A Perfectly Imperfect Match (Matchmaking Mamas) (8 page)

“I think we all got kind of shortchanged, actually.” When the quizzical look on his face deepened, she offered him a sliver of the story she rarely shared with anyone.

“My mother died when I was five. My brothers were still babies when she left our lives.” There was an incredible amount of sadness in her voice.

Jared felt instantly guilty for having brought up something that obviously hurt her so much. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to dredge up any painful memories for you.”

“You didn’t,” she assured him, and she was being truthful. “Any memories I have of her are cherished, not buried because it hurts too much to remember her. Memories—and her violin—are all I have of her,” she explained.

“Now, about that dinner,” Elizabeth began, deftly switching topics. She was rather convinced that Jared was pretty vulnerable to a blitzkrieg right now, seeing as how he obviously thought he’d upset her with his unintentional comment. “I haven’t had anything to eat since before lunch, and because I’ve imposed on you to help me, I know for a fact that you haven’t had dinner yet. So why don’t I show you my gratitude by buying you dinner at the restaurant of your choice? The sky’s the limit,” she told him. “As long as the sky’s relatively low,” she qualified with a grin that he found infinitely appealing.

“We could pick up a package of hot dogs and hold them over a fire,” he suggested, doing his best to keep a straight face. As far as he was concerned, she didn’t owe him anything. He liked being helpful.

Elizabeth shook her head. “I told you, I can’t cook,” she pointed out.

“That’s not cooking, that’s holding a stick over a fire and occasionally moving your wrist back and forth,” he protested.

She greeted his explanation with, “Potato, po-tot-to. That’s still considered cooking in some circles—and grilling in others.” She had a feeling that Jared thought she was kidding about her culinary abilities—or inabilities as the case was. She wasn’t. “For everyone’s well-being all around, I’d
really
rather have a professional take care of preparing the meal.”

Jared laughed, surrendering. “Okay, you win. No cooking. All right, why don’t
you
pick the restaurant,” he told her.

That wasn’t good enough. “I’m thanking you, it’s only fair that you pick,” she told him, remaining firm.

She came on soft and sweet, but he was beginning to wonder if
anyone
ever won an argument with this woman. “All right,” he surrendered, “How about Giuseppe’s?”

She was familiar with the establishment. “Pizza?” she asked.

The restaurant he’d picked was known for its Italian cuisine in general, but its real specialty was pizza. All sorts of pizza. Thick or thin or stuffed, it offered an almost endless variety of toppings.

Jared nodded. “I love pizza,” he told her earnestly.

She was still rather skeptical about his choice—she knew the restaurant wasn’t expensive and had a hunch that was what was really responsible for his choice. He didn’t want her spending a lot of money. His gallantry reminded her of something that her father would have done.

“Really?” she asked, deliberately scrutinizing his expression.

“Really,” he told her, never wavering. For good measure, he crossed his heart.

Elizabeth gave in. Maybe he was on the level. “Okay. Giuseppe’s it is,” she agreed. “I’ll meet you there,” she told him.

“Fair enough.” He got into his vehicle and leaned out to say something further.

But it was too late. She was already starting up her car.

They did start out at the same time, since their vehicles were parked next to each other. But five minutes into the journey, after stopping at a light that was about to turn red in less than the next heartbeat, Jared discovered that he’d lost her.

Elizabeth hadn’t stopped. Instead, she’d flown through the light and actually made it to the other side of the intersection before the light finished turning red.

Close to half an hour later, Jared finally pulled up into the popular eatery’s parking lot. The traffic there had been lighter than normal, but it had still come under the heading of “traffic,” which, in California-speak, meant bumper-to-bumper for at least part of the distance.

Halfway to the restaurant, he’d opted to take an overland route rather than continue traveling on the freeway, which was misnamed if anything ever had been, he thought darkly.

Parking his vehicle at the edge of the crowded lot, Jared made his way toward the short, squat building, heading for the restaurant’s entrance. He fully expected to have to stand around in front of the double doors, waiting for Elizabeth to arrive. Though he’d kept a vigilant eye out for her, he hadn’t seen any sign of the woman’s vintage vehicle as he drove to the restaurant.

He was spared the wait...because Elizabeth was already there.

And, from her cool and calm appearance, she’d been standing there by the entrance awhile now.

It took him a bit of effort to keep the stunned expression off his face.

She smiled warmly at him when she saw him approaching the front door. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he echoed. “You didn’t tell me that your car was refitted with wings and doubled as a hovercraft.”

She caught the slightly sarcastic tone. Had she tread on his male ego by unintentionally beating him in a time-honored male sport, auto racing?

“It wasn’t and doesn’t.” She pulled the door open and was a little taken aback when she saw his arm go out just above her head and take possession of the door away from her. She could almost
see
his biceps flexing as he effortlessly held the heavy, double-wide door open for her.

“I have what my family likes to refer to as a lead foot,” she explained, then confessed, “It’s not something I’m overly proud of. I really do try to rein it in, but there’s something about making a light just before it turns red and squeaking through tight places that I find to be really irresistible—no matter how hard I try to ignore it, or at least not give in to the temptation. Just between you and me, I
really
have trouble resisting the allure of going fast.”

“Remind me never to have you drive me anywhere,” he quipped.

“Unless it’s an emergency,” she pointed out. “Then you might be happy I can make twists and turns most people turn pale just thinking about.”

He took her at her word about the pale part. “Just how many traffic tickets have you amassed?” he asked, curious.

“None, actually.” She could see he was going to need convincing. “I don’t run red lights and I don’t go above posted speed limits.”

“The key word here being
posted,
” he guessed wryly.

When she merely smiled at him in response to his comment, her eyes dancing, he had his answer. Why he found her to be so appealing when she made her admission, he wasn’t really able to say. He was accustomed to women who worried about the wind messing with their hair, or not being the sole object of interest when they entered a room.

Elizabeth, apparently, had no concerns about turning heads, or literally having every hair in place. She appeared to be far too full of life to be overly worried about things like that.

He supposed that was her Bohemian spirit, coming to the forefront. He found he rather liked it.

Liked it? he silently mocked himself. Hell, he found it downright captivating.

“Two?” the hostess asked, coming up to greet them the moment they stepped into the restaurant.

“Two,” he confirmed.

He caught himself thinking that there was something oddly comfortable about being part of a duo, even if only for the length of time that it took to eat a meal. Most of the time, when he went out to eat and he wasn’t using that time to court a company client, he was alone. For the most part, his meals were sporadic, spur-of-the-moment decisions and thus, perforce, very solitary affairs.

The idea of sharing a meal with someone without having to pitch ideas and be ever vigilant and on his toes was exceedingly appealing to him.

Jared caught himself smiling as he followed the hostess and Elizabeth into the heart of the restaurant. He was going to enjoy this, he promised himself.

He had a hunch that he was going to enjoy sitting opposite Elizabeth as he ate even more.

Chapter Six

“H
ave you been doing this long?” he asked Elizabeth once the hostess had given them their menus and quietly retreated from their table.

The question had caught her completely off guard. For a second, she wasn’t sure what he was referring to. “You mean eating? For as long as I can remember.”

Jared laughed. He’d found that a sense of humor was an indispensable tool when it came to being able not just to survive, but to survive well. He liked hers. If he were ever in the market for a wife—which of course he wasn’t—a sense of humor would have been his number one priority.

Having legs that didn’t quit and a face that daydreams were made of didn’t exactly detract from the total picture, either.

But he wasn’t looking for a mate, nor would he ever be. He didn’t like failing, and most marriages today never saw the light of their fifth anniversary, much less their thirty-fifth. His parents had a marriage that was damn near close to perfect. If he couldn’t have that—and odds in today’s world were pretty great that he couldn’t—he didn’t want any marriage at all.

“That part I just assumed,” he told Elizabeth. “I meant playing. As in how long have you been playing the violin?”

“Almost as long as I’ve been eating,” Elizabeth answered.

She saw the slight dubious look that came into Jared’s eyes. She didn’t want him thinking that she was telling him she’d been a child prodigy, because she wasn’t. She’d just been a little girl who was trying to make contact with a mother who was gone.

“I feel like it’s in my blood,” she explained. “My parents met at a concert during college. She was playing, he was listening.” Those were her mother’s exact words, she recalled fondly. “Dad told me that the first time he heard her play, he felt as if he were in the presence of an angel.”

Jared saw a sad expression play across her face as she went on talking.

“When my mother died, he told me that God wanted to have nothing but beautiful music around Him, so He took her to heaven.” She looked at Jared and wondered if he thought she was being rather simple-minded. “When you’re five, you believe everything your father tells you.” A rueful smile curved her lips. “I was really angry at God for about a year.”

“At that age, I would have been, too,” Jared agreed gently.

He was humoring her, she thought, but it was still rather nice of him. She flashed him a quick, grateful smile.

“Anyway, holding her violin made me feel closer to her, as if a part of her were still there somehow, so I asked my father if I could have lessons. He made the arrangements, even got me the same instructor who initially taught my mother,” she confided. “The woman couldn’t get over how much I looked like my mother. By the end of the year, Ms. Jablonsky said I played the violin just like my mother, too.

“I don’t think I ever received a better compliment—unless it was seeing the tears in my dad’s eyes when I played in my very first recital. He said it was like being at that concert when he met my mother all over again. He told me that my mother would have been proud of me.”

Elizabeth realized that, just for a moment, she’d let her guard down and gotten misty. Clearing her throat, she pushed back the feelings that were welling up inside her, and blinked her eyes, determined to keep her tears from falling.

“Anyway, I found that I loved playing, just for its own sake,” she concluded.

The pizza arrived and the discussion was temporarily tabled as they both made small talk, commenting on how good the pizza smelled, etc. Jared confessed that he hadn’t realized just how hungry he actually was until the aroma had hit him.

“I tend to forget to eat when I get busy or distracted,” he confided.

Did she come under the heading of being a distraction? Elizabeth wondered. Or was he saying that he’d considered coming to hear her play on the soundstage as “being busy”?

She realized that, given a choice, she would have preferred having the good-looking man think of her as a distraction. The implications of that were far more promising.

You’re letting your imagination get the better of you. That’s what you get for listening to Amanda.

Amanda was one of the other violinists. They’d initially met in high school, had wound up going to the same college and had gradually become best friends. Amanda was the one who kept telling her that she needed to get “really emotionally, soulfully involved” with someone in order to bring a deeper meaning to her music. Her friend’s theory was that until she experienced falling in love, and then losing that love, she couldn’t truly make her violin weep.

Her answer to Amanda was that she was willing to settle on having her violin sob quietly. What she didn’t admit to her close confidante was that she’d gone the romance route and been rather badly disappointed. That was no one’s business but her own.

“I don’t think I’ve
ever
forgotten to eat,” she told Jared. “My stomach is very good about reminding me that it needs to be periodically fed.”

So saying, she liberated a piece from the rest of the pizza and, rather than put it on her plate, she brought the pointed edge up to her lips and proceeded to take a good-size bite.

Her eyes fluttered shut as she allowed herself to slowly savor the taste. “This is really good,” she enthused.

Watching her, just for a moment, Jared found himself caught up in the way she was relishing her food. Most of the women he’d gone out with seemed to pick at their meal, eating little and appearing to enjoy it even less. Eating pizza, especially the way Elizabeth did, would have been viewed as something that was beneath them. Eating with their hands was simply not done. “Uncivilized barbarians ate with their hands” was the way one of his dates had put it.

He smiled to himself now, watching Elizabeth. There was definitely something to be said for “uncivilized barbarians,” he thought.