Читать книгу Six More Hot Single Dads! - Kate Hardy - Страница 12

Maizie Sommers raised her eyes from the five fanned out cards she held in her hand and slowly scanned the faces of her two very best, lifelong friends, Theresa Manetti and Cecilia Parnell. They were playing poker. The weekly game was the excuse they used in order to take a temporary break from their thriving businesses. They would get together to catch up, share and gossip, although Theresa preferred to call it “a review of local news.”

Lately, of equal importance was their continuing passion for matchmaking. And they were good at it.

“So, ladies, any prospects or projects in the offing?” Maizie asked hopefully. Her lively eyes shifted from one face to the other. Faces she knew as well as, if not better than, her own.

The past few weeks had gone by without any of them calling the others, excitedly stating that their services—those outside of the real estate business that Maizie ran, the high-end cleaning service that belonged to Cecilia or the popular catering business that had initially begun in Theresa’s kitchen—were once more required.

Cecilia frowned at the hand she had been dealt and separated four of the five cards she held, disdainfully putting them face down on the table.

“Well, I don’t know if this constitutes a ‘project,’” she began offhandedly, “But Anastasia Del Vecchio was carrying on again about her son’s single status. The last time I was overseeing the cleaning crew at her mausoleum of a house, she told me that she would be going on tour in this revival for the next six months. She would really love to leave him and her granddaughter in good hands.”

Maizie paused, thinking. Remembering. “Her son’s that writer, isn’t he? The one who writes those bestselling thrillers, right?”

“Brandon Slade.” Cecilia supplied the author’s name. “I clean both their houses.” She leaned slightly forward, sharing a confidence. “Brandon is rather organized for a man. As for her, Anastasia couldn’t pick up after herself if her life depended on it.”

“She’s an actress. It’s not part of her repertoire,” Maizie commented with a soft laugh. “As for hoping to leave her son in ‘good hands,’ I’m sure someone as famous and successful as Brandon Slade never lacks for female companionship.”

“There’s a difference between ‘female companionship’ and a woman of substance, the kind a man could spend the rest of his life with,” Theresa interjected with a knowing expression.

The others knew she was referring to what would have, until recently, described her son Kullen’s situation. The highly successful, handsome young lawyer had once had a different woman on his arm every week. They had arranged things so that he reconnected with the only woman who had ever meant anything to him. A woman, thanks to them, he would soon marry.

Maizie stopped pretending that the cards had any sort of a hold on her attention and placed them all face down on the card table. She slanted a look at Theresa.

“I know that tone. You have someone in mind for Anastasia’s son, don’t you?”

Theresa smiled. Of the three of them, she was the shyest. But her convictions and loyalties were just as fierce as those her friends harbored.

“Let’s just say I have someone who needs to be led to water,” Theresa admitted subtly.

“Give,” Cecilia ordered, shifting to the edge of her seat and looking at her friend expectantly.

“I catered a lunch for Healing Hands—it’s a private physical therapy organization,” Theresa explained, answering the silent quizzical looks she saw on Cecilia’s and Maizie’s faces. “The owner, Zoe Sinclair, said she was worried about her younger sister, Isabelle. She said Isabelle was entirely too dedicated, which was good for the company, but bad for Isabelle’s love life—something Zoe said that, as far as she knew, her sister hadn’t had in at least a couple of years. Maybe more.”

Cecilia sighed. “I know how that is,” the woman murmured.

The truth was all three of them did. Friends since the third grade, they had cheered one another on through courtships, marriages and children. And grieved as, one by one, they found themselves sharing yet something else: widowhood.

Eternally optimistic, they believed firmly in romance, which had first caused them to dabble in their daughters’ lives, then in Theresa’s son’s situation. Hooked on the challenge, they were eager to branch out, to help friends and clients who sought to have their children or their siblings find satisfying, lasting relationships. They sought no repayment for their efforts. They did it for the sheer joy of bringing two people together.

Making no response to Cecilia’s comment, Theresa produced a candid photograph of her catering client’s sister, taken by someone at the party.

With a laugh, Cecilia dug into her oversize purse and pulled out the latest thriller by Brandon Slade, a book he’d given her the last time her crew had cleaned his house. She placed it front cover side down on the table.

“I’ll see your photograph and raise you a dust jacket,” Cecilia declared, pushing the book to the middle of the table, next to Isabelle Sinclair’s picture.

Maizie looked from Brandon to Isabelle and nodded thoughtfully. “Looks to me as if these two young people would make a truly wonderful couple,” she agreed, then raised her eyes to look at her friends. “But how do we bring them together?”

That, they all knew, temporarily stumped, was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.