Читать книгу Texas Wedding - Nancy Thompson Robards - Страница 10

Prologue

When the tall man entered Maya’s Chocolate Shop, the warm gust of wind that blew in with him—jangling the bells on the door and ruffling the ribbons on the gift baskets—seemed to sing a certain familiar name, but Maya didn’t quite catch it.

She cocked her ear and listened harder...but heard nothing. Hmm... She thought she’d heard a whisper, but she couldn’t be sure. Especially when the door clicked shut and stillness settled over the shop. All Maya could hear was the cadence of the man’s boots marking time on the wooden floor as he ventured deeper into her shop.

Even so, one thing was certain—the guy’s appearance in her store had stirred the winds of love. There was no mistaking it, even if she couldn’t readily identify his intended.

The woman would reveal herself in due time.

In addition to being a third-generation chocolatier, Maya was un marieur, a matchmaker. It was an avocation of sorts. Some claimed it was her obsession. But when the winds of love blew in as they had a moment ago, she couldn’t help herself. It was a challenge she couldn’t resist, and she wouldn’t rest until she’d done everything in her power to bring “the intendeds” together.

“Bonjour!” Maya offered the handsome man her warmest greeting, which he generously returned. His was a wide toothy smile. He looked American. Or possibly Scandinavian, though Maya’s bet was on the former.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“Just looking, thanks.”

Oui. Américain.

Handsome as he was, he hadn’t come for her. But he had turned up for a reason, Maya’s instincts insisted.

The signs were subtle. Visceral. A feeling that raised the hair on the nape of her neck and tingled its way up her nerve endings, before it settled down in the pit of her stomach. A figurative “you’ve got mail.” A metaphorical message she couldn’t completely qualify, other than to know that, in the past, when the signs presented themselves in this particular fashion, they were never wrong.

She regarded him for a moment as he perused the shop. He looked like a soldier, though he wasn’t in uniform. There was something about his close-cropped sandy hair, his bronzed skin and those broad, broad shoulders and muscular arms. Something in the way he carried himself suggested combat.

Hmm...Maya thought. Perhaps the combat wasn’t necessarily physical. More internal...

A man at war with himself.

All the more reason she must get busy and do her job.

“I just set out some fresh truffles,” Maya said. “Would you care for a sample?”