Marie Ferrarella - Christmastime Courtship

“Concerned, frankly,” the other woman admitted.

Recrossing the room, Theresa held out the cup of tea. “You’re worried about Miranda, aren’t you?”

Her friend nearly dropped the cup Theresa had handed her. Some hot liquid sloshed over the side. “How did you know?” she asked, surprised.

“To begin with, you asked me about my so-called ‘sideline,’” Theresa answered, employing a whimsical term for the labor that had become near and dear not just to her heart, but to Maizie’s and Celia’s hearts, as well.

Theresa and the two women she had been best friends with since the third grade had weathered all of life’s highs and lows together. The highs included marriage, children and the successful businesses all three had started in the second half of their lives and were currently running.

The lows included all three becoming widows. But she, Maizie and Celia had learned to push on past the pain. After all, they each had children to provide for. They were determined to lead productive, fulfilling lives. And above all else, they were always, always there for one another.

Their matchmaking had begun slowly, by finding matches for their own children. That was to be the end of it, but matching up the right two people brought such satisfaction with it, they’d decided to try their hand at it again.

And again.

With each successful match, their secondary vocation just seemed to take wings. They loved the businesses they had begun and nurtured individually, but there was something exceedingly fulfilling about bringing together two people who otherwise might never have found one another.

Two people who clearly belonged together.

It looked as if the adventure was about to begin again, Theresa thought.

“Tell me about Miranda,” she coaxed, taking her seat once more. “How is she? Is she still as wonderfully generous and bighearted as ever?”

Jeannine thought of her only daughter—her only living child—whose career path had been chosen at the age of ten. “Yes—and that’s the problem. She’s so busy giving of herself, working at the children’s hospital, the women’s shelter and the city’s animal shelter, that she doesn’t have any time to focus on herself. Don’t get me wrong, Theresa. I’m prouder of Miranda than I can possibly say, but, well, I’m really afraid that if she keeps going like this, she’s eventually going to wind up alone.” Jeannine sighed. “I know that sounds like I’m being small-minded and meddling, but—”

Theresa cut her short. “Trust me, I know the feeling,” she assured her. “We’re mothers, Jeannine. It comes with the territory.” With her business going full steam ahead the way it was these days, she could use a little diversion. “Tell me, do you have any idea what Miranda’s dating life is like?”

“I have a very clear idea,” Jeannine replied. “It’s nonexistent these days.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she confirmed sadly. “The problem is that no man can compete with her full-time job, as well as all her volunteer work. Besides, what man wants to come in fourth?”

“Definitely not the kind of man we would want for your daughter,” Theresa said with conviction.

Jeannine looked confused. “What are you saying?”

Theresa smiled as she began making plans. “I’m saying we need to change Miranda’s focus a little.”

“So you do think there’s hope?” A glimmer of optimism entered the other woman’s hazel eyes.

Theresa leaned over and patted her friend’s hand. “Jeannine,” she said confidently, “there is always hope.”

Chapter One

“Ladies, we have work to do,” Theresa announced the moment she entered Maizie Sommer’s house.

She strode into Maizie’s family room with the vigor of a woman half her age. Matchmaking projects always got her adrenaline going, creating a level of enthusiasm within her even greater than her usual line of work did—and it went without saying that she dearly loved her catering business.

“We certainly do,” Cecilia Parnell agreed.

Already seated at the card table—their usual gathering place whenever they were discussing their newest undertaking in the matchmaking arena—Celia turned to look at her. “This one is going to be a real challenge for us.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Theresa protested, gracefully slipping into the chair that was set up between Celia and Maizie. “I don’t think it’ll be that hard finding someone suitable.”

Taken aback, Celia looked quizzically at her old friend, who hadn’t called ahead with any details about the person she felt should be their latest project. “Wait, how would you know?”

“How would I know?” Theresa repeated incredulously. “Because I’ve known Miranda Steele ever since she was a little girl. She has this incredibly huge heart and she’s always trying to help everyone. Fix everyone,” Theresa emphasized, which was why she had come to think of the young woman as “the fixer” in recent years.

“Miranda?” Celia echoed, decidedly more confused than she’d initially been. “Maizie and I were talking about Colin when you walked in.”

It was Theresa’s turn to be confused. “Who’s Colin?” she asked, looking from Maizie to Celia.

“Police Officer Colin Kirby,” Celia clarified, adding, “our latest matchmaking project. His aunt Lily is a friend of mine and she came to talk to me on the outside chance that maybe I—actually we—could find someone for him.”

Without pausing, Celia launched into a brief version of the police officer’s backstory. “Lily took him in when her sister, Vanessa, a single mother, died in a car accident. Colin was fourteen at the time. She said that he’s a decent, hardworking young man who just shut down when he lost his mother. He enlisted in the Marines straight out of high school. When his tour of duty overseas ended, he was honorably discharged and immediately joined the police force in Los Angeles.”

Maizie appeared a little dubious. “Los Angeles is a little out of our usual territory,” she commented. “But I guess—”

“Oh no.” Celia quickly cut in. “He’s not in Los Angeles anymore, he’s in Bedford now. Lily talked him into moving back down here. Her health isn’t what it used to be and he’s her only living relative, so he made the move for her, which, in my book, shows you what sort of a person he is.

“The problem is,” Celia continued, “Lily says he’s really closed off, especially after what he saw during his tour overseas and as a police officer in one of the roughest areas in Los Angeles. To put it in Lily’s own words,” she concluded, “Colin needs someone to ‘fix him.’”

Smiling, Maizie shifted her gaze from Celia to Theresa. It was obvious that, in her estimation, they needed to look no further in either case. “You just said you have someone who likes to ‘fix’ people.”

But Celia was more skeptical than her friend. She needed more to work with. “Fix how?”

Theresa gave them Miranda’s background in a nutshell. “According to her mother, Miranda’s a pediatric nurse at Bedford Children’s Hospital who volunteers at a women’s shelter in her free time. She also volunteers at the city’s animal shelter and occasionally takes in strays until they can be placed in a permanent home.”

Maizie’s smile widened. “Ladies, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but this sounds to me like a match made in heaven. I’m assuming you both have a few more pertinent details that we can work with—like what these two look like and how old they are, for openers,” said the woman whose decision to find her daughter a suitable match had initially gotten what turned out to be their “side business” rolling eight years ago.

“Miranda’s thirty,” Theresa told them, producing a photograph on her smartphone that Jeannie had sent her, and holding it up for the others to see.