Once Upon a Matchmaker

by Marie Ferrarella

  Gary waved a dismissive hand at his brother. “He’s a baby,” he taunted the sleeping boy. “He still needs naps.” And then, suddenly becoming animated, Gary looked over his shoulder at his father. “Want me to wake him up for you?” he asked eagerly.

  “No, that’s all right,” Micah assured his son. “Let him sleep. He probably needs it.”

  He heard Gary mumble “Big baby” under his breath. The next moment, the boy was scrambling up onto the sofa, taking advantage of the fact that with his brother asleep, he had his father all to himself. “Just us guys, huh, Daddy?” he asked, puffing up his chest.

  Just then, Sheila came out of the kitchen. She’d placed all the food they’d brought home in doggie bags from the restaurant into the refrigerator.

  “So how did it go?” she asked, sitting down on the other side of Micah. She nodded toward to phone in his pocket to make her point.

  “Well enough, I guess.” It was hard to glean anything from the few minutes he and the lawyer had talked. “I’m meeting her at her office tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Sheila approved, nodding her head. “This’ll be over with before you know it,” she promised, then smiled warmly at him as she patted his hand. “Just you wait and see.”

  “Shhh,” Gary said loudly. He put his finger to his lips. “You hafta listen,” he insisted, looking at his great-aunt. “You’re missing all the good stuff.”

  “No, I’m not,” Sheila told him, her eyes crinkling as she regarded the little boy fondly. “The ‘good stuff’ is right here.”

  “This is the good part,” Gary alerted his father and his great-aunt just before he turned his eyes back to the screen and watched in rabid attention.

  Yes, Micah thought, eyeing both his sons, this is the good part. No way would he allow some baseless, false accusations to destroy that for him.

  Certainly not without one hell of a fight.

  * * *

  Tracy’s last appointment wound up leaving early, for once sticking to the facts and cutting his rhetoric short. That allowed her a few minutes of breathing space before her last client of the day, Micah Muldare, arrived.

  Treason. Well, that was certainly a new one. She’d never handled a treason case before, nor had any of the other lawyers at the firm. She very well could be in over her head.

  But, she reasoned philosophically, the only way to learn was to learn, right? She tried to look at each new challenge that came her way as an opportunity for her to grow as a person.

  Each new professional challenge, she amended.

  She had absolutely no interest in expanding or growing on a personal level, no matter what Kate blatantly hinted at.

  Been there, done that.

  Her one incredibly brief foray into marriage had been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster, the likes of which she had no desire to repeat or relive ever again. The only way to avoid it was not to come within a ten-mile radius of the institution of marriage.

  That meant no dating, no mingling with any representative of the opposite sex in any form except professionally.

  Speaking of which…

  Tracy glanced at her watch. It was five minutes past five-thirty. Her last client of the day was now officially late.

  So where was Mr. I’m Not Guilty of Treason, anyway?

  Maybe she should have questioned him a little more thoroughly about who had referred him. Her time was too precious to waste, sitting here and waiting.

  Another five minutes went by.

  Okay, she’d been patient enough, Tracy decided. Time to go home to a hot bubble bath and a cold pizza, she told herself, thinking of what waited for her in her refrigerator.

  She’d really enjoyed the food at Giuseppe’s. So much so that she’d taken an order of pizza—classic flat, with extra cheese and three meat toppings—home with her. She’d had a couple of slices last night for dinner and planned to have two more tonight.

  Never a big eater, Tracy figured that the pizza would probably last her about four, or maybe five days, depending on—

  Her phone rang, breaking into her thoughts and demanding her attention. Since it was now a quarter to six, she debated ignoring it and letting the caller go straight to voicemail.

  Maybe it was her errant client, calling to say that he was running late—or just running. Tracy chewed on her lower lip, weighing the odds.

  There was only one way to find out.

  Tracy finally picked up the receiver and said, “Hello, this is Tracy Ryan.”

  The voice on the other end of the line immediately launched into an apology. She’d discovered years ago that it was hard to remain annoyed when there was an apology rushing at you.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Ryan, this is Micah Muldare. I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to make our meeting tonight.”

  He sounded very sincere, she thought, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” Tracy said mechanically. Mentally, she was already drawing the hot water and pouring the bath salts into the tub.

  “My younger son’s running a fever and my usual babysitter just called to tell me she’s stuck on the freeway,” he explained. “I can’t leave my sons home alone. They’re much too young.”

  “Your sons,” Tracy repeated. Suddenly an image clicked in her brain. The little boys from the restaurant.

  No, it couldn’t be. What were the odds?

  “By any chance, did you have lunch yesterday at Giuseppe’s with a striking dark-haired, older lady and two very cute, very blond little boys?” she asked him. He probably thought she was crazy, Tracy told herself, but her instincts told her to ask anyway.

  “They didn’t tell me you’re clairvoyant,” Micah said dryly. The woman’s question had caught him completely off guard. How had she known?

  “I’m not.” Although God knew that would have come in handy in her line of work. “I was there.”

  There were other women to choose from, but his thoughts immediately gravitated to the woman who had smiled at his sons. “That was you?” he asked without any preamble.

  Tracy wasn’t sure how, but she knew exactly what he was asking. They’d made eye contact over his sons’ heads. It had been brief, but enough to have left her with a lasting impression.

  “That was me,” she confirmed. Now that she knew who he was, she relaxed just a notch. “I hope it’s nothing serious with your little boy,” she told him, this time with all sincerity.

  “Greg has a tendency to run really high fevers,” he told her. There was more to it than that, but he saw no point to going into detail. She didn’t need to know that in order to properly represent him.

  “I don’t like taking chances,” he added. “Otherwise, I’d bring both of them with me.”

  Tracy nodded to herself. She liked that. Liked the fact that Muldare put his sons first, ahead of what had sounded like it could easily escalate into a very serious problem for him.

  After a nonexistent debate with herself that took all of half a second, she made up her mind.

  “Listen, I was going to go home right after seeing you, so why don’t you give me your address and I’ll just swing by your place before I call it a night?” she proposed. “I have to admit, I am rather intrigued,” she told him. “You’re the first person who’s ever come to me because he was being accused of treason.”

  He was glad that someone was intrigued. As far as he was concerned, he was just oppressed by the very weight of the whole ordeal.

  He debated her offer for exactly fifteen seconds and decided that he had absolutely nothing to lose. But he didn’t like the idea of putting the woman out. “You’re sure you don’t mind?” he asked her.

  “Why should I mind?” she asked. “If I minded, I wouldn’t have suggested stopping by in the first place.”

  Her bubble bath became a distant memory—but it was for a good cause. Picking up a pen and tearing off a two-day-old page from her desk calendar, she got ready to write.

  “Okay, where do you li
ve?”

  Greg was coughing in the background. Distracted, Micah answered, “In Bedford.”

  “Bedford’s gotten to be a big city,” she quipped. “Mind narrowing that down a bit?”

  “Sorry.”

  Right now, he felt as if everything was coming at him at once. The accusation, Greg’s fever, his aunt getting stuck in traffic—he’d always hated the idea of traffic ever since his parents had been killed in that car accident. He knew it was unreasonable of him, but he couldn’t harness his response, couldn’t do away with it. Belatedly, he recited his street address.

  Rather than make some inane comment—or say nothing at all—he heard the woman say “Huh” in what seemed like preoccupied wonderment.

  “Something wrong?” he asked her uncertainly, although for the life of him, he couldn’t begin to imagine the reason for a positive answer. It wasn’t as if he lived in a haunted house or anything of that kind. Why had she made that noise?

  Tracy stared at the address she’d just jotted down. It seemed rather incredible to her, but she actually lived in his development.

  What were the odds of that happening?

  But she didn’t want to disclose that little tidbit to her prospective client because then she’d be leaving herself open to all sorts of things she might not be too happy about down the road. Besides, once out of the office and off the clock, she was a very private person who valued her privacy.

  She wanted that to continue.

  So all she said in response to his question was, “No, I’m just surprised—I’m fairly familiar with the area.” Glancing at her watch, Tracy did a quick calculation. “I can be there within the half hour—if it’s all right with you and—your wife?” she ended her statement with a question since she wasn’t entirely familiar with his situation. He’d been at the restaurant with only his sons and his aunt, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. After all, Kate’s husband hadn’t been there with Kate yesterday at the restaurant. There were all sorts of reasons why this Micah could have been there without his wife.

  Wife. The word still hurt after all this time. Rather than say he was no longer married, or that his wife had died, he told the attorney, “It’s just me and the boys. And Aunt Sheila,” he added.

  “That would be the striking brunette who was at your table,” Tracy surmised.

  Micah laughed to himself. Hearing herself described that way would certainly be good for Aunt Sheila’s ego, he thought.

  “I’ll be sure to tell her that when I see her. It’s bound to brighten her day,” he told the woman on the other end of the line.

  Tracy caught herself listening to his soft chuckle. It was a nice sound. Hearing it seemed to generate a feeling of well-being within her.

  You’re just being punchy, Tracy. It’s been a long day and you put in more than your share of hours. Maybe you should just go home.

  But she couldn’t just go home, not after telling Muldare that she was coming over. He’d think he was dealing with a dizzy blonde. As a natural blonde, she had fought against the image all of her life.

  “I’ll be there in less than half an hour,” she repeated and then hung up.

  Tired or not, her mouth curved in just a hint of a smile as she walked out the door.

  Chapter Four

  The residential development where Tracy lived was one of the oldest ones in Bedford. It was also one of the smaller developments.

  Maizie Sommers, the real estate agent who had sold her the house she lived in, had happily given her all sorts of positive statistics about the area. According to the woman, Bedford Ranch had seven hundred and fifty homes within it. The agent had called that “cozy.”

  Oddly enough, though the word normally suggested fireplaces and warm comforters to her, Tracy decided that the word did seem to fit the community. She was also happy to learn that this particular development didn’t come with myriad rules and regulations that covered everything from the number of hours that residents could keep their garage doors opened to when and if they could park their cars in the street or had to leave them strictly in their driveway.

  But the thing that Tracy liked best about the relaxed atmosphere within the development was that she was free to paint the outside of her simple, two-story home any color she wanted without having to submit the request first in triplicate to some nebulous association for their approval.

  Obviously, Muldare found this sort of freedom as appealing as she did. Otherwise, the newer, more rigidly structured developments would have certainly lured him away. They had the bigger, more modern houses.

  Most likely equally appealing—at least to her prospective client—was the fact that there was an elementary school on the southern perimeter of the development. Los Naranjos was the name some clever pencil pusher had given it.

  She wondered if his sons went there. It certainly made drop-offs and pickups easy for whoever looked after the boys while he was at work.

  Maizie had gently touted that feature to her, as well, saying, “When you have kids, you’ll find that this is an excellent school for them to attend. All the schools in Bedford are ranked in the top 5 percent scholastically,” the woman had told her proudly.

  Little had the woman known that for her there was never going to be a “when.” Much as she adored her mother who had raised her by herself—she’d never known her father—Tracy truly believed that kids needed a full set of parents, not just one. After that humiliating experience with Simon, she was not about to get married ever again, which sort of closed the door for her when it came to having kids.

  Tracy pulled up to the curb before his house. Muldare lived closer to her than she’d thought he would. Only one vehicle was in the driveway—his, she assumed—but she didn’t feel as if she could take the spot beside it in case someone dropped by while she was still here.

  After getting out of her vintage white sedan, Tracy came up the walk to the front door. Her ex-husband had been into status symbols, big time. The fact that they couldn’t afford to buy things like super-expensive cars and a cabin cruiser made no difference to him. Debt was just an annoying detail that he left for her to handle while he drove around in a vehicle that could have easily been a down payment on a house in the more affluent part of the city. He’d accused her of being a stick-in-the-mud when she’d tried to show him the discrepancy between their salaries and the lifestyle he was living.

  Tracy rang the doorbell and heard the beginning notes of Beethoven’s Fifth symphony. A classical music lover? Or had that just come with the house and he hadn’t gotten around to changing it?

  She waited until the strains faded away, then pressed the doorbell again, a little longer this time. He had to be home, right? At least, that was what he’d said when he’d called to cancel their appointment. Maybe he was one of those people who didn’t like to stand up for himself and this was his way of backing away from the problem.

  If so, he’d probably seen an ad for her law firm and was intimidated by what representation would wind up costing in dollars and cents.

  She hadn’t told him that if she was going to take the case, it would be pro bono. But she also wanted to judge the merits of the case for herself before she committed to it. If she told him about pro bono up front, he’d be eager for her to take the case and if she didn’t believe in his innocence, or didn’t think there was at least a slim chance in hell of winning, she wouldn’t take it on.

  About to ring and listen to the Beethoven piece a third time, she was spared the encore when the front door suddenly opened. Her prospective client was on the other side.

  “I was beginning to think that maybe I had the wrong address,” she said by way of an ice breaker. “Hi, I’m Tracy Ryan,” she said, extending her hand out to his.

  Caught off guard—today was not going to go down as one of his better days—he said the first thing that popped into his head. “I’m Micah Muldare—but then, you already know that.”

  “Yes. I do.” He was still holding her hand an
d, while that did generate a rather exceptionally warm feeling within her, she did need it back sooner than later.

  She glanced at his hand, then raised her eyes to his, waiting.

  Realizing that he’d spent too long staring at her, Muldare flashed her a quick, grateful smile that was gone almost before it arrived. At the same time, he released her hand.

  It was easy to see that he was worried. About the case? Or about his son? Most likely, it was a little of both. The old adage about “when it rains, it pours” floated through her head.

  Because Muldare continued standing where he was, blocking her way, she was forced to ask, “May I come in? Conducting initial interviews in doorways leaves a little something to be desired,” she quipped, surprising herself at the dry comment.

  “Oh, sorry.” Belatedly, Micah stepped to the side, allowing her in. “I guess I just didn’t realize you’d be this young—I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being young, but—”

  “I assure you that in this case youth isn’t synonymous with lack of experience,” she told him as she came inside.

  There was a warmth here, she thought, looking around. A charm. Love had been in this house—in place of a cleaning lady, she thought as she side-stepped a stuffed animal on the floor. Given a choice, she would have picked love every time—if it had been hers to pick. The house she’d briefly shared with Simon had been so neat, it all but sparkled on its own. And she couldn’t remember ever being in a colder place.

  “How’s your son?” she asked, passing both Micah and a very animated-looking little boy. He certainly didn’t appear sick to her. But then, she’d heard somewhere that children had a way of bouncing back almost immediately.

  Gary, who was shadowing his father step for step, took the question to mean him. “I’m okay,” he told her, speaking up immediately. “But my little brother’s not feeling so good. He’s sick,” he confided in what could have passed for a stage whisper.