Make Me a Match

by Melinda Curtis

  Kelsey had ridden the red carpet of Ty’s shame to Anchorage and her shiny new career before the first metal pin had been set in Ty’s temple. Before the wound caused by her leaving had had time to heal.

  “Kelsey Josephine Nash.” Ty rolled his shoulders, trying to stretch skin that suddenly felt too tight for his body. “The Anchorage Beat’s best gossip columnist.”

  Her eyebrows lifted, no more than a flinch, but he knew he’d hit his mark. She’d wanted to be a journalist, covering important news. She’d never progressed past the entertainment section.

  “Tyler Ian Porter.” Kelsey stepped onto the sidewalk, stopping on the other side of the snowbank. “K-Bay’s iceplex handyman turned matchmaker.”

  Ty dug his fingers into the snowbank and scooped out a chunk, considered pelting her with a snowball like one of the guys from the rink. “My services benefit the community.”

  “And my columns inform thousands in Anchorage and the surrounding communities.” Her guard came up with the speed of a winger winning the puck in a face-off.

  “Entertain, you mean.” He tossed the snowball from one palm to the other, testing the sting factor. “So I’m correct in assuming you’re here for a story.”

  “I just needed a caffeine fix on my way through town.” She motioned to the coffee shop behind her.

  “K-Bay isn’t a pass-through town. The highway ends here.” Ty added more snow to his palm and packed it into a harder snowball, one that would sting for hours.

  “Then, call it nostalgia.” Kelsey clutched her scarf to her chest.

  Once upon a very short time ago, her action with the scarf would have been his cue to wrap his arms around her for additional warmth, for additional closeness, for additional safekeeping. That she’d lived in Alaska most of her life and had never become accustomed to the cold baffled him. “Move your car, Kelsey. Move it right back to Anchorage.”

  “Look, I’ll move my car after I get a cup of coffee.” She lifted her gloved, scarf-clutching hands. “You can give me ten minutes.”

  And there it was: no apology. No “I’m sorry” for bashing into the parking sign. For the articles all those years ago. For the betrayal of friendship, if not young love. “You get five minutes till the tow truck arrives.” He dug in his pocket for his cell.

  “You aren’t going to tow my car away.”

  “Don’t test that theory. Like so many of your stories, it’d be proved wrong.”

  “I can give you what you need.” She smothered her neck with the big wooly scarf.

  He wanted a number of things. Perfect vision in his right eye. An end to his migraines. A shot at winning the Stanley Cup. But he didn’t deal in harebrained wishes. He launched the snowball over her head, watching it splatter in the middle of the road. “You don’t have anything I need.”

  “Don’t be too sure.” Kelsey stuffed her gloved hand into her pocket and pulled out a familiar neon green flyer. The one advertising the mixer at the Bar & Grill that Ty and his friends were scheduled to host the next evening. “Saw this at the Shop and Sack.”

  “You think I’d take your money to make you a match?” Ty asked, unable to smooth his gritty tone, as if he’d inhaled a mouthful of freezing water off the lake bed. The idea of partnering Kelsey with someone bothered him on too many levels to count.

  “You think I’d seek your advice to find true love? You need women to make this venture of yours work.” Kelsey waved the flyer at him. “Judging from my trip to the Shop and Sack, the mall and Page Turner Bookstore, there’s still a shortage of single women in this town. And considering the talk at all of those places, you’ve been having trouble finding women to match with the outstanding male specimens in K-Bay.”

  Ty rubbed his right temple. “Why would you help me? There’s no story here.” But there were secrets. Ty still had secrets. Kelsey excelled at taking a confidence and building it into something more.

  “There is a story here.” Her slow, even delivery spoke of her conviction, yet that same assurance failed to spark up into her eyes.

  She looked vulnerable. That couldn’t be. A vulnerable Kelsey Nash was a myth.

  “Reality TV shows have been built on weaker premises than male matchmakers in a small town. I’ll bring some women to the bar tomorrow night...” She jammed her hands and the flyer back inside her pockets and straightened, tipping her chin up to meet his gaze. “As long as you talk to me about your business...and don’t tow my car away.”

  That quick quiver of doubt in her voice scrambled every certainty he had about her. “The time and place are on the flyer. And, Kelsey, I’m not in a coma this time. Print the wrong story and your car won’t be the only thing you need to worry about.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “SAW YOU OUTSIDE with Ty.” The cashier, doubling as the barista at the Clipper Ship, poured milk into the frother. The half-dozen silver bangles on her wrist slid to her thin, pale elbow; her penciled-in eyebrows never twitched above her oversize sixties-style moon-colored eyeglass frames. “You know him?”

  “I used to.” But now...

  Ty Porter was most definitely not eighteen and cocky. He wasn’t buzzing from the thrill of dreams soon to be fulfilled. He wasn’t being groomed for a long and successful career in professional hockey. And there was no way he was the same young man she’d had a high school crush on, chased around town and finally called her boyfriend for one summer when young love had trumped everything, even hockey.

  He was taller than she remembered, more defined, harder, and not only from the scar slicing down his right cheek, disappearing beneath his thick beard. No man walked away from accusations of being a cheat without losing a part of himself. No man withstood the distorted rumors and speculation from articles written by his ex-girlfriend without becoming jaded in his fellow human.

  Kelsey needed Ty to be jaded. She hated to admit it, but Ty’s contradictions seven years ago had launched her career as a journalist. Now, to save her flagging career, one that seemed to be leading to the unemployment line, she needed another story like that one. But could she tap the same source twice?

  The older woman switched the frother off and Kelsey leaned against the counter. “I’m curious about Ty’s matchmaking business.” She’d first seen Trinity Matchmaking mentioned on social media, but no one in K-Bay had replied to her direct messages or questions about Ty.

  “I wouldn’t know nothing about that.” The crotchety barista set a coffee cup on the prep station. “I’m married.”

  Kelsey needed to find people who knew. She’d assumed she’d come back to K-Bay and look up some of her high school friends. She hadn’t found any. Or any that she recognized.

  Kelsey reached for her drink. But the uptight barista held the coffee hostage and stared down Kelsey. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  Kelsey took in the woman’s silver bob and slate-gray eyes, and then read her name tag. “Tilda?”

  “So much plastic in that mountain house, protecting all that Park Avenue furniture. And that fancy white carpet covering every inch of space. It was a wonder your family needed my services, but I kept every bit of that place pristine.”

  Tilda Hopkins. Their housekeeper for the years she’d gone to high school in K-Bay. The chime of Tilda’s bangles had broken the stifling silence in each room she’d cleaned. Nowhere else had seemed more like home—and her family had lived around the globe.

  Tilda slid her glasses down her nose and looked over the rims at Kelsey. “People always said you were the same as that museum masquerading as a house—fake. One thing to look at, but something else entirely underneath. Then you threw stones at our poor Ty and ran off to your own glass house in the city. Disappointed me, and a lot of other people with long memories.” The old woman welcomed the next customer.

  Kelsey set her chin over the steam curling from the top of
her coffee cup. Instead of the expected warmth, it seemed as if the warmth was chased away by Kelsey’s inner chill. A frostiness that had nothing to do with arctic temperatures and everything to do with fear.

  Kelsey was afraid she was going to disappoint the older woman again. If she couldn’t find recruits for Ty’s matchmaking business, she’d have nothing to write about. Her boss had given her two weeks to get a positive response from her readership. Ad revenue on her page was down significantly. The people of Alaska had always been the subject of her columns, and their story had always been told, though she’d made a name for herself by revealing the B-side of people, pointing out their flaws and opening a moral debate for her readers. Except there hadn’t been an ethical angle in her last story. No questionable decision in the one before that. No edge in any of her columns for the past month.

  “Did you pick up one of those?” A woman in an unzipped parka and light green scrubs pointed at a flyer on the counter with her ringless left hand. “Pretty unoriginal.”

  “I thought I’d give it a try.” Kelsey sipped her coffee, hoping to dilute the pinch of guilt fluttering through her stomach. “You know Ty?”

  “I’ve seen him around. He’s a bit older than me.”

  Tilda began handing the woman several coffees.

  The nurse poured two sugar packets in one and pushed on the lid before adding cream to another. “You look familiar.”

  Kelsey set her cup down, grabbed a to-go tray and shoved the woman’s drink order into it. “I heard they had success over the weekend. Matched two people.” One of whom was Cooper Hamilton. How that playboy landed a woman brave enough to take him on was anyone’s guess. Kelsey passed the tray to the woman. “Kind of gives a girl hope. Some of the guys in town shaved and it isn’t even spring. Can you believe it?”

  Doubt was there in the woman’s hesitation, but Kelsey noticed the interest in her soft smile. “Maybe I’ll see you there tomorrow.”

  Yes! Score one bachelorette for the investigative reporter.

  After the woman left, Kelsey might have fist pumped the air if not for Tilda and her hard stare.

  “You’ll be going tomorrow night?” Tilda asked. “If so, make sure you sit between Stan and Derrick at the bar, the warmest seat in the house. I remember how you were always a cold one, even in summer.”

  “I don’t plan to be there long enough to sit down.” Only long enough to get her story and head back home. She just needed a few more recruits for the mixer to get that interview with Ty. “And fortunately, I’m warm enough now thanks to my down-filled jacket and fur-lined boots.” Kelsey took her hot coffee back to her car, pausing to take in the mangled parking sign, thankful she’d added rental-car insurance. If only she could add heart insurance as easily. She was afraid she might need some if she was going to get the real story out of Ty.

  * * *

  “READY, GIRLS?” KELSEY STOMPED her feet, shaking snow from her boots outside the Bar & Grill, hoping to encourage blood flow. Surely not every part of her had been flash frozen in the ten minutes she’d waited outside.

  Her recruits had finally arrived, all five of them. Not bad for one day’s notice. The nurse from the Clipper Ship still wore her scrubs, but she’d released her hair from its braid, letting the waves curl past her shoulders. The pair Kelsey had cornered at the gas station tossed their empty fast-food containers into the trash can, wiping their hands on their skinny jeans. The cashier from the Shop and Sack armed her car while the last straggler from the produce aisle of the same grocery store rubbed lip balm over her mouth.

  Kelsey stepped inside the tavern, stuffing her gloves into her coat pockets and unbuttoning her jacket, wanting to rush to the nearest heating vent and hibernate beside it. The women crowded in behind her, introducing themselves to each other as they hung their jackets on the hooks lining one wall of the entrance.

  “I thought you said they’d shaved.” The nurse frowned at Kelsey and tipped her head toward the bar.

  She’d seen a picture of Coop. He’d shaved. Kelsey surveyed the patrons. She’d never seen the Bar & Grill so full on a weeknight. A half-dozen men lingered nearby, each showcasing a messier version of an unkempt full beard. And one empty stool jutted out between the mountain men. Tilda’s hot seat.

  Gideon stepped into her path, guiding the women toward a couple of unoccupied tables. “Ladies, welcome. We have a brief survey we’d like you to fill out.”

  The cashier accepted a pencil from Gideon. “Can’t you use the one I filled out last week at the Shop and Sack? I still don’t want to debone my own halibut or skin a deer.”

  “Nadine, it’s a new day. New questions.” Gideon thrust a paper at the woman.

  “New men, too, I assume.” Nadine high-fived her produce-aisle compatriot.

  Kelsey waited while the women filled out the updated surveys. Ty maneuvered through another group of men gathered around the weathered oak bar like a practiced politician coaxing constituents to renounce their party and join his rogue revolt. But unlike a sleazy politician, nothing in Ty’s interactions was false or forced or insincere. His handshakes included the grip on the shoulder as an added measure of contact. There was camaraderie. Good-natured ribbing. Laughter: quick bursts, gusts and low rumbles.

  And answered prayers. Several clean male faces appeared, if she included the two with stubble and the one goatee over at the pool table.

  Once the women finished the surveys, Ty came by, moving into her space.

  The air shifted around her, brushing the back of her bare neck, forcing a quick shiver. “Looks as if you needed me after all, Ty. I don’t see another available woman in here.”

  Ty leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Let’s be clear, K.J., we’ve seen these ladies before. They’ve taken our survey before. You’ve done nothing for me.”

  But he did something for her. The rasp in his voice skated through her, carving a path of warmth over all those chilled places within. Caution flags snapped.

  He turned away, his tone ratcheting from a rich rumble to a good-natured greeting. “Ladies, welcome to the Bar & Grill. Shall we see where this evening takes us?”

  The women Kelsey had invited swelled around her, snared no doubt by the hint of temptation in Ty’s warm voice. And like that, she was dismissed.

  Too much heat made her light-headed anyway. Better she was cold. She could always add more layers. Kelsey rubbed her hands together and moved to the bar to get a drink.

  A gap in the mountain men huddle opened and a familiar dry voice cut through the noise. “You look as lost as a newborn pup.”

  Tilda. “You can’t be here for the matchmaking—you’re married.”

  “My other half, Clarence, is teaching those whelps to play a proper game of pool.” Tilda patted the empty stool beside her, her silver bangles colliding on her wrist. “The second-warmest seat in the house.”

  Kelsey glanced at the other women. They were giving Ty their drink orders.

  “Didn’t see you fill out a survey, so you can’t be joining in over there.” Tilda sipped her dark beer, watching Kelsey carefully. “That’s the rules. Now sit before you scare the lot of them out of here with your reporter’s face. You look as if you got a microphone stuffed in your bra.”

  “At least I’m not wearing an infomercial grin and oozing lies through my dimples.” Kelsey nodded to Coop, who was circulating through the men at the opposite side of the tavern. “He looks as if he’s trying to convince that behemoth next to him that his masculinity won’t disappear if he trades in his lifted SUV for a minivan.” Kelsey twisted the stool beside Tilda’s to face out into the room.

  Gideon sat at one of the tables, looking from the surveys to his laptop and back again like a spectator in a tennis match set on Fast-Forward.

  “That one was here last week.” Tilda tipped her pint glass toward the supermarket c
ashier. “You can’t freshen up your hair with a store-bought bottle and expect it to bleach out the bitter inside you, as well.”

  “She was friendly enough when I was at the checkout.”

  “Nadine’s paid to be nice to every customer,” Tilda said. “A person’s true colors are muted at work.”

  Except for Tilda’s. Hers seemed to be on display 24/7. “Maybe one of these guys can sweeten her up.”

  “Look at them.” Tilda nudged her shoulder against Kelsey’s. “Like scared rabbits stuck in a fox’s den. Poor Coop can’t hold all their hands, although he’s trying.”

  Kelsey leaned forward, trying to hear Coop’s sales pitch to the men.

  Tilda leaned with her. “You remember those jawbreaker candies you loved as a kid? That’s what you invited tonight. Those women are hard all the way through, not that I blame some of ’em. But these boys, well, they’re like soft taffy. When you mix the two, you get nothing but a sticky mess.”

  “Good.” Kelsey’s impression was that this was an informal mixer. Like the ones she’d witnessed in the city. A night of drinking and dancing and... Wasn’t that the rumor about how Coop had met his bell-ringing bride-to-be?

  Gideon snapped his laptop closed and motioned for Coop to lead the men over to the women. Gideon pushed a burly red-haired giant wearing a firefighter T-shirt and untamed beard toward Ty, who stood beside the nurse. Gideon mouthed the word soccer and framed an invisible ball with his hands.

  Ty picked up the cue. “Collin, this is Paula, who works at K-Bay General and considers herself somewhat of an expert on soccer. Paula, meet the soccer federation’s walking vault of facts.”

  Collin snapped his fingers and pointed at Paula. “Where was the 1994 final game played?”

  “Pasadena.” Paula twisted her hair up into a loose bun. “Your turn. Who won that same year in overtime?”

  Collin tugged on his beard and grinned. “Brazil. And it was scoreless in both regular and overtime. It was decided by a shoot-out.” Paula laughed and slipped her arm through Collin’s when he offered to get her a refill.