Excerpt from
All Night Long
The Heart of the City Series
Book Three
by
Candace Schuler
Bestselling, award-winning Author
ALL NIGHT LONG
Reviews & Accolades
"Good story—funny and romantic. The plot is a real grabber and the ending... you won't want to miss."
~Rendezvous
"Candace Schuler wins our hearts with... a pair of delightfully appealing lovers."
~Romantic Times Magazine
Previously titled: The Personal Touch
Published by ePublishing Works!
www.epublishingworks.com
ISBN: 978-1-61417-433-2
By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this eBook. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of copyright owner.
Please Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The reverse engineering, uploading, and/or distributing of this eBook via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.
Copyright© 1994, 2013 by Candace Schuler. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Cover and eBook design by eBook Prep www.ebookprep.com
Thank You.
Chapter 1
Matthew Ryan glanced at his watch for the third time since he'd folded himself into the yellow shantung wing chair. Then he looked up over the newspaper he held, frowning at the elaborately carved wooden door almost directly across from where he sat. The soft-voiced receptionist had warned him it would be a few minutes before Ms. Bennington could see him, but those few minutes had come and gone several times and the lady still hadn't appeared.
He'd had time to catalog the room's entire furnishings twice over, from the brass candlesticks and fresh freesias on the polished oak mantel, to the gently faded Brussels carpet beneath his feet, to the jewel-colored Tiffany lamp on the receptionist's desk. It was a warm, charming room, more like his mother's elegant front parlor than the reception area of a business establishment, he thought. Which wasn't really surprising, considering the offices of The Personal Touch were located on the ground floor of a stately old Victorian house in the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco. Charming or not, though, Matt had seen all of it he wanted to see in the last fifteen minutes.
He closed the Chronicle with a snap, folding it into a neat, narrow rectangle without finishing the column he'd started to read, and laid it on the gleaming surface of the cabriolet table next to his chair. He'd give her five more minutes, he decided, and then he was leaving. He probably shouldn't have come in the first place, anyway, especially without an appointment. But, dammit, he was just about at his wit's end.
His mother was driving him crazy.
Not that she wasn't a wonderful woman. She was. One of the best. It was just that she needed something—someone—other than her only son to fuss over now that she'd finally come to terms with her widowhood and joined the world again.
This morning, when a colleague in the D.A.'s office mentioned that his seventy-six-year-old father had used The Personal Touch and was as pleased as punch with the woman he'd been introduced to through it... Well, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
"It's not your usual dating service," Cal had said just before court convened. "No slick pick-a-date videos or computer listings. None of that 'what's your favorite position from The Kama Sutra' stuff. It's more like an old-fashioned matchmaking service. You know, like that woman in Fiddler on the Roof? The one who arranged marriages for the villagers? This woman actually gives tea parties to introduce people to each other instead of letting them meet on their own in a bar somewhere. My dad really liked that aspect of it. Said he didn't feel like as big a fool as he would've otherwise."
After Matt thought about it a bit, mulling it over in the back of his mind while he listened to the opposing attorney argue for a continuance, it had still seemed like a good idea. When the judge had unexpectedly granted the defense's request, leaving Matt with the morning free, he'd decided to give it a try. It couldn't do any harm. And, with any luck at all, he thought now, grinning slightly, his mother would never have to know he'd fixed her up.
If this matchmaker woman ever puts in an appearance, that is.
Matt shifted in his chair, crossing his right ankle over the precise crease in the left knee of his crisply pressed navy-blue slacks. The fingers of one hand drummed silently on the folded newspaper. Two more minutes, he told himself, frowning at the receptionist's lowered head.
She looked up, as if sensing his impatience, and met his eyes. The soft smile she gave him was strangely seductive. "I'm sure it won't be more than a minute or two longer," she said, hooking a lock of shiny black hair behind her ear with the tip of one very long, very red fingernail before she turned her attention back to the computer keyboard and the instruction manual lying open on the desk in front of her.
Matt wondered how she managed to hit the right keys with such long nails. They looked lethal. In fact, he thought, idly studying her, she looked a bit lethal herself. Her glossy black hair was sleek and sassy, the deep bangs and short, chin-length cut calling attention to her dark, slanted eyes and exotic bone structure. Her makeup was expertly, if a little heavily, applied. Her trim black dress was simple, but too sophisticated for her years, which couldn't, he thought, number much more than twenty. It occurred to him that he'd seen her somewhere before. Around the courthouse, maybe? Or at campaign headquarters?
She'd known his name, calling him Mr. Ryan before he'd introduced himself. That wasn't unusual, of course. As a high-profile attorney with more than his share of headline-making cases, his picture was in the papers on a fairly regular basis. Two weeks ago, when he'd finally announced his candidacy for district judge, there'd been a small flurry of coverage, both in the newspapers and on the local TV stations—mostly because the seat he'd declared for had once been occupied by his father. That she recognized him wasn't really surprising... but he still had the nagging feeling he knew her from somewhere far different from where she was now. It annoyed him not to be able to place her.
She looked up again, obviously feeling his continuing stare. "Could I get you a magazine, Mr. Ryan?" she asked, giving him another one of those oddly seductive smiles. "Or a different paper? I'm sure there's a copy of The Wall Street Journal around here some—"
She broke off as the carved door to the inner office opened. With a smile and a nod toward the open door she turned back to the work spread out on her desk, leaving Matt to deal with the two women who hovered on the threshold. They were deep in conversation, oblivious to anyone else in the room. "Can you think of anything I might have forgotten?" Matt heard the older one say.
She was standing with her back to him, but he could tell she was exactly what his brief conversation with Cal Westlake had led him to expect. Reassuringly plump and grandmotherly, she wore a lavender print dress that pulled a bit across the ample spread of her hips. An off-white cardigan hun
g from her shoulders, the arms swinging free and empty, held in place, he was sure, by one of those clip-on sweater guards from the nineteen-fifties that older women seemed to favor. Her shoes were low-heeled, beige and sensible. Her short brown hair was liberally streaked with gray. She carried a small stack of file folders in the crook of one arm and there was a pencil stuck behind her left ear. Her movements as she spoke were quick and birdlike, full of the energy and enthusiasm of a robin going after its morning meal.
A real old-fashioned matchmaker, Matt thought, instantly pegging her as the kind of benign busybody who loved giving advice. A widow, he decided, with a passel of kids who had long ago grown up and away from her sphere of influence, forcing her to find other lives to influence. Having pigeonholed her to his satisfaction, he automatically shifted his gaze to the woman who stood beside her.
Her face was turned three-quarters toward him, her head tilted to the right as she focused on what the older woman was saying. She was in her early-to-mid-thirties, slender and delicately built. About five foot five inches tall, Matt decided, mentally measuring her against his own six feet, with the graceful, upright posture of a prima ballerina. She was wearing a long, pastel-flowered skirt in muted watercolor shades of green and blue. It fluttered above her ankles, covering the tops of a pair of pale gray leather boots with small heels and a row of shiny round buttons up the sides. The boots were old-fashioned and oddly elegant, like something a woman might have worn at the turn of the century. The wide, lacy collar of a white linen blouse was spread out over the lapels of what looked to him like a man's sport coat. A tweedy mix of gray and pale moss green, it was just slightly too big, giving her a vaguely waiflike appearance despite her regal bearing. There was a lace hankie peeking out of the breast pocket and she had a fresh flower—gardenia, he thought—pinned on her left shoulder.
In keeping with the offbeat femininity of her clothing, her hair was long, unbound, and wildly curly. It swirled around her shoulders in tempting disarray, its rich auburn color catching and reflecting the sunlight coming in through the lace curtains at the bay window. Her face was expressive and vividly alive, the wide mouth smiling and pursing, the strong auburn eyebrows lifting, then drawing together with apparent disregard for the formation of wrinkles as she responded to the older woman's comments. A little unconventional, Matt decided, pondering the dichotomy of the boxy man's jacket and the long flowing skirt, but, all in all, a very appealing woman.
He rose to his feet as the low-voiced conversation began to wind down, wondering why a woman with all she obviously had going for her would need the services of a matchmaker. "Ms. Bennington?" he said politely, addressing the older woman as he approached the pair.
It was the younger one who turned to look at him. "Yes?"
Matt's eyes widened a fraction. "Like that woman in Fiddler on the Roof," Cal had said when he'd recommended her. Matt wondered if Cal had had his eyes checked recently. "Susannah Bennington?" he said, just to be sure.
She smiled. "Yes," she said, her low voice laced with warmth and good humor. "I'm Susannah Bennington. May I help you, Mr....?"
"Ryan." He held out his hand. "Matthew Ryan."
Susannah put hers into it. "Of course. I should have recognized you from your pictures in the paper, Mr. Ryan."
"Matt," he said easily, returning the firm pressure of her handshake with unconscious care for the fragility of her delicate bones.
"Matt," she agreed with a slight nod. Her smile widened, deepening the dimples in either cheek. "You might be interested to know I'm seriously considering voting for you in November."
"I appreciate that." His answering smile softened his sharp, Nordic-blond good looks, giving him an appealing touch of vulnerability. "I need all the votes I can get."
"Oh." Susannah tilted her head assessingly, causing a stray curl to tumble over her forehead. She reached up, absently brushing it back with her free hand. "I think you'll get more than enough votes even without mine." She was sure half of San Francisco—male as well as female—could probably be counted on to vote for him on the basis of his face alone.
And if his looks didn't get them, his voice would. It oozed sexiness and authority in equal measures. Combine those two things—his looks and his voice—with his squeaky-clean record and the fact that he rarely lost a case, and you had a surefire winner in any political campaign. And despite the aw-shucks smile and self-effacing manner, she was sure he knew it. Men as good-looking and accomplished as Matthew Ryan always knew it.
"Is that why you're here?" she asked, withdrawing her hand from the suddenly uncomfortable warmth of his. "Is this an official campaign visit?"
"No, not at all. It's a—" he cast a significant glance toward the interior of her office and then looked back down at her "—private matter."
Susannah's expressive eyebrows rose. A private matter, was it? There was usually only one kind of private matter people brought to the door of The Personal Touch. But why would Matthew Ryan, a popular political candidate with a to-die-for body, leading-man looks, and a blue-blooded background, need her to find him a date? She would have thought a man like him would have droves of willing women throwing themselves at his expensively shod feet.
"Perhaps you'd better step into my office," she said, moving back to allow him to do so.
"Will that be all, Susannah?" the older woman asked as they turned toward the office.
"What?" Susannah looked around. "Oh, yes, thank you, Helen. That will be all for now. We'll go over the guest list for this week's party when you get back from lunch."
Helen Sanford nodded and, with a sharp look at Matthew, moved toward the receptionist's desk.
Matt slanted a glance at Susannah. "Was it something I said?" he asked quietly. The older woman had looked at him as if he were a cockroach that had crawled across the toe of her sensible beige shoe.
Susannah shook her head. "It's nothing personal," she assured him, a rueful expression on her face as she watched the older woman walk away from them. Six months ago, Helen's husband of nearly forty years had left her for a much younger woman. She'd been suspicious and distrusting of the entire male sex ever since. So far, none of Susannah's heart-to-hearts about the wisdom of letting go of her anger had done any good. Helen was eaten up with bitterness and—
"Ms. Bennington?"
Susannah brought her glance back to her prospective client's face. "I'm sorry," she murmured, tacitly apologizing for her wandering attention. Her smile flickered briefly, warm and unconsciously inviting. "And it's Susannah." She lifted her hand, graciously ushering Matt into her office ahead of her. "Shall we?"
He started to step past her and then paused, reaching out to put his hand on her arm instead, halting them both in the open doorway. Susannah looked up at him, an expression of mild inquiry on her face. Matt's gaze met hers head-on, from a distance that could be measured in inches.
He completely forgot what he'd been going to say.
Her eyes were brown. Not an ordinary run-of-the-mill brown, he thought as he stood there staring into them, nothing so mundane as that. They were a beguiling brown, a soft, rich velvety brown, as sweet and tempting as hot fudge, and as full of warmth and sparkle as the finest aged brandy. The expression in them as she gazed up at him was open, inquisitive, and expectant, clearly waiting for him to make his wishes known. Her full lips were slightly parted, as if she were ready to answer whatever question he might ask. He wondered what she would do if he bent his head and kissed her. Would the warmth in those soft brown eyes change to fire? Would those full, rosy lips part even more, answering his kiss with one of her own?
He has the clearest blue eyes I've ever seen, Susannah was thinking as she returned his penetrating stare. Clear, pure blue, like the icy-hot center of a flame or the heart of a priceless sapphire. They were intense. Focused. Predatory. She took an instinctive step back and came up against the doorjamb.
"Mr. Ryan?" She had to take a quick breath before she could continue. "Did you have a questio
n?" she asked, more sharply them she had intended. "Mr. Ryan. Ah... Matt?"
Matt blinked. And then blinked again, forcing himself to remember where he was and what he'd been going to say. Freed from the mesmerizing spell of her gaze, he felt his good sense return, the crazy impulse to kiss her passing as quickly as it had come. Almost. He removed his hand from her arm and moved past her into her office in an effort to put some distance between them.
"I've heard your service is very good. Very..." he hesitated tellingly over the word, "...discreet." His expression was rife with the significance of words unspoken. "Discretion is extremely important to me."
Susannah straightened away from the doorjamb and followed him into the office. "No one will know you came to The Personal Touch unless you tell them," she said dryly, knowing perfectly well what he was getting at.
No wonder he'd been looking at her so searchingly, she thought, relieved to have a plausible reason for his intense regard of a moment ago. No political candidate alive would want it known that he'd had to resort to a dating service. The newspapers would be on the story like hungry ducks on a fat, juicy water beetle.
She turned and closed the door behind her, then motioned him toward the faded green velvet love seat situated between the bay window and her desk. "Please, make yourself comfortable," she invited, her voice and manner all business. "Would you like coffee or tea before we get started? A soft drink?"
Matt shook his head. "Now that I'm here I'd like to get this over with as quickly as possible." He glanced at his watch as he spoke. "I really haven't got any time to waste."
Which, Susannah thought as she moved behind her desk, probably answered her unasked question about why a man like him was in her office. Time. It was the constant lament of the modern, career-driven single. There just wasn't enough time to devote to the task of finding someone to share an evening with, let alone a life. And a political candidate's life was undoubtedly busier than most, especially when it was added to the heavy caseload of a highly successful assistant DA.
All Night Long Page 1