LITMIR.BIZ

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They heard a clatter of footsteps outside the door. “My boys are here.”

      “I’ll get out of your way.”

      Kade moved past her and opened the door to his friends. Brodie opened her mouth to say a quick hello, but her words died at the looks on their faces. They pushed past her to flank Kade, looking pale. Their eyes were rimmed with red.

      “What’s wrong?” Kade demanded, his voice harsh.

      Brodie watched as they each put a hand on Kade’s shoulders. Her stomach plummeted to the floor at their expressions; she recognized them instantly. They were the bearers of bad news, the harbingers of doom. They were going to tell him his life was about to do a 180.

      She’d seen the same expression on her aunt’s face when Poppy had told her that her parents, her best friend, Chelsea, and her old friend but new boyfriend Jay were dead, along with six other people, in a nightmarish accident. They’d been on their way to a dinner to celebrate her twentieth birthday and apparently life had thought being the lone survivor of a multivehicle crash was a suitable gift.

      Why was I left behind?

      “Tell. Me.” Kade’s snap brought her back to his hall, to the three men looking like the ground was shifting under their feet.

      “Kade, Vernon had a heart attack this morning,” Quinn said, his words stilted. “He didn’t make it, bud.”

      She saw the flash of denial on Kade’s face, the disbelief, and she quietly slipped out the door. Grief was an intensely personal and private emotion and the last thing he needed was a stranger in his space, in his home. Besides, she was still dealing with her own sorrow, still working through losing her own family, her closest friend and the man whom she’d thought she’d marry.

      Sorry, Kade, she thought. So, so sorry. A long time ago she’d had a brave heart and a free spirit and she hoped the news of his friend’s death wouldn’t change the core of who he was, like the same kind of news had changed her.

      But life had changed her and she wasn’t that free-spirited girl anymore. She walked back into her real life knowing she certainly wasn’t the type of woman who could handle sexy, bachelor millionaires tempting her to walk on the wild side.

      Six months later

      Brodie typed her client’s answer into her tablet, hit Enter and looked up. Dammit, she thought, instantly recognizing the interest in his eyes. This appointment was already running overtime and she really didn’t want to fend off his advances.

      This was one downside to dealing with male clients in her matchmaking business. Because she was reasonably attractive they thought they would skip the sometimes tedious process of finding a mate and go straight for her.

      “What type of woman are you looking for?” she asked, deliberately playing with the massive-but-fake emerald-and-diamond monstrosity on the ring finger of her left hand.

      “Actually, I was going to say a tiny blonde with a nice figure but I’m open to other possibilities. Maybe someone who looks like you...who is you. I have tickets for the opera. Do you like opera?”

      Ack. She hated opera and she didn’t date her clients. Ever. She didn’t date at all. Brodie sent him a tight smile and lifted her hand to show him her ring. “I’m flattered but I’m engaged. Tom is a special ops soldier, currently overseas.”

      Last week Tom had been Mike and he’d been an ace detective. The week before he’d been Jace and a white-water adventurer. What could she say? She liked variety in her fake fiancés.

      Brodie took down the rest of his information, ignored his smooth attempts to flirt with her despite her engagement to Tom and insisted on paying for coffee. She watched as he left the café and climbed into a low-slung Japanese sports car. When she was certain he was out of view, she dropped her head to the table and gently banged her forehead.

      “Another one asking for a date?” Jan, the owner of the coffee shop, dropped into the chair across from Brodie and patted her head. Despite Brodie trying to keep her distance from the ebullient older woman, Jan had, somehow, become her friend. She rarely confided in anybody—talking about stuff and discussing the past changed nothing, so what was the point?—but Jan didn’t let it bother her. Like her great-aunt Poppy, Jan nagged Brodie to open up on a fairly regular basis.

      Funny, Brodie had talked more to Kade in three weeks than she had to anybody—Jan and Poppy included—for the last decade.

      Well, that thought had barreled in from nowhere. Brodie rarely, if ever, thought about Kade Webb during daylight hours. Memories of him, his kiss, his hard body under her hands, were little gifts she gave to herself at night, in the comfort of the dark.

      “Being asked out on dates is an occupational hazard.” Brodie stretched out her spine and rolled her head on her shoulders in an effort to work out the kinks.

      Jan pushed a pretty pink plate holding a chocolate chip cookie across the table. “Maybe this will make you feel better.”

      It would, but Brodie knew there was something other than sympathy behind Jan’s fat-and-sugar-laden gesture. “What do you want?”

      “My cousin is in her thirties and is open to using a matchmaker. I suggested you.”

      Brodie scowled at her friend, but she couldn’t stop herself from breaking off the corner of the cookie and lifting it to her mouth. Flavors exploded on her tongue and she closed her eyes in ecstasy. “Better than sex, I swear.”

      “Honey, if my cookies are better than sex, then you ain’t doing it right,” Jan replied, her voice tart. She leaned forward, her bright blue eyes inquisitive. “You having sex you haven’t told me about, Brodie?”

      She wished. The closest she’d come to sex was Kade Webb’s hot kiss six months ago, but sex itself? She thought back. Three or so years?

      She was pathetic.

      After taking another bite of the cookie, Brodie pulled her thoughts from her brief encounter with the CEO of the Mavericks professional ice hockey team and narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You know I only take men as my clients, Jan.”

      “Which is a stupid idea. You are halving your market,” Jan said, her business sense offended. But Brodie’s business model worked; Brodie dealt with men, while her associate Colin only had women clients. They pooled their databases and office resources. As a result, they were doing okay. In the hectic twenty-first century—the age of the internet, icky diseases and idiots—singles wanted help wading through the dating cesspool.

      “Women are too emotional, too picky and too needy. Too much drama,” Brodie told Jan. Again.

      Brodie snapped off another piece of cookie and wrinkled her nose when she realized she’d eaten most of it. She was a sucker for chocolate. And cookies. Thank the Lord she had a fast metabolism. She still ran every day, but never in the morning.

      “The men don’t really want to date me. They just like the attention I pay them. They tend to forget they are paying me to pay attention. And I know far too much about them too soon.”

      An alert on her tablet told her she’d received a new email. Jan pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll let you get back to work. Do you want another cup of coffee?”

      Brodie already had caffeine-filled veins but why should that matter? “Please.”

      She swiped her finger across her tablet and accessed her inbox. She’d received quite a few messages when she’d been dealing with Mr. Suave but only one made her pulse accelerate.

      Your donation to the auction at the Mavericks’ Charity Ball filled the subject line and all the moisture in her mouth disappeared. Jeez, she’d had a brief encounter with Kade months ago, shouldn’t she have forgotten about him by now?

      Unfortunately Kade wasn’t the type of man who was easily forgotten. And, if she had to be truthful, she still missed those early-morning runs when it seemed like they had the park to themselves.

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