A Perfectly Imperfect Match (Matchmaking Mamas) (10 page)

As he listened to this vibrant dynamo pull things together, he silently blessed Theresa Manetti for bringing Elizabeth Stephens into his life.

For possibly more than one reason.

Chapter Seven

“A
re you sure you’re not forgetting something?” Megan Winterset MacDonald pressed, her usual friendly tone bordering perilously close to impatience after her brother had assured her that everything was “fine.”

Even on this ship-to-shore call, Jared could vividly envision the furrows forming on his sister’s brow. “No, I’m not forgetting something, Megan. You left me a list, remember?”

“And you didn’t lose it?” she wanted to know, sounding skeptical.

“If you recall, you anchored it with four magnets onto my refrigerator and, so far, I’m happy to report that I haven’t lost my refrigerator.” He loved Megan dearly and they’d built up a good relationship once they’d left their teens, but there were times when he could totally recall why he had once dubbed her Princess Royal Pain. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you supposed to be having fun right now?” he reminded her.

He heard her sigh—most likely the entire cruise ship heard her sigh, he thought.

“I’d be having more fun if Max had scheduled this cruise for some other time,” she complained.

“Because of the baby?” Jared asked sympathetically. Being seasick and pregnant was just about the worst combination he could think of.

“No. Aren’t you paying attention?” she accused. “Because of Mom and Dad’s anniversary party. I don’t like leaving everything on your shoulders.”

“They’re broad shoulders, Megan. Besides, you did insist on setting almost everything in motion before you left,” he reminded her.

“Almost?” she asked suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘almost’? Jared, what did you do?”

He noticed that she didn’t ask him what she had forgotten to do. Her immediate assumption was that he’d done something wrong.

Because he loved her and Megan
was
pregnant, which meant her hormones were all over the map, he let the accusation slide, and calmly explained what was currently going on.

“Mrs. Manetti asked me if we were having music at the party and I told her I hadn’t thought about it. She said that she thought it would be a nice touch and gave me the name of this really talented violinist—”

Megan immediately cut in. “Jared, Mrs. Manetti’s a very nice woman who doesn’t have a bad word to say about anyone. You can’t just take her word for it that this guy’s talented—”

“It’s a woman, not a man,” Jared corrected, heading his sister off before she could launch into a long lecture. Megan was his junior by three years, but there were times that she behaved as if she were his older sister and he was the younger, idiot brother. He told himself that she had control issues and that, in his own way, her husband, Max, was a saint. “And I went to hear her play for myself. If anything, Mrs. Manetti was conservative in her praise.”

“You went to hear this woman play? Where was she playing?” Before he could answer, she groaned as if she could predict what he was about to say. “And please don’t tell me it was some bar.”

Okay, she was really going overboard here. “Not that I know of...but why would that even matter?” Everyone had to start somewhere.

He heard her blow out a frustrated breath. “I didn’t mean to imply there’s anything wrong with someone working in a bar.”

“Yes, you did, Megan,” he replied tolerantly. “Just because someone might take an initial job that is beneath your standards, doesn’t automatically make those people socially unacceptable.”

He could have sworn he heard her voice quaver a little as she conceded. “Point taken. It’s just that I want this party to be perfect. Mom and Dad are going to have only one thirty-fifth anniversary.”

Thank God for small favors,
he thought. Out loud he merely agreed with her. He’d found that, in the long run, it was a lot easier that way. “I know, Megan—and it’ll be fine. Trust me on this.”

“Trust you,” she echoed, releasing a harsh laugh. “You’ve never thrown a party for more than two people in your life.”

“No.” He saw no reason to dispute that, since he hadn’t. Parties were his sister’s domain, not his. And his circle of friends—real friends, not clients he was wooing—was rather small and very casual. “But I’ve attended a few. And,” he reminded her again, “I have that list you left me to refer to if I get lost or think I’ve forgotten to do something crucial. Now stop worrying...it’s all going to be great. And you’ll be back in plenty of time to rubber-stamp everything—or override me,” he added, knowing how she tended to think.

He heard his sister pausing on the other end. There were voices in the background, but whether it was because someone was talking to Megan or because it was just general background noise on the cruise ship, he couldn’t tell.

“Not fast enough for me,” she confided, lowering her voice. The fact that she did made him think that her husband had to be close by. He’d given her this cruise with the best of intentions, not realizing that Megan wasn’t captivated by the idea of going on a cruise—and that she’d be close to six months pregnant when it came time to sail.

“Hang in there, Megan,” he encouraged. “And
don’t worry,
” he repeated with emphasis. “I’m holding down the fort.”

“I know you are, and I’m sorry,” she apologized, completely surprising him. Megan
rarely
apologized. “This being pregnant has my emotions just all over the place. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“And this is different from your normal state how?” he asked innocently.

She appreciated that he didn’t get soft on her. She didn’t need that right now. “Consider my apology rescinded and remind me to beat you to a pulp when I get back.”

“I’ll make a note, and put it on the refrigerator right next to your list,” he informed her solemnly.

“You do that.” She sighed. “Better go—this call is costing me a fortune. We’ll talk soon,” she said before hanging up.

“Not if I remember to look at caller ID first,” he muttered into the silent receiver.

He did love her, but she could make him absolutely crazy with all that misplaced nervous energy she was displaying lately.

Shaking his head, he replaced the receiver into the cradle. He’d just removed his hand from it when the phone rang again.

With a sigh, he yanked it back up to his ear, bracing himself for round two. “Did you suddenly remember something else you wanted to berate me about?” he wanted to know.

There was a long, drawn-out pause on the other end of the line. And then he heard a somewhat uncertain voice say, “No, I just wanted you to know I found some other musicians I thought you might want to hear play.”

Oh damn,
he thought. It
wasn’t
his sister calling to tell him one more thing as was her habit.

“Elizabeth?” he asked uncertainly, even though he’d recognized her voice. He’d never wanted to be so wrong in his life. Since it most likely
was
Elizabeth, the woman probably thought she was dealing with a village idiot.

“Yes,” she replied, sounding every bit as uncertain as he just did.

The truth shall set you free, remember, buddy?
Hence, he decided he was better off coming clean with Elizabeth. “I’m sorry, I thought you were Megan again. My sister,” he explained in case he hadn’t mentioned her name to Elizabeth.

She knew how irritating siblings could be at times. “I take it you two aren’t getting along.”

“Actually, most of the time we do,” he corrected. “But when she goes off the deep end about something, she turns into this whole other, completely overbearing creature.”

Elizabeth was trying to make sense out of something she’d obviously just gotten in the middle of. “And she went off the deep end?”

“Oh yeah,” he answered with emphasis. “Big-time. She’s really stressing out about this anniversary party that we’re throwing for our parents.”

Now it was beginning to make sense. “Didn’t you tell me that your sister was going through her first pregnancy?”

“She’s close to six months along,” he confirmed.

“
And
that she’s currently on a cruise with her husband?”

“Yes. Actually, the cruise was a surprise gift from her husband.” He was all for surprises, but they were a lot better when it was something the recipient actually
liked.
“You’d think that after five years together, he’d know that she wasn’t keen on being on a ship in the middle of the Pacific,” he said as an aside.

“She doesn’t
like
cruises?” Elizabeth asked incredulously.

“Not so much.” Which was actually a polite understatement.

“Well, there’s the reason for her going overboard,” Elizabeth deduced. “That’s a lot for a person to juggle all at the same time while still worrying about a big party and trying to make certain that all the details for its successful execution are in order. Any one of those things could really floor someone.”

He’d listened in amusement as she took on the part of being his sister’s advocate. “You always take the side of people you don’t know?” he asked.

“I’m not taking sides,” she informed him. “I’m just seeing the whole picture. I have a tendency to do that. Insert myself into things,” she revealed. “Did you tell your sister about me?”

“About you?” he repeated, a little confused. Did she think that Megan would object to his planning things with her?

“Yes. About me,” she said again. The silence on the other end told her that maybe she needed to elaborate on that before he got the wrong idea. “Did you tell her that I’ll be playing at your parents’ anniversary party?” The longer the silence on the other end of the phone, the tighter the knot in her stomach became. A knot that had materialized for no apparent reason...

Isn’t there a reason?
something whispered in her head.
Haven’t you caught him looking at you in a way that made you forget all about the music you were supposed to play and made you think about the music the two of you could produce, given half a chance?

Oh boy, where had that come from? she silently wondered. Granted, she’d seen him a number of times over the past few days, mainly to go over pieces she’d selected to play, pieces she wanted to make sure that his parents were fond of. And okay, maybe she’d drawn out the process a little so that she could spend a bit more time with him than was needed, but on the other hand, he kept asking to get together, telling her that he preferred dealing with “people” one-on-one rather than just talking to them over the phone.

If he were really flirting with her, she staunchly told herself, he wouldn’t have just lumped her together with “people” like that. It was too broad a category. If a man wanted a woman to feel he was paying attention to her, he would have phrased the whole thing differently.

Wouldn’t he?

She had no answer for that, mainly because she didn’t know. Her experience when it came to men outside the realm of work was limited mostly to her father and her brothers—and the latter didn’t count.

Oh, there had been a boyfriend once as well. Geoffrey. But he didn’t count, either. Geoffrey just wanted someone so that he could bask in her attention, bask in the light in her eyes when she looked at him. The problem she eventually found out was that it didn’t really matter who “she” was. As long as she had the required love light in her eyes and was willing to make him the center of her universe, that was all that truly mattered to Geoffrey.

Once she’d realized that, the two of them had parted company, with Geoffrey snidely telling her she was going to be sorry, that she didn’t realize what she was giving up and that she’d be back.

That had happened a little over four years ago. She wondered if he’d given up waiting for her to come back yet.

“Yes,” Jared was saying. “I told Megan about hiring you so that there’d be live music at my parents’ anniversary party. I think I really surprised my sister by undertaking something that she hadn’t left on her famous list.”

Elizabeth picked up on the sarcasm in Jared’s voice. A tone-deaf person could have heard it. “Her ‘famous’ list?”

“Before she left, Megan wrote up a to-do list for me, covering all the things she wanted me to check on while she was away on the cruise.” He realized that probably sounded as if he’d been slaving away, making arrangements for the party. He didn’t want to take any undue credit since Megan had done the bulk of the slaving.

“Basically, the list just goes over everything she’d already set in motion herself. She wanted me to make sure that it was all getting done, all on schedule.” He laughed shortly. “In essence, what she was asking me to do was to hound people.”

Elizabeth focused on the pertinent part of what he’d just said. At least, it was pertinent to her. “And music wasn’t on her list?”

“No, it wasn’t.” Which, when he thought about it now, surprised him. It was a definite omission and he was glad he’d corrected it. And
really
glad he’d taken Mrs. Manetti’s recommendation to heart. Otherwise, he would have never met Elizabeth.

Elizabeth drew her own conclusions based on the things he’d just said—and what he tactfully hadn’t said. “And your sister wasn’t exactly happy about your initiative.”

“She likes to be in charge.”

She paused for a moment, thinking. While the salary they had agreed on for that evening’s performance was more than generous, and she certainly welcomed it, she really didn’t like the idea of being a source of discord between Jared and his sister. If it came down to that, she knew that if she did play at his parents’ party, she would wind up feeling very guilty about it.

No amount of money was worth feeling bad.

“Look,” she began, coming to the only decision she could, “I understand.”

“You understand?” Jared repeated, more than a little confused. “Well, maybe
you
do,” he granted, “but I know that I don’t. Exactly what is it that you understand?”

All right, maybe she needed to spell it out for him. “I don’t like causing problems or coming between people, especially family members. I’ll just tell the others that there’s been a change of plans and that they won’t need to individually audition for you.”