Miss Matchmaker: A Small Town Romance Read online

  I look past her to the ugly tire tracks her off-roading left across my property. From the expression on her face, I know I’m about to get an earful. Too damn bad I left my earplugs with the tractor.

  She’s advancing toward me, fists balled at her sides and mouth compressed into a tight, angry little line. I plant my elbow on the nearest fence post and wait. Let her come to me if she thinks what she has to say is so goddamn important.

  “I don’t know who you--” she starts, but her words cut short when she steps in one of the holes I dug for a fence post. She drops to the ground immediately, ankle twisting badly as she goes down.

  “Fuck,” I mutter, pushing off the fence post and hurrying to help her.

  She squeezes her eyes shut and grips her ankle, sucking in a long, pained breath, but to her credit she doesn’t whine or cry.

  I help her free her foot and then offer a hand. “Can you stand?” I ask.

  “I’ll be fine,” she says, pushing up to stand and immediately sinking back down to her ass when she tries to put weight on the foot. “In a few minutes,” she adds with an annoyed glance my way. “Would you put a shirt on or something?” she snaps.

  “Let me get this straight,” I say, stepping back to lean on the fence post again. I adjust my hat to shade my eyes and can’t help smirking just a little at how this is playing out. “You drive your little beater onto my property, tear up my grass, scare the girls--”

  “The girls?” she asks incredulously. Then she notices the cows that have been slowly advancing on her since she got out of her car and jolts with surprise. “Do they bite?” she asks quickly.

  I realize with growing amusement that she’s afraid of them. “Depends,” I say. “What’d you have for lunch?”

  “What?” she asks, squinting up at me, still clutching her twisted ankle.

  I do feel a little guilty messing with her because of her ankle, but I figure she won’t let me help her yet anyway, so I might as well entertain myself. “It’s just that they don’t usually bite,” I say, trying to keep a straight face. “Unless you had hamburger for lunch.”

  She shakes her head when she realizes I’ve been teasing her, then folds her arms over her knees, looking dejectedly at her ankle. “I must look like the world’s biggest idiot right now.”

  I sigh. Obnoxious city girl or not, she’s cute as hell, and seeing her look so down on herself kills my urge to tease her real fast. “C’mon,” I say, moving over to her and kneeling. I hook one arm under her legs and another behind her neck, lifting her easily. To my surprise, she doesn’t fight me off. “I’ve got something cold we can put on that ankle inside. And don’t worry, the girls probably won’t mess with your car.”

  “Unless there are hamburgers in it?” she asks. The smile she pulls is so small I almost miss it.

  Despite my irritation with her, I can’t help grinning just a little. “Unless there are hamburgers in it. Yeah.”

  I have to carry her nearly half a mile to the house, and she spends every second of the trip in sulky silence.

  Once inside, I lay her down gently on the couch.

  “Nice place,” she says. “It’s huge.”

  I make a small grunt of acknowledgment while I rummage through the fridge for something cold for her ankle. “Truth is I only use the bedroom and the kitchen. My old man built this place a long time ago.”

  I see the questioning look on her face and answer the question she’s apparently unwilling to ask.

  “Yeah, he died. Couple months ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, looking down. “I wasn’t going to ask. I was just--”

  “Don’t be. Way I see it, if you’re afraid to talk about the dead, you’re just killing their memory even faster. The more you talk about them, the longer they stick around.” My throat feels tight when I think back to that night, but I push that down, letting the familiar burn of anger sear it from my mind. “Nobody wants to be forgotten,” I add a little more quietly.

  “I didn’t take you for such a thoughtful man,” she says.

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “Because I don’t wear a suit and tie to work? Or is it because I don’t live in a concrete jungle?”

  She takes her time choosing her words. “It’s because you have a certain… Well, you have a way about you.”

  “You think I’m an asshole?” I ask, trying not to let the grin I feel tugging at the corners of my mouth come, just so I can watch her squirm a little more.

  She gulps. “I would’ve said that before you helped me in here. Maybe I’ll downgrade you from asshole to… abrasive.”

  “Abrasive,” I say, testing the word out. “I see. So you’re saying I create friction? You know, in the right hands, friction can be a beautiful thing.”

  Her cheeks stain red. “I meant in a strictly figurative sense.”

  I grab a ribeye I have thawing for dinner and slap it across her ankle.

  She raises her eyebrows at me.“Did you just slap me with your meat?”

  I smirk. “Hey, if that’s what you’re into, we could work something out.”

  She bites her lip, watching me as I stand over her.

  “Just leave it there fifteen minutes,” I say, nodding to the meat. “Worst part of a turned ankle is the swelling. Keep that down and you’ll be ready to prance around in your city slicker high heels and go shopping in no time.”

  Her eyebrows draw down. “Yeah, I’ll go back to shopping and you can go back to squeezing cow nipples and shoveling crap.”

  A surprised chuckle escapes me. “Squeezing cow nipples? You know they’re called udders, right?”

  “And you know nobody says city slicker anymore except cliché cowboys from the old westerns my dad used to watch? For someone who’s actually intelligent, you’re really good at sounding stupid when you want to.”

  I shake my head, moving into my bedroom to grab a blue button-down and putting it on. I don’t even know this fucking girl’s name, and here I am playing games with her. I know if I really wanted nothing to do with her, I’d be giving her the cold shoulder, not flirting. Knowing that just pisses me off even more, though. I should be mourning my dad. I shouldn’t be thinking about anything except getting the property back in shape and making sure I take care of the business like the old man would’ve wanted. I’ve got work to do and I don’t have time for some pretty city girl.

  “Thank you,” she says with a touch of exasperation when I come back out from my room.

  “It’s fine, but I want the steak back when you’re done. That’s my dinner.”

  She looks confused for a second, then slightly disgusted, but nods her head after a suspicious pause. “Right. Well thanks for letting me use your meat.” Mila winces. “For letting me borrow your dinner, I mean.”

  I barely hold back my laughter, but I keep a straight face because she’s too fucking adorable when she’s nervous, and I don’t want to let her off the hook yet. I’m enjoying this way more than I should.

  I move into the kitchen and start rummaging through the fridge. My stomach is practically howling, and there are a couple sandwiches I made yesterday calling my name. “Hungry?” I call over my shoulder.

  “Do you have any food that won’t bleed all over me?” she asks.

  I turn, eyebrows drawn down. “Don’t tell me you’re a fucking vegetarian. Not unless you want to hobble back to your car by yourself with a rumbling belly.”

  Her eyes widen, then she laughs. As much as I want to hate her, I can’t help watching her laugh--her white teeth gleaming, eyes squeezed shut, and the endearing way she rolls a little to the side, clutching her stomach. Something in the image pulls at me, like a distant light winking out at me from the darkness. “I’m tempted,” she says once she’s done laughing. “So tempted… I want to tell you I’m a vegetarian just to see if you’re serious--no, a vegan,” she adds with a grin.

  “If you’re a vegan I’ll take you out to the field and turn your other ankle, then I’ll carry you back here and let y
ou crawl to your car.”

  She smiles, watching me with a strange expression on her face. “You know, somehow even when you’re being an asshole you’re kind of charming--in a grumpy, brooding cowboy sort of way.” She clears her throat, looking away and rubbing the back of her neck. “I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what you must think of me by now. This has been about the biggest disaster of an introduction I could ever imagine.”

  “Is that what this was suppose to be?” I ask. “An introduction?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, we’re going to have to cut it short, then. I need to get you back to your car so I can get some food in me and finish before I’m trying to build a fence by starlight. Can you drive?”

  “I’ll manage, yeah,” she says a little stiffly, then tries to stand.

  “I got you,” I say, picking her up again and grabbing the steak. I adjust so I’m holding her in one arm while I reach for the front door. I catch her looking at me oddly. “What?” I ask.

  “Your hand…” she says. “It’s, uh--” She wiggles a little, and I realize when I shifted her to hold her with one arm my hand slid against her ass and between her legs.

  I mentally curse the way my cock stirs and adjust my grip on her to something more decent, except now I’m noticing the way her hip is brushing against my stiffening cock and the way she fits almost perfectly in my arms as I carry her outside.

  The sunlight is quickly fading, and the chill of night has already seeped into the breeze. The cows see us coming and greet us with a few half hearted moo’s. I try not to laugh when she flinches in my arms.

  “You know I was just fucking with you about them,” I say.

  She glares, but says nothing.

  When I reach her car, I set her down by the driver’s door and help her get it open. She seems to manage moving to get inside the driver’s seat well enough to put my mind at ease. She’ll be able to walk enough to get into… wherever she’s staying. Curiosity pricks at me, and even though I know the less I know, the better, I can’t help asking.

  “I never got your name,” I say, resting my elbows on her open window and leaning into the car.

  “It’s Mila.”

  “Mila…” I say, testing it out and admittedly liking the way it rolls past my lips. “Where are you staying?”

  She shoots me an icy glare and starts to roll up the window. I jump back before I end up jammed between the door frame and window. Once I’ve stepped back, she rolls down the window a little more and tosses the ribeye I forgot she still held out the window, where it flops down to the grass below. “You forgot your meat,” she says with a touch of playfulness in her voice. She backs up her car before I can say or do anything and pulls away, giving the cows a wide berth.

  I kneel down and pick up the steak, squinting after her. “Think you’re so funny, city girl? Jokes on you, because a little grass and dirt sure as hell isn’t going to stop me from eating a goddamn steak.”

  My biggest cow, Cindy, moos mournfully from just beside me.

  I look down at the steak and back to her. “This was Frankie,” I say, shaking the steak at her. “Remember what an asshole he was? We all knew he had it coming.”

  Cindy watches me with eyes full of judgment, not budging an inch in her disapproval.

  3

  Mila

  I pull up to the bed and breakfast I booked online just after sunset. It didn’t seem strange at the time, but now that I’ve seen the town in person, I’m shocked they even have internet access here, let alone web advertising.

  I haven’t been in Wade’s Creek a full day and I already have a swollen ankle, a bruised ego, and a dangerous image of Mr. Cowboy’s shirtless form locked in my mental spank bank. I’ve made one hell of an entrance. All I want now is to go straight to my bed and sleep. I’ve had just about all the small town craziness I can handle for one day.

  “Pete!” calls a small girl in a high pitched voice.

  “C’mon, Pete!” cries another child--a boy, I think.

  I see a pig the size of a small handbag scuttle past me on the sidewalk. A moment later, a little boy and girl who could pass for twins come tearing around the corner, shouting after it.

  “Pete!” screams the girl, who musters an impressive amount of motherly scorn into her small voice. “You get back here right now or you’re not getting a treat!”

  Before I have time to react, the miniature pig and kids have already turned another corner and are nowhere to be seen, leaving me wondering if I just imagined it, or if two little kids really were chasing a miniature pig down the sidewalk at this time of night.

  I shake my head and hobble inside the bed and breakfast. My ankle is tender still, but it’s manageable, and the more steps I take the more the stiffness and pain seems to melt away.

  Inside, the bed and breakfast is a picture of quaint living--lace curtains, busy wallpaper mixed with wood paneling, thick carpets, and warm yellow lamps casting everything from the family photos on the wall to the handmade furniture in an inviting glow.

  My hopes of making it in quietly are dashed when I see the couple who owns the place sitting at the kitchen table, reading newspapers and sipping coffee.

  They both stand when I step inside, greeting me with huge smiles.

  “You must be Mila!” says the elderly woman, who shuffles her pink-slippered feet toward me to wrap me in a surprisingly tight hug. “I’m Martha and this is Frank, my husband--God help him,” she adds with a conspiratory waggle of her eyebrows.

  Frank’s blue slippers aren’t far behind, and he’s reaching to shake my hand as soon as Martha breaks the hug. He clasps my hand with both of his and shakes it energetically. “So good to have you, young lady. And don’t mind Martha, she’s still riding a wave of misguided excitement.” He leans in like he’s letting me in on a state secret. “She thinks she’s winning at Scrabble, but she’s spent the last few days walking right into my trap.” He makes a cutting motion across his throat and winks.

  I look past them to the scrabble board on the table, which is flanked by two dictionaries and about a hundred old ring-shaped stains on the table, presumably from their drinks of choice while they play.

  “A few days?” I ask.

  “Martha takes ages to play her words,” Frank explains.

  She purses her lips and plants a fist on her hip, giving him an impressive glare that she’s obviously spent years perfecting. Apparently, he has spent just as long learning to ignore it though, because he looks unphased. “And Frank always disappears to the bathroom for half an hour when his turn comes.”

  Frank throws his hands up. “We talked about this! I have irritable bowels. I don’t think our guest wants to know about it, though.”

  I’m not sure what to do or say, so I settle for standing there, forcing something between a smile and a grimace.

  “I’m actually really tired,” I say. “I just have one suitcase in the car but I can bring that in tomorrow. I was hoping to find a bed and crash right now. Maybe we can talk more over breakfast?”

  “Of course, of course,” says Martha, who leads me toward the stairs. She looks over her shoulder. “Go get her suitcase, Frank! And make her up some tea!”

  Martha shows me to my room and nods toward the door across the hall. “Your friend Amy is going to be staying right across the hall from you. She came in a few hours before you did, but said she was going to ‘see the sights’. Said she wouldn’t be back till later. I don’t know how you young girls have so much energy.”

  “Thank you so much,” I say, stepping inside my room.

  “Sleep tight, dear. Frank will just set your suitcase outside the door when he brings the tea.”

  Once I’ve closed the door and laid down on the bed, I pull out my phone and see four texts from Cynthia Styles, the client who dragged me into this whole mess and the woman I’m supposed to set up with a man named Lucas Tate.

  Cynthia S. (6:12 p.m.): You here?

  Cynthia S. (6:14
p.m.): Lets meet 2 talk about Lucas

  Cynthia S. (6:14 p.m.): Want 2 get started 2morrow

  Cynthia S. (6:17 p.m.): Call me

  I sigh, flopping to my back. Sleep is calling to me so strongly I know I could just close my eyes and drift off, but I can’t afford to piss off Cynthia. There’s way too much money on the line. I tap her name on my contacts list and hit call, I frown in confusion when I hear a ringtone chime from downstairs, just as Frank and Martha’s voices rumble up through the floor to me.

  I cancel the call and the ringtone stops, but the conversation continues. It sounds like Martha is trying to protest with someone, but a louder, younger voice pushes over everything and I soon hear rapid footsteps coming up the stairs.

  I sit up on the edge of my bed, watching the door, which swings open a few seconds later.

  “Cynthia…” I say, sounding a little more dazed than I mean to. “Er--Miss Styles. I didn’t think we were contracted to start work until tomorrow.”

  Cynthia pays me no mind, strutting into my room like she’s moving down the catwalk. She has platinum blonde hair, a pert little nose, and full lips that I’m sure most men would drool over. Despite the wicked little self-satisfied smirk plastered on her face, she’s drop-dead gorgeous. Even if I’m sensing a heavy dose of bitchiness from her, my matchmaker brain kicks in, already working out my best approach to landing Cynthia her man. The good looks will definitely help. Depending on the guy, the self-satisfied thing may or may not be a turnoff, but I can work on that with her.

  “So,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone, setting a manilla folder down on the desk at the corner of the room.

  Before she can continue, Frank and Martha poke their heads in the door. “We’re sorry,” Frank says. “She insisted on--”

  “It’s completely fine,” I say. “She’s actually a client of mine. Don’t worry about it, please.”

  They look a little relieved, but glare suspiciously toward Cynthia before leaving us alone again.