The Matchmaker

“I am, Mama. It’s not far, you know.”

Fiona lowered her gaze to the wicker basket filled with cinnamon, a dozen eggs and a cone of fresh sugar that Molly had tucked beneath her arm. As though her youngest daughter had never spoken, she continued, “And with a heavy bundle like that, too? Why, it just won’t do. I’ll send for Ambrose to come drive you in the newspaper’s wagon.”

“Mama, thank you, but I—”

“Not while she’s wearing that blue gingham of mine, I hope!” Out of breath, Sarah Crabtree hurried downstairs with an armload of schoolbooks for her students, eyeballing the gown Molly had filched from their shared bureau this morning. “Papa’s wagon will make it filthy in no time. Do you know how difficult it is to wash out printer’s ink?”

“I promise to take care of it, Sarah,” Molly protested. “As for the wagon—” she faced her mother again, and was dismayed to find Fiona reaching toward her head with a gleam in her eyes—one Molly recognized perfectly well as an uncontrollable desire to redo the chignon she’d already set in her hair. “—please don’t bother Ambrose. I don’t mind walking.”

“You’d best take a shawl, then.” Grace Crabtree, pink cheeked from an early-morning bicycling jaunt with her ladies’ group, paused at the parlor’s entrance, then headed upstairs. Her new custom-made bicycling costume flounced cheerily all the way up the steps. “It’s brisk outside this shortly after sunrise, Moll.”

Molly sighed. A moment later, the family’s cook bustled in from the kitchen at the rear of the house, carrying a napkin-wrapped piece of toasted bread.

She held it toward Molly. “You forgot your breakfast.”

Exasperated, Molly stared at the strawberry jam gleaming atop the toasted bread. To be sure, she loved her family. But just once, she wanted to be treated as though she knew enough to dress properly, confront the weather appropriately, get herself to her shop efficiently…and eat when she needed to. Why couldn’t anyone see that she was a capable woman in her own right?

It was as though she’d never grown up at all. Her family still treated Molly like the four-year-old who’d danced with an imaginary friend. Like the nine-year-old who’d lost countless gloves and hats during daydreaming walks to school. Like the fourteen-year-old who’d expressed an urgent desire to become a famous stage actress and had lost all her meager nest egg buying a talent potion from a persuasive drummer. It was true that Molly was sometimes given to flights of fancy. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t take care of herself, given the opportunity.

Now, though, despite her efforts, Molly had begun to wonder whether that opportunity would ever arrive.

“Thank you,” she murmured, electing to take the bread rather than begin yet another battle she couldn’t win. “Now, I really must be going. Good morning, everyone!”

Juggling her wicker basket of supplies under one arm and the unwanted breakfast in her other hand, Molly stepped toward the parlor doorway to retrieve her bonnet. Almost there. The carved oak of the front door beckoned her, promising escape to a world of her design, only a few feet away.

Her father’s face popped into view as he rounded the banister and leapt from the staircase with his characteristic energy. Shrieking in surprise, Molly jumped. Her basket tumbled. The toasted bread flew upward, then came down again with a swiftness that defied even her father’s speedy movements.

It landed on the shoulder of Adam Crabtree’s favorite worsted wool suit coat. Jam side down.

It was just another typical morning in the Crabtree residence. Mayhem, meddling, flying bread, and all.

Molly was elbow deep in the first batch of her special-recipe cinnamon buns when the bell jangled above her shop door. She looked up, squinting against the early-morning sunlight. At the sight of the man standing on the threshold, her heartbeat quickened.

Goodness—a real live customer!

“Mornin’, Miss Crabtree,” he said politely, doffing his rolled-brim bowler.

Holding it between his restless hands, he looked around, taking in her shop’s floral wallpapered walls, trim blue wainscoting, and shelves filled with napkin-lined wicker baskets waiting to be outfitted with cookies or tea cakes or lemon-raisin pies. From behind her work counter, Molly gave him her best, most welcoming smile. Considering that he was her first customer of the week, and it was already Thursday morning, she couldn’t risk offending him with anything less.

“Come right on in,” she said, inclining her head in what she hoped was a professional-seeming way. It was so hard to tell, when all she had was her father’s own jocular example to go by.

He came inside, letting the door swing shut behind him.

Molly wiped her floury hands on her apron and gestured at the stools she’d optimistically arranged along the work counter. “What can I get you today? I have a small batch of cinnamon buns just about to go in the oven, if you’d care to wait a few minutes for a fresh one. I also have fig gems, apple fritters and a very nice batch of snickerdoodle cookies planned for this afternoon.”

Tentatively he shuffled closer. “That sounds right fine. I ain’t had a snickerdoodle since I left the States.”

At the eager expression on his face, Molly could have kicked herself. She’d given the last three snickerdoodles to Ambrose this morning, for all his troubles in driving the wagon alongside her while she walked to the shop, and hadn’t yet had time to make more. Because her business hadn’t quite turned prosperous yet, it was necessary to make very, very, small batches of everything.

This man looked capable of devouring an entire dozen snickerdoodles, a feat that would have improved her fortunes for the day considerably. Hoping to cultivate his patronage, Molly smiled at him as she went on kneading her cinnamon bun dough.

“The fritters are quite good, too,” she said. “Nobody else in town has baked goods quite like mine, Mr….?”

“Oh. Walter. Thomas Walter,” the man stammered. His face flamed in colors vibrant enough to rival the changing oak leaves outside her window. “I—I’m sorry, Miss Crabtree, but I ain’t come to buy anything today.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.” He looked abashed, probably at her undoubtedly crestfallen expression. “I came because Mr. Copeland asked me to fetch you to the lumber mill this mornin’.”

“Copeland’s lumber mill? Why, I was planning on going out there later today as usual, but I—”

She stopped herself before she could admit the truth: Molly had almost decided to end her daily jaunts to the edge of town. More and more, the notion of selling her baked goods to the lumbermen who worked there seemed an impossible goal. Which was a shame, truly. More than half the men in town worked at Copeland’s mill. Securing them as customers would give her bakeshop a reliable source of revenue. Or would have, if not for…

Marcus Copeland. The mill’s owner—and her nemesis.

Molly meant that good-naturedly, of course. Truly, she did. But the man was a constant obstacle to her business goals for her bakery. Which was funny, really, because if anyone needed something sweet in his life, it was that stick-in-the-mud Marcus.

She’d discovered as much upon learning that he’d apparently given orders for his men not to leave the mill’s premises until the workday was done. By then, all his men wanted was dinner, not sweets. Now, after all that, he wanted to see her? And hadn’t even bothered to make the request himself, in person?

More than likely, the arrogant Mr. Copeland was only summoning her now to order her to abandon her temporary, and hopeful, post outside the lumber mill. Once and for all. The very idea put Molly’s back up—especially after the morning she’d just had.

“I was planning on going out there later today, as usual,” she repeated to Mr. Walter sweetly. “But I would be delighted to visit earlier, instead. Just as soon as I finish this batch of cinnamon buns. Would you tell Mr. Copeland that, please?”

“Yes’m.” Jerking his gaze from the front of her dress, Thomas Walter slapped on his hat and hurried out the door.

Left alone, Molly ducked her head. She examined the front of her borrowed, perfectly ordinary blue gingham dress. When she saw nothing there of interest—no wayward splatters of oil from fritter frying, no blobs of sticky date filling from gem making, merely the usual sprinkling of flour—she narrowed her gaze. Evidently the snickerdoodle-fancying Mr. Walter had an eye for more than sweets.

He had an eye for bosoms, too.

Not unlike many of the men in Morrow Creek, Molly had noticed to her chagrin. Wherever she went, the town bachelors seemed to glue their gazes to her bodice. Their appreciation might have moved her more had she not recognized it as completely superficial—not unlike the Crabtree sisters’ admiration of a new hat they’d like to own or a pair of buttoned-up brogans they’d like to possess.

Being equated with a desirable possession did not appeal to Molly—however much the men in town seemed oblivious to her feelings on the matter.

She wanted to find a beau who appreciated all of her. Fortunately, her mother and father understood that. They hadn’t pressed her into taking up with the occasional would-be beaus who’d called on her. Adam and Fiona Crabtree’s sometimes-radical views offered all their daughters the freedom to wait for a loving marriage, not a union spurred by bosomy interest. Unfortunately, the men inclined toward such an arrangement did not appear to live in Morrow Creek, at least in Molly’s experience.

It was lucky, she decided as she hastened to roll out the springy, yeast-scented dough, that the matchmaker was working so diligently to pair up the men with suitable wives.

Very lucky, indeed.

Rapidly Molly spread the dough’s surface with softened butter. She sprinkled on brown sugar and cinnamon, then added her special secret ingredient, making plans for her encounter with Mr. Copeland all the while. When a strategy finally occurred to her, she smiled.

After all, Molly reminded herself, there was no call to be cowardly. Marcus Copeland was only a man. A man, oddly enough, who seemed immune to her dresses’ allure, but a man nonetheless. Once she’d dealt with him face-to-face, how much trouble could he possibly be?

As Marcus might have expected of a woman, she was late.

Annoyed despite his determination not to be, he turned away from the edge of the lumber mill yard, where he’d been watching for Molly Crabtree to arrive. According to Thomas, one of his longtime buckers, she had agreed to come to the lumber mill nearly two hours ago. Where was she?

Two men walked past, carrying a crosscut saw between them. This was the third trip they’d made across the yard, Marcus knew. Other men loitered nearby, some bearing double-blade axes or sledgehammers and others propping their weight against the springboards they should have been using to work with. Instead, far too many of his men were spending their time waiting for Miss Crabtree to arrive.

Just like him.

Damnation.

Marcus couldn’t put his plan into motion until Molly Crabtree got there. It required the cooperation of his men, which was why they loitered about when the sun was nearly overhead. For the tenth time that day, Marcus removed his hat, shoved his hand through his hair and wished he’d never agreed to help the Morrow Creek Men’s Club discover the identity of the matchmaker.

If he’d known it would take this much time from his day, he’d never have swallowed the notion at all.

“There’s the signal, boss!” one of the sawyers yelled, pointing down the well-tended dirt path leading toward town. “She must be comin’!”

Sure enough, Marcus glimpsed a red bandanna being waved wildly between the swaying pine tree boughs. At the sight of the signal he’d instructed his foreman to use once he spotted Miss Crabtree headed their way, his belly lurched with something very close to excitement.

Impatience, he told himself sternly. It was impatience he felt to have this chowder-headed business behind him, not excitement.

Marcus was still reminding himself of that fact when the woman came into view, wearing a close-fitting dress and a bonnet nearly as enormous as the one Deputy Winston had drawn on the caricature at the saloon last night. For an instant, his thoughts lingered on the other, rounder, softer and equally impressive attributes he’d given Miss Crabtree in the picture. Marcus wondered if as little exaggeration was involved there as had been involved with her hat.

Shoving that enticing mystery aside, he turned to give his men the second signal. Marcus raised his hand, prepared to gesture with it…and realized that not one of his men was looking at him. They all stood with stupid, eager grins, slack jawed and glassy-eyed, watching Molly’s feminine, side-to-side swish as she made her way down the path toward the lumber mill.

They were hopeless.

So was Marcus, by the time she recognized him and ran the last few steps toward him. Lord, but the woman was a sight to behold.

Her face was alight with good humor, pink cheeked and delicately shaped beneath the brim of her flower-bedecked hat. A few tendrils of honey-colored hair had escaped its confines to tease her lips, drawing his attention to their tempting fullness. Sucking in a deep breath, Marcus took an instant to prepare, then treated himself to an up-close view of her fine woman’s figure in that waist-hugging dress.

No wonder his men had gone slack jawed.

For the life of him, in that moment Marcus couldn’t imagine a single reason why Molly Crabtree, as delightful looking a female as he’d ever seen, had grown into a spinster. How, he wondered to himself, could it be that no man had ever stuck a ring on her finger and made her his own?

Then…she opened her mouth.

“Morning, Mr. Copeland,” she said brightly. “Beautiful day, isn’t it? I’m so glad we’ve finally had this chance to meet face-to-face. Why, I don’t think we’ve ever said two words to each other, and that’s after you’ve been living here in Morrow Creek for the past two years! Can you imagine that? I guess we’ve just never had a moment to spare, what with you working on your lumber mill, and me working on my various ventures. Busy, busy, busy. That’s us.”

She paused for breath. For an instant, Marcus believed her chatter had come to an end. But then she looped her arm companionably in his, started walking them both toward the two-story lumber mill behind them, and just went on.

“I’m so happy you invited me here today. I just know we can come to an agreeable arrangement. My baked goods are unlike any others in town, you know. They’re positively unique.”

Marcus nodded, too distracted by the pleasurable feel of her slender arm cradled in his to offer much more to the conversation. She smelled spicy, he thought, and sweet. Like pumpkin pie, or gingerbread. Cinnamon, Marcus identified after a moment. Cinnamon and sugar.

Mmm.

He had a sudden impossible yet wholly irresistible image of himself together with Miss Molly. Alone. In his imagination, Marcus unfastened the first tiny pearled buttons on her dress. As he opened her gown, he kissed the warm, creamy skin he’d revealed at her neck. She tasted of spices as delicious as any he’d sampled…and of some, more exotic still.

Transfixed, Marcus let himself be led toward the shade of a stand of pine trees a few feet from the mill’s main entrance. Beside him, Molly struggled with the covered wicker basket she’d brought. Marcus chivalrously helped her lower it to a ponderosa stump.

Freed of her burden, she rummaged through its contents. Her movements sent her blue-checked skirts swishing against her legs, and the clump of men who’d followed them pushed closer. As one, their combined gazes dropped to her stocking-clad ankles.

A stern glance from Marcus had them all busily examining axes, tightening suspender straps and looking purposefully toward the towering pines beyond. With a shake of his head, Marcus dismissed them to await the next phase of his plan.

“I’m glad you could come on such short notice,” he told Molly when they were alone again. “I don’t often do things without planning first, but I—”

“Oh, but you should! The things you don’t plan for are often the most enjoyable of all.”

The very notion made Marcus frown. Fail to plan? Unthinkable. “Be that as it may, I did have some ideas in mind for us today.”

She quit fussing with the basket she’d brought and looked up. Her eyes were blue, he noticed inanely. As though that mattered a whit to discovering if she was really the secret matchmaker.

“You do?” Molly asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, then.” She smiled up at him, and turned so they faced each other fully. “I guess you’d better tell me what you have in mind. For us to do together, I mean.”

Together. Suddenly, all manner of unified activities occurred to Marcus. Things they could do together—very close together. As though guessing his thoughts, Molly lowered her gaze coquettishly, encouraging him to lower his gaze, too…all the way to those remarkable feminine curves of hers. Lord Almighty. Was Molly Crabtree flirting with him? It would seem so.

’Twould be fitting, if she were truly the matchmaker.

The matchmaker. Reminded of his mission, Marcus smiled back at her. He was no mere boy, to be dumbfounded by a feminine smile and a handful of enticing words.

Was he?

Hell, no. With new determination, Marcus cleared his throat and got on with his plan. “I couldn’t help but notice you outside the lumber mill yard these past weeks,” he began.

It wasn’t strictly true. His foreman, Smith, had enlightened Marcus about Molly’s continued vigil outside the mill yard, and the rest of his plan had sprung from there. Looking at her now, though, Marcus couldn’t imagine how he’d missed the sight of her.

Had business success turned him blind to the appeal of a pretty woman? Suddenly ill at ease, he wondered if his friends in the men’s club were right, and he needed to socialize more.

“If you mean to make me leave that spot,” Molly interrupted, turning back to her basket with shoulders gone suddenly stiff and defensive, “I’ll have you know that the road is public land, and so is its edge. You can’t force me away from there. Why, the whole town would probably be in an uproar if you so much as tried.”

“Hold on. There’s no call to get riled up. I never said I was asking you to leave, Miss Crabtree—”

“Molly, please.” Her shoulders relaxed, slim and delicately curved beneath the blue checked fabric of her dress.

“Molly.” He liked the sound of it. The intimacy of it. “Friends ought to call each other by their first names, don’t you think so?” She rose, holding a napkin-wrapped bundle in her small, elegant-looking hands.

“Uh.” He experienced an unprecedented urge to take those hands in his and slowly pull her closer. With a frown of confusion, Marcus wrestled down that impulse and settled for answering her question instead. “Yes, I do. Especially if you agree to the proposition I have in mind.”

“Proposition?”

She raised her eyebrows, looking intrigued and not half as offended as she might have been, had Molly guessed at the kind of bawdy thoughts that had been going through his mind.

“Yes. I want you to bring some of your baked goods to my lumber mill each day—at a time we agree on, of course—for sale to my men. It seems they’ve noticed your post outside the yard, too. To a man, they all clamored to have your sweets.”

A smile even more dazzling than her earlier one lit Molly’s face. “Truly?” she whispered.

“Truly.” Liar, his conscience jabbed. This was no more than a ploy, and Marcus knew it. It’s for a good cause, he reminded himself, and went on. “So I agreed.”

“Why, Mr. Copeland!”

“Marcus,” he insisted. Being on friendly terms with her could only improve his chances of discovering if she was the matchmaker, he reasoned. And of ending all this pretense quickly.

“Marcus, then. You’re just a big old softie at heart, aren’t you? That’s so sweet! My word, I’d never have guessed that a man so…well, so very businesslike as you would treat his men so finely. I’m impressed, truly I am.”

Her constant chatter made his head throb. Putting a hand to his temple, Marcus said gruffly, “My men fell more timber when they’re treated fairly. It’s just good business.”

Molly’s impish grin told him she believed not a word of it. “So was calling out Nellie Baxter, so you could sample her baked goods, I reckon,” she said, naming the owner of Morrow Creek’s other, more established bakery. “I passed by her on the road on my way here. Nothing else lies out this way except your lumber mill.”

Marcus tried to look abashed. He made a mental note to pay Smith a bonus for his suggestion that they pretend to consider the other bakery, lest Molly become suspicious of his sudden summons. “Well, now. Every man likes to do a little sampling, before deciding what’s right for him.”

Her eyes narrowed, fixed on the bundle she held as she unwrapped the napkin. “According to the matchmaker, it’s thinking like that that gets a man into trouble.”

Interest sparked inside him. “The matchmaker?”

“Surely you’ve heard of the matchmaker. The whole town’s abuzz with news of all that’s been accomplished.” As though that fact were of little consequence, Molly finished her unwrapping, revealing a plump, golden-brown cinnamon bun. Crystals of sugar sparkled in the sunlight. “But all that aside, you’ve asked me here to discuss business, and that’s what I intend to do.”

“Certainly.” And when we’re finished, I intend to ask you all about the matchmaker. More and more, it seemed as though Molly knew something about the subject. Something she wasn’t telling…

“Here.” She offered him the cinnamon bun, along with an encouraging smile. “Once you try my goodies, you’ll never even think about anyone else’s.”

Marcus nearly groaned. Did the woman have no sense of what ribald words like that could do to a man?

Evidently, she did not. Neither did she realize what he was truly up to. It was all the luckier for him, Marcus told himself. He’d be finished with this business and back to work in no time.

Putting one hand behind his back as he leaned forward to accept the cinnamon bun, he signaled for his men to begin the next step of his plan. Like magic, lumbermen of all ages and sizes surged forward. They encircled him and Molly, waving fistfuls of money and declaring raging hunger that only her baked goods could assuage.

In the midst of it all, a startled-looking Molly gazed in wonder at the ruckus surrounding her. Then, with a beaming smile, she began selling napkin-wrapped bundles identical to the one she’d given Marcus.

In no time at all, she was left with an empty basket, a fistful of money and an expression of gratitude that, when she turned it on Marcus, made his heart lurch painfully.

“Same time tomorrow?” he made himself ask.

“Yes, indeed!” Molly replied. Still seeming slightly bedazzled, she gathered her things, bade him goodbye and made her way back down the path toward town.

She was hooked.

Indisputably.

But it was Marcus, to his consternation, who felt as though he’d been walloped over the head unawares. Something told him that proving Molly Crabtree was the matchmaker wouldn’t be as simple a process as he’d expected…and neither would making sure he didn’t fall prey to her charms, in the process.

Chapter Three

“I think it’s a mistake, Molly,” Sarah said. “I just can’t reason out why a man like Marcus Copeland would subsidize your bakery business this way.”

“Maybe he has a sweet tooth,” Molly countered.

“Somehow, I doubt it.”

“Perhaps he regrets ignoring my efforts till now.”

“Not hardly.”

“I suppose he may have heard of my baked goods,” Molly mused, “and wanted to try them for himself?”

“Well…” Sarah hesitated, then appeared to think better of disagreeing. “Perhaps. My point is, I think you should be careful. There must be more here than meets the eye.”