Much Ado About Matchmaking

But despite his intentions, Ryan forgot everything in the next moment. Gilbert and Holly Messmer had come out to greet their guests, as had Emmaline. The sun kissed her shoulder-length dark hair and her pale skin, setting her quietly aglow despite the baggy black dress that she was wearing. She smiled at Chris, giving him a warm, welcoming look that transformed her normally solemn expression and made it impossible for Ryan to keep from staring at her pretty mouth. Almost immediately, however, her eyes slid away to look at something over Ryan’s left shoulder as she said hello to him in a painfully polite and prim voice.

If he had wondered whether Emmaline had forgotten that touch they had shared, he had his answer.

She hadn’t forgotten and she wasn’t happy to see him.

Hmm, there was probably only one way to handle this. Take the smart route and ignore her. It was the way he would have chosen just yesterday.

But with the intriguing memory of that moment when she had turned and he had tasted those delicious lips, there was no ignoring the woman. If he wanted her out of his thoughts, he was going to have to defuse the situation, treat it like any other project. No doubt he was fantasizing about her because he didn’t really know her, maybe because forbidden fruit always seemed tempting. No doubt she disliked him because she thought he might have been hitting on her.

If he took the initiative and turned the situation into, gentle teasing, they could both get past that false start they’d made down the wrong path. They might even become friends, a desirable arrangement if his partner and best friend was marrying her cousin.

“So begins round one,” he said beneath his breath.

Emmaline looked up at him and blinked, that frown drawing her brows together. “What did you say, Mr. Benedict?”

Keep it light. Surely she has a sense of humor.

“I said what a delicious shade of lipstick, Emmaline,” Ryan said with a smile. “What do you call it? Kiss-me-pink?”

For a second he thought he heard her gasp. Her eyes grew large and startled. Then, she suddenly pressed her lips together. She crossed her arms, lending some shape to the loose black dress she was wearing. He tried not to notice that her small breasts perfectly suited her slender figure.

“I’m sorry, wrong shade,” she told him, “although it is pink. Presumptuous pink, to be exact.” She gave him a slight smile, arching one brow.

Gilbert blinked. “What an incredibly odd name for lipstick, Emmaline. Is that really what it’s called? Oh well, I never did quite figure out all that girlie stuff. I probably should have been paying more attention. You’d think raising two girls I would have learned a thing or two by now, wouldn’t you?”

His voice sounded so sad that Ryan felt sorry for him. “You’ve raised two fine young women, sir,” he told Gilbert. “I’d say that that means you know quite a lot.”

“Yes, Uncle Gilbert,” Emmaline said. “Don’t mind me. Mr. Benedict and I were just—” She stopped, clearly uncertain how to go on, and Ryan wanted to laugh. She was trying so hard.

“We were just engaging in idle chatter since we don’t know each other very well. Chris tells me we’re to stand up together at the wedding,” Ryan volunteered.

Ah, she didn’t know that. Those serious gray eyes blinked. “Holly?”

Holly shrugged. “Well, of course you’re going to be my maid of honor, aren’t you, Em? I know we haven’t discussed the details of the wedding. I’ve been gone so much lately and been so wrapped up in Chris that I…well, I forgot to ask. But I just assumed you knew that I’d want you. Who else would I choose? And who else would Chris choose but his best friend?”

“I wasn’t thinking that far ahead, and I wouldn’t make that kind of assumption,” Emmaline said. Ryan noticed that she didn’t look at him. “But…thank you, Holly.”

“And never mind about arguing about shades of lipstick,” Gilbert said to Ryan. “You and Emmaline will have plenty of time to get to know each other, especially since you’ll be working together closely.”

Working together? Closely? Despite the warnings echoing through his brain, Ryan thought of that kiss. How right it had felt, how wrong it had been. Glancing to the side, he locked eyes with Emmaline who was looking just as shocked as he felt.

“We’ll be working together? What do you mean?” she asked.

Ryan had a feeling he knew and he was surprised that Emmaline hadn’t been told, but he wanted to be very clear on this. “Yes, what exactly will Ms. Carstairs and I be doing together, Mr. Messmer?” He had a bad feeling about the direction things were taking.

“Call me Gilbert, please, Ryan. No need to be formal when your best friend is marrying my daughter, and you and I are business associates. As for what you’ll be doing with Emmaline, that’s easy. She’s going to assist you at the hotel.”

“Assist him doing what?”

Ryan really wished she hadn’t asked that. Immediately his eyes were drawn to the way her shoulder length dark hair lay against the scooped neck of her black dress. He could easily imagine himself easing the dress down off her shoulders, assisting her out of every stitch she was wearing until…

Damn, don’t think that, he ordered himself and tried to pay attention to what Gilbert was saying to his niece who was looking as tense as if she had just been told she would be spending all her time with a man-eating predator.

“I know I usually handle the behind the scenes stuff regarding the hotel chain and you handle the day to day operations of Texas Lights, but this is a special situation. Let me explain a bit,” Gilbert told Emmaline. “C&R Technology is a two-man operation, as you know. They energize old businesses by instituting new technology. Hotels are their specialty, which is why we’ve linked up with them. Chris is the idea man, the dreamer, and Ryan is the man who makes everything work, the technician. He’s the one who has to go in, feel around and get his hands dirty, to thoroughly examine the place and figure out how to make Chris’s dreams work with our situation.

“And,” Gilbert said, turning to Ryan, “since Emma manages the Texas Lights Hotel, the first one we’re renovating, she’s the one who knows all the intimate nuts and bolts of the place. She’ll assist you in whatever way you need. Won’t you, Emma?”

Ryan almost felt sorry for her. If Gilbert hadn’t been such an old-fashioned guy who meant that comment in the most innocent of ways, his words might have made the lady blush. But Gilbert was an old-fashioned gentleman, and Ryan had a feeling that Emmaline wasn’t a blushing kind of woman. She was the kind who kept her heat hidden inside.

A challenge, his subconscious said.

Stop thinking of her that way, he told himself.

He turned to her, hoping his voice wouldn’t reveal his thoughts. “I’ll definitely need your help. The Texas Lights is a historic hotel. We’ll be introducing the most current technology. I’m afraid this is going to be a challenge, Emmaline,” he managed to say, not sure if he was really discussing the hotel or the fact that they would be thrown together day in and day out.

And then, seeing that she was genuinely distressed, he took pity on her. “Somehow we’ll make it work.”

She stared up at him with those intense gray eyes that only made the copper highlights in her dark-brown hair shine more brightly. He was pretty darn certain that she didn’t want to hear that the two of them would make anything work. Instead she wanted to make a quick exit.

Interesting.

“I’ve seen the timeline. This will take a few weeks, won’t it?” she asked.

“Three or four. How long have you been involved with The Texas Lights?” Ryan asked. Perhaps a change of subject would get her to stop looking at him as if he were the spawn of the devil.

Emma blinked as if she was surprised that he had asked her such a mundane question. He wondered what she’d been told about him. He did have a reputation, and a lot of it wasn’t good.

“I…around twenty-five years,” she ventured.

Now it was his turn to blink. She couldn’t be as old as she was indicating.

Holly chuckled, a move that prompted Chris to pull her back against him, his arm encircling her waist. She turned slightly and gave him a loving look before turning back to Ryan.

“Emmaline isn’t lying, Ryan. Her mother died not long before I was born. Daddy had a baby, a four-year-old girl and a hotel to run. He’d put me in a crib at the hotel and let Emma tag along after him at work. We both grew up there, but she was the one who loved it. She started polishing the newel posts and running errands just as soon as Daddy would let her.”

“I see,” Ryan said, and he believed he did. He looked at Emma. “So the hotel is very special to you,” he ventured.

She gave him a careless shrug. “I run the hotel,” she clarified.

Holly rolled her eyes. “She loves the hotel,” she said, “and she doesn’t especially like change.”

“And I’m going to change lots of things,” he said, discovering yet another reason why the woman might dislike him.

“This is going to be a very good thing, Emmaline,” Gilbert told her. “In many ways. I promise you it will. You’ll see.”

“Ryan will help you. He’s an expert at explaining things,” Chris said, resting his cheek against Holly’s hair. “And then he’s good at making things go the way he wants them to go.”

Dead silence met this statement. Had love completely blinded and addled Chris? Ryan had to think so. If anything, Emmaline looked even more upset.

“You, more than anyone, know that the Texas Lights has been losing money, honey,” Gilbert said. “We have to do something, and I think this renovation is just the ticket.”

Emmaline nodded slowly. Obviously she and her uncle had discussed this before. “I know. Closing the hotel last week so we could do this renovation was necessary, but I just don’t want her character to be destroyed in the process. She’s a truly lovely hotel. She’s special,” Emmaline said, and this time she gave Ryan a defiant glance. Obviously she didn’t trust him one inch.

He felt a niggling sense of disappointment. It wasn’t that every woman in the world fell in love with him. It was just that very few disliked him on sight. The fact that Emma appeared to have done so rankled. That they had touched somewhat intimately, and now she wanted nothing to do with him brought forth some primitive male instinct to battle to win her. He ordered himself to ignore that warrior reflex, to remember that he was a man who could only hurt a woman like this if he allowed himself to pursue her for a while, but it wasn’t easy.

She was biting her lip, her small white teeth pressing against the pink flesh. He suppressed the urge to reach out and touch the softness of her mouth.

“We’ll have to talk,” he said, working hard to keep the dare out of his voice.

Gilbert smiled at that. “Yes, you two do that. Emmaline, you need to tell Ryan about anything that’s bothering you.”

Ryan fought to keep from thinking of her lips. If he had to discuss everything about Emmaline Carstairs that was bothering him, the aftermath of that accidental kiss would come first and the hotel would rank a distant second.

Which was totally wrong. He had come here only to work, but the fact that Emmaline was his guide was getting in the way.

“I’ll look forward to dinner then,” Ryan told her.

“I will, too,” she said politely, but there was a hint of fire in her eyes, and Ryan would swear what she was looking forward to was skewering him with a dinner fork.

Well, at least this job wasn’t going to be dull….

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