I just want the room. No love, no perfect woman.”
“I’m sorry.” Maggie held up the keys, they swayed like a pendulum between them. “But you can’t have one without the other.”
“I already gave your grandmother a hefty deposit.”
“No problem. I can get it back to you by the end of the day if you decide not to take me up on my offer.”
For one long moment Nick could only stare. Then he ground out, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “And when I find you Miss Right, you’ll become my walking advertisement. You’ll tell everyone, especially the men in this town, that coming to Maggie’s Matches was the best thing you ever did.”
“This is blackmail.”
“Yes, I guess it is. But my business needs a leg up—of the male variety. And though I hate to do it, desperate times…”
Forget about the teeth-rattling slam of Harley hitting asphalt, Nick thought. This conversation was like walking across a field of land mines. He had no clue when the next bomb was about to go off. He didn’t like being blackmailed or coerced. No one pushed him into something he didn’t want to do anymore.
He’d had enough of that growing up with a workaholic father who’d planned his future from the age of five. Nick hadn’t stuck around to follow that empty course, and there was no way he was going to follow Maggie’s.
“Just to sweeten the deal,” she began encouragingly. “I’ll even throw in board to go along with that room.”
He rubbed his jaw, his gaze traveling her face. She was brimming with anticipation, like a little girl on Christmas morning. Adorable as hell and just as hard to resist. But, shoot, he wasn’t a damn puppy in a box for her to open and show off. He wasn’t looking for the love of his life. He wasn’t looking to settle down and get caged.
“Listen, Maggie, I’d like to help you out, here, but I’m really not interested in getting involved.”
“I understand,” she said slowly.
“Good.” He nodded, relief casually passing through him. “So, can we get back to talking about—” He stopped short, studying her expression. She had a look in her eyes. Pity or…or what? Oh, hell. She was obviously abandoning blackmail for a new tactic. “What is it exactly that you understand?”
“That you must be a pretty scared and lonely man.”
She turned and walked out of the room, leaving him standing there, his jaw growing tighter by the second. Females. They provoked you, and you knew exactly what they were up to, yet you couldn’t stop yourself from following them into the other room and trying to convince them how wrong they were.
“I’m not scared of a damn thing!” There it was. What a sucker.
“Then what’s the problem, Nick?” She stood by the front door, her back to him, her trim silhouette outlined in the sun. “I mean, it’s a perfect solution. You get the room, and I get some free advertising.” She glanced over her shoulder, a brow raised in challenge. “That is, unless your bad attitude scares the ladies away.”
If he clenched his teeth any tighter they were going to crack. “I’m not looking for Miss Right. I don’t want—”
“To go out with a bunch of beautiful women?”
“I can do that on my own.” And he did. Nick loved women. The way they looked, acted, smelled. He even liked the strange little coy fronts they put up to catch a man’s interest. Above all, he respected them and made certain they enjoyed themselves when they were with him. He was always honest about what he could and couldn’t offer. Freedom. No complications.
The two things that Maggie Conner sought to destroy.
But, man, he mused, his gaze moving up the length of her as she turned to face him. She sure was equipped to change a man’s mind on the subject of commitment.
Exhaling heavily, he racked his brain for a solution. Maybe he could find some other place to stay. A shack on the beach. Or he could rent a trailer and pretend he was seventy-five and retired. No, that was no good. Too small, too cramped. There was always the unpalatable option of showing up on his father’s Italian marble doorstep, listening to the sonorous tones of an overpriced door chime. Anthony Kaplan was practically itching to get ahold of Nick so he could attempt to convince him he’d changed—that the older man’s accident a few years ago had caused him to realize that he suddenly wanted to be a father.
Nick narrowed his gaze at Little Miss Matchmaker. Not one of those options sounded remotely reasonable. He released a weighty breath. So, he had to go out on some dates…he wasn’t about to fall in love with any of them.
“How long?” he asked.
Maggie’s smile was as bright as a twelve-year-old college grad. “Four weeks. Just in time to put your glowing quote in the full-page newspaper ad announcing my grand opening.”
The salty air whipped around them. Four weeks of discomfort for six months of meals and a place to drop at the end of the day. He didn’t usually make quick decisions. A good, long ride on his bike was what he needed.
Nick glanced over at Maggie. She didn’t look like a woman willing to give him time to mull things over. Nope. She was ready to send him out among the wolves right now.
Her eyes sparkled, and she bit her lower lip loosely, seductively and—surely—unconsciously. His body tightened in response. He was damn sure that he wasn’t going to fall in love with any of Maggie’s blind dates, but in that moment he knew that he’d just fallen in lust with his new roommate.
“All right, Maggie.” He exhaled sharply and stuck out his hand. “You got a deal. Let’s prove each other wrong.”
Later that day Maggie sat at the edge of the swimming pool at the Santa Flora Retirement Village. With her feet dangling in the cool water, she watched as her grandma’s ivory swim cap surfaced and sank with the steady rhythm of the breaststroke. Maggie shook her head and smiled. At seventy-two the woman had more energy than she knew what to do with—not to mention more pluck.
The older woman’s red cardigan lay in Maggie’s lap, and instinctively Maggie lifted it to her nose and inhaled deeply. Lilacs. It was her grandma’s favorite scent. Even the slightest trace of that fragrance took her back to her childhood. Maggie, her mother and her grandma all living together in the same house that she lived in now. Sitting side by side on the backyard’s cool cement steps, laughing at the mountain of a watermelon that clung tenaciously on the vine in the garden they’d planted together. Two contented widows and one thoughtful child. They’d been the Three Musketeers. Then, when Maggie was nine years old, her mother had died. And then there had been just two.
“It goes over your shoulders, dear. Not up your nose,” her grandma chided as she swam toward her.
Kitty Conner could always be counted on to make Maggie laugh. But today Maggie didn’t feel much like laughing. She had a bone to pick with her grandma. Her new roommate was on his way over to her house, moving his things into his room, likely to drop off his toiletries and manly scented soap in the bathroom that they would share.
Maggie’s
