âSorry, I didnât mean to take advantage of you like that,â he told her, still cupping her cheek with the palm of his hand.
Her voice felt as if it was going to crack at any second as she told him, âYou didnât. And thereâs nothing to be sorry about, except â¦â
âExcept?â he prodded.
Lily shook her head, not wanting to continue. She was only going to embarrass herselfâand himâif she said anything further. âIâve said too much.â
âNo,â he contradicted, âyouâve said too little. ââExceptâ what?â he coaxed.
Lily wavered. Maybe he did deserve to know. So she told him.
âExcept maybe it didnât last long enough,â she said, her voice hardly above a whisper, her cheeks burning and threatening to turn a deep pink.
âMaybe it didnât,â he agreed. âLetâs see if I get it right this time,â he murmured just before his mouth came down on hers for a second time.
* * *
Matchmaking Mamas: Playing Cupid. Arranging dates. What are mothers for?
Prologue
âYou donât remember me, do you?â
Maizie Connors, youthful grandmother, successful Realtor and matchmaker par excellence, looked at the tall, handsome, blond-haired young man standing in the doorway of her real estate office. Mentally, she whizzed through the many faces she had encountered in the past handful of years, both professionally and privately. Try as she might to recall the young man, Maizie came up empty. His smile was familiar, but the rest of him was not.
Ever truthful, Maizie made no attempt to bluff her way through this encounter until she either remembered him or, more to the point, the young man said something that would set off flares in her somewhat overtaxed brain, reminding her who he was.
Instead, Maizie shook her head and admitted, âIâm afraid I donât.â
âI was a lot younger back then and I guess I looked more like a blond swizzle stick than anything else,â he told her.
She didnât remember the face, but the smile and now the voice nudged at something distant within her mind. Recognition was still frustratingly out of reach. The young manâs voice was lower, but the cadence was very familiar. Sheâd heard it before.
âYour voice is familiar and that smile, I know Iâve seen it before, but...â Maizieâs voice trailed off as she continued to study his face. âI know I didnât sell you a house,â she told him with certainty. She would have remembered that.
She remembered all of her clients as well as all the couples she, Theresa and Cecilia had brought together over the past few years. As far as Maizie was concerned, she and her lifelong best friends had all found their true calling in life a few years ago when desperation to see their single children married and on their way to creating their own families had the women using their connections in the three separate businesses they owned to find suitable matches for their offspring.
Enormously successful in their undertaking, they found they couldnât stop just because they had run out of their own children to work with. So friends and clients were taken on.
They did their best work covertly, not allowing the two principals in the undertaking know that they were being paired up. The payment the three exacted was not monetary. It was the deep satisfaction that came from knowing they had successfully brought two soul mates together.
But the young man before her was neither a professional client nor a private one. Yet he was familiar.
Shrugging her shoulders in a gesture of complete surrender, Maizie said, âIâm afraid youâre going to have to take pity on me and tell me why your smile and your voice are so familiar but the rest of you isnât.â Even as she said the words aloud, a partial answer suddenly occurred to her. âYouâre someoneâs son, arenât you?â
But whose? she wondered. She hadnât been at either of her âcareersââneither the one involving real estate nor the one aimed at finding soul matesâlong enough for this young man to have been the result of her work.
So who are you?
âI was,â he told her, his blue eyes on hers.
Was.
The moment he said that, it suddenly came to her. âYouâre Frances Whitmanâs boy, arenât you?â
He grinned. âMom always said you were exceedingly sharp. Yes, Iâm Francesâs son.â He said the words with pride.
The name instantly conjured up an image in Maizieâs mind, the image of a woman with laughing blue eyes and an easy smile on her lipsâalways, no matter what adversity she was valiantly facing.