done it in reverse order? Why couldn’t she have had a heartbreaking crush on Nate all those years ago and a casual affair with Nick all these years later? That would have made more sense, really. Nick was the brother she should be with now. He was the free spirit, the one who did as he pleased, with never a hint of responsibility to anyone but himself. That was the life she wanted now that she no longer needed to fill the role of surrogate parent.

  Wasn’t it?

  “I’d appreciate a ride, Nick,” she said, surprising herself as well as Nate, who looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  And maybe she had. But in the long run, she figured that was better than losing her heart.

  “But…” She checked her watch, not even registering the time. “I have to go now or I’ll be late for my appointment.”

  “I am at your disposal.” Nick took her arm, escorting her to the door, tossing Nate and his nieces an over-the-shoulder goodbye. “I’ll see you guys later at the house.” His grin was easy, his tone teasing. “Kali, Kori, you two will never guess what I’ve brought you this time. Be ready for a big surprise.”

  That was enough to set the twins off again, hopping about and making silly guesses in their squeaky little-girl voices.

  As she and Nick stepped outside into the waning daylight, Miranda listened for Nate’s voice, calming the girls, calling her back.

  But, as best she could tell, he didn’t say a single word.

  Chapter Ten

  Lucinda opened the door of Ainsley’s office and stepped back to let the four Shepard children file in. Then, with an I-have-no-idea shrug directed at Ainsley, she closed the door and left matchmaker and clients alone.

  “Hello.” Ainsley pushed up from her chair as the children formed a solemn line in front of her desk, the identical twins in the middle, alike in the blue jumpers and white blouses that formed their school uniforms, different only in the design of the ribbons that adorned their hair. On either side, like a set of bookends, the older twins stood, also in navy and white—Cate in a navy pleated skirt, Will in navy slacks, as different as twins could be, but wearing the same troubled expression.

  “I know we should have called first,” Cate said. “But we had to see you. Something’s happened.”

  Ainsley was well aware of it. Something had happened. But she didn’t know if her perspective and that of Nate’s children would be the same. There was, after all, bad and not so bad. It depended on which side of the something a person stood. “Sit.” She gestured at the chairs behind them, and the little girls promptly took a seat, their thin legs extending awkwardly from the edge of the chair. Will hesitated, waiting maybe for Cate to sit down. But when she didn’t, he, too, remained standing.

  Ainsley sank into her chair again and picked up a pen. Not that she expected to take notes, but the weight of the ballpoint in her hand helped remind her at times that she was a professional. “Tell me,” she said, inviting confidence…which came at her all at once, in four different voices, four different volumes, four different versions.

  “It’s Dad…”

  “Miranda and Uncle Nicky…”

  “She didn’t look at our tent and…”

  “Uncle Nicky forgot all about our surprise, too!”

  It was four tales of grievance, children trying to make sense of the adults in their lives, talking because they needed someone to hear them. Ainsley discovered a lovely satisfaction in just listening and she wondered if her parents had felt anything like this when she and Andrew, Matt and Miranda were young and vying to be heard. Except, a lot of the time, most of the time, really, it had been only Miranda listening, only Miranda trying to sort out what was true and what was not.

  “We think Dad is mad at Uncle Nick.”

  “Miranda didn’t even tell us where to put the red chase.”

  “Uncle Nicky said he’d take us to the movie and now he won’t!”

  “’Cause he’s always with Miranda.”

  Ainsley let them talk it out, gleaning facts she already knew and a couple she didn’t. Everything had been fine—in the Shepard children’s eyes, at least—until their uncle showed up. Then suddenly, Miranda had abandoned them and was spending time with Nick and not with them. Not only was their dad mad about it, they were mad, too. It wasn’t fair and everything had been going along so well until bam! It all fell apart.

  That wasn’t what they said, exactly, but it was what they were feeling. That much Ainsley knew. What she didn’t know was what exactly had happened to cause her practical, levelheaded sister to drop a promising relationship with one brother to take up with the other. Not that Ainsley thought for a second Miranda was involved with Nick Shepard. Miranda wasn’t impressed with good looks—although, admittedly, Nick had that in spades—and she certainly didn’t have any secret fascination with fame—Nick had that, as well. He’d been Miranda’s first brush with love, the first boy to kiss her, the closest encounter she’d ever had with not being in complete charge of her emotions. Until Nate came along, a stronger, better version of his brother, in Ainsley’s humble opinion, Miranda hadn’t gotten within ten yards of a man who posed any danger to her heart.

  Ainsley had known when Miranda arrived at Dan-fair the evening before last in Nick’s flashy sports car and then rushed out with him again a little later on the pretext of retrieving her Mercedes, which she’d left at her office for some unknown reason, that something had happened between her and Nate. Miranda didn’t do things on the spur of the moment like that, for one thing. And for another, it didn’t take until midnight to retrieve a car parked less than five miles away. Ainsley’s sisterly antennae had gone up, but her matchmaker instincts had advised her this sudden departure from the norm was a good sign.

  It meant, in Ainsley’s professional opinion, that Miranda was running scared and making an all-out effort to convince herself and anyone watching that she was not in love with Nate. But until this moment, Ainsley hadn’t understood why. Four reasons stared her in the face, bombarding her with words, representing the past Miranda was so afraid of repeating.

  These four children were not so dissimilar from the children she, Miranda, Andrew and Matt had once been. The Shepard children needed a mother, someone to look to for guidance, comfort, love…all the things Miranda had given so selflessly to her siblings over the years. Ainsley understood suddenly that Miranda had been afraid all those years, afraid that one of them—or all of them—would need some
thing more than she could provide.

  Ainsley’s heart ached then for the responsibility Miranda had borne so willingly, swelled with love for all her sister had given her without her ever realizing what it had cost.

  But that was the past. There was one important difference in the present. The Shepard children already had someone to guide them, comfort and love them. They had Nate. And loving Nate—and as a bonus, his children—was all anyone expected from Miranda.

  Ainsley felt as if she’d just solved a complicated puzzle.

  “…and I don’t like this.”

  “Dad needs Miranda to tell him where the furniture goes.”

  “I want her to be with us, not Uncle Nicky.”

  “We have to do something.”

  They wrapped up their translation of events in a staggered ending, each voice trailing away in confusion, each gaze finding its way across the desk again. “We have to do something,” Cate repeated, pulling all of their frustration into a single plea for help. “Anything. We just want Dad to be happy again.”

  Ainsley wasn’t entirely sure Nathaniel Shepard would welcome their help. She was certain Miranda wouldn’t.

  But then, Nate and Miranda weren’t her clients. These four children were.

  “I’ll think of something,” she promised rashly. “Don’t worry. That’s my job. I’m good at it and I will think of something.”

  NICK SHEPARD WAS everything Miranda had ever thought she wanted in a man.

  He made plans sporadically and changed them on a whim. He lived on the edge and loved it. He answered to no one but himself, took pleasure where he found it and made no apology for it. Life was big and he was living it.

  It took less than twenty-four hours for his joie de vivre to drive Miranda crazy.

  She didn’t know how anyone could live at such a pace. She didn’t understand, nor much appreciate, his style of spontaneity. She didn’t care if his glamorous lifestyle wasn’t…as he put it…all it was cracked up to be. She only knew she couldn’t live that way. She needed routine, schedules, plans. She needed stability and steadiness. She needed…Nate.

  She longed for him with a frightening intensity, missed him as if he’d been out of her life for months instead of hours. And, although she told herself freedom was what she wanted, in the early-morning dusk of a new day, she acknowledged that she might have made an awful mistake.

  THE COFFEEHOUSE SPORTED signage in scripted lights with a steaming coffee cup at a tilt and the name A New Brew in bold colors beneath. The aroma of good coffee wafted out into the street every time someone opened the door. Inside could be heard the uneven rhythms of a fledgling band, good, but not quite star material yet, the laughter of children in the play area, the perking percolators, the bell jangling when anyone came in or out and the hum of conversations competing with the sizzling hiss of the cappuccino machine.

  The grand opening was upon them and going great guns. Behind the black-and-white-tiled counter, Nate was tending bar, supervising his trainees and feeling all around pleased with the turnout. Only one thing—one person—was missing in this scenario he’d imagined a hundred times: Miranda.

  And if she walked in the door right now with Nick, he’d be extremely happy to see her…and extremely tempted to punch his brother in the nose. Of course, he wouldn’t. For one thing, Nick was liable to punch back. And for another, Nick was blissfully unaware he was doing anything wrong. Which was Nate’s fault. He should have told Nicky straight out he loved Miranda and asked his brother to back off. Which Nicky would have done. Nick was often self-absorbed, but he wasn’t unfeeling.

  However, Nate had kept his own counsel, had mulled over Miranda’s announcement that she couldn’t see him anymore, and concluded she needed time to think about what that meant before he set about changing her mind. And he figured Nick could do more good than harm in that regard. There had never been much in the way of competition between he and his brother. If they’d been closer in age, Nate knew it would have been a different story. But as he was a dozen years older, that particular problem had never come up. Until now, when Miranda seemed to be trying to replace one brother with another.

  He didn’t like the feeling at all and knew it was simply an indicator that his feelings for Miranda had gone way past the point where he could let her go without a fight. And, in truth, if she hadn’t let herself be pulled into Nicky’s fantasyland of a life, Nate would have been worried sick. As it stood, he knew Miranda and he knew Nick and he was ninety-eight percent certain the two of them would run into a personality conflict sooner rather than later.

  On the other hand, if Miranda had coolly walked out the door and back into her old routine, that—in Nate’s view—would have signaled she had no doubts about what she’d said and that not seeing him again didn’t represent a scary prospect.

  He hoped she felt scared. He hoped she had second thoughts…lots of them. But most of all, he hoped she would walk through the door of the coffeehouse right then. He wanted to share this day with her. He wanted to share the rest of his life with her. And, patient man that he was, he was very impatient for the rest of his life to start.

  He still had his eye on the door when, halfway through its frothing cycle, the cappuccino machine exploded.

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN you’re not going?”

  Miranda knew from the edgy tone in Ainsley’s voice that not going to the grand opening of the coffeehouse was the right decision. It was obvious to her, even from her lolling position on the East Salon sofa, that the matchmaker had a plan, a reintroduction of possibilities, and Miranda had no intention of falling for it. “I’m not going,” she repeated. “That’s what I mean and that’s what I’m doing—not going. But I hope you have a fabulous time. You can tell me all about it later if you want. Or not.” She flipped a page in the magazine she had open on her lap, pretending she was interested in a lipstick ad, pretending not to notice Ainsley’s agitation. It served her right, Miranda thought. She wasn’t supposed to matchmake family members, anyway. She’d promised she wouldn’t.

  “Fine,” Ainsley said finally. “But you can’t avoid Nate forever, you know. He’s going to win his ward and he’ll be sitting right next to you at the city council meetings. And you’ll have to work with the landscapers at his house all through next spring. And…and sooner or later, you’re going to want a cup of coffee.”

  Miranda found herself smiling at that. Only a trace of a smile, but still… “I’m giving up coffee,” she replied reasonably.

  “You’re giving up a lot more than that,” Ainsley announced, her voice full of doom and gloom. “But what do I know? I’m just the baby of the family. I’m just an apprentice matchmaker. What could I possibly know about love?”

  Miranda turned another page of the magazine. A little more forcefully than she intended. “I know you wanted this thing with Nate to work out for me, Ains. I know you had the best of intentions. But not every story has a happy ending.”

  “And just how do you see your story ending, Miranda? Because I have to tell you that from my standpoint, it doesn’t look happy. Not happy at all.” She turned and flounced from the room, leaving the words hovering in her wake.

  But Miranda kept flipping pages, pretending she couldn’t hear those words echoing in her heart.

  Sometime later, halfway through another magazine, she heard the door chimes and the scuffling sound of Benito, the newest addition to a long list of household help, as he hurried to answer the door. There was a murmur of voices—Benito’s halting English and a deep baritone that resonated with a familiar huskiness. Emergency, she heard, and was on her feet, around the billiards table and in the doorway before he came up the shallow stairs of the foyer and she saw him.

  “Nate,” she said, afraid something terrible had happened to one of the children, afraid they had needed her while she was blindly flipping pages in a stupid magazine. He looked sober and somber, the bearer of bad news, with his hair disheveled and one hand clenched at the unzipped opening of his
jacket. “What’s wrong? Is it one of the Kays?”

  “No,” he said. “The cappuccino machine malfunctioned. It blew up.”

  “My God, was anybody hurt?”

  “No, but look….” He let go of the jacket and it fell open to reveal a white shirt streaked with a muddy stain. “I don’t know if it can be saved, but I knew you’d give it your best shot.”

  She looked at the stain, raised a doubtful gaze to his. “You came all the way to Danfair and scared me half to death because of a coffee stain?”

  His shrug wasn’t sheepish in the least, as it should have been. “I just didn’t think club soda would cut it this time.”

  “You’re right, it won’t and neither will your excuse.”

  “You’re not worried about my shirt?”

  “No, and I don’t believe you are, either.”

  “Oh, I am. I’m very worried.” He came a step closer.

  She took a step back, fighting the impulse to fly into his arms and never leave. “What…what about the coffeehouse? The grand opening?”

  “It’s grand,” he said as he took another step. And another. “You should be there. I kept watching for you, waiting. But you didn’t come.”

  She opened her mouth to offer an excuse. Or a reason. But only a raspy whisper emerged from her throat. “No, I didn’t. Who…who’s making coffee now?”

  “Nicky is minding the store.” Nate smiled meaningfully. “He owes me a favor. Or two.”

  “Oh.”

  He stopped directly in front of her and she had to make an effort to catch her breath. “And you, Miranda, owe me something, as well.”

  She inhaled and gathered her composure. “All right,” she said. “You want an explanation, I’ll give you one. Responsibility. I’ve had it all my life, Nate. I practically raised my brothers and sister. I…I can’t do that again.”

  “That’s good, because they’re grown up. Have been, as best I can tell, for a long time now.”

  “Yes, but your children are still…well, children.”