“Picking up something I dropped.”
“Pick up your reputation while you’re down there.”
I winced. His meaty hands were digging into my arm. “What do you mean—ow—Sean, you’re hurting me!”
Bear was front and center. “Let her go.”
“So, you can put your hands all over my girlfriend?”
“It’s not like that, buddy. She tripped. I stopped her from taking a header.”
Sean shoved me to one side. He stared at Bear, his eyes lit. He squeezed his hands into fists, and Corey and Jim strode up, clutching beers.
I’d never seen a fist fight in real life and my stomach curled. Bile rose in my throat. “Sean, no! Nothing happened.”
“That’s not what I saw. You were flirting with him. He put his hands on you.”
“Of course I think your girlfriend is pretty,” Bear said. “Anyone with an eyeball in their head would think your girlfriend’s pretty. She tripped. I caught her and stopped her from face planting. Again, nothing happened.”
Suddenly Grill Chick Number 1 was back on the scene accompanied by a silver-haired biker dude. “Problems?”
“Disagreement,” Jim said.
I tugged at Sean’s sleeve. “Come on. Everything’s fine. Let’s leave, okay?” I shrugged off my apron and handed it to Grill Chick Number 1. “Close up shop for me, please?”
“Yes.” She doused water on the flames of the barbecue and shut the lid.
“Let’s just go home. I’m driving,” I said.
Sean stood there, his face wavering between anger and indecision.
“Let this one go, buddy,” Corey said.
“Fine.” Sean dropped his fists. “Sorry, man. From where I was sitting it looked different.”
“Nothing happened,” Bear said. “Hey, we’re cool.”
“No, we’re not.” Grill Chick Number 1 eyed me as she walked away.
“Name’s Sean.” He held out his hand to Bear who shook it. “Sean Kessler.”
“Your dad owns Kessler’s Autos?”
“Yeah. Sorry man. Just a misunderstanding.”
“No worries,” Bear said.
“It’s all cool,” Corey said.
I tugged Sean back down the path to the parking lot.
*
Gravel ground under the tires as I drove Sean’s truck out of the parking lot at Hank’s Grill onto the narrow black topped lane. The party was still happening behind us. My arm was sprouting bruises from where both Bear and Sean had grabbed me, but all in all, things could have been worse.
Sean slumped against the passenger door, a hand shading his eyes.
“I think the fundraiser went really well, tonight,” I said. “People were friendly. I liked helping. Great cause—”
His backhand came out of nowhere, striking my face. My head bounced off the driver’s side window, and I lost control of the car for a few seconds. I veered off the road into the grass. Luckily I still had enough reflexes left to hit the brakes.
“What the crap, Sean?” My cheek stung. It wasn’t really a hard punch, just completely unexpected. I tasted a trickle of blood in my mouth, and put my hand to my lip. “What was that for?”
“You know what that was for. Don’t ever embarrass me like that in front of my friends again.”
“Embarrass? What—”
He pointed at the steering wheel. “Drive.” His voice was terse. “Just drive.”
“Right.” I dropped my trembling hand from my cheek and placed it back on the steering wheel. Bile rose into the back of my throat and fear clutched my chest. I felt defeated. I felt powerless. I pulled back onto the darkened small road. “Of course.”
Chapter 20
Harper
*
I sat in my cubicle at Mr. Cupid and tapped the bottom of my pen on Ethan P. Rosseaux’s ten-page intake form. He’d filled out his name, date of birth, address, education, and perfect mate preference: single, female, age 24 to 35, decent figure, smart as shit. Educated. His medicals looked fine. Habits: pretty much everything in moderation.
I stared at his photo attached to the file: Dark hair. Deep eyes. A bit of scruff on his face. Fabulous shoulders.
Now, as I stared at his stupid intake form on my stupid desk, as much as it pained me, I knew the first person I wanted to set him up with was Sophia Bardolino. But before I committed this awful deed—an act that felt criminal on so many levels—I needed to fill in the rest of the missing spaces on his application.
Why did he drop out of the University of Wisconsin a few months before he was scheduled to earn his MBA? What did he do the year before he went to Loyola, earned his degree, and took course work for Masters in Library Science? Travel across Europe? Was he a serial killer? He’d never been married. Never been engaged according to the form. Was he just a player? Had I made out with a random player?
I wouldn’t feel right about setting him up with Sophia, who I actually liked, before I found out the rest of his details. I’d already left Ethan two messages regarding the unpleasant data collection. I checked my phone for texts or emails, but he hadn’t gotten back to me. I might be in the matchmaking business but I hadn’t signed up to become a professional nag.
Sarah popped her head into my space. She was munching on a chocolate donut and thrust one into my hand before I could decline. “How goes it with the new client?”
“Meh.” I took an unenthusiastic bite. The sour cream and chocolate baked combo should have been delish but my appetite had been quashed.
“I’ll gladly take him off your hands.” She rubbed her hands together gleefully. Too gleefully. “Ethan Rosseaux is even hotter now than when he was Hot Waiter. How are you going to matchmake for a guy you’re crushing on?”
“I am not crushing on him.” I slammed the donut on my desk so hard it pancaked.
“Right.” Sarah flinched. “And no one from nowhere believes that ever. Gotta run.” She swiveled and left.
I was not crushing on Ethan Rosseaux.
Okay, fine. Perhaps I was crushing on his witty repartee, his hard, defined shoulders that my hands had slid across, feeling every cut and ripple as tingles raced from my fingertips up my neck and down my spine.
It had been three days since Marte had exacted my promise to find her beloved grandson the perfect woman to marry. A messenger had dropped off a retainer the next morning for $30,000. Now I was stuck with this stupid two-thirds filled intake form. I swallowed my pride and picked up the phone. Ethan’s number rang and rang until his voicemail picked up.
Giles popped his head into my cubicle. “Hey, Harper—”
“Hang on.” I lifted my index finger. I heard the dark, sensual tones of Ethan’s voice as I silently rehearsed my message in my head. I didn’t want to say something stupid. ‘It’s Harper,’ I said to myself in my best ‘business casual with a hint of sexy’ voice. ‘I need to talk with you—’
But I was harshly interrupted. “The mailbox belonging to this subscriber is full,” a lady robot voice said. “Please call back later. Message 5208. Goodbye.”
“Freaking moron.” I glared at the phone and clicked off. “Giles, what kind of freaking moron doesn’t empty their voicemails?”
“Uh…”
“Me.” Ethan Rosseaux poked his head around the corner of my cubicle. “I’m the freaking moron who didn’t empty the voicemails. You busy?”
“Oh.” I stared up at him, tongue tied.
“I’ll take that as a ‘No.’” Put your coat on. Game of Wives is on and winter’s officially here. Let’s go.”
“I can’t just leave here in the middle of the day for whatever you have in mind.” “Nefarious things, Harper.” He smiled. “Horribly, naughty things like—”
“Shut up, weirdo.”
“—shopping.”
“Shopping?” I glared at him. “Do I look like a ‘Real Housewife’? I have work to do.”
He snagged the intake form on my desk. “You are working. We’re going wife shopping.
Chop chop. I’m your client and Grandma’s not getting any younger.”
Chapter 21
Ethan
*
“I thought you said we were wife shopping. Why are we at Whole Foods? Are they carrying organic wives now?” Harper asked.
We walked through the well-lit, immaculate, well-stocked store. “Because, Cupcake, I always see attractive women when I’m grocery shopping. What better place to show you the kind of woman I might be interested in? Case in point. Check out the chick rooting through the prepared salads in the grocery case.”
“Aha. I get your reasoning,” she said. “Sensible, actually. Which one?”
“The redhead.”
“The redhead with the short hair, the perfect complexion, and glasses? Cute. And she looks smart.”
“No. The redhead wearing yoga pants with the long hair and perfect ass. I don’t care about perfect complexions.” I pointed to her purse. “You should note that on your form.”
“The redhead with the glasses looks to be about twenty-seven and she just picked up the three bean salad with kale. She also has a bottle of Pro-biotics in her basket. I won’t complain if you go chat her up, talk about digestive health, and then ask for her number.”
“The redhead with the perfect ass just picked up the taco salad, has organic blue corn chips, guacamole, salsa, and a six-pack of beer in her basket. She’s more up my alley.”
“The redhead with the glasses is shopping for herself because she’s single,” Harper said. “Which means we could add her to your potential wife list. Unless you’d rather take up with the redhead with the perfect ass who is clearly stocking up for her boyfriend, Bruno, who is coming over after work tonight.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because no woman with that kind of figure keeps it with chips, guac, and beer, unless she’s having a party, or has just been through a break-up and is embarking on a cleansing bender. Her make up is immaculate, she’s not crying, or disheveled. So— I’m going with my first guess which is—her boyfriend’s coming over to watch the game tonight.”
“Blackhawks?”
“No. They’re on the road. The Bulls.”
“Oh.” Harper was not only gorgeous and funny, she was up on sports. “Hungry?”
“It’s almost lunchtime. I could eat.”
“My place is just a few blocks away.”
“Tempting, but we don’t do that kind of stuff.”
“Thank God we got all the distracting sexual attraction out of our systems,” I said.
“What sexual attraction?”
“You know.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “I’m starving. Let’s grab sandwiches.”
*
We sat at a picnic table at a park. Whole Foods to-go containers were spread like a fine buffet in front of us. The mercurial Chicago winds gusted and then died just as quickly. The sun broke through the clouds warming us up a bit. A chain link fence enclosed Lake Shore Bark Park situated a few yards away. Lunchtime was when the dog walkers and those who worked from home took their fur babies out for exercise and fresh air. It was fun to watch the pooches stretching their legs and rough housing.
“I’d love to get a dog someday,” Harper said between spoonfuls of steamy soup.
“What’s stopping you?”
“Romeo.” She pinched off a piece of her carrot muffin and ate the icing first.
She had an Italian boyfriend?
“Right,” I said nonchalantly while I tried to pick my stomach up from the ground. “He doesn’t like dogs?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had him around dogs. He was a rescue and didn’t come with an instruction manual.”
My heart bounced back into my chest. “You’re talking about your cat.”
“Yes. What—did you think I had a dog-hating boyfriend?”
“Not really. You know an awful lot about me. I’m glad you’re telling me about your family. Your mom and sister sound sweet. Tell me more. What happened after your dad left?”
“We figured it out,” she said. “Mom went back to work—part time gigs, some waitressing. My sister and I went to daycare and hung out with babysitters.”
“What about family? Did anyone step up to the plate?”
“Dad moved back to where his family lived in the South. We saw him a few times a year. Mom had a brother who had gone his own way ten years prior. I vaguely remember meeting him.”
“It sounds kind of lonely.”
“Strangely it wasn’t.” She opened a bag of chips, took a few, then pushed the bag toward me. “Mom shut off the electronics at 8 every night. We played board games, read books, put together puzzles. Well, that was until she got sick and her energy was sapped. Then they became another ‘babysitter,’” she made air quotes.
“What happened?” I reached for a few chips.
“Mystery illness. Misdiagnosed as the flu, chronic fatigue, rheumatoid arthritis. Eventually it turned out to be Lyme disease. A tick bite after we went camping years ago.”
“How’s she doing now?”
“Up and down. Mostly up.”
“That’s good. You see her?”
“Yeah. She visited recently. We went to the Museum of Science and Something.”
“Industry.” I thought about the question I really wanted to ask Harper, and finally decided just to spit it out. “So—do you have a boyfriend?”
She stopped mid bite, and threw the rest of the chip at me. “Do you think I would have made out with you the other night if I had a boyfriend? What kind of person do you think I am?”
And there went that pouty lower lip again, and the defiant thrust of her jaw. Aw crap, I’d gone and riled Harper up again. Good God, I wanted to kiss her. Get a grip, Rosseaux.
We’d been outside in winter’s grip for too long. Why did I bring her here again? Why didn’t I just take her to lunch at a normal restaurant? A cute little French café? A trendy sushi place? Right. I wanted to catch her with her guard down. I wanted answers. I still didn’t know all that much about Harper Schubert and I really wanted to. Watching dogs play calmed people and calm people spilled the beans. I pointed at the Bark Park. “Hey—what kind of puppy is that?”
She turned and stared. “The cutest puppy in the world.” She sprang up from her seat, gathered the remains of her lunch in a bag, and in basketball move, tossed it in a nearby trash can. She walked over to the dog park and beckoned to me. “Don’t just sit there. Move it!”
Chapter 22
Harper
*
I knelt down and the Bernese Mountain dog-esque puppy licked my ear. “Cuteness overload. How old?”
“Four months,” the middle-aged man said.
“Breeder?” Ethan asked.
“Rescue,” he said. “Mixed breed Berner. Mother got out during that time—if you know what I mean.”
“Love is love,” Ethan said.
I giggled and glanced up at him imploringly. “I’m a sucker for Berners. Tear me away, I beg you, or my feet will grow roots that will penetrate this frozen earth and I’ll be stuck here forever.”
He smiled and pointed in the opposite direction. “Oh, look at that Labrador Retriever.”
“Too freaking adorable,” I said. “He can’t decide which tennis ball to chase.” Dog parks were a slice of heaven.
“I think he should go after the green one,” Ethan said.
“They’re all green.” Hmm. I could turn this trip to the dog park into information gathering. I might even be able to fill in a few more spaces on Ethan’s intake form. “If you had to pick your top three dogs, Ethan, which would you pick and why?”
“Tough question.” He picked up a Frisbee that had landed in the corner and tossed it to a Boxer who had been looking for it. My heart melted a little. “I’d pick a loyal dog.”
“It’s hard to pick a non-loyal dog.”
“I’d pick a hairy dog.”
“Most dogs have hair. Not all.
Most,” I said.
“I’d pick a warm dog,” he said and pulled his coat up higher against his neck. “What kind of dog would you pick, Harper Emily Schubert?”
“I’d pick a dog that made me laugh. Liked to snuggle. And loved me to pieces.”
“Breeding doesn’t matter?”
“Depends,” I said, realizing the conversation was turning again. “Does breeding matter to you?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we should make out again and find out.”
“We’ve already had this discussion.”
He looked disappointed. Like I’d taken his ice cream cone away. The winter winds picked up again. Goosebumps dotted my arms. Ethan shivered. I wanted to put my arms around him, hug him tightly, look up into his dreamy eyes, and say, ‘Yes. Let’s go do that again. Let’s egg each other on, hurl insults, and flirt outrageously. Entwine your hands through my hair, lean down and kiss me thoroughly, warmly, possessively. And, I think we should do that for hours. That sounds like a sensible plan.’
My phone buzzed in my purse, snapping me from my spell. I pulled it out.
Giles: Jake Brewer’s having a meltdown. Check in, please.
I responded.
Harper: On my way.”
“I need to go.” I messaged for a taxi and headed out of the dog park.
Ethan followed me. “Why?”
“Client emergency.”
“Crap, you’re cheating on me already?” he asked as we hustled toward the street.
“We’re not dating. We had one spectacular make out session. You know that you’re not my only client.” Another text popped in.
Sarah: Vincent Bardolino is here in office looking for you. Advise.
I texted back.
Harper: You mean Sophia Bardolino.
Sarah: No – Vincent Bardolino – Sophia’s uncle.
“Ethan, trust me. If I dated you, I’d never cheat on you.”
Harper: Got it. En route.
“Then maybe you should date me,” he said. “Why not? We obviously get along. We’ve got crazy chemistry. What’s stopping us?”
Ms. Match Meets a Millionaire Page 10