business. So why did this man make her heart beat like—well, like thundering cattle hooves?
Because he was possibly the handsomest man she had ever seen. Because his cowboy boots had stopped right in front of the bench. Right in front of her.
The cowboy stuck a hand in one of his back jeans pockets and rummaged around. Going to roll a cigarette, Karma thought. That’s what cowboys always did in the movies, and the movies were the only place she’d ever seen a cowboy. She watched spellbound, expecting him to extract a fistful of rolling papers and some tobacco. Instead he pulled out a red bikini bra. A very ample red bikini bra.
He stared at it and then, with a puzzled and pained look, he crumpled it up and stuffed it back in his pocket.
As Karma watched, her mind was racing faster than a spooked mustang. She wasn’t exactly thinking about this cowboy. What she was thinking was that things never came easily to her. Not graduating from college nor getting a master’s degree, and certainly not holding a job. People always thought that if you were a natural blonde, you were home free in life. Well, nothing was free, and at the moment, Karma didn’t have a real home. What she did have was a couple of possibly useless degrees in psychology, a generous great-uncle and a third or fourth chance to make something of herself.
She jumped up from her seat, feeling absurdly like a jack-in-the-box. She said to the cowboy, “Sir, I don’t suppose you could use the services of a matchmaker, could you?”
He looked her over. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. “That’s exactly what I need,” he said.
“You’ve come to the right place,” Karma said, praising whatever gods were in charge of lucky coincidences.
The cowboy angled his head toward the shiny new sign on the building behind them. “That your place?”
“Yes. As of two months ago.” She held her breath, half expecting him to walk away.
“The thing is, you’ll have to tell me something. Just what exactly is a yenta?”
Nate stood up. “It’s a Yiddish word. In Jewish communities, where marriages used to be arranged, you would go to a yenta that you trusted to find the right person for you. It’s a family tradition, like with my Sophie. She was a good businesswoman, Sophie was. Knew how to change with the times.”
“So Rent-a-Yenta is a dating service?” the cowboy asked politely. His voice was deep and rich, slightly raspy. It reminded Karma of Clint Eastwood’s but with considerably more expression.
Nate’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes, you might as well think of a yenta as someone who matches people up with their significance.”
The cowboy looked slightly confused.
Karma found her tongue. “He means their significant others,” she injected hastily.
“Hmm,” said the cowboy. He appeared to be thinking this over.
Two things occurred to Karma in the next stretch of thirty seconds or so. One was that she wanted to make a success of this matchmaking business that had so providentially and unexpectedly landed in her lap. The other was that this was a client—a real walking, talking, live client.
“Won’t you come into my office?” she asked, smooth as silk. Despite the bra in his pocket, this man needed her services. He’d said so.
“Sure,” said the cowboy. He had a way of smiling that lifted one corner of his mouth and cocked the opposite eyebrow, and the effect was intriguing.
“I’ll just amble along,” said Nate. “Leave you to business.” Karma knew he was running late for his daily game of pinochle at the café down the street.
“If I’m interrupting,” said the cowboy.
“No, no, you two go right ahead,” said Nate. He patted Karma’s arm. “See you tomorrow, bubbeleh.”
“Well,” Karma said as she watched Nate disappear in the throng of people on the sidewalk. She spared a look at the cowboy. He looked more resigned than eager, which was typical of the clients that she’d dealt with so far. She supposed that resignation was the last step before jaded. She hated jaded. It was so hard to win those folks over.
She aimed her brightest smile up at him. Up at him was a miracle, since she was almost six feet tall herself. Ever since puberty, her smiles had been mostly aimed downward. “Follow me,” she said.
Karma had been told that she had nice hips. This was a good thing, considering that the cowboy’s eyes never left them as they walked up the flight of stairs to the tiny cubicle that was Rent-a-Yenta. She’d rather have him staring at her hips, or, more accurately, her derriere, than, say, her feet, which were overly large. Or her mouth, ditto. Or her breasts, which weren’t. That bikini bra in his pocket had looked like about a 38DD.
She dug the office key out of her purse and promptly dropped it.
The cowboy immediately bent down and picked it up. He didn’t immediately straighten, however. That took a while. His eyes moved up, up, studying her ankles, her calves, and what he could see of her thighs, which was probably too much considering the fact that her skirt was very short. She had a hard time finding clothes that were long enough.
“Thanks,” she said dryly as he handed her the key. At the moment that their hands touched, their eyes locked. His were the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. They were brilliant, sparkling like sunlight on the sea, heating up like a blue flame. They took her breath away.
She made herself shove the key in the lock, but the door opened before she turned the key. She’d better get that lock fixed one of these days, but it was low on her list of priorities since there wasn’t much worth stealing in the office at present.
The cowboy was right behind her. She followed his gaze as he took in the half-painted lime-green wall, the plastic bead curtain that screened off the supply closet, the TV alcove for viewing client videos. She supposed the decor was startling, but this was her style. After downsizing the office into a mere one and a half rooms due to lack of funds, she’d painted over plain vanilla walls, banished Aunt Sophie’s heavy mahogany desk, thrown out the dusty chintz curtains at the windows so she could look out at the multicolored pastel facade of the Blue Moon Apartments across the street where she lived.
“You—um, well, you could sit down,” she said.
He looked puzzled. Oops! She’d forgotten that she’d sent the couch and client chairs out for cleaning yesterday. The only places to sit were on a couple of floor cushions that she’d brought over from her apartment and her desk chair.
Omigosh, she thought, if I sit in the chair he’ll be able to look right up my skirt.
“There, ma’am?” the cowboy asked politely, staring down at the nearest floor cushion, the bright orange one.
“Why, yes,” Karma said, acting as if nothing was amiss. “I’ll take the pink one.”
Looking disconcerted, the cowboy lowered himself to the indicated cushion. The position he took, knees upraised, back straight, strained the jeans tight against his thighs and calves. He didn’t look at all comfortable. What he did look was sexy.
Karma’s secondhand 1940s rattan desk was covered with an assortment
