Make Me a Match

“I’m going to watch every step you take.”

Lora shrugged. “Maybe I’ll keep an eye on you to make sure you’re as noble as you say you are.”

Eyes flashing, Jon Woods, her newest challenge, said, “I’m not noble, I just know when someone is not who they appear to be.”

She shook her head and walked back toward the house, aware that she should be unnerved by his threat, but feeling a shimmery thrill instead.

He was going to keep an eye on her, hmm? That should be interesting.

Okay, so she’d sworn off men.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t drive one remarkably irritating specimen a little crazy—did it?

She added a swish to her walk.

Take that!

Dear Reader,

Are you headed to the beach this summer? Don’t forget to take along your sunblock—and this month’s four new heartwarming love stories from Silhouette Romance!

Make Myrna Mackenzie’s The Black Knight’s Bride (SR #1722) the first book in your tote bag. This is the third story in THE BRIDES OF RED ROSE, a miniseries in which classic legends are retold in the voices of today’s heroes and heroines. For a single mom fleeing her ex-husband, Red Rose seems like the perfect town—no men! But then she meets a brooding ex-soldier with a heart of gold.…

In Because of Baby (SR #1723), a pixie becomes so enamored with a single dad and his adorable tot that she just might be willing to sacrifice her days of fun and frivolity for a human life of purpose…and love! Visit a world of magic and enchantment in the latest SOULMATES by Donna Clayton.

Even with the help of family and friends, this widower with a twelve-year-old daughter finds it difficult to think about the future—until a woman from his past moves in down the street. Rest and relaxation wouldn’t be complete without the laughter and love in The Daddy’s Promise (SR #1724) by Shirley Jump.

And while away the last of your long summer day with Make Me a Match (SR #1725) by Alice Sharpe. A feisty florist, once burned by love, is supposed to be finding a match for her mother and grandmother…not falling for the town’s temporary vet! Matchmaking has never been so much fun.

What could be better than greeting summer with beach reading? Enjoy!

Mavis C. Allen

Associate Senior Editor

Make Me a Match

Alice Sharpe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to my husband and his great, big wonderful heart.

Books by Alice Sharpe

Silhouette Romance

Going to the Chapel #1137

Missing: One Bride #1212

Wife on His Doorstep #1304

Prim, Proper…Pregnant #1425

The Baby Season #1525

Make Me a Match #1725

Silhouette Yours Truly

If Wishes Were Heroes

ALICE SHARPE

met her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing.

Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at P.O. Box 755, Brownsville, OR 97327. A SASE for reply is appreciated.

Lora Gifford’s Matchmaking Agenda!

1. Grandma Ella: After the loss of Grandpa all those years ago, gossipy granny must be lonely. Besides, getting her a man of her own will take the focus off me! (I hope…) 2. Mom: With Dad out of the picture, Mom needs someone who can keep up with her full-of-life personality. Enter the dashing Dr. Reed. If only Mom would stop discussing the most unromantic things whenever she’s with him. Is she trying to ruin this for me—er, her? 3. Dr. Reed: Ten years older, and a whole lot more stable than Dad, the sweet and gentle vet would be the perfect match for Mom. And a wonderful stepfather for me. 4. Dr. Jon Woods: Okay, so technically he already has a girlfriend, but wouldn’t it be nice if she were actually in town? Well, not really, but at least that way I wouldn’t find myself daydreaming about a future that could never be. 5. Me: This is the only way to get mom and grandma off my back! Pretend to be interested in a man—say, Jon Woods, for example—and hopefully they’ll get the hint and leave my love life alone. Thankfully, Jon’s agreed to the charade. Luckily my heart can’t possibly get broken this time.**

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter One

Clutching one very irritable tabby cat in her arms, Lora Gifford wondered who the heck the good-looking man walking through the examination room door might be.

The veterinarian she’d come to interrogate…er, meet?

No way.

For one thing, this guy didn’t appear to need the love of a good woman to whip him into shape. Besides, she had it on good authority that Dr. Reed was over sixty. This guy appeared to be half that age and what with his golden tan and chiseled features, looked more like a movie star than an animal doctor. Even the way he took off his wire rim glasses had star quality.

Drat.

Okay, back to plan B—whatever that might turn out to be. All she had to do now was figure out a graceful way of exiting, stage left. He smiled at her and another thought crossed her mind. What if this interloper had information? It might save time to just stay put and ask.

First things first, however. “Who are you?” she said, and because she hadn’t intended her question to sound quite so much like an accusation, added, “It’s just that I was expecting Doctor Victor Reed.”

Mr. Hollywood folded his glasses into his breast pocket and extended a hand. “Victor’s out of the office. I’m Jon Woods. I’ll be happy to take a look at your cat this morning.”

Intending to politely shake his hand, Lora relaxed her hold on Boggle, who took the opportunity to make for the hills. She gasped in pain as the cat’s needle-like claws punctured the weave of her sweater, tearing holes in the tender flesh of her upper arm and shoulder.

Jon Woods gently unhooked Boggle and settled him on the stainless table with a practiced firmness the cat seemed to grudgingly respect. He rubbed Boggle’s ears and crooned to him, his voice a soothing murmur. Was he speaking some kind of secret animal language? Tilting her head, Lora listened closely but couldn’t make out a single word. Finally, keeping a good grip on his rebellious patient, Jon fixed Lora with a steady gaze. “Now, what seems to be wrong with Boggle?”

As far as Lora knew, there wasn’t a thing wrong with Boggle that a horse tranquilizer wouldn’t take care of. She wasn’t there because of the cat; he was simply her cover. For that matter, he wasn’t even her cat. She’d borrowed him from a neighbor. Rubbing what she imagined to be her blood-soaked shoulder, she glanced at the door and said, “I’ll just wait until Dr. Reed gets back.”

“You’ll have a long wait. He had surgery on his foot so he’ll be off for a few weeks.”

“He’s in the hospital?”

“Yes—”

“Good Samaritan?”

A quizzical look flashed across Jon’s face, settling in his willow-bark brown eyes. “Are you another of his devoted admirers? No, wait, didn’t I see on the chart that this is your first visit to the office?”

“I’ve never met Dr. Reed,” she said. “I wouldn’t know him from Adam.”

He regarded her with open curiosity, which she tried to ignore. Striving for a casual tone, she added, “So, how long do you think the doctor will be in the hospital?”

“A few days, then he’ll finish his recovery at home.”

A new plan hatched itself in Lora’s mind. She’d drop Boggle back at the neighbor’s, then go into the shop and make up a flower arrangement and deliver it to the hospital herself. Better double check which hospital, just in case. As a florist, she did this all the time so that was no problem. Congratulating herself on the flexibility of her scheme, she cautiously started to pick up Boggle.

Jon’s hand landed on hers. “I assure you I’m capable—”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to insinuate that you couldn’t fix Boggle.”

He looked even more confused. “I’m sorry, they should have told you up front that you need to make an appointment for that procedure.”

She liked the way his face reflected his emotions. She liked the way a lock of sun-bleached hair fell across his forehead. His hands, one of which still rested atop hers, were well formed, his touch extraordinarily light.

Lora worried her bottom lip. Was it possible this man was different from the rest? If he was a partner in this office didn’t that suggest a certain stability? Maybe she should give him a chance.…

No. No, no, no. “No,” she said, aloud.

His hand slid off of hers and along Boggle’s spine. Amazingly, the cat produced a tattered purr. Glancing at Lora, Jon said, “His temperament might improve if you did have him neutered, so you might want to consider it.”

She’d forgotten that in the veterinary world, “fixed” and “neutered” were virtually synonymous. “I just mean that Boggle is—”

Boggle is what?

Since her sole experience with keeping pets revolved around the care of a twenty-gallon aquarium, she realized she’d neglected to think up a suitable ailment for the cat. Hoping to sound like less of a ditz than she suddenly felt, she mumbled, “Grouchy. I think he needs a checkup. He hisses…a lot.”

“Is this new behavior for him?”

“Ah, no,” she said, thinking of the times Boggle darted spiteful looks at her from beneath her neighbor’s stairs. “No, he always seems ill-tempered.”

“How about his appetite?”

How about his appetite? “Seems normal,” she said.

“Any new members of the family to contend with?” he asked. “A husband, maybe? A new boyfriend?”

Was he flirting with her? She studied him but just couldn’t tell. Should she invent a jealous spouse to squash any romantic notions that might be floating around in his handsome head? She murmured, “No husband.”

“I see.”

Their eyes met again. Lora looked down at the cat.

Jon opened a cupboard and brought out a pressurized can of cheddar cheese spread. He distributed a thin line of it on the table top which Boggle immediately began licking. Next the vet produced a stethoscope. “Okay, well, let’s take a look at him,” he said.

Lora couldn’t help but admire the deft way Jon managed the examination. She wondered if Doctor Reed would have handled himself as competently. Surely he wouldn’t look as good doing it. Jon was definitely in his prime, one could say. Strong. Competent. Great hands. She wished she’d paid more attention to how he looked in his glasses—she’d bet he was just cute as a button. If she could bend her neck a little, she could check out his rear—

Stop it! Concentrate on Dr. Reed.

For penitence, she began mentally building a flower arrangement in her mind. It was spring and the town of Fern Glen sat right on the coast, so Siberian Iris and dune grasses came to mind. Maybe daffodils. She’d never met a man who didn’t like daffodils. At the hospital, she’d hide behind the arrangement just as she currently hid behind Boggle. She needed to find out four things: was Victor Reed likable? Did he have any obvious bad habits? Was he cute in an older guy kind of way? Was he available?

“Lora?”

Hearing her name snapped her out of her thoughts. “Huh?”

Jon looped the stethoscope casually around his neck. “I think Boggle is fine. Heart and lungs and stomach sound good, no other obvious problems. Of course, if you notice additional symptoms, bring him back in, but honestly, I think he’s just ornery by nature. And he’s already been neutered so I’m afraid that as far as personality goes, what you see is what you get.”

He was probably wondering how in the world she would not know that her own cat was already neutered. She said, “Thanks, Doctor.”

“Call me Jon.”

She didn’t want to call him Jon. She didn’t want to call him anything.

Okay, that wasn’t true. He was a tasty-looking dish, there was no denying that, but she’d recently bowed out of the dating game.

On the other hand, she didn’t want to leave a bad impression even if she would never see him again. It was a small community and who knew when he’d show up at the flower shop needing flowers for some new honey? A beautiful bronzed blonde, she’d bet. A woman with long eyelashes and a thrilling career that didn’t require she live from paycheck to paycheck. Sweeping aside wayward strands of wavy dark hair, Lora added, “Did I mention that I haven’t had Boggle very long?”

“That explains a lot,” he said as though relieved to discover she might not be a nitwit after all. He unfolded his glasses and put them on again, and sure enough, he looked fine. Reaching for the folder, he flipped it open and scanned the page. “It appears you forgot to give us your phone number,” he said, glancing up.

“Why do you need my phone number?”

“It’s office policy,” he said, grabbing a pencil from the counter.

She mumbled out a bogus phone number and repeated her thanks. Clutching the angry cat and her checkbook, she hurried out of the small examination room only to be met by an assistant wearing a purple smock printed with frolicking dogs. The assistant told Lora to wait as she ducked into the room Lora had just vacated.

Lora more or less wedged an increasingly distressed Boggle between herself and a wall and wished she’d thought to bring a box. She tried stroking the cat’s ears and crooning softly to calm him, just as she’d seen Jon do. For a moment, staring into eyes as green as her own, she thought she and the cat connected in some primal way, then he opened his mouth so wide she could see down his surprisingly pink gullet and emitted a hiss that made the hairs on the back of Lora’s neck stand up.

“Bad kitty!” she scolded. With an annoyed glance at the examination room door, she wondered what was taking so long.

The assistant finally reappeared. “The doctor says there’ll be no charge today.”

Stunned by Jon Woods’s generosity, she momentarily thought of tumbling to his charm, then she sucked it up and beat a hasty retreat. Once inside the van, Boggle crouched under the passenger seat and howled.

“No wonder I prefer tropical fish,” Lora grumbled over the din.

Jon found himself looking out the window, angling for a glimpse of his last patient’s owner.

All he saw was a big blue van pulling out of the parking lot. He resettled the blinds and picked up the folder beneath Lora’s.

He’d been in Fern Glen, a quaint town on the Northern California coast, for a little over a month and face it, he’d been growing increasingly bored. There were just so many times a man could walk along a windswept beach—alone. Only so many times he could admire towering trees or chat with strangers. He missed Los Angeles, Trina, his own life, and not necessarily in that order.

He couldn’t deny, however, that Lora Gifford had piqued his interest. She was just so…well, so real. He’d be willing to bet there wasn’t a phony hair on her head, and speaking of hair, that ebony fall of glistening strands was unbelievable.

Lora. Her name was Lora and she seemed a little skittish, as though she’d been wounded in the past. He felt a protective surge in his chest and smiled at his own folly. His ability to empathize with creatures was a bonus in his career; he just had to guard the tendency to let it guide his reactions to people. Especially female people.

He put Lora Gifford out of his mind as he got ready for his next patient, a black Labrador puppy with the sniffles.

Five years before Lora was born her parents had purchased a small piece of real estate in the heart of Fern Glen. Her mother dreamed of opening a fabric store. Her father yearned to start a bait and tackle shop. They settled on a florist because at the time, Fern Glen didn’t have one.

Compromise. That was the name of the game for her parents, but it hadn’t come without taking a toll on their relationship. For all intents and purposes, Lora had grown up in a petal-lined war zone. In the off season, while her father fished and her mother made quilts for extra money, Lora had escaped into after-school work with a local lily grower, her mentor a disabled old man with a wealth of experience he was anxious to share. For her, his warm glass-sided buildings had become a sanctuary.

Four years before, Lora had received a modest inheritance from a favorite uncle and shocked everyone by using it to buy herself a house. Her parents had been surprised by her choice—the house was small and ungainly. What Lora didn’t explain was that she’d really bought the house because of the greenhouse out in back.

Two years later, her father decided thirty years of married life was enough, hooked up his boat and drove away. Her mother kept the shop. Lora, who discovered how limited the financial resources really were when she took over the books, invited her mother to move in with her for a few months. The months had turned into a year.

And then Lora’s long-widowed grandmother had shown up on Lora’s doorstep with three suitcases and five cardboard boxes, everything else she owned tucked safely in storage. She was lonely. How could Lora turn away her own grandmother? At least Grandma was willing to share a room with Lora’s mom. So now three generations resided in Lora’s little cottage and Lora was one breath away from going nuts.

It was Calvin’s fault. The rat had left her, and in leaving her, he’d opened the door for her relatives to come charging through, a single goal firing their passion: find Lora a husband! It didn’t matter how many times Lora told them she wasn’t interested—they simply didn’t believe her.

She’d been so sure that Calvin was “The One.” They were the same age, he loved the outdoors as she did, he had family in Fern Glen. Perfect. Then he’d accepted a job in Chicago without even telling Lora he’d applied. All she had to do was pack a bag. He, it seemed, had a plan.

Only, she had plans of her own.

Take it or leave it, he’d said.

At that point she’d decided there was one thing of which she was certain: she was not going to follow her parents’ example and spend her life compromising.

Now, thanks to the meddling of her loving relatives, a seemingly endless procession of quasi eligible men had recently shown up for dinner or come into the shop to buy flowers. Things were getting out of hand.

Out of desperation, Lora had given the matter some deep thought. Loneliness was the culprit, she decided, for both her mom and Gram, so she’d attack from that angle. With luck, she’d shift their attention away from her love life and on to their own.

After Lora dropped Boggle off, she entered the flower shop through the delivery door in the back. She tiptoed around, relieved to find her mother and grandmother busy with customers out front.

For a second, she thought about Jon Woods and his ploy to get her phone number, and she felt a smile threaten to emerge. She wiped the smile away with a firm wave of resolve. Sure he was interesting and as sexy as all get out. It wasn’t that she was blind to his attributes, she reminded herself, she was just on the mend. It wasn’t wise to flit from relationship to relationship like some dazed bumble bee.

But Jon is local, an animal doctor, a man with roots like your own, her subconscious needled. Maybe you should let down your guard a little and get to know him.…

No. Concentrate on Mom and Gram. There’ll be time to investigate Jon Woods in the months to come.

She checked the fax machine to see how behind they were. Not bad. After making a couple of calls to confirm which hospital Dr. Reed was at she quickly put together a suitable arrangement and made it out the door again without being detected.

At the nurses’ station, she discovered Dr. Reed’s surgery had been two days before, which was terrific news. Surely he’d be well on the way to recovery by now and perhaps a little lonely. Lonely people liked to chat, even to florists. She told the busy nurses she’d deliver the flowers herself. A few moments later, she got her first glimpse of her prospective stepfather.

Dr. Reed, lying in his bed, glanced up from a book the moment Lora came through the door. The first thing she noticed about him were the color of his eyes, a perfect match for grape hyacinths. A neatly trimmed beard and a full head of sterling silver hair accompanied the eyes—the man looked like the captain of a cruise ship!

“More flowers?” he said.

There were no other flowers in the room. “You bet. Where would you like them?”

“Who are they from?”

She’d thought of that. Picking out the card she read, “Says here they’re from your friends at the Animal Clinic.” She handed him the card and he studied it for a moment.

“Those guys really went overboard. I told my sister to take the other bouquets because I’m getting out this afternoon. Just put those by the window.”

No aging girlfriend to schlep his flowers? Good.

“I’d be happy to deliver them to your house,” she said, still holding the flowers and excited about the prospect of seeing how and where he lived.

“I couldn’t ask—”

“I insist,” she said. “So, you’re going home. Are you thrilled?”

His eyes twinkled. “You bet.”

“It’ll be good to sit down in your own house with a fat cigar and a stiff drink, right?” Was that too obvious a prying question?

Apparently not. “Never have smoked though I do enjoy the occasional glass of red wine,” he said, settling comfortably against his pillows. “They say it keeps you young.”

“Looks as though it’s working,” she said with a grin.

He laughed. He had a nice laugh. “Now, what’s a pretty girl like you doing flirting with an old goat like me?”

She laughed, too. She liked this guy. Hope began to flutter in her chest, and it wasn’t just selfish hope anymore. Her mother deserved happiness, deserved to be with someone ten years older and wiser than she.

Lora said, “Do you live with your sister?”

“Oh, no,” he said amiably. “Jess is married and has her own home. No, since my wife died and our two sons moved to the east coast, I live alone.”

Lora gestured at his bandaged foot, which lay outside the covers. “How are you going to handle getting around by yourself?”

“Crutches.”

“They can be difficult to get the hang of.”

“Well, Jess will come by during the day and I’ll be okay at night.”

Genuinely concerned, she wrinkled her brow. “You’ll be all alone? What if there’s a fire? How will you manage by yourself? You should hire someone to stay with you. It’s dangerous to be alone.”

“Sounds as if you’re in cahoots with my doctor and my sister, young lady.”

“My name is Lora Gifford,” she said, shifting the arrangement to her left arm and offering her right hand. She’d taken an immediate liking to this man and had big plans for his future that required him getting back on his feet ASAP. Her mother loved to dance.