A Perfectly Imperfect Match
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Marie Ferrarella
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18.1K
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In one corner we have Jared Winterset, who's not in the market for a wife. He knows too well how few marriages succeed — and Jared hates failure. So he'll keep it light. In the other corner there's Elizabeth Stephens, a self-sufficient violinist. She's lonely sometimes, but playing her music is more rewarding — and safer — than playing the field. Then a certain someone calls in the Mamas, and — ding! — Jared and Elizabeth are thrown together, planning a thirty-fifth wedding anniversary party. Soon the two are enjoying themselves way too much. It won't last, thinks Elizabeth. It's fun, that's all, thinks Jared. But they're about to learn that in a real love match, both players can win….
Prologue
“Well, I’m happy to report that all your lab tests came back totally normal,” Dr. John Stephens said with a smile, closing Maizie Sommers’s folder. He turned the stool he was sitting on so he was facing her directly. “If all my patients were as healthy as you and those two best friends of yours, I’d be forced to retire.”
“Don’t you dare,” Maizie warned the man that she had known for the better part of thirty-five years, first as her family doctor, and then as a friend. “Doctors like you are hard to find in this day and age.”
“You mean old?” He chuckled.
“No, I mean caring. And you’re not old, John,” she insisted, admiring his thick mane of silver hair and that endearing twinkle in his eyes. “As a matter of fact, there are times that you are quite possibly the youngest man I know.”
The doctor could only shake his head and laugh. Maizie had a gift for always saying the right thing at the right time. And he appreciated it, recognizing it for what it was: kindness.
“Then you definitely should get out more, Maizie,” he urged. “That’s my prescription for you—you need to broaden your base.”
“My base is just fine, thank you,” she assured him with a confident smile. “And you’ll be happy to know that it most definitely is broad.”
Seeing that she had managed to keep her trim figure over all these years, he could only interpret her comment one way. “Then your business is going well?” he asked. Glancing at his watch, he saw that he was running ahead of schedule and could allow himself a couple of moments to catch up.
After her husband had died, needing to provide for herself and her young daughter, he knew that Maizie had gone into the real estate business. She had done quite well for herself over the years and now owned her own company.
“Mercifully, yes. People still want to own their own homes, and I’m right there, eager to help them make their dreams come true.” She never liked to focus on herself for more than a minute or so. She was far more interested in the people she was dealing with. Her doctor was included in this wide circle. “How are your children?” she asked in the same pleasant, unassuming tone. And as she asked, she studied his face, waiting for a response.
He moved her file from one side of his desk to another for no reason except that he seemed to need to do something with his hands. “They’re healthy.”
Maizie leaned in a little. “That’s not quite what I asked, John.”
He laughed, shaking his head. The woman was incredible. But then, he’d thought that on more than one occasion. “Sometimes I think you wasted your talent, going into real estate. You would have made one hell of a prosecutor.”
“I don’t like going after people. I like making them happy. And I love matching up houses and people, bringing them together. There is also my other interest,” she reminded him with a subtle smile.
“Ah, yes, matchmaking.” He recalled her telling him about that the last time she’d been in for her yearly checkup. “Are you still into that?”
“Yes,” she said simply, wondering if he was going to ask her something a little less general, something that would address the nature of what had become her full-time hobby of sorts. “And so are Theresa and Cecilia,” she told him, mentioning the women who had been her best friends since the third grade.
All three of them were businesswomen, all three of them were widows and all three of them reveled in matchmaking strictly for its own sake. Bringing two people together who seemed destined for each other was all the payment they really required.
“How’s that going, anyway?”
The question sounded just a tad too innocently phrased. She studied him with interest. Had he finally admitted to himself that he was lonely? That he needed someone in his life? She was ready to help if he had.
“Our matchmaking business is doing very well. We still have that one hundred percent success record.” She decided to stop beating around the bush and just come out with it. “Would you be interested in our services, John?” she asked quietly.
“Not personally,” he protested, surprised at the question. For his part, he thought he was being very subtle about feeling her out on the subject. “At least, not for myself.”
“I understand that, John,” she assured him, silently adding, And if you ever decide to change your mind, I’ll be right here to help you. Out loud she added, “I know you. You’re a great deal like me. One life, one love. When your Annie died, you focused exclusively on your three children and your career.”
He was surprised, with all the people she dealt with, that she would remember that. “You really are a remarkable woman, Maizie Sommers.”
“So I’ve been told,” she replied with a wide smile. And then she got down to business. “Now, which of your children is keeping you up at night?”
He didn’t want to give Maizie the wrong impression. Nor did he want to be disloyal to Elizabeth. To the outside world, his daughter was outgoing, bubbly and very talented. She wasn’t desperately trolling all the singles haunts, looking for a mate. His concern about her was due to something far more subtle.
“It’s not that I’m worried about her. It’s just that...” The doctor let his voice trail off, not knowing how to phrase what he wanted to say.
“You’re worried about her,” Maizie corrected, reading between the lines. “I thought Elizabeth was seeing someone.”
He frowned, recalling his daughter’s one serious relationship. “That’s been over for a while. He was more interested in changing her than cherishing the person she was.”
Maizie smiled, amused. “Spoken like a true doting father.”
He supposed he was that. He loved all his children, but Elizabeth was his oldest and the only girl. She was the proverbial apple of his eye and he wanted to see her happy.
And she didn’t seem to be.
“We had dinner the other evening and she confided that she felt as if life were bypassing her, because she was always supplying the background music for other people’s romances.”
Maizie summarized what was on his mind. “So, in essence, you’d like to find Mr. Perfect for her.”
He surprised her by shaking his head. “No, I fully realize that there’s never going to be a ‘Mr. Perfect,’” he began.
Maizie cut him short. “Is that you being a realist, or you being a dad who feels that no man will ever be good enough for his daughter?”
He paused to consider that. “A little bit of both, I suppose, but mostly the second part,” he confessed.
Maizie laughed. “All right, I’ll see what I can do about finding Mr. Almost-Perfect for your daughter.”
The doctor rose from his stool and walked Maizie out of his office. “I never thought I’d be one of those fathers looking to set their daughter up with someone. I mean, Elizabeth’s talented, and beautiful—a passel of not-so-perfect men should be tripping all over themselves to get to her.”
“Maybe they are.” Maizie saw the look of surprise on the physician’s handsome, patrician face. “Maybe Elizabeth’s standards are exceptionally high. Maybe,” she concluded, “she’s trying to find someone as upstanding, kind and decent as her father.”
That had never occurred to him. “You really think that’s why she’s still single?”
“Most likely not consciously, but, John, you are a hard act to preempt,” Maizie told him, then added with a wink, “But don’t worry, I am going to try my darndest to do just that.”
“I don’t know whether to be relieved, or worried,” he said honestly.
“Just continue being who you are, John,” she soothed gently, then promised, “I’ll get back to you soon.”
With that, she left his office, a cheerful woman with a mission.
