Myrna Mackenzie - Much Ado About Matchmaking

She had already done that. At a hotelier’s convention several years ago she’d met, dated and fallen for a man who claimed to want her, but who had really wanted her to help him with Uncle Gilbert’s business for his company. So…hadn’t she learned about men who pretended to care but didn’t? Hadn’t her mother been betrayed by her weakness for Emmaline’s faithless father? Emma wasn’t going to make those kinds of mistakes. If she wanted a baby, there were ways. Pursuing a man, especially one like Ryan who probably had women lining up to sleep with him, wasn’t one of the ways.

“Em?”

Emmaline realized that her fists were clenched and she was gritting her teeth. She looked at her cousin. “I’m sorry, Holly. What?” she asked, as casually as possible.

“Are you really okay? I just suggested that you might not like Ryan, and you practically disappeared on me. It’s not—that is, I saw him kiss you and the way you looked afterwards—”

Emmaline quickly shook her head. “That was nothing.”

Holly looked unconvinced. “Em…”

“Holly,” Emma managed to say. “Don’t even go there. You know that I gave up the hunt for the right man the way other women give up wearing their hair in pigtails. I’m beyond that stage of my life and I’m happy about it, so you don’t have to worry about me, okay?”

“You sound like you’re ancient.”

Emmaline managed a laugh. “Where men are concerned I am. But seriously, I’m sorry if I zoned out on you. There’s so much going on now that we’ve decided to renovate the hotel. I’ve been…brainstorming new decorating ideas,” she said, pointing to the book her uncle had unexpectedly given her the other day.

She was sorry about the white lie, but she truly didn’t want Holly to worry, which brought her to another thought. Holly’s recent engagement had made Emma realize she needed to concentrate on her own goals. She would be more alone now, and she did want a child, someone who would belong to her and to whom she would belong. Just as soon as Holly was married, Emma hoped to begin checking into the possibility of adoption.

“Em, can I ask a favor of you?” Holly said, a trace of worry in her voice, her pretty brow bunched.

Emmaline looked at her cousin, waiting.

“Ryan is like a brother to Chris. If there’s anything about him that’s bugging you…well…”

Immediately Emmaline felt like a jerk. Holly might be her cousin, but they had grown up like sisters. Emmaline had never let anyone hurt Holly, and she wasn’t about to start now, especially when she was the culprit.

Emmaline shook her head. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Ryan Benedict may be a bit more overt than I’m used to, but I’m very good at adjusting.”

She smiled at Holly to reassure her, but Emma still had reservations. Because if Ryan had noticed her reaction to him, he would know that she was susceptible to him, and that kind of knowledge was how her former boyfriend, John, had betrayed her. According to her mother’s diaries, being unable to control her feelings for her husband was why Danielle Carstairs hadn’t foreseen him abandoning her. So Emmaline had good reason to give Ryan Benedict a wide berth.

Still, Holly and Uncle Gilbert had every right to invite Ryan to stay here.

“Any moment now,” Holly said, glancing down at her watch. “In fact, I’ve go to go get ready. “Oh gosh, I’ve got to run. Chris just called on his cell and said that the trip from company headquarters in St. Louis hadn’t taken that long and they were running ahead of schedule. They’ll be here any moment now, and I’m not ready. I don’t want Chris to see me looking like a hag.”

Which was one thing her petite, blond cousin could never look like, Emmaline thought. But she was glad when Holly immediately left the room. It prevented her cousin from seeing the shocked expression on Emmaline’s face.

“Any minute now?” Emmaline whispered. That certainly didn’t give her any time to mentally prepare herself.

She blew out a frustrated breath and glanced down at the book she had carried upstairs: Shakespeare and His World. How thoughtful of Uncle Gilbert, he had a fondness for Shakespeare, and so did she.

Why did she have the feeling that Shakespeare would have been amused by her situation? “Well, I’ll just have to keep things light. I’ll pretend I’m one of Shakespeare’s actors and act as if nothing ever happened,” she said as she stepped into a drab black dress that she found in the back of her closet. Because she wasn’t about to let Ryan Benedict know that she even remembered touching him.

He was only here for work Ryan reminded himself as he maneuvered his black sedan down the long, curving driveway that led to the Messmer mansion just outside the hamlet of Avon Lake, Texas, not far from the coast. The fact that he was remembering Emmaline Carstairs’s lush pink lips right now didn’t change things.

“Hell,” he said.

Chris looked at him. “What?”

Ryan tightened his hands on the steering wheel. “Nothing. I just remembered something I forgot. It isn’t important.”

Which was the truth, because he had no interest at all in Emma Carstairs. He dated women who weren’t interested in anything beyond his bed and what he could buy for them. That was just fine. It was the way Benedicts had always done things, probably because Benedicts didn’t have hearts. They had ambition and a certain amount of cunning and brashness, and with that combination they generally got what they wanted.

Emotions could never be part of the deal, because when emotions were added to the mix, things got ugly and people got hurt. He’d watched too many people in his life get hurt, and he wasn’t going to be a part of that anymore.

He especially avoided serious types such as Emmaline appeared to be. If she chose to get involved with a man, she would expect things that someone like him could never give.

Not that that would happen. The minute he had stepped away from her after that simple kiss, she had frowned as if she didn’t like him. So why on earth was he thinking that he’d like to swoop in and actually taste her lips fully this time and feel her hand pressed against his chest again, risk breaking his rock-solid rules about women like her?

No question, this was going to be a long month.

“I don’t know what you’re brooding about, but leave the car here, and let’s go, Ryan,” Chris said. “I can’t wait to see Holly. It’s been hell without her these past few weeks. I thought October would never get here.”

Ryan smiled. “Spoken like a man firmly under the spell of a woman.” He pulled up to a long, brick walk-way that led past a plaza with fountains, glossy green shrubs and pink and white flowers to the cream-colored mansion’s colonnaded front entranceway. He climbed from the car, rubbing his knee to keep from limping too much. Long drives still affected the old wound.

Chris laughed. “Under the spell of a woman? Don’t knock it just because you’ve never been there.”

“I wouldn’t think of criticizing the fact that you’re in love,” Ryan told his friend. “Just because I’m not the emotional type doesn’t mean that I’m not happy for you.”

“I know. And thanks. I know this isn’t exactly an ideal situation for you, being here to work while I get to play and plan my wedding.”

Ryan shook his head. “That’s not a problem. You know that work is what makes me tick.” In fact, the army and work were the first places in life where he had made a difference, where his presence mattered. He’d gone without sleep to build this company with Chris, a friend from the service. C&R Technologies was his life now. It was what kept him content, so working while Chris pursued romantic interests didn’t bother him at all.