Perfectly Matched: ...And the Rest of the Matchmaking Chef Books

by Maddie James

  He just wasn’t sure how to tell his sister-in-law that her new friend, Jillian, was a fake.

  ****

  The feeling in the pit of her stomach wasn’t a good one, and it was the first time she’d had it since she moved to Legend.

  Jillian eyeballed the men out front as she stood in her doorway and waited for the head guy to come her way. The truck with her equipment sat parked, taking up four parking spaces along Main Street. Not good. This was not the time to piss off her neighbors. Finally the guy she’d been communicating with about the equipment came around the truck. She moved onto the sidewalk.

  “Hey, Marvin. I was thinking we should probably unload around back in the alley and not block Main Street. What do you think?”

  He nodded. “Let’s walk back there and take a look, okay?”

  Leading him through the store, she hoped her calculations were accurate. If the dimensions were correct in the catalog, she should be fine.

  They entered the back room, and Marvin glanced around. “I think we’ll be fine here. Let me take a peek in the alley to make sure we can get the truck through there.” He headed for the back door, glanced out, and turned back to her. “It’s good.”

  “Great.” That was a relief. She picked a clipboard up off a nearby counter. “Here is my floor plan.”

  There were several pieces coming, and she wanted to make sure it would all fit and that his men placed them pretty much where she wanted them, because it would be difficult for her to move them later on by herself. She’d ordered two cooling tables, two commercial mixers, and two mold filling workstations, as well as a melting and tempering system, a one-man packing station, and a fondant beater. With the counter space that was already here, and the sundry candy-making and hand-dipping supplies she’d brought with her from New York, she should be in business very soon.

  “Looks like it should work,” Marvin said.

  “Good.”

  A different voice remarked from the doorway between the two rooms. “Just now setting up shop?”

  Jillian’s gaze rose to the man standing in her doorway. Scott Matthews? What in the world was he doing here?

  “Scott?”

  “Hello, Jillian.”

  He couldn’t help himself. Try as he might, Scott could not get the woman and her chocolates off his mind. He’d thought about it…her…all through the night. That’s why he found himself borrowing his brother’s Jeep and driving down the mountain on the pretense of picking up a few personal items at the local grocery store. They called it The Pig, short for Piggly Wiggly, which he didn’t understand one bit. In truth he found it rather quaint and homey and amusing, in an odd sort of way.

  In reality he was bored and needed something to do. He figured while he was here, he could check out this woman and those damn, in Suzie’s own words, to-die-for chocolates.

  “Thought I’d drop by.” He sauntered on into the room and glanced about. The man she was speaking with nodded to her and left. “How’s the ankle?”

  She glanced at her foot, then nervously after the delivery guy. “Let me know if you need me for anything, Marvin,” she called after him.

  Scott turned toward the door; the guy was already gone.

  He smiled.

  She smiled back.

  “Your ankle?” he prodded, taking another couple of steps into the room.

  Seemingly caught off guard, she looked to her booted foot, grimaced, and said, “Well, it’s okay. Had better days, but hopefully after a few weeks it will be fine.”

  “Good.” He really wasn’t here to talk about her foot, although he was concerned. Pulling his gaze from hers, he took a stroll around the room. It was pretty much a full-service kitchen, he noted. “Hmm, countertops, water, refrigerator, gas stove,” he looked back at her, “Looks like you have all the makings of a kitchen here, ma’am. What do you propose to cook in here?”

  Damn. Was that freakin’ obvious? Last thing he wanted to do was rouse suspicion. All he was out for today was a little information. To satisfy his curiosity about who Ms. Jillian Bass really was.

  “Um, candy?” The look on her face was priceless.

  He grinned. “Of course.” Then he slapped himself on the forehead. “Where is my brain?”

  “Perhaps it’s still jet lag.”

  Did she know about him coming from Italy? He didn’t remember any conversation about that. “Perhaps, but it’s been a week. Usually doesn’t hang around that long for me.”

  “Oh.”

  Pause.

  That went well. Try again, Matthews. For some reason she didn’t seem very communicative today. Did she suspect that he knew something? “So you’re getting a delivery?”

  She nodded her response. “Equipment. For making candy.”

  He cocked his head and glanced off. “Ah.” Equipment. For making candy. Hmm.

  He thought he might as well get the question sticking to the insides of his lips out of his mouth. Now or never. He looked her square in the face. “So, Jillian. Just curious. If you didn’t have all the right candy making equipment here the other day, how did you make those fantastic truffles?”

  Her gaze narrowed. “You mean the fantastic truffles that you spit on the sidewalk in front of my shop? The chewed up truffle that drew ants and bugs to my front door? The truffle that my next customer stepped on and slid to her butt on the sidewalk in? That truffle?”

  His neck grew hot. “Yes. Those would be the truffles.” And this conversation was not very smart.

  “I had them made off-site.” She turned then and started for the back door, where the rough rumbling of a delivery truck sounded through the screen.

  Not going very well at all. Okay, he thought. Time to take a different tack. Quickly rounding her, he leaned against a counter near the door and fully faced her. Jillian still stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking a little like a lost child. “So I hear you’ve recently moved here?”

  She nodded, looking toward the door at the back. Some commotion was going on in there.

  “Um, yes,” she responded, not really giving him her full attention.

  Which was a bit annoying, to tell you the truth. Women usually gave him their undivided and very full attention. “Jillian?”

  “Oh!” She dragged her gaze back to his. “I’m sorry. Yes. I’ve just moved here. And you...you are visiting?”

  So, she did remember something. He wondered, had she thought about him any at all?

  And about that tingle that passed through his lips to hers a few days ago? “Yes, visiting, which is exactly why I came by.”

  He could tell she was having a difficult time keeping focused on him. More commotion.

  “If you will excuse me for a second,” she said, “I need to go check on…”

  She hurriedly passed him then, and he reached out to snag her arm, which brought her to a complete stop. “Wha—?”

  “Dinner?” There, just get right to it.

  “Wha—?”

  “You know, eating? Late in the day? Conversation between two people?”

  “Oh, yes.” She looked surprised. Hell, he was surprised.

  “I figure we’re both new around here. Maybe we can get to know the town together.”

  “Oh, sure. When?”

  Scott figured it this way. She was busy right now, and he needed some time with her when there were no distractions around. This wasn’t the time. “Tonight?”

  Her eyes skittered back and forth across his. “Tomorrow.”

  Right. There were things going on here today. “Absolutely. I’ll pick you up at...seven?”

  With a slight dip of her chin, she replied, “That works.”

  “And I’ll pick you up where?”

  “Oh, right here,” she told him. “I live right upstairs in the loft apartment above the store.”

  Grinning, Scott replied, “Perfect.”

  Chapter Five

  Five minutes of seven the next evening and Jillian Bass stood at the back stairway of her
apartment, looking down a long row of steps, and wondered if she fell on her way down and broke her neck, how long would it take for anyone to find her.

  Seriously that was the thought that went through her head.

  With a high-heeled black pump on her left foot and her black-satin covered, lovely boot on her right foot, she figured it would take one miscue on the wooden steps and she would be a goner.

  Splat. Creamed. Flat-on-her-ass broken at the bottom of the stairs.

  Yes, that would be her.

  And at this point she had to wonder. Why was she going on this date anyway? She barely knew Scott Matthews, and the times she’d been around him were brief, and actually not that pleasant. She’d smacked blindly into him for one, and for two he had spit her chocolates on the sidewalk.

  The nerve.

  But she’d been busy, and he caught her off guard, and she had been a little lonely lately... and, there had been those tiny kiss-sparks, so....

  So she sat at the top of her stairs, slipped the black pump off her foot, stood again, and using the handrail as a prop, began a slow descent down the stairs. And she made it halfway down before she snagged her hosiery, right at the heel, on a huge splinter on the old wood. A splinter which at that moment decided to embed itself in the heel of said foot—oh, probably about a half-inch deep she would discern later—which caused her to yelp at the top of her lungs, the foot to slide out from under her, her pantyhose to rip, and her rump to hit every single one of the remaining dozen or so steps on her way down.

  Splat. Creamed. Flat-on-her-ass.

  “Ooof.” She wanted to say a really bad word, one that rhymed with fudge, sort of, but she’d promised her Grandma Jean once that she would never say that word again. That was when she was fourteen, and she hadn’t broken that promise since.

  But she wanted to say it real bad. Her ass hurt like hell.

  So instead of saying the F word, she curled over into herself and did something she rarely did and hated to do: she let out a good, long wail.

  ****

  As Scott crossed the threshold to the shop, he wondered where Jillian might be and where they should go for dinner. She said to pick her up here because she lived upstairs, but he didn’t have a clue where the entrance to her apartment was. When he realized the door to Bittersweets was unlocked, he decided to come on inside and wait for her there. He assumed she’d be there shortly—

  He stopped, cocked his head to one side. What was that? Cat in heat?

  Curious, he stepped toward the rear of the store, poked his head in the kitchen and noticed all of the appliances and equipment had been placed in their spots, and then…

  There it was again.

  No.

  Not a cat. Crying? And it was coming from his left, where he saw an opening into another room.

  He rushed across the space. Not a room, a stairwell. And glancing at the bottom of it, he saw the object of the whimpering sounds.

  “Jillian?” He rushed to her side; her tear-streaked and startled face jerked up toward his. “Whatever happened? Are you okay?”

  She lifted a black high-heeled shoe into the air, sniffed twice, and swallowed a small sob.

  “Y-yes. I think.”

  He wasn’t sure, and for a moment he thought his heart was going to leap from his chest. “Did you fall?”

  She nodded, tears falling.

  “Oh, babe...”

  At that she started crying louder. There was only one thing left for him to do. Scoop her up and take her back upstairs and make sure she wasn’t hurt.

  “What. Where?”

  “Shsh now,” he told her. “You’re going to be just fine. Hold onto me.”

  ****

  Jillian didn’t need to be told twice. She held on to him with everything that was in her.

  While he picked his way up the steps, cradling her close in his arms, she wrapped herself about him and clung.

  He smelled nice. Her nose was poised at his neck. Right at his earlobe where a lingering hint of his shower remained—fresh soap, clean water, and just an ever so light skiff of aftershave.

  Nice.

  She’d missed that smell. Rand had always smelled good too. But something about how Scott smelled was starting to turn her hormones all atwitter. Her pulse raced in her upper chest.

  They reached the top of the steps, and Scott glanced about. “Where?”

  “If you put me down, I can walk now,” she told him. He didn’t listen.

  “Door to the left.” There were two apartments up here; the second one was vacant. She’d thought that in the future she might remodel so she could have the entire suite up here, but that was down the road.

  Balancing her, he reached for the doorknob, twisted it, and they went inside to her living room area. He put her on the couch then immediately sat across from her on the coffee table, grasped what used to be her good foot, turned it slightly, and sighed. “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s big.”

  “Uh-hmm. Hurts like hell.”

  “Should I try to remove it?”

  She grimaced. “Please?”

  “All right. I may need something to extract it.”

  “Tweezers?”

  “Perhaps. But maybe I can get it with my fingers.”

  “Oh...”

  Jillian waited. Scott simply stared down at the thing; she supposed he was pondering the best way to get it out. He wasn’t in any hurry, and really she wasn’t either. The thing went in easy enough, although it was a mite painful when it had happened; she had to wonder if it would exit with pain or without.

  Finally with the tips of his forefinger and thumb, Scott pinched the object and gave a tug.

  “Ow!” A sliver of hurt ripped up through her.

  “I’m so sorry, Jillian. But it had to be done.”

  Another tear popped over her lower lid and ran hot down her cheek. “I know.” But the splinter was out, and she was glad of that.

  “That is big.”

  Scott held it up. “That thing could kill a horse! Are you okay? What happened?” He looked at her then, searching her face, with sincere caring in his eyes. And all of a sudden, words that she’d been holding back—hell, thoughts that she’d been holding back for a long, long time—came out all in one big tumble, among tears and a few choked back sobs.

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.” Sniff. “I…I had on the black heel,” she held it up, still clutched in her left hand, “and I knew I couldn’t make it down with heel and this ugly, lovely boot, because I’d been wearing my tennis shoe up until today, which would have been ugly too, with this dress, because we were going out to dinner, you know, and I hadn’t been out to dinner for a while…not a real dinner with a man, anyway because, well, I broke off my engagement before I left New York; however, I had no idea how much I would miss being taken to dinner and such, you know, with a man, so even though I was a bit nervous about our date and didn’t,” snif, snif, “really understand why you had asked me out, I decided on a whim to go, and then I remembered the lovely black boot and didn’t know how I was going to dress up with it, and well, geez, I wanted to look nice, so I decided I would try the heel but then realized it was ridiculous as I looked down at the stairwell and wondered how long it would take someone to find me once I’d died, so that’s when I took it off, tried to make it down, impaled my heel with monster splinter there, and busted my damn ass.”

  Scott didn’t say a word.

  She added. “Hells bells. I’m a mess. And here I thought I had it all together. Thought I had gone and made my dream come true. Made myself a living wreck wanting to fit in here in this town. Was sure your sister-in-law would hate me. Was worried that my dad would find me. Didn’t want Rand showing up here, of course...don’t want to see him again. Then I have to go break my foot and run a baseball bat up my other heel.” She looked him square in the face. “I have a business to get off the ground! I need my feet!” Her voice rose somewhat there. “And you!”

  She l
ooked him square in the eyes. “You spit my chocolate truffle right out on the damn sidewalk.”

  Finally she stopped. Everything that needed to have been said was said. She guessed. Scott swallowed, and she watched his Adam’s apple bob. In the next motion he moved to the couch beside her, put his arms around her shoulders, and pulled her into his chest.

  It was warm there. And nice. Sort of like she was nestled into a man cocoon.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Take a minute, catch your breath, cry into my shoulder if you want, and then I’ll explain.”

  Inhaling, taking that wonderful scent of his fully into her lungs, she tried to do just as he said—catch her breath. She shuddered once, relaxed into him, wondering how she’d suddenly gotten from near-death to exquisite pleasure all in the span of about five minutes.

  “There,” he cooed. “Take a moment, and we’ll go from there. That’s right, sweetheart.”

  ****

  Scott hadn’t planned this, not at all. His plan was to take her to dinner, approach her about the candy, prod her about where they were made, and get her to confess that she was a fake. That she had taken someone else’s candy and wrapped it up as her own.

  That had been his plan.

  Because he was convinced that the woman was a fake. She had no more made those chocolates than his mother had. And his mother hated to cook, bake, or anything. His mother simply “prepared” to quote her. Which was very strange since he and his brother were both in the food business.

  But that was neither here nor there. Jillian Bass was tricking the whole town of Legend, and he had to get to the bottom of it. Why? Because she was befriending his family, and he didn’t want them to be taken advantage of.

  If there was one thing he knew, it was chocolate. He’d not spent the past ten years working as a taster for Bianchi, the world’s largest and most renowned chocolate maker, for nothing. If there was a second thing he knew, it was his competition. It was his job to keep up with it.